Live according to Truth (Proverbs 4:10-27)

I. Introduction. A. Orientation. Weve been considering How important it is to have heart for God To be the kind of people That catch His eye The kind He will use Because He can use us.

Weve seen, not surprisingly, that to be such people Its important that we have a heart for certain things, And not for others:

That we love God first and foremost If we dont, we wont be willing to pay the price It will cost us to serve Him

That we love our neighbor as ourselves If we dont care about them We wont reach out to them with the Gospel, Which is primarily what the Lord calls us to do

That we dont love the world and seek its glory,

2 But that we love God and seek the glory that comes from Him

That we dont conform to this world, But stand out and stand apart from the world So that we can point the way to God.

This morning, we saw that in order to do these things We need to know how to do them We need to follow Jesus example, As He followed the commandment of His Father, To acquire wisdom That He might know what to do. Jesus listened to His parents, He listened to His teachers at the synagogue, He took to heart what they said, Remembered it, and did it.

Yes, Jesus had certain advantages we dont: His mind and heart werent affected by the Fall. He could think perfectly. He also had a perfect desire to learn and remember the truth.

We cant think perfectly, And very often we dont want to learn or remember. But dont forget

3 He has given us His Spirit to help us. The Fall may have affected our minds, But it hasnt destroyed them. We may not be geniuses As Jesus undoubtedly was But we can learn.

And our hearts may not be perfect The sin thats in them will resist learning But the Spirit will help us overcome it. Because He wants us to learn. Why? Just as Jesus learned so that He might do What the Father sent Him into the world to do, He wants us to learn Gods truth So that we might do What He made and called us to do as well.

B. Preview. This evening, Lets consider that Jesus not only knew Gods truth, He lived according to it. And second, that He did this as an example for us to follow.

If we are to have the kind of heart That will catch Gods eye as He looks down at this world,

We need to set our hearts To live according to His truth.

II. Sermon. A. Lets consider, first, that Jesus lived by Gods truth. Learning the truth is not an end in itself, It is merely a means to an end Its not enough to learn what God wants us to do, You must also do it If you are to do yourself or anyone else any good.

Thats what true wisdom is The kind Solomon speaks of in our passage. Youre not blessed because you know whats right. Youre blessed because you do whats right.

To the Jewish mind, To learn and not to do was the height of folly. Sadly, we are often content Merely to know what to believe Or what to do, Without actually believing or doing.

This isnt what Jesus was like. He didnt study merely to know

5 How He might please His Father, He actually did what was pleasing to Him, For at least two reasons: That He might save us through His obedience, And that He might give us an example to follow.

We know how important it was That Jesus actually do What His Father commanded To save us.

We couldnt enter heaven for two reasons: Because we didnt obey God, And we were guilty. Not only did we fail to obey God in Adam, We failed every single day We have been in this world, Including after trusting in Jesus. Left to ourselves, We would have been condemned.

But Jesus did obey, perfectly, To satisfy the obedience requirement; And He died on the cross, To make a perfect payment for sin;

So that by trusting Him We could have all our sins removed, And be given a perfect righteousness So that we could enter heaven.

As we saw this morning, Its important that you understand this And receive what He did As He offers Himself to you in the Gospel. Its the only way to escape the just penalty of hell, And arrive in heaven at last.

But for our purposes this evening, There is another reason why Jesus obeyed. He obeyed as an example That we are to follow.

Weve already considered A brief summary of how He lived: That His life was a continual act of devotion to the Father Always doing all His Father commanded.

That He loved others He ministering to the needs of those around Him. Healing the sick, raising the dead, feeding the poor,

And especially by preaching the Gospel. He even ministered to us Through His life and death That He might give us life.

That He kept Himself separate from the world Neither loving it, nor allowing Himself to be conformed to it, So that He wouldnt seek the worlds glory, But the glory that comes from the Father.

In doing this, He was doing What Solomon exhorts us to this evening: Take hold of instruction; do not let go. Guard her, for she is your life. Do not enter the path of the wicked and do not proceed in the way of evil men. . . . Let your eyes look directly ahead and let your gaze be fixed straight in front of you. Watch the path of your feet and all your ways will be established. Do not turn to the right nor to the left; turn your foot from evil (vv. 13-14, 25-27). He walked on the path of righteousness, Neither turning to the left or to the right, Until He arrived in heaven.

He not only did this Himself, He did all He could to help others do the same By teaching them to walk according to His Fathers truth.

B. Again, Jesus did this both to save us, And to give us an example to follow.

This is the kind of life that honors the Father. And if we are going to catch the Fathers attention, That He might use us And strongly support us in the work we attempt for Him, We need to seek to do this as well. We must go beyond simply knowing Gods will, We must actually do it, And help others to do it.

Weve already seen what this means: We need to do what He commands. And we need not to do what He forbids.

To put it another way, We must love as the Lord tells us to love, Both Him and others.

Or still another, We must seek to be holy, And turn away from everything that is not holy.

I think this much is clear enough. So what Id like to focus on Is the kind of heart the Lord wants to see As we actually set out to do these things.

As you know, there are differing degrees Of submission to commands and resistance to sin Of wanting to do what God wants us to do, And of not wanting to do what He forbids.

Of course, the example He has given us is perfect. Jesus perfectly submitted to His Father With His whole heart, And He perfectly resisted temptation and sin With the same. His heart is absolutely holy.

This is the example we are called to follow, The standard we are to seek to live up to.

But, of course, This isnt what we find in our hearts. We struggle with submission There are certain things He commands us to do That we often dont want to do. We also struggle to resist temptation and sin, And we often fail.

We struggle to love God with a whole heart,

10 Or to love others enough to reach out to them with the Gospel.

We often find ourselves loving the world Wanting to conform to it, Wanting its glory, Rather than conforming to Gods Word And seeking His glory.

Its easier to read a novel, or watch a movie, Than to read and study Gods Word That we might learn His truth.

And all too often, When we have read it, Or have listened to a sermon, We forget what weve heard As soon as were done.

In short, we still have sin in our hearts Something Jesus didnt have And so we struggle.

What this means is Our duty includes something Jesus didnt have to do We have to fight against the sin in our hearts. Thats why He commands us through Paul:

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So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God (Rom. 8:12-14). If we dont do this, At the very least, it will cripple us And make us the kind of person The Lord will overlook And not use, not support.

At the very worst, If were not fighting our sins If were not trying to do what He commands, Or trying not to do what He forbids Were not believers at all, And still in danger of hell. Paul says, if you dont put to death the deeds of the flesh, You will die, Unless you turn from your sins And trust in Jesus Christ.

Finally, if we dont kill our sins So that we can follow Christs example, How will we be able to help others?

Remember, Jesus not only lived for His Fathers glory,

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He sought to help others do the same By preaching the Gospel to them.

Thats what Hes called us to do as well: Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age (Matt. 28:19-20). How can we do this Unless we set our hearts to learn His truth, And purpose to do it?

How can we do this Unless were willing to put our sins to death And to live holy lives?

May the Lord help us then To acquire true wisdom To learn His truth And to do it, That we might be the kind of people He can use. Amen.

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