Keeping to the Well-Worn Paths

[0:00] Proverbs chapter 4. Let your heart hold fast my words.

[0:33] Keep my commandments and live. Get wisdom. Get insight. Do not forget. And do not turn away from the words of my mouth.

[0:46] Do not forsake her and she will keep you. Love her and she will guard you. The beginning of wisdom is this. Get wisdom. Whatever you get, get insight.

[0:57] Prize her highly and she will exalt you. She will honor you if you embrace her. She will place on your head a graceful garland. She will bestow on you a beautiful crown.

[1:10] Hear, my son, and accept my words. That the years of your life may be many. I have taught you the way of wisdom. I have led you in the paths of uprightness.

[1:22] When you walk, your step will not be hampered. And if you run, you will not stumble. Keep hold of instruction. Do not let go. Guard her.

[1:33] For she is your life. Do not enter the path of the wicked. Do not walk in the way of the evil. Avoid it.

[1:44] Do not go on it. Turn away from it and pass on. For they cannot sleep unless they have done wrong. They are robbed of sleep unless they have made someone stumble. For they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence.

[1:57] But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn. Which shines brighter and brighter until full day. The way of the wicked is like deep darkness.

[2:09] They do not know over what they stumble. My son, be attentive to my words. Incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight. Keep them within your heart.

[2:22] For they are life to those who find them and healing to all their flesh. Keep your heart with all vigilance. For from it flow the springs of life.

[2:35] Put away from you crooked speech. And put devious talk far from you. Let your eyes look directly forward. And your gaze be straight before you.

[2:47] Ponder the path of your feet. Then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left. Turn your foot away from evil.

[2:58] This is God's holy and authoritative word. The metaphor of the journey is often used to describe our lives. We talk about needing guidance or direction in our lives.

[3:12] People speak of choosing a career path. We all tend to think of life as getting somewhere. That we're headed somewhere. Although people disagree wildly on what that exact destination is.

[3:25] And what the purpose of our life's journey actually is. But the word of God doesn't leave us in the dark. Concerning his people, God says in Isaiah 43 verse 7.

[3:38] Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made. God created us for his glory.

[3:51] That's our ultimate purpose. He created us for himself. Romans 11 verse 36 says, For from him and through him and to him are all things.

[4:02] To him be glory forever. Amen. The reason for your existence, the meaning of your life, your journey, your calling, the purpose of your being, the salvation of your soul.

[4:18] It is all from him and through him and to him. If you want to fulfill your purpose, if you want to find true eternal satisfaction, there's only one path laid off for you.

[4:33] And that is the path that this passage speaks of. It's the path of God. This passage teaches us that we should keep the wisdom of God within our hearts so that it keeps our feet on the path of God.

[4:46] That's the main point. And I will talk about it in three paths. It tells us what the path of God is. First, it tells us that it is a worn path, a well-worn path. In verses 1 to 9.

[4:56] Then it tells us that it is a lit path, a well-lit path, 10 to 19. And then finally, it tells us that this is a straight path. Verses 20 to 27. I'll unpack those in turn.

[5:07] We know that these are the three sections in this passage because each section begins with a fresh address to the Son. Hear, O sons, verse 1. Or hear, my son, verse 10. Or my son, verse 20.

[5:20] And let's talk about what it means to keep the wisdom of God in our hearts so that we can keep our feet on the path of God. It begins in verses 1 to 2 this way. Hear, O sons, a father's instruction.

[5:33] Be attentive that you may gain insight, for I give you good precepts. Do not forsake my teaching. Once again, as we've been seeing throughout this book, the author of Proverbs uses the trope, a literary device of the father-son relationship, in order to convey his teaching.

[5:51] But this time, interestingly, the word son is plural. It's been singular this whole time, showing that there never was a particular son in mind. It has all of God's people in view.

[6:03] And this father exhorts the son to be attentive. That you may gain insight, for I give you good precepts. Do not forsake my teaching, he says. A loving father is not going to give his children bad precepts.

[6:19] He's going to give good precepts that are intended to guide, provide, and protect his children. But it is, of course, characteristic of rebellious children to want their own way.

[6:32] Those of you who are parents can identify with this. It can be exasperating at times for the parent to have to plead and command and warn and even threaten again and again and again and again just to get your own children to do what's good for them.

[6:52] It's like, do I really have to sell this to you? This is for you. And you have to repeat it again and again. It's the... But that's exactly what we do to our Heavenly Father.

[7:03] We act like his precepts are bad. Like they are arbitrary. We act like God is a tyrant seeking to oppress us or a boss on a power trip when in reality the Bible describes God as a loving Father.

[7:21] He offers us insight. He gives us good precepts. And that's why he wants us to be attentive to not forsake his teaching. And this teaching is not something that the Father invented.

[7:36] He tells his sons that he himself received this teaching from his Father. He says in verses 3 to 4, The Hebrew concept of sonship is not merely a matter of biology, biological lineage.

[8:05] It's a relational and spiritual heritage. This is why defiantly rebellious children in Israel were disowned by their parents and they were no longer considered their children.

[8:19] That's because they understood sonship in light of this filial loyalty. And so the stubborn disobedience of children itself constituted a denial of sonship.

[8:31] Saying, you are ceasing to be my son. You're ceasing to be my daughter. So when the Father says, when I was a son with my father, this means more than when I was a child. It means when I was under the authority of my father.

[8:45] When I was under the tutelage of my parents. He says he was tender. The word refers to a softness, a frailty, or inexperience that characterizes young age.

[8:58] When he was a dependent. When he was inexperienced. When he was a compliant child. His father taught him this. And not only was he a son with his father.

[9:09] He says he was the only one in the sight of my mother. The phrase only one conveys how precious this father was to his mother. It doesn't necessarily mean that he was an only child.

[9:21] Even though Abraham in the Bible, in Genesis had other sons. For example, Ishmael. through Hagar, his concubine. Only Isaac, the son through his wife Sarah, is described as the only one.

[9:33] The same phrase. To designate his special status. So like an only child, the parents loved him and taught him. And this is the special message that they imparted to that special child.

[9:49] The message that passed on to him with great care. Let your heart hold fast to my words. Keep my commandments and live. That's the message they passed on to the next generation.

[10:03] This passing of the torch from one generation to the next speaks to this importance of tradition. Ancient people viewed human history as primarily cyclical.

[10:15] But modern people, in contrast, largely actually due to Christian influence of seeing all of history as coming to a climax in God's sovereign guidance.

[10:28] And modern people now see it not in a cyclical sense. They see history more as something progressive, like a line that progresses. However, people nowadays have taken this idea of progress and have removed God from the picture.

[10:45] So that now, apart from God, apart from God who is sovereignly guiding history, we see history automatically as making progress at every age. This is the worldview that produces what C.S. Lewis famously described as chronological snobbery.

[11:03] Which is, as he defines it, the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that account discredited. So nowadays, many politicians and pundits just kind of cavalierly dismiss certain actions and positions as having no business in the 21st century.

[11:25] If you are susceptible to this idea, you should know that this is a cultural presupposition that needs to be examined and proven rather than taken for granted.

[11:39] Who says history is an ineluctable progress? Theologian J.I. Packer describes this attitude with some memorable rhymes. He says, The newer is the truer.

[11:50] Only what is recent is decent. Every shift of ground is a step forward, and every latest word must be hailed as the last word on its subject. But the fact that people back in the day believed it doesn't automatically make it wrong.

[12:09] It is simply untrue that society is always progressing. Perhaps in a technological sense, yes, we are always progressing.

[12:20] But in a moral sense? In a spiritual sense? In a human sense? Far from it.

[12:32] Scripture does view human history as having an end goal, which is the glory of God through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. Human history is, in that sense, progressive.

[12:43] But Scripture never says that society will, therefore, improve with every successive generation. No, rather, Scripture sees human history as a downward spiral of sin and rebellion with periodic renewal and revival.

[13:02] It teaches that everything will come to a climactic judgment in which the heaven and earth, we know, as we know it will pass away, making way forward to the new heaven and new earth.

[13:13] That's the climax. So the way of God is not a newfangled fad. It's not an innovation. It is old. It's time-tested.

[13:24] Because it is the way of the ancient of days, as Daniel describes God. Jeremiah 6, chapter 16 says this, Thus says the Lord, Stand by the roads and look and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is, and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.

[13:47] Finding rest for your souls is not found in new paths that people invented, new techniques, new advice. It is found in the ancient path that's laid out for us in Scripture.

[14:00] That's the good way in which you find rest for your soul. G.K. Chesterton, an English writer and philosopher and theologian, captures this importance of tradition in a helpful and provocative way.

[14:15] He says, Tradition means giving a vote to most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead.

[14:26] Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. Democracy tells us not to neglect the good man's opinion, even if he is our servant.

[14:42] Tradition asks us not to neglect the good man's opinion, even if he is our father. Instead of discrediting God's word by saying, times have changed.

[14:56] Instead of dismissing Scripture as regressive, I pray that we can have enough humility to admit that we are not better than our fathers. To allow that just maybe, there is something right and good in this ancient tradition that has been preserved for us through millennia.

[15:16] Everything that progresses is, if you think about it by definition, imperfect, isn't it? If it's perfect, it doesn't need progress. That's why humans need to change, but God never changes.

[15:30] God's truth, likewise, does not change. Our scientific understanding of the universe, yeah, that progresses because we have an imperfect understanding.

[15:40] We form truer understanding of it with each generation, but the word of God cannot progress because, cannot have any progress because it is already true. 2 Samuel 22, 31 says, This God, His way is perfect.

[15:55] The word of the Lord proves true. Psalm 19 says, The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.

[16:07] The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. Yes, the way our spiritual problems manifest themselves have changed.

[16:26] But our underlying spiritual problem, the root of it all, is still the same. And its solution is still found in the ancient path laid out for us by the ancient of days.

[16:38] Our problems are not novel. We can find God's wisdom for navigating this ever-changing world in God's unchanging word. And that's why the author of Proverbs invokes tradition, saying, This is what my Father, the wisdom of God, that my Father passed down to me, that I passed down to you.

[16:59] This is what His Father told Him. It says in verses 5 to 8, Get wisdom. Get insight. Do not forget. And do not turn away from the words of my mouth.

[17:11] Do not forsake her, and she will keep you. Love her, and she will guard you. The beginning of wisdom is this. Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight. Prize her highly, and she will exalt you.

[17:23] She will honor you if you embrace her. Verses 5 to 6 and 7 to 8 are parallel. Verses 5 and verse 7 both say get wisdom. And then verse 6 and verse 8 and talk about what wisdom will do for you if you get it.

[17:38] The word get, that's repeated four times here in verses 6 and 8, usually refer to some kind of financial acquisition. It means to acquire or buy. And what is the cost of wisdom?

[17:51] How do you afford wisdom? Verse 7 tells us, The beginning of wisdom is this. Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight. The phrase, whatever you get, is literally, with all your acquiring.

[18:05] The New International Version renders it this way. It says, Though it cost all you have, get understanding. With all you ever acquire, get wisdom.

[18:19] Count nothing too expensive to pay for the price of wisdom. No matter the cost, give everything you have for it. To use an English idiom, it's an exhortation to go all in.

[18:33] To totally commit. To bet all your chips on this wisdom of God. That's the beginning of wisdom.

[18:45] To recognize its surpassing worth and seek it, no matter the cost. The fear of God, as chapter 1 put it. Not only are we to treat wisdom like a priceless treasure, we are to cherish wisdom like a lover.

[19:03] Verse 6 says, Do not forsake her, and she will keep you. Love her, and she will guard you. Verse 8 similarly says, Prize her highly, and she will exalt you.

[19:13] She will honor you if you embrace her. To love and embrace wisdom is to set our loyal affections on God and His commands. And if we do this, verse 9 says, She will place on your head a graceful garland.

[19:28] She will bestow on you a beautiful crown. The graceful garland and the beautiful crown represent the exaltation and honor that wisdom bestows on its bearers. When we keep the wisdom of God within our hearts, it keeps our feet on the well-worn path of God which leads to glory.

[19:43] The glory of God. So God's way of wisdom is a well-worn path. It's also a well-lit path. Verses 10 to 19 tell us. I get that from verse 18.

[19:56] And this section begins with another address to the Son in verse 10. Hear, my Son, and accept my words that the years of your life may be many. After relaying what his father and his grandfather taught, the Son's grandfather taught him, he now addresses the Son in his own voice.

[20:13] He says in verses 11 to 12, I have taught you the way of wisdom. I have led you in the paths of our brightness. When you walk, your step will not be hampered and if you run, you will not stumble.

[20:26] The word translated path in verse 11 and verse 26, they refer to tracks or paths that are created by repeated use, by repeated walking.

[20:37] So imagine a smooth path on a grassy hill that's created by people who just walked along that same path over and over again. Or think of maybe if you're driving under heavy snow, imagine the tracks that are formed on the snowy highway by cars repeatedly going past on it.

[20:55] That's the kind of image. It's the tracks that you're supposed to walk on. Now, if you don't want to trip over rocks and dense weeds when you are running through the fields, you want to go along the smooth path created by people that have gone before you.

[21:09] Likewise, if you don't want to skid in the snow and get into an accident, you need to stay along the tracks created by the other cars that have gone ahead of you. Similarly, the paths that the Father has shown to the Son are paths of uprightness.

[21:24] They are proven paths that many wise and righteous people of God have walked on. It's the ancient paths handed down from our forefathers of faith. And if you walk on that, you will not be hampered.

[21:37] And if you run, you will not stumble. So the Father enjoins in verse 13, Keep hold of instruction. Do not let go. Guard her for she is your life.

[21:50] Keeping hold of instruction implies a humble submission to the authority of one's teacher. Job chapter 5 verse 17 translates the same Hebrew word instruction as discipline.

[22:04] To keep hold of instruction is to yield to discipline. the correction of wisdom. It's only the musician that submits herself to the discipline of tedious finger strengthening exercises and scales that will later have the ability to play exquisite pieces with freedom and joy.

[22:30] That's the reward of discipline. discipline. It's only the athlete that submits himself to the discipline of repetitive drills and arduous exercises that will have the muscular and cardiovascular endurance to play the sport that he loves with freedom and excellence.

[22:48] that's the reward of discipline. Likewise, it's the Christian who submits to the instruction of God the discipline of God's wisdom that can run the course of life without stumbling.

[23:06] The flip side of that instruction is avoiding the miseducation of sin. The Father warns in verses 14 to 15 Do not enter the path of the wicked and do not walk in the way of the evil.

[23:18] Avoid it. Do not go on it. Turn away from it and pass on. This warning is urgent because if you give sin an inch it takes a mile.

[23:33] So the Father tells the Son not even to go near it. Do not enter the path of the wicked. Let alone persist walking down it. Don't even get started on the path of the wicked.

[23:47] 19th century English minister Pastor Charles Bridges puts it this way It is far more easy to shun the occasion of sin than the sin when the occasion presents it.

[24:00] To resist the beginnings than the progress of sin. There must therefore be no tampering with it no trial of strength to see how far our resolutions will keep us.

[24:16] Sin is a contagion. It is a virulent and fatal disease. It's a particularly helpful way to think about it in light of the coronavirus epidemic.

[24:31] Many people are wearing masks avoiding public spaces because they don't even want to come into contact with the virus. They don't even want to come near it because they know how deadly it is.

[24:46] Sin should be avoided in the same way even more seriously because sin is a fatal disease. In fact, it has a 100% fatality rate. And it's not just death in this life.

[25:00] It's death forever. And yet we think it's okay to temper with sin to play with it to test it to see if we're strong enough.

[25:14] Let's see how far I can go without sinning. We would not treat it that way if we saw it as the contagion that it is. verses 16 to 17 give us the reason why we should avoid the way of the evil.

[25:29] For they cannot sleep unless they have done wrong. They are robbed of sleep unless they have made someone stumble. For they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence. The Father promised earlier in verse 12 that if the Son walks in the way of wisdom that He will not stumble.

[25:44] In contrast, the wicked cannot sleep unless they have made someone stumble. Not only is sin a contagious virus, it is also an addictive narcotic.

[25:58] A one-off sin becomes occasional and then it becomes habitual and then it becomes obsessive and compulsive so that they commit wickedness and do violence like they eat bread and drink wine.

[26:12] That's their daily portion. They can't sleep unless they do it. Wickedness is their food, violence is their drink, in the same way that our bodily appetites require constant feeding.

[26:25] The craving for sin must continually be indulged. If you give it an itch, it takes a mile. And these wicked people are so consumed by their wickedness, it says they can't sleep unless they have done wrong.

[26:43] That's why we should avoid it, never go even near it. Verses 18 to 19 use yet another imagery to contrast the path of the righteous from the way of the wicked. It says, the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn which shines brighter and brighter until full day.

[27:02] The way of the wicked is like deep darkness. They do not know over what they stumble. I mean, we instinctively avoid dark alleys in the city, don't we?

[27:14] When we're walking around at night. Light brings safety. It brings visibility. It brings accountability. At dawn, as the sun peaks over the horizon, the light grows ever stronger throughout the morning.

[27:31] And that's what the path of the righteous is like. As they walk on it, as they're following God, they find greater clarity. They find greater illumination. They find greater holiness.

[27:42] They become nearer to God the farther they progress on their path until the full day when that light comes in fullness. This likely refers to the ultimate salvation that God has in store for us, complete sanctification, the eternal destiny of all God's people.

[28:01] In contrast, the way of the wicked is like deep darkness. They do not know over what they stumble. Again, the play on the word stumble continues.

[28:15] Those who walk in the paths of righteousness will not stumble, but the wicked can't sleep on, like say, make someone stumble. But now in the end, it's the wicked themselves who stumble over what they don't even know.

[28:27] They don't know that their wrongdoing that makes others stumble is the very cause of their own stumbling, but they are unaware of that. It's an unlit path where people grope about trying to find their way in the dark.

[28:43] And the longer you stay on it, the more you lose your sense of direction and orientation, and the more lost you get, so you should avoid it.

[28:55] Avoid the path of the wicked. We should keep the wisdom of God within our hearts, so that it keeps our feet on the path of God. So the way of God is a worn path, it's a lit path, it's also a straight path, as verses 20 to 27 teach us.

[29:12] Again, it begins with an address to the Son. My Son, verse 20, Be attentive to my words, incline your ear to my sayings, let them not escape from your sight, keep them within your heart.

[29:25] And the reason is given in verse 22. For they are life to those who find them and healing to all their flesh. The way that God has created this world and has placed an order in this world, it is faithfulness and obedience to God that produces life and healing.

[29:46] That's the way God has generally created this universe to operate. That's a general axiom that admits exceptions, but it is nonetheless true. And it's ultimately true in that there will be final judgment in the end when God rewards all the righteous.

[30:05] Then the Father gives another well-known command, Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flows the springs of life. The command, Keep, keep my words within your heart in verse 21 is now matched by keep your heart with all vigilance.

[30:20] Those two things are related. You keep your heart with all vigilance by keeping God's word, keeping the word of wisdom in your heart. This is the third time that the author has spoken of the centrality of the heart in this chapter.

[30:34] You mentioned it in verse 4 and here in verse 21 and 23. But why does our heart deserve such attention? Because it says, for from it flow the springs of life.

[30:49] Our actions in life have a source from which they flow and it is our heart. This is an extremely important biblical principle because what we say and what we do are not caused ultimately by our circumstances or environment but by our hearts.

[31:11] If a building collapses people point their fingers at the architect or the construction workers. I don't think I've ever seen people point their finger at the people that were in the building saying, man, they were so heavy.

[31:28] Because a building is supposed to be able to withstand the weight of the people in it. The fact that it collapsed points to the lack of structural integrity. Something internally wrong with the building.

[31:42] That sounds funny but that's in fact the exact kind of excuse we use when we blame shift in our own personal lives.

[31:55] When we get into a conflict with our spouses, neighbors, parents, and roommates we say, well it's because you said this. It's because you did this to me.

[32:09] Well you started it. I wouldn't be so angry if you weren't so lazy and incompetent. Sure, there are external stressors but they are not the source.

[32:24] Our circumstances are the context not the cause of sin. It reveals something within every sin does. For this reason it's of utmost importance that we guard our own hearts how do we do that?

[32:41] Psalm 119 verse 11 says, I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. We keep our hearts by storing up God's word in it.

[32:54] By knowing God's word and by believing God's word and by applying God's word to our hearts we keep our hearts by obeying verses 20 and 21. My son be attentive to my words incline your ear to my sayings let them not escape from your sight keep them within your heart.

[33:11] That's how we keep our hearts by keeping God's word in our hearts and whether or not our hearts are in what kind of condition that it's in is often seen in what we say our speech.

[33:27] That's the connection that verse 24 makes. Put away from you crooked speech put devious talk far from you if our hearts are not upright if it's not properly ordered crooked speech and devious talk will flow from it.

[33:47] It's literally crooked mouth and devious lip using it poetically to represent what we say. Jesus also made this connection didn't he? Luke chapter 6 verse 45 Sometimes people blurt out inappropriate or offensive things and then apologize I'm sorry I didn't mean that.

[34:24] But the truth is they meant more than they're willing to admit because it comes from their heart. A lustful heart can't help but make suggestive and lewd comments.

[34:41] A discontented heart can't help but make bitter biting remarks. An insecure envious heart can't help but make comments that cut down others in order to lift itself up.

[34:56] An unbelieving heart can't help but say cynical things. A foolish heart can't help but say crude unseemly things. So what kind of words are coming out of your mouth?

[35:11] Does your mouth speak only what is good for building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear as it commands in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 29.

[35:22] The father continues his exhortation verses 25 to 27. Let your eyes look directly forward and your gaze be straight before you.

[35:34] Ponder the path of your feet then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left. Turn your foot away from evil. Now if you look at this section more closely it's full of body imagery.

[35:46] It mentions the year verse 20 eyes in verse 21 25 the heart the flesh in verse 22 the mouth and lips in verse 24 and the feet in verse 26 and 27 It's also full of words that describe bodily orientation physical orientation inclined it says lean verse 21 mentions crooked devious verse 24 directly forward verse 25 straight verse 25 do not swerve to the right or to the left and turn away from something in verse 27 all of this combines to emphasize the fact that our entire being all that we think say and do it should be oriented toward the straight path laid out for us in the word of God according to the National Safety Council's analysis of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data in last year or I guess this is two years ago in 2020 there were 276,000 distraction affected injury crashes 2,841 people died from these accidents from simple things that distract us from the road from focused eye on the road driving like talking and texting on the phone applying makeup changing the song they say that it takes three seconds or less of distraction on average for an accident to happen the importance of keeping our eyes on the road straight ahead in the physical world translates to the spiritual world as well where the consequences are even more dire because it lasts on to eternity verse 27 says do not swerve to the right or to the left that means do not deviate from God's standard in any way don't depart from the path that

[37:48] God has laid out for you in scripture and this path that God has laid out for us is ultimately displayed and fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus Christ in John 14 Jesus tells his disciples that he's preparing for them rooms in heaven at his father's house and that he's preparing a place for them and he will come to take them there and that they will meet him there and in verse 5 Thomas who is skeptical and practical asks Jesus Lord we do not know where you are going how can we know the way Jesus replies I am the way and the truth and the life no one comes to the father except through me Jesus is the straight path laid out for us in which to follow God

[38:48] Jesus is the well worn path because even as a 30 something man in John 8 he said before Abraham was I am he's older than Abraham why because he's the eternal son of God he's the eternal word of God he's the one he is one with the great I am the ancient of days Jesus is also the well lit path Jesus said in John 8 12 I am the light of the world whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life and Jesus shone his light on all of us by living a perfect life of obedience not as an exemplar but more than that by doing that and he died on the cross as a substitute for our sins as the atoning sacrifice the perfect sacrifice that alone can do away with the punishment that we deserve for our disobedience for our straying far away from the path that

[39:55] God laid out for us by dying on the cross being raised from the dead Jesus shines his light says if you repent of your sins and believe in me you will be light of the world 2nd Corinthians 3 17 to 18 says that it's by beholding the glory of the Lord by seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ that we are transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another we become like Christ by beholding Christ that's the secret to holiness that's the secret to sanctification there is no silver bullet there's no technique only way become more like Christ is by beholding him in his glory it's when we behold the glory of

[40:56] Christ love for us that we are engulfed by his light and our insecurities vanish it's only when we behold the glory of Christ sovereign power his perfect gracious reign in our lives that our own fears are engulfed by his light it's when we behold the humility of Christ displayed on the cross that our pride and vanity are crucified and the light of Christ floods our life that is the secret there's no salvation apart from Christ there's no justification apart from Christ there's no sanctification apart from Christ there is no path to true fulfillment to eternal life to God our creator and father apart from Jesus Christ some of you are not yet on this path and you never know when your road is coming to a close so let me urge you and exhort you and conclude my message by reading the passage we have for assurance of pardon today 1

[42:24] John chapter 1 verses 5 to 7 this is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all if we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness we lie and do not practice the truth but if we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all sin there is no darkness in God no evil in God and that light of dawn that shines in your life when you put your faith in Jesus Christ will grow brighter and brighter and brighter and brighter until you reach that glorious day when we'll be reunited with our Savior and King and you'll be flooded and there will be only light all the darkness that now assails you all the evil that now resides in your heart will be brought to its end and there will be only light and will be in perfect submission eternal glory perfect worship that that's that's the path laid out for us

[43:44] I pray you'll walk in it of know I can alarm a time ABOUT I can pas której'll even six tenth which