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Christ Community Chapel is a church in Hudson, OH, that invites people to reimagine life because of Jesus. Learn more about us at ccchapel.com.
Well, good morning and
welcome to the weekend gathering of Christ
Community Chapel. My name is Zach,
I'm one of the pastors here, and I'm
so glad we get to be part of your weekend.
We are kickstarting this weekend
our summer sermon series
that will take us all the way
through the summer will be going
through the book of Proverbs.
We're calling it More Wisdom, More Life.
Let me frame it out to you this way.
I've grew up in church.
I've been going to church my entire life.
I don't I don't know
if you've had this experience,
I certainly have weekends
where I've come to church
and the music is good
and the sermon is true.
I mean, everything is fine.
But I get in the car and I'm headed home
and I'm thinking, so what?
In other words, I'm thinking,
how did what I heard this Sunday morning,
how is it going to shape or affect
or change how I live on Monday morning?
So sometimes things can be true,
in a theological sense, without
necessarily feeling super practical
in like a Monday morning sense.
If you have ever felt that way,
you're going to love this sermon series.
This is a so what kind of sermon series,
or the Book of Proverbs contains?
357 one liners,
each of them
designed to share the wisdom of God
with us for our lives in a Monday morning
kind of way.
Now, listen, our theme as a church
for 2026 is More Life.
We take that from John chapter ten, verse
ten, where Jesus said, I've come
so that you might have life and life
more abundantly, life and more life.
And when he said that,
he didn't just mean in the eternal sense
or the theological sense,
he meant in the Monday morning
kind of sense you're going to see this
summer, we're going to have proverbs
about work, about friendship,
about relationships,
about anger, about alcohol,
about what we watch and what we read.
God is going to speak wisdom
into every nook and cranny of our lives.
We want more life in every area.
We're hoping and praying for incredible
things in your life and in mine.
This summer,
this sermon is going to kind of kickstart
that series by looking at
what really is the thesis statement
of the book of Proverbs in Proverbs
chapter three, verses five, six and seven.
So if you have a Bible,
you can take it out
and open it to Proverbs three.
Of course,
it'll be on the screen behind me.
Or if you want to, there's a Bible
in the back of the pew in front of you,
or in the back of the room in East Hall.
Same one I use.
So Proverbs three is on page 499.
I'm going to read it to you,
and then share an outline with you
so that we can dig in. Here's
what it says.
Proverbs three five through seven
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.
Three points
I want to use to guide our time together.
Reflect on these verses very soon.
I only go like this.
I want to show you the life
God one's for you.
The biggest threat to that life
and the only path to victory.
All right, let's start with the first one.
The life God ones for you.
The writer says in verse six.
In all your ways acknowledge God,
and he will make your paths straight.
God wants for us paths that are straight.
What does that mean?
Well, when this was written,
they were a walking culture.
You walked everywhere that you went.
And if you've ever done much walking,
you know the fastest
and easiest route is a straight line.
That's the best way to get from point
A to point B.
The more you curve, the longer
it takes, the more turns,
the greater the likelihood you get lost.
When the writer says
that God will make our paths straight,
what he's saying is that God wants there
to be the simplest and shortest path
between you and the life
he wants you to live.
He doesn't want you to curve.
He doesn't want you to turn.
He doesn't want you to get lost
or meander.
He wants you to have a straight path
from where you currently are to the life
God has for you.
And that life, by the way, is a good one.
Now, I'll just say this
some people get really uncomfortable
when we talk about God
wanting good things for us.
It just doesn't fit
our preconceived notion of God.
It feels wrong to think
that God wants good things for us.
Most of us picture God as though
he's a big, angry old guy in the sky
with a beard, shaking his fist at us
and telling us to do better.
Try harder.
But that is not the way God is described
or what he's after in Proverbs three.
In fact,
let me read to you from multiple places
that I didn't give this to the guys on the
in the production team,
so it won't be on the screen.
That's my fault, not theirs.
But here's what it says now Proverbs
three verse two for length of days
and years of life and peace,
they will add to you.
God wants you to live longer.
Verse four.
So you will find favor and good success
in the sight of God and man.
God wants you to be successful.
Verse eight it will be healing to
your flesh and refreshment to your bones.
God wants you to be rejuvenated.
Verse ten
then your barns will be filled with plenty
and your vats will be bursting with wine.
God wants you to be prosperous.
God wants you to live longer, be
successful, be rejuvenated, be prosperous.
And again, I know something like you.
I don't think you're supposed to say
that I agree, that's why I didn't.
I just read it from the Bible.
You see what I mean?
There it is in black and white.
This is who God wants us to be,
is what God wants us to have.
These are the lives God wants us to live.
Listen, some of us are going to have
to realize that in order to encounter
the real God,
we have to lay down the baggage
of our religious upbringing
and the religious people we know.
And the God they made us think was real.
You have to do God
the courtesy of letting him
speak for himself.
And when you do, this is what you'll find.
Now I know you might say, well, hold
on, Zak, are you saying that
God wants us to be rich
because it says your barns will be full?
And look, maybe.
Maybe, but not necessarily.
Let me put it to you this way.
That's of course, metaphorical language.
I don't have any barns in my backyard.
Actually, my HOA doesn't allow it.
No barns, no sheds.
So. So for me,
this has to be metaphorical, right?
I don't have a barn to fill
with stuff, but.
But I don't think it's riches
that he's talking about.
And I don't mean that God doesn't
have that for any of us.
I just mean
that's not what he's talking about.
What he's not talking about is not riches.
But listen, richness.
But here's what I mean.
Some of you grew up in wealthy families.
You know what it is to grow up in a family
where the bank account is full,
but to sit at the dinner table
and no one talks to each other,
you barns aren't full then, right?
See, as a family, your barns are full.
Probably when you love each other,
when you enjoy each other,
when you forgive each other.
A career who that is successful
can lead to money,
where it can lead to meaning
and purpose and impact.
We're all different.
We live different lives.
We're. We're after different things.
God isn't promising us riches.
He's promising us richness.
He wants richness for us
in every area of our lives.
But here's the other thing.
And this is maybe even cooler.
He doesn't just want riches
for richness for us.
He wants the richness
to come from relationship with him.
The writer says, verse five,
trust in the Lord with all your heart.
Verse six, in all your ways
acknowledge him.
What? What's being pictured
here is a relationship with God
that is real and vibrant.
Minute by minute, hour
by hour, day by day.
This is a God who's saying, walk with me,
talk with me
and I will share my wisdom with you.
And it will lead to the richness
of longer, fuller
life, of greater success,
of prosperity, of rejuvenation.
Walk with me.
Talk with me.
I want richness for you.
Is this who you thought God was?
Well, there's it is who he is.
But of course, that begs
the question, doesn't it?
If God wants richness for you and for me
in every area of our lives,
if God wants richness for everyone
and in every area of their life, here's
the question
why don't more of us have it?
It's a fair question, right?
If God who creates universes,
if God who is not limited in power,
if he wants richness for us,
then then why don't you have it?
And why don't I have it?
That's a fair question.
An honest question.
And it's also my second point,
not just the life guard
once for us,
but the biggest threat to that life.
I wonder what you think the biggest threat
to you,
enjoying
the richness that God has for you is
what the writer says is the biggest threat
to me,
enjoying the richness
that God wants for me is me.
Look at what he says in verse five.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean
not on your own understanding.
Verse seven be not wise in your own eyes.
What the writer is saying
is that God does want richness for us,
but he wants richness
through relationship.
But the reason you and I don't have
that is because if we're honest,
we're not usually looking for relationship
with God.
We want to listen to ourselves.
We want to do things our own way.
So we turn our back on God and we walk
and we talk with ourselves.
Is it not true
that the one common denominator
in the greatest mistakes
of your life, and of mine,
is us?
Is it not true that the one constant
in the difficult
chapters of life is us?
Not now?
Listen, I don't mean that you haven't
been victimized
by the words and actions of other people
you have, and so have I.
Our stories are shaped
not just by the things we do,
but by the things that are done to us.
But are we humble enough,
vulnerable enough to say,
there's always a piece of the pie
that belongs to us?
Let me give it to you in an analogy.
We have to Thursday night services.
You should have come.
You would be on a hike right now
or something if you had come.
Thursday night. Same service.
You come. It's a free dinner.
Check it out.
Plus, we need your seat in this room,
so seriously, come check it out on a
Thursday night.
But, I was preaching
obviously this weekend, Thursday night.
And I had a meeting before the
the 630 service, and I was late.
I was, like, 5 to 7 minutes late.
Have you ever noticed that when you're
late, you catch every traffic light?
Have you noticed this light
like you catch every light?
There's always a train, right?
There's always a car
broken down in the road,
like when I can least afford it.
And all those things happen to me.
I'm driving here.
Traffic in Hudson is is the worst.
At five, 530, there's a train.
There's a car broken down.
I catch every light.
So I'm walking from my car into my office
and I'm practicing my speech like,
oh man, so sorry.
Caught every light train, you know?
And it hits me about halfway
through the parking lot that that's true.
But I also left late.
Here's the thing.
If I hadn't left late,
I would have hit traffic lights.
I just wouldn't have noticed
because I would have factored that in.
You know what I mean?
Like like I only noticed the lights
because I left late.
It was easy to practice
a speech blaming the traffic lights.
But but if I hadn't left late,
they wouldn't have been a problem.
Here's what I'm saying.
I'm not telling you
that your story or mine
doesn't have a few traffic lights in it.
A few trains, a few broken down
cars on the side of the road, things
that weren't our fault.
But is it not also true
that we leave late?
A lot?
So the writer of Proverbs is saying
is the reason you and I don't enjoy
the richness of life that God has for us
is that we're doing life our own way.
And when you do life your own way, you get
the richness that you can give yourself.
That's it.
Let me give you another analogy.
I. I've told some of you in adulthood
I have tried to pick up golf.
I didn't grow up playing golf.
I wouldn't call myself a golfer.
In fact, the other day
I was at a golf course with a friend
who were driving
from one hole to the next.
There's a sign
that says, golfers only pass this point.
And I said to him,
do you think I should get out of the cart?
Right.
Because I didn't grow up playing golf.
I don't know much about it.
So I've taken some lessons.
And, you know,
when you go to see, a golf pro,
he knows everything about the swing,
and he knows how to put it.
And just, like,
just the right simple words.
So I go see a golf coach and he's like,
listen, man, just make a big turn
and swing out to the right, you know,
big turn, swing out to the right.
And I just start crushing the ball.
I mean, like people are not lining up
to watch me, but in my mind they are,
you know, it's like, who's that guy, man?
You know, he he I don't know who he is,
but he's quitting his job soon.
He's going to go pro,
you know, I'm just crushing it
and crushing it and doing great.
And I feel great about myself.
But here's the problem.
When I go to the golf course,
he doesn't come with me.
So on the first tee box, I'm
staring at the ball
and I'm thinking, okay, no big deal,
make a big turn right out to the right.
And that's great, except for
a little voice in my head goes, oh yeah.
Also, you got to tuck your elbow,
you know?
And on TV they sway a little bit.
So you should probably get
some of that going.
And before I know it,
before I hit the ball of 27 swing thoughts
in my head, most of which don't even agree
with each other.
Right?
I'm a mess and I hit the ball and it looks
nothing like it did at the lesson.
Because you see, when I'm at the lesson,
I've got the still simple voice
of a golf coach in my ear.
When I'm at the golf course,
I've got the chaos of my own mind.
Here's what the writer saying.
As if you and I were honest.
The reason why our lives are lacking
the richness that God has for us
is because of the swing thoughts
we bring in our own minds.
This is how relationships should work.
This is how I should handle money.
This is how I should go after my career.
It's our own voice.
It's our own wisdom.
It's our own chaos.
And all we have
is the richness we can win for ourselves.
You see, here's
what the writer is telling us.
God has wisdom for us
in every area of our lives.
He wants to bring richness
in every area of our lives.
But are you ready for this?
We will never get it
until we fire
ourselves as our swing coach.
You and I
will never get the richness
that God has for us
until we turn off the volume
of our own leadership.
Are you ready for that?
So the writer says, the first step is to
is to become dissatisfied
with the chaos of your own mind.
But, you know, it's
easier said than done, isn't it?
You find yourself thinking,
what would it take?
I mean, what would it take
for me to really, truly say,
I don't know what I'm doing
and to trust God?
How could I ever actually do that?
And that's my third point.
Here's the only path to victory.
You know, most of the world's religions,
at least the monotheistic ones,
they all tell us we should trust God.
And when you say, but, but why?
Why should I trust God?
They will say, back to you,
because He's God.
He deserves it and you owe it to him.
And I guess that's true.
I mean, if there is a God,
he he's probably worthy of our trust.
The problem is, is that
that's not how trust works.
You can't command trust.
You have to win it.
Do you know what I mean?
You can't say to me,
trust me. And I say, okay,
this is not.
That's just not how it works.
You've got to prove it to me.
You've got to win my trust.
Did you know that Christianity
is the only religion
where God understands that?
Where he doesn't just command trust,
he wins it.
Do you know how he wins it?
He wins it through the person
and work of Jesus Christ.
Jesus is God winning our trust?
How does he do it? Well, in two ways.
The first way is that Jesus lives
a life of absolute trust in the father.
He has no chaos in his mind.
He does what the father wants him to do.
He trusts God in every area of his life,
even the night Jesus is arrested,
the night he's going to be led eventually
to the cross to be brutally murdered.
This is what he prays in
Matthew chapter 26.
He says this, and going a little farther,
he fell on his face and prayed,
saying, My Father, if it be possible,
let this cup pass from me.
Listen nevertheless, not as I will,
but as you will.
In other words, I trust you know Jesus
dying words on the cross where father,
into your hands I commit my spirit,
I trust you, and he dies.
And in that moment
he validates all of our fears,
which is if we didn't listen to ourselves,
and if we listened to God,
we would end up naked, humiliated, beaten,
dead, killed because we are so convinced
that God would ruin us.
And it makes sense to think
that for about 72 hours.
And when Jesus
raises from the dead,
he says to us, see, see,
you can trust God even when it seems like
he's going to kill you,
even when his wisdom seems
to be taking you in the opposite direction
of everything you want.
He always has more for you.
But the second way is that Jesus tells us
he didn't just come to be an example of
what it looks like to trust God, his life,
and his death and his resurrection.
Were God working
to forgive us of our sins,
to reconcile us in a relationship
with Jesus, lived
a righteous life
which could be credited to us.
He died sacrificially under the anger
and wrath and judgment of God
poured out to him on him,
exhausted on him, so that if he died,
he would say, it is finished.
And he rose from the dead
and ascended into heaven and said to us,
if you will trust me,
my life and my death and my resurrection,
to speak on your behalf,
you'll be forgiven and included
in the kingdom that God is building.
Chris, the Apostle Paul says,
If God can be trusted
with our souls,
what can he not be trusted with?
Romans eight verse 32 Paul says this
he who did not spare his own son,
but gave him up for us all, how will he
not also with him
graciously give us all things?
In other words, if we can trust him
to do that, what can't we trust him to do?
Friends, God
is going to change someone's life
this summer.
Some families life this summer.
Barns are going to be filled.
Bones are going to be rejuvenated,
lives are going to be lengthened.
God is going to do incredible things.
Why not in your family?
If you and I will simply fire ourselves
and because of Jesus,
begin to walk and talk with a God
who wants to share his wisdom with us,
why not? You?
Why not your family?
God wants more life for you
this summer.
Let me pray for you.
Father God, thank you so much
for the book of Proverbs.
You know you don't owe it to us
to share your wisdom with us.
What an act of grace that you created
life.
Share with us how it works best.
But God, it is
not easy to quiet the chaos of our minds.
It is not easy to lay down control
even to you.
So we ask the through the power and person
and presence of Your Holy Spirit,
you would help us
to see the beauty of Jesus Christ.
You would win our trust for the
first time, or for the thousandth time,
in order that we might turn from ourselves
and begin to walk and talk with you.
Change our lives this summer for
your glory and for our joy in Jesus name.
We pray. Amen.