Proverbs chapter 3. If you've never read the book of Proverbs before, I would encourage
you to do that. There is good stuff in the book of Proverbs and it is likely, if you're
like me, hopefully you're better than me, but if you're even a little like me, you'll
find a lot of stuff in there that you say, man, I need to do better at that. And so it's
a short book, short chapters, and it's a lot of good wisdom and instruction in the book
of Proverbs. Proverbs chapter 3 is a great chapter to read. You might want to read it
this week. It's good stuff in there, but we're only going to look at two little verses today.
Proverbs chapter 3, verses 7 and 8.
Don't consider yourself to be wise. Fear the Lord and turn away from evil. This will be
healing for your body and strengthening for your bones. Let's pray. God, we come to you
today and I pray that your Holy Spirit would be among us this morning. I pray that we would
hear from you today, God, that you would speak to us, that your word would speak to us, that
even in these few seconds that it took us to see and read and hear that word, God, that
even now that you're working in our life, God, I pray that you'd help us to be free
of the worries and distractions of this world, dear Lord. We come here today with a lot going
on in our lives, but I pray that in these few minutes that you would just help us to
seek you and to find you, dear Lord. I pray that you would hide me behind the cross, take
away any pride or any fear in my life, dear Lord, and I would be able to preach and teach
in a way that brings glory and honor to you. And I pray that you'd be with us. And I ask
these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
What we see here, I think, in these couple of verses is we see what I would call a problem,
we see a solution, and we see a result to all of these things playing out. Now, the
very first part of verse 7 here says, do not be wise in your own eyes. Well, that's the
problem. That's the problem sometimes that you and I face is we begin to be a little
proud. We begin to be wise in our own eyes, and that certainly is a problem. We see that
idea all throughout Scripture, the idea of being proud or the idea of thinking too much
of oneself. And so this proverb here gives us some good instruction. This is instruction
for a problem that probably we all face at some point in our life. And that is we begin
to be successful or we begin to get good at something or we begin to get so caught up
in our ideas and our thoughts and the way that we see things and the way that we do
things and the way that we think that we begin to become wise in our own eyes. We begin to
think our way is the best and that we know best and that what we say is right and that
what we do is right. And we begin to become wise in our own eyes, and that brings about
all kinds of problems in our life. The biggest problem that comes from that is, is when we
become wise in our own eyes, we begin to think so much about ourselves and what we think
and what we know that we don't begin to trust God and seek God the way we should. That we
don't seek the wisdom of God because we've kind of got it figured out. We know, I know,
my way is the right way, my way is the best way. I'm wise. But maybe sometimes when we
think we're wise, maybe we are not as wise as we think we are. So maybe passages like
this are good passages for us to look at. Maybe you don't fall into this trap today,
as God. Maybe some of us are battling this very thing today. This idea that we become
wise in our own eyes, that we think our way is right and everything we do is right and
everybody else is wrong. And the problem is, we kind of become our own God. And in doing
so, we become foolish. Sometimes we fall into that trap. We think we are wise when in all
actuality we are quite foolish. That's one reason why the book of Proverbs is so beautiful.
Because it talks a lot about foolishness in there. And lo and behold, sometimes I'm reading
those things, I think, that's all about me. No, I wouldn't say, oh, I'm a fool. But God's
Word would say otherwise sometimes. That's why God's Word is important for us to read.
Because we don't maybe always see these things in us. We might not see that we become wise
in our own eyes. But sometimes if we look at scriptures, we begin to realize that maybe
I've not been trusting in God. Maybe I've been trusting in my own way. And maybe I don't
know everything. Maybe I think I know everything in my way is right. But maybe I don't know
everything. And so the problem in our life sometimes is that we become wise in our own
eyes, but what we need to remember is that we must seek God's wisdom. That we must seek
God's guidance. That we don't know everything. That God's ways are higher than our ways and
God's thoughts are higher than our thoughts. And we need to remember these beautiful lessons
in scripture. That when we think we know it all or when we think we're wiser than God
because things aren't going the way that we think they need to go, we need to pump the
brakes a little bit. And we need to realize that there's a wisdom greater than ours. And
that wisdom that we see in scripture is Jesus Christ. That is true wisdom. To be fully dependent
on Jesus Christ, to fully seek to live for Him and to follow His examples, that's where
wisdom comes from. But foolishness comes from living for ourselves and following our own
ways. And so as the book of Proverbs is so good at doing, it points out things that we
need to be aware of. Real simple, real short things. That's one of the things that's beautiful
about Proverbs. There's lots of little one or two line things in there that just kind
of hit home sometimes. So it's good for us to refresh our minds with these words or maybe
to hear them for the first time if you've never read the book of Proverbs. So this is
the problem that we face today. Don't be wise in our own eyes. Okay, so what's the solution
when we sin in that way? When we become to live in foolishness and we've become sinful
and we've become wise in our own eyes, what is the solution to our problem? Well, it tells
us in the next part of that verse. Don't consider yourself to be wise. Fear the Lord and turn
away from evil. Now when we're kind of living for ourselves and we think we are wise, we
kind of push God to the side as we talked about. But what we need to remember is that
one day we're going to have to stand before God. And God's standards are not our standards.
Now in our wise eyes, we think everything we do and say and the way we go about it is
right. But God doesn't judge by what we think. One day we're going to stand before God, the
God who created us, the God who created the heavens and the earth, and we will have to
answer for Him, to Him, for the things that we have done, for what He says to do, what
He says is right and what is wrong, what He says is good and what is evil. And when we
begin to put too much emphasis on ourself and our wise in our own eyes, then God always
takes a back seat. But the scripture tells us this, and we see this often in the scripture,
that we need to fear God, that we need to fear God to know that we will stand before
Him, to know that it's not our way that matters, that it is God's way that matters. What is
God's way? Well, we must look at God's Word. Now, most importantly, when we talk about
God's way, we're talking about Jesus Christ who is the way, first and foremost. When we
talk about things that scripture points us to and the most important thing that we want
to see in scripture, when we talk about God's commands and God's instructions, we want to
see Jesus Christ, the Son of God who died for us so that our sins could be forgiven.
And that, 1 Corinthians tells us, is wisdom. Now, the world would call it foolishness,
but the scripture says there is where wisdom begins. That is the wisdom of God and Jesus
Christ. And so if we're going to realize that our way is not the best, then we have to acknowledge
that there is a better way. And there is only one way, and that is Jesus Christ, and that
is the way of God. And so God's Word is full of instructions. Not only the good news of
the gospel of Jesus who gave His life so that your sins could be forgiven, but also the
examples of how Jesus lived His life, of how He taught, of how He interacted with the people,
of how He had compassion, of how He brought grace. And God's Word is full of good instruction.
God's Word is full of proverbs that tell us instruction on how to be the man or the woman
that God wants us to be, that show us what it means to live a life of wisdom, to show
us what it means to live a life of humility, to show us what it means to avoid these things
that are foolish in our life. And so we need to realize that we're not just living for
ourselves and that the things that we do and the things that we say and the way that we
act, one day we will have to answer to God for those things. So the writer of the proverb
here says, hold up. Don't think too highly of yourself, but focus your attention on God
and know the greatness of God. And so the solution to our problem of sin and thinking
too much of our self is reading God's Word and seeing that we are hopeless and helpless
without God, that we are hopeless and helpless without the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, that
we are fully dependent on God. And that's part of our problem sometimes as we become
too dependent on ourself and on our own abilities and we find ourselves in trouble and in pain
and in heartache and struggling. Why? Because our abilities are insufficient. Our strength
is insufficient. But God is the one who has the ability to deliver us. God is the one
who has the strength to get us through those things in life and it's God's Word and the
hope that we have in Jesus Christ that's our encouragement, that we aren't good enough,
that we can never be good enough before God, that our sin is, it's before us. We are just
sinners, deserving of death. But yet Jesus Christ comes and He dies for us so that we
may receive grace. And so this proverb, I believe, is pointing us from not looking at
ourself because we're just a bunch of evil sinners. Now you may not want to hear that
today. We may not like to think of ourself in that way, but we are. And we can justify
by saying, well, yeah, there's people that's worse than me. Well, sure, there's people
that's worse than you. But at the end of the day, we're sinners and our sin is bad, maybe
worse than we care to admit today. And that's why we need to continue to be in God's Word.
That's why we come every week and we study God's Word. That's why when you're at home,
you study God's Word or you listen to something on the radio that's helping to teach you God's
Word, you come to Sunday school because we want to live by God's Word. That we don't
become wise in our own eyes, but that we learn the greatness of God and that we fear Him,
that we fear God, and that we know that God is good and that God is love, but that He's
God. And God calls us to a higher standard. He calls us to His standard. So the solution
to our problem of sin and being proud and wise in our own eyes is to fear the Lord and
to turn away from evil. Now, that should be obvious to us that we need to turn away from
evil, but maybe we need to be reminded of that. We might be surprised that maybe a lot
of the struggles that we're going through in our life might get a lot better if we just
simply turn away from evil. There might be a lot of heartaches and pain and stresses
and difficulties and things that we are going through in life that are simply a result of
us living in evil, of us living in sin. Well, today is the day that we need to recognize
that in our life. We need to stop doing things our way. We need to fear God, and we need
to turn away from evil. It might be amazing to you how quickly that when you turn away
from evil and turn to God, that our situations get better. Now, sometimes maybe we say, well,
you know, I love God, but yet we don't turn away from the evil. And we're kind of trying
to walk with one foot in the kingdom and one foot in the world, and that's not going to
work out for us. So we need to recognize today that if there's sin in our life, if there's
evil in our life, that we need to repent of that, that we need to turn away from that
evil. That's what repentance is, to turn away, to do a 180. You're going in one direction.
It's time to go in the other direction. And Jesus Christ has paved the way for us. He
has made a way where there wasn't a way, and it's a narrow path. It's hard to follow. It's
hard to live by the Word of God. It's hard to do the things that God commands. It's not
easy. It's a narrow path, and the path of the world is broad. But the scripture says
it leads to destruction. But Jesus has provided us a narrow way, and it's a way that leads
to eternal life. It's a way that leads to righteousness through Jesus Christ. And maybe
there are some today, and it's time, today it's time, that we quit trying to justify
our sin, and we say, I'm not going to live for myself anymore. I'm not going to live
in my pride anymore, but I'm going to trust God. I'm going to fear Him, and I'm going
to come to Him, and I'm going to seek Him so that He may restore me, that we're going
to turn from our evil ways. The problem is our sin and our pride. The solution is to
fear God and turn from our evil. And the result, we see that in verse 8. This will be healing
for your body and strengthening for your bones. Now, it's interesting that we see this kind
of language sometimes. Now, I understand that sometimes in the scripture when we see this
language about our actions and our bones, it's kind of figurative in some way, but I
think it's literal in some way too. That our spiritual life and the choices we make
and the sin that we live in and the evil that we do, it affects us not only spiritually,
but it affects us physically. When we're living for the world and we're involved in things
we shouldn't be, and we're letting stress and worry get the best of us, it affects us
in a physical way. It affects our bodies today. There are probably some of us in here today,
and our bodies feel worn out. We've got headaches. We've just got pains. We've got chest pains
or whatever it may be. I mean, there's a variety of pains that come in a physical sense that
are a result from our stress and from the things that we go through. And some of the
results that we experience are results of our sin. And it brings pain to our body, and
it affects us. We can't sleep at night. We're tired. We're worn out, and that affects us.
And so our sin and the choices that we make, they affect us not only spiritually, but they
affect us physically. And maybe today some of our physical problems could be alleviated
if we simply turn to God. If we turn from our evil and we turn to God and we trusted
Him and we stop living for ourselves and living the way the world tells us is the way we should
live and we start living for God, not only are we going to feel better in our spirit
and our soul will be lifted up, but physically I believe we begin to feel better. When we
begin to trust God, there's a certain grace that comes. And when we begin to push out
and turn away from all this evil, then our body can begin to heal, spiritually speaking
and physically speaking. And we see this type of language all throughout the Proverbs. We
see this type of language about our body or our bones being healed or sometimes our bones
being crushed. The Psalms and the Proverbs use that type of language. Here's some good
scriptures for us to consider today. Proverbs chapter 14 verse 30, a tranquil heart is life
to the body, but jealousy is rottenness to the bones. Okay, so maybe jealousy is our
problem or maybe it's another sin, but whatever the sin may be, it's going to be rottenness
to our bones. It's going to affect us to our core and everything that's in us and the way
that we feel and the way that we act and the way that we respond and our attitude. All
of those things come when we live in sin, it affects us in a lot of ways. We feel bad
in a lot of ways and our attitude shows that. But there's a solution to that. We don't have
to have this rottenness in our bones. If we turn away from our sin, there's certainly
some goodness and some joy that can come. And what does it say in that proverb? It says
a tranquil heart is life to the body, a sound heart or a heart that's calm. So maybe we
need to pray today that God change our heart. Maybe there's a lot of anger and a lot of
bitterness. Maybe there's a lot of fury in our heart. Maybe there's some hatred in our
heart. Maybe our heart is dwelling on sins instead of dwelling on the things of God.
And that makes turmoil. That produces a storm. For some of us, there may be a storm raging
on in our hearts and in our minds today. But we need to pray that God would change our
heart, that he would give us a tranquil or a calm heart or a sound heart, a heart that's
at peace. All of these are the different words that your translations may use here. But that's
what we want is a heart that's at peace. And a heart that's at peace brings peace in our
life. It brings peace in our mind. It brings peace in our relationship because it changes
how we deal with other people. When we are rotten to the bone, we treat other people
rottenly. But when our heart is at peace, we treat other people with peace. When our
heart is calm, we are calm toward other people. So the Proverbs is full of scriptures like
these that kind of show us how our life needs to be. Proverbs chapter 16 verse 24. Pleasant
words are a honeycomb sweet to the taste and health to the body. Pleasant words. What kind
of words do you speak? Well, that may determine how you feel. It may determine how other people
around you, how they feel. What does it say? Pleasant words are honeycomb sweet to the
taste and health to the body. What kind of words do you speak? Are they pleasant words?
Are they pleasant words? We like to hear pleasant words. Nobody wants to hear somebody coming
to them that's rotten to the bone, that has something negative to say all the time, that's
always in a bad mood, that's always talking bad about other people. That's not pleasant.
That doesn't make you feel good. And it doesn't make the person that say those words feel
good. And so maybe we could change our life a lot if we just simply change our vocabulary.
If we simply begin to speak pleasant words. Words that are uplifting. Not words that tear
people down. Not words of gossip. Not words of talking people behind their back. Not words
of negativity. But simply pleasant words. Words that when people see us, they don't
dread to see us because oh, here comes so and so. It's going to be all bad all the time.
And then we have to fight against it. Some of us are more pessimistic, some of us are
more optimistic. But nobody wants to hear a bunch of unpleasant words all the time.
And you might be surprised that if you just change your vocabulary and you change how
you speak and the things you say, and you begin to speak to people in a pleasant way,
and you begin to talk about those around you in a pleasant way, and when others say something
negative about someone, you say something pleasant. You might be surprised at just how
much that changes your life. And not only your life, but it's going to change those
lives of those that you encounter too. It's beautiful when you get a pleasant word. I
know somebody, they have a ministry and every morning they text message a bunch of people
and every morning it's a pleasant word. And it's good for us to get a pleasant word. And
why? Because the scripture says pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the taste and health
to the body. We need healing in our bodies today. We want to feel good. We want to feel
good spiritually. We want to feel good physically. And there's a connection there. We may not
point those connections out enough. We may not recognize that it's there, but there's
a connection there. When we're living in the peace of God and not living in sin, there's
a joy in our life that's there. It's much different than when there's rottenness to
our core and we're living in sin. So one way to help in that is to speak pleasant words.
Proverbs chapter 15 verse 30, bright eyes cheer the heart. Good news strengthens the
bones. And sometimes you see people that you see them come and they're, they're cheery
and they're happy. And sometimes it might even make you mad. I don't know why they're
so happy all the time. Sometimes we don't like people like that. But man, it's a beautiful
thing when you see someone that comes to you and has bright eyes, someone who is cheerful,
someone who brings joy. There's certain people that you see. And it's true for all of us.
There's some people you see and you don't want to see them. There's other people you
see and boy, you are glad to see them. Well, we don't want to be those people that nobody
wants to see. We want to be those people that are pleasant to be around. We want to be those
who bring joy to people's lives. We want to bring those who bring encouragement to people's
lives. And these proverbs I think are so beautiful and there's so many of them. We won't look
at all of them today, but there's so many of these passages that we see that speak languages
like this. This good instruction for us today, brothers and sisters in Christ, that one,
we want to be those who are bright-eyed. And what does it say? Bright-eyed, bright eyes
cheer the heart, good news strengthens the bone. So we want to be those who come with
joy and who bring good news. Now, I suspect there are some people, we probably all know
somebody, and you know that whatever they say is going to be something negative. It
can be the best thing in the world. Everything can be great. And they are going to find something
negative. It's just in them. They can't help it. We have to fight against that. Maybe we
all have that just a little bit. But we don't like to hear bad news. Good news. Good news
brings healing to the body. Good news is good for the heart. So maybe we need to make a
purpose. If we're one of those that's a little more negative about things, maybe we need
to try to make it a purpose to look for the good. And some of you may be saying there
ain't no good, even as I say that. Well, some of us may have to look hard at others. But
there's good out there. There's good out there, and we need to see it. We are so overwhelmed
on our news and on our Facebook feeds and Snapchat and Instagram with negativity. There's
stuff all over the place. But we need to look and realize that there is good out there.
We need to see the goodness of God, and we need to seek out the good news, and we need
to praise God for the good news. And we don't need to be so negative. Even when bad things
happen, we say, oh, the air conditioner, it's only blowing half cold. It's not very cold.
That's the worst thing in the world. Or maybe we should say, well, good news, at least it's
blowing half cold. It could not be blowing at all. And praise the Lord, it's blowing
a little bit because it's hot outside. So maybe we need to kind of change our mindset,
and we need to change our heart, and we need to change our attitude that we are those who
look for the good and see the good. It's not that we're pretending that bad doesn't exist.
I'm not telling you to do that. I know that bad exists. I'm aware that bad exists. I'm
aware that difficulties exist. I'm aware that there's pain in our life. But I'm also
aware that there is goodness. And I'm aware that pleasant words and bright eyes and good
news are good for the heart, and they bring healing to the body because God's word says
it is. And our hearts need to be uplifted, and our bodies need to be restored. We come
today and we read God's word because that's what we need. And so maybe some of you come
today and you come here and you feel like your bones are crushed. We look at these passages
and proverbs that talk about, you know, these things are healing to our bones. But we also
see in the scripture, it talks about our bones being crushed. We see that a lot in the Psalm,
Psalm 32, verse 3, Psalm of David here. He says, When I kept silent, my bones became
brittle from my groaning all day long. Now, we want to be those whose bodies are restored
and whose bones are healed and there's healing in our body. But we have to start somewhere.
We have to start somewhere for that healing to begin. And we start here with God's word.
We start at Jesus Christ. And we come here today and no doubt there are some times in
our life, and maybe some of you feel this today, that we feel like David. That we are
in the midst of our sin and we know that our sin is not good and our sin is just weighing
us down. And what does he say? He says, When I kept silent, my bones became brittle from
my groaning all day long. And in our sin, we groan because it makes us feel bad and
we can't get any comfort and we can't get any rest and it feels like we're about to
break to our innermost being. It feels like we cannot take anymore. And David said, When
I kept silent, I felt this way. Well, we don't want to be those who keep silent today. We
come here today, we want to be those who are healed, that our soul is healed through Jesus
Christ, that our bodies are healed, that we are those who do the work of God. And so today,
we no longer need to remain silent. If you're in sin and you feel broken and you feel ashamed
and you feel like you can't make it, then today is the day that you need to speak up.
Because so long as we keep silent, we feel this way. But the moment that we come to God
and say, God, I seek you in my brokenness, in my sinfulness, in my pride. God, I cannot
do it. I'm tired of doing it my way. God, I'm going to do it your way. God, I'm coming
to you and I'm coming to Jesus Christ. And God, I open my mouth to you and I call out
to you today. We don't want to be silent today in our sin. If there's struggle and there's
pain today, don't be silent, but call out to the Lord. Psalm chapter 6 verse 2, Be gracious
to me, Lord, for I am weak. Heal me, Lord, for my bones are shaking. So you say, OK,
I want to speak today. What do I speak? The Psalms are good. If you want to learn how
to pray, the Psalms are a good thing to read. You read beautiful language in there. You
read some of these prayers of David and they're genuine. They're not sugarcoated. He just
acknowledges his rottenness and how he feels and what's going on. And some of you may need
to do that today. Maybe all of us need to do that today. We just need to speak up before
the Lord and we need to call on him. And what do we say? What did David say? He said, Be
gracious to me, Lord, for I am weak. That might need to be our prayer today. That might
need to be your prayer and my prayer. God, we need your grace. God, I am weak today.
God, this world has gotten the better of me. The things and the stresses of this world
have just about crushed my bones. God, I am weak. My sin has gotten the better of me.
But God, I ask you to be gracious to me because God, I am weak. God, I am laying on the mat.
I've been knocked out. I have no more strength. I cannot go another round. But God, I know
that you are in my corner. So be gracious to me and pick me up and give me a little
bit of that living water and wipe me off and tell me, keep going. Run the race with endurance.
Don't give up. Don't get caught up in the sin that so easily ensnares, but trust Jesus
Christ. Maybe that needs to be our prayer today. God, be gracious to me for I am weak.
Psalm chapter 51 verse 8, let me hear joy and gladness. Let the bones you have crushed
rejoice. That's what we want. We want that same type of restoration that David got, that
same type of restoration come to our life, that we would be those who were restored.
Let me hear joy and gladness. That's what we want today. We want to feel the joy and
the gladness of God. And we can feel that through what Jesus Christ has done when we
repent of our sins and when we come to Him and when we seek Him. Let me hear joy and
gladness that the bones you have crushed rejoice. Isn't that an interesting language? David
says the bones you have crushed. The fact of the matter is, is that sometimes God disciplines
us and it's hard. We don't like to be disciplined, but God disciplines us because He loves us.
Don't doubt that today. Sometimes we go through difficulties in life and hard times and we
say, God, why are you doing this to me? God, you must not love me, but maybe just the opposite
is true. It may be that God allows us to be crushed sometimes because God wants us to
seek Him and to call out to Him and to find joy and gladness. And He knows we cannot find
it any other way. So let the bones that God has crushed rejoice today. God disciplines
us sometimes and it's hard and it's difficult, but God wants to restore you today. If we're
living in sin today, then we need to repent so that restoration can take place. Last scripture
today, Proverbs chapter three, just a little further down from where we started. Proverbs
chapter three, verse 11 says, 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, the son
He delights in. Perhaps some of us come here today and we feel the Lord's discipline in
our life. We kind of feel that conviction. We feel that. But we come here today to read
God's word, to read God's instruction. Why? Because it brings healing to our bones. It
brings health to our body. So maybe today we need to come before the Lord and listen
to His instruction. His instruction that tells us, I provided a way for you through my son,
Jesus Christ, that there's forgiveness of your sins, that I can change your life, that
I can work in you, that I can transform your heart, that I can make you into a better man
or a better woman today. God's instruction is good for us and we see just a smidgen of
it here today. But perhaps today it's time for us to stop being wise in our own eyes,
to fear the Lord and to turn away from evil so that there may be healing in our bodies
today. So that there may be healing in our soul today. If you're hurting today, if you're
in pain today, I can tell you there's healing. It's available. It comes through Jesus Christ.
If you repent of your sins and put your faith in Him, He'll change your life. God's word
is full of instructions on how we need to live. We may just need to change the way we're
living. We may need to change the way we speak. We may just need to speak some pleasant words.
We may need to change our attitude. We may need to look for the positive. We may need
to be encouraging to other people. And maybe in those very simple acts, it may have more
of an impact on you than you could ever imagine and I can assure you it'll have an impact
on those you encounter. God's word is full of instruction to bring joy and healing to
our bodies today. But that healing begins with Jesus Christ. I pray that if you don't
know Him, you would. Let's pray. Father God, we come to you. We thank you for your good
word. God, there are certainly areas in our lives that we need to recognize are not good.
And by not good, dear Lord, that's a pretty way of saying that we are just right in sinners.
So help us to see those areas today. God, maybe even coming into this building, we kind
of knew it already. We usually do, dear Lord. Your Holy Spirit's convicted us. I pray that
we would listen to those convictions, that we would seek you, dear Lord, today, that
we would come to you for forgiveness. God, I pray that, God, maybe there are some here
today and they're just struggling in that way. I pray that you'd give them grace and
mercy. I pray that you'd give them strength. I pray, God, that if we've been walking in
our own wisdom, in what we would call wisdom, dear Lord, but what you'd call foolishness,
that we'd stop doing that, dear Lord, that we wouldn't consider ourselves to be wise
today. But God, we'd fear you today, that we'd come to you to know that you are God,
that you are in control. God, help us to turn away from the evils. They are ever before
us. The things we say, the things we do, the way we act, even the thoughts in our minds
that sometimes we let get away from us. Dear Lord, in every way, evil is before us, but
I pray that we would be those who would turn from that evil, that we would come to you,
dear Lord, and for what? For healing. God, we want to be healed today. God, maybe there
are some here today that are just broken, that just feel that their bones are brittle
like those of David, that just feel crushed, that feel like they cannot go another step.
Dear Lord, I pray today that they would turn from their sins, that they would come to you,
that they'd put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ, that they would find healing today.
God, healing and restoration, it comes through your grace, through Jesus, and I pray that
we would all find that today. God, help us to see how we live our life. Help us to check
our words, to check our attitude, to not be those, dear Lord, that people dread, but to
be those who bring encouragement and who bring pleasant words. God, help us to seek to be
those. God, so that you can help us to be better people and so we can help others, dear
Lord, to see your love and your grace and your mercy. So God, I pray today for each
one that's in here. Dear Lord, I don't know everybody's name, but you do. You know which
ones are hurting today. You know which ones need healing today, and I pray that they would
come to you, that they would seek you, that they would call out to you today. God, you
would hear them if they would, and I pray that their heart would just call out to you
this morning. I pray that you would bring healing and bring peace to their life, to
their mind, to their soul today. God, I just pray that you would be with us. Those who
don't know Jesus Christ, maybe today is the day that they've made that decision to put
their faith in Him. For those who are yours, dear Lord, maybe we're just struggling, that
we would find strength and encouragement in you, dear Lord. Bring healing to us today,
God. Now I ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.