Making Your Paths Straight

“MAKING YOUR PATHS STRAIGHT”

“Straightening up your life”

Proverbs 3:5-6

Fr. Christopher M. Nerreau

Introduction: (Read passage)

Opening Remarks:

• Recently I was reminded of an essay written by George Orwell. In it he recalls eating a peanut butter and jam sandwich out on his deck. A fly landed on the sandwich and began sucking on the jam. At that moment George cut the fly in half, but the fly kept on eating the jam and as Orwell put it – “a tiny stream of jam trickled out of his severed esophagus.” Only when it attempted to fly away did it realize the gravity of the situation. Many people have much in common with this fly. Severed from their souls, but greedy and unaware, people continue to consume life’s sweetness. Only when it’s time to fly away will they gasp their dreadful condition.

• Today do you get the sense that your life out of control? Are you like the fly, attempting to eat the jam of this life and unaware of the gravity of your condition? Unaware that the paths of your life are crooked.

Proposition: God has provided a way for us to make our paths straight, to have lives that are Holy and set apart.

Interrogative sentence: Are you interested in making the crooked paths of your life straight today?

Sermon Preview: It is my goal in our sermon time today to show you how you can make the paths of your life straight. This is a process that includes three things:

1. Trusting God With All Our Hearts (v.5)

2. Leaning not on Our Own Understanding (v.5)

3. Acknowledging Him in all we do (v.6)

Transitional Sentence: Let me show you what I mean as we see…

I. TRUST IN GOD WITH ALL OUR HEARTS (v.5)

Explanation: The bible tells us that in order to make the paths of our life straight we first must trust in God with all our hearts. But what does it mean to trust? –

• We are called to trust God with our lives

• We are called to trust God with our loved ones

• TRUST - “assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something one in which confidence is placed.”

o We are called to “lean” on God, to put our full weight upon Him.

o We are called to believe in His promises:

 Not forsake us – THE BIBLE SAYS: “I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you.”

 THE BIBLE SAYS :“For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.”

• WITH HOLE HEART – The heart is representative of the entire being

o Our lives Our REASON All we do and all we are!

o Our finances Our Health OUR WHOLE HEARTS

o Our loved ones Our Futures OUR ETERNAL LIFE

Illustration: We have to trust in things everyday –

• We trust our chairs to hold us up

• We trust the tires on our car to stay inflated

• We trust airplanes to make it from point “a” to point “b”

• We trust the roofs on our house will not cave in

• You trust a broken sinner to preach this sermon…

In our passage today we are called to have this same assured reliance upon God that we have in so many other areas of our life. IF WE CAN PUT OUR TRUST IN A 14 YEAR OLD FAST FOOD COOK, CAN WE NOT TRUST IN GOD?

• What is really being said – WHERE GOD PUTS A PERIOD LET NO MAN PUT A QUESTION MARK!

Application: To trust in God with your whole heart means we must do an overhaul on the system we have in place now.

We trust our friends, our doctors, our accountant and ourselves. We have a system of trust that we have built, but it must be set aside to make room for God.

• Friends will violate your trust

• Family will violate your trust

• Clergy will violate your trust

• Unfortunately even your own spouse can violate your trust.

• But the promise of God is that even in difficult situations, even when it does not make sense and especially when it hurts – GOD IS TRUSTWORTHY.

• Today I wanted to begin by asking you – Do you trust God with your whole heart? What I mean is –

o When things are good do you trust Him?

o When things are bad do you trust Him?

o When things turn out differently than you thought they should do you trust Him?

o If you look at the sun rise and set daily, the tide coming in and out daily without fail. The night sky, the orbiting planets, the laws that govern the Earth (gravity) you find that they never fail. They illustrate the trustworthiness of God.