SPEAKER_00: The scriptures and I'm enthusiastic about Jesus and I don't care, you know, but let's let's talk about let's get deep with the Bible, right?
SPEAKER_00: Um but I have an opening question for you.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever found yourself scrolling through Netflix for so long that you literally just give up?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like there's so many choices, there's too much.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I'm trying to get to the end.
SPEAKER_00: The end does not exist, right?
SPEAKER_00: And I just I don't know what I want to watch.
SPEAKER_00: And and sometimes I just pick something, I just pick it, right?
SPEAKER_00: And it's playing, and it's not so good.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I just let it play because you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I do not want to go back to the home screen, to that indecision, to that chaos.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, is I'm making decisions isn't life kind of like that right now?
SPEAKER_00: It can be so difficult to make good decisions.
SPEAKER_00: Well, we are in a series right now uh from Proverbs, and we're calling it How Life Works.
SPEAKER_00: This is the third message in the series.
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh two weeks ago, Joe, who was just up here, uh uh showed us that wisdom begins with reverence, not information.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: And he he defined for us what the fear of the Lord means.
SPEAKER_00: It means that that healthy awe and and respect for God that drives us towards good decisions.
SPEAKER_00: Uh last week, uh Matt and Alex uh team taught, it was kind of fantastic.
SPEAKER_00: If you missed it, you missed one of the best uses of AI that I've ever seen.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Matt presented a photo of himself on the 4th of July uh riding a dinosaur.
SPEAKER_00: And it was amazing.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: So if you missed that one, go back.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we have it online for you.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but you know, they they were talking about how our community, our relationships can increase our wisdom and and uh and the people around us can increase our ability to follow God's path.
SPEAKER_00: Well, in this week, uh our title is The Path You Choose.
SPEAKER_00: God has given us life, he's given us agency, uh, we're we are to bear his image.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but being alive means making a lot of choices.
SPEAKER_00: And I think we have to go, how can the Bible help us make better decisions?
SPEAKER_00: Uh some decisions are super easy.
SPEAKER_00: Do you want fries with that?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, is that even a question?
SPEAKER_00: Have you seen me?
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, I want the fries, you know.
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh some decisions just tend to happen.
SPEAKER_00: You know, there I am, I'm doing self-checkout, right?
SPEAKER_00: You know, there goes the lettuce, there goes the oranges, there goes other healthy grains.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't even realize it until I get home when the peanut MMs come out of the bag.
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00: A decision was made, you know?
SPEAKER_00: Uh or have you ever driven home from work and thought to yourself, how did I get here?
SPEAKER_00: I do not remember the commute.
SPEAKER_00: You know, decisions were made, but I was kind of kind of mental autopilot.
SPEAKER_00: And and really, uh, sometimes we're living our lives on an autopilot.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, some decisions uh can can paralyze us, it can be really hard.
SPEAKER_00: You know, maybe that handsome young gentleman asks you for coffee after church, and you're kind of like, I'm not sure I can make a good decision here because the last time I went for coffee, I ended up in a situation ship that was a little bit toxic, let's just say, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And uh uh I'm not sure that I can trust myself to make good decisions.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe, maybe I got the job offer, right?
SPEAKER_00: You know, they slide it across the table, and there's a whole section called benefits, and you're like, I have heard of these.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what they are, but I've heard of these.
SPEAKER_00: Amazing, right?
SPEAKER_00: And you look at that number, it's like that's a big number.
SPEAKER_00: And yet they're asking you to move to another state.
SPEAKER_00: They're asking you to show up in person, right?
SPEAKER_00: Ow.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I don't know how to make that decision, right?
SPEAKER_00: More money, but I gotta be there.
SPEAKER_00: Ugh, what do I do?
SPEAKER_00: Some decisions are just bad decisions.
SPEAKER_00: We just we just make so many mistakes, we might as well be singing country music.
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00: I lost my job, I lost my dog, my truck won't start, I'm on a long black train, I don't know where it goes, and and you know, we're spinning on that black ice, and we're all singing along with Carrie Underwood.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus! Take the wheel! I can't, you know, I just can't, right?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Well, thank God for Proverbs.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs here to help! Here's today's big idea.
SPEAKER_00: On that big card, there's some fill-ins, and I really encourage you to use them today.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, here's our first fill-in.
SPEAKER_00: It's today's big idea.
SPEAKER_00: Wisdom is not just knowing right from wrong, it's choosing the path that leads us.
SPEAKER_00: Now we're in a series uh uh about prophets.
SPEAKER_00: We're studying Proverbs for seven weeks, I think.
SPEAKER_00: And um the Proverbs is written by a man named Solomon.
SPEAKER_00: He's attributed as the author.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Solomon was the son of King David.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, David, king of Israel, David and Goliath David, this is his son.
SPEAKER_00: And when Solomon uh is is becoming king, God asks him, I have favor on your dad, I have favor on you.
SPEAKER_00: What do you want?
SPEAKER_00: What do you need for the assignment that you've been given?
SPEAKER_00: Do you need money?
SPEAKER_00: I got you.
SPEAKER_00: I'll make you rich.
SPEAKER_00: Do you need fame?
SPEAKER_00: I've got you.
SPEAKER_00: I'll make you famous.
SPEAKER_00: Do you need power?
SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
SPEAKER_00: You're the king.
SPEAKER_00: You can have the power.
SPEAKER_00: Do you need that?
SPEAKER_00: Solomon's answer.
SPEAKER_00: I think you're so pleased with Satan.
SPEAKER_00: Give me wisdom so that I can believe you.
SPEAKER_00: That's like this answer.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna make you the wisest perfect person in the world.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna be so wise that you can famous.
SPEAKER_00: And you'll be so famous that they make you love.
SPEAKER_00: And that's it.
SPEAKER_00: But you're gonna get all of it because you asked for wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: Um uh uh King Solomon he lived somewhere around 950 BC, which makes this book about 3,000 years old.
SPEAKER_00: Hashtag dang.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the structure of it, there's 31 chapters in the book of Proverbs, and the first nine of them are like a series of lessons, a series of talks given to young people, right?
SPEAKER_00: And and uh uh the rest of it is aphorisms.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I got an English degree.
SPEAKER_00: I paid about$8,000 for that one, so I'm using it.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Aphorisms.
SPEAKER_00: It's those short, memorable statements uh that describe reality pretty well.
SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, this is uh useful for all of us.
SPEAKER_00: It's poetry.
SPEAKER_00: This book is poetry.
SPEAKER_00: It's a book we approach it.
SPEAKER_00: We need to come at it with this understanding that it's poetry.
SPEAKER_00: This passage we're studying today is written in couplets.
SPEAKER_00: That means like two lines that are are kind of resonating with each other in the meaning, and it helps us kind of understand more deeply what's being said.
SPEAKER_00: Um now Hebrew poetry doesn't really it doesn't really rhyme.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what it's about.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about the rhythm of the words, it's about the rhyming of the ideas and the concepts.
SPEAKER_00: And so in this book, you'll get tons of imagery, you'll get tons of um uh concept, but there's there's not any sort of narrative story.
SPEAKER_00: This book is incredibly powerful in this way to consider.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we're trying to do today.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it was used to teach kids, like even little kids, like five years old.
SPEAKER_00: This is kind of like an elementary textbook, okay, that we've got.
SPEAKER_00: Um uh schools didn't really exist at the time, so kids didn't, you know, put on their little backpack with their proverb scroll in it and and and you know, go to school.
SPEAKER_00: That'd be cute, but that didn't happen.
SPEAKER_00: Uh so this was taught at home.
SPEAKER_00: Dad and mom would teach all their kids, right?
SPEAKER_00: A lot of times we we we see in Proverbs, my son.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and that includes mom saying, my son.
SPEAKER_00: That includes dad saying, my daughter, my children, listen up, right?
SPEAKER_00: So this was used to teach all the kids.
SPEAKER_00: And um, what's kind of crazy is by the time a kid was 12, they would have memorized chunks of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: You know, Proverbs, along with, you know, some words or something.
SPEAKER_00: So much of this we can memorized.
SPEAKER_00: And we know that Jesus studied Proverbs.
SPEAKER_00: He came from a devout family, right?
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh and uh there he is.
SPEAKER_00: There he is.
SPEAKER_00: He's he's um at the kitchen table.
SPEAKER_00: Stepdad Joe is there.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that kind of a mind-blowing kind of thing?
SPEAKER_00: Joe's his stepdad.
SPEAKER_00: Wow, he comes from a blended family.
SPEAKER_00: That's wild.
SPEAKER_00: He gets us wait, that's a commercial.
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, I'm off track.
SPEAKER_00: Um there's Mary, there's his brother James, his other siblings, and little nine-year-old Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And that high little squeaky voice is just reciting chapter after chapter of the Proverbs to his family.
SPEAKER_00: This little kid, he put in the work, and we saw it come out during his ministry.
SPEAKER_00: He quoted from Proverbs when he was teaching.
SPEAKER_00: His style was so very much like Proverbs.
SPEAKER_00: Short, sharp, memorable, image laden.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, he definitely uh knew his proverbs.
SPEAKER_00: Now there's there's a couple of traps when us modern folks can come to a 3,000 book of 3,000-year-old book of poetry, right?
SPEAKER_00: And one of the one of the things that we can struggle with is we'll we'll assume that this is like good advice, that the proverbs are good advice.
SPEAKER_00: That, you know, Solomon wrote it down, he was a smart guy, and um, you know, so we can take it as good advice.
SPEAKER_00: But we need to remember that scripture is inspired by God.
SPEAKER_00: You know, Holy Spirit inspired that.
SPEAKER_00: And and you know, we've got this because God preserved it for us, and so it's not just good advice, it's the Bible, it's scripture, it's the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: The second trap that we can fall into is we can take Proverbs as literally true.
SPEAKER_00: Because that's kind of our mindset.
SPEAKER_00: We don't necessarily think about it as poetry, and it can sound like it's offering a literal truth.
SPEAKER_00: Like there's a proper that says trust in the Lord with all your heart, and people make the path straight.
SPEAKER_00: Does that not sound like a logical philosophy?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: But this is really challenging for me personally right now, because if you knew the path, it's a stream.
SPEAKER_00: It's a stream.
SPEAKER_00: I put my trust in the bathroom.
SPEAKER_00: So when I'm looking at this, what sounds to me like a promise is meant to be more of a general description of a probability.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: When we put our trust in God, in general, paths are made straighter.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the book of Proverbs is not in isolation.
SPEAKER_00: It's part of a scripture genre called wisdom literature.
SPEAKER_00: That means Proverbs is related to the book of Ecclesiastes.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs is related to the book of Job.
SPEAKER_00: Those two things are linked to either those perceptions.
SPEAKER_00: And so picking something out of Proverbs without the context of the rest of the scripture, that can just get you confused.
SPEAKER_00: So here's your second book.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs are observations of God's wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: They describe the grain of his good universe.
SPEAKER_00: They do not guarantee outcomes.
SPEAKER_00: We do not have a contract with God.
SPEAKER_00: We don't get to say to him, I've done my part, now you owe me.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: He isn't offering us certainty through the Proverbs.
SPEAKER_00: He's offering us wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: So here we are.
SPEAKER_00: We're at the fork in the road, we've got two paths in front of us, we've got options, we've got choices, we've got agency.
SPEAKER_00: And our passage today comes from Proverbs chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: This is one of those lessons, one of those speeches, one of the uh classes that God is giving his people.
SPEAKER_00: And Solomon's writing this down.
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna look at verses 20 through 27 in some detail this morning, but we need to be aware of what's happening right before that.
SPEAKER_00: See, Solomon in verse 14 through 19 describes the path that leads to death.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, he's saying, This is the path of evil people.
SPEAKER_00: These are the people who do evil as easily as eating.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, these are the people who hurt other people as easily as they drink.
SPEAKER_00: And and their way is a way of deep darkness.
SPEAKER_00: And so Solomon is using contrast because in verse 20, he starts to describe the path that leads to life.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and that's what we're gonna get into today.
SPEAKER_00: So on that big card you got, you've got um the verses all written out there, uh 20 through 27, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna read them up here and I encourage you to follow along.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to use your Bible app, you can do that.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to use the paper Bible that's in your row, you can do that too.
SPEAKER_00: But let's um let's take a look at the path that leads to life.
SPEAKER_00: My son, my daughter, pay attention to what I say.
SPEAKER_00: Listen closely to my words.
SPEAKER_00: Don't let them out of your sight.
SPEAKER_00: Keep them in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: See, they are life to those who find them, they are health to a person's whole body.
SPEAKER_00: Above everything else, guard your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Everything you do comes from.
SPEAKER_00: Don't speak with twisted words.
SPEAKER_00: Keep evil talk away from your lips.
SPEAKER_00: Let your eyes look straight ahead of you.
SPEAKER_00: Keep looking right in front of you.
SPEAKER_00: Think carefully about the paths that your feet walk on.
SPEAKER_00: Always choose the right place.
SPEAKER_00: Turn to the right or the left.
SPEAKER_00: First thing I want you to see is it's just how embodied this is.
SPEAKER_00: I think ten times in eight verses, there's a body part.
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's ears, there's eyes, there's hands, there's feet, there's the heart.
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, this is being repeated uh all through this small section.
SPEAKER_00: And then in the Hebrew language, there's this expectation of action.
SPEAKER_00: You know, a word has an action connotation to it.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it means doing something.
SPEAKER_00: Our faith is meant to be active, it's to activate our whole person.
SPEAKER_00: Faith is not a nebulous internal thing, it's a lived-out experience that reflects God's nature, that reflects his ways.
SPEAKER_00: So let's dig in, let's take a look.
SPEAKER_00: These verses can be divided into three different sections.
SPEAKER_00: The first section, uh verses 20 to 22, it's about our passive abilities, right?
SPEAKER_00: Solomon is describing our ears and our eyes, how we can take in information, how we can take in the word of God, the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we have eyes to see and ears to hear.
SPEAKER_00: We're supposed to take God's word in.
SPEAKER_00: Now, verse 21 tells us to take the Bible into our heart, into the core of our being, right?
SPEAKER_00: And this concept is seen all through the scriptures in lots of different ways.
SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite ways is in the book of Ezekiel.
SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel was a prophet who lived quite some time after Solomon, and he had a crazy vision, right?
SPEAKER_00: He had this vision of an angelic being coming to him.
SPEAKER_00: And the being had had like a scroll in his hand.
SPEAKER_00: And this angel gives Ezekiel instruction.
SPEAKER_00: Take this and eat it, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so Ezekiel did.
SPEAKER_00: He ate the scroll, he took the word of God inside of him, and he said, It tastes like honey.
SPEAKER_00: Which I assumed it would have tasted like chicken, but it tastes like honey.
SPEAKER_00: Um, did I get a yellow card on that one?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a yellow card.
SPEAKER_00: You guys, the tension is on now.
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00: You know, we're only in like the 40th minute of this match here.
SPEAKER_00: Uh all right.
SPEAKER_00: Uh these words of God, they're like life to those who find them, they're health to a person's whole body.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in modern culture, we have this idea that we all come with an earth suit.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00: It's not a space suit, it's an earth suit.
SPEAKER_00: The real means inside, and I'm stuck inside the earth suit, but someday I get to leave the earth suit, right?
SPEAKER_00: Not really how the Bible writers thought.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, they thought of the person as completely integrated.
SPEAKER_00: So when they said the word of God was like life to a person, it meant it was life to their mind.
SPEAKER_00: That it was life to their emotions, that it was life to their spirit, and yes, life to their body.
SPEAKER_00: It was a whole person kind of health.
SPEAKER_00: And when when people were reading this about taking something from God and receiving life, they may have had uh recognized the connotations from the very first chapters of the Bible, right?
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, God said to Adam and Eve in the garden, I don't want you to eat from this tree, right?
SPEAKER_00: But I do want you to eat from this tree of life.
SPEAKER_00: And somehow this tree had the essence of God's life in it.
SPEAKER_00: And when they ate, they were sustained.
SPEAKER_00: When they ate, it was um prevented their them from decaying, from disease, from death.
SPEAKER_00: And and this is what God is saying here in Proverbs.
SPEAKER_00: God's saying, my word is like that fruit.
SPEAKER_00: Eat it.
SPEAKER_00: I like both kinds of football.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I like the World Cup stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Having a lot of time in my house watching as much as we can.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I also like American football.
SPEAKER_00: And you know how you know when the player scores a touchdown, you know, and the guy runs over to the camera and he sticks his helmet right in the camera and he goes like this feed me.
SPEAKER_00: Feed me more of this, right?
SPEAKER_00: I want us to have this attitude when it comes to the Proverbs, when it comes to the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: God, feed me more of this.
SPEAKER_00: I can't get enough.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the next verse, verse 23, is famous.
SPEAKER_00: Uh this one uh is kind of the hinge of our passage.
SPEAKER_00: Uh it says, above everything else, guard your heart.
SPEAKER_00: It says, most importantly, first priority, with the highest level of care, guard your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Everything you do comes from it.
SPEAKER_00: Now, sometimes we can misinterpret this.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you, but I live on planet Earth.
SPEAKER_00: And my heart has taken some damage.
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00: Just living around here, you get damage, right?
SPEAKER_00: Uh the people near you, the people far from you, the heart hurt.
SPEAKER_00: And so I see the scripture, guard my heart, and I want to guard it.
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00: I want to put my heart in a box.
SPEAKER_00: Like a strong box, like a steel box, gonna survive fire kind of box, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
SPEAKER_00: That's not good enough.
SPEAKER_00: I need duct tape.
SPEAKER_00: We know that duct tape is like the strongest stuff in the world.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna not just seal the edges of my box with duct tape, I'm gonna wrap that thing up.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go to Home Depot, I'm buying a safe, I'm bolting it down in the closet, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And I'm putting the box in the safe, in the closet, I'm shutting the door, I'm spinning the wheel, I'm wrapping chain around this thing.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm locking it up with a holy padlock.
SPEAKER_00: I'm guarding my heart, God.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it feels like that's what we need to do because we just can't afford to take any more hurt.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm not convinced this is what Solomon had in mind.
SPEAKER_00: The imagery right here is about springs of life coming out of it.
SPEAKER_00: Other versions talk about everything you do flows from your life.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus used this kind of language.
SPEAKER_00: He said, if anybody's thirsty, come to me.
SPEAKER_00: And rivers of living water will come from him.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: That is something that Jesus said.
SPEAKER_00: Uh He said, Out of the heart will flow living water.
SPEAKER_00: See, the purpose of our heart is to pour life out on the people around us, near and far.
SPEAKER_00: And so locking our hearts up like that prevents us from uh achieving the purpose.
SPEAKER_00: So let's protect the purpose of our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: That might mean a few bumps and a few bruises, but let's ensure that we maintain the ability to attach with one another.
SPEAKER_00: Let's make sure that we are able to connect.
SPEAKER_00: Let's extend trust.
SPEAKER_00: Let's get to know one another in such a way that we can learn how to walk together.
SPEAKER_00: The purposes of the heart, friends, are about.
SPEAKER_00: Community.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what we're creating here at Create.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when Jesus said this about rivers of living water coming out of the heart, he was idea rhyming.
SPEAKER_00: His audience would have thought of passages from Ezekiel, from Isaiah and Zechariah.
SPEAKER_00: This is a theme in scripture, and those kids studying Proverbs would have seen this echo.
SPEAKER_00: In the New Testament, John writes his gospel, and he calls Jesus the Word, right?
SPEAKER_00: And we know we're to receive this Jesus in us.
SPEAKER_00: And isn't that interesting how a thousand years before Jesus was born, Solomon is writing this stuff out, reflecting these ideas.
SPEAKER_00: Take in the word, take in the scripture into your innermost place.
SPEAKER_00: The rest of our passage is really about our active abilities, about what we can do.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we've we've seen, we've heard, we've put it into our heart, and now there's there's work to be done.
SPEAKER_00: Um first thing is don't speak with twisted words.
SPEAKER_00: The author of Proverbs tells us to stay away from crooked and devious talk.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not just talking about certain four-letter naughty words, right?
SPEAKER_00: He's saying don't be deceptive, don't be manipulative with what you say.
SPEAKER_00: When when God's word is in us, pure talk can come out of us.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus understood this when he said, uh, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
SPEAKER_00: And when he said, every good tree, it bears good fruit.
SPEAKER_00: Every bad tree, bad fruit.
SPEAKER_00: And I think he's inviting us to take a look at what sort of fruit is on my branches, what sort of words are coming out of my heart.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 25 uh says, Look, let your eyes look straight ahead.
SPEAKER_00: Keep looking right in front of you.
SPEAKER_00: This is about focus.
SPEAKER_00: Focus.
SPEAKER_00: Intentionality.
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, this is what I'm gonna have worst at.
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00: You know, some people they have ducks in a row, right?
SPEAKER_00: There's squirrels in here, friends.
SPEAKER_00: There's squirrels, they're bouncing around, they've lost the acorn, they can't find it.
SPEAKER_00: Doing, doing, doing, doing, doing.
SPEAKER_00: This verse is about avoiding distraction.
SPEAKER_00: Just a second, I got an I got an alert here.
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00: And and we've created something that has eroded our ability to focus, to keep our eyes straight ahead, to recognize the goal and to put our feet one in front of the other.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, in order to walk the path that God has for us, I've got to come to grips.
SPEAKER_00: We've got to come to grips with our lack of focus.
SPEAKER_00: We've got to be able to build that back up.
SPEAKER_00: I feel like that's a whole nother message.
SPEAKER_00: Uh verse 26 is think carefully about the paths that your feet walk on.
SPEAKER_00: Always choose the right ways.
SPEAKER_00: This is not just about looking down and seeing your toes.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Uh, other other versions, other translations say examine the path, make it level, smooth it out, mark out a straight path.
SPEAKER_00: You know, don't just look where your feet are, but plan, prepare, do something.
SPEAKER_00: If you want more scripture in your life and you're like, man, I just can't do it, plan and prepare.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, maybe wherever you have your little breakfast, put your Bible there, right?
SPEAKER_00: So when you wake up and you eat your cocoa puffs, you can read your proverbs too.
SPEAKER_00: Also, count chocula is just way better than cocoa puffs.
SPEAKER_00: Special K.
SPEAKER_00: I have not heard that in a while.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: It's good stuff, surprisingly good.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: You know, maybe next week uh we could have the people ask, what's your favorite cereal?
SPEAKER_00: Because I feel like that's legit.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but remember focus.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Um uh, you know, plan and prepare.
SPEAKER_00: Uh verse 27 is don't turn to the right, don't turn to the left, keep your feet off the path of evil.
SPEAKER_00: This was this became a common phrase in Israel.
SPEAKER_00: The Hebrew people would say this to one another.
SPEAKER_00: It was an idiom.
SPEAKER_00: It would be like, hey, bro, keep on the path.
SPEAKER_00: You know, stay loyal, stay true, stay faithful.
SPEAKER_00: Here's our third fill-in.
SPEAKER_00: The path of wisdom begins in the heart before you see it in your feet.
SPEAKER_00: Wisdom in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Good decisions start on the inside, and they result in our words and our actions on the outside.
SPEAKER_00: All right, so what?
SPEAKER_00: Who cares?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: We've looked at eight verses in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: What are the implications?
SPEAKER_00: So, first thing, I want you to recognize that there's a progression to our passage, right?
SPEAKER_00: There's uh there's uh see.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's kind of the first thing that's said.
SPEAKER_00: See, listen, look, receive the instruction, learn from our parents.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe you didn't get good parents.
SPEAKER_00: I get that, I understand.
SPEAKER_00: Broken home, that sort of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: But there are parents around you.
SPEAKER_00: And and you know, so it's available to you.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to their instruction.
SPEAKER_00: Um get it from God, from his word.
SPEAKER_00: So this is a nice idea, but how do we do this?
SPEAKER_00: Well, first of all, I'm gonna challenge you to read the Bible every day.
SPEAKER_00: Um, you've got the phone.
SPEAKER_00: Put the app on it if it's not there already.
SPEAKER_00: If it's there, open it.
SPEAKER_00: Pick a reading plan.
SPEAKER_00: Right now I'm doing the Bible project reading plan.
SPEAKER_00: It's read the Bible in one year.
SPEAKER_00: It's about four-ish, four-ish uh chapters a day plus a psalm.
SPEAKER_00: And then about three or four times a week, it's one of their videos.
SPEAKER_00: And their videos are awesome.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, I'm a visual person, and so it's kind of a treat.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, so you could use that.
SPEAKER_00: But read the Bible every day.
SPEAKER_00: I would say attend church every week.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, attend church every week.
SPEAKER_00: Use that card, take the notes.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, studies show when you write down by hand, not type, but write down by hand, that your retention and receiving of information goes up by 10 million percent.
SPEAKER_00: It's science.
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
SPEAKER_00: And 37% of statistics that Craig gives in a talk are made up in the moment.
SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, I would say meet up with like-minded believers.
SPEAKER_00: Make this regular.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, small group can be that, right?
SPEAKER_00: Uh we have interest circles going on this summer, it can be that.
SPEAKER_00: But let's normalize talking about spiritual things even when we're just socializing.
SPEAKER_00: You go bowling, hey, you can talk about the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: It's allowed.
SPEAKER_00: They both start with B.
SPEAKER_00: There you go.
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, make it normal to talk about things.
SPEAKER_00: You could go out after church and you could talk about how you felt when we sang the song, you know?
SPEAKER_00: Or you could talk about boy, that guy was kind of weird.
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about him.
SPEAKER_00: Um I'm used to it, it's fine.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh yeah, so normalize talking about spiritual things.
SPEAKER_00: Second, you know, we see it and then we soak.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I I think bubble bath, I don't know about you, but I'm a sensitive guy.
SPEAKER_00: And uh I'm okay with that.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have any bath bombs, but I'm all right.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but soak in the scripture, but what did that what does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: Um I'm gonna say number one is stay off that other path.
SPEAKER_00: Stay off the path of evil.
SPEAKER_00: It's surprising how little of the bad stuff can drown out the good stuff.
SPEAKER_00: It's surprising how how entertaining ourselves with garbage can drive out um the scripture that we've been trying to trying to take in.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna say meditate.
SPEAKER_00: I don't mean folding yourself into a certain position, making your fingers like this and saying home, right?
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about soaking in it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about repeating it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about when you get to a Bible passage and you're reading, and it's like, whoa, you know, uh take a minute there, reread that thing.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe say it out loud, get out the highlighter, right?
SPEAKER_00: Um, meditate.
SPEAKER_00: Um, memorize.
SPEAKER_00: You know, when little kids say they learned it by heart, it means they memorized it.
SPEAKER_00: I think this is what Solomon is saying, and I think this is why those little Hebrew kids all throughout history were memorizing huge chunks of the scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Memorize the Bible, you know?
SPEAKER_00: Write a verse down, put it on a sticky, stick it on the mirror so when you're brushing your t shirt in the morning, you can repeat it to yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah?
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh put it in the car.
SPEAKER_00: So when you're stuck at a light, you can read that scripture to yourself instead of pulling out your phone and doing something illegal, right?
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh for me, I like to put it on the fridge.
SPEAKER_00: Because every time I snack, there it is, you know, hallelujah.
SPEAKER_00: Let's let's eat some scripture along with this chips and salsa.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: Uh take the step, you know, uh see it, soak in it, take steps.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, we don't just live in our heads.
SPEAKER_00: You know, wisdom isn't just something we think about.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we Christians get stuck that that Christianity is just a bunch of ideas to believe.
SPEAKER_00: But belief, it's not belief until it comes out in your talk, until it comes out in your walk.
SPEAKER_00: So, how do we do that?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we're gonna practice, literally, right now.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna this our passage has a lot to do with our lips, okay?
SPEAKER_00: So I want you to turn to somebody near you, and I want you to pay them a compliment.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to say something nice to them, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Keep it relatively superficial.
SPEAKER_00: We don't want to creep anybody out, okay?
SPEAKER_00: So I like your hair, I like your cap, you know, I like your lack of hair, you know, I don't know, whatever it is.
SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: So go ahead.
SPEAKER_00: Give each other a compliment.
SPEAKER_00: There's some good practice going on.
SPEAKER_00: I like this.
SPEAKER_00: I like this, but I'm gonna have to stop you because I'm already over time.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna get a second yellow card, they're just gonna yank me, you know?
SPEAKER_00: Although that might be entertaining.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I got a challenge for you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna call it Craig's Seven-minute Proverbs Challenge, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Here's how it works: read a chapter of Proverbs a day.
SPEAKER_00: Read the chapter that corresponds with today's date.
SPEAKER_00: So today we'd read Proverbs chapter 12, right?
SPEAKER_00: Tomorrow we'd read Proverbs chapter 13.
SPEAKER_00: Um, if you forget tomorrow but you remember Tuesday, it's okay.
SPEAKER_00: Read Proverbs chapter 14.
SPEAKER_00: I hereby give you permission.
SPEAKER_00: I'm ordained.
SPEAKER_00: It's allowed, right?
SPEAKER_00: Um uh if if uh if you're an achiever or whatever, go ahead, read them both.
SPEAKER_00: No one will stop you.
SPEAKER_00: Um then as you're reading, pick one.
SPEAKER_00: Just pick something, pick a verse in there that's like, mm, okay, that's speaking to me a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Stop for a second, reread it, say it out loud, highlight it, and then in the moment, just spontaneously say whatever prayer comes to your mind about that thing.
SPEAKER_00: This will take you about seven minutes.
SPEAKER_00: You do that every day for a month, you will have read the whole book of Proverbs.
SPEAKER_00: There's 31 chapters.
SPEAKER_00: I get it, February exists, so fine.
SPEAKER_00: Um if you do that for a year, you will have read the Proverbs 12 times.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't this the way we take in the Word of God?
SPEAKER_00: But that repetition will embed wisdom inside of you.
SPEAKER_00: All right, let me bring this home.
SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite words is with.
SPEAKER_00: With is it, right?
SPEAKER_00: Uh I want to remind you, faith is a team sport.
SPEAKER_00: Together, we're the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Together, we are the church.
SPEAKER_00: Together, we're that new temple where the Spirit of God dwells.
SPEAKER_00: We walk this out with one another.
SPEAKER_00: And he himself is present with us by the power of his spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm convinced that God's interested in where we are going.
SPEAKER_00: Our decisions, the little ones, the big ones, they're all taking us somewhere, and God is inviting to take steps towards me.
SPEAKER_00: Not only that, God's interested in what we're doing.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, our decisions, our actions, they are the path.
SPEAKER_00: Faith is in ideas to believe.
SPEAKER_00: Our beliefs are embodied.
SPEAKER_00: We are meant to reflect God's truth.
SPEAKER_00: We bear the image of God in what we do.
SPEAKER_00: Even more, God's invested in who we're becoming.
SPEAKER_00: As we walk, we change.
SPEAKER_00: As we receive truth inside of us, as we soak in it, as it comes out of us, we end up more like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: This is the plan.
SPEAKER_00: This is the goal.
SPEAKER_00: He's invited us to die so that he lives through us.
SPEAKER_00: This is not the end of your identity, it's the fulfillment of it.
SPEAKER_00: Because we're loved, we can be free.
SPEAKER_00: We can go beyond who we think we are, and we can be more like him.
SPEAKER_00: Add your effort to his grace.
SPEAKER_00: Place your trust in the faithfulness of Jesus, and you'll be on the path that leads to life.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody stand up.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna take a step this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I would like to say this afternoon.
SPEAKER_00: I am over.
SPEAKER_00: On the count of three, we're gonna place a foot forward on the path to life.
SPEAKER_00: I get it.
SPEAKER_00: There's a bench in front of most of us, all right?
SPEAKER_00: So it's a baby step.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but let this be a symbol of our continuing walk on the path that leads to life.
SPEAKER_00: Three, two, one, step.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, everyone.
SPEAKER_00: Let's sing.