0043BS - Proverbs 4 - Bible Study

We fight three essential daily battles to align ourselves with God and establish a foundation for spiritual growth and effective Christian living.

• Getting a humble and grateful heart aligned to the Lord as the foundation for a healthy fear of God
• Deliberately pursuing a relationship with Christ through studying Scripture "one verse at a time"
• Fighting for each other through prayer and intercession for blessing, protection, and peace
• Avoiding the "Jesus bro culture" that treats our Lord as an equal rather than the Creator
• Exploring Proverbs 4's teachings on pursuing wisdom and guarding your heart
• Understanding that what we love determines our direction - either toward heaven or away from it
• Building a community of deep fellowship where believers will "fight for your marriage, fight for your kids, fight for your eternal soul"
• Creating a Christian warrior community that stands in contrast to consumer-based Christianity
• Locking shields together as a spiritual army advancing God's kingdom through daily warfare

Join us Wednesday nights at 9PM for our War Council, a Christian fellowship show where we'll explore the seven battlefields and dedicate ourselves to pursuing them daily and weekly.

CWM Intro with Drums

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CWM Outro with drums

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Daily Battle Framework
• 5:27 Prayer of Gratitude and Humility
• 9:21 Exploring Proverbs 4: Seeking Wisdom
• 20:01 The Heart's Direction and Vigilance
• 26:10 Building a Christian Warrior Community
• 30:00 Closing Prayer for Fellowship

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:28

Good morning everyone and welcome to your daily battle, the Bible study, where we fight three battles every morning and you set up an amazing day. So the first battle we fight is one to get a humble and grateful heart aligned to the Lord. This is key. This is the foundation of all healthy fear of the Lord and to seek him first. So we're starting our first cup of coffee of the day showing the Lord and getting a humble sorry, getting a humble and grateful heart, checking all of our gripes and complaining. You know, we all have aches and pains. We all have parts of our life that suck and that we struggle with, but we have far more blessings than we ever will know on this side of heaven. Remembering who we're speaking to and who we serve is the greatest being to ever exist creator of the universe, creator of everything, and he's not our bro right, he is our Lord and Savior. So good morning, my love, good to see you. I hope my sound is good. I didn't do a sound check this morning to try to streamline this. I figured somebody would tell me if I. You can't hear me. But our second battle is to deliberately pursue a relationship with the Lord and Savior, jesus Christ. And we do this studying of Holy Scripture, the study of the word God's word, god's sword, the study of the word God's word, god's sword. And we do that one verse at a time here every morning, monday through Friday. And then, third, we fight for each other in prayer and intercession. So we end this Bible study with a prayer to bless protection and peace for those who are praying with us and who are participating with us. So feel free if you have questions that are relevant to Sound Off and the Bible study. A lot of people like to come in the chat and hijack to take this to their own agenda. I do not respond to that. If it's based on these verses and I can answer it, I will. If I can't, I'll get you the answer and we'll get back and we'll respond to it within this episode in the comments.

Speaker 1: 3:09

That said, I want to know what struggles you have, how I can pray for you, et cetera, et cetera. Uh, last night we were going to start our word council but I pushed it a week, just couldn't get enough done. We had a power outage and, um, I had a friend in crisis. So, um, just push things back too far for me to get it done in the way I wanted to. So it'll start next Wednesday. Start seeing me hype it today and I appreciate your patience. As you know, I'm basically a one man show here doing this. So, um, you know, bear with me, okay.

Speaker 1: 3:49

So next week we will start on Wednesday night at 9. Pm. We'll start the war council, um, where we will go over, um, you know, it's a Christian fellowship show where we will explore the seven battlefields, where we'll dedicate ourselves to pursuing those you know daily and weekly, and pray for one another, testimonies, instruction, all works. So really looking forward to that and I know that's a fellowship is so important and a two-way conversation is so important for faith and for everything else. A two-way conversation is so important for faith and for everything else. So, again, just know that that if you're unplugged from the body and you're isolating alone, that's when the enemy wants you. So this fellowship show on Wednesday night is an attempt to bridge that gap. It's a tourniquet. Those who are isolated, haven't found a group of people yet, who don't fit in where they are and want to pursue this Christian warrior way of life that I believe we're called to.

Speaker 1: 5:06

All right, without further ado, let's go ahead and let's get our first paddle of the day won, which is actually the second, because you got up this morning early and you're here, so grab your coffee and let's get ready to go. Let's go before the creator of the universe, heavenly Father. Lord, we thank you. Thank you for all of our blessings, known and unknown. We thank you for the trillions of cells that had to work near perfectly just for us to wake up this morning. We thank you for the blessings of protection, for protecting us through the night, our loved ones through the night. Lord, we thank you for another day, a chance to get it right, and another day to serve you, to make an impact for your kingdom. Lord, we pray that you'll set divine appointments for each and every one of us to help either strengthen a brother or sister or to share the gospel with another brother and sister.

Speaker 1: 6:21

Lord, we're so thankful for your common grace, your creation, heaven, heavens, the sun, the moon, the stars, this earth, from the mountains to the deepest trench in the ocean, everything in between, plant life in Florida, your animals, just wondrous. Lord, your genius is constantly shown to us in creation and testifies and screams your existence. We thank you for sunrises and sunsets. We thank you for the sounds of birds in the morning and children's laughter. We thank you for a cool breeze on a hot day and a warm fire on a cold day. We thank you for the smell of fresh morning, rain and flowers. Thank you for the great taste of food drink. You didn't have to make it. Thank you, lord. Thank you for the people in our life. Lord, help us to treasure every minute we have with them, because we never know when they'll be called home. Help us not to neglect one another, to always be pouring light into one another. Lord, I pray that this time would serve you and only you, glorify you and only you and everyone participating would be drawn closer to you. I pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

Speaker 1: 8:11

All right, battle number one hey, captain Caveman, it's great to see you. I haven't seen you in a while. Brother, so good to see you. My friend Pray that everything's well with you. So wow, it really was out of focus just by me grabbing my cup, that auto-focus thing. I might have to fix that. So that's battle number one.

Speaker 1: 8:33

Now battle number two is we are in Proverbs 4. You know I had a choice to start where to start this study. You know, I've gone through Genesis, through Leviticus, I've gone through, you know, a majority of the New Testament, and so, in an effort, so everyone would feel like they're starting at the same place, I chose Proverbs because we should be reading Proverbs every day, right? And the easiest way to do that is, whatever the date on the calendar is, read that proverb and focus on what it says, to try to walk that out as best you can. That day and a lifetime of that, you'll have them all memorized and you'll be doing them because and you're doing them you'll be doing amazing, right?

Speaker 1: 9:30

So the first three we saw the priority, which was to see God first. The beginning of all wisdom is a fear of God, and if you have to fear God, you don't have to fear anything else. Again, trying to get rid of a Jesus bro culture where we treat our Lord and Savior as if we're equals with him and we are not. And we are not. We absolutely are not. We remain in God's image, but you know, an image is not the creator and unfortunately, man forgets that from time to time, far too often.

Speaker 1: 11:35

So let's go ahead and get into proverbs 4 um and uh. There's not a lot of heavy lifting in here, um, pull it up. There we go. We'll try that. So not a lot of heavy lifting here. We're going to see a lot about wisdom. We see the author change from Solomon, most likely to you know. There's a lot of the commentaries and stuff that I looked at this or saying that it's a grandfather talking. You'll hear it's different.

Speaker 1: 12:26

Well, let's go, dive in, let's get our second battle done. Let's pursue God, the whole hearts and reading scripture here, father's wise instructions. Hear, o sons, a father's instructions. So, sons, instead of my son, and be attentive that you might gain insight. For I give you good precepts. Do not forsake my teaching. When I was a son, with my father, tender, the only one in the sight of my mother, he taught and said to me let your heart, hold fast my words, keep my commandments and live. Get wisdom, get insight, do not forget, do not turn away from the words of my mouth. Do not forsake her. She will keep you. Love her, she will guard you.

Speaker 1: 13:21

The beginning of wisdom is this get wisdom. Whatever you get, get insight, prize her highly and she will exalt you, she will honor you. If you embrace her, she will place on your head a grace, graceful garland, she will bestow on you a beautiful crown. Hear my son, and accept my words that the years of your life may be many. I have taught you the way of wisdom I have led you in the past of uprightness.

Speaker 1: 13:52

When you walk, your step will not be. Steps will not be. Your steps will not be hampered. If you run, you will not stumble. Keep hold of instruction. Do not let go. Guard her, for she is your life. Do not enter the path of the wicked.

Speaker 1: 14:10

Do not walk in the way of evil. Okay, again, we're always seeing do this, don't do this. Right. It's a contrast which is very important and a very effective way to teach Again, don't follow the evil which we all know. We all have people in our lives, in our past, who led us down these ways. So do not walk on the way of evil. Avoid it, do not go on it. Turn away from it and pass on.

Speaker 1: 14:41

They cannot sleep unless they have done wrong. They are robbed of sleep Unless they have made someone stumble. So this again is your sleep is being interrupted by what you're doing. It's the addictive nature of sin. Sin will always grow and will always consume. Until it's the addictive nature of sin, sin will always grow and will always consume until it's cut off at the source by the Holy Spirit. They will eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence. The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn it shines brighter and brighter until the full day. The way of the wicked is like deep darkness. They do not know over what they stumble.

Speaker 1: 15:28

This just picture for me. I picture um, an amazing scene which is um from lord of the rings. You know, the two towers where helms deep is being besieged by orcs all through the night and at dawn gandalf um shows up with reinforcements and as the light crests the mountains into the deep valley where they are despairing and they think they're about to be wiped out, here comes goodness to steadfast. Goodness, promise fulfilled, comes rolling down the mountain to wipe out evil. It's so good, I mean, and all good stories are basically ripping off the Bible, copying the Bible in some way, where you know, gandalf is the Christ-like figure in that show. Every good show has that or movie has that.

Speaker 1: 16:36

My son, be attentive to my words, incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight. Keep them within your heart. They are life to those who find them healing to all their flesh. Keep your heart with all vigilance for from and flow this brings of life. Put away from you crooked speech. Put devious talk far from you. Let your eyes look directly forward and your gaze be straight before you Ponder the path of your feet and all your ways will be sure. Thanks, jack Sparrow.

Speaker 1: 17:19

So keep your heart with all vigilance. What you love Is either going to If you're loving God and things of God, you will be led to heaven. Your heart will pull you to heaven. If you're in love with darkness and things of the flesh, It'll lead you away from it. That's why they're talking about Keep your heart with all vigilance. If you're in love with darkness and things of the flesh, it'll lead you away from it. That's why they're talking about keep your heart with all vigilance. Keep your heart with all vigilance. Guard what you love with all vigilance, and that's not like saying, hey, I love this, this, so guard it. So it's be careful when you discernment to guard your heart that it is not led astray and loving the wrong things, which all of us have done before we found god, and some of us still stumble over things that we challenge and it pulls us in ways you know, um away from him. So again, keep your heart with all vigilance. All right, keep your heart with all vigilance.

Speaker 1: 18:23

Put away your crooked speech and put devious talk far from you. The crooked speech is, you know the tongue. You know in the New Testament mentions this a lot. Well, it does it everywhere. It's also in Proverbs and Psalms. I mean, it's everywhere. The tongue is so damaging Good morning Brandy. It lights forest fires, it destroys relationships. It breaks down if we used inappropriately and we have to be so careful um to put away from you crooked speech, put devious talk far from you. It's not up building or correcting towards righteousness, it's wrong.

Speaker 1: 19:05

Okay, focus on those things first and you'll never run out of things to say right and you'll always be a positive influence on people's lives. Under the paths of your feet and all your ways will be sure, do not swerve to the right or left, turn your foot away from evil, all right. So that is um proverbs 4 and proverbs 4 um is following the same theme and you're going to see it repeated over and over and you're also going to see coming up here warning away from the temptress, the adulteress. You know um which, which is something that we all struggle with and um and we'll cover that tomorrow, on friday but um, there you go. There is there's battle two. One. Now I want to talk a little bit about christian warrior mission and what we're going to be doing. But there you go, there's battle to one. Now I want to talk a little bit about Christian Warrior Mission and what we're going to be doing, and I want to ask for your prayers and I want to ask for your discernment. I want to ask for your fellowship.

Speaker 1: 20:25

So we always started this ministry Almost four years ago. Three years ago, two creative community of godly believers who wanted to be a part of the solution, right where they're standing, didn't want to go to Haiti. They could go across the street and make a difference in everyone's life every day. It was more permanent. I followed the model of standing being the tip of the spear where you are standing. We wanted to build a community of deep, deep, deep friendships and fellowship. Now you know I need to ask for everyone's forgiveness because I am not the best.

Speaker 1: 21:15

Our life is chaos, just like your life is chaos, guys. Social media is so easy to see the highlights, you know now. I think we do better than most in showing the lowlights as well. Show you that, hey, we're not perfect. We're not walking this walk out with God flawlessly. We need help. We need help. We need help doing this mission that we have been blessed with and burdened with. You know, my marriage is the thing that I am most proud of. God has blessed me with an amazing wife who fights for me daily and I fight for her daily, you know. So that part is great, um. We have, you know, three young children here at home, and that's challenging for those of you have kids, you know, um, and we're doing the best we can to homeschool them and raise them appropriately and not lose each other raising the kids, and we know that you guys have this. So we again created this place to be reinforcements and to share things that work and don't work.

Speaker 1: 22:35

Our 44 acres is a mess right now, guys. It's a mess, you know, coming off a year of bad health where my knees were so bad and I had my knee replacement right when the flood hit and then went from being laid up from that long recovery with that longer than what I wanted, you know to into a pretty bad back attack and a series of back attacks To bad battle with COVID 16.7. But now I've got about four months of steady training. You know I'm getting. You know I'm in the gym every day.

Speaker 1: 23:16

We got to tame this 44 acres because we want to share it. We want to build something here where people can come from all over and have their faith, come here deliberately, pursue the Lord, deliberately pursue their family, deliberately, pursue fitness, deliberately, pursue knowledge with our fundamentals and so many other things knowledge with our fundamentals and so many other things and have it renewed and reinforced here so they can go back and be a beacon of light. We want to build a compound here where we have a dozen or so or maybe more cabins on site on the back hills that we have here, where we can start doing husband and wife camps and father-son camps and mother-daughter camps and shield maiden camps where we teach women how to be warriors, to protect their house and fight alongside their husband, instead of being these weak, delicate flowers that are basically useless right and teaching men how to leave their house. You know I'm going to start doing a lot of some videos here and showing you wrinkles and the scars and imperfections of this ministry, because it's basically been Warren and I very few other people have come alongside us and donated great things and prayed for us and had done things at times to fund this ministry, but 95% of the time, 98% of the time, it's me and Lauren, you know, and I don't get paid for this ministry. I work my own company, which is Trident Shield, which is a training consulting company that pays the bills, but every time I do this I'm taking away from that. But God's put it so hard on me because I see the struggle Every time I try to go to another church and I just see them.

Speaker 1: 25:28

I just have no peace. When I'm there, god convicts me, shows me what men need, what families need, and it's not the transactional, you know, consumer-based Christianity that you find in most churches. I go there because I get free childcare, they have great coffee and the band is great. Oh, awesome. Hey, brandy, have a good one. God bless you.

Speaker 1: 26:02

Instead of going in some place and partnering with them, making a difference, making a difference in each other's lives and growing our families, you know, getting godly parents around other godly parents and godly children around other godly children, so that we can create an unbreakable foundation in the Lord where our kids and our kids' kids will shake the foundations of this world and conquer the world in the name of Jesus Christ, discipling all nations. We can't even disciple our street, a street, never mind a neighborhood or a community or a town or a city or a state. That's what we want to do here and we want to partner with you to do it. And you know, I've had a full sanctuary, I think, two or three times and I've emptied it with hard preaching. We don't have enough bells and whistles here. If you're looking for bells and whistles and you're looking to come along and coast, go away. We can't help you. It's not our ministry. It's not our ministry.

Speaker 1: 27:26

Our ministry is getting up to your neck in sweat, dirt and blood, fighting alongside with people who will die for you. You know, I put out a post last week where I said get around people who will die for you, as you would die for them. Everyone else is optional at best. That's what we want here. We want we want to build a group like like none other. I build a group like a lame fantasy analogy with the lord of the Rings, gandalf, aragorn and Gimli and Legolas and so many others. Come be champions with us here, champions of him, not to get an easy ride, but to fight for people who will die for you, and that's fight for their marriage, fight for their kids, fight for their, their eternal soul. Also, you know, when your daughter goes missing and she's in rebellion, that will drive the streets with you and help you find her. That's what we want here. That's the community we want to be, so let's go ahead and pray for that this morning, right?

Speaker 1: 28:57

I ask you to join me in prayer on that. Dear Heavenly Father, lord, we come to you now. Come to you now on behalf of the ministry and the people in it. Watch it now. We ask that people draw to us, people who want to deliberately pursue you and to grow deeper bonds of fellowship in this body, to have tendons that grow strong and muscles that grow strong as the body comes together with healthy hearts and nervous systems.

Speaker 1: 29:34

For us to all come together.

Speaker 1: 29:36

We need feet, we need hands. We need legs. We need arms. We need eyes. We need ears, tongues, brains we need it all. We need the. We need ears, tongues, brains we need it all. We need the entire body here. Most of all, we need you, and we only want this to happen if you're in it. Draw us all together as a fellowship. Draw us all together as a fellowship. Draw us all together as a great tribe united in you in the purpose of pursuing you and glorifying you.

Speaker 1: 30:20

Lord, I also pray for peace and protection for this fellowship, for our troops overseas, our first responders at home and our veterans of yesteryear. And I pray for our beloved America that she would turn from her sin, hit her knees and repent and seek your face, and that you would see her and heal her so that we could once again be one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. So I call this fellowship on the full armor of God. Strap on the shield of faith, pick up the sword of the spirit and to come together and to lock shields. Join us in the shield war here, locking shields to left and right, fighting alongside Lauren and I to make a difference and to take ground in your kingdom, not in fancy ways, but in daily warfare of life. I pray this that we would block shields in advance for your kingdom and conquer in your name. In the mighty name of Jesus, I pray, amen.

Speaker 1: 31:34

All right, everyone. That was three battles and thank you. And wow, we wrapped right up in just about 30 minutes. So thank you everyone, and I will see you tomorrow. Right, and remember the Bible study on Saturday or Sunday, because you have 7.00 PM worship on Sunday. Saturday is the one day I'm going to actually sleep in. God bless you, and I will see you tomorrow.