Fannin Terrace Baptist Church
June 28, 2026
  • Praise
  • The Blood
  • What A God

      • Proverbs 3:1-4CSB

      • Proverbs 3:5-8CSB

      • Proverbs 3:9-11CSB

      • Proverbs 3:12-15CSB

      • Proverbs 3:16-19CSB

      • Proverbs 3:20-23CSB

      • Proverbs 3:24-27CSB

      • Proverbs 3:28-31CSB

      • Proverbs 3:32-35CSB

  • We have been asking a question together all summer.

    What kind of person am I becoming?

    And we have said this: the voices you welcome shape the person you become.
    Four weeks in, and I want to take a moment to name where we have been — because the arc of this series is not accidental.
    We started with a foundation. Wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord — a life organized around who God actually is rather than who we think we are. Then we heard a warning. Wisdom has been calling all along in the streets and the ordinary places of your life — and the most dangerous thing you can do is treat her voice as something you will respond to eventually. Last week we received an invitation. Seek wisdom like treasure. Follow the Good Shepherd who calls you by name and leads you toward the life you were made for.
    This morning something changes again.
    Because the first three sermons in this series have been primarily about orientation — about getting your bearings, understanding what wisdom is, hearing the call. This morning Proverbs 3 moves us from orientation to something harder.
    Practice.
    Not just knowing what wisdom is. Not just deciding to pursue it. But actually living the surrendered life — day by day, decision by decision, in the specific circumstances of your actual week in Midland, Texas.
    (brief pause)
    And I want to tell you upfront: this is the most personally confronting chapter we have visited so far. Because Proverbs 3 doesn't tell you what wisdom looks like from a distance. It walks right up to the thing you are most reluctant to let go of — your own judgment, your own control, your own understanding — and it asks you to open your hands.
    That is not a comfortable ask in a culture like ours. But it is a necessary one.
    And this morning I want to show you three things this chapter gives us: the surrender wisdom requires, the security wisdom produces, and the community wisdom shapes.
    Because together, those three things paint a portrait of what a life fully given over to God actually looks like — and friends, it is a better life than the one we are white-knuckling our way through on our own.

    The Surrender Wisdom Requires

    Come back with me to how Proverbs 3 opens — verses 1 through 12.
    The father issues a series of paired commands — do this, don't do that — that build toward the most well-known verse in this entire chapter.
    Verses 5 and 6.
    Now, before I read them, I want to name something in this room.
    Some of you have these verses memorized. Some of you have them on a coffee mug. Some of you have them on a decorative sign in your kitchen, probably in a font that looks like handwriting, probably next to a picture of a farmhouse.
    (brief smile)
    And I say that not to mock it. I say it because the most dangerous thing that can happen to a verse this important is that familiarity convinces us we have already received it. That we have heard it so many times we no longer actually hear it.
    And for those of you who have never sat with these words before — hear them as if for the first time. Because they are worth that.
    Proverbs 3:5–6 CSB
    Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding; in all your ways know him, and he will make your paths straight.
    (brief pause)
    Let me slow that down.
    Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Not part of your heart. Not the areas where you feel like you need help. All of it. The career. The finances. The relationships. The health concerns. The future you are trying to build and control and protect.
    All of it.
    Do not rely on your own understanding. Your mind is a gift — God gave it to you, use it. But there is a difference between thinking carefully and deciding that your judgment is the ceiling above which no other voice needs to be heard. Solomon is targeting the ceiling.
    In all your ways know him. Not theologically informed about him — actually in relationship with him. Every decision made inside that relationship rather than in isolation from it.
    He will make your paths straight. Not easy. Straight. A straight path can still go uphill, still go through hard terrain. But it goes somewhere. It does not wind back on itself or lead you somewhere you never meant to go.
    (brief pause)
    Now. In Midland, Texas, in 2026, I want to talk honestly about why this verse is harder here than it might be somewhere else.
    We are not a culture of surrender. We are a culture of self-determination. We respect the person who figures it out, who builds something, who doesn't need to ask for help. The Wildcatter mindset that runs through the DNA of this city is fundamentally about trusting yourself — reading the terrain, making your bet, drilling the well. And if it comes in, it's because you were smart enough and bold enough to believe in your own judgment.
    That is not entirely wrong. There is genuine virtue in hard work and courageous decision-making.
    But there is a version of that mindset that becomes — quietly, gradually, without ever announcing itself — a form of practical atheism. A life where God is acknowledged on Sunday and consulted in crisis but is otherwise not a factor in the actual decisions being made Monday through Saturday.
    Do not rely on your own understanding.
    Solomon is speaking directly into that life. The ceiling of your own judgment and capacity is lower than the life God wants to give you.
    And here is what makes the call to trust not just a good idea but a safe one.
    The God who asks you to trust him with all your heart is not an unknown quantity. He is not asking you to take a blind leap toward someone whose intentions are unclear. This is the God who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all. If the full demonstration of his trustworthiness is a cross — then what exactly are you afraid he will do with your career, your finances, your future, your family?
    The call to trust in Proverbs 3:5 is not naivety. It is taking seriously what God has already proven about himself.
    (brief pause)
    I want to tell you something that happened to me a few years ago.
    My wife and I owned a small ranchette in South Texas. One afternoon I decided it was time to replace the front gate. I knew the right call was to bring in a welder — the gate had to be fitted to existing posts and that requires specific tools and skill.
    But I decided I could figure it out myself.
    (brief smile)
    Three hours later, I was still in that driveway. The problem was that the hinges on the existing posts were at a different offset than the gate I had bought. I tried everything. Rigged it one way — gate fell. Rigged it another way — gate fell again. I tried to force my solution onto a problem it was not designed to solve.
    Three hours. Nothing.
    Finally my wife — watching with the patience of a saint and the quiet amusement of someone who had seen this before — asked me: "Are you going to call our welder friend?"
    And I said yes.
    The moment — and I want to be careful here because I am telling you exactly what happened — the moment I said yes, a welding truck came down that country road. A road nobody drives down. It stopped in front of our property and the man inside looked out the window and asked: "Y'all need some welding work?"
    (brief pause)
    What I experienced in that driveway was not about a gate. It was about what happens when a self-reliant person finally opens his hands.
    Three hours of my own understanding, accomplishing nothing. One moment of surrender, followed by immediate provision.
    I am not building a theology of instant gratification from that story. God does not always send the welder the moment you stop insisting on doing it yourself. But that afternoon was a tangible picture of what Proverbs 3 is describing. My path was not going anywhere. The moment I stopped relying on my own understanding — he made the path straight.
    And he sent a welder.
    (brief pause)
    Now look at what comes next — verses 11 and 12. Because Solomon anticipates something.
    He knows that trusting God does not always feel like a welding truck appearing at the right moment. Sometimes trusting God feels like discipline. Like difficulty. Like a season harder than you expected and longer than you wanted.
    Proverbs 3:11–12 CSB
    Do not despise the Lord’s instruction, my son, and do not loathe his discipline; for the Lord disciplines the one he loves, just as a father disciplines the son in whom he delights.
    I want to handle this carefully — because not everyone in this room had a father whose discipline felt like love. Some of you experienced parenting that was harsh, wounding, unpredictable. Discipline that came out of anger rather than love. I want to name that honestly before I say anything else.
    Because what Solomon is describing here is something different entirely. It is the kind of parenting every healthy parent instinctively practices. The parent who says no to the child running toward the street. Who holds a boundary even when the child is crying. Who allows a consequence to land because they love the child too much to always rescue them.
    That kind of discipline is an act of love. It is forming the child's future character, not just managing their present behavior.
    That is what God is doing in the difficult seasons of your life. Not punishing. Not abandoning. Forming.
    And if you need evidence that his discipline is actually love — if the hard season you are in makes that claim feel hollow — look at one place.
    The cross.
    The Father who disciplines you placed on his own Son the full weight of everything our self-reliance has produced — every wrong turn, every closed ear, every path walked in our own understanding rather than his. Jesus bore that willingly. The Father allowed it — not out of cruelty, but out of a love so determined to bring his children home that it was willing to cost him everything.
    If that is the God whose discipline you are under, you can trust it.
    That is not weakness. That is the most mature form of faith.

    The Security Wisdom Produces

    Come back to verses 13 through 26.
    Solomon shifts here from commands to description. He has told us what wisdom requires. Now he shows us what wisdom produces. And the portrait he paints is worth slowing down for.
    Proverbs 3:13–26 CSB
    Happy is a man who finds wisdom… Her ways are pleasant, and all her paths, peaceful. She is a tree of life to those who embrace her, and those who hold on to her are happy…
    I want to stay with one phrase: all her paths are peaceful.
    Not easy. Not prosperous in the way Midland defines prosperity. Peaceful.
    The Hebrew word there carries the idea of completeness. Wholeness. The kind of interior settledness that does not depend on exterior circumstances being favorable. It is the peace of a person who knows who they are, whose they are, and where they are going — and who therefore does not need to white-knuckle every decision or lie awake cataloguing every variable they cannot control.
    That is what a surrendered life eventually produces. Not a life without difficulty. A life with a settled center.
    And in a culture that is quietly exhausted by the effort of managing everything — of projecting confidence while privately carrying anxiety — that settledness is not a small thing. It is the thing most people in Midland are actually hungry for underneath all the productivity and achievement.
    (brief pause)
    Look at verses 21 through 26.
    Proverbs 3:21–26 CSB
    Maintain sound wisdom and discretion… When you lie down, you will not be afraid; you will lie down, and your sleep will be pleasant… for the Lord will be your confidence and will keep your foot from a snare.
    When you lie down, your sleep will be sweet.
    I want to ask you something directly, friends. When did you last actually sleep? Not crashed from exhaustion. Not medicated into unconsciousness. Actually slept — with a quiet mind and an untroubled soul.
    Because what Solomon is describing here is not a productivity hack for better rest. It is the natural outcome of a life that has learned to trust. The person who has surrendered to God does not lie awake running the variables. They have placed what they cannot control into hands more capable than their own.
    And they sleep.
    The Lord will be your confidence.
    Not your track record. Not your portfolio. Not your reputation or your ability to out-think the next problem.
    Him.

    The Community Wisdom Shapes

    Come back to verses 27 through 35.
    Solomon makes a turn here that is easy to miss. He shifts from the individual surrendered life to how that life expresses itself toward other people. Wisdom made relational.
    Proverbs 3:27–28 CSB
    When it is in your power, don’t withhold good from the one to whom it belongs. Don’t say to your neighbor, “Go away! Come back later. I’ll give it tomorrow”-when it is there with you.
    The wisdom-shaped life is a generous life. It does not delay what it can offer today.
    In a congregation like this one, I think the most important application of that verse is the gospel.
    Let me say something directly and I want you to hear it in love.
    There is a quiet assumption that lives in many congregations — and I think it lives in ours to some degree — that the people around us are probably fine. That our neighbors, our coworkers, our family members who don't follow Jesus are generally good people who will generally end up okay. That God is probably too good to allow any real harm to come to them in the end.
    That is not the gospel. And it is not love.
    The gospel says every person around you is an image-bearer of God who is separated from him by sin and in need of reconciliation through Jesus Christ. And here is what that news actually is — because if we are going to share it, we need to be able to say it plainly.
    Every person is separated from God by sin — by the self-reliance, the closed ear, the life lived on our own terms rather than his. That separation has a consequence: death, both physical and spiritual. The rock band AC/DC had it right - we’re each naturally on the highway to Hell. But God, because of his great love, sent his Son Jesus Christ to absorb that consequence in our place. Jesus died the death we deserved. He rose from the dead, defeating sin and death permanently. And he offers full restoration to God — to everyone who trusts in him.
    That is the greatest good available to any human being.
    And the person sitting next to you at work, living next door to you, sharing a table with you at Thanksgiving — they deserve to hear it. Not someday. Not when the moment feels perfect. Now. While it is in your power to act.
    (brief pause)
    I know that gospel conversations feel awkward. I know that Midland's cultural instinct toward independence — toward minding your own business and letting people live how they want — makes evangelism feel like an intrusion. I know that the fear of a damaged relationship can feel louder than the call to share.
    But wisdom says: do not withhold good.

    The surrendered life is not a private life. It is a generous one.

    Invitation

    I want to close with something that pulls everything this morning into its deepest frame.
    Proverbs 3:5 asks you to trust in the Lord with all your heart and stop relying on your own understanding. And everything in us resists that — because we know what it costs, and we are not entirely sure the outcome is worth the surrender.
    So I want to show you someone who has already done it.
    In the garden of Gethsemane, the night before his death, Jesus knelt in the dirt and prayed: "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me — yet not my will, but yours be done."
    (brief pause)

    Not my will. Yours.

    That is Proverbs 3:5 lived out perfectly, in human flesh, at infinite cost.
    And the Father met that surrender with the cross.
    The path Jesus' surrender led him down was not comfortable. It went through betrayal, abandonment, torture, and death. He absorbed every consequence of every act of human self-reliance — every closed fist, every life lived leaning on its own understanding rather than God's. He took the death our independence deserved. Not because he had earned it. Because we had — and he loved us enough to take it in our place.
    And then the Father raised him.
    What looked like defeat on Friday became the hinge of all human history on Sunday. Straight through death and out the other side into a life that nothing can touch.
    Jesus did not go through Gethsemane so you could admire his example from a safe distance. He went through it — and through the cross, and through the tomb — so that you could be brought into the same relationship with the Father that made his surrender possible. His open hands make your open hands possible. His obedience covers your disobedience. His surrender is the ground on which yours can stand.
    That is not inspiration. That is gospel.
    He is not asking you to trust a system or a theology or a set of principles.
    He is asking you to trust him. Personally. Relationally. With all your heart.
    Not my will. Yours.
    That is the most courageous sentence a self-reliant person can ever pray. And it is the sentence that opens the door to the straightest path you will ever walk.
    (brief pause)
    So here is where I want to land this morning, friends.
    Some of you have been trusting your own understanding for so long that you have forgotten what it feels like to open your hands. The career, the finances, the relationships, the future — all of it held tightly, managed carefully, controlled as much as possible. And underneath the control there is an exhaustion you do not talk about.
    Open your hands.
    Some of you are in a hard season right now and you are tempted to interpret the difficulty as evidence that God has withdrawn or that trust is naive. He has not withdrawn. He is forming you. And the discipline of a loving Father, however uncomfortable, is doing something in you that nothing else could do.
    Receive it.
    And some of you have been withholding the gospel from people you love because it feels too risky, too awkward, too likely to cost you something. Wisdom says: do not withhold good when it is in your power to act. The greatest act of love you can offer any person is the news that Jesus Christ died for them and rose again.
    Give it.
    (brief pause)
    And while I am speaking about urgency — I want to turn to someone else in the room for just a moment.
    Someone who has been sitting here this morning and for whom none of those three things — open your hands, receive it, give it — quite applies. Because you have not yet received the gospel yourself. You have been listening. You may have been nodding. But somewhere underneath the nodding there is a recognition that you are not in Christ. That the surrender this sermon has been describing is not something you have ever made.
    I said it a few weeks ago from this pulpit and I want to say it again this morning because it is true and because you need to hear it:
    One day you are going to die.
    (let it sit)
    Not as a threat. As a fact. The most certain fact about your life — more certain than your next paycheck, more certain than tomorrow morning — is that this body will stop and you will stand before God.
    And on that day, the only thing that will matter is whether you are in Christ.
    Not how hard you worked. Not what you built. Not how many people respected you or how much you accumulated or whether you were basically a good person by Midland's standards.
    Whether you are in Christ.
    Today is the day to settle that. Not because I am trying to frighten you. Because I love you enough to tell you the truth. The patience of God is real — but it is not infinite. And the door that is open this morning will not always be open.
    Repent. Trust Christ. And make it known.
    In a moment we are going to respond together. First Steps is the table at the back of this room where real people are ready to talk with you, pray with you, and help you take whatever next step you need today.
    First Steps is for you too if you have never trusted Christ. That table is not only for people who have been Christians for years and need to take a next step. It is for the person who has never taken the first step. Walk back there this morning and tell someone: I want to trust Christ today. That is all you have to say. They will know what to do.
    Maybe that step is repentance — naming the areas where you have been trusting your own understanding and asking God to reorder your life around his.
    And I want to tell you specifically — in two weeks we are going to have a baptism Sunday. If you have trusted Christ and have not yet been baptized, or if you make that decision today, make that desire known at First Steps. Baptism is the first public act of the surrendered life. It is the moment you say to everyone watching: not my will. His.
    Whatever your next step is — First Steps is for you.
    (brief pause)
    Here is the bottom line I want you to carry out of this room today:

    Trust Jesus. He makes the path straight.

    Trust him with all your heart.
    He will make your paths straight.

      • Proverbs 3:5–6NLT

      • Proverbs 3:11–12NLT

      • Proverbs 3:13–26NLT

      • Proverbs 3:21–26NLT

      • Proverbs 3:27–28NLT

Fannin Terrace Baptist Church
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