A Compass for Life's Journey – Dr. Charles Stanley
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www.aberdeen.io 1-800-688-6621 male announcer: "In Touch"
with Dr. Charles Stanley reaching the world with
the gospel of Jesus Christ through sound biblical teaching. Next on "In Touch",
"A Compass for Life's Journey". Dr. Charles Stanley: I have
in my hand a compass and I have had it
for twenty-five years. It has never failed me. It's always pointed North,
always pointed to the North Pole,
so I can always tell by looking at this which
direction I'm headed in. Now, if I put it in my pocket
and I don't look at it, it doesn't do me any good. But if I will take it
out and look at it, I will always know which
direction I'm headed in. And I have been in some places
a few times without it, I wish I'd had it
because I needed it. And on one occasion
when I was with a guide, I told him I thought we were
heading in the wrong direction. He said, "Oh no, I've traveled
this path many times and I know it's not
the wrong direction." I pulled out my compass
and I said, "Well, sir, either I have got
to believe you or I've got to believe my compass,
and I'm going to believe my compass
because it never fails." Well, finally he admitted
that we were right, and so we finally got
where we were going. And when I think about how
many times I've pulled this out to look at it, to check up
on myself, to be sure I'm going
the right directions, and one of the most
valuable things about it to me personally for photographing is
that when I want to be sure I have warm morning light
when it's the most beautiful and it's side light, I can take
this the night before and, okay, check out: Where is East? 'Cause I know the sun's coming
from that direction. When I want to get
a beautiful sunset, then I want to check out
and see where's West because I know that's
where it's going to set. So, there are some things
I know for certain, not going to ever lead me wrong, always going to tell me
what's right. And so, when I think about this, it points in eight
different directions. There's North and Northeast
and East. Then there's Southeast
and South. Then there's Southwest and West,
and then there's Northwest. So, there are eight
different directions it's going to point me in. And just to know
that I can trust it all the time is a great sense of security. Well, that's good for travel, there's a better compass
for living. And as surely as that
compass will always point, watch this, will always point
to the North Pole, this compass always points
upward every single time. And what I want to do
in this message is this, and I want to talk about a
"Compass for Life's Journey". And what I want to do
is simply this, I want to take a passage
of scripture, one of the most important
passages of scripture in the Bible to me personally,
because right after I was saved, somehow by the grace of God
and His goodness, I came across this passage
of scripture. And there are
two verses primarily that God spoke
to my heart about. And then, after a few years
went by, I realized that there was
so much more here. And so, what I want us to do is
I want us to read this passage of scripture and then
here's what we're going to do. I'm going to show you why
this Bible and this passage of scripture is an awesome
guide for your life and mine. And this passage alone
will always keep you headed in the right direction. And then, when we talk
about how it directs us, I want to talk about the value
that following this, listen, this compass
that never points us in the wrong direction,
but it--listen. I want to show you the value
of simply doing and following the compass. So, I want you to turn,
if you will, to Proverbs chapter three,
and I usually don't read a long passage of scripture,
but it's a wonderful passage. So, beginning in verse one, "My son, do not forget
my teaching, but let your heart keep
my commandments; "For length of days
and years of life, and peace they will add to you. "Do not let kindness
and truth leave you, bind them around your neck,
and write them on the tablet of your heart. "So you will find favor
and good report," or a good reputation
"in the sight of God and man. Trust in the LORD
with all your heart, lean not to
your own understanding. In all your ways
acknowledge Him, and He will make
your paths straight," or direct your path. "Do not be wise
in your own eyes; fear the LORD and turn away
from evil. It will be healing
to your body, and refreshment to your bones. Honor the LORD
from your wealth, and from the first
of all your produce; So your barns will be filled
with plenty, and your vats will overflow
with new wine. My son, do not reject
the discipline of the LORD, or loathe His reproof, For whom the LORD loves
He reproves, even as a father corrects
the son in whom he delights." Now, I believe this, number one,
because it is scripture. I believe it
for the second reason because I was saved
when I was twelve years of age. Right after that,
these two verses, "Trust in the LORD
with all your heart, lean not
to your own understanding. In all your ways
acknowledge Him, and He will direct your path." Those two verses became like
an anchor to my own thinking. And then as I began to read
later on in life, a little later on, these other
verses helped me to realize that here in one passage
is a compass for living. And I can tell you God
can be trusted to be faithful. This passage will always
keep you walking in the right direction. So, let's think about it
for a moment. Let's look at the direction
of this compass, the Word of God,
this Bible compass. And the first thing
you'll notice is that it points
to the scripture itself. Listen. "My son, do not forget
my teaching, but let your heart
keep my commandments." Listen, this compass is
our moral guide for this life. You and I live in a world
that is very immoral, full of difficulties, heartache,
pain, troubles, trials and immoralities. This compass will keep you
heading in the right direction all the time. Because remember this. Every day you hear voices
that would pull you away from the right path. You see things that
would pull you away from the right path if you're
not careful what you look at. And so, many people
are not down-- are not going
down the right path. They're not heading
in the right direction. First of all, they don't
even know what it is. You see, if you neglect
the compass, you're going to get in trouble
sooner or later. And there are so many things
in life, listen, that cloud our thinking. So many voices we hear
that would try to convince us and persuade us this is right
and that's right. The Word of God,
meditating upon the Word, listening to the Word,
taking notes on the Word, applying the words to our heart. So, he says, "My son,
do not forget my teaching, let your heart keep
my commandments." Let the Word of God be uppermost
in your thinking. Daily it is your compass
for living. The second thing I want you
to notice is this. This compass points us,
listen to what he says, "Do not let kindness
and truth leave you, bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet
of your heart." Kindness, kindness--listen. This compass is always going
to point us to being kind, that's considerate
and thoughtful and giving and helpful and warm about our
feelings toward other people. And the Bible says
that kindness makes a man or a woman attractive. That is, God uses that character
quality in our life to attract people to the Lord Jesus Christ
who lives inside of us. And so, this compass is always
going to point you and me, listen, to be kind
toward other people, to be helpful, to be a servant,
to be giving, when necessary, to be an encouragement to them
in some way or the other. And so, kindness is one
direction we'll always walk in if we follow this compass. But notice if you will
what he says also. He says, "And truth." That is, this compass will
always lead you to truth. Why? Because it is inspired
by the Living God. It is the infallible,
inerrant compass. It makes no mistakes. It always points--listen. It always points God-ward. Just like the physical compass
always points North-ward, to the North Pole, this compass
always points toward God, heavenly, and it will always
lead you in the right direction. That is, to be truthful
to other people, and to act in truth
with integrity. Then, if you'll notice
what He says. He says, "Trust in the LORD
trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not,"
listen, "lean not to
your own understanding," which simply means this. This compass always,
always points us to trust, to faith, that our God
is trustworthy. He never makes a mistake. He will never mislead you
under any condition. And sometimes we have
difficulty trusting God. And sometimes a person will say,
"Well, I trust Him sort of." Listen carefully. You don't trust Him sort of. You either do trust Him
or you don't trust Him. You don't trust Him sort of. And oftentimes we have
difficulty when God requires of us something that we see
is difficult for us. And we say,
"Well, God, but how?" And because we can't
figure it out, we don't trust Him. And when we do not trust Him
in any area of our life, we're insulting God. What we're saying and
what we're implying is this. He's not trustworthy. If He says, "I'm calling you
to do this work," or, "here's what I want you
to say here." And we say, "Well, I-- I just don't think
I can do that." God by His nature would
never call you to do something He will not equip you to do. He will not call you
to give something He'll not provide
the resources for. He's not going, listen,
He's not going to lead you into a lifestyle for which
He has not equipped you in your gifts and talents
and skills and abilities. Therefore, to deny Him,
His rightful place in your life of trusting Him,
you are saying to Him, "I can't trust You. I don't believe You." Say, "Oh, I'd never
tell God that." Your actions shout it to Him. Think about,
here's this righteous God who never makes a mistake,
who loves you unconditionally, who would never mislead you
and you're telling Him you don't believe Him. You know what it says? You--you've closed the compass. This compass is always going
to lead you to trust Him. But I want you to notice
something else about it. And that is, it will always
lead you to seek His mind and His will about things. Listen to what He says. He says, now, "Trust in the LORD
with all your heart, lean not to your
own understanding," and then he says, "In all
your ways acknowledge Him." This compass is always going
to point you in the direction of seeking the Lord. That is, what does God think
about the question before you? How does God want to intervene
in this decision to give you the right sense of direction? "In all your ways
acknowledge Him. Which means, listen,
if I acknowledge Him, I'm recognizing Him as my Lord. I'm recognizing, listen,
His infinite and perfect wisdom. I'm recognizing the fact
that He will only lead me in the right direction. I'm recognizing the fact that
He loves me unconditionally. I'm recognizing the fact that
He only has the best for me, so therefore in all your ways
acknowledge Him. That is, look to Him, seek Him. Now think about this. What is it in your life
that you would say, "Now, God has nothing to do
with that, not a thing." In all your ways,
in all your decisions, we're to seek Him. We're to ask Him. And you see, if you're not,
if you're not into the compass daily,
you can mark it down, you're going to step off
the path. You're going to head
in the wrong direction. Why does He give us this
awesome compass to live by? Simply because He loves us. Listen, He knows where
all the pitfalls are. He knows on the path
of your life and mine where it's very narrow. He knows where it's very broad. He knows all the temptations
along the way. He knows all about the voices
that'll be calling for you here, calling for you there. He knows all about
the attractive things that will appeal to you. And so, whatever there is
out there, He knows all about them. And so, what?
He wants us to seek His will. God, what would You
have me to do? What you have to do is,
check the compass. You cannot name a single
solitary experience in life in which this compass will not
give you clear direction. If you will meditate upon it
if you will ask God to give you direction. You see, because there's
no area in your life that you could exclude God. So, he says, "In all your ways, in all your ways
acknowledge Him." And then, if you will notice,
look again here in this verse. He says, "Do not be wise
in your own eyes, fear the LORD
and turn away from evil." Now, this compass always points
to obedience, always. There's not a single verse
to be found in scripture that would entice us to do evil. That's not who God is. This compass always points
to obedience. Why? Because the God who created you,
created a plan for your life. You may be in the plan
or not in the plan. Listen, He has a pathway
for us to walk. This pathway is the pathway
created by a loving God who loves us unconditionally. It's a pathway that leads
to the best for our life. It's a pathway that
has difficulty on it, hardship, troubles, trials. But He's going to use
every single one of those to do what? To build character into our life
and to make us Christ-like, and to make us more useful,
listen, to make us a more
valuable vessel of His. Because the more those
difficulties and hardships and trials we've been through,
listen, the more capable we are of tenderly listening to others,
and being able to discern what's really going on in their heart,
and being able to identify with them,
and hurt with them. And so, all of those things
are part of His plan. And so, when you think about,
"Well, God, if You really love me, You'd eliminate
all of these things." No, He wouldn't.
It's because He loves us. And so, if you'll think
about it, He would never leave you
to do any-- lead you to do anything
that's disobedient. So, when you ask God
to show you His will, and you deliberately,
willfully, listen, step off the path,
what you're saying is, "I'm smarter than God." What you're saying is,
"God, I know that's what the compass says, but I'm going
to do something different." Listen carefully. There are many of you who have
something in your life that's drawing you off course,
off the path. And, soon as I said that,
you already know what it is, because you know it doesn't fit
who you are. It's not contributing
to your life. It has you confused,
frustrated, guilty, mixed up, and some of you are
in depression because you've been
off the path so long. All I want to say is this. If you don't get
on the right path, if you don't get back
to following the leadership of the compass, you're going
to make a horrible mistake. And I want to tell you,
my friend, anytime you're walking
the path of disobedience, you are going
to be disappointed, and you are going
to self-destruct if you don't get
on the right path. He says, "Fear the Lord
and turn away from evil." The next thing I want you
to know is, it's points us also, listen, to financial wisdom. Look at this. He says in this ninth verse,
"Honor the LORD from your wealth, and from
the first of all your produce; So that your barns will be
filled with plenty, and your vats will overflow
with new wine." What does it mean
to honor the Lord? It means that I respect Him
and revere Him. It means I acknowledge
His Lordship. And when it comes to finances,
here's what it means. I honor Him as the creator
of all wealth. I honor Him as the source
of all of my wealth. It may be very, very,
very little, but it falls in the category
of wealth. Honor the Lord with your wealth. Listen, honor the Lord
from your wealth. That's very simple. Now, my wealth and your wealth
is not only dollars and cents, it's your abilities,
your talents, your skills, your opportunities. Honor the Lord from your wealth. Listen, this is part
of the compass. He said, "You want direction
in your finances? Then start honoring God." Because when you dishonor God,
and then you expect Him to get you out of the mess,
that's a contradiction. And I'll tell you why
it's not going to happen. Because listen, God isn't going
to contribute to what you are doing wrongly. Is this because
He's a judgmental God? No, it's because, listen, it's
because He knows what's best, and He tries to get
our attention. And when people get in debt
and they go to some counselor and they give them,
well just, you know, mortgage your house again. Now you got a bigger debt,
or do this or do that. And if you listen to all these
commercials telling you how to get out of debt,
they're not telling you how to get out of debt. They're telling you how
to have more money now, which is a trap. This compass will
never mislead you. Then listen to the last
direction of this compass, and that is, "My son,
do not reject the discipline of the LORD, or loathe
His reproof," that is, don't hate His reproof, "For
whom the LORD loves He reproves, even as a father corrects
the son in whom he delights." You know what he says? He says, "Here's
what this compass says." This compass says,
listen, "Accept God's reproof. Accept His discipline because
it came from the Father's love." When God comes down
upon us for our disobedience, we turn with hatred, animosity. "God, why are You allowing
this--doing this to me?" And if He answered,
you know what He'd say? "I'm loving you." Well, this is not a way
to love me. Wisdom says it is. Well, God, why are You
doing this to me? Because I have this awesome
path I've created for you, and I want you to get
the full benefit of walking according to My will. Now, watch this. In all of these eight directions
from this compass, in essence here's what it says. Stop trying to live in this
fantasy world of becoming what you want to become,
doing what you want to do, being what you want to be in
violation of the Word of God. That's a fantasy world,
and come back to reality and look at the compass
and begin to follow it. Now, the second part I want you
to see that we'll go through rather quickly,
so listen carefully. I want you to see the value,
and all these eight values are right here, the value
of following the compass. And here's the first one,
we're going not over those same verses, but the verses
in between, so watch this. Here's what he says, "My son,
do not forget my teaching, let your heart keep
my commandments." So, here's what he says. One of the first values is,
"Length of days and years of life, and peace
they will add to you." He says, listen. You want your days to be
more productive? You want your years
to be more fruitful? Listen. Do you want the best
of what God has to offer? You think about how many people
waste so much time in a given day. And if I call somebody
and I say, "What are you doing?" Well, I'm not doing anything. My first response is, "Well,
then you need to get busy, because before we get
off this phone, some of your life is already
gone and you wasted it." We should, listen,
we should be busy about the right things in life. Does this mean we don't ever
take a break? Now, I'm not talking about that. But what I want you
to see is this. He says, "When you follow
this compass, here's what you can expect: Length of days, years of life,
they will add to you. Are you saying to me that
I'll live longer if I obey God? I can't guarantee that,
but I can tell you one thing. More than likely,
more than likely you might. One thing I can say is this. Life will be better if you
follow the compass. So, he says, first of all,
"Your days and your years are going to be better." The second thing he says is, listen, accompanying those days
and years, he says, "And peace they will
add to you." Listen to this. That doesn't mean that
our life is just going to be full of [humming], ♪ everything is just fine
and wonderful every day ♪ It means, some days are going
to be [humming]-- Some days are going to be--
Ugh! And here's what he says,
"When the days are difficult and painful,
there will be this peace, this sustaining peace,
this overwhelming sense of comfort and assurance, my God is walking with me
through this." When you walk His path,
you follow His compass, what does he say? He says, "Length of days
and years of life and peace they're going
to add to you." Then notice what he says. Not only that, every one of
these makes it valuable for us. He says, "So you will find favor
and good repute in the sight of God and man." Think about this. Do you want the favor of God
in your life personally? Do you want the favor of God
upon your family? You want the favor of God
in the life of your children? Do you want the favor of God
bestowed upon you? When you follow the compass
as we've just mentioned here, what happens is, He says,
listen, we have the favor of God. That--listen, that means
the good things of God, God's plan, His provision,
His best comes our way, and now we can handle it. Why? Because we're on the right path
doing the right thing. Then if you'll notice, "Trust
in the LORD with all your heart, lean not your own understanding. In all your ways
acknowledge Him, He will direct your paths." One of the values of following
the compass is He will direct your path,
and He will make it straight. You know what? You can't choose a better path
than God's path. This compass is going
to lead you, listen, to do the right thing
every time and what's going to happen is He's going
to give you direction. Do you think God would withhold
direction from you when you need direction
in your life? If you stay with the compass,
listen. There's not a single area
of your life and I repeat this, where as you need direction,
God will give you direction from this compass if you will
meditate upon it and read it. Let it soak into your mind
and heart. And listen to this last value. The last value is this,
a father's loving correction. You say, "I don't want that
in my life." Then you know what? You'll get off the path. Every single one of us get off
the path if we don't stay with the compass. There's no compass
like this one. And if you take the compass
and lay it down, what you're doing is
you're positioning yourself to get off the path. And I want to challenge you,
I want to challenge you to read the scripture
over and over again. Let it be the compass
of your life to keep you on the right path
so that you'll have God's absolute best blessings
for your life for the future. And Father, how grateful we are
that You could pack so much in such a few verses. To give us a sense of direction
for every aspect of our life, and just encompass us with so
many blessings and the assurance and the peace that we have
knowing, when we follow this compass, always headed
in the right direction. And know that one of these days
we'll stand before You, and we trust that all of us,
Father, will stand before You with gratitude and thanksgiving, having looked back to see
when we got on Your path it was the best part
of our life, in Jesus' name, amen.