An Exceptional Promise for Ordinary People

Title: "An Exceptional Promise For Ordinary People | Pastor Brian Doell (Sunday Service)" URL: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6O2KH8ho4U" Transcript: "(00:04) Okay. Well, let me add my good morning. Thanks very much for being here. Thank you very much for having me back 3 weeks in a row. That's a lot of Brian to take, so I appreciate it. These uh these past few weeks have been really a blast for me, and it's really great. Thanks for being so welcoming. I really pray that this series has been thought-provoking and challenging. (00:33) But maybe even more so that it's been an encouragement because that it's maybe brought the hope of Christ to the forefront that we can kind of get back to this root of the incredible hope we have in Jesus. That we could recognize and embrace and live in the reality of these fantastic promises that God has given us. (00:56) And I hope that this week is no different because speaking of reality, this week we're going to get into territory that every last one of us deals with all the time. Not occasionally, not sometimes, not every once in a while, likely every day if not multiple times a day, and that is this explicit promise of God to give us the guidance and the wisdom that we need. (01:21) Now, if you don't need guidance and wisdom, you could be feel free to leave. If you do, you're like the rest of us. And and really when we talk about guidance and wisdom and needing that, it's not just in the big major decisions, but it's to get through every day. Right? It's all of the little things, things that how we think, how we make decisions, how we process things in a way that honors God and opens up the kind of life that God wants us to live because there actually is a life, a kind of life, that God wants us to live. The (01:58) The Bible does not paint a picture of a God who's okay with us just muddling through. Barely hanging on and then well, it's all great once we finally get to heaven, but here and now grit your teeth and bear it. And this is one of those really unfortunate misconceptions that I think we sometimes God. (02:21) And and when we have that misconception, we miss out on the reality that God is actually deeply interested in our lives. And that he makes us promises concerning those lives and they're not just spiritual matters that matter when we die. They matter every day. They matter here and now and it's in the here and now in the middle of the struggles of life that we need help. (02:45) In the here and now. And we wrestle with things. And we face difficulties. And we face not knowing what to do. And we know what it's like to be at our wit's end. We know what it's like to feel overwhelmed. You know what it's like to be scared that you might make the wrong decision. We know what that's like. We know what it's like to be scared about what might happen after you do make the wrong decision. (03:17) Our decisions have real consequences and probably more often than not, if we're really honest with ourselves, we don't feel all that well equipped to make those decisions most of the time. And there really aren't many times in life where we feel more alone or inadequate than when we have to make a decision and we don't know where to start. (03:43) When it feels like it's just a mountain staring us in the face. And we've read about some of these stories over the past few weeks that have shown us that in the midst of these promises we're talking about, we read about these characters that it's clear that God knows all about our struggles. This is not new to God. (04:02) And that his promises directly address them. This one that we're talking about today, not that the rest of the promises aren't amazing, but this could might be one of the most powerful promises we could ever consider. Because on an everyday level, on the realest of real levels, this is a promise that you and I are not left to our own devices. (04:27) We're not just taking shots in the dark. We're not just guessing and hoping that we can find the way. This is a promise from God, a specific promise that God walks with us through it all. And not just so that we can feel his presence and have access to him, like we talked about a couple weeks ago, though that is an awesome promise. (04:49) And not just so that we can be free from the bondage of sin or from ourselves, though that's awesome. But a promise that he walks through all of it with us as our spiritual So, excuse me, our supernatural source of wisdom and guidance. And I want to start off with a promise that wasn't actually made directly to us. (05:16) And it might not even seem like it directly even concerns wisdom and guidance. But it is very relevant to what we're talking about. Hopefully, we'll see in a minute how this relates. Way back in the book of Genesis, God makes a pretty incredible promise, and he makes it to a guy named Abram. Now, you might know this You might know the story. (05:37) You might this guy as Abraham because as part of the story, God actually changes his name as part of the promise. Now, Abram, like David, who we talked about last week, and Nehemiah, who we talked about the week before, was more or less a normal guy. And I keep highlighting how normal these people are because it's important for us to know that God does not favor a certain class of people. (06:03) He doesn't favor the kind and the generous. He doesn't have great designs for the confident. He doesn't have big plans for the obviously talented and charismatic people, but the rest of us are just left on our own. That's not how God works. He's not just a god for the extroverts. He's a god for the introverts. (06:28) And anybody who struggles with their self-confidence. And time and time again, we run into this idea that God cares deeply about and uses ordinary people for out of the ordinary things. And this is Abram. An ordinary guy at first. And when we first run into him, if you've read through Genesis, there's this amazing story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis. (06:57) And then, right following that, there's this super long genealogy. And in the middle of that genealogy is where we get introduced to Abram. He shows up as one of three sons of a guy named Terah. And he's from Ur, a place called Ur, which is if you're interested, roughly where we know Iraq to be today. So, this is kind of the region that he's from. (07:18) And we don't get a great sense of why specifically God chooses him. But he does choose him. In fact, he comes directly to him. He talks to him, and he tells him, "Abram, take your family, leave this land that you're living in, the land of your birth, everything you know, and I want you to go to a place that I'm going to show you. (07:42) " So, he's asking Abram to show some faith right off the bat here. You don't know this place I'm going to show you, but I want you to uproot your life and go there anyway. And by the way, once you're there, I'm going to blow your mind. I'm going to make some promises to you that are going to turn everything inside out. (08:02) And he makes him a promise, this ordinary guy from an ordinary family, here's what I promise you. And get ready for this, Abram. Because not only is it a promise, but there are seven parts to the promise. So, listen to what he says. You won't see it on the screen here. I'm just going to work through or walk through the promises. I will make you into a great nation. (08:26) That's promise number one. I will bless you. That's promise number two. I will make you famous or make your name great, depending on the translation. That's promise number three. And you will be a blessing to others, promise number four. I will bless those who bless you, promise number five. Curse those who treat you with contempt, or curse those who curse you. (08:51) That's promise number six. All the families on earth will be blessed through you. Promise number seven. That's all from Genesis chapter 12. You can read through this. You see what a big deal this is. This is a pretty massive epic promise. And then you see God reminding him of these promises as you read further in Genesis and even read further in the Old Testament, you see God talking to him about these promises in a bunch of other places. (09:26) And even though it seems like, well, this is a promise God is making to Abram, you start to see it show up in the context of other people. Other people start referring to them or reminded of them because through each of these promises God is creating something much bigger than just one person. This is not just something that he's vowing is going to take place between him and Abram and that's it. (09:50) He is marking the beginning of a chosen people and a special relationship with these people. Now, since these people will come from Abram's line, this is where the name change comes in. He changes his name to Abraham. That new name, Abraham, means father of many. And he and his people, his offspring, are set apart by God and they're marked for great things. (10:19) And as the father of those people some people have taken to calling Abram Abraham the father of faith. God will bless his people and their efforts. And ultimately, that seventh promise, all families on earth, he says, will be blessed through you. And then we see this start to come to life through Abraham's life. (10:43) God works directly with Abraham in all kinds of ways. He talks to him. He challenges him. He reminds him. He blesses him. Ultimately, he follows through on all these promises. And then we start to see a bigger picture of how these promises play out as we get further into the Bible because we start to see God and his prophets calling back to these promises of Abraham as a foundation for who they are and of what they're about and ultimately who God is. (11:19) And several centuries later, the Exodus happens. This is where God delivers the Israelites from captivity and it's a very clear way of following through on his promise to bless them and to stand in the way of people who would do them harm. And then in the aftermath of that in the book of Leviticus, we see God talking to Moses. (11:42) And it's a very instructive conversation. He's really outlining for Moses, here's how I want you to live. Here's what I want you to do. Here's how I want you to do them. And he reminds them of who he is. Listen to what he says. Leviticus 26 1 13. I will walk among you. I will be your God, and you will be my people. (12:10) I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, so you would no longer be their slaves. I broke the yoke of slavery from your neck, so you can walk with your heads held high. Now, this is pretty practical stuff, right? This isn't just a way of God working on a spiritual level. This is the God walking alongside his people, like he told Abraham he would do. (12:36) On a human level, these people had a problem. They were enslaved. Their lives were not their own, and God steps in and says, "I am your God. I promised you things. You are my people. I didn't forget about you, and I'm going to take care of this problem. This is the biggest problem in your life. I'm going to set you free. (12:57) " God follows through on his promise. And then we look at the story of David a little bit more that we talked about last week, and years after the part that we were talking about, has just finished waging a war. A war against the Philistine army. And after it's over, where he's thoroughly defeated them with God's help and direction, he decides he's going to commit himself to bringing the ark of the covenant back to Jerusalem. (13:28) And and while it's on or while they're on their way, he essentially holds a worship service. And they remember who God is, and they remember what God has done for them. And as a part of this, listen to the words that they say. This is from 1 Chronicles. Remember his covenant forever. The covenant he made to a thousand generations. (13:54) This is the covenant he made with Abraham. And the oath he swore to Isaac. He confirmed it to Jacob as a decree, and to the people of Israel as a never-ending covenant. I will give you the land of Canaan as your special possession. So, you see what they're doing? They're reminding themselves, reminding each other of this promise that God made to Abraham. (14:20) We've seen you follow through on that promise by how you walked through this time of difficulty with us, how you made things happen the way you said you would, how you kept us safe. And we see this promise coming true. And it's expanding as he calls out specifically descendants of Abraham in that passage. (14:42) You're giving us and them what you promised. And the story of Abraham and how this promise looked in his own life and then the life of his people and then his descendants years later. All of it is evidence of a God who is working directly with his people following through on this promise. In all of the everyday things that they encounter, when people oppose them, when people bless them and support them, when times are great, when times are tough, they come to know that they can rely on God. (15:14) God's word, God's promise is unchanging. He will follow through. Now, this is is really great if we kind of look at this as history, as the story of a long ago people, and we can look at this and say, "Well, I guess that can be helpful to know that even just for our own understanding because we can recognize maybe that this same God that we serve is the same God that worked with those people. (15:46) " And by itself, that's kind of a powerful idea. It's the same God. He doesn't change. He hasn't changed. He won't change. And it is a necessary reminder sometimes to know that even in very different times, he's the same God. But don't you think as humans that we often think, "But it's different now?" I mean, it's different now. (16:13) Society is different now. And even though it can give us hope that we serve the same God, doesn't it seem like he doesn't really work with us the same way? I mean, we have all these conversations recorded for us in the Bible where he audibly speaks to people. And it doesn't seem like that happens all that often today. (16:37) And it seems like he's a lot more apparent and hands-on with kind of orchestrating things, helping people and maybe directly affecting the outcomes. And it doesn't necessarily seem like we're seeing him work in that same way. It doesn't really seem like it's all that similar. And because it seems like that, and because we're naturally people who are pretty ego-centered in the first place, it becomes pretty easy to view these promises to Abraham as something that just probably doesn't really apply to us. (17:15) And by extension, this promise to walk alongside his people through all of the twists and turns of life and to give us practical guidance about what to do and when to do, doesn't maybe seem to really be the way God works now. And that's why I wanted to take the time to walk through this promise of Abraham first, even though the main promise that we're focusing on has to do with wisdom and guidance and not necessarily on this establishing of a special relationship with Abraham's people. (17:48) Because we need to see why this next passage that we're going to get into, we need to see why it's so important. We talked a bit last week about reading the Bible in context. And that's always such an important part of getting a holistic and accurate picture of who God is. And this next passage really only makes sense and it really only comes alive when we have this promise of Abraham as a foundation. (18:18) And it's in the book of Galatians and here Paul's writing to a group of people that is like he often is, is concerned about them cuz they seem to be engaging in one of their many adventures to miss the point. And like in a lot of his writings, he's trying to get them to change their behavior, but he's primarily concerned that they change how they're seeing things, how they're thinking about things. (18:45) And he's particularly bothered by the idea that this group of people keeps wanting to revert back to relying on the law. All of this stuff's great, but here's the steps that we take. That's what we do. That's how we do things. That's our measure for how close we can get to God. You have to do things this way. (19:06) You have to follow these rules. And these things can become more important than almost anything else. And so Paul is trying to get them to wrap their minds around the idea that they have a new life in Jesus. They have that new life because of Jesus with the Holy Spirit and not through their own efforts. By the grace of God. (19:33) And all these years after Abraham walked the earth and all these years after all these promises have already seemingly been fulfilled in Abraham and his descendants, Paul brings him up again. He brings up the idea that Abraham believed God and he was considered righteous because of his belief. Not because of the things he did. (20:00) Not because he was so good at obeying the rules. And then he expands this and he introduces a really game-changing idea. And this is Galatians 3 and it skips ahead a little bit, but I want to read you this passage kind of as a whole block. The real children of Abraham then are those who put their faith in God. (20:24) What's more, the scriptures look forward to this time when God would make the Gentiles right in his sight because of their faith. God proclaimed this good news to Abraham long ago when he said, "All nations will be blessed through you." So all who put their faith in Christ share the same blessing Abraham received because of his faith. (20:47) Through Christ Jesus, God has blessed the Gentiles with the same blessing he promised to Abraham so that we who are believers might receive the promised Holy Spirit through faith. And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs. And God's promise to Abraham belongs to you. (21:16) It's kind of a big deal. God's promise to Abraham belongs to you. Cuz you remember how huge and how expansive and how completely unparalleled that promise was? Well, now God or Paul is telling the Galatians that this is not just a promise made long ago to another people in another time, it's a promise made to them as well. (21:46) Gentiles are not excluded from this promise. Any other distinction we make between people does not qualify people for this promise. Only one thing does. All who put their faith in Christ, he says. All who put their faith in Christ. If you put your faith in Christ, you are also children of Abraham and thus this promise of God to Abraham belongs to you. (22:19) All of those things that God promised Abraham about him being behind them and blessing them and walking among them and protecting them, all of those things, hard as it might be to wrap our mind around, all of those things also belong to us. All of those things are part of what God has promised you and me if we believe. (22:45) And just like Abraham, it's not just a slogan. It's not a great wise religious saying, it's an actual promise from God. It's a binding promise. One that doesn't go away. And one that's not contingent on how much we get things right on our own. Listen to what Paul says a little bit later in his letter to the Philippians. (23:12) Philippians 1:6, he says, "I'm certain that God who began the good work within you will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns." Look how confident he is here. He's confident because God is a God who follows through. God is a God who makes promises. (23:32) In other words, what he's saying is God won't leave you alone just like he didn't abandon Abraham. He's com- decision to be committed to him. And imperfect though we are, even when we're totally unworthy of his love and his commitment, he's doing his work through us even then until life itself as we know is over. He started the work, he'll finish the work. (24:00) So, with this in mind, we come to the part of the promise that we started off with. If we are also recipients of this promise of Abraham, if God is actually walking with us as closely as he did with Abraham, if he started this work in us and he's bound by his promise to finish it, does that actually mean that I have access to God on a daily basis to help me through life and to guide me in the decisions I make? Do I get to ask him questions? Does he care about individual people? And not just in kind of an overall arc (24:39) of my story kind of way, but in the details of every day that happen to us. Do I get to bring to him all of the confusion and all of the uncertainty of life? Will he actually help me do something about it. Well, Jesus himself says, yes. Yes, he will. And that is not just me trying to be encouraging. (25:10) That's actually how he wants us to see this. John 8:12. Jesus spoke to the people once more and said, I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won't have to walk in darkness because you will have the light that leads to life. What an amazing thought. And this is not just Jesus setting himself up as ultimately the way to heaven. (25:36) He's talking about the actual I don't have to walk around in darkness wondering what's true and what's not. I don't have to live life resigned to trying to figure this out all on my own when there's a million and one conflicting opinions and philosophies fighting for supremacy all around me and trying to sell me on them. (25:55) I can follow him and he will lead me where he wants me to go. Now, that does beg the question if you're a practical person, how does that actually practically speaking work? If I want to be part of this, if I want to claim this promise of God, I want to be this intimate with God, well, how does it work? What do I do? How do I make it happen? I'm glad you asked. (26:30) It's a very, very complicated and very difficult to understand process and I'm going to do my best to break it down for you. You ready for this? Someone is. Here's what you got to do. You got to ask. There you have it. You got to ask. Ask. Just ask him. Step one, ask. Step two, see step one. Ask. How do I know it's that simple? Because a lot of Bible writers break it down in incredibly simple terms. (27:24) Easy enough for even me to understand. James being one of them. James 1:5. I love this verse. Love this verse. If you need wisdom, ask our generous God. And he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. Let's read that again. If you need wisdom, ask our generous God and he will give it to you. (27:52) He will not rebuke you for asking. In other words, he won't be offended. He won't think your question's stupid. He won't think you should have already known the answer. He's not going to think less of you. I mean, it's so easy for us on a human level to be a bit sheepish about asking or tentative or hesitant or what if this is a dumb thing to ask for? I bet you other people don't struggle with this. I'm the only one. (28:24) If I were smarter or I were wiser or I just understood things better I wouldn't need to ask. James 1:5. And actually the the NIV, the New International Version words it like this. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God who gives generously to all without finding fault. And it will be given to you. He's generous and he's not about assigning fault. (28:55) He's not about figuring out where you went wrong or why you didn't know it or why you need to come to him. I like how N.T. Wright puts this in the for everyone version. He says it like this, "If any of you fall short in wisdom, they should ask God for it and it will be given them. God, after all, gives generously and ungrudgingly to all people. (29:19) " That's not really the way that I'm kind of used to giving. Maybe my time or my money or my efforts or I guess I'll give some as long as it doesn't hurt. One last way somebody much smarter than I worded this, Eugene Peterson in his paraphrase of this in the message says, "If you don't know what you're doing that's me pray to the Father. (29:52) He loves to help. You'll get his help and you won't be condescended to when you ask for it." Thank you, Jesus. Because I can be condescending enough to myself. So, it's a beautiful thing to know that that's not who God is. So, step one, maybe the only step is ask. And I guess maybe there's a prequel to that step. (30:19) Admit you don't know what you're doing first and then ask. Admit you need help, then ask. God is generous and he'll give it to you. Now, the practical person also will point out, "Okay, well, what's the it that he'll give you?" What you need is what he'll give you. Not necessarily what you think you need. There is often a massive disparity between what we say we need or what we think we need and what we need. (30:51) What God is committed to is giving you what you need. What you actually need. Psalm 32:8 says it this way, "The Lord says, I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you." The best pathway for your life. God knows what that best pathway looks like. And this sounds a lot like the promise to Abraham again, doesn't it? Because it is. It transcends generations. (31:23) It's an unbelievable promise that the God of all time and space would care that much about Abraham and then Abraham's people and then the psalmist and then us to welcome us asking for his help and not only will he give it, but he loves to give it. He loves to provide it. Speaking of the psalmist, David in particular, remember a couple of weeks ago we talked about this amazing and really amazingly long passage in Psalm 119. (31:59) Well, if you hang with that passage until almost the very end, you get another beautiful little reminder of this promise. Verses 169 to 170. Oh Lord, listen to my cry. Give me the discerning mind you promised. Listen to my prayer. Rescue me as you promised. God, you promised to lead me and you promised to give me wisdom. (32:25) You promised to give me the discerning mind that I need to make the decisions in front of me. Well, I'm claiming that promise. Give me that kind of mind. And isn't by the way, isn't that a great picture of how all of scripture works together? Because many many years after Abraham, David prays this prayer, and then many years after that, James reminds his readers, including us, about this very simple, but very life-changing promise. (33:02) If you need, ask. If you don't know, ask. Now, I don't want to take the time this morning to walk through all of the different ways that we need help and need guidance. You know usually what you need. You know it Sometimes that's painfully evident. Sometimes we can fool ourselves into thinking, "Well, this is what I need, and I don't really need in this area. (33:30) " And then that also becomes a need for discernment. You know the areas in your life where you have not made good decisions. You know where you need to start turning to God instead of to your own default mode of operating. And it's pretty easy to see that the world around us doesn't have much in the way of wise answers. (33:57) The vast majority of the people all around us with the microphones and in front of the cameras are not generally leading anybody in God-honoring directions. And we don't need to take the time to walk through all of that. If there's one thing we know, it's how difficult and how sometimes crippling our decision-making process in life can be. (34:20) And so, I want us to read the prayer of someone who took this seriously. And then look at a practical way, a couple of practical ways that can change the way that we live so that we can see this promise become more and more true in our lives moving forward. And this prayer I'm going to bring up comes from another normal-ish person. (34:45) Ish because he's also a king. But you can see throughout the course of his story that he makes the same kind of boneheaded, brain-dead decisions that we do. He's normal because his story arc likes all of our swings between doing the right thing and honoring God and then not making such great decisions and needing to be reminded of that. (35:12) And in his case facing a bunch of embarrassing mistakes. This is a guy named Jehoshaphat. And he's from the line of David. David was his great, great, great-grandfather. And he would have grown up knowing the history of David. And the other kings before him. And he would have grown up seeing what happens when they followed God and when they didn't. (35:39) >> [snorts] >> And he can see this in his own life. He can see what happens when he follows God and when he doesn't. And he can see how he struggles with his discernment and decision making just like us. And this normal guy, Jehoshaphat, has this phenomenal moment where we get an insight into a prayer of his to God. (35:58) And this prayer comes in a moment where he's being marched on by several different armies. I don't know what that feels like. But I imagine that's kind of intimidating. Three different armies are coming together to essentially annihilate him and his people. Armies that, by the way, Jehoshaphat's ancestors showed mercy to. (36:24) Did not kill these people when they had the chance to. And now they're not reciprocating in kind, now they're coming to try to take the land that was part of the promise that God gave to Abraham. And I'm just going to read you the first part of the prayer and then later in the prayer you're going to see the last part come up on the screen. (36:41) It's from 2 Chronicles. This is what it says, Jehoshaphat stood before the community of Judah and Jerusalem in front of the new courtyard at the temple of the Lord. He prayed, O Lord, God of our ancestors, you alone are the God who is in heaven. You are ruler of all the kingdom of kingdoms of the earth. You are powerful and mighty. (37:06) No one can stand against you. O God, did you not drive out those who lived in this land when your people Israel arrived? And did you not give this land forever to the descendants of your friend Abraham? Your people settled here and built this temple to honor your name. They said, "Whenever we are faced with any calamity such as war, plague, or famine, we can come to stand in your presence before this temple where your name is honored. (37:34) We can cry out to you to save us and you will hear us and rescue us." And now see what the armies of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir are doing. You would not let our ancestors invade those nations when Israel left Egypt, so they went around them and did not destroy them. Now see how they reward us. For they have come to throw us out of your land, which you gave us as an inheritance. (38:00) Now there's a lot in this passage up to this point. This is a guy struggling with human ways of thinking. On the one hand, it's really commendable that he's looking to God and praising him, worshiping. On the other hand, he's saying, "Hey, wait a minute. How come they get to get away with this when they were given mercy in the first place? And how come they're coming to take the How could they come and take this promise, God? You promised, God. (38:26) And then he gets to this amazing moment. In verse 12, 2 Chronicles 20:12. Here's what he says, "Oh our God, won't you stop them? We are powerless against this mighty army that is about to attack us. We do not know what to do. But we are looking to you for help." The king who has an army, an army that has won many battles, who has advisers and resources of all kind at his disposal, realizes that in that moment he does not have a clue. (39:09) Oh our God, we are powerless. We do not know what to do. If ever a guy should have had all the earthly answers as to what to do, it should have been this guy, and he realized that all of that other stuff doesn't mean anything in that moment. The God who promised to give us guidance and discernment and wisdom hears his prayer, doesn't judge him for asking, and comes through for him. (39:40) And that even though the point of bringing up this passage with the prayer was the prayer, it's worth noting that God comes through in a remarkable way. Essentially what happens is he's praying this prayer publicly, and one of the guys who's in his presence, the spirit of God comes on him and says, "Hey, here's what's going to happen. (39:58) " And he realize relays this to Jehoshaphat and the other people. And what ends up happening is the next morning they go out to the battlefield worshipping God the whole way. God says, "I want you to just stand there and do nothing." And what ends up happening is the three armies that are trying to attack them start bickering amongst themselves, and then draw their swords and annihilate each other. (40:21) Totally eradicate themselves. Leaving Jehoshaphat and his army to go, "Wow, God." And it's such a wow moment that they rename the whole valley that they're in as the valley of blessing. Now, God, when you reach out to him and you ask, might not give you this kind of a victory. He might not make everything fall into place this neatly. (40:52) He might ask you to do something more than just watch people self-destruct in front of you. As part of his answer to you, God might ask you to do some really hard work. And God does not promise you that his answer to you is going to look exactly like his answer to somebody else. But he does promise you guidance. (41:19) Now, hopefully when you leave here, you don't have three armies waiting for you. But you do have something. Importantly, God's waiting to hear from you on it. And don't make the mistake of thinking that taking God up on this promise as a last resort and one that you turn to because you've exhausted everything else. (41:48) And don't think that God made this promise to everyone but you. Or that no one else but you seems to need it. Every person in every generation has needed it just as much as the previous one. I'm always encouraged by the fact that one of the greatest theological minds of our time, Søren Kierkegaard, in all of his pursuits and his writings and the influence he had on the church, and on believers for generations, and in the middle of all this wisdom and knowledge that I can only aspire to, he recognized his basic constant need (42:25) for God's wisdom. Almost 200 years ago, he wrote the words, "What I really need is to be clear about what I am to do, not what I must know." It's what it all boiled down to. God, what must I do? So, he asked. And fortunately, he served the same God that Abraham did. And fortunately, so do we. And God is in the business of helping us with exactly that. (42:59) And I'm going to wrap up this morning with the prayer. And I'm going to use some of the words, really wise words, from the book of Proverbs as we go into that prayer. You can follow along with these on the screen. This is a road map, really, for every one of us. Any of us who believes and wants the help of almighty God. (43:18) I'm going to read these and pray. Proverbs 2 2 to 11. "My child, listen to what I say and treasure my commands. Tune your ears to wisdom and concentrate on understanding. Cry out for insight and ask for understanding. Search for them as you would for silver. Seek them like hidden treasures. Then you will understand what it means to fear the Lord, and you will gain knowledge of God, for the Lord grants wisdom. (43:43) From his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He grants a treasury of common sense to the honest. He is a shield to those who walk with integrity. He guard guards the path of the just and protects those who are faithful to him. Then you will understand what is right, just, and fair, and you will find the right way to go, for wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will fill you with joy. (44:04) Wise choices will follow watch over you. Understanding will keep you safe. And Proverbs 3:5-6, you might recognize this. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take. God, we are a people who need this so much. (44:33)