Proverbs on Friendship

From the very beginning of creation God saw that each one of us has a need for friendship. In Genesis 2 it says that God looked at his creation and when he saw Adam in the center of it all he said, “It is not good for man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). Now the reason God knew it wasn’t good for Adam to be alone was because he knew that there was a part of Adam that was going to crave relationship and friendship and the reason God knew that was because we were created in the image of God and God himself is relational. At the core of God’s being is relationship. God is three persons, father, son and Holy Spirit, but all in one, so God knows the joy and the value of relationship. That’s why when God looked at Adam all alone in creation he realized that like himself, Adam was going to need a friend.


Now most of the time when he hear God say, it is not good for man to be alone, we think about it in the context of marriage, and the helper that God did create and give to Adam was Eve and they became what we think of as the first couple and the foundation of the family, but the kind of companionship God knows we need is not limited to the companionship of marriage. Since there are parts of the Bible that state clearly that choosing to remain single has its value, we have to look at this statement in Genesis as not just talking about marriage. God doesn’t want us to be alone and so he creates for us spouses and he places us in families, but God also lifts up the value and need we have for friendship and the proverbs gives wisdom on the value of friendship as well as guidance on choosing and keeping friends.

Let’s start with choosing our friends. In Proverbs 12:26 it says a righteous man is cautious in friendship. We are to be cautious in choosing friends because the character of our friends will have an impact in our lives, that is the wisdom behind Proverbs 22:24, do not make friends with a hot tempered man, do not associate with one easily angered. The way our friends live and the decisions they make will have an impact on our lives. We see this principle clearly when we look at the lives of our children and youth. Peer pressure from friends can influence young people to make choices they wouldn’t otherwise make and take risks they normally wouldn’t take. Friends can have a wonderfully positive influence on our lives, or they can bring us down, so we need to be cautious when we choose our friends. Ben Franklin said it this way, if you lie down with dogs you will rise up with fleas, and he was right.

So we need to be cautious in choosing our friends, but this doesn’t mean that we only surround ourselves with Christian friends. In fact we need to develop strong friendships with those outside the church so that we can be the salt and light that draws others to Jesus, but as we develop those friendships it is important for us to first have a strong support system of faith-filled friends who can keep us grounded. This principle was made clear to me the summer I worked in Rocky Mountain National Park. For two summers I worked in the national parks as part of the Christian Ministry in the Nation Park program. While I had a full time job working in the concessions at both Yellowstone and in the Rocky Mountains, I was really there to be the presence of God among those I worked with, I was there to be salt and light and try to be a faithful influence in the lives of others. For most employees, working in the National Parks was like one giant college party that was only interrupted for a few hours a day with some work. When I was in Yellowstone I had a strong group of Christian friends from the ministry program who helped keep me focused and grounded while I was there. Together we not only had a great time but we made a difference in the lives of the people around us and were able to effectively share the love of Christ with others.

The next summer I worked in the Rocky Mountains and I was the only one from the Christian ministry were I worked. I had no support or encouragement and I struggled to figure out how to really become friends with people who seemed to only be in the park to have fun. With no one to encourage me, with no support and help from faith filled friends, there were times that summer that I failed miserably in my walk with God. The peer pressure from those around me brought me down more than I was able to bring them up. Looking back I have often wondered how different that summer might have been if there had been just one other person of faith that I could have confided in and leaned upon for help and strength. It’s not good for us to be alone, we were not created to go through life alone, we not only need support but we need people of faith who can help us live the kind of lives we want to live.

Jesus also shows us how important this is. One of the first things Jesus did when he entered into public ministry was to draw together a team of people. Jesus called his disciples together and formed a close knit group of friends who helped each other. Not only do they help each other while Jesus was with them, but think about the love and support they gave each other after Jesus was gone. In fact after Jesus crucifixion when their lives were completely torn apart, the disciples for the most part stayed together. On Easter morning when Mary returns to the upper room to tell the disciples that she had seen Jesus alive, she finds all the disciples there, and when Jesus appears later in the day, all the disciples are together, in their times of need they found strength from one another. (I should say they were all together except Thomas and because he wasn’t there, he missed out – maybe there is a message about friendship in that too, if we aren’t paying attention to our friends, if we aren’t together during times of need – we just may miss out on Jesus.)

So we need to be wise in choosing our friends and it is important for us to develop friendships with people of faith. I was a reading a book this week which looked at trends of spiritual growth among people in over 200 churches across the country and one of the common practices found among people who grew stronger in their faith was the presence of a spiritual friend or mentor. The people who grew the strongest in their faith had a strong friendship with someone who helped them develop a deeper understanding of what it means to live for Christ. So choosing friends is important and making sure we have peers and mentors strong in their faith will be vital to the development of our own faith.

So we need to be cautious in choosing our friends, but then how do actually make friends? How do we move in a relationship from acquaintance to a deep and trusted friend? While many books have been written on how to win friends, maybe the best advice comes from Proverbs 3:3-4.

If we think of winning favor and a good name among men as developing friendships, then we see that what’s needed is love and faithfulness. The word love here is not a romantic love or even a brotherly love, the word for love is hesed, which is the same word we find in Micah 6:8 where it says we are to love mercy. Hesed is acts of mercy that involves sacrifice. The kind of love that develops deep friendship is not random acts of kindness but intentional consistent acts of service which lift others up. It’s being loyal to others and standing by them during good times and difficult times. When we love others with this kind of loyalty and commitment – friendship will develop.

So developing friendship requires love and it also require faithfulness: there are two sides of faithfulness for us to consider, this first has to do with being trustworthy. For friendships to develop there needs to be trust and trust requires honesty and confidentiality. Can we keep a confidence as people share with us their hopes and dreams? Can we remain faithful and silent when people share with us their fears and sins and struggles? Confidence is important for friendship and God knows we struggle with this which is why God addresses this issue several times in Proverbs. Prov. 11:13, 16:28, 17:9, 20:19. The book of Proverbs is full of sayings telling us to keep our mouth shut and to watch our words and our tongue and the reason God has to say it so often is because he knows that this is an area in which we struggle. Gossip is something we need to take seriously, in Romans 1:29 gossip is included in a list of evils right along side of wickedness, murder, envy, strife, greed and depravity. The reason we need to take gossip seriously is because it not only destroys friendships, but it breaks down the larger community. When we betray a confidence we make it harder for people to be able to trust anyone. So we need to ask ourselves, am I worthy of someone else’s trust? Can I keep a confidence? These are essential for friendship.

Being faithful in friendship also means being willing stay with someone for the long haul. Will we stand with people at all times and in all places, especially when they need us the most? Look at Prov. 17:17, 18:24.

Can our friends count on us when they are in need? Will we stand with them and will we stand up for them when they need us, even if it means risking our own name and reputation? In sports this kind of friendship was seen clearly between Jackie Robinson & Pee Wee Reese. Jackie Robinson was the first black American to play major league baseball and in the summer of 1947, his rookie year, there were many ball-players and fans who did not want to see baseball integrated. But Pee Wee Reese was willing to stand up for Jackie Robinson. Reese refused to sign a petition by players saying they wouldn’t play with black athletes and more importantly he literally stood with Jackie Robinson in his time of need. At a game in Cincinnati, Jackie Robinson was taking a great deal of abuse and jeers from the crowd until Pee Wee Reese went out onto the field and draped his arm around Robinson and literally stared down and silenced the crowd.

Jackie Robinson said of that moment, Pee Wee kind of sensed the sort of helpless, dead feeling in me and came over and stood beside me for a while. He didn't say a word, but he looked over at the chaps who were yelling at me and just stared. He was standing by me, I could tell you that.

Years later, Reeese’s wife said, Pee Wee thought nothing of it. For him, it was a simple gesture of friendship. That’s what faithfulness in friendship is all about, standing with someone when they are in need even when it might come at some personal cost.

So developing and deepening friendship requires faithfulness, confidentiality and longevity, but it also calls for forgiveness. Let’s go back to Proverbs 17:9. The reality of life is that if we have friends then at some point in time we will be hurt or offended, it will happen. Our friends will let us down and they will disappoint us, they might break a confidence and show us that they aren’t always worthy of our trust and you know what, we will do the same to them. We may not mean to, it may be unintentional, but we will hurt and disappoint our friends as well. That’s life. There is no friendship without pain because in all relationships we will fall short and at times feelings will get hurt. If we can’t move beyond these failures and cover over an offense, if we can’t learn to forgive one another then we will never now the joy of deep and long lasting friendships.

If you have a friend that has offended you – forgive then. It’s not easy to be the first one to pick up the phone and open the lines of communication, it’s not easy to admit our own failures and shortcomings to those who have offended us, but not only is friendship worth it, it is how God calls us to order our lives. Too many times we allow good friendships to just disappear because we aren’t willing to forgive them or ask them to forgive us. We need forgiveness to be an active part of our lives because we need the friends, its part of God’s plan for our lives.

There is one last proverb I want us to look at and it expands on the idea of how important friends are to the development of our faith. Prov. 27:17. God uses friends to sharpen our lives and he uses friends to deepen and develop our faith. Again, a recent study has shown that people who grow deeper in their faith are more likely to have a spiritual friend or mentor to help them along the way and when I read that I wasn’t surprised because that is what Proverbs 27:17 is all about. God uses the people in our lives, our friends and our brothers and sisters to keep us sharp and growing in our faith. The reality is that just the daily routines of life can cause our faith to become dull, just like the routine use of a lawn mower will dull the blade, so just as a blade needs sharpening, so do we and what sharpens our faith are the friends God places in our lives. Friends are the tools that God uses to keep us moving in the right direction. They challenge us to step up to the plate and live out what we say we believe. Friends help us see the path of wisdom and keep us walking on it. Without friends both the routine living of life and the challenges that we face will wear us down so we need trustworthy friends who will offer us time and space to share our hopes and dreams and fears. We need friends who will forgive us and challenge us to live more faithful lives. We need friends who will love us through and we need to be the kind of friend who will do this for others.

Do we have the kind of friends Proverbs is talking about?

Are we the kind of friends Proverbs is talking about?

Let me say, that friendship on this level doesn’t just happen; it requires us to be intentional and work hard. And friends who can help us deepen and develop our faith aren’t formed by simply coming to worship once a week, the kind of friendship God wants for us takes a commitment to spending time together in prayer, worship, study, service and fellowship. It requires us to share our lives together and eat together and have fun together. It requires us to laugh together and cry together. Developing faith-filled friends takes being willing to get connected with people of faith in small groups and Sunday School and Bible Study and working together in all kinds of service in the church and the world where we can begin to get to know one another and get involved in one another’s lives. This is the kind of friendship God wants for us because God knows how good it is. God knows it is not good for us to be alone so let us work at developing friendships that will fill our lives with faith and love and all the fullness of life.

Proverbs on the Family

Since today is Father’s Day, it seems appropriate for us to look at what the Proverbs have to say about the family. Family relationships appear quickly in the book, look at Proverbs 1:8. Solomon appeals to his son to listen to the instruction and advice given to him by his parents and then he goes on to say that if he will follow this wisdom - his life will be blessed. In many ways this is the foundation of all other teaching on the family that is to come. Parents are to give wise advice to their children, and children need to listen and apply that wisdom to their lives, and if everyone does this, everyone will be blessed. If you think about it, this really could be the foundation for all relationships. Whether it is with the family, or among friends or in the life of the church, we need to offer one another wisdom and we need to be open to listening to the wisdom of others. When we have this kind of mutual respect and love – we all learn and we are all blessed.

As we heard last week, the book of proverbs isn’t constructed in a topical way where we find all the teachings on family relationships in one section, so I invite you to follow along on the insert where you will find listed most of the proverbs that we will look at today and if any of these speak to you during the service you can make a note to read, reflect and respond to them later this week.

Before we look at specific proverbs given to the family, there is an important guiding principle that we need to keep in mind and we find this principle in Proverbs 10:1 & 20:7. What these proverbs tell us is that the way we live our lives and the choices we make have consequences in the lives of others, especially our family. Proverbs 10:1 says that how children live their lives affects their parents. When they are wise they bring joy, but when they are foolish they bring heartache and pain, but the reverse of this is also true, that’s what we see in Proverbs 20:7. When we walk in righteousness and integrity it has an impact on our children. Not only does our righteous living bless our children, but when they follow us, their lives will continue to be blessed. The example that parents set for their children makes a difference in their lives. So the truth we need to remember as we look at family relationships this week and even friendships next week is that the way we live our lives and the choices we make have consequences in the lives of others. Too many times we think that we can just live our lives any way we want and as long as we are not physically hurting anyone, it doesn’t matter what we do, but that simply is not true. Our actions and choices do have consequences in the lives of others. Every action and choice we make in some way affects those around us and the most powerful effect is going to be experienced by those closest to us, particularly our family.

The truth we see here is that God did not create us to be independent, God created us, and really God set up all of creation to be interdependent. What one part of creation does effects everything else. I grew up along the beach in CT and I remember being amazed when I learned that it is the gravitational pull of the sun and the moon that affects the tides of the oceans. It amazes me that something as far away as the sun and the moon can have an effect on the oceans around us, but it shows us that all of creation is interdependent. A few years ago there was a lot of concern over why bee hives were collapsing and there were so few bees all along the east coast. You might not think that a little bee is all that important, but without bees all food production would drop off because plants wouldn’t be pollinated; fruits and vegetables wouldn’t grow and eventually all other forms of life would suffer. If the bees continued to disappear and hives destroyed all of creation would suffer – all because of the little bee. Humans are no different, we are interrelated so what we do or don’t do effects others and we need to keep this truth in mind as we look at the proverbs on family and friends.

So where do we start in developing or strengthening family relationships? We actually start in the same place we did last week. Last week we saw that the first step in applying God’s wisdom to our lives was to turn our ear to wisdom. We had to listen to God and read his word. That’s the same place to start when it comes to family relationships. Go back to Proverbs 1:8, the same things is said in Proverbs 4:1, and in Proverbs 23:22 –it says Listen to the Father who gave you life. Children are called to listen to their parents.

Maybe the first step in honoring our father and mother, which is one of the 10 Commandments, is to listen to them. I want us to think about this commandment for a moment. Did you know that the commandment to honor they father and mother is the only commandment that comes with a blessing. In Dtr 5:16 it says, honor thy father and mother so that your days may be long and it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. When we honor our parents it doesn’t just bless them, but it also brings God’s blessing to us. How we treat one another affects everyone involved and how we treat our parents makes a difference in our lives. This is a good thing to remember today. If our fathers are still around we need to honor them and maybe the best way to do that is take the time to listen to them – if we do that we not only bless them, but we will be blessed as well. And if you are a father, take the time to share your wisdom, life, faith and love with your children, if you do that – you will be blessed.

So we need to listen to our parents, but listening doesn’t mean we just hear the words, we are to give those words special attention, look at Proverbs 4:1b-2. Another way to say this is found in Proverbs 13:1 a wise son heeds his father’s instruction. The word heed doesn’t mean to obey, it means to give careful attention to, so this is not a mandate calling us to do whatever our parents tell us, as we get older we do have to make our own decisions and stand by them, but as we make them, it might be wise for us to give special attention to what our parents have to say, after all, their advice might have come through some valuable life experience.

When I was in college I got some good advice from my grandfather that I wish I had given more attention to. At the time, I wanted to transfer from MSU to USC. I was talking to my Grandfather on the phone one day who simply said, CA is too far away from your family. Now at that point in time, being close my family wasn’t important to me, I thought it would be fun to see the world and live close to the beaches and mountains of CA. As remember back to that conversation, my Grandfather didn’t tell me what to do, he was offering advice and wisdom that came from his heart and from lifetime of experience. For years my Grandparents lived in FL and then in TN while we lived in CT. For most of my childhood we simply weren’t geographically close to them so we didn’t get to spend a lot of time together. When I thought of moving to CA, my Grandfather was in is late 80’s and I think he was beginning to understand just how important family really is. My Grandfather also came to this country on his own as a teenager and lived with extended family, so he knew the pain of being far away from family, but also the blessing of being with extended family. While there was great wisdom in his words, I didn’t give it careful attention. In fact, twice in my life I moved to CA and I have to tell you that neither time was a very good experience and after both trips there I ended up moving back east to be, guess what?, closer to my family.

So there is value in heeding the advice of our parents and grandparents, but parents, if you are going to offer wise advice and instruction, then it is important that you are seeking God’s wisdom for yourself. If parents aren’t seeking and applying God’s word to their own lives, the family will suffer, look at Proverbs 11:29.

Wind here is a destructive force bringing chaos and confusion, so if parents are not seeking righteousness and living wisely, if they are stirring up trouble, they will create confusion not just in their lives but in the lives of the children. But then look at Proverbs 11:30 – the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life. When we seek God’s wisdom, we not only bring life to ourselves but to others as well. Isn’t that the image we get with a tree? A tree not only has life, but it produces fruit that offers life to others, and in its branches a tree provides homes for birds and squirrels. A tree brings life to many others and if we seek God’s wisdom and apply it to our lives we are that tree of life that brings righteousness to others. So a word to all parents here, before we can call children to listen and pay attention to our words, we have to first turn your own ear to wisdom and hear God’s word for ourselves and make sure we are living out God’s wisdom in our lives, then we can call our children to listen to us.

So it is important for us to gain wisdom as a child, but it can’t stop at graduation, we need to continually seek wisdom and then hold on to it throughout our lives. That’s the message of Proverbs 4:3-9. As a child Solomon gained wisdom from his parents (3-5) but then he had to hold on to that wisdom throughout his life. Look at what he says, do not forsake wisdom (6) Get it, pursue it and do not forsake it all through life. Parents need to keep gaining God’s wisdom so they have something valuable and eternal to share with their children. It’s not enough to just offer our children help in living life; we need to share with them the truth of God and the foundation of our faith so they have something solid and eternal to base their lives on. Jesus said that while heaven and earth will pass away, my word will never pass away. The word of God, the wisdom of God is eternal. The conventional wisdom of the world will not stand the test of time, but God’s ancient wisdom is eternal and we need to continually seek this wisdom in order to share it with our children and grandchildren.

Now probably the most often quoted proverb on family and parenting is Proverbs 22:6. Now let’s be clear about what the proverb says and doesn’t say. It says we are to train a child in the way he should go. It doesn’t say teach and it doesn’t say tell, it says train and training involves more than just words. Training means that we show them the way. Parents are role models for their children, for good or for bad, children will model what they see in their parents. If you have children you know full well that children will learn more from what you do than what you say, so we can’t just tell them what to do, or tell them about God – we have to show them the way. For example, it’s not enough to tell our children that they can pray to God, we need to model prayer for them. And we can’t just tell them that reading the Bible is good for them, they need to see us reading it and we need to help them understand what the message of God word means. And we can’t tell them that worship is important we need to have them worship with us. Children need to see that our faith is real and important to us and they need to see how our faith shapes our actions and the decisions we make. Don’t think that children will learn about faith from others, they need to see it in you and learn it from you, parents will be the main guides and leaders for their children.

This is what we see in Proverbs 4:10-13. Look at the words here, we don’t just to teach with words, that’s part of it (4:10), but we are also to guide and lead them in the way. We need to model the life of faith and take others, especially our children, by the hand and lead them to a place of understanding and faith. And this is not just a call to biological mothers and fathers; this is a call to everyone in the church. We are to model the life of faith so that others can see it clearly and follow us. Paul said; follow my example as I follow the example of Christ. Can we say the same thing? Are our lives leading people deeper into their faith and closer to the heart and will of God?

Last week when we celebrated baptism, together we said that with God’s help we will so order our lives after the example of Christ that this child, surrounded by steadfast love, may be established in the faith and confirmed and strengthened in the way that leads to life eternal. In baptism we are saying that together we will lead and guide a child into faith, and this means being active and helping in the Nursery, Sunday School, Vacation Bible School, Worship, Choir, Bible Study, and Missions. Children need us fully living out our faith so that they can see what it means for them to follow Jesus.

There are 2 more proverbs that I want us to look at quickly this morning because they are important to family relationships. The first one is Proverbs 20:20 - children should not curse their parents. Did you know that in the law, the cursing of parents was a capital offense? In Ex. 21:17 it says if a child cursed his parents they were to be put to death. Now I’m not saying we should go back to this by any means, but what the law and this proverb says is that God takes seriously how we treat one another and so we need to respect one another. It bothers me when I watch TV and see how parents are often portrayed as fools and objects of ridicule by their children. This not only breaks down the respect we are to have for our parents, but it breaks down the basic respect we are to have for one another. The message shared in that kind of situation is that if it is ok to treat our parents this way, then it’s ok to treat everyone this way. Likewise, it bothers me to hear how parents are not always supportive and encouraging of their children. Mutual love and respect begins at home in how we speak to one another in our families and while our actions are important, as we have already seen, our words also do matter.

And then last, but not least, there are the proverbs on discipline. The book of Proverbs speak pretty clearly about the need for children to be disciplined and while the disciple it calls for at times is physical, let’s be absolutely clear that this call to discipline is not a call and it is not a justification for any kind of abuse. I am not here to tell you how to discipline your children, but I am here to say that God’s wisdom calls for parents to find effective and faithful ways to disciple their children so they learn to live within the boundaries God has set for us. Maybe the best Proverb on disciple is Proverb 19:18 which says, disciple your son, for in that there is hope; do not be a willing party to his death. This proverb shows us that disciple brings life and if we don’t disciple our children they will not experience the fullness of life, but we can also read the second part of this as a call not to harm or disciple our children in ways that leads to their harm or destruction.

So what the proverbs have to say to us as families is that we are dependant upon one another. How we live not only affects our lives but the lives of everyone in our family. So parents, listen to God, gain wisdom and apply it to your lives so you can not only teach and instruct but more importantly so you can model faithful living. And children, children of all ages, listen to your parents. Heed their advice and experiences and pay careful attention to what they say. Apply their wisdom to the living of your lives. If we will all live this –our lives will be blessed.

Proverbs ~ Gaining the Wisdom of God

When you have a difficult decision to make in life, or when you are looking for the answers to life’s questions – where do you turn? What tools and resources do you draw from when looking for guidance or direction? It used to be that people would turn to their morning newspapers to read their horoscopes or consult the daily advice columns of Dear Abby or Ann Landers, but a lot of people today don’t get a daily paper, but we can still find all these things on line. In many ways the internet has become the source for all the information we could ever want or need. If we want to find out about any subject at all, what do we do? We Google it. The truth is we can get any information we want from our phones and hand held devices because as the commercial says – there is an app for that. If we want to read our horoscopes – there is an app for that. In fact, from my i-touch I can read my horoscope (read horoscope), get directions, listen to advice and find information about any subject at all. But the internet is just one place people turn for advice.

I heard a story a while ago about one couple who had a major life decision to make and not knowing what else to do they decided to consult the ancient wisdom of… the fortune cookie. That’s right, they went out to a Chinese restaurant and after they ate the agreed to follow the best they could, the advice they received in their fortune cookie. Well, now you don’t have to go out to eat, or even buy a fortune cookie because, you guessed it, there’s an app for that. You can break open a fortune cookie right here and follow its direction.  (open a fortune cookie on i-touch and read it)  It’s good advice, but not always the most applicable.

Now, when I was growing up we had a wonderful device which we thought gave us all the wisdom of the world. You could ask any question you wanted and it would give you the right answer every time, at least we thought it was the right answer. From relationships to career choices to insight into who would win any sporting event or board game, I’ve shared this with you before, but the magic 8 Ball had all the answers. But you know what, even this has been replaced because… there is an app for this too. The fortune ball can be consulted on any issue and give you an answer.

While all of these are fun, the question is do I really want to base my life’s decision on what a fortune cookie says, or place my future in the hands of the Magic 8 Ball? Do I really want my i-touch or the internet to be the source of all wisdom and guidance for my life? That’s not to say these are not a good source of knowledge, but I don’t want to trust the answer to life’s questions to what I find online, and the good news is that we don’t have to because we have something better. God has given us all the direction and wisdom and guidance we will eve need in life and we have it right here. 

We have available to us wisdom that has been around for more than 3,000 years. It is ancient wisdom that has been gathered from many different cultures and has been sifted through the unique perspective of faith and trust in God. It is wisdom that has been put into practice for generations and it has been found to be trustworthy and true, but more important than all of that – it is wisdom that comes from God. The book of Proverbs that we are going to be looking at for the next 5 weeks is more than a collection of wise sayings that have been gathered together from a variety of people. These are sayings which come from the God himself and because God is the who created us, ordered our lives and knows what is best for us, we need to take the time to read, learn and follow these directions.

Most of the proverbs we find here come from King Solomon (Proverbs 1:1) and what the Bible says is that Solomon himself received them from God. Solomon was the son of King David and when he became King, God told him to ask for anything he wanted and it would be granted to him. 1 Kings 3:5, 9 & 4:29-34. Some of these very sayings were written down and passed on from generation to generation, and they have been handed to us in the scriptures so when we read this book of Proverbs what we are reading is the wisdom God himself gave to Solomon. This is not just a collection of sayings that might sound good and make sense; this is God’s order for life. This is the blue print that if we follow will serve us well in every aspect of our lives.

The word wisdom, which in the book of Proverbs is also translated as insight, or understanding is the Hebrew word chokmah which is defined as skillfulness in dealing with the matter at hand so that we get the best result and in the case of these proverbs, the matter at hand is life itself. These sayings reveal us to the divine order given to us by God and if they are followed; if we put this wisdom to work in our lives it will bring us the best result. In other words, these proverbs lead us into the path of life and health and strength that God has for us.

As we begin a journey to uncover God’s ancient wisdom, let’s be clear from the start that wisdom is not just knowledge. Wisdom is not just gathering together all the facts, wisdom is knowing how to apply this knowledge to our lives. For ex, we all know the law of gravity. We throw a stone in the air and what will happen? It will fall to the ground. That’s knowledge. We understand this law of gravity which is part of God’s divine order of creation. Wisdom is taking that knowledge and applying to our lives. Wisdom is using this knowledge to guide our decisions. This is wisdom, when we throw a stone into the air because we know it is going to fall back to the ground we step out of the way so we don’t get hit. Wisdom requires us taking the knowledge God gives us about the order of life and relationships and applying it to our daily lives so that life can be the best God has for us.

So where do start in our journey toward wisdom? Proverbs 1:7 says, fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. But what does it mean to fear the lord. Fear of the Lord is a common theme throughout the Old Testament and it doesn’t mean that we are to be afraid of God; it means we are to recognize God’s holiness. In his commentary on the book Proverbs, Kenneth Aiken said that fear of the Lord is a deep seated reverence and awe in recognition of the holiness of God. Fearing the Lord means that we understand God is far greater than we are so we need to acknowledge his greatness and submit ourselves to his ways.

While fear of the Lord is the beginning of our path to wisdom, it is not the end of the journey. Understanding who God is and knowing that God’s ways are right is just the start – the journey goes on and the process of finding wisdom is outlined for us in Proverbs 2:1-6. After we acknowledge God as the author of life and that his ways really are the only right ways to live, then we then need to turn our ear to wisdom. We need to put away the magic 8 ball and stop relying on fortune cookies, and stop turning to google and start seeking God’s wisdom for life. We do this in many ways, but clearly one of the best ways is to turn to the book of Proverbs and begin to read God’s word.

My hope is that during the next 6 weeks we can read together God’s wisdom. Each week there will be in the bulletin, or you can find online, a study guide that will lead us through the book of Proverbs. Each day we can turn our ears to God’s wisdom and begin to hear God’s voice over all the other voices which seek to give us advice and direction. There are so many people who want to give us their idea of what is wise, from blogs to the 8 ball, everyone thinks they have the answers, but there is only one wisdom that will lead us into a life of truth and peace, and that is the wisdom of God.

Reading the proverbs is good, but as we have already seen, it is not enough to just gain the knowledge; we need to apply God’s wisdom to our heart & life. (Proverbs 2:2) Applying God’s wisdom is a two step process. Before we can apply God’s word we must take time to reflect on what we have read. We need to think about it, discuss it, pray about it, and process it for our lives. We can’t live out this wisdom until we fully understand what it means and what it means for our lives, and we won’t fully understand what it means for our lives until we allow the word of God to resonate within us.

Adam Hamilton, the pastor at Church of the Resurrection in Kansas City says that time and space for reflection is not valued today. We run from one event to the next. We read one book and then another, we surf from one blog to the next one searching for truth and meaning but how often do we take the time to stop seriously think and reflect on what we read. Meditation and contemplation are lost arts that need to be recaptured. When we read the book of proverbs they really do cry out for us to stop and take some time to think through them and process the truth that we find.

One of the things you’ll notice as you read through the book of Proverbs is that it is not set out topically. Themes and ideas jump around a lot which means we might need to take some time to go back and look at what was said in previous chapters. Each Sunday we are going to look at one theme like family relationships or finances, and what we will do look at many of the proverbs on these themes that are found throughout the book. God put this book together in such a way that it requires us to slow down and maybe that is because God knows that for his wisdom to take hole in our lives we need time to reflect. I encourage you to take some time as you read through the book. Write down thoughts or ideas. Ask yourself, how does this rule or teaching apply to different situations in my life? How might this proverb guide a decision I have to make today or this week? Before we can live out God’s wisdom, we need to reflect upon it and search for it’s truth and meaning. All of this takes time and effort.

Proverbs 2:4-5 even tells us that this will be a long drawn out process. Mining for silver takes some time. You don’t just find silver lying along the stream bed or by turning over rocks, you have to dig and sometime you have to dig deep. You have to blast into the earth and build huge systems of tunnels to get the ore out of the ground. Mining for silver takes time, sacrifice and effort, and the same is true if we are going to find the wisdom of God. It’s there, it’s not completely hidden but to gain its full power we have to invest some time and sacrifice and effort.

Once we have done the work of reflection, then we need to take it to the next step and respond. How will I live out this wisdom of God? The proverbs were written to be practical steps for living out our lives. The proverbs aren’t lofty ideals we only dream about – what we find here is practical, common sense wisdom we can put to use today and tomorrow. The real heart of wisdom comes when we take God’s word and use it as a guide for our lives. So after we read and reflect on what God has said we need to take it to the next step and ask ourselves how we can apply this truth to our daily lives. How can God’s wisdom guide our family and the relationships we have with others? What financial principles does God give us so that we are financially stable even in the economic situation our world is in today? How do we use these sayings to develop the strong and Godly character we want in our lives? The wisdom of God does us no good if we ignore it, we have to respond to what we hear.

At the end of Jesus sermon on the mount, which if you think about it is another collection of wise sayings Jesus gives us to guide our lives, at the end of that sermon Jesus says this… (Matthew 7:24) The wise person is the one who doesn’t just hear or read these words but puts them into practice.

So the road to wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord, it begins by understanding that God has given us wisdom for the living of life, but it is not enough to simply read God’s wisdom we have to be take the time to reflect upon what we hear and respond to it faithful ways. This process then repeats itself over and over again. We turn our ears to God, we read the proverbs we again, we reflect on what we hear and then respond in faithful ways, and then we do it again. Eventually this process leads us to a place where living according to God’s wisdom is simply a reflex; it is a natural reaction to the circumstances around us. When faced with a situation or a choice in life, we simply know God’s word because it is a part of who we are an we have trained ourselves to follow it.

Over these next 6 weeks, I invite you to develop this reflex as we take the time to read, reflect and find faithful ways to respond to this ancient and timeless wisdom of God.

Rise!

Luke 7:11-17

As I read this story of Jesus again I realized something I’m not sure I had thought of before, did you notice that no one asked Jesus to help this woman or her son. Jesus and his disciples are walking into the city as the funeral procession is making its way out, and when they meet, no one asked Jesus to help, no one asked Jesus to get involved or raise the man up. It just says Jesus saw the woman and his heart when out to her. Since no one asked Jesus to help, you have to wonder what it was that moved Jesus so deeply that he decided to act.

There had to have been something, because everyday Jesus would have seen situations where people were in great need and he doesn’t get involved in each and every one of these situations. I’m sure he even saw people who had died, but he doesn’t raise them all up. So what was it about this situation that moved Jesus so much that he was compelled to act? I think Jesus acted here because this one hit close to home. It’s not that Jesus knew the man who had died, or his mother, but Jesus knew their situation and it was their situation that moved him. Look at what we know about them, it says the woman was a widow and the man who had died was her one only son; does that sound familiar, a one and only son. I wonder if Jesus felt her pain more deeply because Jesus himself was the one and only son of his father and the day was going to come when they were going to experience the pain of being separated by death. I wonder when Jesus saw the pain of this woman losing her only son if he could simply identify with that pain in a more personal way.

When we see people who like us, or people who are going through things that we personally have gone through our understand, I think our heart goes out to them in a special way. The first times I ever helped serve a meal in soup kitchen I was with some friends in Kansas City and I remember so clearly looking up and seeing a man who came through the line who reminded me of myself. In some kind of strange way I thought he actually looked a little like me. He was my height and build, and he wore glasses and he was wearing a shirt and jeans that looked like something I would wear, in fact they were very close to the clothes I had on that day. When I saw this man coming through the line, my heart went out to him in a way that was different from everyone else I served because I felt like I could identify with him. I felt his embarrassment for having to be there and his fear about what was going to happen to him in the days and weeks to come. Like Jesus who had great compassion for this woman because he could identify with her in some special way, I felt like I could feel his pain in some unique way and my heart went out to him. There wasn’t much I could for him that day other than serve him food, but I have never forgotten that moment.

We don’t know exactly what Jesus was thinking in that moment, but we do know that this situation touched his heart in a profound way; it was so powerful a moment that Jesus simply had to get involved and act. What is it that moves us so powerfully? What need moves us? What injustice compels us to act? What people or persons do we see who situations moves us so deeply that we are willing to get involved in order to make a difference? If there isn’t something that moves us to the core of our being, if there isn’t something that just compels us act, then we need to ask God to wake us up, or raise us from the dead so that like Jesus our hearts will burn within us when we see people who are hurting or in need.

At Annual Conference this week we heard and saw testimonies of some of the extreme needs there are of retired pastors in Sierra Leone. This West African nation has gone through civil war and is experiencing extreme poverty. There was a retired UM minister who said that the week before he didn’t eat for 2 days because he had no food. So for 2 days all he drank was water. My heart went out to him, maybe because someday I will also be a retired UM pastor, but my guess is that I won’t have to go without food for 2 days – but neither should he and there is something I can do about it. There is something we can do about the needs of our brothers and sisters in Sierra Leone. We can partner with them, we can support their work in the name of Jesus. We can help provide the pastors with salary with support and the churches with leadership, buildings and materials.

There are so many needs in our world today, what is it that moves you? What compels you to act? If there isn’t anything – then we have some heart problems and we need to ask God to revive our hearts and open our eyes not only to the needs of our community and world – but to the ways we can reach out and meet those needs.

Whatever the motivation was, Jesus experienced a deep and profound love for this widow and it moved him to reach out and get involved, and the length that Jesus was willing to get involved is also striking. When Jesus raised Lazarus from the grave, do you know how he did it? (called him forth) That’s right, he just called out to Lazarus to “Lazarus, come out”, and Lazarus came out of the tomb. But notice that here it says Jesus laid his hand on the coffin and said get up – or rise. Now while it says that Jesus laid his hand on the coffin, it would not have been a coffin like what we think of, it wouldn’t have been a closed box, but most likely a funeral bier which was just a pallet with the corpse lying on top of it. According to Jewish law, when Jesus laid his hand on the bier he makes himself unclean because he came into contact with the dead. It’s amazing to me to think about how many times Jesus was willing to make himself unclean in order to help others. When Jesus touched lepers, when the sick reached out and touch him he became unclean, but none of that mattered to Jesus, he was willing to make himself unclean if it would restore wholeness and life to others. When Jesus helped people, he was willing to get involved. He didn’t think about the cost to himself, he jumped in with both feet.

Like Jesus, are we willing to get involved with people who are in need? Are we willing to jump in with both feet and not think about the cost? Are we willing to roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty? Are we willing to walk from town to town in order to raise awareness and money to help veterans who have served and sacrifice for our nation and or our freedom? Are we willing to partner with people on the other side of the world so they can experience God in worship and in the life of the church the way we do?

As I have been thinking about these questions this week I have realized that in many ways we at Faith Church have been willing to get involved. I think the FaithCentre is a great example of that. When I listen to the stories of how Faith Church helped establish the FaithCentre I realize it took time, a commitment of money, a lot of man and woman hours, and a lot of hard work to create a place that helped meet the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of people in our own community. The mission trips we have taken to Mississippi and South Dakota show we are willing to get involved, work hard and sacrifice to help those who are in need. Next month there will be those of us who will go to Harrisburg to help lift up the lives of those in need in our own state, and there continue to be people who get involved in work right here in our own community. We are willing to get involved, but we can’t just look back at what we have done – we have to be willing to look to the future and see what God wants us to do.

Are we always looking for needs and situations where we can get involved? Are we constantly praying and asking God to show us how we can help lift others up, and who those people are? Are we asking God to show us the people who might be in need? And I’m not just talking about the people who need physical help, what about people who need the hope and the love of Jesus? What about the people who are hungry for God but are too afraid to ask for help or come to church and look for answers? Are we getting involved in their lives and sharing our faith and the love of Jesus with them? There are so many people around us dying for the love of God and we have it – our lives have been touched by the grace and love of Jesus, are we willing to get involved in the lives of others and in gentle and yet powerful ways share this love and hope with others?

If our lives are to reflect the life of Jesus, we have to be willing to reach out and lift up those in need around us, but there is something else we have to address in this story, something that might be even more difficult and more uncomfortable than getting involved in the lives of others – are we willing to allow God to raise us up? Are we willing to allow God to touch us and restore us to life? If we go back to the story, no one asked Jesus to get involved, but he did and he touched the funeral bier, he touched the dead man and raised him up to life. This is what Jesus wants to do for us. Jesus wants to touch our lives and he wants to raise us up from our sin, raise us up from our failures, raise us up from our depression and hopeless and fear and despair – Jesus really does want to bring us back to life and Jesus can if we will allow him to.

The first step of new life is simply asking God to lay his hand on our lives. With the touch of God comes power. With the touch of God comes healing and wholeness and hope and joy. The touch of God can bring whatever it is we are hungry for and what we are longing for. It may not happen in an instant like this man springing up from the coffin to hug his mother – but with persistence and prayer God will bring forth in us new life.

Today is a great day to ask God to touch our live sand bring us back to life because when we share together in communion we are giving God the opportunity to lay his hand on us. Communion is that special moment when we not only submit ourselves to the grace of God’s hand, but it is that moment when God in his power and love lays his hand upon us and calls us to rise. So I invite you to ask God to lay his hand on you. Ask God to touch your heart during this time of communion so that we can be raised up to new life. And if you are feeling like God has already raised you up to new life, then I invite you to ask God to show you how you can be involved in meeting the needs of people around you. Who are the people and what are the needs that God is calling you to meet? When Jesus saw our need for forgiveness and grace – communion shows us that Jesus got involved – he gave his body and his blood for us. Communion shows us exactly how far God is willing to go to help us. As we share in this meal, we ask God to help us find those ways in which we can get involved and not just help, but give ourselves away for others.