Take your Bibles today and open to Proverbs chapter 3. This morning we'll be looking at Proverbs chapter 3 verses 1 to 12. Let's hear the word of our Lord. Proverbs chapter 3, beginning in verse 1. My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments. For length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you. Bind them around your neck. Write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes, fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones. Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your produce. Then your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will be bursting with wine. My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline or be weary of his reproof. For the Lord reproves him whom he loves as a father, the son in whom he delights. Let's pray together. Our God, you promise us that you look upon the one who is humble and contrite in spirit, and the one who trembles at your word. We come before you. We humble ourselves before you. We ask that you would reveal your truth to us, that we would acknowledge you in all of our ways, that we would acknowledge you right now, that we would hear from you. We ask for your guidance. We ask for you to speak. Help us to not lean on our own understanding, even as we come to your word and try to understand these words that you have revealed, but to depend upon you. We ask for your Holy Spirit to help us. We ask that Christ might be glorified in all that we do, and we pray in his name, amen. Well, kids, I don't know if you have something that you want to be when you grow up. Kids sometimes dream and think about what they want to be when they grow up. And those of you who are older, maybe you remember what you wanted to be when you grew up. Maybe some of you are what you wanted to be, what you dreamed of. But our culture makes a big deal about dreams. People, when they make it and when they are successful, they often say, I dreamed about this my whole life. People talk about how you can achieve your dreams and dream big and work hard. and you can be what you dream of being. And so kids, when they're growing up, they think that is the purpose of life. They think that is the goal in life. Whatever I want to be, whatever I dream of being, that's what I need to pursue, and that's what I need to work hard at doing. But those of us who are older, we understand reality. Reality is you dream of great things when you're a kid if you grew up in the 90s you dreamed of being the next Michael Jordan and You practiced playing basketball all day thinking you would be the next Michael Jordan and then reality hits you're not Michael Jordan you grow up and You need to go to college. You gotta figure out what to do with your life. It's kind of strange that we expect a 16 year old to have to have this whole map of their life planned out and they already have to decide what college to try to get into and what to study. But that's not really how life works. You get into college, you gotta find some sort of job, so you get a job at Stewart's, and you just start working at Stewart's, and then maybe you meet a spouse, you get married, and once again, you're just trying to find a career or a job that will provide for your family, and you just live a normal life. And you find that after years go by, you're just a normal person. Like everyone else, all you're doing is trying to lead a family and provide and work a job. And so that's what life is like for most of us. It's just normal. And normal isn't bad. Life isn't like what the world tells us to do. You go see that mountain, go attack that mountain, go climb that mountain, and you be king of the mountain. Life is more like Abraham in the Bible. When God called Abraham to himself, he did promise him a great blessing, but he didn't say, hey, Abraham, there's a mountain out there, and I want you to go climb it. He said, Abraham, I want you to go out and I'm not going to tell you where you're going. I'm not going to tell you what's going to happen in your life, what your life is going to be like. All I want you to do is leave. And when you leave and I want you to turn, I'm going to tell you where to turn. I'm not gonna tell you ahead of time. I'm not gonna give you the map. I'm just gonna say, Abraham, stop here. Abraham, turn here. And that's how God called him. Abraham, go out and I won't tell you where you're going. And that's really what life is like for all of us. This father here, as he is teaching his son in Proverbs, he doesn't tell his son to dream big. He doesn't say, son, you come from royal lineage. You might be the next king. Son, your grandpa was named David, and I want you to be the next giant slayer like grandpa David. You could be the next great harpist of Israel, my son. Pursue your dream to be a great harpist. My son, maybe you could write some songs like Grandpa David did. Maybe some of the songs that you write will end up in the Bible and in thousands of years, people will be reading and preaching and singing your songs. That's not what he says. Here's the father's dream for his son. Son, trust in the Lord. wherever life takes you. And I have no idea where life will take you. Trust in the Lord. As you walk down a path, I don't want you to lean on your own understanding. I want you to ask, what does the Lord want you to do? And I want you to walk in obedience to the Lord like Abraham did at every step of the path. That's what this passage is about. That's what this father wants to teach his son. And of course, this is relevant to us. Young people, young men and women, I don't know what you dream of being. I don't know what you desire for your future. But what really matters is that wherever life takes you, you would trust in the Lord, that you follow him and that you not forget him. So in this passage, we have the first four verses that tell us the main point, that the father wants his son to not forget the Lord. And then he kind of works that out. He fleshes that out in the next part in the first 12 verses is the text that we're looking at. In verses 5 to 8, he wants him to not forget the Lord wherever life takes him. So he kind of expounds on what it means to not forget the Lord wherever life takes him. And then in verses 9 and 10, he brings up the issue of wealth. If his son accumulates wealth, what should he do? He should still not forget the Lord when he prospers. And then in verses 11 to 12, he brings up suffering, difficulties. If he's going to face suffering in life, the father still wants his son to not forget the Lord. So you see, in every part of life, in every stage of life, no matter what happens, the father says, I want you to remember the Lord. So let's focus first on the first four verses, to not forget the Lord. I'll read them again. Verse one, he says, Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you. Bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart, so you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man. So we start this new lecture to the son with those words, my son. He says he does not want him to forget his teaching. This word teaching is the word Torah, which can generally refer to any teaching or any instruction, but often it's the Torah of the Old Testament or the law of God. It's the five books of Moses. And so it seems that he is not just referring to his general instruction here, but what he really wants for his son is to know the law of God, to know the word of God. Those commandments that he is teaching his son are the commandments of the word of God. And really, if you remember, chapters one to nine are introducing the book of Proverbs. And so the Proverbs themselves, they start in chapter 10. And what the father seems to be doing is saying, my son, I don't want you to, I want you to also remember my teaching of the Proverbs that I'm going to about to start in chapter 10. And so what does he mean by teaching? Well, I think he means all of it. the teaching of the word of God from the past that came through Moses, the teaching that is coming through the book of Proverbs, which he is pointing forward to us as being part of the word of God that should be received and remembered just as much as the five books of Moses, and the teaching of the father himself is the father seeking to teach his son the word of God. And we also see here again that he wants these teachings to be upon the son's heart. He wants them to be internalized. Let your heart keep my commandments. It's not just about memorizing these things, but having them be a part of who you are. And if you do this, this will be length of days and years of life and peace. Ultimately, this is pointing us to an eternal life that you can have through following and knowing the Word of God, living out a relationship with God. But also, even in this life, you will have much blessing and much peace, and you'll be saved from many disasters and many troubles if you will simply do what the Word of God says. If you will follow the Lord and His teaching, it will save you a lot of trouble. Well, then he says, let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you. That phrase steadfast love and faithfulness is a phrase that comes up over and over in the Old Testament. It's based on Exodus 34, six and seven. When God revealed himself to Moses and he told him about himself, he said, I am the Lord, the Lord abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. This is who God is. God is a God of steadfast love, faithfulness, And I believe that this is what John, in the Gospel of John, is referring to when he says in John 1, 17, the law came through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. That word steadfast love is related to the word for grace. Talking about how God is a God of grace and the word for faithfulness is related to God's truthfulness. And so John is saying, that Jesus is God in the flesh. Jesus is the Lord who has been revealed and the Lord has revealed himself in Jesus. As the God of steadfast love and faithfulness, the God of grace and truth, and so the father wants his son that his son would know the Lord and by knowing the Lord, you will know love and faithfulness. And you know the Lord through Jesus Christ. These attributes, these characteristics of God, he wants them to bind them around his neck and to write them on the tablet of his heart. And so there we see again, the father is after his son's heart. Parents know that Under the roof of the parents, you need to obey the parents. You will face discipline for disobedience of your parents. And so, young people and kids, you know that there are consequences in your parents' house for not following their instructions, for disobedience. But parents all know that the day will come when those children won't be in the house. And you, the child, you, young man and young woman, you will have to yourself decide if you're gonna obey the word of the Lord. If you're gonna obey what your parents have taught you for all of these years. And so for that to happen, what you need is not just the outward threats from your parents that you have while you're growing up in the home, but what you need is the inward change in the heart. That you yourself, when you grow up and when you leave, you yourself will say, yes, I know that I need to do the things that my parents taught me, things like being part of a church and going to church. I need to live out the ethics that my parents have taught me about my relationships, about dating and marriage. I'm not gonna do them, I'm not gonna do what my parents have taught me just because I'm afraid they're gonna punish me. But I'm gonna do them now because I myself agree that those are the right things to do. And so what you need is for these things to be written on your heart. And this is a reference to what we would call regeneration, salvation. Even in the Old Testament, there were people who were part of Israel who were not saved. And that's why Moses told the people to circumcise their hearts. They were circumcised externally as a sign that they were part of the people of Israel, but internally they were not changed. And so they were like the child. They were going to obey God only so far as they could get away with it. only as long as God didn't strike them dead, but they had no true desire to love God or to obey God. And that's what Moses was calling them to, to be truly saved, even in the days of the Old Testament, meaning you needed your heart to be changed. And this is what God promises in the New Covenant in Jeremiah 31, that everyone in the New Covenant will know the Lord And they will have the law written on their hearts. It's a heart thing. It's not just on the outside, but your heart is truly changed. So, if you want to follow the Lord, you need a new heart. You need God to change your heart. You need to love the Lord your God with all of your heart and not just out of a duty. This is what it means to be saved, that God would give you this new heart. And again, he promises blessing, a favor and good success in the eyes of God and the eyes of others. So, this is what he wants for his son, to not forget the Lord, to not forget his teachings, to have it always with him, so that he is always following the Lord himself, because it's written on his heart. Now, he talks about these different circumstances. And so the first one is overall, he says, in all your ways, wherever life takes you, you always need to remember the Lord. Let's read verses five through eight again. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and turn away from evil. There will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones. I'm not going to go into much detail about verses 7 to 8 because they are basically repetitions and different way of saying verses 5 and 6. Being wise in your own eyes is the same as leaning on your own understanding. Fearing the Lord is the same as trusting the Lord. Verse 8, healing and refreshment to your flesh and bones is basically, I think, the same as God will make your paths straight. So, I won't go into detail about those verses, but we wanna focus on verses five and six. My guess is that a lot of you have heard verses five and six before. You know these verses. These are the kind of verses that get put on coffee mugs to remind you to trust in the Lord. But one of the problems with putting verses on coffee mugs is that then you take those verses out of context. These verses, obviously, they apply to all of us in many ways, but the main context here, remember, is the father talking to his son. So what does he want for his son? He's getting at the same point that we've been talking about already. Son. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. That's the emphasis of the Father. Son, I want your heart, all of it, to trust in the Lord. My son, what I want from you is a wholehearted commitment and love and fear and trust of the Lord. I do not want you to be partially loving the Lord. I don't want you to sometimes love the Lord. All the time, wholeheartedly, my son, may your heart be devoted to the Lord. Trust in Him at all times with all your heart. Young people, this is the call to you. to trust the Lord with all of your heart, that you would be wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord. Those of us who are older, we can complain about young people these days. And you hear stories in the news about young people and millennials and how everybody wants everything handed to them and nobody wants to do any work these days and all these things that people complain about. But young people, you don't have to be like that. We don't have to just expect that you will still act childish, especially when I'm talking about spiritual things. You don't have to say, well, one day I'll follow the Lord with all my heart. Maybe later I'll give God my whole heart. No, young people today, Right now, as you are children and as you grow older, you can still give your whole heart to following the Lord and desiring to please him and to obey him and everything that you want to do and that your heart and your future, your life that you wanted to be devoted completely to the Lord. That's something you can do now. You don't have to wait until later to trust the Lord with all your heart. So what does he mean by trusting in the Lord? Well, first of all, we see here that we have the good news of the gospel. See, God doesn't say, what I want for you is to try really, really hard with all your heart to be a good person and that I will accept you and be pleased with you. No, he says, trust. Trust in the Lord. And what does it mean to trust? Trust is to have faith, to believe. And it's by trusting that you do nothing, that you stop depending on yourself, you stop working, you stop trying to earn righteousness and earn favor with God. But instead, you trust in the Lord and you trust that He provides you with His righteousness. The Lord is our righteousness. I will trust in the Lord and be declared righteous. To trust means to lean. Maybe you guys know the missionary John Patton, who in the 1800s was a Scottish guy who went to the Pacific Islands and he couldn't find a word to translate the word faith, believe. And so one day he was with a local man and he was in his house and he sat on his chair and then he leaned back in his chair and he put his feet up. And he said to the man, what am I doing now? And the man said, well, you're leaning your whole weight upon the chair. And Patton said, is there a word for that? And the guy said, yes, here's the word. And so Patton said, that is the word that we need to use when we translate the book of Romans and we use the word faith. Faith, or what we call believing, is really leaning all of your weights upon something or someone. So what are we doing when we trust in the Lord? You're banking all of your eternal life, you're depending completely upon the Lord, because one day you're going to die. We all die, and we all bank on something. What will get us acceptance with God? What will get us eternal life? What are you depending on? Once you die, there's absolutely nothing that you can do about it. So what are you trusting so that you will be accepted before God? This verse says, trust in the Lord. The one that we now know is the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our righteousness because he lived a perfect life, because he died on a cross and took the punishment for sins in the place of sinners. And if we trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, we receive his righteousness as on our account, given to us, considered to be ours, not because we deserve it, not because it is ours, but because God places the righteousness of Christ upon us. So that's first and foremost what it means to trust in the Lord. Do not lean. on your own understanding. Man's understanding is that to be accepted by God, you must do more. You must be more righteous. You must obey the law. All these other religions are about righteousness, obedience, doing more. It's all leaning on your own understanding. And only by the Spirit of God can you understand this great mystery of how you could be righteous in Christ. So don't lean on your own understanding. What else does it mean to trust in the Lord and not lean on our own understanding? Well, I also think of those of you who are younger that this applies to what we believe. Think about what you believe. Does what you believe depend upon what the Lord has said, or does it depend upon your own understanding? You grow up in a culture now that is without God and that tries to teach you things that are godless and have nothing to do with the truth of God. And it could be that based on your own understanding and you grow up in this culture, you might think that some things are okay to do or okay to believe. You see all these things, you see this, your favorite YouTube channel guy saying these things and you say, well, that makes sense. Well, all of that is leaning on your own understanding. Maybe you'll go to college. And when I, when I went to college and I took these Bible classes and, and you hear all these things about how like Jonah didn't really get swallowed by a fish. And you start to question and wrestle. Well, maybe Jonah really didn't get swallowed by a fish. Maybe it really is just a fable, a parable, a story. But then at the end of the day, all it really comes down to is that there are these people, these so-called scholars or professors that are leaning on their own understanding. They just want things to make sense to them according to what makes sense to us. No, it doesn't make sense that Jonah would get swallowed by a fish, so why would you believe that? But then what it really comes down to is, are you going to lean on your understanding? Or are you going to trust in the Lord? Are you going to believe in the Bible because it's the word of the Lord? Trust in the Lord. believe what the Bible says, not your own understanding. But then we can apply these verses to all of us in every part of our life. Because he does say in verse six, acknowledge him in all your ways. Acknowledge Him in all your ways. Wherever you go in life, whatever decision you're facing, whatever you need to do tomorrow, acknowledge the Lord and trust Him. And don't lean on your own understanding. You can see how this would apply to the Son, based on what we've looked at in the chapters before. When the Son is tempted by His friends who say, come, let us lie in wait for blood, And your own understanding will say, yes, I want to go hang out with my friends and I want my friends to think that I'm cool and I want to be a part of their group. The father says, no, acknowledge the Lord in all your ways. When the adulterous woman comes around and she says, come into my house, nobody will ever find out and you will never get caught. You lean on your own understanding. Are you going to trust in the Lord and acknowledge him in all your ways? For those of us who are older now, what about when you are at work and you face a difficult decision, an ethical decision? What are you going to do at work? Something that maybe is unethical or wrong. Are you going to trust in the Lord and do what's right? Are you going to acknowledge the Lord in all of your ways? Or will you lean on your own understanding and say, well, you know, I can probably figure out some way to get around this and lots of bad consequences will happen if I do this, so I'll just do the wrong thing. Your call to trust in the Lord. When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were told to bow down to the golden statue, I'm sure their own understanding in their heads would have said, just bow down on the outside. Inside, you know that you're not really worshiping that statue, so just bow down, save your skin, everything will be okay. They did not lean on their own understanding, but they acknowledged God. And when Daniel was told that the law was passed that he could only pray to the king, And he had this custom of praying to God every day. What did Daniel do? His own understanding could have said, you know what? I'll just close the windows. I'll just pray silently. I'll just pray inside. Nobody will be able to see me. I can still be faithful, right? I can still keep praying, and then nothing will happen. That's not what Daniel did. He kept praying. He kept opening the windows, and everyone could see that he was praying to his God. He trusted the Lord. He got thrown into a den of lions, but of course, God made his path straight. God rescued him from the den of lions. So we trust in the Lord. God will make our paths straight. God will set us on the right path. God will give us a good path. It doesn't mean that it's going to be the path that you wanted to be on, or that you thought was the good path. But if you acknowledge the Lord in all your ways, He will set you on the right path. So whatever you face, acknowledge the Lord. Trust the Lord. Well, next, what about when a man prospers? What if a young man grows up and he's been taught about the Lord and things are going well for him? And then he goes out and he starts to make a lot of money. You think that if he starts to make a lot of money, he might be tempted to forget about the Lord? And so, The father tells his son, here in verses 9 and 10, honor the Lord with your wealth, with the first fruits of all your produce, then your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will be bursting with wine. A later proverb in chapter 30, The man asks God not to give him poverty or riches because if he becomes rich, he will be full and deny God and say, who is the Lord? And that's a temptation. When you start to become rich, when you start to get more money, the temptation is that then you will feel that you don't need the Lord and so you forget the Lord. And so the Father says, honor the Lord with your wealth. Now notice the command. The command is not tithe. The command is not give. That is what these verses mean. That's what they're trying to get us to do. But that's not what he says. He doesn't say that. He commands us to honor. honor the Lord with your wealth. And yes, that does mean giving, but not just giving, it's about honoring the Lord. You're probably familiar with the fifth commandment that tells us to honor father and mother. It's the same idea. What does it mean to honor? It means that you consider someone to be important. The word for honor here is the word for glory, and that word for glory means weight. Weight means that you consider it to be important when you are weighing a decision about what house to buy. There's one house that is a higher price in a worse location. This other house is in a better location. maybe the opposite way around, better location, higher price. So you have to weigh what is more important, the location or the price of the house. And so you decide what is of import, which one weighs more. And that's what this word means here. When it says, honor the Lord, you will have money. And the question is, when you get your money, when you have your wealth, your stuff, What is going to be most important to you? What are you going to weigh? You're going to weigh, here are the things that I want, or are you going to weigh the Lord? The Lord is important. And so what he's telling us here is that when we get money, we need to see that the Lord is of first importance. because he says, honor the Lord with the firstfruits of your produce. The firstfruits because the Lord is first. The Lord is the most important person. And the way that you handle your money and deal with your money will show what you consider to be of most importance. where your treasure is, there is your heart also. So the first fruits, let's imagine you're a pumpkin farmer. And so October comes around and your pumpkins start to grow and you have a first harvest of pumpkins. And you might be tempted to say, well, why don't I just wait till the end of the season, the end of the harvest, and I'll keep track of all the pumpkins that I've grown, and then I will tithe. I will give the 10%. We're talking in the Old Testament here. I'll take my 10% of all my total pumpkins to the temple, and I'll tithe my harvest. Well, that's not what he says. He says, give of the first fruits. You get your first harvest of pumpkins and you give that, you take that to the temple. And so what are you doing when you do that? Well, the first thing you're doing is you're saying that you're gonna trust God to provide the rest of the harvest. What if? You give your first pumpkin harvest and then no more pumpkins come around for the rest of the season. What do you do? That's technically possible. And so you're trusting that the Lord will continue to provide. But you're also showing what is of most importance. It's not saying it's not that you're saying, well, I'm going to I'm going to give of the pumpkins. and then hope that I have some left over to then give to the Lord. Or I'm gonna keep my palm because I hope I have some left over to give. No, you give first. Because you're saying that is of first importance. In other words, it's more important for the temple to have my harvest. and then for me to have the harvest at this point. So how does that work in our day? Well, basically it means that when you receive your income and when you decide how to budget your money from the beginning, from the start, you decide in your own heart what you will give to the Lord and then everything else falls into place. You don't say, okay, well, I'll pay my Disney Plus, I'll pay my Netflix, I'll pay my Amazon Prime, I'll pay my YouTube TV, I'll pay all my bills, and now I've got five dollars left, I'll give that to the Lord. That shows what is of most importance to you. Honor the Lord with the first fruits. give to the Lord and then with what's left over, you decide if you can afford Netflix or not. So you honor the Lord with your wealth. The promise in verse 10 is that your barns are filled with plenty and your vats will be bursting with wine. That doesn't mean that you're going to get rich. Proverbs talk about how it's better to have a little with the fear of the Lord. And so there are people who fear the Lord and don't get rich. So verse 10 is not promising that you will be rich. It's promising that God will provide for you and that God will bless you. Not always financially, but he does bless his people and he provides for you. He provides for you and you give, and then he provides for you. And guess what? If you're a generous person and God continues to provide, you're gonna give more, and that's how it works. You honor the Lord, God provides, and that allows you to continue to give. Well, the last part, then, is about when suffering comes. Don't forget the Lord when life gets difficult. In verses 11 to 12, he says, my son, do not despise the Lord's discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the Lord reproves him whom he loves as a father, the son in whom he delights. The human son here might disobey his father and might need discipline from his father. But he's also applying this to the Lord's discipline. The Lord disciplines the one whom he loves. Hebrews 12 takes this passage and applies it to Christians. The father delights in you. You're a son, Christian. Because you are a son, you will at times face discipline. Now, the discipline basically is just not getting what you want. You can discipline by withholding something, like you can't go to your friend's house, or you can't have TV, or by giving them something they don't want, like soap in the mouth, or a spanking. And so when God disciplines us, sometimes we don't get the things that we do want, and sometimes we get things we don't want. We suffer, we face difficulties, we face frustrations in life, and for the son, the child of God, this is part of how God forms us and matures us. It's not necessarily that any time something bad happens to you, try to think back and pinpoint some specific sin that happened to you. Sometimes that happens, but that doesn't always, it's not always like that. What he's more talking about here is what Romans 5 says, that suffering produces endurance, which produces character. Because God loves you, because you're a son, he wants to produce good character in you. And you don't get good character by getting everything you want all the time. God doesn't want you to be a spiritual brat, spiritually spoiled all the time, because that's not gonna help you grow. The way that we grow is by not always getting what we want. So that's life. And so the temptation is that you will despise God's discipline. You ever thought to God or said to God, God, You're cruel. This is cruel. This is terrible. Why are you doing this to me? This is not fair. That is despising the Lord's discipline. Or you can be weary of his reproof. Okay, God, that's enough. I think that I want to learn my lesson now already. Let's have enough. I'm so tired of this. That's being weary of his discipline. So we are to accept and learn from and use the discipline of God, knowing that it is how God forms us. It's proof of God's love. God is making your path straight. See, you're not a good guide of what a straight path is. You think that God is taking you on a crooked path, and God promises to you that he will make your path straight. What this ultimately comes down to is the wisdom of God. We like to focus a lot on the sovereignty of God. You know, Kim Jong-un is sovereign over North Korea. He has a lot of power in North Korea, all power. He can do whatever he wants, but that's not a good thing. And we need to be careful if all we talk about is the sovereign power of God. We also need to keep in mind that the sovereign God loves his children, is always doing good for them, and he is wise. Romans 16, 27. He is the only wise God. That is the key to trusting the Lord at all times. Not just that he's sovereign, but that he is good and especially that he is wise. He knows how to make your path straight. You don't. You can't see it. I hope that we will see it in heaven. I don't even know if in heaven we will fully understand the wisdom of God. God is so wise. He is working so many things together. He's working them for the good of His children. So when you don't get what you want in life, trust in the Lord. Trust that this is His wisdom to know what you need to produce character in you. So, for those of you who are older, maybe you look back on your life sometimes and you realize, uh, not all my dreams came true. Not exactly living the dream. But, if you're a child of God, can you look back and you can say, I didn't understand at that time, but now I see. God made my paths straight. David says in Psalm 37, I was young and now I'm old, but I have never seen the righteous forsaken. When we're older, we can look back and we can see God has been faithful. So we trust him more. For those of you who are younger, I don't know what you're dreaming of being in the future. but you will face a time when your path will seem to be going crooked. You're not going to get everything that you want in life. Will you trust in the Lord? Will you give the Lord all of your heart? Let's pray. Our God, we do praise you that you are a faithful God. You are the God abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, that you have shown it in Jesus Christ. We thank you that Jesus is faithful to us and does not break the bruised reed, does not snuff us out when we are the smoldering wick. God, we pray for the help of your spirit that you would give us more faith. Help us to trust in you at all times. Help us to see your wise, loving hand at work in us. We pray that each one of us would truly know you, truly be devoted to you, trusting you with all of our hearts. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.