Don't complicate the simple

 Read Proverbs 21

Solomon continues in his this way, not that way presentation, but for the second chapter in a row, he throws out a unique concept to us.

We don’t really understand our own understanding.

Last week in the first service, I touched on this provocation.  We think we understand our own understanding, but Solomon says, not so fast.

A person may think their own ways are right,

    but the Lord weighs the heart.

Only God knows the heart.  We can convince ourselves of many things thinking them to be best or right or acceptable, but we don’t really know enough to say with certainty, that we’ve got this figured out.

So what’s the point of study?  What’s the point of iron sharpening iron?  Why invest time seeking God’s wisdom?

To affirm our trust—our absolute trust in the Lord —that’s the why of this.  We must trust God with everything we have.  For all of our knowledge, skills, and abilities, without trust in the Lord, we often find ourselves building the Tower of Babel all over again.

This is hard to comprehend.  We think we know what is best.  We think that we know what is right.  We think that we have it figured out, but if it is not completely in agreement with what the Lord has told us, we missed the mark.

We get that God’s ways are higher than our ways and his thoughts are so much more than our own.  We get that.

But we are inclined to believe that what we think is the best course of action.  Solomon notes that our thinking is not always in concert with God’s direction. We are not always in step with the Lord.  We think that we are, but that’s not always the case.

The whole iron sharpens iron concept helps.  It’s good to talk things out with another believer.  It’s too easy to convince yourself that your way is the best way.  A biblically sound partner helps,  but often stalls in the red zone.

The quality of humility gives us pause to remember the sovereignty of God and lay our thoughts and plans and thinking before him, knowing that only he has perfect knowledge.  He knows the plans that he has for us and they are good plans.  They give us hope and a future.

Our hearts and minds need to be in sync with each other and more importantly with God’s will.

A person may think their own ways are right,

    but the Lord weighs the heart.

Sometimes we just need to give God credit for being God. We want to know the rules so we can follow them or seek an exception to them or figure out how to game the rules.  That’s just our nature.

Some search the rules and find ones they think are most important or most likable to them, but they do it to the exclusion of others.  It’s called cherry-picking and most have done this at some point.  Some still do, but cherry-picking attempts to fit God into our box, and he just doesn’t fit.

Cherry-picking thumbs its nose at the full biblical witness, saying that other stuff God said doesn’t matter.  Our minds will tell us that we are right, but God sees the heart and it is in rebellion.

But, we like to know the rules…

A goat takes care of this, and a pair of birds for that.  Bring in your sheath of wheat. Show up on this day.  Stay home on that day. Confess to the Lord.  Confess to one another. We think that we have got it all figured out, then discover that God has been talking to our hearts more than our minds.

To do what is right and just

    is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.

We know this thinking.

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.

    And what does the Lord require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy

    and to walk humbly with your God.

This is not unfamiliar territory.

For I desire mercy, not sacrifice,

    and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.

We are finite creatures.  We like rules.  We don’t always like following the rules, but we like to know what they are. We like what we can understand, but do we really understand what we think we do?

We like the yellow line on the football field that marks the line to gain—the first down.  It’s not really there, but it lets us argue the spot more intensely when we think we know how close we are.  We like knowing the framework that we work within.

For all the mental faculties that we think we have, the Lord is more interested in our hearts.  He wants us to be humble and gentle and to love mercy.

Justice is important.  Mercy is essential.  We have all fallen short of God’s glory and rejoice in our redemption in Christ Jesus, but sometimes we forget that our blessings and favor followed God’s mercy that we did not deserve.

Sometimes the old creature sneaks back into the new creation and we look down on others who have fallen short.  We may think that we are right and just and justified in our condemnation, but God sees the heart.  God weighs the heart, and a condemning heart is not one that is seeking after the Lord, no matter what our mind tells us.

How can we condemn others when but for the grace of God, we would be them?

In the midst of do this and don’t do that or here are the consequences for laziness or wickedness or foolishness, Solomon warns us to watch out for our own thinking.  Watch out for what you think you understand.

Some of you are familiar with Calvin’s TULIP - (Total Depravity, Unconditional election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible grace, and Perseverance of the Saints).  It’s a five-point doctrinal scale.  You don’t have to agree with it, but most in the reformed tradition consider it and where we fall on the TULIP.  I will only look at the T today.  It is for the Total depravity of humankind.

Ouch!  That sounds mean, but what it means is that every person—every human—has been stained in some way by sin.  Nobody escaped.  We are all touched or stained or blemished by sin.  Most Christians agree with this.

I have addressed the TULIP before and may again.  Perhaps at that time I will do it as a Jeopardy game with the categories being the parts of the TULIP, but not today.

Our human disposition is to judge and condemn.  God gave us a judge, a personal judge, not one for us to use as we evaluate and condemn everyone else.  The word of God judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

God sees the heart.  God knows the heart. We think that we know what is best but if our heart is not in accord with God, we missed the boat no matter how good our thinking sounds to us, and our thinking will always sound good to us.

Sometimes we think ourselves out of accord with God.  C’mon God, you gave me this mind.  Don’t you want me to use it?

I touched on this last week.  The most intelligent, the wisest, the most productive thing that we can do with our mind is to trust God.  Trust God with everything we have.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart

    and lean not on your own understanding;

in all your ways submit to him,

    and he will make your paths straight.

I think you remember there is God’s way and there is everything else.  God says give me your heart—all of it—and do it my way.  I have already figured out the consequences and sequels to what I have directed your to do.

I have my own personal mantra that I put forth sometimes.  It’s don’t complicate the simple.

Don’t complicate the simple.

It’s along the lines of the Law of Parsimony.  You probably know it as Ockham’s Razor.  Tom’s version is don’t complicate the simple.

Our nature is to say this is what God says, but…

Solomon tells us this is what God says, now put away your other conditions.  No ifs, ands, or buts if you will.  God has already computed the consequences and sequels to what he has directed us to do.

Just do it.  God has factored in what we can and cannot understand and just told us the right answer. He has directed our steps without us having to resolve all the possible contingencies.

I’m going to coopt Frank Sinatra’s lyrics here.

I faced it all and I stood tall

And did it God’s way

Paul wrote a promise to the church in Philippi.  If they would stop being anxious and turn everything over to God in prayer and petition and if they would do it in a spirit of thanksgiving, they would receive peace that went beyond their understanding that peace from God would guard their hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

That promise is for us too. Our hearts and minds are linked, but the heart must govern and it must lead the mind to do things God’s way.  God sees the heart. God knows our hearts and is not influenced by what we think is better than his way.

What is Solomon’s point here?  Don’t talk yourself out of—think yourself out of doing what God has led your heart to do. Don’t try to outthink God.  Don’t look for some unique perspective in what God has made plain.  Don’t complicate the simple.  Trust God with everything that you are and you have and you will be.

Don’t think yourself out of God’s way into the everything else.  Trust in the Lord with everything you have—with all of your heart.  It is just that simple.

Amen.

 

Matthew 18 - Part 5

 

Read Matthew 18

Read the message about this parable from 2017.

Peter wanted to know how many times he should forgive someone.  Seven seemed like a good guess.  Jesus replied, not 7 but 77.  Some translations might say 7 times 70, that’s 490 times.  That’s a lot of forgiveness.

And so, Jesus told the story of a man who owed his king 10,000 talents.  That’s a bunch of money.  There was no way he could repay that now but the debt had been called.

The man pleaded that he would not be sold to pay for the debt.  The king had mercy on him and forgave the debt.  Now that’s some mercy right there!

The man went on his way and came across a man who owed him a hundred silver coins and he demanded payment.  The man could not pay and he pleaded for more time to repay.

The man who had been forgiven so much would forgive nothing.  He had the man who owed him put into prison until he could pay.  His fellow servants found out about this and reported it to the king.

The king was furious.  He said, I canceled all of your debt and you couldn’t show just a little bit of mercy on your fellow servant?  OK, two can play this game.  He handed this man over to the jailers to be tortured until he could repay what he owed.

Realize that there are many strategies for getting out of debt, but getting tortured doesn’t reduce the sum owed.  It’s a no-win scenario.

Now we can look at this parable and think justice was done.  It was but the king desired mercy more than justice. 

Jesus told this parable to help Peter and us understand what it will be like at the end of the age.  We can never pay what we owe God but God desires mercy more than justice or sacrifice or any perfunctory payment.  He desires mercy.

He delivers mercy.  He wants to see mercy operating within us so much more than compliance, mindless obedience, ritual, or anything else that misses the divine heart of God.

When we are at a loss as to what we should do, find the way that includes love and mercy.

When we are struggling to please God, find the way governed by mercy.

When the world is going absolutely crazy around us, find a time and place to practice mercy.

Consider how Jesus called us to come to him as a child, not as a judge or master of ritual, but as a child.  Come to him as a completely accepting child.  Accept love.  Accept forgiveness.  Accept others with the same love and mercy that you received.

Grant forgiveness.  Be known by your love and mercy.  Be an example of mercy to your fellow servants.  Do not lead anyone astray by your lack of compassion and mercy.  Speak the truth to your fellow servants in Christ, even about uncomfortable subjects, but do it in a spirit of love.

Practice mercy.

We did a little warm up at the beginning of the service.  Let’s do it again.

Seek justice.

Love mercy.

Walk humbly with your God.

Think about these two words:  love mercy.  What if we not only tried to practice mercy, but we loved mercy.  We loved being merciful.

What if our new nature—our Christ nature—loved mercy.  What if we did what Jesus instructed the Pharisees to do.  Learn what this means.  I desire mercy not sacrifice.

The child does not know bitterness or contempt or hate or coveting.  The child accepts the love of a parent without questioning.  But our human hearts have been corrupted by sin.  Left to our own desires we seek to gratify ourselves more than others, more than God.

To enter the kingdom of heaven we must become like a child again.  We don’t come seeking to balance the scales that can never be balanced.  We owe more than we can pay.  We owe more than we can imagine.  Our only recourse is mercy.  Without mercy, we are toast.

But mercy is not our first nature.  We want what is owed to us by others.  What others owe becomes our focus.  It gets in the way of putting God first.  It blinds us to what God has done for us and we see only what we desire from others.

We have received mercy beyond our comprehension.  We must deliver mercy to the best of our ability.  We must remember that while we were God’s enemies, Christ died for us.

Let’s say our words from Micah again.

Seek justice.

Love mercy.

Walk humbly with your God.

Christ came full of grace and truth.  We have received more than mercy.  We have received favor.  How can we ever deliver condemnation? How can we look upon another with disdain?  How can we see others through eyes of contempt?

Our M.O. must be mercy.  As we begin this New Year, consider all the old things that you hold on to because someone wronged you.  So long as you hold on to these things, you are not prepared to deliver mercy.  You want justice from your own unique perspective.

It makes for a good action movie with plenty of violence, payback, and revenge, but it also makes for a terrible likeness of Christ Jesus whom others should see in us.

As we set upon this New Year, I asked us to set as our goal to do the things of God.  Let’s put practice mercy near the top of that list of the things of God.

Seek justice.

Love mercy.

Walk humbly with your God.

Amen!

Love Mercy

Read Micah 6:1-8

Will the Lord of all the earth not do right?

God is good.  He is righteous.  He is just.

God is just.  Without God, there would be no justice.  Right and wrong emanate from our Creator.  For those who think that this whole thing is just a cosmic accident put into motion without a creator of any sorts, then justice in incomprehensible.

How can justice derive from accident and coincidence?  If we all evolved from single cells in the ocean then survival, not justice becomes our core value.

But it seems that almost all of us want justice at some point in our lives.  Usually, it’s right after the call goes against us and the blind referee—some would say that I am being redundant—is marking of 15 yards against our favorite team.

Even Superman was for truth, justice, and the American way.

We like to think that justice is blind.  We like to think that there is equal justice under the law.  What do we say at the end of the pledge of allegiance?  Isn’t it liberty and justice for all?  These are lofty goals, American goals, and on occasion, even achievable goals.  Often, they are just out of reach.

Justice is a unique concept.  When we look at everyone else, we want justice.  When we look in the mirror, we much prefer mercy over justice.

Isn’t that our nature?  We want liberty and justice for all, and some mercy for me.

We have discussed the mercy that we know.  God is merciful.  He is also just but we seem to be a lot more thankful that he is merciful.  That’s who God is, but what about us?

What does God require of us with regard to justice and mercy?

The two qualities are not exclusive of each other.  God doesn’t seem to have a problem with justice and mercy.  His heart is full of mercy but he administers justice. 

The prophet tells us to seek justice but to love mercy.  Being fair and just and doing what is right must always be a part of who we are, but mercy must be the desire of our hearts.  We must love being merciful.

What’s the point of following all of the rules if there is no mercy in us?  God’s Chosen People went down this road a few times.  Their sacrifices and offerings were empty.  Sure the grain or the goat was present, but the heart of the giver gave way to some perfunctory performance. 

The people were going through the motions.  They just existed day to day without much life in their life.  They just didn’t want the sorry end of the stick when justice was being handed out.

What a pitiful and passionless way to live.  I just don’t want to get hit by lightning or lose my crop or go to hell.  How many goats and buckets of olive oil must I bring to save my sorry self from the fires of hell?

Surely the roots of many eastern religions come out of this thinking.  The purpose of my existence is the elimination of suffering.  Life is suffering and victory in life is reducing suffering, especially my own.

Life is suffering.  The goal of my existence is to reach a plane of nonexistence.

What a way to live!  Yet, God’s people were on this track of minimizing their suffering at the expense of truly serving a God who designed them to truly live.

Yeah, God’s there.  I know it, but I’ve got bills to pay and kids to raise and Facebook posts to make.  I just don’t want to lose what I have.  I don’t want things to get worse.

What a way to live!

Have you ever watched a football team lead all of the way through the game and then start playing not to lose?  It’s a pitiful sight.  They had the upper hand for most of the game and then they changed they way they played so as not to lose the game instead of playing the best that they can every minute.

God’s message to his people throughout time is that he wants them to live.  He wants them to live a good life and bring glory to his name.  When we make mistakes, he wants us to confess to him and receive his mercy.  When we do this we can get back to living.

God, who is infinite in his wisdom, created us to live a finite time in these bodies.  Eternity is in store for us, but every moment in this life is precious.  How we live, especially those of us with Christ in our hearts, is a precious commodity.  We use phrases such as work out your salvation, walk in the truth, and number your days to focus on how we are to live.

Justice is important.  Loving mercy more than justice makes us more like our Creator.

Which brings us to Karma.  We like justice.  We are good with mercy, but we love karma, right?

What?

The universe has a scorecard and soon enough, you are going to get paid back for all of that mean stuff you did, especially for the mean stuff that you did to me.  That’s karma right there and it has been growing in popularity even among believers.

To seek justice is noble.

To love mercy is godly.

To want karma to do its thing is human.  I have read the Bible more than once or twice or however many times.  Some books get read more than others.  I’ve studied a lot of the original words and phrases trying my best to find the best fidelity to the original intent and the full biblical witness.

In all of my studies, I never found a single verse about karma.  Judgment, yes.  An accounting, yes.  Karma, not so much.

It would be so much easier to practice seek justice, love karma.  That’s more our inclination but the direction is to seek justice and love mercy.

We are to desire justice but love mercy.  I desired to go to NBA games when I lived in Orlando, Florida and I did go to several, but I would have loved to go to one and seen Michael Jordan play.  I checked for tickets every time that the Bulls came to town but they were sold out.  Occasionally, there would be a single ticket in the nose bleed section for several hundred dollars.

I could pay the rent for the next two months or go see Jordan.  I even thought that I could get Christopher a single ticket at an out of mind price just so he could say he saw Michael Jordan play, but decided that I didn’t want to send him in with 20,000 other Jordan crazed nuts by himself.  Besides that, the O’Rena was right next to OBT—Orange Blossom Trail—the place where the junkies and prostitutes hung out. 

My wife was never to happy that after the games that we did go to, I would take my son to the Church’s Chicken on OBT.  You want some good chicken, go to a place where a junkie needs to make enough for his next fix and he will cook you some good chicken.

I sought out tickets to other games but would have loved to have seen Jordan and got some chicken.

We are called to seek justice but to love mercy.

All things considered we would like everyone to play by the rules.  When there is an infraction, we think there should be penalty or correction or some sort of sequel that provides justice.  That’s fine.  That’s a good model, but we are called to love mercy more than justice.

Let’s put it this way.  Justice is transactional.  It works as far as regulating a civil society goes, but it is transactional. 

Mercy is transformational.  Mercy is not constrained to do certain things nor restrained from others.  Mercy crosses boundaries.  Mercy forgives that which does not deserve to be forgiven. 

When we have run awry of justice, we desire mercy for ourselves.  Last week we examined David’s petition for mercy in Psalm 51.  We already love mercy for ourselves.  We get that part.  We already love mercy for ourselves.

But we must love mercy for others.  That’s a bit more challenging.  It requires us to set aside our human heart and live out of God’s divine heart.  When we think of being made in the image and likeness of Jesus, think of living out of his heart.

We must love mercy more than we love justice and we think justice is a good thing.  Loving mercy does not lessen the need for justice, it just goes beyond what justice can achieve.

A transformed heart is a greater victory than someone paying for their trespasses by being thrown into debtor’s prison.  A renewed mind is a greater victory than one that only memorized the rules so he or she could better get around them.

Justice is transactional.  Mercy is transformational.

When we seek justice and love mercy there is a unique balance in life that lets us walk humbly with our God.  When we seek only justice, it’s hard to walk with a God of mercy.

When we seek only mercy, we deny that God is just.

When we dispense only justice, we become void of mercy.  But when we seek justice and love mercy, then we can live harmoniously in the favor of God.  We can navigate this life.

God wants us to desire what is right, what is good, and what is just, but he wants us to have a heart given over to mercy.

The prophet gave us some very concise words for good living.

Seek justice.

Love mercy.

Walk humbly with your God.

The prophet lived before the time of Christ.  Resurrection and redemption were things to come, but the prophet’s counsel survives the atonement that we received in Christ Jesus and is still good counsel for how we respond to the grace and favor of God.

Seek justice.

Love mercy.

Walk humbly with your God.

Amen.