The Call of Wisdom II: Welcoming Wisdom

Welcome to the

Whole Council Podcast. I'm Jon Snyder and with me again is Teddy James and we're going to be looking at the question of how do we respond to the voice of wisdom, to the voice of divine wisdom when it calls out to us.

And for that we looked at Proverbs chapter 1 last week to introduce the topic. We're looking at chapter 2 this week and that's where we're going to spend the rest of our weeks, in particular between verse 1 and 4.

But let me just remind our folks that in Proverbs chapter 1, wisdom is personified, divine wisdom.

The wisdom of God goes out and calls to humanity. It doesn't stay in the church building, so to speak.

It's not at the Holy of Holies, not even in a synagogue. It's certainly not on top of a mountain where only those who try really hard earn the right to converse with wisdom.

But wisdom amazingly seeks out humanity in all of its places.

And not just once, but continually calls it out. Stretching out its hand. How long, wisdom says to us, how long will you ignore if you will return to me?

And then wonderful promises of lives that are made whole in taking

God's wisdom, God's word and responding to it in the right way. But last week, we looked at the train wreck that happens when people say, perhaps, oh,

I believe the Bible and I, you know, I'm a Christian, but they don't really respond to the voice of God in scripture, to the wisdom of God calling out to them.

And this week, we want to contrast that with a very different life, a life that results from a right response to wisdom's call.

Even if you're the kind of person that has to say, I have faked it. I pretended to be a responding, believing person, a worshipping, following person, but I wasn't.

But today I hear and I'm coming. Or whether you have really embraced the truths of scripture, you know, the great gospel that brings us to God.

And every day since then, you've been opening your Bible and responding to wisdom's voice. All of us need to be reminded, what exactly do

I do with God's words when they come to me? So, let's look at the contrast, not the train wreck life, but the happy life, the life that is, you know, in this proverbial way described in a general way, a life with feet set on a path that is walking, listening to wisdom's voice.

And that's found in chapter two of Proverbs verse five. And we'll just have Teddy read down through verse 12.

Proverbs chapter two, starting in verse five, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God for the

Lord gives wisdom from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright.

He is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice and watching over the ways of his saints.

Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path for wisdom will come into your heart and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.

Discretion will watch over you. Understanding will guard you, delivering you from the way of evil, from men of perverted speech.

So this picture, you know, we could summarize it as a life that is guided by God's wisdom, a life that is guided by divine ability to take truth, to know the circumstances and to know how to apply the truth to that circumstance or a life that is skillful, morally skillful.

Well, and also this is the, um, the Christian life. This is not just a life that's only available to Christ.

So if you were to, you know, we talked about in, in chapter one, how wisdom personified is a, a pre -incarnate

Christ. This is not only describing Christ. This is describing the Christian life. Yeah.

It reminds me of Psalm 119, you know, the opening verses, how happy are those who walk this path of his word?

Um, so this is a picture of a happy life. It's not, it's not going to be a life.

And it's not going to be like the, uh, the promise of every moment of your life will be this.

Yeah. It's yeah. It's a general description. So you're looking back over a person's life, you know, at the end and you say they had a good life.

And this is what I mean by a good life. Um, so it's not a pain -free life. It's not a disappointment free.

It's not the kind of life that never sends you to the Lord. Um, you know, to cry out in prayer and confusion or as in, um,

Hamilton, when he was here, you know, a month ago, it's not the kind of life that doesn't include the

Psalms, which where we lay our complaints before him, God, I don't understand. It appears this way, but you say this.

And so I need to understand how these two are, you know, brought together.

It's not a, not a, not a fictional happy, you know, happily ever after life, but a real life that is worth living guided by God's wisdom and guarded by God's wisdom.

But how do we move from where we are to that? How do we go from being a train wreck of a life or a life that's headed on that path to a life that is described in chapter two?

It's going to take more than wanting it than admiring it in even more than good intentions.

There are some specific things. Yeah, absolutely. And Proverbs two versus one through four really give us the, the kind of the principles and the roadmap here.

Now they're not in order. They don't really build upon one another, but they are general principles that if we will follow, and if we will really look to, again, these are the things that will lead us to a path where we will have a life, a skilled life of applied wisdom.

So let me read that to you. Proverbs chapter two and verse one, my son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commands with you, making your ear intensive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding.

Yes. If you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as with hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the

Lord and find the knowledge of God. Yeah. So the, the word then verse five, then, and then what flows is the kind of life that is connected with a life that understands the, the, the magnitude, the rights, the claims, the beauty of God, the purity of God.

Knowing this God, we have that holy fear, that reverence. We are gripped by him rather than gripped by the bigness of anything else, which of course only appears to be big until we see

God again. So let's look at those things that are mentioned in verse one through four.

And this, these are the things that we're going to be looking at today. And then in the following weeks, one at a time, just simple, hopefully very practical and helpful ways to apply this passage, because these metaphors are,

I think just so simple. They're easy to carry with me throughout the week. And I do try to do this.

I, you know, I was thinking yesterday, picking up my Bible and reading and, and just thinking of the very first one, am

I doing what verse one said? Am I receiving? So here are the metaphors.

We are to receive his words. We are to treasure his commandments within us. So receive, treasure.

Reading from the New American Standard, verse two, we are to make our ear attentive. So bend your ear, you know, lean in.

I'm 55 now. And so I am finding that sometimes when people are talking in a room or, you know, the television's on, especially if it's

British, then, you know, the, the, the British accent, sometimes

I'm not picking it up clearly. So I lean a little like this. Are we doing that with the word of God?

That's number three. Number four, incline my heart toward understanding, bend my longings, my deepest desires toward what

God says. That's number four. Number five, crying out for discernment, lifting my voice for understanding.

We'll lump those together. Do I add prayer to the word when I'm receiving the word?

And number six, do I seek it like silver and search for it like hidden treasure?

So six things, and we'll be covering those. So we have one a week. So this is our first, the word receive.

So when we come to the word of God, whether we're listening to a sermon or sitting in a group

Bible study, or whether we're, um, listening to it, going down the road, uh, you know, exercising and listening to a sermon or, or the

Bible, the audio Bible, or whether you're studying it in your, in your, you know, in the privacy of your own quiet time or with your family.

Every time we come into contact with the word of God, we have the opportunity to be active. And we talked about this active listening, but what does that look like?

Simple picture. Will you, or will you not receive the word of God?

That question haunts me. I'm opening the Bible. I'm reading. I think of all the things, you know, this would help so -and -so.

This would be great for our church. This would be great for a podcast. This is a beautiful thought. You know, it's so captivating.

You know, I forgot that was there, or I never saw it that way. Well, wonderful. But John, the question is, will you receive wisdom's words?

And John, the question. So when we use the word receive, there's a lot of denominations and a lot of churches out there who would use the, uh, almost a, a name it and claim it type of mentality when it comes to receiving

God's word. So, uh, before we get too far into it, into this metaphor, I'd like us to, uh, kind of contrast those two things.

So what do we mean? And what, how could that be, uh, how could the term receive be abused in some different ways?

Yeah, I think, you know, there, there are quite a few differences between what the, what

Solomon is saying here in Proverbs two and in kind of a modern, you know, kind of name it and claim it, uh, type of prosperity approach to the, to the word of God.

I think though, if we could just limit it right now to the difference in the activity, in the action.

So receiving, what do we mean? I think that it is easy to slip into kind of a cultural attitude and you don't have to go to a prosperity gospel church to have this attitude.

The, the attitude that all I have to do is when I see something wonderful in the scripture, I just say,

Oh yeah, you know, um, I'm all for it. I mean, I'm in agreement with that one. Like, that's a great, you know, and the

Lord's just going to bless us. And, you know, and there's this kind of a shallow, um, tipping your hat to it.

Oh, I agree with that. You know, that's a great verse and, you know, and God's just going to do it for us, but it's this, it's the kind of shallow acceptance of a verse, you know, uh, officially accepting it as true that doesn't endure when life gets real, but also it's passive, you know, it's just like, you know, okay.

So Jesus said, he's going to give his people this. And you don't look at the context. Well, how does he say he'll give it?

Uh, when does he say he will give it? You know, uh, you know, so you're not looking at what the Bible really says.

You're just picking a phrase that you find appealing. You know, God said, he's going to give it to me.

So I'm just gonna, I'm just going to receive it by faith. And what we really mean is kind of positive thinking because faith is more faith is really laboring to understand what does he mean by what he says?

So I don't twist his word. And then receiving is taking that word into every part of my life, my relationships, my thoughts, my imaginations, my memory, my desires, my, my, my speech patterns, you know, my bank account, my television, my living room, my kitchen, everywhere.

And taking the word of God and saying, okay, I have studied your word, father, and this is what you say.

So how will this change each of these areas of my life?

I want it to have unrestricted access. And that's a very active thing.

Uh, you know, it's intentional and it's so hard. I find personally to move from appreciating scripture.

So I'm not saying name it and claim it, but I'm saying, wow, what a wonderful verse. What a wonderful doctrine.

I understand how it fits with other things better. Now I appreciate it at a distance or I can go and grab it and say, come in and I can intentionally make sure it is received.

It is the difference between, uh, you know, what you just said, uh, just kind of gives me a mental image of, you know, we can appreciate a truth in the same way that we appreciate a picture, you know, and, and it's a puzzle piece and we say, oh, well, okay, now

I know where, where this puzzle piece goes and it fits right here and it's just perfect fit. And then we hang it up on the wall and it's just pretty to look at.

And I think that a lot of truth, that's exactly what we do. We receive it in that way. Like it's, yep, that's nice. And I appreciate it.

But really these are truths that we are, that they're tools. They're meant to be there.

They're, I mean, weapons of the Christian war where they should be rusted and bloody and they should be dirty and we should have to, we have to sharpen them.

We have to use them and clean them. That's what it means to receive the word of God. It is to receive it and to put it to use for which it was given.

Yeah. The Hebrew word here. Um, I'm a little surprised that the, um, that the translators use the word receive.

It's not a bad translation. And I suppose it's perhaps the best because it, it conveys more than one idea, but I just don't want us to get half the idea.

The sense of take. So if you look at all the uses of this Hebrew word throughout the old

Testament, take is the idea. So receive is a fine translation because it's taking something that God is giving.

So wisdom is seeking you out. You're not climbing the mountain and saying to God, okay, I've earned it.

I'm going to take it for myself. No, God has pursued you and he has sought you.

And you, you know, they're by grace. I mean, this is where the Christian life starts. James talks about receiving the engrafted word, the gospel comes, the spirit of God opens your eyes.

And instead of running from God, instead of putting your fingers in your ears and turning your heart to something else, because everything that has to do with God, while you might say it's a noble thing, but you know, you have no appetite for it.

But now there's an appetite. Now there's a hunger for what's real and enduringly good.

Now you see it for what it really is. Now you choose it. And so God is giving and you're receiving, but that receiving could also be called taking, taking what is offered.

Here's here, I think for myself, and maybe for the folks that listen to us and, you know, go to churches similar to church that we attend,

I think the greater danger will be that you have a passive view of the word receive.

So if I say, Teddy, take this and you go, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

Teddy, take this. No, no, really, John. No, take it, Teddy. No, I want you to have it.

And let's say you look down, your hands are kind of full and you go, well, hold on. You can, I'll find a place. Oh, just kind of put it right there.

I don't have room for it, but you know, he wants to give it to me. So I don't want to be rude anymore. If we think that receive means don't reject, then we're wrong.

It's more than that. Take it, take the word, take wisdom's words into you, take them, be intentional.

Do not assume it's happening just because you're hearing it, just because you're writing down notes. You and I both take notes.

You know, probably every time I read my Bible, I have a pen and paper. Every time I come to Wednesday night church, you know, and Chuck's preaching,

I have a pen and a notepad because I think I want, I want to write down things that the

Lord is so clearly using Chuck to point out. And that's not receiving.

That's great, but it's not enough if I don't take it. Yeah, it's absolutely right.

There was a, I don't know if you ever read the Babylon Bee, there was a Babylon Bee article that stuck with me because it was, it was one of those, it was too close to home for comfort, but it says, you know, man writes notes in pews, never to be looked at again.

And I think that often what we do is we tend to, we'll think that by doing an action, so maybe taking notes or maybe listening to a podcast or a sermon a second time or anything like that, we think that, okay, well, if I do this, that means it is active listening.

And it's so easy for us to deceive ourselves into thinking that. No, it is that, is it, was it

Joseph Alain who wrote Taking Heaven by Storm? Uh, no, I think, okay, you're gonna, you're calling me on it now.

I forget. I think it's Thomas Watson. Okay. Okay. But when you were talking about taking, that's what came to my mind because it is that heaven is offered.

Salvation is offered, but it's also the taking of it. And we have to take this wisdom that God is offering.

But like you were saying too, it does require, we have to, we have to give it every area of our life.

And not only that, but we have to take it to every area of our life. Yeah. Let me give you an example from the

New Testament. In the New Testament, in first Thessalonians chapter two, by the way, if you want to see the dynamic of a healthy church, look at first Thessalonians chapter one and chapter two, it speaks a lot about what

God is doing when a man shows up and preaches the truth, how the man is living, what the man understands

God to be doing through his words, through his teaching. And then chapter two talks so much about, uh, you know, how

Paul views himself like, like a tender nursing mother, like a father who, you know, is guiding the children, uh, with a strong love.

Um, you know, and it talks about how they're responding to his words. And in verse 13 of first Thessalonians chapter two, he does talk about how they respond and that's required for what

Paul says for this not to have been in vain. I know that when we came to you, he says it wasn't in vain.

It wasn't a waste of time, you know, for them, it benefited them. How do we know what went into that?

Well, listen to verse 13, because it gives two fundamental verbs, which are both very similar to the old

Testament verb for to receive or take. And in the new American standard, verse 13 reads this way.

For this reason, we also constantly thank God. What makes the preacher thankful that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it.

There's our two verbs, receive and accept. You accepted it, not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe.

All right, let's take those two verbs. In the Greek, the word receive and the word accept translated that way.

The Greek word for receive here is very similar to the old

Testament Hebrew word for receive in Proverbs chapter two. It means to take, to take what is offered.

It's offered, but the offer is not enough. You're going to have to reach out and take it in. And it's not just at conversion.

Paul's talking to people that have been Christians for some time. They embraced it in the initial and they continue to embrace it.

They continue to take what Paul said and what others later will say as not just clever speech from men, but these are the words that God sends to them.

But then this second word, and I really love this because it adds a different dimension. The word accept, it means to approve and therefore welcome.

Okay. So there are people that come to your front porch all the time, especially during election season.

They knock on your door, you open the door, you size them up.

What are they here for? Who is this? I don't know this person. Are they here to sell something?

Are they here to fix something? Are they here because there's some problem that they need help with?

No, you hear them and they start to talk about themselves. They're selling themselves. They're saying, vote for me.

There's nothing wrong with that, but probably most of us aren't excited when we find out that the person that got on our front porch and interrupted us from supper is a person wanting us to vote for them for some local political office.

We size them up. Do we bring them on inside? Well, depends on who they are and what they're there for.

Now, when the word of God comes and you're hearing or you're reading, you're studying, you're thinking about it, will you size that word up?

Will you look at it? Will you approve that word and therefore welcome it in?

Or will you say, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That was a good sermon. Thanks. Stay on the porch.

Or that's a great passage. Stay on the porch. I'm not welcoming you into and letting you just have, you know, free run, you know, free reign in my life.

So now every time we hear the word, every time we read the word of God, there's a choice in front of us.

So simple. Will you take it? Will you approve what

God is saying and therefore welcome it in? Let's think of some practical applications.

Yeah. Um, you know, I think that the first thing that comes to mind is really, how would we, what would it look like if we did not take or receive?

Well, you know, I think that it would often mean, okay, well, when I'm going to have my quiet time, I'm going to go to those, those verses, those passages, or even those books that I know are particularly encouraging to me.

And I'm going to neglect or, um, skim over the passages that are particularly troubling to me or things that I find bothersome and convicting.

Um, you know, when I come to those imperatives where that I know I'm not doing, um, you know, it may mean we skip those or we just, yep, that's true.

And I move on to something a little more comfortable. Yeah. We could call that selective listening, you know, selective.

So some passages I'm approving and welcoming in because I find them beneficial right now.

Some passages I'm hearing and I'm thinking, well, that's, uh, that that's really great, but I'm leaving the door shut.

My, you know, the door is cracked open the chains on the door. Which is important because I think that what you're getting at is it's not just that we leave ourselves open to the word, but we leave ourselves open to all of the word.

Yeah. So I suppose we could sum it up this way. Here would be the principle application in my the basic principles of it.

I must not be selective with the word. I must be open to all that God says from Genesis to revelation.

I must not have favorites. As you mentioned, I must also not be restrictive for this word.

So I let all the Bible in a piece at a time. I take it in. I approve it.

I welcome it. Come in. You're from, I know who you are. You're from the King. So come in.

And then I don't restrain or restrict that word to certain areas and then say, but these other areas are not open to you right now.

Um, you know, so we can, we can fall in love with the Psalms, but we don't like Ezekiel.

We, you know, we love the historical narratives of the old Testament, but the theological deep into the pool in Romans or Colossians or Ephesians or Galatians.

Well, you know, we're just not that much into that. It comes down to, do you believe that every word of God is from God himself?

And I remember several years ago, um, you were, I can't remember exactly where it was you were teaching, but you did make the comment for, for younger believers, particularly do not let your life be over.

You've had years of being a believer. Don't let any passage of scripture go unstudied.

Yeah. Yeah. Every page, you know, mine, every shaft it's, it might be frightening.

You know, I would think it would be frightening at times. I feel very claustrophobic underground. I think it would be frightening to go into, you know, the shafts of the old, you know, gold mines or silver mines or copper mines, but what's there, if you find it, if you make the effort, it's good, you know, and it's from the

King and it's worth selling everything to have those truths into the life.

It, it leads to this, that those verses that you read. So don't be selective portions of scripture that you willfully neglect that you don't even know what those chapters are about.

Who knows what areas of your life would be transformed if you made sure you looked at all that the book of Amos said, or Zephaniah who knows what unsought on, you know, unplowed, unsearched treasures there are in these passages that we've neglected.

So another way though, that we mentioned is that we take these words of divine wisdom and we restrain which areas of life they go into.

Let me give a couple of examples. And I'm going to just quickly give them and we can give in our show notes, we can give exactly, you know, the, where they're found in so folks can read them on your own.

So think of this, think of words that we restrict at the end of Philippians one,

Paul talks about God giving a gift to the church, and this is a persecuted people go back and look at acts, see how they're treated.

And he mentions actually two gifts to you. It has been granted to believe what we say.

Faith is a gift. That's a wonderful truth. And we, you know, we look at that and we say,

I love that truth. Come on in. Faith is a gift and we welcome it in. We take it.

Then he says, it's been granted to you both to believe and to suffer for Christ's sake.

You've been given faith for the honor of Christ so that people can see the greatness of Christ as you cling to those truths of Christ and they see him reflected in you.

But you've also been given the gift for the honor of Christ to suffer, to be treated unjustly, to be misunderstood, to be misrepresented, to be mistreated because you love

Christ. And that's a gift because that's a billboard that God will give you to show loved ones, to show the world the greatness, the reality, the loveliness of Christ.

So we come to that verse and we say, whoa, it's been given to me to suffer for Christ's sake.

Well, I'm not sure. I'm not sure I approve of that gift. I'm not going to say that I don't believe the

Bible, I'm not going to quit going to church or quit reading my Bible. I'll just keep moving along in chapter one, get to chapter two.

I'll just keep moving through Philippians, but I'll leave that verse on the front porch.

I will not welcome it in. It will not be allowed to go everywhere. Think, how would that affect the way

I acted at work? If I took that verse and said, come in, I grab it, I pull it in and I usher it with me on Monday and I'm misunderstood, misrepresented and mistreated because I'm a

Christian. And I'm tempted to jump in with all the others that feel that they're victims in our day. And I jump in with the conservatives who feel that they're the underdogs in the present cultural setting.

And I complained that my rights are being overlooked and other people's rights are being exalted above mine.

Or think of the parent who, they're with an adult child and they're having conversations and what they're saying is being misrepresented and they endure.

Yeah. A wife whose husband is not a believer, and she's trying to live the

Christian life in front of him out of love for Christ, but also out of love for his soul. And instead of appreciating it, he takes advantage of it.

And she might think, I cannot bring that verse and welcome it into our marriage because if I do, he will use it as an opportunity to treat me like a welcome mat.

So that's one example. Let me give you another. In Philippians again, chapter two, verse three,

Paul says, do not merely think about or consider or be concerned about your own personal interest, but also for the interest of others.

So consider them as more important than yourself, he says. And we say, well, that's great. And I can see people welcoming that word and taking it on and come on in.

Where should I sit? Not here. There's a room called church in the back.

Sundays, Wednesdays, and some special days, that room is wide open. So you just come and why don't you sit with me in the room of church?

And I show up at church and I look around and I think, you know, I need to be thoughtful. I need to consider the needs of these people around me.

And that's great. But if you have locked that verse in that room, and again, you don't take it to school, you don't take it to work, you don't take it into your marriage, you don't take it into your home where a brother looks at his sister, a sister at a brother and says, so I'm supposed to apply this here?

Yes. Let me give you another example, slightly different.

Sometimes we don't take and welcome the truth in because it's so good that it seems for the

Christian in particular, it seems it cannot be for me. Now, when I was lost, every promise and every expression of love and every grand statement of grace in the

Bible, I found so easy to say, oh, I believe it. I believe it. You know what I mean? Why wouldn't

God love me? Yeah. I'm feeling pretty lovable right now. Or if I'm doing really poorly right now, you know,

I'm sinning willfully. Well, don't worry, just give me a few days and I'll get my act together and I'll be lovable again.

But the Christian who alone sees the truth about God and begins to see the truth about themselves, they feel that those oftentimes

I find Christians feel that the expressions of God's amazing grace are the hardest to believe, not the warnings, not the frightening verses.

Well, it's often because we, you know, Christians believe, oh, well, I'm deserving of the warning. That warning is for me.

The promise, the blessing, not so much. Those are for better Christians than I.

Yeah. And ultimately it's rooted in a wrong understanding of where those are coming from.

Those have to be earned. They do, but not by us. Okay. No, wait a minute. The blessings have to be earned.

Oh, yes. Yeah. All those promises, they're earned. They're earned by our representative and he is free now.

Gladly as the fulfillment of the triune God's great plans of mercy, the son of God is the treasurer and he is free to open the doors of all these promised mercies and give them to us in a way that is best at the right time and the right amount.

So it's Christ that's earned them, not us. But even when we say that theologically, there are times where you look in the mirror spiritually and you think,

I don't think he could love me. He can tolerate me. He can put up with me.

He can keep his word to me because he's so great, but he cannot delight in me.

Zephaniah 3 .16. Yeah. Yeah. I think that those are some of the most difficult passages to say, is it true,

God? So it's on the front porch. Think of it this way. Do you bring it?

Do you take it in? Do you dare believe it and let it transform? Are you afraid that if I believe that God delights in me and has united me to Christ and with his love, he has made me lovely in his own eyes.

He has begraced me. He has, you know, made me gracious in his sight by his grace.

So in Christ, I'm the delight of the father. If I believe that, oh,

I'll just go down the road of antinomianism. I'll become a self -centered monster of a hypocrite. Well, no, the

Christian can't do that because the love of Christ creates a love in us for himself and love for Christ moves us to obey.

So here's what I mean. So let me give this illustration.

Here are these verses that come to us as we're reading and listening, and they're not scary verses.

They're not costly verses like the others. They are so big they don't fit through the front door of our understanding or of our belief.

Let's say our front door is not a normal front door. It's not the six foot eight threshold. It's a little front door.

Our church has... As in Wonderland. Yeah. Our church has a couple of little doors. We have doors that have arches, the old kind of Gothic arch.

And so we have had people that have come and they've had to duck to get in. Now, no

Snyder ever has to duck, but hobbits can get right in. Well, let's imagine that the size of the door on your front porch is measured by whether you believe

God or not. And so with doubt, looking at yourself for the measure, your door is so little.

And here comes a statement about God's love. Like in Revelation one, that Christ is the faithful witness.

He wouldn't lie to us. He is the one who has freed us, washed us from our sins.

You know, or Ephesians two, that we are exalted with Christ by virtue of that union.

And we are seated with Christ in the heavenlies. Now that's not an easy passage to explain, but if we will study and come to an understanding of what

Paul's talking about right there, is it too big to get in through the front door? Or Romans eight, all things work together for good.

Well, we know that verse. We say, that's a wonderful verse. You just sit on the front porch, stay there. That's a great verse.

I love it when that verse is on the front porch, but will you bring it into every area of your life? And will you kill the root of complaint and murmuring?

And will you gather from it the kind of strengthening hope that moves a person to run the race of obedience in a way you could never have run without that verse?

You say, well, I'd like to, but I can't get it in the front door. So what we do, what I'm tempted to do is to shrink it.

I say, well, you know, most things work together for good. Or God loves me most of the time.

When I'm lovely, He loves me. And God washes me, my sins, most of my sins.

But this one I've returned to. And I imagine that He's probably gonna hold that one against me.

I mean, I would. So there is the temptation not to take, not to approve and welcome the word of God.

There's the temptation to do that by trying to shrink the statements of grace to a place where you feel, okay, well,

I feel like I deserve that one. But it's dangerous.

I don't know which one's more dangerous. A Christian saying, oh, that command, whew, I don't like that command.

So I'm gonna leave it on the porch. And my marriage isn't gonna be changed. My business practices, my television remote control will not be altered by that command or that gracious statement.

Ah. I think that that's backwards, though. I think that if we don't have the promises, we can't follow the commands.

That's true. Yeah. And we think it's, I think I use it as penance. Exactly. If I don't let myself.

We say like, oh, well, I have to do this. And because I haven't done this, I can't do this. Yeah. I won't let myself take all that scripture says is legitimately mine because I'm in Christ.

Now, I'm not talking about warping the Bible again, coming to it and saying, why Jesus says he gives us victory.

I'm just going to claim victory in every area. And, you know, well, we're not talking about that. We're talking about taking the

Bible seriously, interpreting it correctly. But once you do, do not dare reduce, do not stumble at the magnitude of his love, because it's the magnitude of his love that will be the fuel for holy living.

And it will not make you more holy to take less of the love. And one great example is

Romans chapter four, where Paul says that Abraham, as the, you know, archetype of faith, he did not turn back, nor did he stumble at the promises.

In other words, even though those promises were hard to believe, if you're looking, you know, he, he didn't find it effortless, but as a description of the whole of his life, he didn't reduce them and say, well,

God can't mean this. And so, and then, you know, and his entire life walks off on the wrong path. Unless you think this is only something that happened in biblical characters.

As we mentioned a few weeks back, John, I'm reading through the Hudson Taylor biography and I've just finished volume one.

And the ending of that volume, Hudson Taylor is taking over the hospital because Dr.

Parker's wife passed away and he's taken his children. They've gone back into England. And so Hudson Taylor with his young daughter and, and wife who has just gotten sick and she's gotten over it.

So many problems are coming his way. There's no money for the hospital. And there's one bag of rice for all the hospital patients and all the outpatients and his, the guy who was taking care of all the food comes to him and says, okay,

Mr. Taylor, we've opened the last bag of rice and there's no, there's no money. Taylor looks at him and says, well, then the

Lord's hand of deliverance is near. That type of faith, that is a life that was so built and grounded upon or founded upon the promises of God and of God's faithfulness that he didn't let it stagger and stumble when all the problems of life crashed against him.

Yeah. Taylor is such, such a heartening and convicting friend to us.

You know, when you think of living upon the faithfulness of God. Well, next week we'll look at the second of the six things.

Will we approve, welcome in or take his words?

Also second, will we treasure his commandments within us? And we'll look at that next week.