The Father Who Guides

Our understanding of a father deeply shapes our identity and faith. In this series, we’ll explore how earthly fathers have impacted us, find healing for the places we’ve been hurt, and encounter God as the perfect Father who fully loves, restores, and defines who we are—so that His love overflows into the lives of others.

Transcript

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Thank you for listening to an audio resource from Stanwich Church, located in Greenwich in Stanford, Connecticut. The vision of Stanwich Church is to know Christ and make him known.

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This can be found on page 627 of your Pew Bible. Those who acknowledge God in every area of life will experience his guidance, direction, and blessings, which flow from faith, humility, and dependence. A reading from Proverbs chapter 3, beginning with the first verse. 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. 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. May God add the blessing to his holy word.

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Last year, my cousin convinced me and a few friends to participate in a Spartan beast race. And for those who like extreme sports, you know what that is. It was a half marathon up and down Mount Killington in Vermont four times. There were 30 different obstacles. We were scaling walls, climbing ropes, jumping over, burning coals. It was miserable and I loved it. Now, a lot of people, for some bizarre reason, choose to pay money to do this, and I ended up getting convinced to be one of them. So after signing up, I trained for five days a week for four months, most of it in the summer heat, and it was intense. But things got real and I faced my greatest challenge at the very last night before the race. Because that was when I had to pack my bag for this event. And unfortunately for me, this would be a simple task for anyone, but for me, I'm an overpacker. And for those who are overpackers, you know what it's like. The analysis, paralysis, hit instantly. Do I pack sunscreen, bug spray? Do I pack a baggy sweatshirt when in the morning when it's cold, only to shed it later? Three bananas or four bananas. Would I look cool in a bandana? Absolutely. We'll go classic red. And so by the time it was all over, I go to lift up my backpack and I'm straining. And I'm like, oh my gosh, what did I just get myself into? How am I gonna lug this thing around for 13 miles up and down mountainous terrain tomorrow? So here was the dilemma. I had one backpack, and I was struggling to figure out what was worth holding on to and what I needed to leave behind. And it stressed me out because I had trained for a long time for this and I wanted everything I needed for the journey. And isn't that our spiritual dilemma? Day by day, we carry what often feels like all of life's responsibility on our backs, and it can be exhausting. Wouldn't it be nice if we could get some guidance on what we're actually meant to hold on to and what we're invited to leave behind that we were never meant to carry? As a church, we're in a series called Encounter the Father's Heart. And throughout the past few weeks, we've been seeing God as our good Father, someone who we could lean on for identity, for love, for protection and provision. And this morning, we're looking at God the Father as the one who guides us. So forgive the corny metaphor, but we're gonna run with it the entire morning. So ready or not, here it comes. With the Heavenly Father as our guide, we are going to pause, take off our spiritual backpacks, go ahead, take off your spiritual backpacks, set it to the side. The 9 a.m. didn't do it, they just stared at me. Thank you, some of you did it. Set it to the side. We got a little more, actually, it's pretty packed even with the trees down. Um, set it aside, and we're gonna take inventory. What should we be packing for the road ahead in the spiritual pilgrimage that we call life? And what are we carrying that God never asked us to? Because Scripture tells us that when we follow Jesus, our load should be lighter, not heavier. And so Proverbs 3, the passage we're in today, it shows us three things that if we carry them, it actually lightens our load. So let's look at the first thing we're called to carry on this spiritual pilgrimage with God in Proverbs chapter 3, starting 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. Now, before we talk about what we should be placing in our spiritual backpacks for life's journey, I want to pause to acknowledge who's speaking and who's listening right now. King Solomon, the wisest ruler of them all, is King of Israel, and he's the one traditionally believed to have penned these passage that we're reading today in Proverbs. And he doesn't start by lining everybody up and saying, take these instructions, get your act together, this is what needs to happen. No, he starts with two tender words that are going to frame our entire conversation around godly wisdom. The two words are, my son. So picture this for a moment. You have a king in charge of a whole kingdom to run, and he pauses all of his kingdom activity that he needs to do to pull along his son off to his side and offer up godly wisdom that he's learned throughout his life. And that's exactly the opportunity that we get to receive when we read this passage this morning from God, our Heavenly Father. See, when we place our faith in Jesus, Scripture says we are adopted into the family of God. And so while this passage is talking about King Solomon speaking to his son, when we read the wisdom literature of God, we can also hear it as God's beloved sons and daughters, who God the Father is eager to offer up godly wisdom to direct our lives. And so, what does God the Father, our guide, offer us first for our spiritual journey ahead? It's the godly wisdom found in Scripture. It directs us. And we're called not to forget the teachings in this book and to keep these commandments. And here's why we need God's word in our lives. Because the second we're not leaning on God's word to direct our lives, worldly wisdom is right behind it, ready to come in and inform us. Culture has a lot to say about what makes a good life, what success is, blurring the lines between right and wrong, and who we're really supposed to become. And what's most problematic, in my opinion, about worldly wisdom is that it's always changing. The goalposts are always moving. And we see this in trends that were at one point, in the eyes of the world, super in. And then decades later, generations later, we look back and we go, okay, I don't know if that's in anymore. Um, one example I'll give you is perms. Is anyone brave enough to admit that you were rocking a really nice perm at one point in your life? Yeah. Nice. My hair um doesn't grow down, it grows like up and out. So if I was if I was around when that was in, man, I'd have a great looking head of hair with the with that perm. Um some other examples of trends that have come and gone and worldly wisdom, how it shifts. Frosted tips, right? They were in sync and now they're out of sync. Um another one, fedoras, not for me, but if that's your thing, that's okay too. Um but the point is decade by decade, cultural wisdom changes, doesn't it? And all we can do is try to keep up. But the Christian life doesn't need to be built by the shifting sands of the current moment. That's what's great about God's word. It's timeless. And that makes it a great source of direction in life's journey as a Christ follower. In fact, the promise of not forgetting God's teaching and keeping his commandments, if you look at verse 2, it says, length of days and years of life and peace will be added to you. That's what happens when we're consistently aligned with the life-giving word of God, given from a loving Father who wants to bless us and see us live in to the fullness of life he offers for us. And so the first thing that we're gonna put in our spiritual backpack is this map. And it represents the word of God, which directs us and never changes. I went all in. We brought it, we brought our spiritual backpack. So we're putting in the map, and you might have heard a loud thud because in God's economy, when we add things that God wants to give us to bless us, we get to also release things that we were never meant to carry. And so I'm removing this weighty rock, which represents the chasing of cultural expectations that shift season by season. And it's exhausting to keep up. We no longer need to try and keep up with whatever the next perm is. Thank God for that. So now there's still more to take inventory of because the only if the only thing we ever carry is the word of God, the law that directs us, the commandments and teachings that that guide us in life, we're gonna run into a problem very quickly. So we start uh we start treating the whole journey like a test we have to pass if all we have is God's word is truth to direct our lives. So there is a second thing to carry right alongside God's word, and it changes everything. Let's continue reading Proverbs 3, verse 3. 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 after packing our map, the Word of God, which gives us direction for our lives, the second thing we're called to pack in our spiritual backpack is the love of God. The love of God is something that we're called to bind around our necks and write on the tablet of our hearts. Does anyone here wear a cross necklace or is wearing one this morning? Yeah, so you are literally doing that right now. Like Proverbs 3:3. Take the love and faithfulness of God and bind it around your neck. Um, Pastor Chuck likes to ask this question to people who he sees wearing cross necklaces. He likes to say, decoration or identity? And now you can confidently answer identity. Every time you wear that cross necklace, it's a reminder of the goodness of God that you carry with you everywhere you go. And even if you're not wearing a cross necklace, we're all called to adorn ourselves in the love and faithfulness of God everywhere we go. And why should we carry God's love with us? What I don't want to have happen is when I say the word love, it sounds like this mushy, polite thing that we tell our kids to do to one another because it's nice to be loving and kind to one another. No, the love of God is powerful and we desperately need it. Here's a question to illustrate this point. In your journey with God, have you ever had moments in your life where you've stumbled by a show of hands? Okay, yeah, every hand, including me. Yeah, we need the love of God. While the word of God, his teaching and commandments direct us, it's God's loving grace that carries us alongside the law. And in other words, as Christians, we journey through life with both truth and grace. And Jesus embodied this perfectly. The Gospel of John opens with a telling of Jesus coming in all his glory in both grace and truth. And we see this lived out in the story of the woman who's caught in adultery in John chapter 8. Jesus tells the crowd who's about to stone this woman to death for the sins that she's committed. He says, The one without sin among you cast the first stone. And all of a sudden, all the stones kind of drop off to the side, and everyone walks away. And the grace of God is displayed in that moment. But it doesn't end there. Moments later, Jesus goes up to her and says, Neither do I condemn you. Go from here now and sin no more. Grace and truth. And God wants us to walk in both of them. See, without God's loving grace bound around our necks and written on our hearts, we're destined to live spiritually hollow, performance-based, never measuring up lives. But with God's love, we're secure in our identity as God's beloved sons and daughters, covered by his grace, and freed up to live into the fullness of who God is calling us to be. Now here's the thing about love: it can only change us in that transformational way if we're able to receive it. And for different reasons, it can be challenging for us to receive God's love. There's so many different directions I can go with this, but the one area I want to focus on is shame. Shame is a sinister tactic of the enemy of our souls that convinces us that we are too dirty, we're too lost, we're too jaded, we have too much of a broken past to ever receive the love and mercy of God, be a part of Christian community, and forgive ourselves. There's a difference between guilt and shame. Guilt says, I did something bad, and the Holy Spirit lovingly convicts us and uses guilt as a tool to guide us back on the path. It's not meant to condemn and tear down, it's meant to build up and restore. But then there's shame. Shame says, not that I did something bad, it says, I am bad. It goes after your identity, your worth, and convinces you to hide from people and from God. So if you walked in this morning carrying shame from destructive behavior, doubts, past hurts, broken relationships, whatever it is, I have good news. God's loving mercy forgives all who confess their sins, and that healing mercy has the power to restore the broken places within us. Like cleansing water, God washes the deepest, darkest places within us and sets us free. The love of God in partnership with the law is another gift that lightens the load of our soul. And so now I'm gonna add this bottle of water to our spiritual backpack. And it represents the cleansing love that God has for all who bring their moments of stumbling to Him. Can you guess what's coming out? And as I do, stay right there, okay. I'm removing this rock, another weight, because with God's grace, we no longer need to carry the sin and shame that weighs us down. And just like that, our spiritual backpack on life's journey is getting lighter as God the Father guides us. Now, you might be thinking, okay, great, I've got God's word to direct me, I've got his love to cover me when I come up short. I got this. I'm ready to go, I got what I need, I'm off and running. Well, hold on. The third thing, the final thing that this passage calls us to carry in our spiritual backpack and life's journey isn't self-reliance. It's the opposite. Let's continue in Proverbs chapter 3 and verse 5. 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. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. That is so different going back to like worldly wisdom than what the world prescribes, right? We're not taught to trust in the Lord. We're taught to trust in ourselves. When you're watching like a cheesy Hallmark Christmas movie or whatever, and like the main character has to decide if they want to take that cool, trendy job in the city or stay back at the farm with the person that they're falling in love with. What does the side character say to them when they're like discerning what to do? Follow your heart. Follow your heart. Essentially, trust your personal emotions and what your convictions are telling you. It will never fail you. Except that it does often. I bet each of us could tell a funny story of a time where we took the world's advice, we followed our hearts, and it led to some sticky situations. Um, I have one, for example. Um, one time I followed my heart in high school and I asked a girl to a dance. Then I followed my heart again and I unasked that girl to the dance. Then I found out that the girl's mother was the principal's assistant. Then she followed her heart and yelled at me in front of a bunch of the faculty and students the next time I walked into the school's office. Following-that's a true story. Following your heart is a dangerous game because it's exactly, and it's exactly what our culture preaches, unfortunately. But what I love about scripture is it it calls out realities, deep realities that we often miss, and it gets this right too. Jeremiah 17, 9 says this the heart is deceitful above all things. If we really hone in on it, the heart is deceitful above all things. In other words, our inner man, our inner person tends to lean and drift towards self and sin and resist loving others and loving God. And when we accept Jesus into our hearts and the Holy Spirit's at work with us, scripture talks about this battle between the flesh and the spirit, and we're being um what's the word where we're be we're growing in our uh sanctification. Thank you, nobody, for helping me. Um Sanctification. It's happening, it's happening um over time, but uh it's it's different, it's different than trusting in our own heart. So our heart's deceitful. Thankfully, Proverbs offers another way. Don't trust your own heart, trust the heart of God. Don't trust your own heart, trust the heart of God. So if we're looking at verse five again, what does it even mean to trust God with your whole heart? Trust in the Lord with all your heart. To me, that sounds like you need to be this like prestige Christian who's fully surrendered, doesn't have an ounce of doubt, no sin. You confess it all, and you're just like spiritually floating, and now you're God has all of your heart and you have this trusting bond with God. And if you're thinking that today, I want to just debunk that right away. This is a calling that all of us can step into this morning. I read a really redemptive interpretation of this specific instruction from author Megan Fate Marshman, who wrote a Bible study on this very passage that I'm preaching on. And she goes to a conversation between a father whose son is sick and being oppressed by an evil spirit, and the father is asking for Jesus to heal his son in Mark 9, and I'll summarize it. The father says that his son is suffering, and he begs Jesus, he says, If you can do anything, help us. And then Jesus says, If all things are possible for those who believe. Help my unbelief. And Marshman notices that the father in this story's heart is divided, isn't it? Part of him believes and part of him doesn't. But by saying it out loud, he hands both of those parts, the faith and the doubt, over to Jesus. And if Jesus has all the fractured pieces of your heart, then you are giving him your whole heart to entrust to him. So wholehearted trust isn't flawless certainty. It isn't this spiritual level you have to get to before you can experience close, trusting relationship with God. It's simply like a shoving of our hearts toward the direction of God, warts and all. And then after we give our God our whole heart, in verse 6, we're then called to acknowledge Him. In all your ways, acknowledge Him. We're trusting the Lord with our whole heart is this pushing out of our heart, warts and all. In all your ways, acknowledging Him is then pulling God in to every aspect of your life. The Hebrew word for acknowledge is yadach, which isn't it's knowing, but it's not knowing like God is, I understand the definition of God in my head. Um, it's knowing God in a way that you know a person, experientially, like a deep relationship. And so the more we yadach God, we acknowledge him, we know him, we pull him in to every aspect of our lives, we begin to build intimacy and trust, not in our circumstances, but in our relationship with God. We lean on his track record, his character, his wisdom, which helps us navigate the challenging circumstances that we tend to try and hold on to too tightly. And so the path of trust with God involves pushing out our whole heart, warts and all trust in the Lord with all your heart, and then pulling in God to everything, acknowledging Him, Yadach, in everything we do, knowing God intimately and building trust through relationship, pushing out and pulling in. And this is something that I experienced firsthand in this past four years, excuse me, the past four months of this year. Um earlier this year, Hannah and I, my wife, were excited about the idea of buying a house. And if you know the housing market right now, it's terrible. Um but that was a desire of ours, so we started looking into it. We got a realtor, and I worked in finance for a few years, and so I put together a little spreadsheet of um, you know, our appetite, what we could afford, and all that. And um we we started looking at houses. Now, very quickly, what started out as a tool became something way bigger because I got AI involved. And so I uploaded it and I'm like, all right, it was like, would you like to add more assumptions to this to get a better view of your future, essentially? I'm like, yeah, that sounds helpful. And so I started iterating and iterating and iterating, like mad scientist level, like 15 different versions of this thing. And I just all of a sudden this went from a little dashboard to an entire model of our future. You know, how many we we were basically allowed to have 2.2 kids. That's what we were able to afford. Um, what we wanted, our cash flow, net worth, retirement, all adjusted for inflation, rows and charts as far as the eye could see, all in one beautiful color-coded picture of our life. And unfortunately, what happened was I took this amazing technology, I leveraged it to try and get as much information as I could, and I very quickly stopped trusting God and instead started to lean on my own understanding. And this spreadsheet of cells almost was like an oracle to me. We would go on like five house visits, and I was tired, and I'd plug in a potential offer and see our net worth ebb and flow and go up and down. And my entire like security, contentment was was petering on what the what the spreadsheet was telling me. So it sounds a little pathetic to say out loud, but I basically looked to this grid of cells to rest assured that all was gonna work out. And that is the exact trap that this proverb is warning us about. I was leaning on my own understanding, I was trying to analyze my way into certainty. And the harder I gripped, the heavier things got. Because eventually you arrive at a problem that no spreadsheet can fix. And the reality is there is real risk in life and uncertainties that no amount of the world's understanding can solve. And so why are we settling, so many of us, for gripping on tight, leaning on thoughtful due diligence alone? I'm not knocking financial planning, I think it's great, we should use technology to make wise decisions. But why, reasonably speaking, would we lean on that alone when we could acknowledge, pull in the one who holds all things together, who gives wisdom generously to anyone who asks? And for Hannah and I, it took humility to get to a point where we prayed, Lord, this is what the spreadsheet says, but this is what your word says. And we are going to accept the limits of our understanding and lean instead on yours. And so what God offers is so much better than a spreadsheet, obviously. It's a father who already knows the way. And so for Hannah and I, we've renewed our lease in Stanford, we're excited for the Stanford building to open, and we're in no rush. We have the wisdom of the oracle, I mean spreadsheet that we we have and we can hold on to if we want to go back there. But we have handed our future back to God instead of interrogating that spreadsheet to find it. And in that surrender, day by day, sometimes moment by moment, we have found real, tangible freedom and peace and healing, which is what the rest of the passage talks about that we experience when we trust in the Lord with all our heart and lean not on our own understanding. So the last thing that goes into our backpack here is a compass. And this represents trusting God. No matter where you are with a compass, it's always pointing due north. And we have an invitation to trust in the Lord, and as we do, we get to release the burden that comes from trying to control our lives and manage and try and find the deeper questions to life that no model or technology or advanced development of human understanding could ever attain, that only God has. Now, how can we really trust in God? How do we know that the needle really points true north? Because of this. The cross is the culmination of every promise that God ever made for you. If there's one person, one moment in history, one fulfilled promise for us to trust, it's what Jesus did on the cross for you and for me. If Jesus could die for our sins and rise again, how much more can we trust him with our lives? Friends, receive these words from Jesus in Matthew chapter 11, 28 through 30. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. We've taken inventory, our bags packed, it feels really light. Take with you God's word to guide you, his love to uphold you, and trust in the one who gave himself up for you. Amen.

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