Düsseldorf IMC²International Missionary City ChurchSelected Articles

We're going to continue to look at Proverbs and at the subject of wisdom, and each week we've said that wisdom is basically the ability to make wise choices, right choices.

You make or break your life on the basis of your choices. Is this the right person to hire? Is this the right career for you? Is this the right amount of freedom to give to your child at this age? Is this the right person to confide in? Is this the right person to give this responsibility to? Is this the right person to marry? Was it right not to marry that person?

And every one of those situations, the options in front of you are many, and most all of them are moral, most all of them are legal, most all of them are allowable, but most of them aren't wise. So we need guidance.

In the Hebrew scriptures, there's a word "guidance" that comes up quite a bit, especially in the book of Proverbs. In fact, it shows up in the first verse at the top. And whenever you see the word guidance, most all the time in the Hebrew Bible, it comes from a word for rope, because the ropes were the method of navigation for sailors in those days.

You use ropes to lower the sails when the wind was in your favor, or to move the sails when the wind changed, or to raise the sails and tie them up when the storm came up, otherwise you would be blown totally off course. So ropes were ways of navigating.

Now, the question is, how do you get God's guidance? How do you get God's navigation so that when you have all these choices, you know the right course to take?

According to this list of Proverbs, there's two ways in which God does guidance. He guides paradoxically, and he guides non-obviously.

Take a look at the second last proverb in the list. It's something that probably is not going to raise any eyebrows.

And it's saying if instead of just letting life happen, if you act, if you plan ahead, if you're strategic, your life will go better. Making choices, making decisions, acting makes a difference. Okay, fine. But look at the verse just above it.

Lot casting is very much like flipping a coin, or drawing a straw. It was just a way you know who kicks off first. But look what it's saying: every little detail, every coin toss comes down exactly the way God planned. Even the smallest things are fixed by God's plan.

Now, we do not know as human beings how to hold those together. Human categories of thought cannot hold those two things together. We feel like either our choices matter and they're significant and they have consequences, and that means our destiny is not fixed, history is open. Or we believe everything is fixed, and therefore who cares how you live? It doesn't really matter what you do.

But not in the Bible. In the Bible we're told, and you can see it, that we are absolutely free and we're absolutely determined at the same time. There's no better place, I think, in the Bible that puts the principle in a nutshell than right here.

Your plans are yours. Your choices are yours. You are responsible for them. No one's forcing you. God's not forcing you in any direction on that. It's yours. If you do something stupid, if you do something wicked, if you do something selfish, if you do something cruel, there's going to be bad consequences, and people are going to hold you accountable, and they should. And God will hold you accountable, and he should.

But what actually happens as a result of those plans, what actually happens in history, whether it's words in verse 1 or actual deeds in verse 9, those are absolutely controlled and totally fixed and set by God. Nothing happens that's not according to his plan.

Now let's go to literature just to show that human beings really basically say, look, either things are basically set or things basically are free and open.

So let's take the more fatalistic approach, the famous legend of Oedipus. When he's born, the Delphic Oracle says he will kill his father and marry his mother. That's his fate. And he grows up and he hears the prophecy, and he does everything he can to avoid it. But in the end, he kills his father and marries his mother.

In other words, his choices have no connection to his destiny. His destiny is fixed in spite of his choices. There's no connection between them at all. He can choose and do everything he wants. It doesn't matter.

Now let's take another famous figure in literature, Marty McFly. And at the end of the Back to the Future trilogy of movies, Doc Brown explains the message of that profound set of movies, which I love. I watch it any day it's on, any time. And what does he say?

Now, it may be true that intellectually it's almost impossible to hold together this biblical concept, that we're absolutely free and absolutely determined. We either believe we're determined or we believe we're free, but if you believe either of those, you're cooked. It's impossible to live a decent life that way.

If you believe everything is fixed no matter what you do, that there's no connection between your choices and the destiny, you're going to be totally passive. You're going to be totally bored. You're going to be totally cynical, totally hard, totally indifferent. Who cares?

But if, as U.S. popular culture believes, you believe there's a total connection, that your destiny is completely set by your choices — if you really believe that and you thought about it, you wouldn't get up in the morning. If you believe that and you're happy, and you say, that's wonderful, you're not thinking.

When I was 22, 23, I did everything I possibly could, like Oedipus, everything I possibly could, to get married to a woman who, if I had gotten married to her, would have been the wrong woman. And as I look back at my 22-year-old self, I now think that probably about two-thirds of the things I wanted were wrong, were bad things. If I'd gotten them, they'd been very bad. Two-thirds.

Now, here's the thing that scares me. What's my percentage now? I think it's better. I hope it's a lot better. I can think of my 30s, and it might have been half. It might have been maybe half the things I really wanted would have been okay for me, and the other half would have been bad for me. But you know what? When you're in the age you're in, you don't know your percentage.

Here's what's so fascinating: the biblical understanding, which is intellectually so wild and so weird and so difficult to hold on to, is utterly practical. Because the Bible does not say your choices have no connection to your destiny, or that your choices determine your destiny, but rather God in his sovereignty relates your choices partially to your destiny, but he is the one who fixes everything.

This is the reason why Paul, when he was in the boat in Acts 27, acted the way he did. There was a terrible storm that came up. He was in a boat with soldiers and sailors in the Mediterranean. The storm was so bad that the men were afraid for their lives, and God came and spoke through an angel to Paul and said, I am the Lord, and I'm telling you that though the storm is bad and you might lose the ship, no one in the boat will die.

God told Paul that. Then Paul gave the prophecy to everyone else. And by the way, prophecies in the Bible: if you get a prophecy and it doesn't come true, you're a false prophet and you're put to death — book of Deuteronomy. Paul knew that. Once God had told him that was the way, that was the way.

And yet the next day in the midst of the storm, when the sailors try to abandon ship, Paul grabs the soldiers, takes them to the part of the ship, and forces them to stay and says to the sailors, unless you stay on the ship, we're all going to die.

Okay, you say, if we're all going to die, then it's not sure that they're all going to live. But if it's absolutely sure they're all going to live, who cares how they act? But don't you see, if either of those is true, you're not going to be wise in the storm. You're going to be passive or you're going to be paralyzed.

Now, you know what that's saying. It's saying not only are little things part of God's plan, but bad things are part of God's plan. The evil deeds are part of God's plan.

Now, if you hadn't thought through 16:1 and 16:3 and 16:9, you would say, oh no, if bad things are part of God's plan, God is the author of evil. But you see, the plans of a man belong to him — that is, evil deeds belong to the evildoer. They are responsible for the evil deeds. God does not force anybody to do evil deeds. They are yours; he hasn't made you do that.

Now, the perfect example of that is Joseph. He's one of many brothers, and Jacob was utterly poisoning that family, destroying that family system, because he was favoring Joseph over the rest of his brothers. And Joseph was on his way to becoming proud, becoming cruel, becoming haughty, becoming shallow. He was on his way to being wrecked. And his brothers were all becoming murderously bitter.

And of course, we know what happened. The brothers threw Joseph into a pit and sold him into slavery. And then when he was in Egypt as a slave, he was accused of rape and thrown into a dungeon.

And if you read the story of Joseph, you'll see that years go by. Over and over, he's thrown into these dark pits, and he cries out to God — no answer. God seems to be absent. Year after year, one thing goes wrong after another. There's slavery, and there's injustice, and there's screaming and fighting and running and crying, and everything's going wrong.

And yet, only because every one of those things has gone wrong, years later does it become obvious that only because of all those things, Joseph becomes a man of greatness. His brothers and the family are completely healed psychologically. And in the end, the family is saved from starvation, as is most of the rest of that part of the world. All because of all those bad things — only in the end.

God works not obviously, but God works. Do you see how important this is? People are always saying, I need God's guidance, I've got to figure out his will. But God's guidance, according to the Bible, is more something God does than something God gives.

So if you want to live a wise life, if you don't want to freak out, if you want to be calm in storms like Paul, and therefore have the wherewithal to make decent choices, if you want to have the worldview infrastructure of the relationship of God to things that actually happen, if you want to understand the relationship of evil and good — if you have that and you see God is guiding, you're standing right in the middle of it, then you will, like Paul, be calm in storms and make decisions that save the day.

Secondly, however, we do have to ask the question: how does God give guidance? Because you do have decisions to make, and you are at forks of the road, and you want to say, all right, how does God help me make this decision? I need to know.

And again we have two principles we get out of the Proverbs. You have to pay the price for God's guidance, and then develop the wisdom for God's guidance.

Now, you read that and right away you say, that's great. And I'll bet you think you know what it said. And I thought I knew what it said. But you know, you've heard of the meat of the word and the milk of the word.

And you know what all the commentators point out? This is a complete reversal of the way people think. You would think it would say, commit your plans to the Lord, and then your deeds will succeed. In other words: Oh Lord, bless my plan, and then the execution will succeed. That's what you think it's saying. It's not saying that. It says the opposite.

The word commit is a word that literally means to roll over onto, to put all of your weight on. And this is saying: unconditionally trust God for all things that happen in your life.

Why do I call this paying the price? I don't mean by paying the price that paying the price earns guidance. I'm saying paying the price receives guidance. Not the same thing.

Elisabeth Elliot, in a book she wrote years ago on guidance, puts it like this. She says the more we pay for advice, the more we are likely to listen to it. Advice from a friend which is free, we may take or leave. Advice from a consultant we have paid much for personally, we are more likely to accept, but it's still our choice. But the guidance of God is different.

First of all, we do not come to God asking for advice, but for God's will, and that is not optional. And God's fee is the highest one of all. It costs everything. To ask for the guidance of God requires abandonment. We no longer say, if I trust you, you will give me such and such. Instead, we must say, I trust you. Give me or withhold from me whatever you choose.

Now, what does it mean to unconditionally trust God for every part of your life? It means, I think, to say — and it'd be wonderful if some of you would do this tonight:

And the Bible is saying only if you go through life like that, not bailing on God, obeying unconditionally, trusting unconditionally, committing everything — will, as time goes on, both your good times and your bad times turn you into the kind of person whose plans are wise, whose plans you plan more and more successfully.

You said, why would that be? How would that be? Some years ago I was studying the story of Joseph in a Bible study, and somebody said: all this slavery and injustice and years and years of agony — was that really necessary? Why couldn't we do it the way it always happens, untouched by an angel? The angel shows up, and everybody goes, ooooh.

Or maybe God shows up with all his glory and effulgence and says, okay, I'm going to settle this right now. We don't need 40 years of misery and pain. Joseph, you're turning into a spoiled brat — stop it. And all of you brothers, you're turning into murderously bitter people. Jacob, watch out, they want to kill him, they want to sell him into slavery — don't let them do it. And Jacob, you've got to stop your favoritism. And oh, by the way, everybody, 25 years from now there's going to be a terrible famine, so you better start saving up. Half an hour, maybe?

No, that's Hollywood. Let me tell you how it works in real life. In reality, you never, ever become wise like that.

Your mother's been telling you about your flaws for years. You had to be shown. And until you see your flaws — and the only way you'll ever see your flaws is in experience — they're going to control your life.

You know what you need in order to really know? You have to be shown. Over and over as life goes on, you have to be in positions where you're absolutely sure God has abandoned you, and then find out later on you were wrong. That has to happen over and over. You can't bail. You have to commit everything to him.

And therefore, by paying this price, by committing everything to him, by then saturating yourself in his word so that you not only see the solid lines to your decisions, but the dotted lines. There's a lot of things that biblically are technically okay, but you can see inferences out of biblical principles. The more you saturate yourself and seek to do what this verse says — commit your entire life to him, unconditional trust — you will become more and more a wise person.

For example, look at the first proverb: the integrity of the upright guides them. Now what does that mean? Honest people — your honesty guides you, it says. Well, wouldn't it be better to say God guides honest people? Yes, of course that's true. But don't you see what it's saying? God does not so much tell you how to get guided, but how to become the kind of person that gets guided, how to become the kind of person that makes wise choices.

Look at the next verse: the plans of the righteous are just. Only if you do this commitment, rolling everything over, paying the price, unconditional trust — and therefore find over the years you finally are learning truly about your flaws and finally learning truly how much he loves you — only when that happens do your plans become more and more smart, wise, just, fair, proportionate.

It's okay to love your children, but if you completely build your whole life around your children, if they're your meaning in life, if you trust your children more than God — then you're going to have stupid goals for them, destructively bad goals for them. It's okay to want somebody to love you. But if you've got to have it, you've got to always have somebody really in love with you — you know what's going to happen? You're going to date people that you shouldn't. You're going to stay in dating relationships that you really should have broken off. Your goals will be destructively wrong.

Now, this isn't necessarily what most people want to hear. When people have come to me over the years as a pastor, they say, I have decisions to make and I want God's guidance. I want to discern the will of God. And I always say: make a decision.

And they say, how spiritual. I thought you were a pastor. I'm trying to find out the will of God. How do I know what God wants? I've been praying and I've been getting peace about this, but I haven't been getting any peace about that. I need to know which one. How do I discern the leading of the Holy Spirit? I said: make a decision.

In the Old Testament, you had the urim and the thummim. We don't even know what that was. It was in the breastplate of the priest, and it was a way of getting a yes or no answer from God. It worked on a binary system from what we can tell: a couple of stones or a couple of sticks, and if they both came up one way it was yes from God, if they both came up the other way it was no, and if they came up mixed, it was no answer.

We know that at one time David asked: if I go to that city and Saul pursues me there, will the people of the city give me up to Saul? And God said yes. So David didn't go there. So we read that and we go, that's what I'm talking about. I want to know that. That's what I want. I want guidance.

There's no talk of that when you get into the New Testament. There's no talk of that at all. And you say, well, what's going on here? Why doesn't God do that? Of course, we create our emotional urims and thummims. That's what the peace thing is. So I have peace about this, but I don't have peace about that. I'm praying about this, and it feels good. I'm praying about that, and it doesn't feel good. How do I know?

In other words, we don't want to make a decision. David didn't make a decision. He didn't need to make a decision. God just told him. He didn't have to use any wisdom. He didn't have to know the people. He didn't have to know the human heart. And that's what we want. Is that right?

By the way, I am not saying don't even listen to your feelings. Sometimes when you say, I'm not getting peace about this, you're trying to talk yourself into it, but your conscience actually knows better. Sometimes you've got a reason why it's wrong, but you haven't been able to articulate it yet. You need to talk it out with somebody else. I'm not saying ignore your feelings.

But why doesn't God just do it? Why doesn't he give us the answer? Why does he make us make a decision? Imagine — for some of you this wouldn't be hard to imagine — you have a four-year-old son. Your four-year-old son comes to you at five o'clock and says, daddy, can I go out and play? And you say, well, your mother and I are making dinner at 5:30, so don't go out too far. Just go over here and play, and I will call you.

Scroll forward 16 years. Your son's 20, he's away at college, and he calls you up at five o'clock and says, Dad, can I go out and play? There's a bunch of guys playing frisbee in the quad. I was wondering if I could go out and play. And you would say, what is wrong with you? I don't know. You know your workload. You know what's going on. Well, Dad, I just want you to make the decision for me.

And when I came here to start a church, people were constantly saying to me, are you sure God's called you to start this church in New York City? And I used to always say: no.

I think he did. I've used my mind. I see an opportunity. I don't see anybody else going through and taking the opportunity. I feel an obligation to come. I think it's a good idea. I think God's calling me, but I can't be absolutely sure. I can be absolutely sure I mustn't lie — it's in the Bible. I can be sure I mustn't bow down to an idol — it's in the Bible. I'm sure of a lot of things that are God's will. But as far as I know, I won't be sure that I was called to plant a church until it happens. Then I'll know.

I'll say, well, don't you have peace about it? No. It was too hard. It was too scary. No, I didn't have peace about it. But I know this: guidance is as much something God does as something God gives. And therefore I knew, by selling my house and coming on up here and getting started and signing a three-year lease — oh my gosh — that if I failed to plant a church, God was preparing me for something I couldn't envision.

When you read 16:3 — commit to the Lord whatever you do and your plans will succeed — which actually means unconditionally trust God, make a radically unconditional trust commitment to him, and you will slowly become the kind of person he will guide, the kind of person whose plans are wise, and you make good choices.

But who does that? Who commits completely? Who rolls everything over onto God? See, the word commit is an absolute word. Who puts all their weight? Nobody in this room, certainly nobody behind the mic. In that case, well, I guess we're not eligible for his guidance. No. And yet it still comes to people.

The first time you really see this in the Bible, it's when the children of Israel are being led out of Egypt. You can read about this in Exodus 13. One day suddenly a pillar — by day it looked like a cloud, by night it looked like a fire — went before the children of Israel to guide them. When the pillar stopped, they camped. If the pillar stopped for five days, they camped for five days. When the pillar moved forward, they went. Guidance: the presence of God.

But the pillar, the Shekinah glory of God, dwelt over the Holy of Holies. It dwelt over the tabernacle. It dwelt over the mercy seat, the place of atonement.

When Jesus Christ was in the boat, asleep, during the storm, and his disciples are just freaking out — why? Because here they are in a storm and their navigator, the Lord, is sleeping. No navigation, no guidance in the storm. So they wake him up.

And Jesus gets up. He's actually pretty short with them. And he says, where's your faith? He's so often tender with people that I've often wondered why he was that sharp. I don't mean he was sinfully sharp. He was right. And here's why I think he was sharp with them.

I have to go back into my own parental experience to get to this. At some point your child is going to look at you, when you withhold something from him or her, and say: you don't love me. And when that happens — those of you with really little kids — just try not to blow up. And I'll tell you why it's so hard.

You want to say, how dare you? You have no idea what I have done for you. You have no idea the sacrifice. You have no idea the things that I've withheld from myself to raise you.

When they said, Master, don't you care that we're dying? — I think Jesus was saying back to them: don't you care that I'm dying?

When they said, Master, you're not really navigating us through this storm — here's what Jesus is saying. There is a real storm coming, a cosmic storm, a storm of God's wrath, a storm of eternal justice, a storm of the justice that we deserve for everything that we've done as human beings. And he says, I am going to bow my head before that storm, and I'm going to take it for you. And I'm going to go through that storm without any navigation. The Father is going to abandon me.