SPEAKER_00: The reading today is from Proverbs chapter thirty, verse one to seventeen.
SPEAKER_00: The words of Agar, son of Jaca, the Oracle, the man declares, I am weary, O God, I am weary, O God and worn out.
SPEAKER_00: Surely I am too stupid to be a man.
SPEAKER_00: I have not the understanding of a man, I have not learned wisdom, nor have I knowledge of the holy one, who has ascended to heaven and come down.
SPEAKER_00: Who has gathered the wind in his fists?
SPEAKER_00: Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment?
SPEAKER_00: Who has established all the ends of the earth?
SPEAKER_00: What is his name and what is his son's name?
SPEAKER_00: Surely you know.
SPEAKER_00: Every word of God proves true, he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.
SPEAKER_00: Do not add to his words lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.
SPEAKER_00: Two things I ask of you Deny them not to me before I die.
SPEAKER_00: Remove far from me falsehood and lying, give me neither poverty nor riches.
SPEAKER_00: Feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, Who is the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.
SPEAKER_00: Do not slander a servant to his master, lest he curse you and you be held guilty.
SPEAKER_00: There are those who curse their fathers and do not bless their mothers.
SPEAKER_00: There are those who are clean in their own eyes, but are not washed of their filth.
SPEAKER_00: There are those how lofty are their eyes, how high their eyelids lift.
SPEAKER_00: There are those whose teeth are swords, whose fangs are knives to devour the poor from off the earth, the needy from a map among mankind.
SPEAKER_00: The leech has two daughters give and give.
SPEAKER_00: Three things are never satisfied, four never say enough.
SPEAKER_00: Sheol the barren womb, the land never satisfied with water, and the fire that never says enough.
SPEAKER_00: The eye that mocks a father and scorns to obey a mother will be picked out by the ravens of the valley and eaten by the vultures.
SPEAKER_00: And so reads God's word.
SPEAKER_02: Well, my name's Ben.
SPEAKER_02: I'm one of the leaders here, and uh we're going to be in this passage that Orina read for us just a few minutes ago.
SPEAKER_02: So he ha uh have that open in front of you if you don't mind, because we'll be referring back to it as we go.
SPEAKER_02: Thirty-four years ago or so, um, I entered the ninth grade.
SPEAKER_02: If you're not familiar with the American school system, that is uh third year of secondary school.
SPEAKER_02: Uh it's an age that you're 14 and you turn 15.
SPEAKER_02: In my year there was this fellow, we'll call him Tyler.
SPEAKER_02: I don't remember his name, so we're just gonna use an anonymous name for him there.
SPEAKER_02: But uh we'll call him Tyler here.
SPEAKER_02: Um he was somewhere in kind of the forgettable middle of the social hierarchy.
SPEAKER_02: He wasn't one of the cool kids, wasn't one of the particularly losory kids.
SPEAKER_02: He was just kind of one of the faceless hundreds walking the halls of the high school there.
SPEAKER_02: If you know anything about uh boys aged kind of 14 to 15, you can sum up their social interactions, you know, how they conduct themselves in public with three Ps, right?
SPEAKER_02: Um we have pitiful self-awareness, we have poor hygiene, and we have lots and lots of posturing.
SPEAKER_02: Now, of course, any any 14, 15-year-old boys in the room here today, I don't mean you guys, obviously present company accepted.
SPEAKER_02: But this Tyler, he was he was big on all of these things, particularly that last one.
SPEAKER_02: He was big on the posturing.
SPEAKER_02: Had a lot of words for he'd give out verbal abuse, threats, insults, all of this stuff.
SPEAKER_02: He wouldn't hesitate to get into someone's face if he felt that the situation required it.
SPEAKER_02: And again, that's that's really not that unusual.
SPEAKER_02: So he's still fairly middling in terms of high school boys.
SPEAKER_02: But I remember one day he and I didn't run in the same circles, didn't really have much interaction with him, but um we had a class together.
SPEAKER_02: And I remember one day, one Monday, he wasn't in class.
SPEAKER_02: And this was before, you know, social media, this is before everybody had mobile phones or anything like that.
SPEAKER_02: But our rumor mill was so efficient, guys, you wouldn't believe it.
SPEAKER_02: By by noon, even with even with all of those technical limitations, by noon, everybody in the school knew exactly why Tyler was not in that particular day.
SPEAKER_02: Seems like he had taken his uh tough guy routine to the wrong customer, right?
SPEAKER_02: Someone who in an instant took that average, forgettable kid and turned him into a cautionary tale.
SPEAKER_02: From what I understand, his uh his nose was broken so badly.
SPEAKER_02: He missed like uh a couple weeks of school, just wasn't in at all.
SPEAKER_02: And when he came back, it wasn't like he had just some cute little bandage on his nose.
SPEAKER_02: It was like strapped around his skull and holding it all in place.
SPEAKER_02: I remember him sitting in the back of the classroom, like looking like he wanted to disappear through the floor, right?
SPEAKER_02: His his his nose was all strapped up and his bruising and his scarring and all of this swelling.
SPEAKER_02: Pretty terrible.
SPEAKER_02: He had become a victim of his own wrong assessment.
SPEAKER_02: He'd overestimated himself, or maybe he'd underestimated the other guy.
SPEAKER_02: And his in his quest to find respect, make a name for himself, he had just become an object of pity.
SPEAKER_02: Like I said, to this day, I don't remember the guy's name.
SPEAKER_02: He was just that one guy who got his nose broken in the ninth grade.
SPEAKER_02: Just as a side note, I do remember the name of the guy who broke his nose, steered clear of him.
SPEAKER_02: But today's passage gives us a bit of a warning against wrong assessment, against overestimating and underestimating.
SPEAKER_02: Misunderestimating?
SPEAKER_02: It shows us three arenas of life where we need to be particularly watchful in how we estimate ourselves.
SPEAKER_02: And perhaps it's no surprise that these particular arenas of life are also found in other places in Scripture.
SPEAKER_02: I was looking in the book of Jeremiah, and I'll read you this passage from chapter 9, a couple of verses.
SPEAKER_02: It says, Thus says the Lord, let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches.
SPEAKER_02: But let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth.
SPEAKER_02: All right.
SPEAKER_02: So the three arenas that Jeremiah's book there has in mind would be this wisdom and wealth and power.
SPEAKER_02: And it would seem that Egar, the author of this passage, would prioritize these three arenas as well.
SPEAKER_02: Now, just as a side note, if you're wondering who Egar is, so am I.
SPEAKER_02: Nobody really seems to know.
SPEAKER_02: He's not mentioned anywhere else in Scripture.
SPEAKER_02: There's not any ancient manuscripts outside of Scripture that talk about him.
SPEAKER_02: Kind of a mystery man.
SPEAKER_02: But maybe like my high school classmate, we're not supposed to remember him for who he was, but more what he did.
SPEAKER_02: And what he did was to be used by the Holy Spirit to bring us some godly wisdom here in the book of Proverbs.
SPEAKER_02: So let's dig into it here.
SPEAKER_02: Our first point for this morning is you know, let not the wise man boast in his wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: We can see Agar living this out in the way that he's writing.
SPEAKER_02: His tone suggests that he's writing this as an old man and as the resident old man of City Church.
SPEAKER_02: This resonates with me.
SPEAKER_02: The man declares, I am weary, O God.
SPEAKER_02: I am weary, O God, and worn out.
SPEAKER_02: This is the introduction to his section here.
SPEAKER_02: Not once, but twice he says, I'm weary.
SPEAKER_02: He's worn out.
SPEAKER_02: Now, I found out this week that my car, which I've had for a number of years, it has a wheel bearing that's worn out.
SPEAKER_02: Now, you think about a wheel bearing, how does it wear out?
SPEAKER_02: It's made out of this very tough steel alloy.
SPEAKER_02: It's machined to exacting tolerances, it's packed with grease, all of this stuff.
SPEAKER_02: But it's been close to 350,000 kilometers.
SPEAKER_02: You know, these things just wear out.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe, maybe some small piece of grit worked its way into the race and worked its way through the grease pack and just started eating away at the inside of the surface there.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's one of the ideas we're starting with, though.
SPEAKER_02: This idea of being worn out, of being used up, of being weary, like Sebastian over there.
SPEAKER_02: What could I possibly have to offer the world around me?
SPEAKER_02: Going on, we see some hard words about his own intellect.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: Verse 2 says, Surely I'm too stupid to be a man.
SPEAKER_02: I have not the understanding of a man.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 3 says, I've not learned wisdom, nor have I knowledge of the Holy One.
SPEAKER_02: Now, it's important that we not read this as some kind of false humility.
SPEAKER_02: He's not saying, Oh, I'm stupid, and we are supposed to say, Oh no, you're not.
SPEAKER_02: But he's also not sharing a statement of, you know, absolute truth here either, because obviously he's got some wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: He's got some knowledge because he's contributing to a book of wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: So, what's going on here?
SPEAKER_02: Well, it could be that he is following on with his sense of feeling worn out, of having nothing left in the tank.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe he's reflecting in old age how he once thought he knew it all, but now he kind of sees that that's not how it is.
SPEAKER_02: You might be familiar with this phenomenon as you get older.
SPEAKER_02: You know, the sphere of our own knowledge grows, but it also pushes back the boundaries of our own ignorance of everything that we don't know.
SPEAKER_02: We become more aware of what we don't know.
SPEAKER_02: This is, you know, maybe where we get the expression, the older I get, the better I used to be.
SPEAKER_02: But I think we get some insight in the coming verses as he starts reflecting on the grandeur of God.
SPEAKER_02: And as we consider God's greatness, anything that we may have, anything we may be, just pales in comparison.
SPEAKER_02: I'll tell you what I mean.
SPEAKER_02: I can I can say this confidently, mostly because none of them are in here, I think, this morning.
SPEAKER_02: But in our community group, I am the best guitar player.
SPEAKER_02: I am the best guitar.
SPEAKER_02: I can I can play rhythms, I can play leads, I can play accompaniments, I can do so many cool things, probably better than even some of you guys in this room, too.
SPEAKER_02: I'm really, really good, guys.
SPEAKER_02: But I say that and I can I can stand here and I can boast in that.
SPEAKER_02: But you know, if somebody who was, you know, an actual, I hate the term, but if a guitar god came in here, you know, uh Jimi Hendrix or uh Eric Clapton or somebody like that came in here and and and sat down, my boasting would be shut down, right?
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna clam up there.
SPEAKER_02: Because whatever savvy I may have on the instrument, it's nothing in comparison.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not anywhere on the same planet as those guys, right?
SPEAKER_02: And if I can say that looking to finite human artists, how much more can we say that before the infinite, wise God of the universe?
SPEAKER_02: Take a look at these words in in verse 4.
SPEAKER_02: He says, Who has ascended to heaven and come down?
SPEAKER_02: Who has gathered the wind in his fists?
SPEAKER_02: Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment?
SPEAKER_02: Who has established all the ends of the earth?
SPEAKER_02: He's describing things that only God has seen, and only God can do.
SPEAKER_02: Makes us think of Job, chapter 38 and 39, where the Lord questions Job.
SPEAKER_02: Starts off saying things like, Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
SPEAKER_02: Or Psalm 39, where David says, Behold, you've made my days a few handbreadths, and my life is as nothing before you.
SPEAKER_02: It's as if Agar is saying, How can I think highly of my own wisdom when eternal wisdom is found only in him?
SPEAKER_02: He's not pointing to himself, but he's pointing to God.
SPEAKER_02: The end of verse 4 where it says, What is his name and what is his son's name?
SPEAKER_02: Surely you know.
SPEAKER_02: All of this who has business points to something, to someone greater than a human being.
SPEAKER_02: This isn't someone sitting in the gates of the city, one of the elders of the city there.
SPEAKER_02: And we can we can on this side of the cross, we can look at that reference to a son and say, Oh, he's he's pointing to Jesus here.
SPEAKER_02: And he is, but maybe he didn't realize it at the time.
SPEAKER_02: Before Jesus, the Son of God, came to earth, he would have just been pointing uh to the fact that God is not one like us.
SPEAKER_02: He's not measuring his success based on children and possessions, he's far above us.
SPEAKER_02: And now we come to the heart of the matter here.
SPEAKER_02: God's word, starting with verse 5, it says, Every word of God proves true.
SPEAKER_02: He's a shield to those who take refuge in him.
SPEAKER_02: Do not add to his words lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.
SPEAKER_02: So God is the source of truth.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: We see that he's a shield, so he's a protector of his people, he's sufficient in that way.
SPEAKER_02: This is why we see this warning not to supplement his words.
SPEAKER_02: Anything apart from him is false.
SPEAKER_02: So we see that adding to his word is the same as lying.
SPEAKER_02: And all of this points us back to where we started.
SPEAKER_02: Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because who can be wise before the eternal God of the universe?
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because God himself is the source of all wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because any efforts to be wise apart from God are nothing but lies.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not wise.
SPEAKER_02: God's wise.
SPEAKER_02: So how can how can we live this out?
SPEAKER_02: How can we take this section of our passage to heart?
SPEAKER_02: I think one of the one of the best ways that we can think about it is just to be teachable.
SPEAKER_02: We've seen that so much in Proverbs.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: Chapter 4.
SPEAKER_02: The beginning of wisdom is this.
SPEAKER_02: Get wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: Don't think you already have it.
SPEAKER_02: Don't think that you don't need it.
SPEAKER_02: Get wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: Grow in it.
SPEAKER_02: Live in it, and then go get some more.
SPEAKER_02: The minute we start to live like we don't need God's wisdom is the day that He rebukes us as liars.
SPEAKER_02: Be teachable.
SPEAKER_02: Take on instruction.
SPEAKER_02: Take correction.
SPEAKER_02: Be ready to make the dreaded confession, I don't know everything here.
SPEAKER_02: I think it's easy for us to say, yeah, I don't know everything.
SPEAKER_02: But I don't know that I have anything to learn from you.
SPEAKER_02: You know, let's be humble.
SPEAKER_02: Let's be teachable.
SPEAKER_02: Don't just come on a Sunday morning and hear God's word and think, oh, that's nice.
SPEAKER_02: Take it in and be transformed by it.
SPEAKER_02: Don't be just a part of city for the coffee and free donuts.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: Do life together.
SPEAKER_02: Serve together.
SPEAKER_02: Be in community together.
SPEAKER_02: Don't think so highly of yourself that you feel like you have nothing to learn from someone else.
SPEAKER_02: And don't think wisdom is something that you can arrive at this side of eternity.
SPEAKER_02: Get it.
SPEAKER_02: Keep getting it.
SPEAKER_02: Be teachable.
SPEAKER_02: Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: Right, so second point, as we're moving on here, let not the rich man boast in his riches.
SPEAKER_02: If we read from verse 7 there, it says, Two things I ask of you.
SPEAKER_02: Deny them not to me before I die.
SPEAKER_02: Remove far from me falsehood and lying.
SPEAKER_02: First thing the author is asking here, asking before he dies, also pointing to the fact that he might be an old guy here, is that falsehood and lying be removed far from him.
SPEAKER_02: And you could you could interpret this a couple of ways.
SPEAKER_02: It could be like, keep people who are spreading falsehood and lying away from me.
SPEAKER_02: I don't need to take in their nonsense.
SPEAKER_02: But he could also be looking at it like, don't let me be a purveyor of falsehood and lying.
SPEAKER_02: Keep that stuff out of my mouth, out of my head.
SPEAKER_02: But either way, this points us back to the idea that every word that God has is true.
SPEAKER_02: Saying that we want nothing to do with falsehood is just a way of saying, I want more to do with God.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: You see that?
SPEAKER_02: If I said if I'm up here and I say, I want nothing more to do with thirst, you'd understand that I was saying, I need something to drink.
SPEAKER_02: But it points us forward also.
SPEAKER_02: Points us forward in the passage because we're going to start to look at material possessions.
SPEAKER_02: If we go on from verse 8 there, it says, Give me neither poverty nor riches.
SPEAKER_02: Feed me with the food that's needful for me, lest I be full and deny you, and say, Who is the Lord?
SPEAKER_02: Or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.
SPEAKER_02: And this sounds like pretty obvious wisdom, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_02: Get me into that Goldilocks zone, right?
SPEAKER_02: Not too much, not too little.
SPEAKER_02: Wealth, you know, it's it's it's tricky, right?
SPEAKER_02: This is probably the first place in the whole book of Proverbs where we see kind of the downsides of wealth.
SPEAKER_02: A lot of places else in the in the book, it's talking about wealth as the result of a life lived wisely before God.
SPEAKER_02: Proverbs 14, 24 says, the crown of the wise is their wealth.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: So here we here we see most of the way through the book of Proverbs, wealth is a result of wise living.
SPEAKER_02: It's a good thing, it's God's blessing.
SPEAKER_02: We see that all throughout the book.
SPEAKER_02: But in our passage this morning, we can see there's some pitfalls, there's some dangers to having wealth.
SPEAKER_02: If I'm poor, I might steal, but if I'm wealthy, I might forget that I actually need the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: So it's better to have just enough.
SPEAKER_02: But a couple things we need to bear in mind for this section.
SPEAKER_02: First off, the reasons that he gives for wanting just enough are very valid.
SPEAKER_02: We don't want to find ourselves in the position of either denying God or stealing.
SPEAKER_02: But we can't turn these verses upside down and let the wisdom flow the other way.
SPEAKER_02: He's not saying if I don't have enough, it's okay for me to steal.
SPEAKER_02: This isn't some Marxist passage here.
SPEAKER_02: Otherwise, we could use it to justify all kinds of wrongdoing, right?
SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm in my workplace, but they don't pay me what I'm worth, so it's okay for me to maybe, you know, steal a little bit or slack off or not give my best efforts.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: Or there's there's we live in a world with income inequality, and that's just not fair, so now I can, you know, fill in the blanks.
SPEAKER_02: Because of such and such injustice, I can do this.
SPEAKER_02: My mom always used to tell me, two wrongs don't make a right.
SPEAKER_02: And it becomes all the more clear when we think about uh what he's saying on the other side of it, right?
SPEAKER_02: He's not saying, well, if you have a lot of money, it's okay for you to deny God, right?
SPEAKER_02: That's not a thing.
SPEAKER_02: His request is more like, keep me out of these situations where I'm more likely to be tempted.
SPEAKER_02: But the other thing to recognize here is maybe even a little more subtle, a little more hidden.
SPEAKER_02: He's asking God to give him just the right amount.
SPEAKER_02: Neither too much nor too little.
SPEAKER_02: But I'll tell you a secret that I've learned.
SPEAKER_02: There is no right amount.
SPEAKER_02: There's no happy medium.
SPEAKER_02: On the one hand, we can always feel like we need more, right?
SPEAKER_02: Maybe I'm paying my bills, maybe I'm meeting my obligations, but if I just had a little more, just had a little bit more coming in every month, uh be a little bit more secure, a little bit more comfortable.
SPEAKER_02: And then, you know, if you get an increase at work, it's like, oh great, now I have now I have a little extra there.
SPEAKER_02: But maybe I don't.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe that extra gets swallowed up pretty quickly.
SPEAKER_02: Where does our ambition turn into greed?
SPEAKER_02: Where does our drive need to yield to contentment?
SPEAKER_02: But the other way is true too, all right?
SPEAKER_02: Uh this conversation actually came up in community group this past week.
SPEAKER_02: Where does contentment turn into complacency?
SPEAKER_02: Are there ways that I could make myself less a burden on others, but I'm choosing not to?
SPEAKER_02: Are there areas of my life where I could stand to have a little more work ethic, take a little more responsibility, be better able to provide for myself and others?
SPEAKER_02: Now, notice that neither one of those situations that I've described are coming with a with a figure, with a number, with an amount.
SPEAKER_02: They're not they're not keyed to the the cost of living or the consumer price index.
SPEAKER_02: That's because I think this is far less about how much and far more about how we interact with it.
SPEAKER_02: It's not about the status of our bank account so much as the posture of our hearts.
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's it's very possible, even at the same level of income, to feel both rich and poor, depending on the moment.
SPEAKER_02: There's a movie, uh, it's called Coach Carter, starring Samuel L.
SPEAKER_02: Jackson.
SPEAKER_02: Um, and there's a scene in it where uh, you know, the setup is Samuel L.
SPEAKER_02: has been brought in to be the basketball coach in this underprivileged high school, right?
SPEAKER_02: Very, very poor neighborhood in California.
SPEAKER_02: And he's made a bunch of extra requirements for his team.
SPEAKER_02: If you want to play on my team, then you have to.
SPEAKER_02: To keep a higher grade average than the school requires because that'll make it easier for you in other areas.
SPEAKER_02: And you need to turn up to class on time, and you need to sit in the front row, and you need to, on game days, you need to wear a jacket and tie.
SPEAKER_02: And the scene that I'm talking about here, uh, he's having a meeting with all the parents, and the parents are just pushing back on all of this stuff.
SPEAKER_02: Why are you putting all this all this extra requirement on our kids here?
SPEAKER_02: One of the parents says, My kid doesn't own a tie.
SPEAKER_02: Who's providing the ties?
SPEAKER_02: Are you providing the ties?
SPEAKER_02: And the coach doesn't miss a beat.
SPEAKER_02: He says to the parent, There are charity shops two blocks from here that have boxes full of ties that you can get for 50 cents apiece.
SPEAKER_02: And all of a sudden, this parent's indignation went from, you know, how can we be expected to pay for this to, are you suggesting that we're poor, that we that we should shop at charity shops there?
SPEAKER_02: Maybe the better prayer uh that we would usually pray is, Lord, don't let me have so much money that I can't play the victim, and don't let me have so little money that people might think I'm actually poor.
SPEAKER_02: I can give you a couple examples.
SPEAKER_02: Years ago, uh Doreen and I lived in a house uh in Nevada, and it was a small house.
SPEAKER_02: It had been uh owned by an old lady, and it hadn't been updated in the decoration department since the 1970s.
SPEAKER_02: It's very old, very outdated.
SPEAKER_02: We had a bunch of hand-me-down furniture, and to our shame, to our shame, we felt like, you know what, we have this house, but we really can't have people over to it.
SPEAKER_02: It's it's too small, it's not nice enough, you know, it's it's just not enough.
SPEAKER_02: But at some point, it probably far too long, embarrassingly, we realize that if we wait until it is enough, whatever that is, then we'll never practice hospitality.
SPEAKER_02: We'll never use what God has entrusted to us to show love and care to those around us.
SPEAKER_02: We figured out that it's better to use whatever wealth, even if I use that term loosely, even if I say that about a small, outdated uh house.
SPEAKER_02: Better to use that for God's glory than to hold out for something better.
SPEAKER_02: Another example, there was a family in our church.
SPEAKER_02: So our church used to run this outreach at Thanksgiving, you know.
SPEAKER_02: So in November, there's a there's a holiday in America, we do Thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_02: And we would we would do an outreach and we would deliver Thanksgiving meals to families, people in need, right?
SPEAKER_02: So the church had kind of a double call to action here.
SPEAKER_02: First of all, ask people to to donate, you know, put put put food in, put money in so that we can actually do this outreach, but also provide names, right?
SPEAKER_02: Is there somebody in in the church, somebody outside of the church that you just want to be able to bless with this outreach?
SPEAKER_02: And there was this family.
SPEAKER_02: They always struggled to make ends meet.
SPEAKER_02: So their name always got put in the bucket.
SPEAKER_02: Like we need to we need to bless this family.
SPEAKER_02: But I also know this family always donated to the outreach.
SPEAKER_02: So I guess they figured they were neither too poor to be generous nor too rich to accept kindness.
SPEAKER_02: So when it comes down to how we might apply these ideas, remember we're not looking for a number.
SPEAKER_02: We're not looking for an absolute level here, we're looking for an attitude of the heart.
SPEAKER_02: Paul writes in the New Testament that we should be hardworking, but that's so that we can share with others and not be a burden.
SPEAKER_02: It's not so that we can build status or power or comfort in that sense.
SPEAKER_02: We also see that we're meant to be content, but again, this isn't a license to be lazy or complacent or become someone else's burden.
SPEAKER_02: What we have, what we earn, what we own, may we view it all in light of the previous section.
SPEAKER_02: Who are we before the eternal God of the universe?
SPEAKER_02: What is our portfolio next to him?
SPEAKER_02: Everything in this world is fleeting.
SPEAKER_02: It's not going to be useful to us in eternity, but what we do with it here will matter.
SPEAKER_02: And of course, because we're dealing with matters of the heart, it's subtle, it's hard to nail down.
SPEAKER_02: So perhaps the place for us to challenge ourselves with this and to examine ourselves with this is in our budget.
SPEAKER_02: What does my spending reveal about my character?
SPEAKER_02: If my income went up, how would I spend the extra?
SPEAKER_02: How would I spend that increase?
SPEAKER_02: Would I give more?
SPEAKER_02: Would I sign up for another streaming service?
SPEAKER_02: If my income went down, what would be the first thing that I cut?
SPEAKER_02: What can we reveal about our character looking at our income and how we how we see that?
SPEAKER_02: Am I living my life solely in pursuit of the next bonus, the next promotion?
SPEAKER_02: Am I doing all of this at the expense of my relationships, at the expense of living for the Lord?
SPEAKER_02: Or am I working too little?
SPEAKER_02: Am I taking lower roles as a way of not taking responsibility in my life?
SPEAKER_02: Now, I I want to tell you, everybody's circumstances are different.
SPEAKER_02: So I'm not prescribing here.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not giving you a set of rules and standards.
SPEAKER_02: Promotions aren't wrong.
SPEAKER_02: Streaming services aren't wrong.
SPEAKER_02: Work-life balance isn't wrong.
SPEAKER_02: I'm asking you, and I'm asking myself as well.
SPEAKER_02: Let's examine what's behind our decisions.
SPEAKER_02: Where do we place our hope?
SPEAKER_02: What are our objectives with our stuff?
SPEAKER_02: Let's not boast in any aspect of our possessions.
SPEAKER_02: Right, and the third point here, we'll see this in the last bunch of verses.
SPEAKER_02: Let not the mighty man boast in his might.
SPEAKER_02: And here we see a collection of sayings that all kind of point in the same direction.
SPEAKER_02: The strong should not prey on the weak.
SPEAKER_02: And what weak groups do we see?
SPEAKER_02: Verse 10, do not slander a servant to his master.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 11, there are those who curse their fathers, do not bless their mothers.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 14 talks about devouring the poor from off the earth and the needy from among mankind.
SPEAKER_02: Who are the weaker parties in this section?
SPEAKER_02: Well, servants, aging parents, the poor and the needy.
SPEAKER_02: Verses 15 and 16, we see a description of people with insatiable appetites, the leech, the one who's never satisfied, the one who will take and take and take, like the desert ground.
SPEAKER_02: I can point to this because we used to live in the desert, and you could have heavy downpour, you could have flash flooding, and the next day you can go outside and the ground is cracked and dry yet again.
SPEAKER_02: In all of this, we have the image of people who will use might, use their strength and power to get what they want, regardless of who gets in their way.
SPEAKER_02: These people don't see anything wrong with themselves.
SPEAKER_02: If you take a look at verse 12, this says they're clean in their own eyes, but not washed of their filth.
SPEAKER_02: That's pretty bad, right?
SPEAKER_02: The book of Deuteronomy says, even if you're out on maneuvers with the army, even if you're encamped against the enemy and you gotta go, you go dig a hole, and when you're done, you cover it up.
SPEAKER_02: The example in our passage says that these people don't even recognize that they're covered in it.
SPEAKER_02: So this is all descriptive language.
SPEAKER_02: This is all ideas here.
SPEAKER_02: Feels like we've taken maybe a bit of a left turn.
SPEAKER_02: In the first section, we're recognizing that God is the only source of wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: Second section, we're seeking wisdom with regard to money.
SPEAKER_02: Now there's just all this talk of the mighty.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: It says in verse 14, those whose teeth are swords, whose fangs are knives, preying on the weak.
SPEAKER_02: Is it just a warning?
SPEAKER_02: Just like, oh, watch out for these bad guys out here.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe.
SPEAKER_02: But if you take a look at verse 17, you can see another layer to it.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: Verse 17 says, The eye that mocks a father and scorns to obey a mother will be picked out by the ravens of the valley and eaten by the vultures.
SPEAKER_02: So it's also a warning to these mighty folks of the end that they might face.
SPEAKER_02: And this really gives us some insight into how this section ties in with what we've already seen.
SPEAKER_02: We shouldn't think too highly of our wisdom because it's nothing compared to the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: We shouldn't think too highly of our material wealth or our material needs because they can take our eyes off the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: And finally, we shouldn't think about our power or our strength too much.
SPEAKER_02: Shouldn't think too much of those things because the Lord is the one who'll judge.
SPEAKER_02: He'll have the last say, He'll endure far beyond our limited days.
SPEAKER_02: The whole passage is essentially to see these three arenas of life our wisdom, our wealth, and our power in light of who God is.
SPEAKER_02: That's arranging our lives with godly priorities.
SPEAKER_02: I think this is what's meant when they talk about the fear of the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: The fear of the Lord is not terror, it's not phobia, it's not quaking in your boots.
SPEAKER_02: It's living our lives like we care what God thinks.
SPEAKER_02: It's arranging our priorities with Him at the top.
SPEAKER_02: And this idea is all over the book of Proverbs.
SPEAKER_02: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
SPEAKER_02: Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: Fear of the Lord prolongs life.
SPEAKER_02: By the fear of the Lord, one turns away from evil.
SPEAKER_02: The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life.
SPEAKER_02: So let's view and let's use our wisdom, our wealth, and our power in wise, God-honoring ways.
SPEAKER_02: Now, before we close, I want us to see how these ideas maybe hit a little differently, this side of the cross.
SPEAKER_02: Because Jesus is truly Christ, our wisdom, so it makes sense that a wisdom passage points to him as well.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 4, Eger asks the question: who has ascended to heaven and come down?
SPEAKER_02: When he wrote that, the implied answer to this rhetorical question was, no one.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: You can't find somebody on the block here who's who's been up to heaven and come back down.
SPEAKER_02: But of course, we know Jesus, Son of God, God Himself, did come down.
SPEAKER_02: We know he entered our world with full knowledge of heaven.
SPEAKER_02: We see this in John 3, where Jesus is talking to Nicodemus, and he says, No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.
SPEAKER_02: Or a couple of chapters earlier, John writes, No one has ever seen God.
SPEAKER_02: But Jesus, right, the only God who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.
SPEAKER_02: Who can bring us the wisdom of heaven but the Prince of Heaven himself?
SPEAKER_02: Jesus also spoke about the trappings of wealth.
SPEAKER_02: His disciples were shocked when he said, It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_02: Instead, he gave us the Lord's Prayer, which has content that sounds a lot like verse 8.
SPEAKER_02: He says, You know, give us this day our daily bread.
SPEAKER_02: But to see the riches of this world more clearly, we can pray along with Paul in Ephesians, that we may know what are the riches of Jesus' glorious inheritance in the saints.
SPEAKER_02: The limitless riches of Christ make every shiny thing of this world just pale in comparison.
SPEAKER_02: And lastly, the the topic of the mighty praying on the weak.
SPEAKER_02: Verses 11 to 14 describe these perpetrators.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: Let me let me read it here.
SPEAKER_02: There's four descriptions that it that it gives us, right?
SPEAKER_02: There are those who curse their fathers and do not bless their mothers.
SPEAKER_02: There are those who are clean in their own eyes, but are not washed of their filth.
SPEAKER_02: There are those how lofty are their eyes, and how high their eyelids lift.
SPEAKER_02: There are those whose teeth are swords, whose fangs are knives to devour the, devour from off the earth, devour the poor, the needy from among mankind.
SPEAKER_02: Now, when we see things in poetry in groups of four, it can be like looking at the four cardinal directions there: north, north, south, east, and west.
SPEAKER_02: So this section, it's almost like it's saying, everywhere you look, there's these perpetrators of injustice.
SPEAKER_02: There's these mighty people using their might inappropriately.
SPEAKER_02: It's pervasive, it's unending.
SPEAKER_02: It's like those passages in the book of Genesis, right?
SPEAKER_02: Where it's given the generations and it says, so-and-so lived this many years and he died, and then so-and-so lived this many years and he died, and he died, and he died.
SPEAKER_02: Going on again and again, over and over, these endless cycles of humanity.
SPEAKER_02: It's the way of the world, and what did Jesus do?
SPEAKER_02: He came to be a new way to a new world.
SPEAKER_02: So let's live out his wisdom under his good rule in his world.
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