Well, hey, good morning. How we doing? Excellent. It's great to be here with you in case we haven't had a chance to meet yet. My name is Josh. My family and I, we sit generally in this area and my son is the famous air guitar. So in case you didn't know, he's famous for that. It's great to be here with you. We're continuing our series called Asking for Directions. And sometimes, Pastor Bob or myself are one of the other pastors we get up here and we talk really to church people. Fair? Like we deliver things that are for church people. And if you're visiting, we're glad you're here, but sometimes it's not for you. Today, you're in luck. If you're here, it's for you. Okay? We're going to talk about something that no matter where you're at in your spiritual journey, maybe you have not a spiritual journey or maybe you've been in a spiritual journey for years and years and years. Today is for you because we're going to be continuing this idea, looking at how we can progress in our life. Last week, if you were here, we talked about this idea that direction, not intention, determines your destination, right? We started with this principle that we're all on this path. And this path that we're on is kind of like gravity. We can't really do anything about it. It's there. It's no matter how we live, it's there. We just can either walk down it or we can adjust to make sure that we're headed in the right direction because our direction, not our intention, not our good wishes, sends us to where we want to go. We can actually predict where we're going to end up by looking where we're at today. Remember last week, Pastor Bob, he did us parents' justice, right? He said, kids, your parents are right, right? Isn't that always great to hear from the stage? Kids, your parents are right. So I will reiterate, your parents are right, kids. You know this idea that show me your friends and I'll show you your future. Show me who you hang around with and I'll show you where you're going to end up. That's what it is. Direction, not intention, determines our destination. Well, today we're going to kind of turn around and we're going to start looking back a little bit. We've all heard the phrase, hindsight is 20, 20, right? How many of you have ever said the phrase, what was I thinking? Yeah, no, come on. Come on. Now there's like 12 people raised their hands. How many of you have ever said the phrase, look around, you're in good company. If you're online, if you're in Hancock, you can join in the fun. If you can't think of a phrase or a time where you said, what was I thinking, where a family member said, what were you thinking? Where your sister said, what were you thinking? It starts with, hold my beer. Anything after that? That's that story. Mine goes like this. Mine goes like this. Years ago, I was a youth pastor down in Orlando, Florida and you know, I was my first youth pastor gig. I was excited. I was energetic. I was newly married. Life was awesome. And I had 15 kids in my youth group and I was like, man, we're going to change the city of Orlando. You know, a little pipe dream, but we're going to change the city of Orlando. And so I said, we need to have more kids. So I had 15 and I said, here's what we're going to do. We're going to make a deal. Next week, if we have 50 kids, I will shave my head. Like no more silver fox, like gone, like shaved down, Mr. Clean. I learned two things that night. The first thing I learned is that teenagers are cheaters. See what happened was they called another youth group and they said, hey, we're having a special night. Come on over. And so literally two busloads of kids showed up to my youth group. 75 kids later, I learned my second lesson that night. I have a very ugly head. Yeah, we're going to leave it up for just a minute because you're not going to be able to take me seriously much longer after this. Yeah, so I learned that what was I thinking not only affected me because the next day after this, my mom had scheduled family pictures. And so my mom who's watching from Georgia, sorry, she says, what were you thinking? Maybe like me, you can look back. Yeah, we can go to something else, but anything else back up than that. Maybe your what was I thinking moment is a little bit more permanent than that. Maybe you were left with a financial situation. Maybe you were left with a relationship that went south and your what was I thinking moment impacted you longer than that. You see, hindsight tells us where we've messed up. Hindsight when we look back, we look back and we determine where we have messed up. But the problem with hindsight is often that it's driven by our guilt and our shame. It's driven by our guilt and our shame. I mean, we feel that we feel the guilt and the shame that when we look back on those moments in our life and we say, what was I thinking? And as much as when I look back in my life and I can learn from hindsight, there's something that's so much more important today. And when we look on our path and we look for the direction that we're headed and so much more important than hindsight is foresight. You see, foresight is better than hindsight. Foresight is better than hindsight. I'm a basketball coach and I know there's a lot of different coaches in here. And one of the things that we do as coaches is certainly we learned from the previous game, but we spend so much time planning for our next game. Looking ahead to what is coming. We watch future game film. We plan out, we mark out what we're going to do because foresight is better than hindsight. That's why businesses look at trends. They look at the market and they look ahead at what is coming. That's why the military, why generals and the leaders of our military, they develop plans and they prepare their troops for what's going to happen because foresight is better than hindsight. When I was 15 years old, I learned how to drive. Some of you guys learned how to drive around that time. My parents taught me a very important lesson that I've tried to translate to my kids. When you're driving, you don't just look right ahead of you. My parents said, don't just look at the car ahead of you. Look three or four car lengths down the road. Why? Because if the fourth car ahead of you puts on their brakes, chances are good. What's going to happen? You're going to have to brake. So my parents taught me that foresight is vital. When the brake lights come on, I let off the gas to determine that maybe I will have to slow down because foresight is better than hindsight. What's interesting about this idea is that this idea didn't come from learning how to drive. The idea that foresight is better than hindsight didn't come from generals or military or the business. It came from one of the wisest men, arguably the wisest men to ever walk this earth. It came from an ancient proverb, a proverb written about 3,000 years ago. It's written in Proverbs chapter 27 verse 12, and this is what it says. This is what Solomon the writer of Proverbs chapter 27 verse 12 says. A prudent person for sees danger and takes precautions. The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences. There's some beauty within this verse, and truly this verse projects us to foresight. It projects us to looking ahead. It says, don't be lazy. Don't be lazy and just take what comes. We have to look down the path. It tells us how to use that foresight. This is extremely practical. This is why I say if you're here today, this is for you. So, this is what we look at. If we break it down a little bit, a prudent person foresees danger. When we look at this idea of a prudent person, a prudent means wise or more specifically, a person who acts with or shows care and thought for the future. In other words, a person who cares about their future thinks about their future and looks down the path that they're currently on, and they examine their path. When was the last time that you examined the path that you were on? When you with wisdom, with a desire to be wise, when was the last time you examined your daily routine? When was the last time you examined your decisions with money? How you spend money? I know I'm a banker. We always work money into the sermon somehow. But when was the last time you examined how you spend your money? Or when was the last time you examined your relationships? When was the last time you examined how you interact with entertainment or food? See, a wise person, a prudent person, looks down the path and looks for red flags. That's what it means when it says a foresees danger. It's looking for those red flags, and we all know what I mean by red flags. If you're dating a person and that person leaves you on red, or they don't call you back, or worse of all, they have green dots on their phone messages. Those are red flags. Those are things that you need to look for and say, this is a relationship. They don't value me. That's a red flag when you're considering a purchase, and you look at that payment and you look at that interest, and you say, I don't know that I could afford it. It might be close. Trust me, that's a red flag. Maybe even maybe you need to even get a loan for something. That may be a red flag for you. You foresee danger, you foresee these red flags, and you are a wise person. Maybe you look down the path that you're on, the path that you're career, and you really want that promotion. That's the direction that you're headed, and you realize that if you take this promotion, it's going to take you away from your faith community. It's going to take you away from your family. It's going to cause your family to suffer. That is a red flag. We all see the red flags. We all see them. You know how I know that I know we all see them? It's because we all say, I should have seen that coming, right? I should have seen that coming. What that means is, I knew at some level this was a bad choice. I should have seen that coming. So if we want to utilize foresight, if we want to be a prudent or a wise person, there's two things that we have to do, and the first thing is this, we have to pay attention to the red flags along the way. We have to pay attention to those red flags. The first continues, a prudent person for sees danger and takes precaution. The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences. See, Solomon describes for us two options and two consequences. We can take precaution, right? That's an option. We look down the path. We take precaution, and the second is, we go blindly on. When we look at this prudent person, the prudent person sees the red flags and does not ignore them. He doesn't say, I know other people who've gone down this path, they had some issues, but I'm different. I'm not like them. I'm better. I'm smarter. That's not what a prudent person says. They don't say that I can handle it. I'm different. But they see those red flags, and what do they do? They take precaution. They take precaution. What does that look like? Well, Andy Stanley is a pastor and an author. He wrote a book and it's called "Guard Rails." And this idea of "Guard Rails" that he talks about in this book is this, it's a preemptive plan that you set up in your life to eliminate difficulty. Think about driving. We have "Guard Rails." They're there, so you don't die, right? There are "Guard Rails" on the road for our benefit, and we can set up "Guard Rails" in our life for our benefit. We see these red flags in dating, and so we set up precautions. I will not do this because this could be a byproduct. Procautions with our friends, I will not go there because this could be the result. There's a potential red flag set up precautions in our financial decisions. I will not spend this much, or I will not go to Timu because this is what's going to happen, right? I will not. So we set up these "Guard Rails" or "Guard Rails" in our life, and that's really what a prudent person does. The second option that we see is that the simpleton goes blindly on. You want to put that verse back up here. The simpleton goes blindly on down this path. They're the foolish person that says, "I'm going to be fine." They're the one that looks down the road and says, "Send it, let's go." Full send, we're on, let's go. They just go blindly down the path, ignoring the dangers, ignoring the red flags. What's life without a little bit of danger, right? And rather than exercising wisdom, rather than developing a plan and thinking through how the end result is going to be, paying attention to those red flags, they go blindly into that relationship that has so many red flags. You know that guy who left you or cheated on his family and is now with you, guess what? That's a red flag. And you go blindly on into that financial decision that seems a little bit risky. Those guys are just a little, there's something about them. You go into that business venture that you just don't know if you should do it, but you go blindly on. And we see from Solomon these two choices and they lead to two outcomes, right? Solomon says that the prudent person for sees danger takes precaution and he gets out of the way of harm, right? And the simpleton suffers the consequences. I always love looking at scripture and seeing what it doesn't say. It's vital to determine what scripture says. But I also love what scripture doesn't say. You actually notice there's no outcome listed for the prudent person. Why? Because we don't have to say it. We know what happens. You make wise choices, wise actions happen, right? You don't actually have to spell out when you do and when you plan well you're going to avoid dangers. You don't have to say that. You don't have to say that. We continue to look. They are not derailed by the actions that they take, but the foolish person. Very explicit what happens if you go blindly on. You suffer the consequences. You can, we can all hear it now, right? This is the simpleton goes down the path and then in five years looks back and says what was I thinking? What was I thinking? They suffer the consequences. So as we look down and as we want to pursue this idea of foresight, as we're headed down our path, the first thing is we can't avoid the red flags and the second thing is this is that we don't coast down the path of least resistance. Don't coast down the path of least resistance. That means you're on the road that you're on and you think you'll be just fine. You've got everything under control. You're big enough, you're strong enough, you're smart enough to handle it. When we think about this path, this is the easy path. This is the one that requires far less work. As I said, I coach basketball at Blue Ridge and at the end of the season every year we meet with the players and we talk through this is where you're at and we find out what do they want to be? What do they want to develop? What are their goals? And then we come up with a plan to help them get there and that means in the off season they're being physically active. Things like they're staying in some level of condition. They're touching a basketball. They're doing some of those things that really we would kind of expect. And we give them very detailed explicit instructions on this is what you need to do if you want to get to the level that you desire. And we tell them there's two red flags that are going to happen if they don't do it. The first is that if you don't, we tell them if you don't train in the off season, if you don't pick up a basketball, the next time you touch a basketball is when the season starts in November, then you're going to come into that position and you're going to be behind not only the other athletes on the team but the other athletes out of their schools, right? If you don't discipline yourself, if you don't exercise, if you don't put in the work, you're going to fall behind. And if you don't train your body, the second thing we tell them is that you're going to risk an injury. You're going to risk getting yourself hurt, ultimately putting yourself in a position to not even make the team. Nobody wants to be behind other people or other athletes. No one wants to get injured. However, we tell them if you spend your summer playing video games, watching TV, hanging out with your friends, and you never touch a basketball, guess what's going to happen? You're going to be behind. You could take the easy way, you can take the easy path, the path of least resistance, but that's not going to get you where you're headed. Because remember, direction, not intention, not intention determines your destination. Nobody wants to be in that position. We've ignored those red flags and we wonder why. We can also look at relationships, right? When we think about this path of least resistance, when we think about coasting down, I was trying to figure a way to help us understand what that means. And I think simply it means doing what everybody else is doing. That's the path of least resistance, right? Just doing what everybody else is doing. In a relationship that could likely look like cohabitating, right? Living together before marriage. That's the path of least resistance. According to the University of Denver, who did a two-decade study of over 1,600 couples, they found that when they surveyed American, 66% of Americans feel that living together before marriage is the way to a successful marriage. But what the University of Denver found in their two-decade-long study was that 34% higher, at a 34% higher rate, those people who live together before they get married, they end up in divorce. Which translates, you do the math, roughly 50% of marriages end in divorce as they are. You add 34% to that, that's roughly between 70% and 73% of marriages from people who live together before they're married, they end up in divorce. But that's the path of least resistance living together, right? That's the right thing to do. That's the easy thing to do. That's the saying, I'm going to be the exception, not the rule, right? Not us, we're different. We want to practice foresight. We can't coast down that path. Paul gave Timothy the same idea in 1 Timothy chapter 4. He says this to Timothy. He says, don't waste your time arguing over godless ideas or old wives' tales. Instead, train yourself to be godly. And then in verse 8 he says, physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better. Promising benefits in this life and in the life to come. See, we have an opportunity to experience wisdom, to be prudent. We can get to the destination that God wants for us. And we have an opportunity to avoid these major, major problems in our life. And it comes not from looking back, but from looking ahead. Practicing foresight, looking down the road at what's coming and learning from those red flags. I never forget a red flag in my life that was kind of simple, but some of us may have experienced something very similar. See, I had this tree and this tree was leaning like so. My wife was over here and I started thinking, there's got to be a way to make that tree fall that way towards my woodpaw, right? I mean, smart. Practicing like, you know, smarter or not harder thinking, how can I limit the work that I have to do. But see, there was this big giant red flag and it was leaning this way. But I said, no, no, YouTube. I'm going to be different. And I watched, remember, I'm a banker, okay? So I watched, this is how you do it. So I put my notch in. Oh, it was beautiful. Like, I don't think I've ever done a more beautiful notch in my life. And I started the back cut. And I learned all these terms. You know, I'm not as smart as I think. I learned all these terms when I was doing this. So I started my back cut. And as the back cut went in, something happened to that tree. And that tree I later learned did what's called a barber chair. Do you guys know what that is? Some of you know what that is? Essentially, it split straight up the tree. And the tree kind of buckled in half, snapped off, and started falling directly towards me. And my brain processed really quickly. Move. I moved out of the way, but my chainsaw was not so lucky. My chainsaw exploded into about a thousand pieces that day. And I learned a lesson. When I ignore red flags, I have to deal with the consequences. Sometimes in our lives we can look down our path and we see these red flags. I am not the exception. We have to be at a place where we say, I won't be the exception. I will be the rule. I am not going to be different. I would encourage you this morning. Proverbs 27 verse 12. If you got a key chain last week, it's on the back of your key chain there. It says, this is something that we can and should pray over our children. You could say something like, Lord help me see these problems that are headed my way. Before they get here, you could say, Lord, please help me to have the courage to get out of the way. Help me to make wise choices. Maybe you're here this morning and you've been hearing this idea of making wise choices, thinking ahead. And you might be wondering why we celebrate things like carnations. You see, every week, and it seems a beautiful thing, it seems like every week we're celebrating people who make the wisest choice you could ever possibly make. These are people who say, I am not headed down the path I want to go. I can't do it on my own. I will not be different. I am the rule. And what they say, the shortest way that we can simplify the carnation statement is people who say, I need Jesus. Maybe today you're here and you say, Josh, I've never said I need Jesus. Well, in a few moments, the worship team is going to come up and there's going to be people littered across the front here. And they're going to be holding signs and say, I will pray for you. And all you have to say to them, I'm preparing the prayer team right now, three words, I need Jesus. And they're going to help guide you down the path where you can be a wise, prudent person. What I choose to do today determines what I experience tomorrow. Let's pray. God, we thank you for who you are. We thank you for sending your son, Jesus, to give us an opportunity to experience life. God, what a privilege it is to be in a situation where we can experience the love and goodness and grace that comes from knowing Him. God, there are people here today who are headed down a path, the path of least resistance. God, they're coasting. There's red flags and maybe they're realizing today that they need to stop ignoring the red flags, that they need to make a change. And may today be that day. God, you're such a good God and we thank you and praise you for who you are. And in your son, Jesus' name, amen.
