Blessed is the One who heeds Wisdom's Instruction

 Read Proverbs 29

As we draw near the end of Proverbs, we come again to where we began.  There is God’s way and there is everything else.  Consider my governing framework for this book of wisdom in the context of verse 18.

Where there is no revelation, people cast off restraint;

    but blessed is the one who heeds wisdom’s instruction.

That was from the NIV. Some of you my age may have learned this in the King James Version.

Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.

The English Standard Version puts it this way.

Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint,

    but blessed is he who keeps the law.

When we do not receive the vision sent to us by God—in whatever form that takes for us who live in this age—we depart from the blessings of living God’s way into the minefields of the everything else.

When we don’t listen to and abide in what Dad, Abba, Father has been telling us, we are surely headed out of the land of blessings into the wasteland of peril.

I’ll take one more crack at this.  There is God’s way and there is everything else.

God’s way – Everything else

Blessings – Minefields

Wisdom – Foolishness

Righteous – Wicked

Industrious – Lazy

Obedient - Rebellious

Life – Death

God’s way – Everything else

For all of the parallel construction, positives and negatives, A-B structures, provocations that require some deep thought, metaphors and other comparative tools, Solomon brings us to the ultimate dichotomy.

There is living God’s way and there is everything else.

If we don’t look to God’s way and are blind to his revelations, we live without restraint.  We live lawlessly.  We perish.  In modern rural vernacular, that dog don’t hunt.

If we go back to the original language, we find that God’s way was delivered most often in what we call the law—the Torah.

There is much discussion whenever we use the word law or Torah, so much so that many Christians lose sight of the command to be known as disciples of Jesus by our love and substitute being known by our interpretations and self-righteousness.

Too often we strain out gnats and swallow camels in wanting people to agree with our way, instead of being known as disciples of our Lord by practicing God’s way, by living a life governed by love.

The problem is that we too often place what some would consider negative or confining attributes on the words Torah and law.  We should consider these terms in a fuller meaning, hopefully, closer to their original intent.

What is Torah?  It is direction.  It is instruction.  It is law, but it is also customs, rulings, teachings, but most of all it is God’s way.  Whether we frame it as a command, a directive, an instruction, a ruling, or guidance—it is God’s way. Commands, directives, instructions, and the like can all mean the exact same thing or vary in significant ways.  That variance is often our language mixed with our perspectives and sorted by our bias.  It is also our vulnerability to being lured into the everything else.

Understand that God revealed his way to us for our own good. We should receive, understand, and live out the instructions that God gave us.

Blessed is the one who heeds wisdom’s instruction.

He that keeps the law is happy

Blessed is he who keeps the law.

But I thought we were free from the law?  I thought Jesus was the way to heaven?  I thought the ultimate sacrifice for our sins had been made?

I thought we were saved by grace through faith?  You are!

But how will you respond to this wonderful gift?  Will you live to bring glory to God?  Will you enjoy your relationship with God?

God has revealed his way to us.  He has also revealed the everything else.  Much of this revelation came in those first 5 books of the Bible.  Much came through the prophets. Much came in the wisdom books of the Bible.  Much came in the life and teachings of Christ Jesus—the Word made flesh, and much comes from the Spirit of God that lives within us.

When we dismiss or devalue one part of God’s revelations to us, we discount his sovereignty in favor of our own and are not heeding wisdom’s instructions. 

Our atonement came in the blood of Christ Jesus—the only one to ever fulfill the law, but our response to this great love is left to us.  Will we stop resisting when God is directing our steps?

God is moving us forward to a better relationship with him.  One obstacle to that is our interpretation of this statement:  Love fulfills the Law.

Too many think that those who live by love are getting off easy.  God’s laws must be rigid and strict and compliance must be lock-step, and to some degree difficult.  Consider, instead, that God has raised—not lowered—the bar for us, at least for those who will follow him and be known as his disciples by our love.

Love fulfills the law does not abandon obedience.  It embraces it.  I know several people who can do tasks over and over again and do them well.  They are obedient and compliant and do exactly what the specifications require. The specification may be difficult, but skill comes with repetition.

Others note the specifications for individual tasks and have been given eyes to see a house or a ship or a space station.  We do not denounce those who can only see the step-by-step directions.  They are living their lives as fully as they are equipped to do.

We should also embrace those who can see the house or the ship when they read the directions.  They do not see less.  They are not less obedient. They see the designer’s passion and embrace it. They live by love and in so doing fulfill the law.

They—in many cases that is we—didn’t get off easy.  We accepted the challenge to live completely in God’s way.

If you think you are getting off easy when you say, love fulfills the law; you have not understood God’s ways.  Living by love is not joining the French Foreign Legion never to be heard of again. It’s living to the glory of God, growing in his grace, and enjoying the relationship knowing that the life you have called your own truly belongs to the one you proclaim as Lord.

The old standard for us was to love God with everything we had and love each other as much as we love ourselves.  While difficult, we sometimes obtain that second part.  Loving someone as much as we love ourselves is possible.

Now consider that Jesus gave his disciples—that includes us in this age—a new command.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

We don’t just love others as much as we love ourselves.  That would be easy in comparison to what he called us—commanded us—to do.  Love one another as much as he loved us.  He loved us to the point of giving his life for us.  Yep, that raised the bar.

Remember, all of the points of the law hang upon, rest upon, come together in the commands to love God and love one another.  Loving God and loving one another are the supporting uprights and beams of the law.

Let’s get back to the proverb.

Blessed is the one who heeds wisdom’s instruction.

He that keeps the law is happy

Blessed is he who keeps the law.

Why follow the law?  Why live a life governed by love.  Why seek to live God’s way?

As with so much that has been revealed to us in our studies, God does things that are for our own good and instructs us to do things that bless us.  They are the directions that give us hope and a future.

We do not live God’s way to obtain salvation.  God has done all that is required to save us from our sins and from death.  Jesus paid it all!

In response to this unfathomable love, we want to please God.  We want to live in his ways.  We want to do the things that bless God. We want to bring glory to his name and enjoy the relationship he has in store for us. We want to live as he designed us to live.

When we do, he blesses us even more.  We are happy.  Sin and death are no longer hanging over us.  So, what will we do?  Will we go on sinning so grace can abound even more?

BY NO MEANS!

We will live God’s way.  We will live as he instructed us, not so much in lock-step compliance—though some may find this to be the limits of their God-given abilities—but fully governed by love.  In so doing, we will be happy and blessed.

There is God’s way and there is everything else, and God’s way is love.

God’s way is love!

Blessed is he who lives by Love. To live this life given to us in the blood of Jesus, and to live it without love, is lawlessness.  It is rebellion.

God is love.  God’s way is love. His law, his prophets, his wisdom, his Word made flesh, and his Spirit that lives within us bring us to love.  Love directs our steps.

There is God’s way and there is everything else, and God’s way is love.

We can live in God’s way.  Remember that he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.  You are equipped to live God’s way.  You are equipped to live by love.

Amen.