The Great Trajectory: What Are You Aiming For? Text: Proverbs 11:23
Introduction: Two Trajectories, Two Destinies
The book of Proverbs is intensely practical. It does not deal in vague spiritual abstractions or pious platitudes. It is a book about how the world actually works, because it is a book about how God made the world to work. And at the heart of this wisdom is a great and terrible sorting. From beginning to end, the Scriptures divide humanity into two groups, two paths, two ultimate destinies. There are the sheep and the goats, the wise and the foolish, those on the broad road and those on the narrow, the wheat and the tares. And here, in this sharp and potent little proverb, we see this great divide summarized not by external behaviors alone, but by the very engine room of the soul: our desires and our hopes.
We live in a therapeutic age, an age that tells us to "follow our heart," to "trust our desires," to "live our truth." The modern world treats desire as a sacred, autonomous thing. To question someone's desires is seen as the highest form of bigotry. But the Bible is far more realistic about the human heart. It knows that our desires are not neutral navigators; they are powerful drivers, and they are either aimed at God's good order or at rebellious self-destruction. Your desires are not just about what you want for lunch. Your desires are setting the entire trajectory of your life, and by extension, your eternity.
This proverb sets before us two kinds of people, defined by what they fundamentally want. It shows us that what we long for in our heart of hearts is not a trivial matter. It is a diagnostic question. It reveals who we are, whose we are, and where we are going. One man's deepest longing pulls him toward goodness, light, and life. Another man's deepest longing, which he calls his "hope," is actually a gravitational pull toward wrath. The two may live next door to one another, shop at the same stores, and obey the same traffic laws, but their souls are oriented in opposite directions. This verse forces us to ask the question: What is the ultimate object of your desire? Because the answer to that question determines everything.
The Text
The desire of the righteous is only good,
But the hope of the wicked is wrath.
(Proverbs 11:23 LSB)
The Righteous Trajectory (v. 23a)
Let's look at the first half of this contrast.
"The desire of the righteous is only good..." (Proverbs 11:23a)
First, we must define our terms as God does. Who are the righteous? In our day, "righteous" is a synonym for "self-righteous." It conjures up images of a Pharisee, a prude, someone who is stuffy and judgmental. But that is the world's caricature. Biblically, righteousness is first a legal declaration. A righteous man is one who has been declared righteous by God, not on the basis of his own performance, but on the basis of Christ's perfect performance credited to his account. This is imputed righteousness. It is a gift, received by faith alone. Because of this gift, God then begins a work of transformation within that man, making him practically and progressively more righteous. This is imparted righteousness, or sanctification.
So, a righteous man is not a perfect man. He is a forgiven man who is being remade. And the evidence of this remaking process is found right here, in his desires. The Spirit of God gives him a new heart, and that new heart begins to want new things. His fundamental orientation, the grain of his new nature, is bent toward goodness. "The desire of the righteous is only good."
The word "only" here is crucial. It does not mean that a righteous man never has a sinful desire. David was a righteous man, and he had a very wicked desire for Bathsheba. The Apostle Paul was a righteous man, and he lamented the war within him, the desire to do evil that still lurked in his members. Rather, the word "only" speaks to the ultimate trajectory, the defining characteristic of his life. The deepest, truest, most fundamental longings of his regenerated heart are for that which is good. He desires conformity to God's law. He desires the welfare of his neighbor. He desires the glory of God. He desires clean hands and a pure heart. When he sins, he does so against the grain of his new nature, and it grieves him. His sin is a tragic detour, not his chosen destination.
This is why the psalmist can say, "Delight yourself in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart" (Psalm 37:4). This is not a blank check for a new chariot. It is a description of the sanctified life. When you delight in God, God Himself shapes your desires until they align with His will. And when your desires are aligned with His will, He is delighted to grant them. The righteous man's desires lead to goodness because his desires have been given to him by a good God.
The Wicked Trajectory (v. 23b)
Now we turn to the second half of the verse, and the contrast is stark and terrifying.
"But the hope of the wicked is wrath." (Proverbs 11:23b LSB)
The wicked man also has desires. He has hopes and dreams. He makes plans for the future. He wants things. But his desires are oriented away from God. The wicked man is the one who stands in rebellion, who insists on his own autonomy, who defines good and evil for himself. His desires are not aimed at goodness, but at self-gratification, self-exaltation, and self-worship, which is the very essence of sin.
But notice the shocking end point of his hope. The proverb does not say, "the hope of the wicked is disappointment," or "the hope of the wicked is futility," though both are true. It says his hope is wrath. This is a stunning statement. How can anyone's hope be wrath?
It works in two ways. First, the ultimate outcome, the final harvest of all the wicked man's hopes and schemes, is the settled, judicial wrath of God. He hopes for a life of autonomous pleasure, but the bill that comes due is wrath. He hopes for a corner office and a life of luxury built on deceit, but the final dividend paid on that investment is wrath. He spends his life running from God, hoping to establish his own little kingdom, but every road that leads away from God's goodness terminates in the same place: the revelation of His just anger against sin. As Paul says, the one with an unrepentant heart is "storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God" (Romans 2:5).
But there is a second, deeper sense in which this is true. The hope of the wicked is wrath because, at its root, a rebellious heart is a heart full of wrath. The word for wrath here can also mean "arrogant rage" or "fury." The wicked man's hope is to see his enemies crushed. His hope is to see his own arrogant will imposed on the world. Think of the seething rage of the man who is cut off in traffic. Think of the bitter fury of the envious man, or the violent anger of the man whose lusts are thwarted. The wicked are animated by a hope that is intertwined with rage, envy, and malice. Their desires are inherently contentious. They hope for a world where they are god, and the only way to achieve that is through the violent suppression of all rivals. Their very hope is an expression of wrath, and so it is only fitting that wrath is what they receive in the end.
Conclusion: The Great Exchange
So we have two paths, set by two different kinds of desire, leading to two entirely different destinations. The righteous man's desire is for good, and that is where his path leads. The wicked man's hope is wrath, and that is precisely where his path leads. You cannot plant thistle seeds and hope for a harvest of figs. The fruit is determined by the root. The end is determined by the desire.
This presents us with a critical question. What do you do if you look into your own heart and find that your desires are not "only good"? What do you do when you see that your hopes are tangled up with envy, pride, and selfish ambition? The answer is not to simply try harder to desire better things. You cannot fix a corrupt heart by an act of the will, any more than you can fix a polluted stream by painting the water blue.
You need a new heart. You need a heart transplant. And that is exactly what the gospel offers. The central problem of humanity is not that we are unfulfilled, but that we are wicked. Our desires are bent and broken. Our hopes are aimed at wrath. And we were all in that condition, "by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind" (Ephesians 2:3).
But God, in His mercy, intervened. He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to the cross. And on that cross, the great exchange took place. Jesus, the only truly righteous one whose desire was always and only good, took upon Himself the final destination of the wicked. He absorbed the full measure of God's wrath that our wicked hopes deserved. He drank the cup of wrath down to the dregs so that we would not have to.
And in exchange, He offers us His righteousness. He offers us a new heart, a new nature, and new desires. When you come to Christ in faith, God not only declares you righteous, He begins the process of making you righteous. The Holy Spirit takes up residence in your heart and begins to reorient your desires from wrath to goodness, from self to God.
This proverb, then, is not simply a moral observation. It is a signpost that points to our desperate need for a Savior. It shows us the dead end of the wicked path and invites us to the path of life. Do not trust your heart. Trust Christ. And He will give you a new heart, one whose deepest desire is only good, and whose hope is not wrath, but the everlasting joy of seeing Him face to face.