What Does Wisdom Say? - [Ecclesiastes 8:14-17]

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When I was younger, we had to pick a language in school to learn how to study a non -English language and I picked
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Spanish and so I did quite a few years of Spanish. And then in seminary, we had to learn common
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Greek called Koine Greek, the New Testament's written in that. And we had to learn Hebrew, biblical
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Hebrew. Today we got a couple Aramaic words, did we not in Daniel five. And the only way you can really memorize languages is by repetition.
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As you know, some of us are going to Israel in the spring and I thought, you know, I've never learned modern
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Hebrew. So I've been trying to learn some modern Hebrew. And this week I was learning some slang of modern
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Hebrew that they got from the Arabic. And if you wanna say, let's go, you say, yallah.
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Yallah, let's go. If you're really excited about wanting to go someplace, you say, sababa. Oh, sababa, let's go.
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And I think, oh, these are kind of fun to say, right? I'll say to Kim, yallah. And I want her to say, sababa.
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And if something's kind of sweet, not by taste, but you're like, yeah, that's really sweet. You know, you're affirming.
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You say, akhla, akhla. And if you wanna say, bummer, it's the opposite of sweet, you say, basa.
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And of course in America, we say, excuse me, or maybe you say, kon permiso, could
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I please get through? But you're in the Middle East, you say, move out of the way. And so when you say, move out of the way, you're in front of me, you just say, zoos.
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And if they're a lady, then you put a Y on there to make it a little nicer, zoosy. I have watched a video of these five slang words so many times this week, it's not funny.
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I keep forgetting them. Is it baba? Is it sabama? Is it yallah?
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Is it yellow? I mean, I can't remember. The only way I can remember is by repetition, over and over and over, yallah, akhla, and all this kind of stuff.
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You say, what does this have to do with anything in the book of Ecclesiastes? It has everything to do with it.
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Because you know what the Solomon does? He repeats things over and over and over.
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He said these things so many times, and he's gonna say them in the future as well. He's gonna say things like, fear
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God. Yeah, well, haven't we heard about that like three times before? Won't he talk about that in chapter 12 as well?
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He talks about everything's vanity, over and over and over. Everything's striving after wind. Everything's chasing the wind.
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Death is certain. Enjoy God when you can. Enjoy nice gifts when you can. It seemed like he's repeating things over and over and over.
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And the question we asked this morning is, why do you think he's repeating those things over, over, and over?
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What's the answer? So that we get them, right? So that we understand. And my response to you, dear congregation, is, ahla, sweet.
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Turn your Bibles to Ecclesiastes chapter eight. We are in this book, and if you're new to our church, welcome.
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We are called Bethlehem Bible Church for a reason. New Testament readings, long old Testament readings, and a sermon from God's word.
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Verse by verse by verse, chapter by chapter, through books of the Bible. And we're in the book of Ecclesiastes.
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This is called wisdom literature. You can think of Job. You can think of Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon.
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It's designed with one purpose, to give us wisdom. And of course, because of the fall, because of sin, we tend to be ignorant about things, foolish about things.
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And all of us, because we're Christians, we'd like to live a life that is commensurate with our calling.
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The Lord has saved us and redeemed us, and we'd like to live a life of gratitude and to live a wise life.
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Actually, it'll go better for us if we do live a wise life, and it'll give Him glory and honor.
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It certainly won't change our position. If you're justified, you're justified. You can't be more justified.
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Did you know that? If God has justified you, you've trusted in Christ Jesus, you can't be more justified. If He has made you born again and He's regenerated you, there are no degrees of that.
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You are as regenerated as the most holy person on earth, as much regenerated as Paul was, or Peter.
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But since we are justified, since we are regenerated, since God is working in us, the
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Spirit is in us, we have that internal drive. It's not an internal drive, really, it's the person, the
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Holy Spirit, and He's helping us and guiding us and motivating us to be wise. And so today, we're looking at Ecclesiastes' big picture.
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We want to be wise. What does wisdom look like? What does it sound like? How can Christians be wise?
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And we got to chapter eight, and eight basically kind of lays out what wisdom teaches us to say.
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What does wisdom say? That was our outline from last week, four speeches, if you will, that wisdom says.
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What does wisdom say? And we got through the first two, we'll review those, and there are two more. So we're gonna look at Ecclesiastes 8.
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What does wisdom say? By the way, that's really an ongoing refrain in the
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Bible. What shall we say? Can you think of different verses in the Bible? What shall we say then?
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What shall we say? There's a truth presented, and then there's a question, what shall we say? In Romans, what shall we say then?
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Chapter six, verse one. Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? What do we say? The answer is no.
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Ahla. I just kind of like to say that. What shall we say to these things?
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If God is for us, who can be against us? He did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all.
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How will He not also with Him graciously give us all things? What do we say to that?
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We say, that's true. Thank you, Lord. You give us the greatest gift. You give us the smaller gifts.
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Romans nine. What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means.
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God's sovereign, He can do whatever He wants. And what do we say to God's sovereignty? How could you? That's not fair.
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No, we say there's no injustice with God. So there's lots of times we see this sane.
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What would God say? What do we respond? By sane. And so today we come to Ecclesiastes eight and in the middle of a world filled with crookedness, wickedness, perversion, inequities, unrighteousness, sin.
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What do we say? What do you say? Okay, Sarah, Sarah. Well, Solomon says, wisdom teaches us to say number one, verses one to nine.
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Wisdom says to the King, rule righteously. Rule righteously.
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Now, as you know, Solomon writes this book. He says in chapter seven, sin affects the fools.
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Sin affects the wise. Does sin affect Solomon? Does Solomon need wisdom?
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If Solomon has people next to him in his court, the courtier should be sane. Solomon, that's probably not too smart.
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I know whatever you say goes. It's the laws of the King and whatever you say.
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But here's what I would suggest that you consider. And so Solomon says right here in verse one and following, make sure you say to Kings, be careful.
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Verse one in review. Who is like the wise and who knows the interpretation of a thing?
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You can begin to think already about Joseph and of course, later in history, Daniel that we talked about today in Daniel five.
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A man's wisdom makes his face shine. Hardness of his face has changed. I say, and literally in the
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Hebrew, it's say. Say this, here's what Solomon wants his courtyard people to tell him, his wise counselors.
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Keep the King's command. Keep the mouth of the King literally because of God's oath to him.
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Kings need counselors and you need to guard what I say and to protect what
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I say. Not keep it like hide it under a bushel kind of keeping. No, no, keep like protect.
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These are keepsakes to be protected. And what I say needs to be influenced by wisdom. So make sure if you're in the presence of a
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King, you're telling him guard the doors of your mouth like Micah seven says.
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So we talked about that last week through this entire section verses one through nine. And for us, remember
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I had you raise your hand. How many of you are kind of the White House chief of staff? Maybe you really are, but you just haven't told me.
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If you're in the White House and you are the chief of staff, you know what you should be saying to the president? Rule wisely, be careful, cause and effect.
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This is a good thing you did. Be careful here. Kings need wisdom because sin affects all. And we looked at last week, the only way we really can flesh that out, a good practical application is found in first Timothy chapter two.
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I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgiving be made for all people. For Kings and all who are in high positions that we may live a peaceful and quiet life.
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Godly and dignified in every way. This is good and it is pleasing in the sight of God, our savior, who desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.
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There's one God, one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all.
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The King here, Solomon says, I need because of sin to rule wisely, so tell me wise things.
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That's the first thing in the passage that wisdom says, rule wisely King. Secondly, we saw, at least initially saw, verses 10 through 13.
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What does wisdom say? It says, King rule righteously. We could pray for that in our country, but it also says in verses 10, 11, 12 and 13, it says something like this.
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This is what wisdom says. Our father who art in heaven. And where we got that was several times in this section, it's the fear of the
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Lord. Do you see it in verse 12? Those who fear God because they fear before him. Twice in that one verse, verse 13.
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It's not well with the wicked, neither he will prolong his days like a shadow because he does not fear before God.
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And of course we get that with the Lord Jesus when he said, pray this way, big guy in the sky.
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Pray this way. Hey, pal. Hey, buddy. Our father, he is our father, right?
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Because of the Lord. Who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
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There's this reverence, there's this awe. And we ought to make sure we're people who fear
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God. Do you know the world is characterized basically by this? There's no fear of God in their eyes. Would that be true?
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That's Romans chapter three. That describes us before we were saved. And it describes the world. They don't seem to be afraid at all.
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But Christians should fear God. We should fear God. We should have that caution. We should have that desire to say, as Pradeep was praying even,
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God, you're so great. I wanna honor you. I wanna walk cautiously. And I wanna do the right things.
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Not to get saved, not to stay saved. I'm your child because of the work of Christ. He's earned righteousness for me.
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He's paid for my unrighteousness. I'm a child of God. I'm born again. I'm being sanctified. I will be glorified.
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There's no condemnation for me. Perfect love, cast out fear. But I still, there's some kind of fear
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I should have. And that's what we were talking about last time. Now in preaching class, lots of times we'll tell students, go to a passage like Ecclesiastes.
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Take your fist and kind of make the little crease in your Bible and then just stay there.
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Because sometimes pastors start doing what I call audible preaching. How many people here know what a quarterback is in football?
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He comes up to the line. Some, they raise their hands. The young people, you're listening. I'm glad for that.
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No watching football on the Sabbath. And they say in slang
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Hebrew, basa. It's kind of like, you know, 424, 683, 1423, 143.
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And they're just going, going, going. I want to have you see things in context. But I would like to flesh this out a little bit.
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So we're going to look at a few other passages. Turn to 1 Peter 1, because I really want you to understand what fearing
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God is for the Christian. If you're an unbeliever, it's a terrifying fear. It's a fear,
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I've offended the God of the universe and sinned against Him. And I'm going to have to pay for that. I'm going to have to go to hell for that.
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I'm going to be punished for that. I have guilt because of that. And it's a real fear. It's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living
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God. But I'm telling you, based on scripture, that fear doesn't, the fear of God doesn't go away when we become
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Christians, but we have a certain kind of fear now. And it's a different fear because we have a different relationship to the
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King. 1 Peter shows this, and I want you to see it. Verse 14 of chapter one, 1
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Peter chapter one. He's been talking about how great God is earlier in the chapter and how He's made us born again.
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And now we come to the holy living section and holy living is important. As obedient children, 1
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Peter 1, 14, do not be conformed or pressed into the mold of to the passions of your former ignorance.
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But as He who has called you is holy, He's separate, He's transcendent,
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He's other. You also ought to be holy in all your conduct. Instead of unholy like unbelievers, we're to be holy.
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And then He says something that's fascinating, and this is part of that fear issue. And if you call on Him, that word and theirs probably best translated even.
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The Greek word could be translated either. Even if you call on Him as Father, you can call on God as Father, can you not?
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Our Father who art in heaven. But when you do, what does He say here in the context of holy living?
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Who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, not for condemnation, but for reward.
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Conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you are ransomed from the feudal ways inherited from your forefathers.
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Not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.
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You get to call God Father, but you conduct yourself with fear because you want to obey Him and honor
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Him. You want to do the right thing. It guards us from just living an unholy life.
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Luke 1, His mercy extends to those who fear Him. 2 Corinthians 7, make holiness perfect in the fear of God.
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Philippians 2, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Love the brotherhood, 1
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Peter. Fear God, honor the King. If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins,
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O Lord, who could stand? But with you there's forgiveness, therefore you are to be feared.
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I know what you're thinking. You might be thinking, listen, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and I think we should fear
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God, and you're trying to tell me fear's definition is based on my relationship to God.
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If I'm an unbeliever, it's a servile fear, a crouching fear, and you're telling me that if I'm a believer, it's the fear of a son or a daughter who has a great father.
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You're telling me, Pastor Mike, that it's all about your relationship to God. How do you fear
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Him? I'm glad you asked those questions because that's exactly what I'm saying. Now, here's how I can prove my point, if I haven't proved it.
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And if I have proved it, repetition is good. Did I say that earlier? Did Jesus fear
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God? On earth, eternal Son assumes human nature.
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Did Jesus fear God? I hope you don't think Jesus is walking around going, oh,
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Damocles' sword, here it comes. Better be careful. This is a reason for me to be motivated because I'm gonna do something wrong and the
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Father's gonna kind of whack me. And some of us might be thinking, you know what?
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We've got bad fathers on earth. And every time I say father, you think of your bad father. There's a different kind of father here.
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And I'm sorry you think that. I sometimes think it too. When we were gonna be in the car, I had a brother and a sister and a mom and we'd have these cars.
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And you know, dad had rules about the car. You'd have some 57 Bel Air Chevy and there's no eating in the car.
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And I didn't care about the no eating part. I just wanted the seat behind dad. I call the seat behind dad.
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Well, there's no room. He's 6 '4", 240. Why do I want the seat behind dad? Because it's hard to hit the person back there.
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These two, my brother and sister, because I love them so much, I thought they ought to be hit. I know our fathers weren't perfect, but there is a heavenly father who is perfect.
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And I'd like you to turn to Isaiah 11 and I want you to see Jesus, how he not only fears
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God, but he delights in it. He delights in fearing God. It's so counterintuitive. How could
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Jesus delight in fearing God? Hmm, interesting.
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If fearing God is associated with Christians who want to live holy lives and want to avoid sin and to walk cautiously as fruit and evidence of their life, it makes all the sense in the world.
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If an unbeliever is typified by there's no fear of God in their eyes, well, what would Jesus incarnate be doing?
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There is fear of God in his eyes, but is it the right kind of fear? What kind of fear is it? Isaiah 11 is talking about this righteous branch and it is what we call a messianic section.
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It's about the Messiah. It's predicting who Jesus is. It's a prediction of Jesus. It's a prophecy.
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Isaiah 11, one, there shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse and a branch from his root shall bear fruit.
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And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. Him meaning the second person in Trinity, Jesus.
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The spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and what?
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The fear of the Lord. And then verse three, and his delight shall be in the fear of the
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Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes sees or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.
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And he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips, he shall kill the wicked.
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You wanna know what the armor of God is? This is where Ephesians finds it, here and elsewhere. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist and faithfulness, the belt of his loins.
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Did you know Jesus delighted in fearing God? And it's perfectly fine for us to do.
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We should delight in fearing God. Wouldn't it typify
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Jesus to be filled in his heart with honor for God and adoration for God and respect for God and awe and reverence and delight in?
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The answer is yes, yes, yes, and yes. Hebrews 5, in the days of his flesh,
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Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from his death.
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And Jesus was heard because of his fear or reverence.
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That is amazing. Because of his fear, because of his walking circumspectly, this isn't phobos fear, like a phobia fear.
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This is, I'm gonna be super careful with what I do. I'm gonna act cautiously. I'm gonna handle with care.
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I'm walking in a godly fashion. And so if we can take our
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Bibles and turn back to Ecclesiastes, I want you to know, dear Christian, that you're to fear
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God, not like an unbeliever, not like a pagan, not like somebody who's under the wrath of God, but you as a
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Christian, you as a child of God adopted in the kingdom. Yes, you can cry out Abba, Father, in Romans chapter eight, can you not?
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But still, he's a father that's not like your father on earth. He's holy, he's transcendent.
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And you can delight in that. He's so great, I want to obey. I mean, we talk a lot about friendship evangelism.
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I wish they would add this fear aspect to this friendship evangelism, because I can't evangelize if I don't open my mouth.
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But the reason why I should want to live a holy life is not so people primarily look at me and say, what's different about Mike?
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Maybe I should ask him, are you a Christian? What makes you different? That's fine if you want to live that way, but that's not the priority.
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The priority is I want to live a holy life because I'm careful to walk in God's presence because he's so great.
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I'm not going to lose my salvation if I sin, but I'm going to not make him look good and I don't want to do that after everything he's done for me and who he is for me.
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I still should actually be under the old kind of fear of God. Fear and trembling that I'm going to die and go to hell.
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Have you ever thought that? When you were first processing this? Maybe when you're younger. If I die today,
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I'm going to go to hell. And left to myself,
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I am. What do you have to do to go to hell now after Adam's sin? Nothing.
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And now God rescued me and he saved me. It was prophesied even in the Old Testament.
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This great king who is going to come, this great prophet who is going to come, this great priest, and he's rescued me. And he's still great.
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He's still worthy to be praised. He's not my chum, he's my brother, Jesus is. That's certainly true, but I just ought to walk in a manner worthy of my calling.
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That's the idea. What else does wisdom say? Ecclesiastes chapter eight, verses 14 through 15.
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Wisdom says, king rule righteously. Wisdom says, our father who art in heaven, our fear God.
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Wisdom says, third, thank you. Wisdom says, thank you.
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Verses 14 and 15. My dad, a Korean War vet,
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I was not allowed to call him sir growing up, but we had to have very good manners. At our house, we had excellent manners.
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And how do you define manner? Manners in our house, not by an etiquette book, but by whatever dad said.
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So if dad said, no elbows on the table, there are no elbows on the table. We're to thank mom.
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My dad would always say, saying thanks doesn't cost you anything. Say thank you. You're probably like me.
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I haven't had this happen very often in my life, but a policeman pulls me over. I get caught for speeding.
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I say, I'm guilty. He gives me a ticket and I say, thank you. Actually, that's right.
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Thank you because you're a minister of God, et cetera. The fools don't have anybody to thank.
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In three weeks, we're gonna watch them all do all that. Just like we were before we got saved. Well, who do you thank during Thanksgiving?
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But the wise person in the middle of an earth that's crooked and corrupt and hard and difficult and things break, we're to be thankful people.
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It's actually God's will for you to be thankful, Paul said to the church of Thessalonica. Let's see if we can find that in the text.
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If I can't solve problems, what can I do? If I can't fix the world, what can I do? If everything's vexation and frustration, what should be my response?
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I'm just mad. There's a vanity, verse 14, that takes place on earth.
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And that there are righteous people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked, the wicked people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous.
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So that's also vanity. I mean, on earth, before judgment day, before the counsels of God. I mean, what's the difference?
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Wicked, righteous, righteous, wicked. Seems like it's kind of futile to me.
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Verse 15, in the middle of this. This is so interesting. And the writer
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Solomon, under the spirit of God's inspiration, he says what? I commend joy.
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By the way, I look at you all and I raise my hand, I feel like I'm raising some glass of apple cider.
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I commend joy. Yeah, yeah, didn't pray about all the people we have suffering in our church and everything else that's going on and difficulties that we all have and so many things that are unspoken that we all have and deal with.
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And so now what? Yeah, there are other things, but Solomon is working through. He's working through things about fearing
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God. And now he says, I commend joy. Bethlehem Bible Church, I commend joy to you.
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Seems odd, but that's not foolishness, that's wisdom. Let's read the rest of the verse. Man has nothing better under the sun but to eat, what's for lunch?
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We're gonna obey this verse. And drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil throughout the days of his life that God has, key, given him under the sun.
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I mean, this just drives, I mean, I think, okay, could I be a person that's a half cup empty kind of glass person and the cynicism and the sarcasm and all the other isms and all of a sudden it's joy?
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Robert Frost defined a jury in a courtroom as 12 people who have to choose who has the better lawyer.
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I mean, in the middle of all that, how do I respond? With joy? I commend joy.
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What Solomon is saying is simply, instead of trying to figure out all this world and what goes on and why and this chart and if then and everything else, you ought to just say,
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God gave me these things. To God be the glory. You know what it sounds like? Whether you eat or whether you drink or whatever you do, give all to what?
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The glory of God. Thank you, God. Thank you. I taught my kids to say thank you and they, you know, whatever happens, you know, thank you, thank you, thank you, mom for this, thank you.
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Just knee jerk, thank you. Sometimes I would take, I'm thinking of the one time where I took
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Luke and his friend to the skate park and we went there and so then
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I dropped his friend off first, 14 years old or whatever. And Luke is in the car and the other kid gets out of the car and he starts running up to his house and I stick my head out the window and what did
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I yell? You're welcome. See, you're like me. It doesn't take anything to say thank you.
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I mean, when my children would order food at places, my pet peeve was, can I have? Yeah, you can.
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May I? So every time they ordered some food, they'd look over at dad and here's dad's face. May I please?
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Romans chapter one, the unbelievers were thankless people. That's how they're described, thankless people.
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He said this in chapter two. He says it here. He'll say it in chapter nine for our sermon next time.
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You can eat and drink and enjoy life. Yes, things are hard, but you can enjoy time when you can enjoy time.
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Now sometimes in our society and sometimes in the Bible, eat, drink and be merry is negative.
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It's not negative here. It's negative in Isaiah 56. The leaders say, come, let me get wine, let us fill ourselves with strong drink and tomorrow will be like this day, great beyond measure.
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It's sometimes negative when our Lord Jesus in Luke 12 says of the man, the foolish man, soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years, relax, eat, drink and be merry.
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And God says to him, fool, today your soul is required of you. Paul says, you know, when you hang out with people who aren't believers, who don't believe in the resurrection, that's kind of all they do.
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They live life for now. It's negative. First Corinthians 15, let us eat and drink and for tomorrow we die.
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But here, this is not wrong. This is good. It's from the hand of God. This is good eating, good drinking.
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Good, thankful hearts respond this way. I said, we're gonna look at a few passages.
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Would you turn to James chapter one, please? James chapter one. What does wisdom say? Wisdom says, practically speaking,
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I should pray for the leaders of our country and state. Wisdom says, I had to walk circumspectly as a
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Christian person. Wisdom also says, you can enjoy simple pleasures in life.
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Make sure you just thank God for them. There are times of sadness and times of sackcloth and ashes, but the other times when things are good, enjoy those and say, thank you.
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I commend joy to see that it's from the hand of God. James chapter one, verse 17. These people are on the run.
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They're dispersed. They're going through trials. They're going through all kinds of things. And what does he remind them?
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In the context of, does God deceive us? Does God really tempt us?
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That's maybe why we sin. God does something and we can't help ourselves. Verse 17, but it also applies generally.
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Think about your life and everything that you have and that you own and that your spouse and your children and everyone else, every good gift.
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And now he repeats it. Do you see it? And every perfect gift is from the sweat of your own hands.
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Well, secondarily, maybe. It's from above. I wonder what kind of gifts come from above.
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Coming down from the Father of lights, what kind of gift would you get from someone who made the moon?
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What kind of gift would you get from someone who made the stars? What would you get from somebody who made the sun?
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I mean, sometimes there's a track record, right? I kind of do it at Pot Providences and I did it last night too.
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We had all these chilies lined up and we were gonna do a chili tasting contest. I didn't have really any of it because I wanna know who made them.
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Because some of you are pretty good cooks and some of you, hmm. It's like when Maxine Thiebaud was here and she made pies.
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I always said, Maxine, tell me the pie you made because it's always gonna be good. I heard
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Mrs. Bartlett made some special pumpkin cheesecake cookies. Cookies made with cheesecake on the inside.
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I got a little birdie told me that she made them and I know she's a good cook. I think she's beating the prize for she's a better cook than her mother -in -law but that's another story.
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And I knew how good it was. I'm like, you know, whatever she makes, she makes these cookies good.
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I'm coming over to lunch today. If somebody makes the moon and the stars and the sun,
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I wonder what kind of gifts he gives. That's the idea. Verse 17, from whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
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It's not like he made all the lights of the sky and then say, well, now it's different. Some people think this was such an important verse.
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It was like a hymn. They sang it over and over and over. Every good gift, everything I have is from the hand of God, from the hand of God, from the hand of God.
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And you say to me, I heard that sermon in Ecclesiastes 2. I know, but he's trying to remind us by repetition, from the hand of God.
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Your body, your taste buds, your friends, your family, your church, at the risk of sounding self -serving, do you know how hard it is to find a
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Bible -teaching church in Massachusetts? Christ -centered church? People driving for an hour to get here or more.
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And what should you say? Thank You, Lord, for a body of people that all want the same thing. Clothing, friends, laughter, beauty, music.
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It's all from God. Thank You, thank You, thank You, thank You. Wave after wave coming down from God.
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And you want to know the best gift? Verse 18, of His own will.
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Whose will saved you? God's will saved you. Oh yes, you responded, but who's on first?
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Of His own will, He brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be kind of a firstfruits of His creatures.
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What does wisdom say? Wisdom says, thank you. Wisdom says, joy. Do you know
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I could look at every one of you as Christians and say, you must rejoice. Yeah, you don't know what
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I'm going through. That's true. God does. Paul is writing
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Philippians chapter one, two, three, and four from where? Nero's palace, of course, where you just go up to the little goblet and it's full of 1 ,000 flamingo tongues and you can just eat it like a little garnish, like on a charcuterie board.
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Kim did a butter board the other day with Abigail, all kinds of different butters and seasonings and everything.
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Like, oh, doesn't that sound good? Just take a big hunk of bread that's cooked. You just get some butter on that and go, oh, to God be the glory.
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A butter board. It's not like some wrestler or boxer or butter bean, but that's another story.
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Finally, my brothers, Philippians three, one. Dear Christian, you need to rejoice in the
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Lord. I commend joy. You're like, well, yeah, you don't know my circumstances.
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I know, because it doesn't say rejoice. It says rejoice in the
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Lord. And what the Lord has done for you, and then you can rejoice. No wonder the writer can say,
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I commend joy. Philippians four, rejoice in the
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Lord always. And again, I will say, I mean, I can hear that children's song, can't you?
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Rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say rejoice. And you keep repeating it and then they start over, right?
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Rejoice, rejoice. I can't believe I'm singing, but what do I care? I'm almost, you know, I'm about ready to retire anyway, so who cares if you can't sing?
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I hope I have 10 more years at least. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone.
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The Lord is at hand. He's here. You know what would happen if you were grumbling in the presence of a king back in the day?
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You better put on a happy face, or else. And now we say, you know what?
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In the middle of all the trials, in the middle of everything else, I know God is here. I know God is with me.
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I know God is working. And I know God is moving. And I can trust in Him. And I can be joyful.
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And the fruit of the Spirit, not my own fruit. The fruit of the Spirit, by the way, is the fruit of the
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Spirit. Rejoice in the Lord always. Do not be anxious about anything, because anxiety kills rejoicing.
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So what do you do instead? Do you want rejoicing, but in everything by prayer and supplication? With thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.
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And how does God give? And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
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I read something this week and I thought, I think I underestimate bread and food.
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And meals with family. I think I underestimate some of those good gifts from God.
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Lastly, what does wisdom say? Verses 16 and 17. Wisdom says to kings, rule righteously.
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Solomon needed that. Wisdom says, our Father who art in heaven, that's fear. Wisdom says, thank you
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God for every gift, even the small gifts, even though I'm in a trial. And wisdom says, uncle.
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Uncle. Now my son Luke now is an uncle, and that's not the uncle I'm talking about.
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When you're wrestling with people, or in some kind of MMA match, and you know you're gonna get your arm broken, what do you do?
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You let it break. No, I'm just kidding. Some do. You tap out. What Solomon is gonna do here in these next two verses is going to say,
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God is so great. God's knowledge is so above us. While we can know God, something about God, and we can know
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God in Christ Jesus, there are certain things that are above our pay grade. So just say, uncle. You don't have to figure it out.
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Oh, sovereignty, and responsibility, and theodicy, and where did evil come from, and all these things.
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I'm not so sure that's as wise as you think it is. Verse 16, when I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done on earth.
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How neither day nor night do one's eyes sleep. I mean, you stay up at night thinking about all this stuff, evil in the world, and why did my loved one leave so early, or what about this, and what about children who get sick?
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I mean, this could go on, and on, and on. We all have them. Then I saw all the work of God.
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He's working, by the way. That man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out.
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Even though a wise man claims he knows the secrets to the universe, as it were, he cannot find it out.
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You look at God's activity under the sun, and you think you can figure it out. You can't, so you just need to trust yourself.
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It's back to that old story of Corrie Ten Boom. Remember, she suffered in concentration camps.
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And before she suffered there, I think in Belgium, she was going on the train with her father.
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And if memory serves me, she's 12 years old. Her father's a watchmaker. Big, heavy bag of all his tools.
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They're going to the next place. She's reading in the newspaper, and the newspaper says something about a sex sin.
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And so she said to Daddy, Daddy, what's a sex sin? Father didn't say anything.
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They get to their arrival station, and the father says, Corrie, please pick up my bag of tools, let's go.
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She reaches down, she tries to pick up the tools, and she says, they're too heavy, Father. And then he says,
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Corrie, that's just like sex sin. It's too heavy for you to handle. And when you're able to handle it,
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I'll tell you. There are certain things we're not going to know. We don't get to know.
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There's two kinds of knowledges. Knowledge that God has of himself. Theologians call that archetypal knowledge.
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And knowledge that he lets us know about him. They're not the same. By the way, that's what would be one of the great things about heaven.
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Always learning, always worshiping, always finding out new things about God and new nuances. You find out something cool in the scriptures.
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You're like, man, that was so great. I learned this from the Bible. Learning more things about God in heaven, because he'll still be knowing only like he knows the sovereign of the universe, but we'll be growing in that.
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Never ever arriving, but growing. God knows everything, and we ought to say to ourselves, since he knows everything, and we're just told to be still and know, right?
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Isn't that Psalm 46? You can just imagine you just putting a little baby to bed. Daddy's got you.
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I used to put my hand on my children every single night and sing different songs, but one was, everything's all right in the father's house.
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Daddy's got you. And if we really think to ourselves, you know what?
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I'm trying to figure out sin of the world. I'm trying to figure out iniquity of the world. I'm trying to figure out perversity of the world.
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Where did it all come from? It probably would behoove us all to think, you know what?
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Suffering isn't because it's outside of me. Suffering of the world, it's because of me.
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I'm not a victim in all this, and it's all the world is also chaos, and I'm simply a victim.
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No, I with Adam and with you have been a perpetrator of the sin. So why do we need to figure that all out?
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We look to the cross if we ever need to be focused, and we think, you know what? Suffering doesn't lie outside of me.
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I'm not a victim of evil, I'm evil. I'm the agent of evil. And it took the thrice holy
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God who loves sinners to send his son. Would you give your son for someone?
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Maybe for a righteous person you'd give your son, but I don't think you'd give your son for Jeffrey Dahmer's release.
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I look at the cross and I think, wait a second, I'm not a victim, I'm a perpetrator. And I look at the cross and I think the condescending love of God for me then.
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That he comes to this world, and he lives under the sun for me.
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So I want you to know, please study theology. Please read systematic theology. Please try to understand who
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God is. But you're never gonna say, I've arrived, mastered that subject. I'm trying to figure out modern
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Hebrew. I'm sure I'll never arrive, but maybe I could possibly arrive at that. But you can't do that with God.
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I love the story of William Phelps. He teaches or taught English literature at Yale.
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41 years he taught classes until he retired in 1933. He gets all these exams.
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My preaching class today had an exam. Maybe I'll use this for them. It's just before Christmas and he's correcting the final.
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He sees a note of an unfinished exam. God only knows the answer to this question.
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Merry Christmas, professor. William Phelps returned the paper with a little note.
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God gets an A, you get an F. Happy New Year.
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In 2006, you computerized the answer to this question. You're gizmos or geeks, whichever one you are.
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Estimated that the world is generating 200 billion gigabytes of digital information every year.
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That's back in 2006. If data on earth is beyond us, then what about the triune nature of God and who he is?
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And so instead of trying to say, I need to figure out everything about God that can't be known, that he purposely tells you this far and no farther.
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Instead, I'll learn about God with what he has told me about himself found in scripture.
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Instead of all these esoteric things out here that have no root in scripture, I'll focus on scripture.
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That's what wisdom says. Because then the response is with Paul. Oh, the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God.
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How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways. For who has known the mind of the
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Lord or who has been his counselor? What does wisdom say?
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Wisdom says, make sure you tell the king, govern wisely for us, we pray for them. Wisdom says, we need to walk in a manner worthy of our calling, not to stay saved, not to get saved, but because we are saved, we wanna live out of gratitude for such a great
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God. Wisdom says, I should be joyful and think about all the things that God has given me.
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And I should just be content to trust God because some things I can't figure out. That's what wisdom says.
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Bow with me, please. Thank you, Father, for our time and your word. We're thankful we can know you.
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We just can't know everything about you. And I pray for our dear congregation.
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First, those that are here that aren't Christians, that you would grant them repentance and give them the gift of faith, that they might see their sin against you and might run to the cross for safety, to the risen savior.
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And for us as Christians, Father, we wanna honor you because you're so good to us. You're so great.
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We'd like to live like Jesus who delighted in fearing you. Father, our heart's desire is with Jeremiah.
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Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom. Let not a mighty man boast of his might.
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Let not a rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the
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Lord who exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness on earth.