Wisdom and God's Will

I remember it taking hours and hours to get to the destination that we were going to. I remember being crushed into the back seat of our car with my brother and what seemed like half the house packed beside us for a week’s holiday. But what made our trips even more exciting was that sometimes when we left the house, we didn’t actually know where we were going. In fact, there were some times that it wasn’t just a surprise for me and my brother, I don’t think anybody in the car knew exactly where we were going to end up on holiday.

We might have known where the first couple of nights were, but we didn’t know where the rest was. Many times we’d just drive, and as we would drive, we would pull into a lay-by and out would come, you know, Ireland map number 63 or whatever, and it would be put out on the dashboard, and we all chose, you know, where would we like to see and where would we like to go. And as a child, it was all very spur of the moment and all very exciting. And all very stressful looking back now.

But decisions, they become slightly less exciting whenever they carry more weight, when they have consequences that last beyond the duration of the family holiday. And as we get older, of course, the decisions that we make in life take on a greater permanence. And I think that’s often where the fear and the struggle comes from. The forks in the road that we come to where we have to choose between two options, it all seems a bit more serious, doesn’t it?

And of course, as Christians, we must ask the question, well, how do I make decisions well? Is it all kind of mysterious and supernatural? Do we have to get a funny feeling or wait for some sense of peace? Do we have to somehow get the decision confirmed three times in conversation?

Do we have to spot a repeated theme in random verses that we open our Bible to? Or do we just do whatever we like and God will kind of put his stamp of approval on it? I get to speak with a lot of young people in the course of my work and church, obviously, and this question of God’s will comes up again and again. And do you know what the lovely thing is?

So often it comes from a genuine place of, I want to please God. I want to do what God wants me to do. I want to honour him in my life. I want to follow him.

I want to make the decisions that he would want me to make. I just don’t know how to do it. I just don’t know what decisions I should make.

So that’s what I want us to look at this morning.

And as it’s been pointed out before in this series, the Proverbs sometimes seem to jump from theme to theme in a really short period of time. And of course, as we’ve seen, this book of Proverbs is an anthology of proverbs that Solomon and a couple of others have compiled for us.

And sometimes we can easily see why they have put certain proverbs together.

You know, sometimes it’s a fast-moving overview of wisdom that we saw in the first week, almost like a father imparting wisdom to his son and wanting to give maximum wisdom in the minimum amount of time.

But then sometimes it’s a deep dive into a specific theme. Proverbs 31, for example, very famous passage about a woman who fears the Lord.

So what about Proverbs 16, and how does it help us answer this question of knowing God’s will? As you move through this chapter in Proverbs, we find ourselves touching upon lots of different topics, but they all hang on this overarching theme that I think is just so helpful for us as we think about this topic this morning.

Now I do have six points, but they’re not all the same length. One of them’s significantly longer than the others.

Let’s read Proverbs 16, starting at verse 1.

The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirit. Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established. The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.

Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord; be assured, he will not go unpunished. By steadfast love and faithfulness iniquity is atoned for, and by the fear of the Lord one turns away from evil. When a man’s ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.

Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues with injustice. The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.

We’ll finish there, but I want you to go back to verses 1 and 2, because here we find this overarching theme that runs like an artery through all of the verses that we’re looking at this morning. Verses 1 and 2, I think, give us context to the rest of the chapter.

I wonder what your biggest fear is as you think about God’s will. I think it’s often the fear that we’ll get it wrong, that we’ll somehow make some mistake at one point in our lives as Christians that will mess up our whole lives. I mean, we all know the difference between good choices and sinful choices, and we’ll explore that later. And we know that sin has ugly consequences when we choose it. But what about choosing between two good choices? How do I do that? Is there a risk that out of multiple good options, I could still choose something that is outside the will of God?

I hear people talking in those terms. I’ve read books that argue along those lines. I’ve heard preachers preach like this. That out of multiple good options, you can still get it wrong.

Well, right at the outset, on the authority of God’s word, I want to dispel that fear. And I want to dispel it based on what we see here in the first two verses of Proverbs 16. You see, we see here two things that are happening simultaneously. We have the actions of mankind, and then we have the actions of Almighty God.

And it’s really clear as you read these verses that one of them is nested inside the other. For all of our planning and for all of our thoughts about our own work, it all sits within the bounds of what God has planned and what he is doing. We’ve seen this again and again as we’ve opened God’s word here in Emmanuel. We saw it recently in our series on Esther, that our God is a sovereign God, that he is ultimately in control.

And often we think about this in the context of world events or world history, or when it comes to the general big picture of our lives, but this applies right down to the level of the plans that we make. The decisions that we make, the words that we choose. I don’t know if you’ve noticed as we’ve worked through this series, but Proverbs are so up to date. They could have been written yesterday. They apply as readily today as they would have done thousands of years ago.

It’s no wonder later in life that Solomon wrote, “There is nothing new under the sun.” And how true is verse 2 here of human nature? We all do what we think is right. I mean, that’s why disagreements exist between people. Two people think there’s a right way to go and they disagree. We all have moral blind spots that limit our ability to see all of the factors in any given situation. Maybe that’s part of your fear in decision-making. What if I’m missing something? What if there’s some key piece of information that I can’t see as I make this decision?

Well, do you know who does see it all? The Lord. The Lord who weighs the spirits. With all of our best efforts to do the right thing, it all sits within the sphere of God’s sovereignty. And he has no blind spots. He has no limitations in his ability to see right into the heart of the matter or right into the heart of man. Is God big enough to direct you in the right direction? Is he powerful enough to steer you in the way that he would want you to go? Of course he is, because all of our planning and choices and decisions, they all sit within the bigger story that’s being written by the hand of our sovereign Lord.

So how should we approach any given decision, or plan that we have? Because you might say, well, Andrew, I agree with everything that you’ve just said, but I still don’t know how to make a decision. I don’t know how to do it. Well, look at verse 3, where we find an instruction. The Hebrew here is quite literally to roll your work onto the Lord. This idea of pushing it onto him. It’s this picture of acknowledging in our work God’s sovereignty in our lives.

But note something here at the start of verse 3. These are our plans. This is our work. We’re making decisions. And as we saw in the first two verses, we have the ability and the freedom to make plans and to make decisions.

I used to get myself all worked up about this when I was a younger Christian. I would say, but what are your plans, Lord? What should my work be? What should I do when I leave school? Who should I marry? Where should I live? Should I move house? Should I move church? Should I change job? And then I open the Bible and I see God speaking to people. I see God sending angels to people. I see people that are hearing audible voices, people getting dreams, people having a visit from the local prophet.

Well, Lord, that was so easy for them. What do we do with this? Well, we need to understand that often in Scripture we are getting a zoomed-in look at the exception rather than the norm. I mean, even within the lives of people in Scripture, we might say, oh, but he had a visit from an angel, but it’s the only visit from an angel he ever had. The exception rather than the norm.

So how can I know what’s God’s will for my life? How can you know what’s God’s will for your life? Well, to start with, we need to look at our spiritual trajectory, the way that we carry ourselves or the direction that we’re generally heading. Because we need to understand that God’s will ultimately is that we would be made more like Jesus. He is ultimately concerned about our growing in godliness, our sanctification. Go home and read Romans 12:1–2. You probably know it.

And so before we become concerned about the details of every choice and every plan, this is where we have to start. Am I becoming more like Jesus through the means of grace that God has provided, through prayer, through his word, through his people, through his people gathered like we are this morning? As Philippians 2 puts it, are we working out our salvation? In other words, are we living out the reality of what the Spirit is doing within us?

And like many of you, sometimes Claire and I will decide to head to the north coast for the day. And we don’t have specific plans other than, let’s go to the north coast. And you know, at the point at which we leave the house, all I need to do is drive out of McGabry and turn right. That’s it. Head north. All the details will follow as I travel north. And similarly, as we seek God’s will, the first thing we need to do, we need to have the right trajectory. Psalm 25 that we read earlier, if you go on to verse 12, it says:

Who is the man who fears the Lord? Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose.

But then we need to think about the limits that God has placed, because when it comes to living according to God’s will, the things that we are not to do are plainly revealed in the Bible. God has clearly shown us in his word what is abhorrent to him, where he draws the line on good and evil, what he expects us as Christians to do and not to do.

So I can say with absolute certainty that it is not God’s will for you to steal money from your employer. It is not God’s will for you to lie about something in order to get your way. It is not God’s will for you to marry an unbeliever, nor is it God’s will for you to sleep with your boyfriend or your girlfriend. It is not God’s will for you to use ChatGPT to do your homework and pass it off as your own. And as we saw last week, it is not God’s will for you to be lazy.

Do you know, when I think back to the time in my life when I was really exercised about knowing what God wanted me to do, do you know what I wasn’t as exercised about? Not doing the things that he told me not to do.

So God’s will is that we would be made more like Christ. He is ultimately concerned about our growing in godliness, about our sanctification. He has clearly shown us what we should not do.

So then what? As I pursue Christ, as I pursue godliness, as I ensure that the options that I face aren’t sinful, what do I actually do in any given situation? Well, you weigh up the options, you think through the practicalities, you talk to trusted friends, and then what? This might be surprisingly simple. You make a decision and you trust God with it. You want to be a nurse? Great. Is it sinful to be a nurse? No. Do you have the grades? Is there a course available? Then go and be a godly nurse who shines for Christ. Thinking of moving house? Great. Is it sinful to move house? No. Can you afford it? How will it affect your family in terms of school and work? Will you need to move church or will it help you engage more with a local church? Well, go and take the next step and honour God as you do it.

Now, that’s not to say decisions are easy or that they’re quick or that we shouldn’t pray for wisdom. In fact, the Bible very clearly warns against such hastiness. But we shouldn’t fear them. We shouldn’t doubt the wisdom and the freedom that God has given us in making decisions. Ah, but what about Gideon? Gideon laid down a fleece. He tested God to see what his will was.

But you see, the story of Gideon isn’t in the Bible to show us how to discern God’s will. Gideon’s fleece is there to warn us against not trusting in God for what he has clearly revealed. God had already told Gideon what to do, he just didn’t trust him. John Piper helpfully puts it like this, and I’m paraphrasing, “God doesn’t intend for us to know most of his sovereign will ahead of time.” If you want to know the future details of God’s will, you’re looking for a crystal ball rather than obedience and trust.

Now, does God in his grace often align life events to nudge us in the right direction? Yes. Does God sometimes give us an unexplained peace about our choices? Yes. Does God seem to bring up certain things in conversation with others or in our reading of Scripture again and again? Yes, but that’s not where we place our trust and our confidence. We don’t place it in potentially coincidental things or emotional things. We place our trust in God. We make our plans and we give them to him. We roll them onto him and we say, God, I trust you with this.

And so often that just looks like taking the next step, even if you don’t know the following ten. Maybe you don’t get into the uni course you applied for. Maybe you can’t get your own house sold in order to move, and that’s hard. But praise God, he’s directed you, hasn’t he?

You know, almost as if Solomon can see an objection that we might make, he deals with it head-on because in verse 4, we see a reminder.

I’m trying to live right, I’m trying to honour God, and yet it’s really tough. Lord, everything seems to be working against me. Am I doing something wrong? Have I made the wrong choice? Is everything going wrong because I’m outside of the will of God?

I’ve heard people use the example of Jonah about what happens when you’re outside of God’s will, you know, when life gets rocky. But life wasn’t rocky for Jonah because he had chosen the wrong thing out of multiple good options. It was because he had specifically gone against what God had told him to do. Hard times don’t mean that you’re outside of God’s will. Sickness doesn’t mean that you’re outside of God’s will. Persecution from the wicked that we see in these verses doesn’t mean that you’re outside of God’s will. In fact, many times in Scripture, God’s people, the godliest of people, are in despair. They’re crushed, they’re sick, they’re persecuted, they’re struggling.

Can you imagine telling a believer in North Korea who’s being persecuted that, you know, maybe they’re outside of God’s will? Again, we saw this as we studied Esther, didn’t we, that God has placed even the wicked in place on the stage of the world for his purposes. That’s what we see here in this verse:

He has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.

And sometimes, oftentimes, that affects us. But as we’ll see, not even the wicked can escape God’s sovereign purposes. So what do we do? We keep planning, we keep committing, we keep doing.

I’ve heard it said before that some conversations happen best side by side, shoulder to shoulder, especially when they’re potentially a bit awkward. Maybe it’s a mother giving a daughter relationship advice, so they do it when they’re in the car driving. Or maybe it’s a friend lovingly correcting another friend as they walk together. I don’t know why in my head I always picture a grandparent and a grandson out fishing, on the edge of a pier, side by side, having deep conversations.

But some conversations require face-to-face, a need to know that the information has been received and understood. And I can imagine here in Proverbs 16, it’s almost as if up to this point, the older, wiser friend has been walking shoulder to shoulder with the younger, more immature person, but now he turns and he faces his younger listener with what we see in verse 5 as a warning. And he says:

Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord; be assured, he will not go unpunished.

Yes, we make plans, and those plans can look varied, and they can glorify God. Yes, we can make our decisions and trust God with the outcomes, whatever they may be. And yes, we don’t know the future, but God does, and we look to him as we move forward step by step. But when it comes to sin, the outcome is known. Sin will not go unpunished. There are no exceptions.

I think it’s really interesting that it’s arrogance, or pride, your version might say, that’s listed here, because it brings us to the very heart of where it all goes wrong. Lord, in my plans, I know best. We’ve all seen the attempts that a child will make to stand up to the authority of their parents, and it’s futile. But what arrogance to presume that we know better than the one who created all things. What pride to think it’s okay that we should stand up to the One who sees it all and knows it all and say, Lord, I know you’ve revealed this in Scripture, but if you don’t mind, I think I’ll actually just go this way.

This is the default posture of the human heart. It’s our natural disposition to push God out of the way and to do it ourselves. That’s why a child rejects the authority of their parents. That’s why people feel free to slander each other or to destroy things or to kill. In fact, it’s the very reason why so many are willing to deceive themselves into thinking, well, there’s no God at all.

And yet the reality of sin is that it will not go unpunished. If you’re here this morning or if you’re listening online and you’re not a Christian, let me be really clear. I’m not saying that you choose to call yourself a Christian, or that you grew up in a Christian house, or that you think that we live in a Christian country. By Christian, I mean somebody who has followed Jesus Christ’s command in Mark 1 to repent and believe the gospel, to turn away from your sin and believe in Jesus alone to forgive you.

If that’s not you, then there is no confusion over God’s will for you. There is no uncertainty over your future. There is no mystery in the outcome of a life spent in rejection of God and his offer of rescue. Look at verse 5, he will not go unpunished. Eternal punishment. For the rejection of a holy God.

That’s why Christians have such good news. That’s why we lift the name of Jesus high, not just because of who he is, the eternal Son of God, but because of what he has done. He took our punishment. He took our punishment for all of our arrogance and our pride and our lust and our waywardness. If you’re here this morning and you’re not a Christian, if you’re listening to my voice and you’re not a Christian, my plea to you, the Bible’s plea to you, is that you would repent and believe the gospel. The Bible tells us that verse 5 does not have to be your story.

Let’s look at verses 6 to 8 where we see a priority.

By steadfast love and faithfulness iniquity is atoned for, and by the fear of the Lord one turns away from evil. When a man’s ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him. Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues with injustice.

Glen was telling us last week that we shouldn’t pick a proverb at random and treat it as an ironclad guarantee of a particular outcome. I mean, for example, verse 7 here is not saying that faithful believers will have no enemies or that all of your enemies will suddenly become your best mates. But we need to understand that as we look at verses 6, 7 and 8, when God shows us how we should live our lives, and how we should orientate our hearts, that’s for our benefit. And not just eternally, but here and now. For those who love and follow God and seek to honour him in all their decisions, they will find themselves walking a path that is a better way to live. Christians ought to be the best employees. Christians ought to be the best neighbours. Christians ought to be the best family members. Christians ought to be the best citizens.

In verse 6, we see this in the context of how ordered, faithful living in the form of steadfast love and faithfulness is greater than the disorder that sin brings. This is talking here about our relationships with each other. These are some of the hardest choices that we make in life. The choices to forgive one another, the choices to be steadfast in our love even when that’s hard, the choices to be faithful in our relationships and in our jobs. But when we do that, it has a peacemaking effect, even with those who have wronged us.

It’s hard, because even for those of us who are Christians here, we know that tug of sin on our hearts, don’t we? That draw to dishonour God in our plans and in our decisions, the quick lie to get us out of an awkward explanation. The unloving joke with a jag that’s said that just hurts somebody a wee bit. How do we, with the help of the Spirit, orientate our hearts away from evil, or quite literally, verse 6, escape from evil through the fear of the Lord?

Now, this is not a shaking in my boots because God is so scary. This is a response of awe and respect in the face of the might of our God. We need to lift our eyes to heaven in the moments when we are most tempted to make bad choices. And as our fear of God and as our love for God increases, so will our decision-making reflect the decisions of a godly person, and that will have real impact in our daily lives.

And look at verse 8. This pursuit of godliness, of righteous living, of wise decision-making, it’s the greatest pursuit. Solomon tells us here, listen, you would be better having few worldly goods and have righteousness than having it all and end up counted among the wicked.

In the 1950s, Jim Elliot went to Ecuador to win the Huaorani people for Christ. Most of you will know the story. And on the 8th of January 1956, after only a couple of encounters with the Huaorani people, Jim and his four fellow missionaries were brutally murdered. Jim lived out the reality of a quote in his journal that said, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” Our lives are not our own. Our time in this flesh will not last forever. Our decisions here will have eternal consequences. A Christ-honouring perspective will lead to Christ-honouring decisions. And if we make Christ-honouring decisions, we have found a better way to live.

As we conclude, look at verse 9 where we see an encouragement. I don’t know what decisions in life you’re facing at the moment. Maybe you’re wrestling between multiple good options. Maybe the fears that I’ve talked about this morning are very real to you. What if I get it wrong? What if I dishonour the Lord? Do you know, I think this verse is so reassuring as we strive to live well as believers. Look at verse 9:

The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.

Be free to plan. Plan good things. Plan things that are for the good of you and your family and your friends and your church. Make decisions about things that you enjoy and seek to glorify God in them. Let this be a freeing thing. God hasn’t pushed you into a maze waiting to see if you can find the right option. No, he is deeply involved in the decisions that you make. He sees the details that you don’t. He knows all the outcomes that you can’t see.

And that should be greatly freeing for us, knowing that our sovereign God, in the midst of all of our planning, he’s the one who establishes our steps. The heart of a man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. The heart of a woman plans her way, but the Lord establishes her steps.

Let’s pray.

Father, I pray that you would help us to trust you with the decisions that we need to make in life. Sometimes we have big choices to make, sometimes we have little choices to make. But the reality is, Lord, we don’t know the impact of our choices, whether they’re small or big.

But we do know that in our fear and trembling and in our uncertainties and in our toing and froing between multiple good options, that you are sovereign. That ultimately, Lord, as we plan our way, that you are the one who establishes our steps. Father, I pray that you would lead us. I pray that you would guide us. I pray that you would help us to shun sinful decisions and choose good, godly options, and then help us to trust you with them. For it’s in Jesus’ name we pray, amen.