Transcript

Take the word of God and let’s go to James this evening and cover another practical message from James. James is the pastor of a local church and he really gets down to brass tacks on things and he’s been talking to the church about humility. We talked about humility in judging some time ago and now he talks about humility in life’s decisions. Now, again, humility is sort of the keystone in the arch of genuine Christianity. It’s really the crown virtue in many ways of Christianity and I don’t mean humility in a worldly sense of always bowing down and giving in and giving over. We do that a lot as Christians. Sometimes humility which, in essence, means forgetting yourself means you’ll stand with firmness and conviction and be bold and sometimes humility means you’ll turn the other cheek as the Lord taught on the Sermon on the Mount but here he’s talking about humility in life’s decisions. All of us have that tendency, do we not, to grab the reins and guide it ourselves. Either we’re just not thinking, we’re not seeking the Lord and we take off making key or major decisions, grabbing the reins and just driving it on ourselves. Or maybe something happens like something comes up in an emergency, something sort of tragic, something out of the ordinary and we grab the reins and begin to guide the thing and haven’t sought the Lord about it at all. In both of those, whether you’re just kind of thoughtless and going along or you’re frightened and startled and grab the reins, in both of those, you don’t seek the Lord and you’ve made your decision without humility, without honoring the Lord.

Let’s look at what James says about that in James 4:13-17. He says in verse 13 of James 4, “ Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.’” By the way, nothing wrong with any of that, he said, just don’t say that. Verse 14, “Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow.” You might not be here tomorrow is what he’s saying. “You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.’ But as it is, you boast in your arrogance,” or your pretensions, “all such boasting is evil. Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.” Since you are aware, you know the truth that you ought to be seeking the Lord in these things and if you don’t do that then that, indeed, is sin. It may be a fine, good, wholesome and wonderful thing but did you seek the Lord in it?

Let’s talk about that some. First of all, I. Talking about humility in life’s decisions, don’t be presumptuous. Don’t be presumptuous. That means just to assume. It’s kind of like a daring thing. You’re just going to sort of dare God, “I’m going to do it my way. I’m going to take the reins and I’m going to make my own decisions. Let me show you how it’s going to work.” Now, when we do something or when we assume something to be true when we don’t have the proof, that’s being presumptuous. When we make a decision without seeking God’s will concerning it, that means we are being presumptuous.

Now, let me say four things about seeking a decision. I’m not talking about whether or not you have a grape Popsicle or cherry Popsicle. I’m not talking about that, I’m talking about key and major life decisions, seeking the Lord. When we make key or major life decisions, there are four things that are true if you just do it on a presumption without seeking God. 1. You’re just presuming that it honors and glorifies God. I say that because as a Christian, that’s what you’re about. As a Christian, that’s what you’re here for. And so you’re just kind of assuming, making an assumption, “Oh, this must be to the honor and glory of God because I’m a Christian and I follow Christ and this is what I’m doing,” when you haven’t sought the Lord, you’ve been very presumptuous about it.

I remember the story of King Saul. When God told Saul, “Go down to the Amalekites and I want you to totally destroy them. Don’t bring back women or children or livestock, cattle, anything, the king, nothing.” The judgment of God is on the Amalekites, Saul was to be God’s instrument, Saul was to do what God said. He’s supposed to go out there and destroy every one of them. Well, what happened? Saul got down there and he destroyed them but he saw all of the great wealth of livestock that they had and he thought, “Well, the king might be profitable also,” so he didn’t do what God said, he did it his way. He kind of figured this is the best way to do it, “I’m going to bring back some of the livestock.” And to cover his sin, he made a sacrifice to the Lord, as a matter of fact, when Samuel, the prophet, approached Saul and said, “Why have you done this? Why did you violate the Lord’s command?” He said, “Well, I wanted to bring back these animals so im might make a sacrifice to the Lord.” Do you remember what the prophet’s reply was? “To obey is better than sacrifice.” You don’t get to go off and presume you’re going to do things for the Lord and, by the way, your life is for the Lord without consulting the Lord on it. To obey is better than sacrifice.

Not only are you presuming this honors and glorifies God, when we do something as Christians we presume if we don’t seek the Lord, we’re just saying, “Hey, this is God’s will for my life. I believe this is right. I believe this is best,” when it may not be. Have you sought the Lord about it? Have you honored him in it? It may not be God’s will. The Bible says “there is a way which seems right to a man but the end thereof are the ways of death.” There are so many things that can seem right until you check them out by Scripture and then God exposes them for what they are.

3. Another we do when we presume and don’t seek the Lord, that is you presume you’re going to live long enough to see it through. Have you ever thought that if you sought the Lord and went through God’s means of determining his will for your life you might get a “no” answer? You might get a “wait” answer? Because God knows the future and you don’t know the future. Psalm 39:5, “Behold, You have made my days as handbreadths, And my lifetime as nothing in Your sight; Surely every man at his best is a mere breath.” Listen to that: every man at his best is just a breath and it’s over. “With reproofs You chasten a man for iniquity; You consume as a moth what is precious to him.” In other words, you can have something that will be gone tomorrow. “Surely every man is a mere breath.” He says it again. Man is like a mere breath, his days are like a passing shadow. You don’t know that you have tomorrow. You’d better seek the Lord about your decisions you’re making today that concern tomorrow because tomorrow may not be here. The Lord knows but we don’t know.

You’re also presuming something else, you’re presuming that human wisdom is sufficient. When you make a decision in life and you haven’t sought the Lord and laid it before the Lord, you’re publicly declaring, “Well, my wisdom, I’m good enough. I know enough in myself,” that your finite human knowledge or wisdom is good enough. 2 Chronicles 24:20 says, “Then the Spirit of God came on Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest; and he stood above the people and said to them, ‘Thus God has said, “Why do you transgress the commandments of the LORD and do not prosper? Because you have forsaken the LORD, He has also forsaken you.”’” In other words, you’ve pushed God and his wisdom aside and he’s not going to bless you in that endeavor or he may bless you in that choice outside of his will only to the end that you run into dead ends and detours and dry holes and he teaches you the wisdom of not making choices without seeking him first. Proverbs 3:5-6, “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 your paths straight.” Now, be honest with your pastor, don’t say it out loud but be honest: how many times do you say, “Lord, I know what the word says and based on the word, this is right. This decision over here is right. Everything in me wants to go this way. Everything in me feels like I ought to go this way but I know the word says over here.” What are you supposed to do? You’re supposed to trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.

So don’t be presumptuous. Don’t just go off and do stuff. Don’t just make decisions. I mean, how ridiculous we are and we’re all guilty to some degree here of making some key decision, some key determination about our lives and then taking off on it and then saying, “O God, would you bless this?” I feel like God’s in heaven saying, “What are you talking about? You didn’t ask me about that.” He’s not your co-pilot. You don’t just say, “I’m gonna run this thing and make the decision that I’m gonna hold the reins and do it my way and if I get into trouble, God, you come along and help me out.” You’ve got to seek him upfront. Don’t be presumptuous.

Secondly, II. James is going to say basically, “Do be protected.” Do be protected. That’s what God wants you to do, he wants you to be protected. That’s why he’s saying in verse 14, “You don’t know what your life is going to be like.” He says, “Now, don’t just presume I’m going to go in such-and-such a city and we’re going to set up a business and we’re going to engage in business there. We’re going to run the thing for a year and we’re going to make a lot of money.” He said, “Well, you might be getting right into a hornet’s nest. You might be getting right into a great and difficult situation because,” verse 14, “you don’t know what your life is going to be like tomorrow.” Have you ever thought that God may be telling you “no” because he’s protecting you from something? It’s exactly what God does and he does it very often. God doesn’t want you to be presumptive. He loves you and doesn’t want you to be hurt. That’s God’s desire. It’s always God’s desire. He wants you to seek him and his absolutes about your life so that you do yourself no harm. You know, all the universe functions by laws: God’s design, the physical universe, they function by laws. If we understand those laws and obey those laws, the universe works with us. The laws of aerodynamics. You talk to any engineer in that field or scientist in that field and they’ll tell you there are certain laws of how things work in aerodynamics and if you design an airplane to honor those laws, it’s going to fly but you can’t design an airplane shaped like a boulder. It’s just not going to work. It’s not going to fly.

Well, just as God has laws for the physical universe that need to be honored if it’s going to work, God has laws for the spiritual universe that we need to also honor and if we do not seek God, God’s truths, God’s laws, if you will, revealed in the Scriptures, then we will indeed hurt ourselves. There was a family that came to me 25 years ago and wanted our church to support them going to the mission field. This family, good folks, good folks, I think, but they had been through a bankruptcy and in their bankruptcy they actually owed a lot of people in the church money they hadn’t paid back and they owed a number of businesses and people in the community money that they hadn’t paid back and yet they were talking to me about raising funds to send them to the mission field. I think I was very respectful, I hope I was very kind, I meant to be but I said, “You know, we just can’t do that right now. I would exhort you to do what the Scripture says which is to pay your debts.” You see, they felt, “Well, God’s called us to the mission field.” Yes, but God called you to honor your debt obligations. You see, that’s a biblical principle. They didn’t like my response and they didn’t like the idea of spending perhaps years and satisfying those debts. I’m going to tell you what will happen, are you listening to me? If you will humble yourself and take care of your responsibility in those kinds of situations, you’ll find a lot of people will forgive the debt. But then the testimony is clear. Amen? You can’t go sending people out of your church to go to the world and raise funds for them when they owe everybody in town money. Well, they got upset and they left the church and they found another church but their life ran into all kinds of difficulties and tragedies and I’m just convinced that they started a domino effect in their life by not honoring what the word of God said. You do understand, you can go somewhere and find some congregation and some preacher that will tell you what you want to hear but you’re not doing any good if you find somebody just to help you dishonor the teachings of Scripture.

We had a young man on our staff years ago. He was a part-time guy, a good kid, a good young man but it didn’t take long until I realized that he kind of made an art-form of going around and mooching off of people in the church. He’d just get a hand-out here and a hand-out there and now, preachers get a lot of things given to them and blessings but we don’t need to go out and work people to get them. This went on and on and we dealt with some things character wise in his life and this is, again, 25+ years ago and pretty soon he leaves our church. Today he’s divorced, his life is in shambles, he’s out of the ministry. You see, the Scripture teaches about ethics. The Scripture teaches about responsibility. The Scripture teaches about integrity. And when you violate those truths, you hurt yourself. It may be a slow thing but the mechanism gets in place that’s going to bring destruction into your life.

One of our businessmen told me, this was probably 15-18 years ago, he had gone into a business deal with some other men and I’m not even going to tell you that the church has a hardline discipline issue here though I hope we don’t have to deal with it but, nevertheless, he went in on a business deal that involved a restaurant selling alcohol. I laugh because he’s doing fine financially, trust me. But he said, “Everything about it messed up. No matter what we did or how we did or how we changed it or how we massaged it, the thing would just lose money hand-over-fist.” He said, “Preacher, I’ve learned my lesson about selling alcohol.” I didn’t say that, he said that to me. And on and on and on you can go. What God is saying to you, “Seek me. Seek my face. Come humble before me. Look at the word of God. Lay out what my word says about my means or finding my will. I don’t want you to hurt yourselves.” Amen? I don’t want you to hurt yourselves.

Remember the story of Abraham? God called Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees and God said, “Abraham, you’re my chosen one. I’ve elected you to be the head of my people and I want you to leave all your friends and relatives and everything behind and I’m going to take you to a land. I’m not going to tell you what it is right now but I’m going to take you to a land and if you’ll obey me and you’ll honor me, I’m going to multiply your descendants like the stars in the heaven and the sand on the seashore.” But Abraham compromised. He didn’t honor the Lord and he took Lot and what happened to Lot? Lot pitched his tent towards Sodom and he loses everything, loses his family. Just because of not seeking and honoring the Lord in the decision. God says, “Don’t make those decisions without honoring me. Don’t be presumptuous. I want you to be protected.”

Now, look at James 4:16-17, he says, “But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.” When you intentionally seek life’s direction and decision for life and you’re not honoring the Lord, it is sin and it sets up a multiplication of events that’s going to bring ruin into your life.

Let me go to III. Not only don’t be presumptuous and not only do be protected but, thirdly, do practice seeking the Lord. Do practice seeking the Lord. It’s a beautiful thing to see people that perhaps out in the world they have a lot of esteem, they have a lot of respect, maybe a lot of power and authority but when it comes to their lives and their decisions, they’re as humble as little children and they go to their God and they yield before him and humble themselves. That’s a beautiful thing. Now, many people believe today that God’s will is the formula for misery. Young people here, you sit before me on this Sunday night and there’s a lot of people, perhaps some of you think, “Oh, if I do it God’s way that’s going to ruin my life.” No, God’s just saying, “I’m trying to protect you. I’m trying to protect you.” To some of you, the will of God is a chain that shackles you but it’s not a chain that shackles you, it’s a key that unlocks the door to joy and to life and to liberty. That’s exactly what it is. You see, when God says, “Thou shalt not,” what God is saying is, “I don’t want you to hurt yourself.” And when God says, “Thou shalt,” he’s saying, “Help yourself.” “Thou shalt not,” don’t hurt yourself, child. “I’ve set up spiritual laws and absolute truths and if you violate them in your life and in your decisions, you’re going to hurt yourself. “Thou shalt,” he says, “Well, just help yourself.

Now, four parts to seeking the Lord in a major decision. These are so simple. We’ve been over them before but I don’t want you to plead ignorance. When you go out there in the world and you start making decisions, 1. Clear it by the word of God. Clear it by the word of God. What saith the Scriptures? Is what you’re about to do, is what you’re planning to do biblically permissible and allowed? Now, there are so many things that the Scriptures are not very clear on and that’s when we turn to our biblical principles. Does it violate any principles? Maybe not a clear command violation but are there principles of the word of God that it might be violating? Psalm 1:1-3, “How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Nor stand in the path of sinners, Nor sit in the seat of scoffers!” That’s what you don’t do. You don’t walk, you don’t make your decisions as to where you’re going to walk by the counsel of the wicked. You don’t make your stand in life and, “This is what I’m about and this is what I’m purposing to do,” in the path of sinners. You certainly don’t sit in the seat of scoffers. By the way, there’s a digression to that but here’s what you do, Psalm 1:2, “But his delight is in the law of the LORD.” In other words, he has chosen by the new regenerate heart spirit, he has chosen that when I do something in life, I joy to find out what God’s will is. I joy to find out what pleases the Lord.

When we talked to some coaches when Anna Claire was deciding where she wanted to go to school, I told them several things but one of the things I told the coaches was, “Now look, I know you can’t perfectly control everything and we’re not asking that our daughter play on a basketball team in a mausoleum somewhere or some sort of separate from all reality,” but I did say this, “If your program becomes dominated by immoral people, particularly lesbianism or anything like that, I’m coming to get my daughter and you can have the scholarship.” Why did I say that? Because violating God’s truth for $130-40,000 scholarship is not worth it, furthermore, we’ve got some more in our back pocket and we’ll pull one out and go to a different one if we have to. I just can’t grasp that and I mean this and I’m weak in a lot of areas but this is not an area of weakness. I’m more fearful of dishonoring God than I am losing the scholarship. Do you know what that’s from? That’s from God having to chastise your pastor many times when I was presumptuous. I didn’t pause to say, “Lord, what does the word say?” This particular coach told us up front, “Well, I only recruit ladies, if you know what I mean.” I said, “I know what you mean and I appreciate that.”

Well, the Psalmist goes on to say, “His delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree,” notice the prosperity in this. “He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water.” When you plant a tree in this arid climate, a tree by an ever-flowing stream is the perfect place but there’s one problem with that, the streams especially during flood season, can erode the bank and the tree could be under-girded and fall over, it would be dead. But here’s a tree planted by the stream, not just planted, the text says “firmly planted.” It’s in the perfect spot to get water but substantial support for the roots and the soil around the stream. God said, “I’m going to put you in just the right spot.” Do you realize you cannot figure this stuff out. You’ve got to honor the Lord and you’ll find out after you honor the Lord, “And then the Lord put me in just the perfect spot. I couldn’t see it ahead of time, as a matter of fact, in my presumptions and in my intellect, I thought over here would have been the right path but I saw a biblical violation there so we went on the path that honored the Scriptures.” You’ll be like a tree firmly planted by the streams of water. Notice what it says, “Which yields its fruit in its season,” in other words, it does what God intends for a tree to do. “And its leaf does not wither; And in whatever he does, he prospers.”

Joshua 1:7-8, “Only be strong and very courageous; be careful to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may have success wherever you go.” Listen to that: wherever you go if you honor my word I’m giving you success. “This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.” Clear by the word of God. Go to God in prayer, open your Bible and say, “God, is there anything about what I’m about to do that dishonors your word, violates the clear teachings of the word of God? I don’t want to go against the spiritual laws you’ve set up by which men are prosperous and are blessed.”

Then, 2. Very obvious, clear it by prayer. Clear it by prayer. I want to be a little careful here because there’s a real balance in this. We have too many that are far too mystical about God’s will. They’ll go to the Lord in prayer and somebody will have to turn the air conditioner low and they’ll get a few goosebumps and they’ll think, “Oh, that must be God. I feel it. It just ran up on me like goosebumps.” No, somebody just turned the air conditioner down and you’re being foolish. That wasn’t God. Or they saw it in a dream or some other kind of outlandish thing. No, what you saw in a dream is because you ate too much pizza too late last night before you went to bed. No, but you go to the Lord in prayer and you say, “Oh God, show me if there’s something in this that’s not pleasing to you.”

Pam and I got a call approaching 30 years ago and it was the pastor of one of the largest churches in the state of Tennessee, perhaps the wealthiest church in the state of Tennessee. It had a lot of country music stars that were members there: Johnny Cash was a member at this church. This pastor had asked me would I consider to be his associate pastor. He was quite a bit older than I was and I knew God was stirring my heart about more of a pastoral role and I thought, “Well, you know, we might look into this,” and so we went up there and things went great and the pastor and I, we had already known each other a little bit and he just loved me and I loved him and it looked like we could go some places. Of course, that was before a lot of the reforms had taken place in my heart that have taken place since then, but it looked great. Then we met with the personnel committee. Have you ever met with a church personnel committee? That’s why we don’t have on. There were some sweet folks on that committee but there was a guy there that literally verbally tore me to pieces. I mean, he just got out his sword. What I had found out later was, I was coming up there to run the whole staff for this guy, kind of like what Brother Matt does for me, I was going to be over all the staff and he wanted me to crack the whip, get discipleship going, get things right, da, da, da, da, and when I went up the first time for the interview, that’s what he told them I would do and then the staff talked with me and they realized he’s not coming up here to take sides, he’s coming up here to take over. They thought they were threatened or they did feel threatened and so they got to this guy on the personnel committed and said, “He can’t come,” and got him turned against me. I mean, it was ugly. This guy just ate me up. Everything I said, he’d rebuke it and correct it and was demeaning and whatever.

But Pam and I had already been praying, “God, if this isn’t right, show us something. Close the door.” Well, we left Hendersonville, Tennessee and it was like God went – creak – slammed that door shut and so I’m still here today. That’s the way God does things. You kind of wanted me, some of you, and they really didn’t once they learned who I was and what I was. I’m convinced it was just, “Lord, close the door. Show me what you want.” Have you sought the Lord in prayer when you make a major decision?

Clear it by the word, clear it by prayer. 3. Clear it to through counsel of godly brothers and sisters. Clear it to through the counsel of godly brothers and sisters. You’ve got to be a little careful here. There are always those folks that you know they’re going to tell you just what you want to hear. That’s not what you want, you want somebody mature enough in the Lord that you know if they saw something that they didn’t think was right, they would tell you. Now, they can’t tell you absolutely but they can throw out, “Well, have you thought about this? This concerns me some. You might want to think about this area.” I was counseling a brother on the phone this afternoon that’s got a challenging thing in his church tonight and he was throwing out some things and I was trying to tell him and I said, “Brother, I can’t tell you biblically what’s right or wrong. The Bible doesn’t speak of that but here’s kind of what I think.” I was trying to give him some counsel on that. The Bible says in Proverbs 1:5, “ A wise man will hear and increase in learning, And a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel.” Proverbs 12:15, “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, But a wise man is he who listens to counsel.” So, ask 3-4-5 people that you think walk with the Lord and seek their counsel, “What do you think about this?”

Let’s go on to the fourth thing and I’m done. Discerning God’s will, humbling ourselves to seek the Lord about life decisions: clear it through God-ordained authority. Clear it through God-ordained authority. This makes life so simple. It just makes life so simple. Romans 13:2 says, “Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God.” Whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God. Look, there’s a lot of things that your God-ordained authority just doesn’t have any business telling you about. You buy a red dress or a blue dress, you don’t have to ask all your authorities in Christ about that all the time or there are a lot of things like that that don’t matter but especially if it’s anything to do with ministry, I’d say of any major decision, what can it hurt by going to a leader in the church, someone that’s over you and just saying, “Brother, pray with me about this and give me any counsel you see on this.” We have a number of businessmen in our church today that have been in business a long time and are very successful who came to me when they first started out and it’s really kind of funny thinking about it now but some of them came to me asking for advice if I knew how they could borrow the money to start their companies. Me? I don’t know anything about companies. I know a little bit about borrowing money but not to build a company. But that’s just where they were. That wasn’t anything demeaning about it, that’s just where they were and they wanted to start with the prayer and the counsel of their pastor.

Now, I have time to meet with everybody that might have a need but I’m saying the Spirit in your heart ought to be, “God, I want to seek the blessing of my God-ordained authorities.” I can promise you this and I think I’ve got a 34 year track record: if it’s anything at all that I don’t have business counseling you on, I’m going to say, “Brother, that ain’t my field. I don’t know anything about that. But there is a Brother in the church who may have experience in that area.” We’re talking about biblical authority primarily when it’s got to do with spiritual issues in your life and spiritual decisions you may be making. The Bible makes that very clear. Let me ask you something, young people, listen to me: how in the world do you think God will bless your life if you willfully dishonor your parents in the decisions you make? It’s impossible. It’s not only unlikely, it’s impossible. Wives, why would you ever think that God could bless major decisions if you don’t honor your husband’s leadership in trying to make those decisions? Husbands, why would you think God could honor your life if you willfully dishonor your pastor’s guidance in something that he would have authority over or responsibility in guiding you in? And on and on we could go.

Seek the Lord. I remember very clearly when Pam and I were courting and I was trying to do these things and I went to my pastor, I went to an associate pastor and said, “You know, I need your guidance and I need your wisdom.” It’s kind of funny because as I think back on that, I dated a girl before that in another town whom the pastor said, “You don’t need to marry her.” Can you believe a pastor would tell you that? I don’t think I’ve ever – well, I might have done that a few times but, I mean, he just looked me eyeball-to- eyeball and this is a fine girl, sweet girl, loved the Lord but he said, “She’s not a pastor’s wife.” Do you know what? She wasn’t a pastor’s wife, he was right. She got her another kind of husband and I went and got me another kind of wife. But when I talked to some men of God who were over me in the Lord when I was courting Pam, they said, “We just think that’s God’s will. We just really think you’re on the right path there.” Of course, they had known Pam and saw the Lord working in her life. It was such a tremendous blessing. I went to my father who had almost nothing to do in my life but you know what, he’s the only father I had and God said to honor your parents. I asked my Dad, “Will you give me your blessing to seek to marry Pam?” and he did as much as he knew about. Look, because the word of God teaches it and you can explain a lot of things around that and try to go around all those things, look: God knows what you need. Clear it through God-ordained authority.

Let me close with this little story. Many years ago in the horse-and-buggy days, a man and his wife were driving along a very narrow and a very dangerous stretch of road. The woman became extremely nervous and anxious and in her fright, she grabbed one of the reins. As calmly as possible, the husband responded by offering her the other strap also. “Oh no,” she cried, “I don’t want both of them. I could never manage that animal alone.” “Well,” he said very gently, “you must make the choice, it’s either you or me. We can’t both drive the same horse.” The frightened soul quickly surrendered full control of the carriage to her husband and everything was once again in good hands and they journeyed safely onward. Now, I’m talking about wives honoring their husbands specifically tonight but I’m talking about in God’s leadership of your life, don’t you grab a hold presumptuously and try to guide this thing. You leave it to God. You yield to him. You be humble in making life’s decisions because God is saying, “I want you to be protected. I don’t want you to hurt yourself. I want you to be blessed and bring me great glory in your life.”

No doubt in my mind, had I not been taught these principles 30+ years ago, I would not be standing here as the pastor today. I know that. There were just key things and key decisions that when I sought God-ordained authority and when I sought the word of God and I sought godly counsel, he guided me in some ways that I wasn’t going to go in and it’s ended up being blessed. What did God promise to the Psalmist? Everything he does will prosper.

Let’s stand together in prayer.