Saturday, September 30, 2006

Why We Work: Prov 24:30-34 Oct 1, 2006

Why We Work Proverbs 24:30-34 October 1, 2006

Do you remember making your first dollar?

I think I was 9 or 10 years old. I was helping our next door neighbor dig in his garden and move rocks… I was hot and sweating... 2 or 3 hours later… my neighbor Mr. Dirkich went into the house and came out and handed me $1.50 cents.

I didn’t walk back home that day, I floated… because I was so happy…

I immediately got on my bike went to the corner store and blew that entire $1.50 on candy…

When I was 10 years old (knowing I was technically underage), I got my first “job” as a paper delivery boy for Vancouver Sun, I learned how to toss a paper from my bike on the side, across the front year onto the door mat… hopefully without the Safeway flyer flying out en route…

And through a good part of my schools years, I worked… in the cafeteria serving meals, doing dishes or stocking cans of pet food…

I’m working now…. Though I really love what I do, one day I’ll likely technically retire, but I hope to never retire in the sense that I hope keep doing volunteer work till I die.

A good part of my life and yours will be spent working--either in a paid capacity or as volunteer, either “outside the home” or “inside the home.”

And if you think the Bible only addresses things like: “really spiritual” topics like piety, prayer or prophecy, think again… because the Bible addresses all kind of earthy subjects including work.

And this morning as we continue our series in the book of Proverbs that deal wisdom, competence in life, we’re going exploring part of what God’s word says about work.

If you have your Bibles please turn to Proverbs 24:30…
30 I went past the field of a sluggard,
past the vineyard of someone who has no sense;
31 thorns had come up everywhere,
the ground was covered with weeds,
and the stone wall was in ruins.
32 I applied my heart to what I observed
and learned a lesson from what I aw:
33 A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest—
34 and poverty will come on you like a thief
and scarcity like an armed man.
This past summer, my wife and I had the opportunity to visit some of the vineyards of Burgundy, France…

Whether you are in Burgundy, the Napa Valley, the Okanagan you’ll see that vineyards are carefully organized in rows… intentionally spaced and meticulously tended…

Vineyards don’t just happen by accident… they take great attention and care…

The author of these Proverbs points out that in this particular vineyard, the ground was covered with weeds and thorns, and that stone wall was in ruins…

This picture in this ancient near eastern context would have been particularly sad. For to own piece of land capable of growing crops in this time and place would have been considered a great gift, an opportunity of the lifetime…

Old Testament Professor Bruce Waltke commenting on this passage says that the image of the weeds and thorns growing and the stone wall crumbling suggests that there is a kind hostile force in the world that opposes our work.

There are external forces in a “fallen world” infected by sin that opposes work. There are also forces within us that also oppose work.

In Proverbs 6, the writers asks someone (who apparently is NOT clinically depressed), how long will lie there sluggard (AKA “Sluggo the slacker”)? The person is so lazy they won’t get out bed to begin their day…
In Proverbs 26:13 A sluggard says, "There's a lion in the road, a fierce lion roaming the streets!" “Sluggo the slacker” has all kind of excuses for not starting the day and working….
Some people have all kind of excuses for not getting started on their work.
I with was someone who was talking how she needed to start do something in her life… she paused and said, but I don’t want to contradict my life “motto.” “Never do today, what you can tomorrow!”

We laughed about it. But, a lot of people actually live that way… they put things off…

The Proverbs in chapter 6:6-8 encourages us to avoid the way the “Sluggo the slacker” and learn from the industry of the ant. And over and over the Proverbs call us to be diligent…

By looking various throughout Scriptures, I want to explore how we can overcome the inner forces that oppose our work, by asking the question, why do we work?

There are many streams of thought that view work as a kind of necessary evil.

When people say I’m on the “Freedom 45 plan”? Or the “Freedom 55” plan… what do they mean? They mean they want to be free from work at 45 years of age or 55 as if work were some kind of slavery to be set free from.

The idea that work is a necessary evil goes way back…

In the ancient Mesopotamian myth of creation, the Enuma Elish… the gods make the earth… and then they realize, kind of like when you buy a house for the first time, “Hey this is going to require a lot of up-keep!”

So, the gods create human beings to do the necessary evil of caring for the earth!

But, in the very first pages of the Bible… we have a picture of a God who gets his hands dirty, working with the soil of the earth…forever ennobling “blue collar” work.

When God creates the earth… we see God working as a designer forever ennobling “white collar” work…

When God becomes a person in Jesus Christ, he becomes a carpenter forever ennobling blue collar work… later Jesus Christ becomes a teacher forever ennobling white collar work…

So, if you’re a “white collar” designer of the building or if you’re a blue collar tradesperson who builds the building, you reflect the character of God who works…

Part of the way we overcome the way of “Sluggo the slacker” is by understanding why we work and part of the reason we work is because our work reflects the character of the God who works.

Another way we can overcome the way of “Sluggo the slacker” is by understanding for whom we work.

When I was pursuing a graduate degree in the Boston area, I remember applying for a summer teaching job at one of the colleges in the Boston area.

As part of that process, I remember meeting with the grey haired academic dean of the college in his spacious office.

He began by saying, “I don’t think I will hire you…” You’re not an American, and the law states that we must offer this teaching position to a qualified American if one is available. Then, the dean said, but I wish I could hire you because from application, I can tell you’re a Christian.

I am not a Christian myself, I am not religious…

But at my yacht club, we hired this young man… to clean our floors… I remember how diligently he would work cleaning the floors… the tile were gleaming after he was done… We didn’t pay him very much, but he very worked hard and he never complained. I wanted to know why he worked so hard, he said because of my faith in God, I am Christian…

When I saw your application, I wanted hire you, because I sense as a Christian you work you work hard, you’d be conscientious…

But, I don’t think I can hire you… because you’re Canadian, but I did just want to meet you, because you’re a Christian…

I can’t remember the exact words I used, but I said something like this, “If you are a Christian, ideally you’re conscious of God in your work, so whether you’re scrubbing a floor, whether teaching a class you’re actually see yourself doing your work for God…”

It doesn’t mean you always do great, but it does mean you give your best…

Whether you’re scrubbing a floor, teaching a class, taking care of children, working construction, working in an office—if you’re a follower of Christ, you do that work unto God… Paul in Colossians 3:23 says “Whatever you do, work at it will with all your heart, as working for the Lord not for human masters.” And if you do it unto God it becomes a sacred…

This summer my wife and I saw the painting of the original painting of Millet’s Angelus…

In the famous painting… we see two peasants in the field praying. On the horizon we see a church steeple apparently ringing to call people to pray. But if you look carefully at the sun’s rays (it’s more clear on the original) they don’t fall on the steeple of the church as you might expect nor even on the couple as they pray, but they fall on the wheel barrow and the pitch fork at the couple’s feet. The peasants believed
that God was honored God not in just their church life, not only in their prayers, but also in their “ordinary work.”

Why do we work? because our work reflects and honors God.

Why do we work? Because our work blesses people.

The first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul, and the second greatest is to love our neighbor as ourselves…

Throughout, thee book of Proverbs there is a really clear emphasis on the fact the wise, righteous person, lives for the well being of the community, whereas the wicked person lives for themselves.

The righteous person in Proverbs is willing to disadvantage themselves for the sake of the community, whereas the wicked person is willing to disadvantage the community for their own sake.

In our culture, it’s just assumed that people will pick a work that on what will personally advance them. So, many people pick a work based on status or pay or a combination…

Thomas Friedman in his engaging book the World is Flat points out that the North American industry faced strategic set back in 1990s a number of students gifted in science and engineering, decided to go into business because they thought they could make a killing in the dot.com boom. (btw, if pursuing a dot.com business is the best we can use our gifts and serve the common that’s wonderful, but if it’s not and the reason we’re doing is to making a killing that’s wrong).

As followers of Christ, we don’t pick jobs just because of the status or pay… but because it’s the best way to use our gifts to help people and serve the common good…

Some times it’s hard to trace how our work is helping others and serving the common good…

If you’re builder of houses, it’s pretty obvious how you’re helping someone have a home, but if you’re an architect it’s not so obvious because there’s a time lag between what you do and when it will directly help people.

If you’re a doctor or nurse, how you’re helping people is obvious, but if you’re a medial lab researcher it’s not so obvious… because there is a time lag between your work and how your work benefits people… so we’ve got to “connect the dots across the time lag… in our work”

Shirley works as a housekeeper at a 250-bed hospital. She says “If we don’t clean with a quality effort, we can’t keep the doctors and nurses in business; we can’t accommodate patients. This place would be closed if we didn’t have housekeeping. Shirley has “connected the dots” and understands that her work of house keeping is serving people—literally helping to keep them alive.

Have you “connected the dots” in your work so you can see how your work (paid or volunteer) serves people…?

(By the way, if your work has no direct or indirect benefit for people whatsoever—if you are able to do so you might consider changing your “work.” If you’re drug dealer, change you’re work… This is Vancouver, it’s statistically possible that some of you’re have grow ops… change your crops…grow tomatoes)

Why do we work? We work because our work honors God and blesses people…

We bless people through our work itself and we bless by HOW we do our work, but also in how we work.

I recently came across a story about a woman who was working for one of major TV networks, and she made a mistake on her job that could have gotten her fired. But her boss ended up taking the blame for it, so she could keep her job… The boss had enough social capital that if the he was blamed for the mistake he could “roll with it” and keep his job… But, she didn’t have enough social capital to keep job if her mistake was seen as being her mistake.

The woman at the network was so impressed as to why her boss did what she did that. She had had many bosses who had made mistakes that had they pinned on her, but she had never had bossed that had taken blame for a mistake she had done.

She approached him and asked him. “Why did you take the blame for me.” The boss said, “Don’t worry about it… She asked him again, I want to know why did you do what you did?” It was really nothing… She kept pressing him, I really want to know why you did what you did.

He said, ok I’ll tell you. I’m a Christian. I believe when Jesus Christ died on the cross he took the blame for my sins so that I could be forgiven, so it seems to me, why shouldn’t I be willing to take the blame for your mistake?

She began to attend church and seek, I don’t if she ever became a Christ, but she moved toward…

When allow our Christian faith to affect the way we work, from Monday to Friday, we will bless people and we will quietly transform our culture for the better….

Why do we work? We work because our works honors God and blesses people… and we work because our work has eternal significance.

Theologians like the Croatian Theologian Miroslav Volf who teaches at Yale… points our if we are eternal beings, as the Bible affirms, then our work on earth will have an eternal significance…

I was writing this sermon on my laptop on our dinning table, it’s simple a table, but it’s a table where we’ve connect with people, relationships have been built and those relationships will carry over into the next life… the building of a table has a kind of value that carry over into eternity…
In Mitch Albom’s novel, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Eddie is elderly person who works as an amusement park maintenance man. This has been his life-long job. He has patch on his uniform that says Eddie and his life been filled with pain and disappointment.
After he dies, he meets five people who help him bring meaning and understanding to his life.
After he dies, he sees the large amusement park where he worked and walks in. Several hundred people are there, welcoming him, smiling at him, nodding at him, happy to see him. They were there or would be there, because of all the accidents he had prevented, all the lives he had kept safe—and all their children, and all their children's children—there because of the simple things that he did, day after day."
In the movie Gladiator, the Roman General Maximus, while sitting atop his horse in the woods, says to his troops, "What we do in life echoes in eternity."
Christian Theologians have pointed out that in paradise, when everything was perfect before sin entered the world, God had Adam and Eve working… and theologians have pointed out in paradise future, pointing to various Bible passages that, human beings will be working…

Some people never have a chance to flourish in their work… here on earth… they have never chance to develop their gifts and fully bless people because of their circumstances…

I know of someone who was born who ought to have had c-section, but didn’t get it and as she was “naturally delivered” she experienced all kind of trauma on her brain and now though she’s 36 years old she has the brain the capacity 7 year old…

This past week my wife and I were talking about one of her friends, who was born blind and as result was disowned by his family… He’s never seen anything, never seen the color red or green, but he’s so intuitively sensitive that if he’s in front in something beautiful… he’ll say there’s beautiful over here… He’s accomplished a lot, but he’s been limited…

We know kids growing up in war-torn, improvised, environment, with hopes, dreams, and talent like every other, but will likely never get a chance to reach their potential.

As Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary professor Dr. Gary Parrett says, in eternity we will be able to reach our potential in work.

In the film version of Babette’s Feast someone says to one of the Phillipa the sister with the breathtaking singing gifts who’s talents never be widely celebrated because she’s stuck in a small, poor village says, “In paradise, you will be the truly great artist you were created to be.”

So our work on earth even if it not perfected here and frustrated, will serve as a kind of prelude for eternal work in the world to come.

“What we do on earth will be echoed perfectly in eternity.”

Why do we work? We work because our works honors God, it blesses people, and echos in eternity.

We now come to the Lord’s supper…

As we come to this meal and focus on Christ, this sacrament can shape our work life too.

When we look at the cross and realize that Christ took our sins upon himself so that we could be forgiven and freed from our sins and brought into a relationship with God, when we realize how much we are loved by God, we will be able to do our work passionately as unto Him,

But (and this a different sermon) we can be saved from the other extreme making an idol of our work, overworking because we try to legitimize our worth through our work, because we are trying to justify our place in the world, in the eyes of our parents, in our own eyes…through our work..

because as we look at Jesus, we will know how deeply we are loved…


On night Jesus was betrayed…. He took bread and broken…


Benediction… May God bless you so that the work or your heart and the work of your hand will echo in eternity.

(The sermon can be heard on line at: http://www.tenth.ca/audio htm)

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Proverbs M3 The Way of Integrity (Sep. 24, 2006)

Proverbs M3 The Way of Integrity

Big Idea: our choices put us on a path that shape our character and our character determines our destiny.

Recently my wife and I saw Ibsen’s play Peer Gynt…

The main character in the play Peer has a certain charm, certain endearing qualities… but he’s aimless, indecisive and unable to commit…

He allows his lust to overcome him and ends up violating a bride on her wedding day.

Though Peer is poor, he aspires to be rich and ends up pursuing “easy money” by getting involved in the shady businesses of the slave trade (the play is set in the 19th century).

As an older man Peer, meets an angel named Button Moulder…

The angel says, Peer is going to be reduced to a button for eternity--not because he has done any one thing that’s particularly heinous, but because he has failed to become his true self…

Peer has always been living outside himself… and therefore faces the possibility of becoming a button forever.

If we are a “character in a drama” are we making the kind of choices that will shape us into the kind of person enabling us to become our true self or destined to melt down and become some life-less plastic?

To use the metaphor of the book of Proverbs--are we walking the path enabling us to become our true self, the self God created us to be?

We’ve recently begun a series on the book of Proverbs, which is a book that deals with wisdom.

The book of Proverbs describes wisdom as a path one walks…

Wisdom is not just about getting knowledge, but it’s about walking down a path that enables us to have an understanding of the moral/spiritual order created by God and therefore to flourish and experience life.

The book urges us to avoid the path of the wicked, but to pursue the path of wisdom…

And the path of wisdom is aligned to moral and spiritual order of God…

This morning we are going to explore more of what it looks like to walk that path.

If you have your Bibles please turn to Proverbs 4.

Notice the two paths that are contrasted in these passages.

Proverbs 4:
14 Do not set foot on the path of the wicked
or walk in the way of evildoers.
15 Avoid it, do not travel on it;
turn from it and go on your way.
16 For they cannot rest until they do evil;
they are robbed of sleep till they make someone stumble.
17 They eat the bread of wickedness
and drink the wine of violence.
18 The path of the righteous is like the morning sun,
shining ever brighter till the full light of day.
19 But the way of the wicked is like deep darkness;
they do not know what makes them stumble.
Please now turn to Proverbs 10

9 Whoever walks in integrity walks securely,
but whoever takes crooked paths will be found out.

In Proverbs 11:3 we read

The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity.

The choices we make set us down a path that will make us either people of integrity, that make us whole or they split us.... they either makes us the people God created us to be or they will destroy us.

I remember as an undergraduate student, hearing Richard Chase say--don’t just want your wants, but want what your wants lead to… Don’t just want your wants, want what your wants will lead to. Don’t just want your wants, want what your wants will lead to.

There was a news story about a man who was put in prison for a hit and run. The man had hit a child with his car at night-- he thought no one saw him do it, and so he sped away from the scene of his crime… When a reporter interviewed him and asked him what caused him to flee the scene of the crime (knowing he would be more culpable), the man said when I was a child I went to my dad's drawer when he was away, and I was playing with his prized watch. As I was playing with the watch, I accidentally fumbled it, it fell out of my hands, and it broke the face of the watch and then I put it back in the drawer. When dad got home from work, he noticed the watch… he lined each of us children up and asked each of us if he had broken his watch. When he asked me if I had dropped it, I said no, I didn't play with your watch. I lied. From that time onward, every time I got in sticky situation, I lied. I hid.
Proverbs 4:16 reads, For they (those who walk the path of the wicked) cannot rest until they do evil…
This is the language of addiction (the word addiction was not used in Solomon’s day).
The addiction in the words of respected psychiatrist Gerald May, is something you can’t say no to.
There are points down a path, where we can choose not do something, turn and go in an opposite direction… but then there is a point where we can no longer really say no to something, we become slaves… as Proverbs 4:16, we can’t rest until we do whatever is consistent with our addiction…
Our choices of a path shape our character and our character determines our destiny.
Jim Collins, author of acclaimed business leadership book, Built to Last and Good to Great, wrote about the crisis of business ethics in the wake of the scandals at Enron and Worldcom.
He describes how some business people went wrong:
He writes about how people who, in the presence of an opportunity to behave differently, got drawn into the scam, one step after another.

If you told them 10 years ahead of time, "Hey, let's cook the books and we will all get rich," they would never go along with it.

But that's rarely how most people get drawn into activities that they later regret. When you are at step A, it feels inconceivable to jump all the way to step Z, if step Z involves something that is a total breach of your values. But if you go from step A to step B, then step B to step C, then step C to step D…then someday, you wake up and discover that you are at step Y, and the move to step Z comes about much easier.

In Milton Mayer's essay, "They Thought They Were Free," he explains the process this way: A farmer never notices the corn growing minute by minute. But if he stays in the field long enough, he wakes up one day to discover that it has grown over his head. The people who get involved in scandals weren't necessarily bad at the outset. But through a series of gradual steps, they ended up in bad situations—in over their heads….

Little steps down a path, shape our character and our character determines our destiny…

It’s the little steps that get us going down a particular path…

You’re “committed” to someone, but you're attracted to someone… or your not committed to someone, but you’re attracted to someone who is “committed” to someone, but you choose to flirt… you take a little step, then you think of an excuse to get into contact with that person… little step… before you know you’re heading down a path that is shaping your character and your destiny.

You’ve been slighted by someone, but not so overwhelmed to the point where you have no control over how you feel, and you choose to keep re-playing the offense in your mind, you choose to resent the person… instead of letting it go... you may be heading down a path that will shape your character and your destiny….

Little steps put us on a path that shape our character and our character determines our destiny.

The opposite is true as well… when we choose good--we choose a different pathway all together…

The Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain, a very good friend of Thomas Merton, in his book The Responsibility of the Artist

"Any person who, in a primary act of freedom deep enough to engage his whole
personality, chooses to do the good for the sake of the good, chooses God,
knowingly or unknowlingly, as his supreme good; he loves God more than himself,
even if he has no conceptual knowledge of God."
Our choices put us on a path that shape our character and our character determines our destiny.
A couple looked at their bank statement and realized that the bank had inadvertently credited them X amount of dollars.

Usually when the bank makes a mistake, it’s in their advantage, but this time they made some kind of error in the advantage of the couple.

So the couple explained how the bank had made an error, but bank said we have no idea how that money got there… The bank said because we don’t know where the money came from we can’t take it back… and the couple prayed about it felt this money wasn’t there’s to keep, so they ended up giving it to a Christian relief organization which is committed to helping the poor.

Small step, but it’s the kind of step that takes us down a path, a path that shapes our character and our character determines our destiny.
I know of a man, who was on a business trip and some men he was with invited him to go see some strippers. The men said, why not? The man said, “I’m married and I love my wife too much to do something like that.”

Small steps take a person down a path.

A step down a path shapes our character and our character determines our destiny.

Some of us here may be saying, what’s the big deal?

If I say to a client “I’m working on that” when I’ve forgotten… or what’s the big deal if I chill out by viewing a little porn from time to time…
And if we are going to live just for 80-90 years, if it’s just this lifetime we’re thinking about, may be it’s not such a big deal…

But God through the Scriptures, tells us that we have think to further ahead, much further ahead…

God calls us to think not in terms of a 10, 20 or 50 year plan, but in terms of eternity.
Our small steps put us on a path that shape our character and our character determines our destiny.
C.S. Lewis in his work the Weight of Glory…says we have never met a mere mortal.
Lewis says,remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you may talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship… or else a horror and corruption such as you now meet if at all only in a nightmare.
All day long we are in some degree helping ourselves and each other to one or the other of these destinations. ..
In his book the Great Divorce,
Lewis says that hell is a place where you lose your true self… He says, for example, it begins with a grumbling mood, and you are still distinct from it, perhaps even criticizing it. And you yourself, in a dark hour, may will that mood, and embrace it. Ye can repent and come out of it again. But there may come a day when you can do that no longer. Then there will be no more of you left to criticize the mood, nor even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself going on forever like a machine."
Sin deforms and shrivels the soul, turns the grumbler into a grumble.
It’s one thing to be a cranky old man at 85, it’s quite another to become a grumble on into eternity.
So, how do we avoid becoming a grumble… into eternity?

Again back to the image of the path.

Proverbs 14:2

2 Whoever fears the LORD walks uprightly,
but those who despise him are devious in their ways.

Recently I was with a Vancouver pastor in JJ Bean and he said, “There’s no ‘fear of God’ in Vancouver!”

I think a lot of people in Vancouver if they heard the term “Fear of the Lord” either would be confused or be turned off.

But as we discussed last Sunday the fear of God, is a kind of reverent awe of God that leads to following God’s design for us that leads to life.
For years, the opening of ABC's The Wide World of Sports had the expression "the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat…" They illustrated the agony of defeat part through the painful ending of an attempted ski jump. The skier appeared in good form as he headed down the slope, but then, for no apparent reason, he tumbled head-over-heels off the side of the jump and bounced off the supporting structure.
What viewers didn't know was that he chose to fall. Why? The jump surface had actually become too fast, and midway down the ramp he realized that if he completed the jump, he would land on hard ground, beyond the safe landing zone, which could have lead him to his death. The skier chose instead to tumble off the side of the jump suffered no more than a headache from the tumble.
The fear of the slope, the fear of flying too high, and the fear of the fall led him to change course. Fear led to life. The fear of the Lord likewise will turn us from the snares of death.
Jesus said… Don’t be afraid of the one who can kill the body… fear the one who has the power to throw you in heaven or hell….

What would it look like to fear God? As we discussed last Sunday it would mean having a reverence before God that leads us to submit to his Word, even when God’s word seems counter-intuitive, even when we don’t understand why God says this, or even when we don’t want to follow it…

Many of us begin our relationship with God gradually…. We begin by first checking God out, wondering if it’s going to help us somehow, givig us an advantage somehow, to relate to God… if it does we stay, if it doesn’t we’ll bail out.

Many of us don’t want God to be our God so much we want God to be our administrative assistant.

Many of us want God as our consultant. Someone I know says I pay someone to consult and then I ignore what he says… unless I think it will help me.
According to the research done at the Australian National University there are about 70 sextillion stars in the known universe, that’s 70 with 22 zeros. That means about 10 times as many stars in the known universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches and all the deserts of our planet.
God called each of the 70 sextillion stars into existence in our universe and according to Isaiah, even the ones we don’t know about, by name.
Our journey into a relationship with God will be gradual and tentative, but God is not someone we invite into our life as our administrative assistance or even as our consultant, we invite him as our LORD, MASTER, as who he is, as GOD…

When we do, we submit to his wisdom, even when it seems counter intuitive, when we don’t understand why, or don’t want to follow God’s way, we find that we are on a path that is consistent with our true self, consistent with the grain of our life, one of integrity, one that integrates us and makes us whole, makes us into the people we were created to be, and that leads to life here and on into eternity.
So how do we become that way?

I believe it’s through a new heart that longs to walk in God’s way…. And loves to follow God’s path…

Some years ago, I was in the former Soviet Union, in Kazakhstan at a conference for public school teachers, sponsored by the local government.

I was there to give lectures on how to teach ethics in a post-communist educational system, and I decided since I’m a Christian minister to base my remarks on the Ten Commandments.

During my final lecture… in government initiated conference, I said something like… we’ve been looking at the greatest guide for ethics in the world, but they won’t do you or your students much good, if you only have a head knowledge of the Ten Commandments, but not the will and heart to live them out…

So if you would like the author of the Ten Commandments to come and live in you and give you the desire to live them out, I am now going to invite you to pray to Jesus Christ and if you’d like Christ to come and live in you and forgive your sins and make you into the kind of person who longs to live in a way that reflects the beauty of the God who made us…

As I close this message, I will invite those who want to walk the path of wisdom and integrity… and who want to invite Christ into your hearts for the first time or in prayer of re-commitment… to fill us with His Spirit and give a new heart that longs to follow God’s and the power do it, I will ask you, if you are physically able to do so, to quietly kneel… if you can’t kneel, because of a physical issue, then kneel in your heart…

I plan to be the first to kneel, because I know I have this infinite capacity to self-delusion, the infinite potential to self-destruct… and I need a renewed heart… to walk the path of God.

I will read Ezekiel 36: If these express what you want I will then invite you to kneel in prayer as a sign you want God’s Spirit in you.

24 " 'For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

Time of prayer…

Benediction…

(The sermon can be heard on line at: http://www.tenth.ca/audio htm)

Saturday, September 16, 2006

The Path to Wisdom: Sep 17. 1006

September 17, 2006, small group announcement, add Proverbs 26:12 to powerpoint…
Big idea: pride makes us fools, humility makes us wise.
A couple had been fighting over the purchase of a new car for weeks. The husband wanted a new truck. The wife wanted a fast sports car.
The discussion was getting very heated when finally the wife stated, "Look, I want something that if I “step on it” will go from 0 to 240k in six seconds or less, and that's all there is to it!"" My birthday is coming up and you better surprise me or you’ll be awfully lonely!
When her birthday came, the wife went out to the garage, no new car. Angry, she je asked where’s my gift? The husband handed her a bathroom scale to weigh yourself on with a red ribbon. He said, “You wanted something that if you stepped on it would go from 0-240 in 6 seconds or less!” Here you go!
A young, ambitious guy (and this is a true story) who I worked at the Amoco corporation got a big promotion that required a transfer to Cairo, Egypt. He went home to his wife and young baby and said, "Great news, we're moving to Cairo." Apalled, his wife said, "You're moving alone. I'm going home to my mother." There seemed to be no workable compromise: if he relinquished his promotion, he would resent his wife for ruining his career; if she just went along with the move, she would hate him for squashing her ideals for her baby and herself. What to do?
Many of life situations require more than a simple rule… they require wisdom. Buying a birthday gift typically is a simpler decision, then whether to take a job that will force you to work in a new city…
Some of us would love to have simple rules that in effect would make our decision for us, but in many life situations, a simple rule isn’t enough…
The decision about where to go school, where to work, where to live, if and whom to date, and if and whom to marry, if and how to raise family, when and how to confront someone… all require wisdom.
Wisdom according to the book of Proverbs is about gaining “skill or expertise in life,” it is about gaining “competence in life.”

This “competence in life” comes from both keen observation and experience as a result of God directly depositing wisdom in our hearts.

Solomon the author of the Proverbs received wisdom through both keen observation, but also directly as a gift from God in answer to prayer.

This morning I want to ask the questions: How do we become wise?

And how do we become fools?

What are the pathways to wisdom and becoming a fool?

According to the Proverbs, the gateway to wisdom is the fear of the Lord…

If you have a Bible please turn to Proverbs 1:7
7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge,
but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Now turn to Proverbs 9:10
10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,
and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
The fear of the Lord is the gateway to wisdom…

We will be exploring more of what this means a little later in the sermon.

But, the gateway to becoming a fool is pride…

Proverbs 26:12 says (add to powerpoint)…
12 Do you see people who are wise in their own eyes?
There is more hope for fools than for them.
Proverbs 16:18 tells us that pride precedes a person’s fall

When Proverbs use the term pride here, it is NOT pride in the good sense of having a healthy self-esteem.

Someone has rightly said, there’s a good kind of pride: having in faith in the idea God had when he made you.

But there’s a pride that can really damage us and that is the pride that makes us think that we are the king or queen of our world, the “god” of our world…

The pride makes us think we can make it on our own and that we don’t need God.

How does pride make us a fool?

Last week we talked about how Biblically speaking wisdom is a deep, heart understanding of the moral/spiritual order created by God… (If you couldn’t be here last week, you might want to pick up the cd of that message as it helps to explain the purpose of the book of Proverbs--by looking at the call of woman wisdom).

We talked about how wisdom in Proverbs is defined as having “mastery or expertise” in life or “competence” in life.

We talked about how this understanding of life comes through both a keen observation of life and also as a direct deposit from God into our hearts.

Solomon grew in wisdom as he attentively observed life and as he received wisdom directly from God in answer to prayer.

If we are proud, we assume we know or can figure something out on our own and so we don’t feel the urgent need to learn from others.

There’s a person I sail with who’s a beginner-level sailor…

The person often challenges our sailing coach, who is a master sailor…

When we’re doing the “man overboard” drill….

He instructs us how to do maneuver the boat based on the direction of the wind, assuming that in a real life situation the water is going to be choppy

This sailing student, crosses his arms, and says in effect… there’s a more efficient way to do this… we don’t need to zig zag to rescue the “MOB”—if we go strait to the person it will be faster…. The sailing master says it won’t work in a real life situation… when there’s likely to be considerable wind and waves…

The person’s arms are still crossed…and says let me try it my way… and it doesn’t work even in calm conditions…

I’m thinking this person’s pride is cutting him off from sailing wisdom…

A proud person says, I know what I need to know or I can figure it out on my own, so he tends to close his mind to wisdom that may be imparted by others.

If on the other hand if a person is humble, all kinds of doors to learning open in all kinds of situations.

Einstein was once asked, “What is the key to your great knowledge?” He says, the more I learn, the more I realize how much I don’t know and this drives me to learn more and makes me realize how much I don’t know and my hunger to learn grows.

Jesus spoke about the importance of having a child-like humility and openness to understanding the nature of the Kingdom of God.

Zen masters talk about the importance of having a “beginner’s mind.”

The book of Proverbs gives us this paradox: it tells us that if you think you’re wise you’re a fool, but if you think you’re a fool you’re wise or on the road to becoming wise…

Pride makes us a fool in that keeps us from feeling we need to keenly observe life and learn… from others…

Pride also keeps wisdom from directly entering our hearts (Proverbs 2:10).

According to Proverbs 6:16-17 God hates pride. God lists 6 things he hates, seven things he detests. Number 1 on the list is pride.

According to 1 Peter 5:5 God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

So, if we are proud God opposes us and we will not receive the grace, we will not receive the gift of God’s wisdom.

Prides cuts us off from wisdom and leads us to become fools…

What might it look like to become a fool through pride?

It might look like inadvertently hurting ourselves.

As we looked at last week, if we’re proud, we may not heed the instructions of God given in Proverbs and other places in Scripture…. to avoid “easy sex” and “easy money” and end up damaging our souls.

The Proverbs 16: 25 says,there’s a way that seems right, but in the end leads to death.

We might think we do not need God’s wisdom in other areas of lives and hurt ourselves.

There’s a pastor I know who was very successful. He went on to become the president of a very important Christian organization. He ended up committing adultery. People were stunned because this person was/is so smart and disciplined. When people asked him how could you do that? He said, God says take a Sabbath day once a week, I thought I was so busy (apparently he thought he was so strong) that I only needed a Sabbath once every 10 or 12 days and I became so tired… that I lost my footing…

Pride makes us think, we don’t need to follow God’s way and because God’s way is always organically connected to who we are and the way world is designed, when we don’t go God’s way we end up going against the grain (use prop) of who we are and the grain of the world.

Pride makes us a fool in that it causes us to disregard God’s wisdom in a way that makes us hurt ourselves.

Pride also makes us a fool in that it causes us to hurt other people.

If we think we’re better than other people, it will be easy for us to hurt others.

If you read historian Paul Johnson’s book The Intellectuals, you’ll read about these famous people, geniuses whose ideas of love and justice have shaped the Western world, but they were so proud they treated people like dirt.

Picasso was a great artistic genius. His work is amazing.… My wife and I saw a lot of his work this past summer.

But Picasso was very proud, he was once heard muttering to himself “I am god…” “I am god…” and because Picasso was proud he looked down on people and particularly on the women in his life… as Picasso himself admitted all the women in his life eventually became doormats. One mistress told him, “You have never loved anyone in your life.” “You don’t know how to love.” Francois Gilot his 3rd mistress once told him you’re the devil. Picasso then branded her with a cigarette held to her cheek, then stopping only as he said “I’ll stop now, only because I may want to look at you again”

What causes a person to abuse woman or someone on the basis of their gender, or discriminate different race or hold a person of a different socio-economic class in contempt? It’s because he thinks, hey, I’m better…

Pride makes us hurt people… who are infinitely worthy…

Pride cuts us off from keenly observing life and cuts us off from God, the source of real wisdom. Pride makes us hurt ourselves and others.

Pride makes us a fool. So how do we avoid this fate?

Solomon tells us it’s through wisdom. Where does wisdom come from?
Proverbs 1:7 tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

Proverbs 9:10 tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

Wisdom comes to us through the fear of the Lord…

What does the expression “fear of the Lord” mean?

OT scholar Bruce Waltke points out the expression “fear of the Lord” is a “compound expression.” You can’t get its meaning from simply dissecting the phrase and examining the words “fear” and “Lord”, just as you can’t understand the word butterfly by studying the words butter and fly, you have to take the expression “fear of the Lord” as a whole in order to understand it.

The expression fear of the Lord refers to being in awe of God--in a way that is demonstrated by submission to the truth he reveals to us. 2x

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom… because it causes us to live in a way that’s consistent with God’s design for us.

A person can say, “I reverence God, but the test as to whether we really do or not is to see if that person really submits to God’s Word or not.”

This past week in our small group, we went over parts of Psalm 119: each verse in this very long Psalm exudes reverence for God’s word and passion to submit to it…

If we really trust and respect what God has said, we will align ourselves with what he says.

If we really trust and respect a person we’ll consider what he says, if we really respect the person and his judgment we’ll tend to do what he says…. (I say “tend to” because no human being is infallible).

If we really trust and respect God,we will align ourselves with what he says.

As we align ourselves with God’s way for us, we will find that we are living more and more in a way that is consistent with God’s design for us.

If we work with wood in a way that is consistent with it’s design… we’ll find it cuts more easily… so it is with our lives… if we work consistently with the grain of our lives we tend to find that we flourish…

Martin Laird in his book Into the Silent Land talks about how a young prisoner cuts himself with a sharp knife to dull his emotional pain.

“As long as I can remember,” he says, I have had this hurt inside. I can’t get away from it, and sometimes I cut or burn myself so that the pain will be in a different place and on the outside.

Someone then taught him how to pray and how to turn his prison cell into a monastic cell.

After learning how to meditate and practicing it twice a day for several weeks, the young prisoner speaks movingly of what he has learnt.

“I just want you to know that after only 4 weeks of mediating half an hour in the morning and at night, the pain is not so bad, and for the first time in my life, I can see a tiny spark of something that I can like.”

When we worship God spending time in God’s presence or in community something happens inside to move us toward wholeness, in the presence of God whether alone or in community we become in words of Thomas Merton, our true self…

When we honor God’s design by coming into contact with the One in whose image we were made… we flourish…

If we go against that design we flounder….

Last year I was out teaching in Hawaii--a rough assignment, but someone has to do it—Sakiko and I were with our hosts on Oahu’s North Shore--infamous for it’s rip tides.

I remember our host saying one time to me, don’t wade into the water, because the rip tide may carry you out into it and people die every year…

Imagine that you don’t know that and you wade into the water and a big wave comes over you and the rip tide pulls you up into the ocean…

Every impulse in you says swim back… to shore… front crawl…maybe butterfly…

I am no expert on this, but I’ve heard that if you try to swim against the rip tide you’ll drown, but what you do is let the tide carry you and then as it weakens you swim parallel to beach until you are out of the rip and then you swim back to shore…

If you do what you really want to do and try to swim directly back to shore you’ll drown, but if you honor nature and you go with it, you’ll be ok or there’s a better chance you’ll be ok…

C.S. Lewis in his book the Abolition of Man said the ancients, used wisdom to conform to reality in a way that led to life… he says modern people try to use a technique that tries to reshape reality in a way that will conform to their immediate desires, but in a way leads to death…

E.g. someone discovers that the Scriptures teach that God’s design for sex is for exclusive, covenant relationship of marriage… but after hearing that says, I don’t need to follow that… because I’ll use a condom…. thinking that through a technology, he can “reshape reality” in way that allows him to meet his immediate desire.

But when a person violates the grain of God’s design for our sexuality, while technology may help him avoid an unwanted pregnancy, he damages his soul….

We’ll have sermon on sex and sexuality in this series….

When we end up swimming against the current, going against the grain of the way God designed us, we end up damaging our relationship with God, our soul, and with others…

Wisdom is about honoring the physical, social, moral and spiritual order…

We become people of wisdom by living in the fear of the Lord by reverently submitting to God’s loving design for us....

Sometimes God’s way is really counter intuitive…

If you want to be great, God says don’t start acting like a King or Queen, become a servant…

If you want to receive, give.

If you want to financially flourish, honor God by giving the first 10% of your income…
How counter intuitive is that…

If you want to be truly free, submit to God’s design…

If we reverence God and submit to his revelation… we will honor our design and we will therefore be people with wisdom…

In the best sense “wisdom works,” we’ll find that as we pursue God’s way…

As we fear God, reverently submitting to God, we will find that wisdom will enter our hearts not only through observation, but as a gift… directly from… God…

Proverbs 18:12 tells us that pride goes before a fall, humility precedes grace and honor…

Humility precedes honor and humility before God is the fear of God.

As we close, I want to shift the focus slightly to talk about how we become people who fear God…

Specifically, how do we become people who don’t have the bad kind of pride that makes us think we don't need to learn from God and others and yet have the good kind of pride that enables us to have faith in the idea that God had when he made us.


I think the way to have this healthy fear of the Lord, the absence of bad pride that makes us think we’re superior and that if we had to we’d be fine without God and others and to have the presence of the good pride…

It is to focus our identity on Jesus Christ and what he did for us on the cross.

Let what he did for us sink deep into our heart…

If our life is focused on something other than what Jesus Christ did for us…

We’ll tend to be either proud and not humble, or humble, but not confident…

For example if our identity is based on our performance at school, or having a boyfriend or girlfriend or being a good spouse or lover, or our work or some athletic or artistic ability or being a parent…

Then we’ll tend either to be proud, perhaps smugly self-satisfied because we’re doing that better than others or we’ll tend to feel inferior because we are focused on the fact others are doing better than us.

How do we become people who are humble and yet proud in a good way…

One way is by looking to Jesus Christ and what he did for us on the cross.

If we look to the cross, we will understand our sin caused Jesus to voluntarily die on the cross as sacrifice… our sin caused someone to die…when we really understand… how can we be proud?

If our identity comes from the Gospel, the good news that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, how can we be proud, how can we ever look down on anyone… because of their gender, their race, their socio-economic bracket…

If our identity is really tied to the cross we can never really look down on anyone again…

The cross tells us how serious our sin was—we can never be proud.

On the other hand, as we look at the cross and realize Jesus Christ died for me and you we will realize how deeply we’re loved.

And we can become people who are humble, but confident….

The Gospel tells us our sins are far greater than we ever dared imagined, and that we are far more loved than we ever dared hope.

So, if our identity is built on the Gospel, we’ll be humble, but confident..

As we humbly submit ourselves to God’s way… wisdom enters our heart and we will find the path to life… because pride makes us fools, but humility makes us wise…

Benediction….

Humble yourselves therefore under God’s mighty hand and he will lift you up in due time…

(The sermon can be heard online at: http://www.tenth.ca/audio.htm)

Friday, September 08, 2006

Sep 10, 2006: The Call of Woman Wisdom

The Call of Woman Wisdom: September 10, 2006

In his moving novel, The Kite Runner, the author Hosseini tells the story of Amir a boy who grows up in Afghanistan and his relationship with his father, Baba.

When Amir was in the fifth grade…. Amir comes home and raises an issue that his Mullah, i.e. his Muslim Holy teacher brought up regarding a particular sin…

And Baba the father responds…

There is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft. Do you understand that?’

“‘No, Baba jan,’ I said, desperately wishing I did. I didn’t want to disappoint him again…

“‘When you kill a man, you steal a life. . . you steal his wife’s right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness. Do you see?’

“‘There is no act more wretched than stealing, Amir,’ Baba said.”

What Baba was seeking to do was to help his son choose the path of wisdom.

This, of course, is not uncommon.

Most fathers or mothers, most mentor figures, want the young people under their care to choose wisdom…
This fall we’re going to be exploring the book of Proverbs which was given as a kind of manual for parents and mentors in Israel to instruct their young in the ways of wisdom…
The opening words of the book tell us that these are the proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel and they are for gaining wisdom and instruction…
1 The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel:
2 for gaining wisdom and instruction;
for understanding words of insight;
3 for receiving instruction in prudent behavior,
doing what is right and just and fair;
4 for giving prudence to those who are simple,
knowledge and discretion to the young—
We read in vs. 2 that Proverbs are for gaining wisdom…
Wisdom as it’s defined in the Proverbs involves more than a knowledge of certain rules.
Wisdom in Proverbs involves a deep, heart understanding of moral order that comes from God.
The book of Proverbs teaches that this deep understanding of this moral order comes from both a keen observation of life and the wisdom given directly into our hearts from God.
In verse 2 we also read that the Proverbs are given so that we might have “insight.” Insight involves having an understanding of how things really are/how they work.
Jill Briscoe defines wisdom as “spiritual street smarts.”
OT scholar Bruce Waltke defines wisdom in Proverbs “as life mastery based on experience,” having “skill or expertise” in life.
The book of Proverbs give us pithy statements, that offer us representation of how the world works.

The individual proverbs are so short that they cannot represent all of reality of the how world works, but they a slice of how the world works, in a particular context.

If you work hard, you’ll be prosperous.

If you answer gently, you’ll defuse anger.

These Proverbs offers a slice of reality, but not comprehensive statements about how the world. Generally speaking if you work hard you’ll prosper, generally speaking if you answer gently you defuse anger… but at the book of Proverbs later notes there are all kind of exceptions. When you take the Proverbs and note the exceptions, together we get a better understanding of how the world works.
Vs. 3 tells us the Proverbs are for gaining instruction.
(The Proverbs are) 3 for receiving instruction in prudent behavior,
doing what is right and just and fair;
People don’t become wise accidentally.
Solomon points we all need in instruction and hence this book.
In chapter 1-9 helps us prepare our heart so that will be able to receive wisdom.
4 for giving prudence to those who are simple,
knowledge and discretion to the young—
But, though this book was written primarily for the young person, for a parent to use with a child or a mentor to use with mentor, whether we are young or old, male or female if want to be wise, God tells us to get the wisdom through the book Proverbs…

Because whether we are young or old, male or female, we have choices that lie before us…that require wisdom…

There are some decisions in life that can be guided by simple rules: “Don’t drink and drive.” “Don’t buy things on your credit card that you can’t pay off.”

But there are many areas in life that require more than simply rules: they require wisdom, understanding of how things are to make a choice…

Where to go to school, what life-work to pursue, how and when to confront something, if to marry, whom to marry, how to raise children, where to live…

A rule can give us a general guide, wisdom can help know in what situation to apply the rule.

The book of Proverbs calls us become people who embrace wisdom.

And it calls through a metaphor.

In the book of Proverbs, Solomon introduces us to the image of a father who wants his young his son to date and wed wisdom (the image could have easily been that of a mother or daughter, but in part because Solomon, himself, is a man and father, he uses the image of a father and a son).

This father he seeks to introduce to his son to a woman, the woman’s name is wisdom… for she is wisdom, wisdom personified.

In Proverbs 1 vs. 20 we see this picture of woman wisdom… She is strong. She is bold. She takes initiative…
Notices vss. 20-21
20 Out in the open wisdom calls aloud,
she raises her voice in the public square;
21 on top of the wall she cries out,
at the city gate she makes her speech:
Wisdom calls out…
She says in Proverbs 9:
1 Wisdom has built her house;
she has set up its seven pillars.
2 She has prepared her meat and mixed her wine;
she has also set her table.
3 She has sent out her servants, and she calls
from the highest point of the city,
4 "Let all who are simple come to my house!"
To those who have no sense she says,
5 "Come, eat my food
and drink the wine I have mixed.
6 Leave your simple ways and you will live;
walk in the way of insight."
Woman wisdom invites the young man to dine with her…

She has prepared meat and mixed the wine and set her table….

Wisdom is offer wine, she’s anything boring, she’s make your head spin in good way…

This is very a sensual image…

In the Ancient Near East to dine with someone meant something. It meant you received that person as a friend, it meant you wanted to enter into deep and intimate relationship with that person.

The invitation is from woman wisdom to dine with her—the invitation is to come to know her deeply.

Parker Palmer in his book To Know as We are Known points out that true knowledge is not just about knowing “facts”—it is about knowing something internally and deeply and personally… Palmer says that true knowing involves a relationship.

The woman wisdom invites us to know her intimately and deeply to have relationship with her.

In Proverbs 4 Solomon calls his son to honor and cherish and embrace woman wisdom…
This is the language of intimate relationship. Solomon hopes that his son will commit to woman wisdom and wed her.

He knows (according to Proverbs 3) that this woman wisdom offers a delightful and satisfying path… and (according to Proverbs 8) that she will lead him to life and prosperity…

So, Solomon hopes his son will fall in love with woman wisdom, because he knows what Augustine would understand centuries later, that key to change is not the acts of the will, but the loves of the heart.

But, Solomon knows that woman wisdom has her rival.

There is woman folly.

Woman wisdom is beautiful.

Woman folly she “hot” but in a different way.

Listen to her bio in Proverbs 9…

Chapter 9:
13 Folly is an unruly woman;
she is simple and knows nothing.
14 She sits at the door of her house,
on a seat at the highest point of the city,
15 calling out to those who pass by,
who go straight on their way…
16 "Let all who are simple come to my house!"
To those who have no sense she says,
17 "Stolen water is sweet;
food eaten in secret is delicious!"
18 But little do they know that the dead are there,
that her guests are deep in the realm of the dead.
Woman folly’s allure is the way of easy pleasure…

She represents easy sex.

In vs. 17 the image of “stolen water” is a metaphor for illicit sex…

There is a kind attractiveness to woman folly…

There’s an appeal to music and message of Nelly Furtado’s hit song Promiscuous:

The guys sing:

Promiscuous girl (song)
Wherever you are
I’m all alone
And it's you that I want

Nelly sings:

Promiscuous boy
You already know
That I’m all yours
What you waiting for?

There’s is an appeal to woman folly, to male folly, to promiscuous girl to promiscuous boy…

There’s something appealing for an adolescent… when a girl will let go as far as he wants.

There’s something appealing to a man when a woman, makes it known she’s wholly available.

The woman folly is also the way of easy money.

In Proverbs 1:18-19 Solomon warns his son against getting involved in schemes that involve quick, easy, illicit money.

There’s a great to appeal to easy money… there’s an appeal on a different number of levels for an adolescent to stealing, to sell drugs… there’s an appeal to an adult about not being truthful on our return, an appeal with getting privileged, inside, illegal information on how a stock will likely perform…

But chapter 9 vs. 18 tells us that woman’s folly guests are deep in the realm of death…

People who chose… easy sex… sex outside of God’s design, life-long covenant relationship marriage, find their souls are torn apart, people easy money find their soul shrivels, for woman folly leads to death…

Proverbs 16:25 tells us that there is a way that seems right to a person, but in the end it leads to death.

There is a way that seems right to person, but in the end, it destroys the soul.

The father urges his son to choose to dine and wed woman wisdom, for she leads to life, but woman folly leads to death…

So who is woman wisdom?

Listen, if you will, to her autobiography:

Chapter 8:22
22 "The LORD brought me forth as the first of his works,
before his deeds of old;
23 I was formed long ages ago,
at the very beginning, when the world came to be.
24 When there were no oceans, I was given birth,
when there were no springs abounding with water;
25 before the mountains were settled in place,
before the hills, I was given birth,
26 before he made the world or its fields
or any of the dust of the earth.
Renowned OT scholar, Bruce Waltke points out that in the Hebrew this text pronounces that wisdom is not made by God, but is begotten or birthed by God…

Wisdom is birthed from the very nature of God and is organically related to God in its nature.

Woman wisdom that birthed by God was present at the very beginning of creation.

There are ancient myths that about came to be describe the world come into the being because of a conflict between the gods. One god defeats another and makes the earth from the body of the defeated God.

But Bible’s account of creation is unique story in that it suggests the creation of the world is built with wisdom, not the result of a power struggle or some random fluke…

Therefore, if the world is founded with wisdom, it means there is a kind “order,” symmetry, beauty, to reality to it.

When I was working in Tokyo, I met a young man who I remember well. He was Ph.D in physics at University of Tokyo… He was doing some ground breaking researching on how to take measurement of a sphere… I remember him approach me asking me to get together for lunch… he wanted to talk about something…. We met and he said, you’re a Christian right? I’ve research on the waves sphere as far no has done before… it seems to me it not random, design… it makes me wonder if there’s something that’s designed the universe…

Leading scientists who are not necessarily religious have talked how as they observe the there seems to be this order, symmetry, this appearance of design.

The world reflects the design of God…

As God has designed a world with certain physical like the lay of gravity (drop a ball)…

As there are physical laws so there are certain social and spiritual laws at work in the universe… free sexs tear your soul, easy money will shrivel your soul…

Because woman wisdom has been present from the beginning she knows how the world works, she knows not just physical, but the social and spiritual laws as well and therefore she is knows reality, therefore she leads us to life.

The Wright brothers were about to we’re able to fly the first airplane because they figured out the laws of aerodynamics.

Wisdom is about learning to “fly in life” because we understand the “aerodynamics” of the world God has designed.

If understand the Gods laws we can fly.

Woman wisdom helps us to understand the nature of reality and guides us through it… and leads us to life.

I am beginner sailor.

But, I have someone in my life who is a master sailor. He understands, the wind, the wave, the current, the nature of sail boats… so he helps guide me on the water, he helps me to realities of the wind, wave and current… so I will learn sail the boat and not capsize it.

Woman Wisdom guides through so we can understand the nature of what God has made, honor the design, so we sail, fly, so be led to life.

God wants us to meet, to fall love with, and wed woman wisdom.

Will you dine with her? Will you love her, will you commit to her?

Some of you may have thought…

This talk of wisdom as a woman is really a literally device…

But if wisdom were a person?

Some of you have wistfully thought, if I only had a wise father or mother…

Or if only I had had a wise mentor…

But what if wisdom were a person you could know?

Some of you have wistfully thought, if I only had had a wise father or mother…

Or if only I had had a wise mentor…

But what if wisdom were a person you could know?

In Gospel chapter 1, we have a section that similar to the Proverbs at 8 description of wisdom. In John we read about the how in the beginning was the word, and in the Greek there word connotes a kind of certain of logic/ knowledge/wisdom… so in rough paraphrase you could say in the beginning was wisdom and wisdom was with God and wisdom was God… then the wisdom became flesh, a human being and dwelt and we beheld his glory, the glory of the one and only son who came from the father, full of grace and truth.

Jesus said Jesus says 28 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Jesus who is wisdom itself, invites on journey where we learn from, his yoke is perfectly made for us, and we will find rest.

Solomon in Proverbs 4 says honor and cherish and embrace wisdom… if we wed lady wisdom, if we wed Jesus Christ… honor, cherish, and embrace wisdom… we will know the path to life and fullness of joy…

(The sermon can be heard online at: http://www.tenth.ca/audio.htm)

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Psalm 139: Knowing We Are Known (Se0 2, 2006)

Psalm 139 Knowing We Are Known September 2, 2006

(Use candle as prop)

In the movie the Count of Monte Cristo Edmond is falsely accused of treason by a man who is jealous of him. Edmond is arrested, and thrown into a remote island prison, called Chateau D'if.

Before he thrown into his cell he’s about to whipped by the prison warden:

Show movie clip here (where Edmond says God is everywhere).

Have you wondered if God is really present?

Is God everywhere or not?

This is the question, we want to explore this morning.

Let’s allow the words of Scripture to answer…

If you have your Bibles, please turn to Psalm 139…

David his meditation with the words:
1 You have searched me, LORD,
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you, LORD, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
David is aware that his life is wholly known by
God…
The book of Proverbs tells us that that all a person’s ways are in full view of God…
David says you know when I sit and when I rise…
You discern my going out and my lying down… you are familiar with all my ways.
God is aware of our every movement, our sitting, our standing, our going out, our coming home…
He’s familiar with all our ways…
David also speaks of how God he has been with us from the very beginning of our existence…
David says in vs. 13.
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
In Hebrew the idea comes through his passage is that from the time we were in embryo, God has known us.
He has made us in a way that’s wonderful…
Most people would not think of pop singer Christina Aguilera as a worship leader… but when she sings “I am beautiful… words can’t bring me down.”
It reminds of what David, who says I am fearfully wonderfully made…
This past summer, my wife and I saw some beautiful things in nature and in art. She’s learning to see through her art studies said several times this summer said the most beautiful thing is a human face. I said every face? Every human face, if you really look, is beautiful.
When you understand you’ve been fearfully and wonderfully made by God you can say or sing, “I am beautiful…”
In vs. 2 David says, “You perceive my thoughts from afar.” In vs. 4 David says “Before a word is on my tongue, you know it completely, LORD…”
Jesus said in Matthew 6, even before we ask, our heaven father knows what we need…
He knows what is going on in our minds and hearts; he knows our thoughts, both those that are clear and distinctly formed as well as our “stream of consciousness…”
The fact that God sees everything bothers some people.
In Knowing and Being, the philosopher Jean Paul Sartre described “God” disdainfully as the “unviewed viewer…”
One time when Sartre was sweeping a floor… He thought God can see me but I can’t see God… this bother him.
It may us trouble us that God can see everything…
But it can also be deeply comforting…
Because there is a sense in which we all need to be seen…
Not long ago I spent 4 days with a new a five-year old friend…
Throughout the day, he’d show me something and say look or he’d want play a game with me… He kept saying lets go fishing—we went early one morning took out the dinghy, but caught nothing…
Kids have a need to be seen.
So do adults… we’re just more discreet about it…
When Lou Little coached football at Georgetown University, he had a player of average ability who rarely got into the game. Yet he was fond of him. Shortly before the big contest with Fordham, the boy's mother called the coach with news that her husband had died that morning of a heart attack. "Will you break the news to my son?" she asked. "He'll take it better from you."
The student went home heavy hearted, but three days later he was back. "Coach," he pleaded, "will you start me in the Fordham game?” I think this my dad would have wanted.
After a moment's hesitation, Little said, "Okay, but only for a play or two." True to his word, he put the boy in—but never took him out. For 60 action-packed minutes, that inspired young man ran and blocked like an All-Star. After the game, Little praised him, "Son, you were terrific! You've never played like that before. What got into you?"
"But my father was totally blind. Today was the first time he ever saw me play!"
We need people to see us..
God see us…
Now if something is glaring us, or looking with hostility to exploit us… that’s bothers us…
But is someone looks with love, gratitude, admiration… that life-giving…
And because God looks with deep, love… it’s life giving…
The one who knows you best, loves you most… that’s life giving.

A few months ago, two people whose opinions I really respect told me that they saw they perceived an angel standing by me, they were describing their seeing this at the same time, same place…

I felt both comforted and also a little disturbed.

I thought if the angel is with me—then even when I totally alone I can never sin.

I thought God is with ALL the time and I’ve live with integrity all the time.

But that’s also really comforting.

The Bible teaches that angels are with you and God is with you all the time.

A truth that ought a disturbing but mostly comfort because the one who knows you best loves you most.
David in reflecting on the fact that God knows and is with him says in vs. 17:
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, God (or as the Hebrew can read how precious to me are you thoughts about me)!

How vast is the sum of them!
In the Hebrew…the idea is precious in the sense of as gems: diamonds, rubies, sapphires… how precious to me are your thoughts oh God, how vast is the sum of them…
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.
David knows that the one who knows me best, loves me most and is always with me.

David prays:
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
There is no where we can go from God…
David says… if I go up to the heavens you are there…
If I make my bed in the depths you are there.
If I rise on the wings on the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast….
But even if we were to go up high on a mountain top, or to the bottom of the ocean, perhaps most remote the depths our heart—we’d find God there…
If go heights of joy we can find God there and if go to depths of despair there…
This past week Sharon Smith a member of this church observed the anniversary of very significant loss for her.
She’s now to come and share.
Shaz,
I love you so much. I always will.
Love
Alex

Ps: The pain just became too hard to handle

These were the last words written by my husband Alex last year on August, 31st before he hung himself.

Can you imagine anything worse? Well maybe a few things but not many. One of the first emotions that I can remember having was tremendous fear. I was afraid that: “surely the darkness would hide me and the light become night around me”.
I was so afraid that I would not be able to handle the grief that awaited me. I read every book that I could find on grief, on suicide survivors and adopted the Boy Scout motto “be prepared”.

I kept waiting, waiting for it to get worse. CS Lewis says in a Grief Observed that “Grief feels like suspense”. I was waiting to literally drown in sorrow. And you know I never did. The strange thing is that I only realize how hard it was and the depth of the despair looking back over it. While I was actually going through it, the Spirit was my daily comforter and I was able to walk through this dark night of grief one day at a time.

I thought I would share with you a few images and encounters that were meaningful to me as I walked in the darkness.

1. Toni Dolfo Smith visited our Tenth home group meeting in October last year and during a prayer time gave me a picture/image of a river that God was asking me to walk through. Toni said that sometimes the water would be ankle deep, sometimes it would be over my head. At times it would sit at my shoulders and not overwhelm me. But always God was with me AND I would in time feel the ground of the other side. And then the important words – keep walking, just keep walking.

2.
I listened to God’s words through Toni and kept walking through the river. I bought myself a rocking chair and whenever I had some time I would enter that space, listen to instrumental music and grieve. I read through all of Alex’s journals, I wrote letters to significant people and I revisited memories through photos and visualization. Each memory was only painful once and then the joy returned. I was no longer afraid of this place. Jesus was there. Each day we would reflect on my past together and He would comfort me and be with me through the night. It became my sanctuary.

3. There were some days where the heaviness and sorrow did envelop me. I call these my pajama days. These were days when I could not muster the strength to even get out of bed. As I look back and as I reread my journal from those months I see how on each of those days there were surprises of Christ through other people waiting for me. Let me share two:
a. One day I got up for literally 1 hour. I decided to go for a walk. I put on a coat and walked up two streets and who should I meet but my dear friend, Vania Levans. She was also going through a hard time and we greeted each other and then walked together in silence. When we got to my home I turned to her and I said as much to me as to her: “God is still good Vania” She nodded and said: “Yes Sharon, God is still good”. This image to me of two people journeying together trusting in the goodness of God even though we could not understand it and could not see it at that time is still so powerful to me. God’s surprises!
b. I remember one Thursday night I was alone. And through tears I cooked myself a dinner, lit a candle and sat down to eat. It was pointless, the food was sticking in my throat and I had lost my appetite. Then the phone rang. It was my dear friend Tracy Imbach. She was thinking about me. She also had her dinner in front of her. We decided to eat together that night on the phone. We said grace – described what food was on our plates and munched and chatted together. We even raised our glasses for a toast! God’s surprises!

“Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me
BUT
Even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you”

Thanks be to God.

Silence
Silence
Reflect on the fact that God has been with us even in our darkness.
Reflect on the fact that God has been with a loved one in our darkness.
David reflecting on how amazing is, God cries out in vs. 19.
19 If only you, God, would slay the wicked!
Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
20 They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, LORD,
and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
22 I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.
23 Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
David experiences such love and gratitude for God… he hates those who are in opposition to God.

Notices, he’s doesn’t say he hates sinners…. everyone is a sinner.

He hates those who are bloodthirsty and in rebellion against God.

In the World Cup Final this year, as we know Zindane the French captain late in the game headbuttted Materazzi perhaps costing France the cup…

We know from the replay that something was said by Materazzi to Zindane no one knows for what was said, expect those players… but if as it was speculated he said something about his dishonored Zidane mother or sister—while the head butting, may have been out of order, some kind of anger wasn’t out of order…

If someone tries to smear someone or something you love it not wrong to get angry… in fact wrong to not get angry….

Dorothy Sayers says… there sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, interferes with nothing, loves, nothing, hates nothing,

Because David he loves God, he hates those who are in rebellion against God…

But maybe he wonders have I gone to far… and God knows everything so prayers:

23 Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
As we prepare to meet Christ at the communion table…

Let’s pray this prayer.

God of the universe knows us… he knows our hearts…

But because the one who knows us best loves us most and is always with us….

We can pray search me

23 Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
Perhaps you’ve done something in secret that you feel has compromised you..

As you prepare to come to the table know that sin whatever it was has been covered by the blood of Christ and forgiven…

Benediction:

(The sermon can be heard online at: http://www.tenth.ca/audio.htm)