Trust God More Than Your Understanding
Sermon Summary
In this message from Antioch Waco's Proverbs series, guest speaker Drew Steadman, pastor of Antioch Kona in Hawaii and former staff pastor at Antioch Waco, unpacks Proverbs 3:5-7 and what it means to trust in the Lord with all your heart instead of leaning on your own understanding.
Drawing on his family's journey of church planting, from years of discernment to a prophetic dream that matched the exact building God had prepared, Drew shares real testimony of how God's plan unfolds when we surrender control and let him lead. Whether you're in a season of waiting or watching things finally come together, this message on trust, faith and following God's leadership will encourage you to stop trying to make things happen in your own strength and start walking in step with His.
Key Scriptures
Proverbs 3:5-6 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight."
Proverbs 3:7 "Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil."
Proverbs 3:9-10 "Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine."
Proverbs 3:11-12 "My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline, and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in."
Instructions
Choose a few of these questions from the various categories to go deeper in the sermon and put the truths of Scripture into practice. You don't need to answer every question. Select the ones that will best help you engage with God's Word and apply it to your life.
Discussion Questions
Scripture Study & Deeper Understanding
In Proverbs 3:1-12, a father is speaking to his son. What does he tell his son will result from keeping these commandments and holding onto faithful love and truth?
Proverbs 3:5-6 uses parallelism, repeating the same idea in different words. What do "trust in the Lord with all your heart" and "in all your ways submit to him" add to each other? What does this suggest about what full trust actually involves?
The message connects this passage to the broader story of Scripture, from Genesis 3 through Israel's history in Exodus and beyond. How does the pattern of struggling to trust God, even after seeing Him provide, show up across these different parts of the Bible?
Encouragement, Challenge & Personal Reflection
Wisdom literature like Proverbs is described as an instruction manual for how you were designed to thrive, the way a fish thrives in water. Where in your life right now do you sense a gap between how God designed you to live and how you are actually living?
Drew described a repeated inner "weed" of leaning on his own understanding even after committing to trust God, something he had to keep noticing and bringing back to the Lord. What is the equivalent for you: the specific way your own wisdom tends to creep back in?
Hearing about the specific, sometimes surprising ways God confirmed his leading over years of waiting, what does this stir in you about your own story, whether that is hope, honesty about doubt, or something else?
Putting It Into Practice
Take a moment to sit quietly and ask the Holy Spirit to bring to mind one area of your life where you have been leaning on your own understanding instead of trusting God. What surfaces?
What would it look like this week to acknowledge God specifically in that area, rather than trying to make something happen in your own strength? Name one concrete way you can respond in faith.
Prayer
Take sixty seconds of silence and ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you personally based on what you have read and reflected on. What do you sense him highlighting?
What is on your heart right now that you want to bring to God in prayer, based on what stood out to you in this study? Take a moment to lay it before Him.