Things God Didn't Ask Us To Do(From Our 11-24-24 Worship)

Watch the video version here: https://youtu.be/Kcdgo4QZzDsTranscript:If I asked you how you're doing today,  what's most likely to be the one word that you would use to interply to that?  I'm good.  You ever wonder where that word even come from?  Like some words, we just take them and we apply them. So many things. It's like, we don't even realize  what it really means. I mean, we just all kind of use it, but  you know, how's your day?It was good. How was your, how's your week been? It's good. I mean,  How was that? How was that meal last night? It was good. I mean, like, it just applies to everything.  And you ask somebody, What kind of life do you want to lead?  They're probably gonna tell you if you could get him to boil it down into a sentence.Well, I want to lead a good life.  And I asked you this morning, What does that  what's that even mean?  I asked Google what it meant.  And here was the kind of the  Summary answer at the top.  The good life is a state of happiness and well being  that can be defined in many ways. Comfort and luxury  living in comfort and luxury with few problems or worries, meaningful activities, relationships, community, virtue, moral goodness, balance, opportunity. And then at the bottom,  the meaning of good can vary from person to person.  Many religions also conceived the good life in moral terms  as a life according to God's laws.  Now,  I don't think it's an accident that when you search, what is the good life?  The first thing you find is comfort and luxury. And the last thing you find is God. I mean,  if I was to say the phrase good and what work goes after that good and easy.  I mean, we don't even think about good and hard, like, anybody want a life that's good and hard? Like, no.  No, good and easy just goes together. But, and, and I get why these things are, are in the list.  Um,  you know, we want things to work out in the way we want them to.We want things to be, be comfortable and easy. I get that.  But, but wanting it to be so  is not going to make it so.  You look at that list and you say, okay, that may be something to, to aspire to, but how do you lead  a good life?  How do you lead a good life?  I think you find that answer in,  in the wisdom book in the Bible. Get your Bibles with me this morning. Go to Proverbs chapter three. That's where we're going to go. We're not. really going to leave and go anywhere else.  Proverbs chapter three. Of course, this is a book of a father writing to the son,  writing to his son, you know, basically trying to get him to not make all the same mistakes that he did. It's a It's a wisdom book. Wisdom gets brought up over and over and over again this trying to get his son to pick up and to appreciate and to hang on to wisdom.  Notice what it says here in chapter three. My son do not forget my teachings, 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 together around your neck. Write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favor and good success in the side of God and man.  Favor and good success in the side of good. God in man. Doesn't that sound  like a good life? That it's not something that you that you won't.  But how do you have  that good life?  Well, I think as we continue on in in Proverbs chapter three,  the problems writer here is going to tell us how to do that. But this morning, I kind of want to go with this a little bit different.  I usually ask the question how  How do you do something?And how usually entails, here's the steps I need to take. And there's plenty of steps in what we're about to read in Proverbs three.  But I don't want to talk about so much this morning, what we should do  as what we shouldn't do,  because I think this morning, as we read through Proverbs three, I've never really had this stand out to me before, but.It almost seemed like pairs where here's what you should do, but also here's something that you don't do along with it.  And a lot of times the enemy of what we should do  is the thing we shouldn't be doing.  You know, sometimes it's like you want to, if you want to know how to do something, let me tell you how not to do it right.And that will help you to do the thing. So I hope that that makes sense where we're going and what we're doing with this lesson this morning, but again, we're going to pick up.  In verse five,  and we're going to see the first thing that we,  the first thing we have to not do if we're going to have a good life  is we can't lean. Proverbs three, five trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. Now,  if I were to say to you, if you want to have a good life, you need to trust God. Do you think that's a true statement? Well, yeah,  Yeah, Doug, that's that's obvious. Okay, you should trust in God. Trusting God.That's great.  But do you know what? The biggest enemy  of trusting in God is  what is the thing that's going to take me away from trusting God the most  trusting me?  You see, when I when I trust in myself,  what am I doing? I'm taking God out of that position of power, that position of authority.  I'm trying to put me in that place. And how does that work out for you?  Generally not real well.  Now I want to read you this definition, this word lean. Now we kind of know what lean is, right? You, you walk up to somebody's truck and you're talking to them and you kind of, you kind of lean on the truck, right? And you hope they don't have one of them big metal belt buckles on and put a scratch down the side of your, your vehicle, right?Place your weight on something. Well, let me read to you the. the  definition here to have trust and belief in an object  to the point of being in jeopardy. If the object of trust fails,  they read that one more time,  having trust and belief in an object to the point of being in jeopardy.  If the object of trust fails,  I'll take, I'll mess it up for 9000 Alex. You see.  How many times,  how many times are Christians  handicapped  because they're too busy trusting in themselves and not easy enough trusting in God?  You know, we've talked a lot lately about forgiving ourselves,  and that's a process, it's a thing to work on, but  if I understand that God has forgiven me of my sins, it's  And I can't forgive myself because I know what I did and I don't know why I did it and I  Then that sound a lot like I'm leaning more on my own understanding  That I am leaning on God's understanding. I Mean at what point am I am I more concerned and busier feeding my own self doubt  That I am feeding my faith in God  How many times have we prayed? God, please help me. Please help this. Please help this or that. And then the moment I say amen,  my eyes open and I go and my mindset immediately turns to okay.Now, how can I fix it?  What do I gotta do? I set my prayer up.  I put God on it. But in the meantime, I got I gotta work it out myself.  How many times do we make a bigger mess out of it  than simply  Just trusting God.  I'm not saying that we don't ever do anything. That's not what I'm saying. But  I'm talking about at the end of the day, who do you trust more? Do you trust yourself?  Or ...