Getting Help Along the Way
The Path Series
October 24th, 2021
Scripture- Proverbs 15:22
I have a theory I want to see if you agree with me about-
I believe that…
One of the most difficult things in life is to know what you don’t know.
What do you think? Do you think that’s true?
I’ll give you a couple of examples of this from my own life.
I’ve told you before that the first time I ever showed up at a Christian bible study.
Tammie and I got saved and jumped right into the church culture that existed in the early 90’s.
You weren’t really saved unless you carried the 20 pound life application bible, complete with $70 bible cover stuffed with the last 10 church bulletins.
I remember my first bible study.
I felt very proud of myself walking into the meeting carrying the same kind of book that everybody else was carrying.
So when the pastor said, “Turn to 1 Corinthians,” it took me 5 minutes to find it. And then when I looked more carefully, I discovered that I wasn’t actually in 1 Corinthians, I was in 1 Chronicles. It took me another 10 minutes before someone saw me struggling and helped me find the right spot.
How was I to know that I could have solved all my frustration in 30 seconds by just turning to the table of contents at the front?
After a few years of being a Christian, God called me to the ministry. I’ve always been good at remembering what the bible says, just not exactly where it says it. This was before the internet really took off so if you wanted to find something in the bible, you had to spend forever looking for it.
I mentioned that to my pastor, and he showed me in his office all of the references that he had, including a book called Strong’s Concordance.
How could I have known that unless someone told me?
You’ve probably had a few of these yourself.
If you’re a parent, how could you have known that you knew nothing about parenting until the day your first child was born?
When Haley was born, I sat there holding her in the hospital room while the nurse was telling us how to take care of her when we got home. There was so much information and I’m sitting there thinking, “Wait a minute, they are actually going to let ME leave the hospital with this?”
Fortunately, we had parents, and a few older friends who helped us through those first few weeks.
If you’re in the military, on the day you reported to Boot Camp.
You realize very quickly you are not prepared, you know absolutely nothing, and if you have any doubt about that,
you have this large, very loud man telling you constantly you are a worthless excuse for a human being and it’s his job to teach you how to soldier.
In all of these cases, someone came along side to help us.
Over the last few weeks we learned about a very simple formula for getting from where we are to where we want to be.
We are learning that our Direction determines destination. That getting from point A to point B involves more than hopes and dreams—it involves a path. So far, we’ve learned that life is a series of mid-course corrections, that when we see danger, it wouldn’t be prudent to ignore it. We want to take refuge and avoid the danger.
- We’ve learned that one of the most common mistakes in determining which fork to take is trusting our hearts, because our hearts often lie to us.
And, today, I add to our learning about walking the path God has for us.
The lesson has to do with figuring out what you don’t know.
How do you do that? How do you discover what you don’t know that you don’t know so that you avoid the potholes and pitfalls and landmines you never saw coming?
Fortunately, Solomon, the author of Proverbs and the wisest man who ever lived, gave us some help with this as well. In Prov. 15:22, he wrote:
Prov. 15:22
Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.
Prayer
So, how can you know what you don’t know?
You seek advice from “advisers.” Specifically, you seek the right advice from the right advisers.
But what keeps us from doing what the bible is telling us is the right thing to do?
Why we don’t seek advice:
1. We think we already know what we need to know. (Ignorance)
2. It feels better to have people think we know where we’re going than to let them know we don’t have a clue. (Pride)
3. It’s too much work to figure out how to get advice. (Laziness) – The Bible calls this “slothfulness,” which is a word we don’t use very much, but it’s very descriptive.
So sometimes we make plans without counsel, and those often fail or at least wind up being less effective than they could have been.
At other times we get counsel, but we get inferior counsel because we take it from the wrong people.
Why we don’t seek advice from wise counselors?:
1. It’s easier to get advice from our friends.
2. It’s easier to follow the herd.
3. It’s easier to copy what our parents did.
So, how do we get good advice along our paths?
What’s the secret to good counsel, and where do you find it?
Solomon says, Proverbs 1:5
…let the wise listen and add to their learning,
and let the discerning get guidance (Proverbs 1:5).
Wise people listen to counsel and get wiser. Discerning people listen to guidance and get further along their path.
So What are The Secrets to Getting Good Counsel:
1. Knowing that you will always need good counsel.
No one ever gets to the place where he/she no longer needs wise counsel.
I was listening to a comedian the other day who said he was playing in a small lounge on the east coast a few years ago when President and Mrs. Bush came in. Mrs. Bush asked the President what kind of sandwich he wanted to order, and W said, “I don’t know.”
The comedian said, “At that point, I became a presidential advisor.” He suggested the president order the pastrami on rye, hold the mayo.
Even presidents need advisors. The first secret to getting good counsel is to be open to it. Wise people listen and add to their learning.
2. Asking more than one person’s advice.
(Proverbs 11:14). For lack of guidance a nation falls,
but many advisers make victory sure
Notice the word Solomon inserts before advisors in this Proverb? “Many.” Not one, “many.”
And most important decisions of our lives seem to have a sense of urgency to them. They’re so important they dominate our thinking. They’re with us all the time, so we want to make those decisions as quickly as possible.
But Read Solomon’s advice: Many advisers make victory sure (Proverbs 11:14).
When I was trying to figure out if coming here was the right move for me, I sought the counsel of many different people- some believers, some not believers, and some who I knew would say I was crazy.
But do you want to hear the crazy truth of the matter- all of them said that they thought this was a good move for me.
“Many advisers make victory sure.” When the decision is important, ask more than one person for advice.
3. Not letting pride keep you from admitting what you don’t know.
(Proverbs 13:10) Pride only breeds quarrels,
but wisdom is found in those who take advice.
Pride may be the number one enemy of finding, choosing, and staying on God’s Path for you. Successful people are open to the fact that they don’t know everything they need to know and are quick to go to people who do.
Solomon describes this in terms of The Path in Proverbs 12:15 when he says:
Proverbs 12:15 The way of a fool seems right to him, but a wise man listens to advice.
See what he’s saying? “The way” of a fool. Another way to say that would be, “The Path” of a fool seems right to him.
So a friend comes and says, “I’m worried about the direction you’re headed.”
And the fool says, “You don’t need to worry about me.”
What does the wise man say when a friend says, “I’m worried about you?”
He says, “Really? I’m so grateful you care. Tell me what you’re seeing.”
A dad comes to his son and says, “I’m worried about some of the habits you’re developing.”
- The foolish son says, “Leave me, alone, Dad.”
- The wise son says, “Tell me what you’re seeing.”
A mom comes to her daughter and says, “Honey, I think your behavior could get you into trouble someday.”
- The foolish daughter says, “Mom, you are so old-fashioned.”
- The wise daughter says, “Tell me what you’re seeing.”
A supervisor comes to an employee and says, “I know this is none of my business, but can I give you some advice?”
- The foolish employee says, “If it’s none of your business, then mind your own business.”
- The wise employee says, “I need all the advice and counsel I can get.”
The Bible has an excellent illustration on this point.
It’s the story of a young king named Rehoboam. His story is found in 2 Chronicles 10. Rehoboam was the son of King Solomon, and was the person chosen to succeed him.
Rehoboam has just become king, and the people feel like they have been worked unduly hard by his predecessor. Taxes were high, forced labor was high, the country and particularly the elite class lived better than anyone in the known world at that time, but the regular folk were worn out providing them with such an opulent lifestyle.
So before they allow Rehoboam to be crowned as king, they ask him to lighten up on his demands for their labor.
In other words, can you send some of that richness down our way?
Let’s pick the story up at v. 5.
5 Rehoboam answered, "Come back to me in three days." So the people went away.
6 Then King Rehoboam consulted the elders who had served his father Solomon during his lifetime. "How would you advise me to answer these people?" he asked.
7 They replied, "If you will be kind to these people and please them and give them a favorable answer, they will always be your servants."
8 But Rehoboam rejected the advice the elders gave him and consulted the young men who had grown up with him and were serving him. 9 He asked them, "What is your advice? How should we answer these people who say to me, 'Lighten the yoke your father put on us'?"
10 The young men who had grown up with him replied, "Tell the people who have said to you, 'Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but make our yoke lighter'-tell them, 'My little finger is thicker than my father's waist. 11 My father laid on you a heavy yoke; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions.' "
Big mistake. Rehoboam split the united Kingdom, and eventually lead to his people’s destruction over the next few hundred years.
Let’s review-
After hearing the people’s request, Rehoboam made three very smart decisions.
He asked for time to decide what to do. He was wise enough to know that this was not a time for a rushed decision.
The second thing he did was seek advice in making the decision. He chose to listen before he decided.
And the third thing he did was he listened to many counselors, not just one, and not even just one group.
What Rehoboam wasn’t interested in, though, was actual advice. What he wanted was confirmation of his own conviction. So the reason he went two to groups for advice was that the first group didn’t tell him what he wanted to hear.
Nevermind that the elders of the people were older and wiser. Nevermind that they had been there to help make his father the wisest and richest king of his day. Nevermind that they had actually gone where Rehoboam wanted to go.
He wanted a yes man- someone just to agree with him and make him feel good about his choices.
This is the lesson of Rehoboam’s entire life, which the bible records for us as a cautionary tale.
That lesson brings us to the 4th point-
4. Taking counsel from those who have been where you want to go.
Rehoboam wanted to walk on a certain path toward his kingdom being prosperous and famous like his father. However, he rejected the counsel of those men who had helped get his father to where he was- men who had walked the path he desired to walk, but refused to follow their advice on how to get there.
Your life and mine are on paths. Paths that either lead us toward where we want to go or away from where we want to go.
The secret to getting good counsel is first knowing that you need it, then seeking it from multiple reliable sources, and truly listening to those sources to learn what you didn’t even know you didn’t know, and most importantly, taking counsel from the right people. From people we respect, who have arrived where we want to go with their character and reputations intact.
There is a real difference between the right road and the easy road. The easy road is the ignorant road. It doesn’t seek counsel. Or ignores the counsel it gets. Or seeks counsel only from those who are easy to get to.
The wise man and wise woman seek counsel from wise people, listen to it, heed it, and walk a path that leads to where they want to go.
Imagine for a minute what your life would be like if you developed the habit, not of being impulsive in your decision-making, and not of being indecisive either, but of consulting older, wiser, more successful people than you?
Parents, imagine what we could learn, and what heartaches we could save our children if we counseled with successful seasoned parents?
Students, imagine how much better you will enter the work world if you link up from time to time with someone older, someone you admire and ask them their advice on things like how to study, how to approach homework, which classes to take, and what college or graduate school to attend?
Employees, imagine the steps you could save if you sought advice from people of character and success in your field and asked for guidance once in a while.
It wouldn’t be that hard, would it?
Early in my Christian walk, I was invited to met with a group of men for breakfast once a week. I was the odd ball out- high school dropout, just got out of active army, and working in an entry level job in a factory.
These were all seasoned men- most were successful businessmen, had been Christians most of their lives, and I felt blessed to be invited to simply sit and listen and grow.
I learned a lot about living life, integrity, consistency, and how to be a Godly man from just sitting there on Tuesday mornings listening to how these men conducted themselves, and how they sought out the counsel of other men in the group about decisions they had to make.
Sometimes someone would bring an issue to the group, and there would be silence for an extended period of time while people sipped their coffee and thought it over. There was no quickness to speak, but everyone wanted to give good advice.
I always thought asking for help, or being open with your thoughts or emotions was a sign of weakness, but these men showed me differently.
Some of us wonder why our plans fail so often. Honestly, some of our plans have failed because we sabotaged them. But many of our plans failed because they weren’t the best plans. God’s word says,
Plans fail for lack of counsel,
but with many advisers they succeed (Proverbs 15:22).
What will you do with this advice today?
In closing, My Counsel for you:
1. Come back next week. (We’re growing in wisdom every week, but we’re not through yet. Solomon has just a few more lessons to teach us. Come back next week.)
2. Finish the book of Proverbs. If you’ve been reading regularly since we began the series, you should be close to finished now, but even if you’re not, make a commitment today to finish the book in the next three weeks.
3. Ask God to show you the counselors He has for you.
4. Seek advice this week from someone who is where you want to be.
I think it’s very interesting that while Jesus was on the earth, the phrase he used more often than any other was “Follow me.” That’s a directional statement, isn’t it? “Follow me.” Walk behind me. Walk the path I’m walking. “Come to me,” he says, “all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. For the yoke I will place upon you on the road we will walk together is easy, and the burden I will give you will seem light. For I am gentle and humble of heart, and as you follow me, you will find rest for your souls.”
Closure
