SPEAKER_03: Our reading today is from Proverbs chapter thirty-one, verses one to nine.
SPEAKER_03: And the question for today is what should the king be doing?
SPEAKER_03: The words of King Lemuel.
SPEAKER_03: The words of King Lemuel, an oracle that his mother taught him.
SPEAKER_03: What are you doing, my son?
SPEAKER_03: What are you doing, son of my womb?
SPEAKER_03: What are you doing, son of my vows?
SPEAKER_03: Do not give your strength to women, your ways to those who destroy kings.
SPEAKER_03: It is not for kings, O Lemuel.
SPEAKER_03: It is not for kings to drink wine, or for rulers to take strong drink, lest they drink and forget what has been decreed, and pervert the rights of all the afflicted.
SPEAKER_03: Give strong drink to the one who is perishing, and wine to those in bitter distress.
SPEAKER_03: Let them drink and forget their poverty, and remember their misery no more.
SPEAKER_03: Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute.
SPEAKER_03: Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.
SPEAKER_03: And so reads God's word.
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to you if you join us while we're singing.
SPEAKER_02: My name is Mark.
SPEAKER_02: I'm the lead pastor here at City.
SPEAKER_02: You're very welcome.
SPEAKER_02: As we actually can just about uh conclude our long winding journey through the book of Proverbs.
SPEAKER_02: We've got this week and next week.
SPEAKER_02: And so we're going to be in Proverbs 31.
SPEAKER_02: You can look that up on your Bibles if you have one with you, or you can just Google search Proverbs 31, ESV.
SPEAKER_02: We're looking at the first nine uh verses.
SPEAKER_02: You might uh if you've kind of got some sort of Bible knowledge in your mind, you might think, Proverbs 31, that's about that's about the the good wife.
SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, next week.
SPEAKER_02: Uh there's this weird little poem uh at the very start uh that we're going to look at first.
SPEAKER_02: Uh but why don't we pray and ask for ask for God's help?
SPEAKER_02: Father, we do thank you uh for your word.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for how you have been uh working in and through this series.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for uh the wisdom that uh comes abundantly from above uh through these words and pray again that you would focus our hearts and our minds, uh, that you would send your spirit uh to be that help that we need to understand your word, uh, but uh more than understanding to be transformed uh by it.
SPEAKER_02: We ask in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Uh when you think um just uh for a moment about the uh the movie The Lion King, one of the best movies ever made, uh you can you can date the preachers uh at City Church from their movie references.
SPEAKER_02: So uh it was Goodwill Hunting last week and The Lion King.
SPEAKER_02: So I'll say I'm a child of the 90s.
SPEAKER_02: Uh if Ben was preaching, uh, he would probably go into the 80s, it'd probably be something with David Hasselhoff, who apparently was an actor back in the back in the 80s.
SPEAKER_02: But I'm in the I'm in the Lion King because I was reading this poem.
SPEAKER_02: This poem reminds me of the Lion King.
SPEAKER_02: Uh because it's uh you know the story of the Lion King Simba.
SPEAKER_02: Uh he thinks that he's responsible for the death of his father.
SPEAKER_02: Long live the king, right?
SPEAKER_02: Uh and uh uh but it's actually scar.
SPEAKER_02: Sorry, spoilers.
SPEAKER_02: Uh if you guys heard if it's actually scar, run away, run away, young Simba, never return.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: Uh and so he runs away because he thinks he's responsible.
SPEAKER_02: So he turns aside from all of his responsibilities and goes and lives it up with uh with a warthog and a mere cat because that's what that's what young men do.
SPEAKER_02: They go and live it up with warthogs and mere cats, who just say, Well, Hakuna Matada, no worries, and he goes and eats bugs rather than being a lion.
SPEAKER_02: He needs the wise old Rafiki to come back and uh hit him over the head, literally.
SPEAKER_02: Uh-huh, yes, the past can hurt, right?
SPEAKER_02: Remember?
SPEAKER_02: Uh, in order to kind of bring him back to his senses, in order to uh remember who he was.
SPEAKER_02: And so there's this there's this chess sequence where uh where Rafiki, you know, he's been he's been sitting there on the rock and Simba comes up to him and says, Uh, you knew my father?
SPEAKER_02: And he goes, No correction, I know your father.
SPEAKER_02: Remember?
SPEAKER_02: Everybody having flashbacks now.
SPEAKER_02: Can you tell that I like it like this movie when I was a kid?
SPEAKER_02: And he goes, I show him to you, and he goes running him off.
SPEAKER_02: He goes running him off to this pool, and Simba's chasing it after him.
SPEAKER_02: We should have shown it, but I can just act all of the bits for you, right?
SPEAKER_02: Okay, this is my moment to shine.
SPEAKER_02: Uh and they get to the pool, and Simba looks in the pool, and he's kind of, oh, that's just my reflection.
SPEAKER_02: Rafi, what does Rafiki say?
SPEAKER_02: No, look harder.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02: He looked harder, right?
SPEAKER_02: And what does he see?
SPEAKER_02: He sees his reflection change and he recognizes something of his father, the king, in him.
SPEAKER_02: Now, I I cannot, my voice cannot go deep enough for James Earl Jones kind of appearing in the clouds.
SPEAKER_02: If you can do that, well, maybe kind of edit that into the uh to the audio for people on Spotify.
SPEAKER_02: Simba, you for can't do it, right?
SPEAKER_02: But he said his dad appears in the clouds and says, You've forgotten.
SPEAKER_02: You've forgotten who you were.
SPEAKER_02: You've forgotten who you are.
SPEAKER_02: You need to remember, and that's the turning point in the whole movie.
SPEAKER_02: He goes and he falls in love with Nala, he goes and defeats Scar and he takes his place as the king of Pride Rock because he'd forgotten who he was.
SPEAKER_02: He'd escaped to warthogs and meercats and eating bugs, and he needed to be called back to his identity, his position, his responsibility.
SPEAKER_02: And that's what Proverbs 31 is all about.
SPEAKER_02: Proverbs 31, this short little poem in these first nine verses, is a mother rather than a father, or indeed a baboon, lovingly, not naggingly, calling her son to the same sort of thing, to resist the temptation just to check out, to be who he was born to be, the king.
SPEAKER_02: We can often forget the dignity that human beings are born with.
SPEAKER_02: The honor that we possess as being image bearers of God.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes we want to forget those, that dignity, we want to forget those responsibilities that come with that.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes we want to forget who we are.
SPEAKER_02: Our anxiety paralyzes us, and we just want to disappear like Homer Simpson into a hedge.
SPEAKER_02: Or we try to take a little bit of responsibility, but then actually what happens is that our shame and our self-loathing kicks in and it kind of snuffs it out, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_02: And so we don't try new things, we don't take responsibility, we don't bleed because we've got that voice going, who you think you are that you could do that.
SPEAKER_02: Even if we're successful, we can still feel a kind of emptiness that makes us want to escape.
SPEAKER_02: We escape the the stress of the successful career, and so we medicate ourselves with sex and substances.
SPEAKER_02: This is the two basically that the mother points out and she's right.
SPEAKER_02: Rafiki asks Simba the question, who are you?
SPEAKER_02: And maybe you answer that b by your achievements.
SPEAKER_02: Well, I do this professionally.
SPEAKER_02: These are the things that I have done.
SPEAKER_02: You bring your CV.
SPEAKER_02: Who are you?
SPEAKER_02: Well, I am I am the composite of all of my successes or failures.
SPEAKER_02: It's who I am.
SPEAKER_02: Who are you?
SPEAKER_02: Maybe you answer that question in terms of your relationship with others.
SPEAKER_02: I'm a husband, I'm a wife, I'm a mother, I'm a I'm a father.
SPEAKER_02: Christianity answers the who are you question differently.
SPEAKER_02: It says that you are made in the image of the one true, living, and eternal God.
SPEAKER_02: And that therefore you have a dignity, a value that is not either based on your successes nor stolen by your failures.
SPEAKER_02: For sure, it's been marred and distorted by the wrong things that we have done.
SPEAKER_02: We're like cracked mirrors, human beings.
SPEAKER_02: We're made to reflect the image of God.
SPEAKER_02: And what one of the things that sin does is it puts a big crack in the mirror.
SPEAKER_02: And so you can kind of see something of the reflection, but it's kind of distorted.
SPEAKER_02: That's the way human beings are.
SPEAKER_02: You neither were after the longest day, we're on the long slide down into Christmas, so I can feel like I can quote a carol at you.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus came to exemplify, show that perfect image, but then through his death and resurrection to restore us to that place of dignity, to restore that cracked and distorted myrrh that we are, and to allow us to perfectly reflect the God who made us with all of his beauty and complexity.
SPEAKER_02: To quote a different movie, I'm just gonna have a sip of coffee because I feel something tickling in my the back of my throat.
SPEAKER_02: You think about the Chronicles of Narnia, maybe you're thinking movie, maybe you're thinking um of the books, which are far better.
SPEAKER_02: But you've got the Pevency children, I'm gonna set this over here.
SPEAKER_02: You've got the Pevency children, Edmund, Peter, Lucy, Susan, they arrive in Narnia and they're called sons of Adam, daughters of Eve.
SPEAKER_02: And once Aslan returns and goes through the deep magic of his sacrifice and resurrection to new life, what happens?
SPEAKER_02: Well, the sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve are crowned as kings and queens of creation, kings and queens of Narnia.
SPEAKER_02: They'll be given a new identity because of what Aslan has done.
SPEAKER_02: And so with us, this passage meets us in our confusion about who we are and in our tendency to check out and want to escape, give in, shut down.
SPEAKER_02: Calls us to remember who we are, or rather better, who we can be through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_02: This conversation is almost slightly deliberately a conversation between a mother and a son.
SPEAKER_02: Next week is a longer uh oracle or passage all about what the uh the godly woman, the godly wife looks like.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and so next week the uh the men, our brothers here will kind of operate as kind of overhearers to the to the text.
SPEAKER_02: This week it might feel a little bit like uh our sisters here are kind of overhearing what this mother is saying to her son.
SPEAKER_02: So if there's that kind of slightly misweighting uh towards uh towards the guys, just see this these next two weeks as kind of uh as a as a one painting uh in two halves, so just kind of a heads up there.
SPEAKER_02: Although there certainly are things that are transferable uh across the uh across the different uh sexes.
SPEAKER_02: So just by way of heads up.
SPEAKER_02: We're going to three places uh this morning.
SPEAKER_02: Uh you'll be glad to know.
SPEAKER_02: It's not a not a usual eight-point sermon, just three.
SPEAKER_02: Uh first is remember who you are.
SPEAKER_02: Remember who you are.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna pick it up in verses one and two.
SPEAKER_02: The words of King Lemuel, an oracle that his mother taught him.
SPEAKER_02: What are you doing, my son?
SPEAKER_02: What are you doing, son of my womb?
SPEAKER_02: What are you doing, son of my vows?
SPEAKER_02: Do not give your strength to women, to those who destroy the way of kings.
SPEAKER_02: It is not for kings, O Lemuel.
SPEAKER_02: The Bible understands human relationships.
SPEAKER_02: Did you know that?
SPEAKER_02: The Bible actually encapsulates human relationships really, really well and distills them really succinctly.
SPEAKER_02: How do we know that?
SPEAKER_02: Well, we know that from this passage.
SPEAKER_02: If you are a mother of a son, or you are a son who has had a mother, you know that your mother needs to ask you three times before you give her an answer.
SPEAKER_02: What are you doing?
SPEAKER_02: Nothing.
SPEAKER_02: What are you doing?
SPEAKER_02: Three times.
SPEAKER_02: The mother comes to her and says, What are you doing?
SPEAKER_02: Yes, fun to think of it as a nag.
SPEAKER_02: But I think the mother here is in each of those little my son, son of my womb, son of my vows, she's establishing her relationship with him.
SPEAKER_02: She's establishing the intimacy that they have together.
SPEAKER_02: Her ability to actually step in and say these things to him.
SPEAKER_02: She's reminding him who he is in relationship to her.
SPEAKER_02: And then reminding him of his position, that he's not just anyone, he's royalty.
SPEAKER_02: He's royalty, he's the king.
SPEAKER_02: Is that an identity that's achieved or received?
SPEAKER_02: Well, by and large, in the Bible's mind, it's an identity that's received.
SPEAKER_02: He's the king, son of the former king, established and anointed by God.
SPEAKER_02: It's an identity that's received as a gift, not achieved by success.
SPEAKER_02: This is the difference.
SPEAKER_02: You listen?
SPEAKER_02: This is the difference between Christianity and every other worldview.
SPEAKER_02: Every other worldview says you gotta work in order to be someone, in order to achieve, create, establish who you are.
SPEAKER_02: It's down to you.
SPEAKER_02: That might sound fine and fine and dandy if you do it, but what about those who are left in despair?
SPEAKER_02: Who continue to feel like nobody's to say nothing of the countless.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, just pick up any sports uh autobiography of anyone who has been famous and reached the very pinnacle of their successes, and what will you read?
SPEAKER_02: That at the very apex of their success, all of the grand slams, all of the medals, all of the achievements, all of the endorsements, and all of the success.
SPEAKER_02: Is that it?
SPEAKER_02: Still gnawed at with questioning and self-loathing and dissatisfaction because the achieving model doesn't actually work.
SPEAKER_02: It still leaves that hollowness.
SPEAKER_02: The message of Christianity, the message of Jesus to you this morning is that your core identity as a human being is not achieved, it's received.
SPEAKER_02: It's given to you as a gift.
SPEAKER_02: It's a gift of it's a gift of birth in that you are born as an image-bearer of God with that dignity, that value that is inherent, that cannot be taken away by any circumstance or disease, or the passage of time.
SPEAKER_02: But more than that, that through the good news of Jesus, you are gifted a new identity as a redeemed new creation in Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Loved, valued, forgiven, dignified, shame, covered, done away with, sin taken, welcomed into the family of God.
SPEAKER_02: And the encouragement of Christianity is with that stable core that is gifted to you by Jesus, you can then live out of that new status.
SPEAKER_02: And that's such a freeing thing because that actually allows you to serve others without fear of, well, what am I going to get in return?
SPEAKER_02: Because you've got this stable identity, right?
SPEAKER_02: It allows you to uh to rejoice in the good of others because you know your own blessing, you know your stable core identity, so you don't need to be constantly given to envy and checking out, well, why didn't why didn't I get that?
SPEAKER_02: And why are they more successful than I am?
SPEAKER_02: Because you have this stable core identity that no circumstance can take away from you.
SPEAKER_02: You can enter through seasons of trial and tragedy and go while this is painful, that I still know who I am, and nothing can take that away.
SPEAKER_02: Christian growth begins when we remember who we are.
SPEAKER_02: This is all over the New Testament, and it is indeed how the New Testament writers tend to structure their books.
SPEAKER_02: Read the book of Romans, we did a year in the book of Romans, you can go back through Spotify and listen to it, or the book of Ephesians, both written by the same guy, a guy called Paul.
SPEAKER_02: And how how are they structured?
SPEAKER_02: Well, Paul spends one half of the book, either of Romans and Ephesians, saying, here's who you were outside of Jesus, here's what Jesus has done, here's who you are now.
SPEAKER_02: So he so Romans, for example, he basically spends 11 chapters establishing that.
SPEAKER_02: Here's who you were, here's what God has done, here's who you are now, united to Christ, forgiven, adopted, empowered by his spirit.
SPEAKER_02: He spends a lot of ink establishing that before he ever tells you to do anything.
SPEAKER_02: It's after chapter 12 of Romans through to the end of chapter 16.
SPEAKER_02: That's when he gets into that.
SPEAKER_02: So, in view of God's mercy, that is, in view of all of the things that he's done, present yourself as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.
SPEAKER_02: Guys, if you get that the wrong way round, you're gonna miss Christianity.
SPEAKER_02: If you think that it's the do this part before the you are this part, you're gonna completely miss the gospel.
SPEAKER_02: If you're gonna think I've got to achieve in order for God to like me, accept me, love me, bring me into his kingdom, I've got to clean up my act, Marley.
SPEAKER_02: I've got to do this, I've got to do that, I've got to stop doing this, gotta stop doing that.
SPEAKER_02: And then maybe I might be able to kind of twist God's arm into accepting me into his family, forgiving me, taking my share.
SPEAKER_02: That's not the gospel.
SPEAKER_02: It's not the gospel.
SPEAKER_02: That's not the message of Christianity.
SPEAKER_02: It's not clean up your act, and then God will accept you.
SPEAKER_02: It's God accepts you, he loves you in spite of yourself while you're at your weakest.
SPEAKER_02: Romans 5, 8, and 9, God demonstrates his love for this.
SPEAKER_02: Is the verse that converted me.
SPEAKER_02: You listening?
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: Holy Spirit power in this verse.
SPEAKER_02: God demonstrates his love for us in this.
SPEAKER_02: Well, how?
SPEAKER_02: That while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
SPEAKER_02: While we're still sinners, hostile, hating him.
SPEAKER_02: Others.
SPEAKER_02: That's the message of the gospel.
SPEAKER_02: Want an old testament example?
SPEAKER_02: We'll walk over here and we'll do an old testament example, right?
SPEAKER_02: When did the children of Israel receive the Ten Commandments?
SPEAKER_02: Was it before or after they were rescued from slavery in Egypt?
SPEAKER_02: Answer.
SPEAKER_02: After.
SPEAKER_02: If you operate like it's before, you've missed Christianity.
SPEAKER_02: It's not God coming to, you know, at the burning bush.
SPEAKER_02: God goes to Moses, right?
SPEAKER_02: I'll rescue the guys.
SPEAKER_02: There's about a million of them there now.
SPEAKER_02: I suppose I could be convinced to uh break their chains and bring them out of slavery.
SPEAKER_02: I have ten conditions.
SPEAKER_02: It's not like that.
SPEAKER_02: It's you can't do this on your own.
SPEAKER_02: You cannot rescue yourself.
SPEAKER_02: The opposition of Pharaoh is too great.
SPEAKER_02: I must act to bring you out of slavery, to redeem you, to break your chains and set you free.
SPEAKER_02: And now that you've been set free, here's what it means to live as my people.
SPEAKER_02: Here's ten guidelines, ten laws to help you to do that.
SPEAKER_02: That's the message of Christianity.
SPEAKER_02: We establish who we are in Jesus by the good news of his death and resurrection for us.
SPEAKER_02: And then from that, we live for him.
SPEAKER_02: There's an older, kind of retired pastor in America, a guy called Ray Ortland, he spoke at Kinfire last year.
SPEAKER_02: And he wrote a book on uh he wrote a book on pornography and what it means for uh for young men in particular to free themselves from an addiction uh to to pornography, and he wants to inspire men to fight that temptation, and how he does that is with an invitation to greatness.
SPEAKER_02: I think that's so striking.
SPEAKER_02: You pick up uh books on kind of how to fight kind of uh porn addiction and temptation, those sorts of things, and what the way they tend to go, and they can be very effective, the way that they tend to go is here's all the awful things of the porn industry, right?
SPEAKER_02: Here's the the kind of the seedy underbelly uh kind of addiction and suicide and all of the like and it pulls back the curtain on how awful it is, so that you're kind of so repulsed that you that you turn aside from it.
SPEAKER_02: And there's a definitely a place for that.
SPEAKER_02: But Ray Orland goes a different way.
SPEAKER_02: He says, actually, you want to be you want to be freed from your addiction to sex, your addiction to pornography.
SPEAKER_02: You begin by remembering that actually you're royalty.
SPEAKER_02: You're a Christian.
SPEAKER_02: This is what he says: you are royalty, a son of the king, a man of dignity, a man with a destiny.
SPEAKER_02: He was doing remember who you are.
SPEAKER_02: Old Ray Orland is old Rafiki.
SPEAKER_02: The question is, who are you?
SPEAKER_02: You're a king, a man of destiny, a man of dignity.
SPEAKER_02: Don't debase yourself, don't undignify yourself with this.
SPEAKER_02: Christian, brother, sister, this is where change begins.
SPEAKER_02: You have been made new, you are crowned with dignity if you are trusting in the Lord Jesus, you are loved by the king, the king.
SPEAKER_02: And what does what does 1 Peter 2 9 say?
SPEAKER_02: Ben loves uh 1 Peter.
SPEAKER_02: 1 Peter 2 9, you are a you're a royal priesthood.
SPEAKER_02: He's got it.
SPEAKER_02: A royal priesthood.
SPEAKER_02: A chosen people.
SPEAKER_02: Nothing shakes that, and everything flows from that.
SPEAKER_02: Remember who you are.
SPEAKER_02: For those of you here this morning who might be just looking in on Christianity, trying to figure it out.
SPEAKER_02: Folks, this is where life change begins.
SPEAKER_02: By receiving that new identity that Jesus offers you, coming to him in humility and finding yourself renewed, finding yourself enlivened by his spirit, established in his love, part of his eternal kingdom and family.
SPEAKER_02: Forgetting all that has gone before and receiving who he has made you to be.
SPEAKER_02: Remember who you are.
SPEAKER_02: Secondly, I told you there were three points, I didn't tell you there'd be short.
SPEAKER_02: Secondly, resist the temptation to check out.
SPEAKER_02: Remember who you are, resist the temptation to check out.
SPEAKER_02: I wonder what the third point will begin with.
SPEAKER_02: Resist.
SPEAKER_02: Let's pick it up, verse three.
SPEAKER_02: Do not give your strength to women, your ways to those who destroy kings, for it is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, or for rulers to take strong drink, lest they for lest they drink and forget what has been decreed and pervert the rights of all the afflicted.
SPEAKER_02: Give strong drink to those uh to the one who is perishing, and wine to those in bitter distress.
SPEAKER_02: Let them drink and forget their poverty, and remember their misery no more.
SPEAKER_02: Where's your go-to place of escape?
SPEAKER_02: We all have one.
SPEAKER_02: Like, there's there's a couple of negative ones here.
SPEAKER_02: Sex and substances.
SPEAKER_02: What's your go-to?
SPEAKER_02: I like to uh I don't do it nearly as much as I used to, but I like to game a little bit.
SPEAKER_02: I sound so cool, don't I?
SPEAKER_02: Uh I used to, when I so this this week just past, I finished theological college 13 years ago.
SPEAKER_02: Might think, well, you should have gone back and should have stayed longer.
SPEAKER_02: Um but 13 years ago, and I remember distinctly that I had uh uh every year there would be like essay deadlines and final exams and things like that, and I would always buy myself uh a game, I had an Xbox at the time, buy myself a game, usually an RPG.
SPEAKER_02: So uh it was Skyrim.
SPEAKER_02: Uh remember Elder Scrolls, right?
SPEAKER_02: And uh I remember it sitting on my shelf uh for when the final exam would be done.
SPEAKER_02: And when it was done, I lost two weeks of my life.
SPEAKER_02: And I just I just escaped.
SPEAKER_02: Now I have a wife and children.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's time with friends, maybe it's doom scrolling, maybe you're one of these weird people that escapes in exercise.
SPEAKER_02: These are places to visit, aren't they?
SPEAKER_02: They're not places to live in.
SPEAKER_02: The mother recognizes the temptation to escape to pleasure Saxon drink rather than take on the harder responsibilities of kingship.
SPEAKER_02: Where do you escape to?
SPEAKER_02: Ray Ortland again in his book on pornography.
SPEAKER_02: Every man has to decide what kind of man he wants to be, whether he will choose comfort or courage.
SPEAKER_02: Why does the mum pick on women and drink?
SPEAKER_02: She just kind of she's a bit of a she's an I she's actually, I've just realized, she's an Irish mother.
SPEAKER_02: No woman is good enough for her king, right?
SPEAKER_02: That's what that's there.
SPEAKER_02: We go.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_02: Uh we figured it out suddenly, a revelation there.
SPEAKER_02: Why does she pick on women and drink?
SPEAKER_02: Is it because either of those things are bad?
SPEAKER_02: Well, no, that that cannot be true because women are about to be celebrated in the whole rest of the passage, and it's a much longer passage, right?
SPEAKER_02: Indeed, drink alcohol is celebrated in the book of Proverbs as something that gladdens the heart.
SPEAKER_02: But both can beguile and distract because young men want them.
SPEAKER_02: And the Bible knows that the chief temptation for guys is to abdicate responsibility.
SPEAKER_02: That's the thing that we will do more than anything else.
SPEAKER_02: We'll want to actually just not have to get involved with that and go back to playing Skyrim.
SPEAKER_02: That's always been the case.
SPEAKER_02: That was the case in the garden with Adam and Eve.
SPEAKER_02: It is not the case that Adam was away, you know, hunter-gathering.
SPEAKER_02: He's right there.
SPEAKER_02: He's right there, and he's saying nothing, and he's doing nothing.
SPEAKER_02: And Eve's looking at this moron, going, there's a talking snake over here.
SPEAKER_02: And her temptation is well, well, if he's not gonna lead, if he's not gonna act, well, somebody has to care for this family, somebody's gonna have to do something because idiot over here is mute.
SPEAKER_01: That's our temptation.
SPEAKER_01: Check out happy wife, happy life.
SPEAKER_01: We just don't take responsibility.
SPEAKER_02: Verses six and seven are weird.
SPEAKER_02: The mother says that there's you know uh a time for strong drink, a time to forget your troubles.
SPEAKER_02: I think it's a bit tongue-in-cheeky.
SPEAKER_02: I think it's a bit kind of it's almost a bit kind of sarcastic to try and kind of wake him up.
SPEAKER_02: It's almost like the mother is coming to King Lemuel and going, look, there are those, there are those who, well, they need a drink, right?
SPEAKER_02: That life's going so bad that you could give them a drink and forgive them for it.
SPEAKER_02: But that's not you.
SPEAKER_02: You're the king.
SPEAKER_02: And actually, if you realize that, you could make their lot better.
SPEAKER_02: That's I think what she's saying there.
SPEAKER_02: There are those who could really do with a drink, but you're the king.
SPEAKER_02: King Solomon, who wrote many of the uh the book of Proverbs, was warned about pursuing pleasure over pursuing justice.
SPEAKER_02: And actually fell into this trap.
SPEAKER_02: He won 700 wives and 300 concubines.
SPEAKER_02: Have I got that the wrong way around?
SPEAKER_02: Was it 300 wives and anyway?
SPEAKER_02: A lot of women, right?
SPEAKER_02: Far too many women for any one guy to try and manage.
SPEAKER_02: Okay?
SPEAKER_02: Um, a lot.
SPEAKER_02: And the warning to him was don't do that because what's gonna happen there is that your heart's gonna be turned from God to false gods.
SPEAKER_02: You're gonna take on the other religions, the other worldviews, the other ideologies.
SPEAKER_02: And this happens in Solomon's life.
SPEAKER_02: And so don't think that your escapism doesn't have a spiritual component behind it, that it cannot actually turn your hearts.
SPEAKER_02: It can, it does, it will.
SPEAKER_02: It not only harms us, but it harms others.
SPEAKER_02: What's the consequence of King Lemuel just checking out?
SPEAKER_02: Verse 5, lest they drink and forget what has been decreed and pervert the rights of all of the afflicted.
SPEAKER_02: What happens when escapism takes hold?
SPEAKER_02: What does strong drink do?
SPEAKER_02: Well, it impairs our judgment.
SPEAKER_02: You ever send a text late at night that you wish you hadn't the next morning?
SPEAKER_02: Makes us act selfishly, unjustly.
SPEAKER_02: Staying silent when someone is badly treated rather than pleading their cause because you don't want the hassle.
SPEAKER_02: We justify our indifference.
SPEAKER_02: My favorite definition of sin, you've all got one, we've all got a favorite definition of sin.
SPEAKER_02: I'm sure you'll be talking all at length all afternoon about your favorite definition of sin, okay?
SPEAKER_02: Uh, because it's the kind of chill out round the barbecue sort of conversation that you have.
SPEAKER_02: What's your favorite definition of sin?
SPEAKER_02: Here's mine.
SPEAKER_02: You listen?
SPEAKER_02: Self-love.
SPEAKER_02: Loving yourself rather than loving others.
SPEAKER_02: Being turned in on yourself.
SPEAKER_02: And sometimes that can manifest itself in pride.
SPEAKER_02: You can see the prideful person be, yeah, they're they're full of themselves.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes that manifests itself in envy, in resenting the other person because you don't have.
SPEAKER_02: It's self-love.
SPEAKER_02: Here's another way that it manifests itself.
SPEAKER_02: You ready?
SPEAKER_02: Apathy.
SPEAKER_02: Being unmoved by the needs of others.
SPEAKER_02: Preferring comfort over courage.
SPEAKER_02: How blessed we are that the King of Heaven was not unmoved by our neediness and lostness in sin's dark night.
SPEAKER_02: But rather moved by our need and moved by his love for us.
SPEAKER_02: He acted with great courage and at great cost to himself.
SPEAKER_02: He sat his face resolutely upon that cross.
SPEAKER_02: And so now he is our king.
SPEAKER_02: Resist the temptation to check out.
SPEAKER_02: Finally.
SPEAKER_02: Raise.
SPEAKER_02: Raise your voice for the vulnerable.
SPEAKER_02: Remember who you are.
SPEAKER_02: Resist the temptation to check out, and raise your voice for the vulnerable.
SPEAKER_02: Verses eight and nine.
SPEAKER_02: Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute.
SPEAKER_02: Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.
SPEAKER_02: Why does this wise mother call us to remember who we are, to voluntarily step into that identity, to step into that role that God has given us?
SPEAKER_02: Why does she ask us to do that?
SPEAKER_02: Answer for the sake of others.
SPEAKER_02: For the sake of others.
SPEAKER_02: Open your mouth twice.
SPEAKER_02: For whom?
SPEAKER_02: For those who cannot speak.
SPEAKER_02: Be a voice for the voiceless, the mother says.
SPEAKER_02: To do what?
SPEAKER_02: Why would you open your mouth?
SPEAKER_02: To speak words of justice.
SPEAKER_02: The purpose of position, the purpose of success, the purpose of power, the purpose of whatever privileges or benefits that you have is always in the Bible's mind to fuel in you, in us, a moral courage on behalf of others, to speak out on behalf of the defenseless and the vulnerable, to protect the need, to plead the cause of the weak and the poor.
SPEAKER_02: That's true nobility.
SPEAKER_02: That's true gospel love.
SPEAKER_02: Who are those people?
SPEAKER_02: Who are those people that we should open our mouth on behalf of?
SPEAKER_02: Who are those people that it takes real moral courage to plead the case of?
SPEAKER_02: There are many in our city, and it is a wonder and a joy that people here in this room work in those spheres of advocacy and help, support.
SPEAKER_02: Who are those people?
SPEAKER_02: The poor?
SPEAKER_02: The stranger?
SPEAKER_02: The foreigner?
SPEAKER_02: Welcoming the unwelcomed and unloved?
SPEAKER_02: What does moral courage look like there?
SPEAKER_02: Here's the thing about moral courage, right?
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna push you a little bit.
SPEAKER_02: When you think about okay, what kind of moral courage do I need to have?
SPEAKER_02: Think of it this way.
SPEAKER_02: There are going to be sections of people, causes, needs, that our world is gonna stand alongside you and say, Yes! So glad you've done that.
SPEAKER_02: Brilliant! Love it! So glad that you're speaking up for those people.
SPEAKER_02: And they need to be spoken up for two forward as well.
SPEAKER_02: But you know what real marriage moral courage looks like?
SPEAKER_02: Pleading the case for people, for sections of society, and for needs when after you do so, there's silent.
SPEAKER_02: And everybody looks at their feet and they shift kind of slightly awkwardly, and they they look down and there's no applause.
SPEAKER_02: Nobody thinks you're cool.
SPEAKER_02: There's no strange new respect for look, there's the the Christian who's come alongside us.
SPEAKER_02: There'll always be those causes, and those causes ought to be lent into.
SPEAKER_02: What about the moral courage that means we raise our voices when it's really not very popular at all?
SPEAKER_02: What would those issues be?
SPEAKER_02: It is a tragedy what has occurred in our nearest neighbor last uh this last week, passing two bills, one relating to the start of life, one relating to the end of life.
SPEAKER_02: It strips people at either end of that spectrum from the dignity of being image bearers.
SPEAKER_02: Nobody will stand and applaud there.
SPEAKER_02: But we must plead the cause of the most vulnerable in our society the voiceless, the unborn.
SPEAKER_02: We will be measured, our society will be measured by how it treats the weakest amongst us.
SPEAKER_02: Can you have that sort of moral courage?
SPEAKER_02: Can you open your mouth for them?
SPEAKER_02: God has given to each one of us a voice, and he calls us to open our mouths.
SPEAKER_02: He has given us his spirit to empower and enable us to speak into the needs of others and for their sake.
SPEAKER_02: And maybe you think these big societal things are just they're just too big, it's just too hard.
SPEAKER_02: Certainly they are.
SPEAKER_02: But maybe you can think more locally in your own life.
SPEAKER_02: Ray Orland again.
SPEAKER_02: Same book.
SPEAKER_02: What if you are the person that God intends to use to help someone reclaim their dignity?
SPEAKER_02: Maybe there's somebody in your mind right now.
SPEAKER_02: Colleague, classmate, somebody that you work alongside, family member.
SPEAKER_02: And you know that they're in need and you've been keeping quiet.
SPEAKER_02: No one's pleading their case and you've been keeping quiet.
SPEAKER_02: What if God has placed you in their sphere so that you can help them reclaim who they are?
SPEAKER_02: Who they have been made to be.
SPEAKER_02: Can you speak for them?
SPEAKER_02: This is how Jesus used his strength.
SPEAKER_02: Not to dominate, but to defend.
SPEAKER_02: His strength met us in our weakness.
SPEAKER_02: This is why Jesus is the true and better Lemuel.
SPEAKER_02: He never forgot who he was.
SPEAKER_02: Son of God, son of man.
SPEAKER_02: He never escaped.
SPEAKER_02: When things got hard.
SPEAKER_02: Didn't just fade off in the garden of Gethsemane and went, can't do it.
SPEAKER_02: No, not your will.
SPEAKER_02: Not my will, but yours be done.
SPEAKER_02: He spoke up for the voiceless and cried at the last, it is finished.
SPEAKER_02: And in doing so, purchased our salvation.
SPEAKER_02: And now in him we don't just try harder, we're made ne.
SPEAKER_02: As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
SPEAKER_02: We are sons and daughters of the King, set apart for his purpose and his glory, empowered by His Spirit to speak, to serve, to lead.
SPEAKER_02: The Spirit empowered courage.
SPEAKER_00: If you found this helpful or want to know more about City Church Dublin, visit our website found in the links below.