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The Perpetual Frustration of Getting Nowhere
Here’s another section from Waltke’s introduction to the Proverbs, this time on the character of “the sluggard,” whom we looked at a little last Monday night.
This makes for another great personal bible study:
The sluggard’s unreliable and procrastinating nature makes him a constant source of irritation to all those who need to do business with him (10:26, 26:6) and a shame to his parents (10:5) as he destroys the family inheritance (19:13-15, 24:31). D. Phillip Roberts notes that Proverbs does not have a word for “workaholic” and comments that the two opposites, the sluggard and the diligent, are contrasted as vice and virtue–“It is simply not characteristic of Proverbs to posit two bad extremes and then find an Aristotelian mean.” (But then, notice the advice of Augur in 30:8-9.) The lazy person has to look on hard workers as fools; otherwise he stands self-condemned; his self-imagined wisdom (22:13) can be equated to the English equivalent, “I can’t go to work today; I might get run over by a truck!”
Laziness in Proverbs is more than a character flaw; it is a moral issue, for it leads to a loss of freedom (12:24), the perpetual frustration of getting nowhere (24:34), and the loss of life (see 6:6-11, 10:4, 18:9, 20:13, 21:25-26, 24:30-34, 28:24)…The sluggard is left begging in the harvest, and has “plenty of poverty,” a telling oxymoron (20:4, 29:19).
This goes nicely with Derek Kidner’s study on the same character, which, if you missed it, I posted last Monday.
“The Most Hardened Apostate”
In the introduction to Bruce Waltke’s commentary on Proverbs he offers some short studies on some of the characters who occur most often in the book. His section on “the mocker” (often translated, “scoffer”) is especially helpful. Reading this and looking up the verses could make for an excellent study. (Unmarked verse references are Proverbs, and I lightly edited this for readability).
Enjoy:
In the Proverbs, the most hardened apostates are the mockers, a word that occurs 14 times in Proverbs and twice outside of it (Psalm 1:1, Isaiah 29:20). The noun for “mocking” occurs three times in the Old Testament (Proverbs 1:22; 29:8; Isaiah 28:14).
The mocker is the antithesis of the wise (9:12; 13:1; 20:1; 21:14), whom he hates (9:7-8, 15:2), and of the discerning (14:6, 19:25), and is lumped together with fools (1:22, 3:34-35, 14:6-7, 19:29), the gullible (1:22), and the proud and haughty (21:24). His spiritual problem is rooted in his pride (21:24). His arrogance blocks him from wisdom (14:6).
He has genius for invective [that is, insulting or highly critical language] and denigration [that is, speaking damagingly or criticizing in a derogatory manner] that impresses the gullible as long as he has his way (19:25, 21:11). He opens his big mouth and, unleashing the tensions and strains in a community, he sets the whole community at loggerheads (that is, in head-on dispute see 22:10, 29:8) and destroys it (21:24, 22:10, 29:8). His bad influence is plain to most (24:9). “No man earns more universal detestation or deserves it more than he who wears a perpetual sneer, who is himself incapable of deep loyalty and reverence and who supposes that it is his mission in life to promote the corrosion of the values by which individuals and society lives.”
To restore order he must be driven out of the community by force (22:10). In any case, God himself ultimately scoffs at him, and so he, too, will disappear (Isaiah 29:20).
Another word from Ben Watson
On Wednesday I posted a long article from Ben Watson. Today I wanted to share this five minute clip from one of his recent interviews. Ben Watson seems to be a voice for our times: clear-headed on what the gospel is and how it applies to our situation, experienced in the matters he’s speaking to, and full of truth-filled love for people from all backgrounds. This is worth the first four and a half…
http://youtu.be/YBWM6E7UpQc
Ben Watson and Black Lives Matter
Here is a post I found incredibly edifying and helpful from (Baltimore Ravens Tight End) Ben Watson. I’ll post it in full, and the original can be found here. Definitely visit his website. And please, read the whole thing…
Benjamin Watson Breaks Down The Debate About Racial Tension In The U.S.
As Americans, do black lives matter to us?
It SHOULD go without saying that “all lives matter”, including black lives, unborn lives, white lives, elderly lives, affluent and poor lives, Christian and atheist lives. But, today, in light of our present societal struggles and racial tension the question is worth addressing. As Americans, do black lives matter to us?
It’s clear looking at history from 1619, when the first Blacks sailed up the James, to 2015 when the first brown skinned man occupies the Oval Office, that their individual innate worth as human beings has grown exponentially in America’s eye. Yet in spite of all this, things still aren’t entirely OK.The state of black lives has been the clearly identifiable scarlet thread woven through our four century long tapestry of liberty and while laws have been amended and created, what’s on the books and what’s in the hearts are at times still at odds.
Having the same legal privileges is paramount but respect for others is not dependent upon legislation, it’s directly connected to the condition of the heart. The black and white typed letter of the law can be non discriminatory while the administration of it is anything but.
In light of recent headlines I’ve asked myself, “Do black lives really matter to the people I work with, grocery shop with, and go to church with.” More importantly, I’ve asked myself, “do black lives matter to me?”
At times in my life I’ve felt that black lives didn’t matter to some white people….or even some black people. I’ve even believed the myth that my life somehow wasn’t as important as my white classmates, teammates and friends.
Whether we are totally naïve or if we intentionally promote such a message, by listening and watching closely we will easily see that in many ways black lives don’t matter.
Black lives DON’T matter when the only time we learn about black heritage is black history month. And even then the same characters are paraded, as great and important as they are, as if they are all we have to be proud of. A people who don’t know their history, lack identity, and consequently, a positive self concept. Ancient and modern history, religious and secular, is riddled with contributions by Africans and blacks, but are many times only discovered through personal investigation outside of traditional academia.
Black lives DON’T matter when the closer one’s physical features resemble Caucasians the “better” they are. The legacy of the bi-racial light skinned house slave versus the dark skinned field slave endure as an understood if not spoken hierarchy among us. Opportunities, acceptance, beauty are many times associated with whiteness.
Black lives DON’T matter when neighbors, black neighbors, kill each other. It’s no surprise that people generally commit crimes against the people they live nearest to. Even so, the truth is that we treat people no better than the value we place on them and the dignity we have in ourselves.
Black lives DON’T matter when some politicians enable generational dependency, stifling individual responsibility while others completely deny the importance of programs that are needed to help the marginalized. A crutch is the vital friend of the injured, its ultimate purpose to one day be laid aside as its former dependent walks on their own. If it oversteps its purpose the user will no longer feel the need to walk. Erroneously, they may not even think they can ever do so. Consequently, a stagnant, hopeless life seems to matter less.
Black lives DON’T matter when we support and engage in the termination of our most important resource and our hope for a brighter future, our unborn children.
Black lives DON’T matter when their very real and documented negative experiences with law enforcement, employment opportunities, and educational funding is belittled and dismissed. Compassion for another’s experience, even if foreign to us is paramount when encountering situations we can’t understand.
Black lives DON’T matter when black offenders are generally termed thugs, the status quo, while whites are classified as mentally ill anomalies.
Black lives DON’T matter when fathers selfishly abandon their children and their children’s mothers, teaching them that family is not a priority, and almost ensuring the cycle will repeat itself. A strong foundation gives children the fortitude to weather the storms they are sure to face throughout their lives.
But BLACK LIVES MATTER, when we look at our black children and imperfectly strive to show them the compassion, love, leadership, hard work and sacrifice a man should exhibit in hopes that our sons will carry the banner further and our daughters will set the bar high for their future spouses.
BLACK LIVES MATTER when we understand that the black community can not be characterized by headlines of a single story, because it is filled with multiple stories from millions of contrasting individuals.
BLACK LIVES MATTER when we look at our white children, and realize that they are internalizing and will imitate every attitude, action, comment, and expression we make when the next racially charged incident occurs or when we engage with others on a daily basis, who don’t look like us. They are future change agents as well. Some of the largest victories in abolition and civil rights came because of the compassion and activism of our white brothers and sisters.
BLACK LIVES MATTER when we are willing to stand up to our friends and family when they make racist comments and jokes that are dead wrong. AND they matter when we refuse to flippantly use words created to demean and degrade even if we feel WE have a right to.
BLACK LIVES MATTER when we are mature enough to understand that challenging the black community to improve in certain areas does not absolve the system of guilt, or deny that inequities and biases are still very much apart of our everyday lives. We must not always be so defensive that we can not see that some of the problems are our own.
BLACK LIVES MATTER when we desire the discomfort of change more than we desire to wallow in the comfort of conflict.
BLACK LIVES MATTER when all lives know their God given, intrinsic worth and realize that man foolishly looks on the outward appearance but God looks at the heart. That’s when we will no longer let these injustices define us or continue to perpetuate the attitudes, actions, and assumptions that forces us to raise our voices and scream about whose lives matter!
So historically, and in many ways presently, black lives don’t matter…. but so what. Where do we as a nation go from here? We make them matter where they don’t. We repent if we’ve been wrong or calloused. We repent if we’ve been bitter and vengeful. We become intentional in our relationships.
The burden of making black lives matter is on all of us. When it comes to race, the dining room in our homes is just as important as the court room in evoking true lasting improvement. What happens or doesn’t happen in these family times is paramount to our collective health as a society. I shall no more tell my children to succumb to their skin color and its supposed disadvantages then any parent whose offspring may be subject to any other form of adversity. I will, however, tell them that their color will not define them. I will instill in them a spiritual identity that supersedes anything this world can give. I will not ignore the importance of heritage and ethnic identity in their present success and self concept, but I will simultaneously teach them that their true identity is in Christ, and that that identity supersedes anything this world can offer.
The attitudes inherited by our different heritages can breed in us unhealthy attitudes if left unchecked, including the foolishness of supremacy and the myth of inferiority. The cross bridges the gap, the power of the blood penetrating deep into our wickedness, convicting us, forgiving us, and reconciling us to God and subsequently reconciling us to each other. Only in Christ do the temporal distinctions between us fade, as our oneness in him takes precedence over our color creed and culture and our allegiance to Him compels us to make those who matter to Him matter most to us.
Our Automatic Life, and Sowing, and Reaping
Last night we took the evening to study what the bible says about sowing and reaping, and how it relates to our current situation. Here are the notes:
Galatians 6:7-10. There is danger that those who follow God can be deceived. For some reason, we could start to think that the principle of sowing and reaping is not a real thing. Two things become true if we forget this:
- We’re in danger of holding a view of the world which “mocks God.” In other words, Since God is the creator, and the Lord, of the world, if we act like the world is different than the one he made, we’re acting like he doesn’t matter at all.
- We’re in danger of “growing weary” in our lives of obedience to God. We’ll start to think that it doesn’t matter what we do, and we’ll lose heart and energy to do the difficult work of serving God in this world.
I read this quote this weekend, and I was surprised by how irrelevant it was to our cultural moment:
“God’s works in nature are designed to teach us great spiritual truths. The harvest is the crises of the year. To its importance all are alive. Our sustenance for a year depends on it. But harvest looks back to the previous year. Harvest depends on sowing. Let the field be unsown, and from its fallow surface you gather no crop of wheat. Sow the field, and such as the seed you cast in to the furrows in the sowing time, such is the crop in the reaping time.” R. Govett.
We’ve totally lost track of this in our daily life. We just don’t know or care when the harvest is, because we don’t need to. It doesn’t mean anything to us, because we get our food from a store. What this should show us is that culturally we have a block which leaves us open to the dangers Paul’s highlighting in Galatians 6. And it’s not just about the distance from farming most of us live in, it’s about our whole culture, which has reduced most activities in life down to economic transactions—we live in houses we didn’t build, we wear clothes we didn’t make, we can cook a meal by pushing a button, a lot of our entertainment is completely passive, and now even the activity of buying things can be done from our couch, with tapping our phones being the only effort required.
So then if you think about the areas of life where a lot of people don’t find success—I think we can admit they’re the areas of life where it’s impossible to short circuit the principle of sowing and reaping. Think about weight loss as far as it’s affected by eating and exercise, think about fitness in general, or think about learning an instrument, or learning a second language—or things like bible study and learning to practice the spiritual disciplines. And we see this in relationship building all the time—people want to come to a church and have friendships in a month—friendships with all the depth and companionship of a friendship that’s five or ten years old. And it just doesn’t work that way. So in all these areas you see a plague of quitting and lack of success. As a people, our technological power is robbing us of other, more human kinds of power—and the knowledge to use that power—which tells us that if we plant certain seeds, we reap certain crops.
Instead, we have a whole culture that mocks God and has absolutely no patience for enduring the hard life of pursuing truth and working righteousness.
But…the problem we have is that the Bible uses the principle of sowing and reaping in the world of farming to teach us things we need to know about spiritual life. It assumes we know what happens in out in the field every year, and that it can build on that obvious common knowledge to teach us about the rest of life, and eternal rewards too. So once we realize this, and that we’re culturally predisposed to miss the bible’s point here, it means we have to get serious about finding out what God says to us about all this in the scriptures.
So: What does the bible teach about sowing and reaping?
First, the scriptures point out that God uses the same principle to make food production work, that he uses in all of life. You take a number of seeds of some kind, and you plant them. You wait, and then later on, a multiplied amount of the plants that come from those seeds grow. The principles at work here are: organic connection, a waiting period, and multiplication. Or, as Pastor Joe says: “You always reap what you sow (that’s organic connection), you always reap after you sow (that’s a waiting period), and you always reap more than you sow (that’s multiplication).” These things are true in literally every area of life—in work, in relationships, in finances, in physical health, in mental health, in practicing a sport or an instrument, in the life of families and neighborhoods and nations. All other things being equal, there’s an organic connection between what you invest in now, and the results later. Sowing today produces a crop in the future. And it produces crop larger than the amount of investing you did.
The crucial question: Do we understand the principle of sowing and reaping in this life? And, do our lives make sense in that light?
Proverbs 20:4. What are we doing with our time? What are you doing with your youth, or your twenties? Are we expecting things out of life which our present activity can never produce?
Proverbs 20:4. What are we doing with our time? What are you doing with your youth, or your twenties?
Proverbs 6:10-11. As Derek Kidner says: “The lazy person won’t begin things, won’t finish things, won’t face things.” See also Proverbs 19:15, 24:30-34.
Hosea 8:1-7a. Culture-wide sowing and reaping. This begins to shade into the Spiritual-eternal areas of sowing and reaping. See also Hosea 10:12-15, and Jeremiah 4:3.
James 3:13-18. The New Testament holds out the same principle: “The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.” “The “peace” that is sown [here] probably is not Paul’s notion of “peace with God” but rather is peace and wholeness (shalom) within the community…James’s point is that those who do deeds of peace and promote peace thereby plant seeds and create an environment that eventually yields righteousness, not only for the sower, but also for the whole community to whom peace comes.” [from Dan McCartney’s commentary on James.]
Now we need to remember the principles of sowing and reaping in all of this: “You always reap what you sow (organic connection), you always reap after you sow (a waiting period), and you always reap more than you sow (multiplication).” So just because someone, or our whole country, are doing certain things now, and not seeing immediate results, doesn’t mean we won’t produce a crop in due time. And I’d like to submit to you, that one interpretation of all the craziness that’s going down these last few years—politically, environmentally, economically, socially—might just be this: maybe this is what it looks like when the harvest comes in.
But to stick closer to home, we need to ask ourselves, what am I doing with my time? What seeds are you sowing in your twenties? If the Bible is to be believed, what kind of crop are they going to bear? People want to sow nothing… and later reap something. People want to sow evil seeds, and expect to never reap an evil crop. The bible says it won’t work. And the flip side of the coin is, a lot of times we want to do something worthwhile, and immediately see fruit. And sometimes if we don’t see results immediately, we stop doing it. It’s cultural, and it’s pervasive. And as Christians we need to resist this kind of thinking and living. We need to not grow weary…
Second, the scriptures teach us that there’s a similar connection between sowing and reaping in things we often think of as “spiritual” and “eternal” things. (As an aside, I wonder if this is actually because the bible sees no difference between “ordinary” and “spiritual” things—this is a division we’ve artificially created. Maybe everything is at once physical, spiritual ordinary, and miraculous.)
The point is that the sowing in reaping we see in farming, and in the rest of life, is to teach us about the ultimate form of this truth: the eternal reaping. Forever, every inch of the created space which we humans occupy is infused with the principle of sowing and reaping.
Mark 4:26-29. The kingdom of heaven works on the same principle.
2 Corinthians 9:6-10. Paul tells us that we might organize our lives by thinking this thought: in eternity, how do I want to reap? Then we can decide how we want to “sow.”
Galatians 6:7-10. “Sowing to the flesh” is investing thought and action and time and resources into fulfilling human desires with no reference to God. It’s living to fulfill our wants and get pleasure in this present life. “Sowing to the Spirit” is investing thought and action and time and resources into fulfilling God’s desires (what he calls in 5:17 “the desires of the Spirit”). It’s living to fulfill God’s plans, and finding our highest pleasure in bringing him honor and glory forever. (If you want to practically learn how to do this, read: Romans 8:5-13, 2 Peter 1:3-11, Luke 12:33-34, Matthew 6:1-21, Matthew 10:41-42, Matthew 19:29, Matthew 25:14-46, Romans 2:3-10, Colossians 3:23-24.)
Psalm 126:5-6. There will be endurance, and even pain, associated with the faithful life of sowing for God. So to sum it all up:
We need to know that the universe, forever, works on a principle of sowing and reaping.
- We need to order our lives according to this truth, and let God teach us what and how to sow.
- We need to persevere in using our lives to sow what God directs us to sow, and as life gets long and hard, we need to keep one thing in mind: the harvest. The Holy Spirit invites us to think about and focus on the harvest of eternal life, righteousness, peace, and joy that’s promised to the believers. Keep sowing seed. Trust God to make the seed grow, even if it seems hidden in the ground, and trust God that the harvest will come.
Pleasant, but deadly.
This is a repost from January of 2012. It’s totally applicable to the study tonight, and always a good reminder.
Laziness is a plague in our world. Does it afflict you? Either way, here’s a great run-down of the character know as “the sluggard” in the book of Proverbs. Look up each of the verses for a full study of how God’s wisdom views laziness:
The sluggard in Proverbs is a figure of tragi-comedy, with his sheer animal laziness (he is more than anchored to his bed; he is hinged to it, 26:14), his preposterous excuses (‘there is a lion outside!’ 26:13; 22:13) and his final helplessness.
- He will not begin things. When we ask him (6:9, 10) ‘How long…?’ ‘When…?’, we are being too definite for him. He doesn’t know. All he knows is his delicious drowsiness; all he asks is a little respite: ‘a little…a little…a little…’. He does not commit himself to a refusal, but deceives himself by the smallness of his surrenders. So, by inches and minutes, his opportunity slips away.
- He will not finish things. The rare effort of beginning has been too much; the impulse dies. SO his quarry goes bad on him (12:27) and his meal goes cold on him (19:24; 26:15).
- He will not face things. He comes to believe his own excuses (perhaps there is a lion out there, 22:13), and to rationalize his laziness; for he is ‘wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason’ (26:16). Because he makes a habit of the soft choice (he ‘will not plow by reason of the cold’ , 20:4) his character suffers as much as his business, so that he is implied in 15:19 to be fundamentally dishonest. (A suggestion of the way he would describe himself is made in the commentary on 26:13-16.)
- Consequently he is restless (13:4; 21:25, 26) with unsatisfied desire; helpless in face of the tangle of his affairs, which are like a ‘hedge of thorns’ (15:19); and useless – expensively (18:9) and exasperatingly (10:26) – to any who must employ him.
The wise man will learn while there is time. He knows that the sluggard is no freak, but, as often as not, an ordinary man who has made too many excuses, too many refusals and too many postponements. It has all been as imperceptible, and as pleasant, as falling asleep.
–From Proverbs, An Introduction and Commentary by Derek Kidner
God doesn’t play hide and seek
One of the most common discussions we have in the social circles of the young adults fellowship is about God’s will. How do you know what it is? And how are we supposed to make life decisions if we’re not sure what God’s will is?
One of my favorite books on the topic is Kevin DeYoung’s Just Do Something. I’ve given it to a few friends in the group. The subtitle is A Liberating Approach to Finding God’s Will, or, How to Make a Decision without Dreams, Visions Fleeces, Impressions, Open Doors, Random Bible Verses, Casting Lots, Liver Shivers, Writing in the Sky, Etc… And, that about sums it up.
Here’s a great section:
So here’s the real heart of the matter: Does God have a secret will of direction that He expects us to figure out before we do anything?
And answer is no.
Yes, God has a specific plan for our lives. And yes, we can be assured that He works things for our good in Christ Jesus. And yes, looking back we will often be able to trace God’s hand in bringing us to where we are.
But while we are free to ask God for wisdom, He does not burden us with the task of divining His will of direction for our lives ahead of time.
Another way to say it might be, God isn’t waiting for us to figure out how to read the tea leaves, as if he’s hiding clues to his will around us and we need to put the pieces together know what to do.
I recommend this book. It’s not the last word on the subject of God’s guidance, but it does unpack a couple really important principles.
The Weakness of Authenticity
Last night we took the evening to look at what the scriptures teach about another idea that’s really important to many of us these days–the big idea of Authenticity. Here are the notes:
The cultural ideal of “Authenticity”
Any street-level definition of authenticity is going to include words like genuine and real, or the idea of being honest about what’s inside, or being true to yourself. Or maybe we could say it like this: Discovering what’s in your heart, how you really feel about things, and then living to express that.
The opposite of this kind of Authenticity is being “fake” or “scared” or “untrue to who you really are.” The idea is that if you’re not authentic, you’ll live your life pretending to be someone you’re not. In our world, this might be the biggest injury you could do to yourself. And to make someone do it—to deny them the ability to express their heart—is the biggest possible evil.*
(*One Note: There’s a glaring point of cultural hypocrisy in this: We in America absolutely do have things which we tell people not to live out. If someone feels racist inside, or if they think they’re fat when they are really skinny (eating disorders), or if they have sexual attraction to children, or if they feel violent whenever they get angry, or if they feel like being careless with the environment, or if they feel selfish as a CEO and want to steal money from workers, or if they feel like injuring themselves helps them—we tell them they must resist those feelings and not live them out. We actually want to prevent them from being able to be authentic with those feelings, no matter how deeply rooted those feelings are. No one seems to ask what standard we use to decide who gets to be “authentic” and who doesn’t, and who gets to decide what the standard is, and why we feel justified in denying some people the right to authentically live out their feelings.)
But ignoring that point of inconsistency, the idea that has taken us all over these days is the ithought that the only way to be truly happy, and the only way to make the world a better place, is if we all just discover what’s in our hearts, be honest about that, express it in any way we want to, and make our lives all about discovering and expressing ourselves.
Now, Is this what Jesus teaches? Is this what followers of Christ believe? What does a disciple come to learn about this idea of authenticity, and how it should or shouldn’t be part of their thinking?
Hearing the Scriptures.
Proverbs 18:2 – It is foolish to want to express what’s inside more than receive knowledge of what is true. In fact, those two loves (the love of receiving truth and the love of expressing your heart) will cancel each other out. (See also Proverbs 17:27.) “Expressing” should be “exposing” – it’s the same word as Noah in Geneses 9:21. There’s an exhibitionism in this.
“The Fool” in the scriptures someone who decides in his heart God doesn’t matter (Psalm 53:1), and therefore doesn’t care about wisdom, loves sinful things, becomes harmful to himself (often without even knowing it) and a menace to society (even if society doesn’t recognize it).
“The Heart”: “‘Heart’ is the term most commonly used in biblical literature for the essential personality. Whereas in English ‘heart’ tends to connote emotion, in both Hebrew and Greek it conveys equally, and perhaps more strongly, the spiritual and intellectual processes, including the will. It refers to what makes people what they really are, their individuality.” [R.T. France] “The heart feels all modes of desire, from the lowest physical forms, such as hunger and thirst, to the highest, spiritual forms, like reverence and remorse…[The] direction or bent of the heart determines its decisions and thus the person’s actions.” [Bruce Waltke]
Proverbs 18:2 – It is foolish to want to express what’s inside more than receive knowledge of what is true. In fact, those two loves (the love of receiving truth and the love of expressing your heart) will cancel each other out. (See also Proverbs 17:27.) “Expressing” should be “exposing” – it’s the same word as Noah in Geneses 9:21. There’s an exhibitionism in this.
Proverbs 28:26 – You can’t trust your heart. Trusting your heart is the opposite of Proverbs 3:5-8. (See also Jeremiah 17:9-10. The heart is deceptive, and Proverbs 10:20 some hearts are worth little!)
Proverbs 29:11 – To simply vent your spirit is foolish. “Spirit” here has the idea of dynamic life force.
Psalm 73:12-15 – There are ways of thinking that would be hurtful to other people.
Mark 7:21-23 – Jesus, along with Jeremiah, tells us why these proverbs are true. Out of our hearts come things that “defile” – that is, separate us from God. So our hearts may be full of things that it is better not to express. The follower of Jesus wants to find out what Jesus has to say about his heart, and then get his heart changed…
Summing up:
So…since the heart is deceptive, and actually full of evil things, it’s foolish to trust it, rather than trusting the Lord and seeking understanding from him. Instead, we should make our hearts trust God, and not themselves. Or to say to another way, we should trust God, rather than our own hearts. Then God educates us about what things in us need to go, and we’ll learn that not expressing some things is better than expressing them. We won’t make the mistake that expression itself is good.
In a sentence: The follower of Jesus lets Jesus decide what things should be expressed and what things should not.
So what then? Should we be inauthentic?
Proverbs 10:18 – A case study. If there’s hatred in my heart, should I hide it? Well, the answer is not simply to let hatred out. That’s the second half of the verse. It is foolish to simply let hatred out of your heart and go around slandering people.
The bible’s not simplistic here. Imagine the bad logic this Proverb might be addressing:
- There’s hatred in my heart.
- If I act like there’s not, it makes my life a lie.
- I don’t want to lie…I want to be real, so I let the hatred come out of my mouth. At least I’m being authentic, because I’m being true to what’s inside.
- No, the bible says, that’s foolish.
So what’s the implied solution? Get the hatred out of your heart! Just because you find something in your heart doesn’t mean it’s good. This proverb is telling us: “Don’t just keep sin in your heart and try to hide it by acting like it’s not there. That’s hypocrisy. And don’t just let sin live in your heart and express it so at least you’ll be authentic. That’s foolish.” And Jesus calls that sin. No, the implication of this proverb is, get your heart fixed! Get a heart that’s not full of the thing in Jesus’ list—the anger and violence and sexual perversion and selfishness and envy and pride and disdain for others.
How do we get our hearts fixed? See Ezekiel 11:19-21, 36:25-27. We become members of God’s new covenant, and we receive God’s Spirit.
When this happens, we have a new heart which will lead to us expressing new things with our lives—things which match God’s desires, not our old godless desires. See Romans 8:4-9. We now express things with our lives which please God. Now…this will absolutely being honest and open about our failures, at the right times, to the right people, for the sake of our own growth and also to honor the bigness of God’s grace. James 5:16. In fact, I think this is where you realize that much of what passes for authenticity these days is actually just image management.
So here we have it—does God want us to be hypocrites, or to be closeted all the time, or to be fake, or to live ashamed of who we are? No! …So then does that mean that he invites us to express whatever we find in our hearts, so we can be authentic? No again! He invites us to give our hearts to him, to trust him with our whole hearts, and to have our whole being completely renewed by a new relationship with His Spirit, and let his Spirit teach us his commands, so that what is on the inside is pleasing to God, and what is on the outside matches what’s on the inside—in other words, what comes out of us pleases God too. God’s focus is not simply on authenticity, but on renewed, healed, whole humanity.
Now how does someone who has had this happen to them talk? What do they represent? See 2 Corinthians 4:5. We don’t preach ourselves! We preach Christ. Authentic Christianity is not Christians who go around telling everyone how they feel and promoting themselves. Authentic Christianity is being people who are so full of God’s spirit and healed of the pride and sin that ruins everyone that we love to talk about and promote Jesus and all of his glory and love to everyone. We just stop thinking about ourselves and how we feel all the time. We’re thinking about how great Jesus is, and we want everyone else to see it too.
Playing through our twenties
Marshall Segal has an excellent article over at Desiring God:
Freedom and independence may be the purpose of choice among twentysomethings today. Clinical psychologist Meg Jay who focuses on young adults writes, “By the new millennium, only about half of twentysomethings were married by age thirty and even fewer had children, making the twenties a time of newfound freedom. . . . The twenties were now disposable years lubricated by disposable income” The Defining Decade).
The twenties have become this new kind of “paradise” in between childhood and real adulthood, when you can party hard, experiment with new things, and spend lots of money without feeling the consequences. We postpone becoming adults, or at least the responsibilities that come with being an adult, in order to enjoy a decade of gratification without boundaries and autonomy without expectations — a second, more sophisticated round of playschool before “real life” begins.
Jay shows that while twentysomethings are living it up, everyone else is wishing they were in their twenties. Teenagers are acting like they are twenty-one, and more mature adults are dressing and getting surgery to look twenty-nine, again. The “freebie years,” as she calls them, seem to be what life is all about, the height and pinnacle of human existence.
After years of counseling twentysomethings — the new kings and queens of our society — Jay finds most of them aimlessly wandering and wanting…
Please, my young adult friends… go read this whole post.
What to say when someone says it doesn’t matter if Christians live in sin because lots of Christians are living in sin.
Sometimes people say that they (or someone they know) can continue to live in a way that the bible clearly identifies as sin because, well, nobody’s perfect, and everyone sins.
How should a Christian respond?
- Jesus gets to tell us what sin is. If we’re not willing to let Jesus define what is sin and what is not, we’re not his disciples. He tells us through his Spirit, by His word. In other words, we read the bible with prayer and the Spirit to find out what sin is. (Luke 6:46, Matthew 7:21, John 14:15)
- It is true that everyone sins. (Romans 3:23, 1 John 1:8). This is why Jesus died. But does this mean that Christians shouldn’t worry about keeping sin around in their lives? No. (Romans 3:5-8, 6:1)
- Christians don’t decide what to think about sin by looking at whether other people are sinning. They decide what to think about sin by reading the bible with the Spirit and prayer. (2 Corinthians 10:12, Psalm 119:9)
- So how does the bible tell us to think about sin? What is the believer’s relationship with sin?
- We confess it when it happens. (1 John 1:9)
- We can know that this leads to being cleansed and knowing we’re forgiven.
- When the Holy Spirit is working in us we want to not sin. (1 John 2:1)
- We know that “walking in darkness” and refusing to keep his commandments makes our life a lie. Walking openly (“in the light”) while we freely confessed our sin and turn away from it shows we really know God. (1 John 1:6-7, 2:4-5)
- The believer wants no relationship with sin at all! Jesus suffered God’s wrath for sin (1 John 2:2). He came to take it away (1 John 3:7).
In other words, when Christians discover sin in their lives, they don’t say, “oh well, everyone’s a sinner.” Instead, they do whatever they can to get it out of their lives. This is called repentance. (Romans 6:1-23)
What do Christians do with sin? They repent of it.
- What about when someone else we know is sinning? Are we supposed to be ok with it, since nobody’s perfect? Does the fact that other people are sinning make us indifferent to a friend’s sin? Again, a follower of Jesus will let Jesus answer this question for them by his word and Spirit. And what we find in the bible is something like this:
- We care about if others are in sin. Because we know sin dishonors God, and injures the one living in sin. (Psalm 32:10, Proverbs 6:27, Isaiah 57:21, John 8:34, Romans 6:23, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11) We let the bible define what things are sin and what things are simply different convictions. This way we don’t become nitpickers. (Romans 14-15, 1 Corinthians 8-9)
- We make sure our lives are free of the sin we see in others lives. (Matthew 7:3-5)
- We actively talk to each other about the sinful patterns in their lives. (James 5:19-20, 1 John 5:16, Jude 20-23, Leviticus 19:17)
- We want every believer to turn away from things the bible clearly says dishonor God and harm them. (Hebrews 3:12-13, Ephesians 4:17-32)
So what do Christians do about sin? They repent of it. Then they become the kind of people that can help lead others to repentance too. In other words, they become “slaves of righteousness.” (Romans 6:18)