Transcript
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[music] This is my second sermon in a series of six messages I'm giving on the parables of Jesus and the role of the Christian in today's world. ... ...teacher of the parables. They reveal his character. They are part of the self-disclosure that our Lord makes about himself. And then also, the parables show his will for our lives as his disciples in the world. In fact, our
Lord, remember in the parable of the Good Samaritan that we looked at last week, at the close of that parable makes it very direct. He says, go and do likewise. The parables do teach us in very whimsical ways. The parables give us insight into what it's like to be a disciple of Christ in the world. But there's still one more thread present in the parables of our Lord. And that is that the mandates of Christ's parables
are undergirded by the profound understanding that Jesus shows to us about ourselves. And that's the third thread we want to look at, especially today. I would describe this profound inner thread, within the parables, in all of the parables of Jesus, as that concern that Jesus has for our wholeness. Jesus' parables teach about the healthy self. Scholars who study the parables of our Lord point out that they are always agriculturally accurate when he deals with agriculture. They're
also psychologically accurate when he deals with people. We discover in the parables that Jesus knows what makes us tick. You never get the feeling in a parable of our Lord's that he is unaware of what's going on. He knows what's going on in our minds as we hear the story. And this is a very important third strand that's present in the parables of our Lord. What it means to be a healthy person becomes clear in these
parables. As a matter of fact, we cannot be of much use trying to do God's strategy in the world, which we saw last week in the parable of the Good Samaritan. We can't really be Samaritans unless we ourselves are enabled by God to respond to that challenge. Well, I have a great text for you today. I'd like you to open to the sixth chapter of Matthew's Gospel. I'm sure you realize that this chapter is right in
the very middle of the most famous sermon ever preached, the Sermon on the Mount. And the sixth chapter of Matthew is a great interior part of the Sermon on the Mount. As Jesus talks about the way we see ourselves and feel about ourselves, and there are some very witty things that are said by Jesus in this section, in the Sermon on the Mount, and some things that really hit hard, and also some whimsical things as well.
You're going to love it. The sixth chapter, it starts with a warning. Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, and now begins the first of three illustrations he gives of this, Thus, when you give alms, you know what alms are, don't you? Alms are money or gifts or funds you give to the poor. By the
way, can I alert you to something in this illustration and the next two that you're going to see? He doesn't say, thus, if you give alms. You know, that's not up for grabs. It's when you give alms, we are all to give alms. Every one of us are to pray. Every one of us are to do these things. So Jesus doesn't say, if you give alms, but it's when you give alms. Thus, when you give alms,
sound no trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues, and in the streets, that they may be praised by men. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. You know, this already twice in the sixth chapter, Jesus has
introduced this, the possibility that God will reward us. And he stirs up throughout the sixth chapter that question in our minds, I wonder what the reward is that God has for us. That's one of the interesting things that begins to build throughout the sixth chapter. Alright, then he gives another illustration. And when you pray, this is a very personal, if alms giving is public, because after all, when you give gifts to others, it becomes public, especially
on April 15th, it becomes public, when your 1040 form lets the whole Internal Revenue Service know what alms you've given. But he says, when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues that they may be, and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men. Notice it's almost the identical storyline in this second episode as in the first episode. And now the same language
appears again. Amen. I say to you, they have received their reward. We have found that little phrase in first century receipts. It was evidently a little cliche that Jesus uses here that everybody in the first century would know. We use it in our century too, when a bill is printed, paid in full. And Jesus uses the same little saying that would be used on an economic document in the first century, paid in full. Is that the
payment you want? Well, that's what you'll get. So he says, truly I say to you, they have received their payment, their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Once again, I wonder what the reward is. And Jesus even has one more paragraph on prayer. And in praying, do not heap up empty phrases
as the Gentiles do. Remember Ephesus a few weeks ago when we were studying the life of Paul, and he was in Ephesus and those Ephesians sat in that big 45,000 person Greek theater and for two hours they shouted without stopping, great is Artemis, goddess of the Ephesians. They couldn't think of anything else to say, so they just kept saying it over and over and over again, endlessly repeating the same sentence. Is that supposed to impress?
We'll say it different ways though. Great is Artemis, goddess of the Ephesians. Great is Artemis, goddess of the Ephesians. Great is Artemis, goddess of the Ephesians. Over and over again, on and on and on. Notice our Lord knows that that's very common. So he says don't do that. Don't endlessly repeat. Don't pray lines over and over again. They think they'll be heard for their many words. Do not be like them. For your Father knows what you
need before you ask him. And then did you know that in this setting, Jesus teaches the only liturgical prayer our Lord ever taught his disciples is taught here in the Sermon on the Mount, this very brief prayer taught in the plural to his disciples. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our
debts as we have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from, and literally in Greek here, deliver us from the evil one. That little marvelous short prayer Jesus gives to his disciples. And then he closes it with this little P.S. For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your heavenly Father forgive your trespasses. People
have been baffled by this P.S. that Jesus puts at the end. Martin Luther in his commentary in the Sermon on the Mount, I think correctly sees that this is a part of the assurance part of the passage. And our Lord is telling the disciples that if you want to be sure you're forgiven, then you are assured of your forgiveness when you yourself forgive. Because when you're able to forgive, that proves to you that you are
forgiven. When you're not able to forgive, then as our Lord says, then I wonder if you really have been forgiven. Otherwise you'd be able to forgive. Now the third illustration Jesus gives. And when you fast, now let's understand fasting. Fasting in the first century was done for one of two reasons. Either to have uninterrupted time of prayer, therefore fasting, but the more common reason for fasting in the first century was to fast, that is to withhold
the use of your money in one direction so that you could give to the poor. We know that the Pharisee movement for instance tried to fast one day a week. They had a great sense of social justice, the Pharisees. And they would fast one day a week and take all the money they saved from fasting and they would give it to the poor. By the way, we're always so critical of the Pharisees, but before you start
criticizing the Pharisees too much, do any of you do that? Do I do it? Do you take all the money you would save from one day's eating and give it to the poor? Remember that parable Jesus told of the Pharisee who stood in the temple and the publican was there? And this Pharisee was very proud because he says, Lord, I fast two days a week and give all I have to the poor. And, I'm not like
this publican. Thank you, Lord. I'm so marvelous. I fast two days a week. And our Lord said, that man went down not justified even though he gave so much to the poor. So now, Jesus here is talking about withdrawing money from one enterprise, like saying, I'm not going to buy this so that I can give it to the poor. Or like a parent who says, I'm not going to do this so that I can send my
youngster to college. All right, now listen to the rest of it. So he says, when you fast, when you do that, when you withdraw money from one side and in a sense sacrifice so that you can give to the poor. He says, when you do that or if you do it so that you can pray, do not look dismal like the hypocrites for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by men. Amen, I
say to you, they have received their reward paid in full. And when you fast, anoint your head with oil and wash your face. Now, those are both signs of health. Do it healthily. In other words, that your fasting may not be seen by men, but by your father who is in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you. All right, one more illustration and then comes the parable that Jesus tells to draw all
this to a great conclusion. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal. I want to do two word studies for you here because this is a fascinating paragraph. There's a play on words that the RSV totally misses. They followed the King James Bible and used the words do not lay up for yourselves treasures. And that was unfortunate because there's a play on words that's
in the Greek text. Literally, the text reads this. Do not treasure treasures. The word tresorus is the word for treasure and the Greek sounds like this. Tresorus, tresorus. Don't treasure treasures. In fact, the word treasures is used five times in this paragraph. It's a play on the word treasure. He says don't treasure treasures. It's good advice. Because there is where moth and rust. Now here I'll do a second word study for you. The word rust is
also not quite accurate here because the word brosis is used in Greek and the word brosis in Greek literally means eating. And it is the word for the larvae stage of an insect. In fact, in the Septuagint when the Greek translated the Old Testament in the book of Malachi it is used this word brosis is used that way as the word for the larvae stage of the insect. And it's used that way also in Greek. But
for some reason or other the King James Bible used the word rust and that stuck and we've always used the word rust ever since. But it's really the word lust. It's the larvae, insect. In other words the hidden, you know the moth that flies around in your closet. Don't worry about him. He can't do anything. It's the moth you can't see in your closet. The larvae in the sleeve of your sweater. That's the one to worry
about. It's the larvae that eats the hole in the sweater. Not the little moth. You can go killing all the moths. But it's the larvae that's eating the sweater. In other words you don't see it. But it's there. And that's what Jesus is giving in this parable. The treasures that you treasure. If you treasure a treasure he says beware there's a moth and a larvae in the treasure. That's eating it. So now let's listen to it
again. Do not treasure treasures where moth and the larvae consume and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves but treasure treasures in heaven where neither moth nor the larvae of moths consume and where thieves do not break in and steal. And then he ends it with this again play on the word treasure. For where your treasure is notice Jesus is not against the treasuring instinct. Every person in this room has a treasuring
instinct. Nothing wrong with that. It's what you treasure. For where your treasure is there your heart is. And now comes the parable that draws the great teachings of this passage to a close. The eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is sound and here's my last word study for you this morning. The word for sound here is the Greek word Apollos. Now that's a very interesting word in the New Testament usage because
Apollos means literally single or it's also the word for health in Greek. It means single it's sometimes translated sincere like there's several places in the New Testament where the RSV translates it sincere. In the book of James chapter 1 verse 5 it's translated generous. But the word means literally generous or open or single. In other words not complicated not distracted not confused like in the next illustration our Lord gives about you can't serve mammon and God.
It's not confused. It's got a single perspective. A healthy perspective. Now listen to the passage. The eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is healthy is unconfused is focused is seeing one thing and not double vision then the whole body will be full of light. Your body will be healthy if you see things clearly. But if your eye is not single is not Apollos is not healthy then your whole body will be
full of darkness. And if the light in you is darkness how great is the darkness. Alright there's the parable that closes this passage. I could read on. The most famous part of the whole sixth chapter lies still ahead of us. Where Jesus says Solomon in all his glory is not arrayed like one of these. Why are you so worried about little things? Seek first the kingdom of heaven and his righteousness and all these things will be
given to you. That's the way the passage closes. But let's stop right here to see the marvelous insight into health and selfhood and the healthy self. That Jesus gives us in this parable. Jesus here is giving you a parable about being healthy. How to be healthy. And the key he says to health is how you see certain things. It's how you look at life. And he gives you three illustrations of what you see in this sixth
chapter. First how you see yourself. How you see things and how you see the things you do. All that. All that has to do with your health. And if any one of those is confused it will make you unhealthy. Or it will make me unhealthy. Now this is a very important parable for us today. Believe me we live in a high powered time when we need to have an haplos eye. A healthy eye. A healthy understanding
of ourselves. Now notice three crucial perspectives that Jesus puts into focus for us in Matthew 6. First. How we see the things we do has a critically important effect on your health. You've all heard about workaholics. Well listen. This is the passage for the workaholic who's confused at that point. And there are people who literally have destroyed their health by the way they do things. You've heard of type A and type B behavior and all the
rest. You've heard about compulsive behavior. Well here you have our Lord's people. They're the ones who have destroyed their health. Now notice the advice Jesus gives. Here's his advice. We are to do what we do as important parts of a whole but they are not themselves the whole. And if you and I can learn that then IBM won't ruin your life. And you won't have your life ruined by the game you play in sports or by
the things you do. You will have them with a healthy eye. Now notice the examples Jesus gives. It's interesting that the three examples he gives are very personal examples but they can be easily distorted. And that's why maybe our Lord used those as his three examples. The first example was almsgiving. He says the almsgiving you give. What you give to the poor. In other words your social justice concerns. He doesn't say if you give alms. It's
when you give alms. But notice that our Lord is not preoccupied with the art of giving or how you give or what attention you get in giving. But the key that Jesus teaches here is that what you give you should see your giving as a part of a larger whole. What is the goal of your giving? And notice our Lord has a kind of light touch in the way he handles our giving here. If we're preoccupied
with giving and getting attention like do you have press releases that go out when you give a gift to the University of California Alumni Association or to the American Red Cross or to the church and do you keep close tabs on whether you get all kinds of recognition for what you give. If you do then Jesus says you're very unhealthy because a compulsive sort of doubleness of vision is coming into the picture which will affect your
health. See he says don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. He's got a light touch to giving. He wants you to give. But he wants you to give in a way that sees it as a part of a larger goal and a larger whole. Leave that aside for a minute and get it together with prayer and fasting and I think you'll see his whole point. The same thing with prayer. He says
no repetition. In other words no fascination with the art of praying. Some people have actually made them have put themselves into a great deal of distress trying to figure out exactly the right way to pray. And our Lord puts you at ease with regard to that. In fact he even makes fun of repetitious prayers. I'll show you what I mean. Supposing last Christmas you got one Christmas card from a friend and you treasured it. It's wonderful.
That person remembered me how thoughtful. We every year send out a Christmas letter and I want to tell you that this year it's a little late. And so we didn't get the Christmas letter out in time. We just were too busy. So it's going to be an Easter letter. We didn't get the Easter letter out. Believe it or not we finished it yesterday. It's now a Mother's Day letter. But we will finally get it out. But
supposing you got a Christmas card from a friend and you treasured it like the people who treasure our Christmas letters they didn't get this year. And then now supposing one week later you got a second Christmas card from that friend. Now let me tell you what do you do with that? You could say oh they found a different design and they liked it and they just wanted to doubly let me know that they are wishing me
God's blessing this Christmas. How dear. How tender. Now let me ask you what your reaction is going to be when you get the third Christmas card from that person. And I'll tell you what's going to go through your mind. One, you're going to say to yourself you know I am so of so little importance to that person that they don't even remember they sent me the first two cards. Or that person's secretary is sending out cards
for him or her. Maybe he works for several companies and that's why I got three cards. And I want to tell you when the cards start getting up to seven and eight and nine cards one Christmas you're going to be calling his psychiatrist. Am I right? You see me thinkest thou protesteth too loud. That's what Shakespeare said when someone said I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you. Really? Then
why are you saying it so much? And our Lord is saying that when you're healthy your yay can be yay and your nay can be nay and your prayers can be an open relationship with Christ with our Heavenly Father you can come into his presence and you there's a light touch here. Jesus has there's a sense of humor in this. And in a wonderful way our Lord has set you free from the compulsive behavior in your
prayer life which is not a sign of health it's a sign of sickness. And there are some people whose compulsive spiritual life is not a sign of health it's a sign of sickness. If they really trusted in Christ they would relax in him. And then what about fasting? He brings up fasting. Now fasting again is a wonderful thing. I restrain myself from spending money so that my kids can go to college. But have you ever known
the type that keep reminding their children oh boy I hope you realize how much your mom and dad have suffered for you. Ungrateful college youth. And you know the more you suffer there are people that suffer a lot and they're terribly grim to be around. They're suffering so much for others. But they want to be sure you know. And Jesus says they get their reward. Think about what reward do you want? Sometimes I think people give
so they can get the reward of gratitude. And I want to tell you that's a terrible reward to work for. Is that what you really want from your kids? Is them to shower? I thank you mom. Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot dad for all you're doing for us. Thanks a lot. Is that what you want? Or do you want your kids to reach their stride and to do something and to contribute something to the world?
If that's what you want then don't do it this way. Because you're just making a person sort of a log keeper who keeps track of how many times people say thank you for all the things I do. And then they'll be the same kind of parent exacting thanks all the time from everybody. See Jesus is talking about health. Do you want to be healthy than when you fast wash your face? I realize it's taking a lot
of the joy out of suffering isn't it? Because half the fun of suffering is when others know how much I'm suffering. And Jesus says that's not healthy. Because instead of having my eyes on the great targets and the great goals I had for my life I have my eyes on the public response that I'm getting or the response of gratitude quotient I'm getting from my children or from other people. No what we've got here is our
Lord's prescription against compulsive behavior. His provision for the lighter touch toward life. Here our Lord is teaching us a way of living that understands healthy limitation. Now folks listen closely. Because this is very important theologically. There's a limitation view of life that Jesus is teaching. Remember last week in the parable of the Good Samaritan that same thesis was there? Jesus does not teach that story where the Samaritan finds the man who fell among thieves who's half
dead. And remember I said the story could be strengthened couldn't it? We could have the Samaritan turn out to be a brain surgeon. Orthopedic brain specialist who had his van there with his portable operating room right there in the van. He stopped. He did surgery on that man. And isn't that a wonderful marvelous provision of God that that surgeon happened to be there to rescue that man who fell among thieves. And then we could have stories
down through the ages and have saint hospital hospital portable hospital ceremonies all the way down to the centuries of how God provided that hospital at that roadside on Jericho. But it would ruin the story. It would ruin the story. And also it would get you off the hook when you're down the road to Jericho because you could always say oh yes the Lord will provide with an orthopedic surgeon for this because it's way out of my
hands. I don't even know CPR. See that's a good argument in favor of not knowing CPR because then you don't have to stop and help. But Jesus doesn't do that with the story. He makes the story much simpler. Or I told you another example last week. The Samaritan could have taken the man into his home and took care of him for the rest of his life in his home. Provided for that man from then on took
him into his family and then we would have all kinds of stories about that. But that's not the way Jesus told the story. No our Lord limited the story. He limited what the Samaritan did. And that's the same thing we're seeing here with the almsgiving the prayer and the fasting. Jesus is limiting it. He says when you pray you don't have to pray all these things. Your heavenly Father knows what you have need. Bring yourself into
his presence. Pour out your heart to him. He knows what you need. You don't have to play games. And remember I pointed out last week the Samaritan does not do everything. He does something. And that's what makes the parable of the Good Samaritan so powerful. He does something not everything. A little first aid. A few hours late on his trip. A little exposure to danger. And a little money. That's all. And you get the same kind
of teaching here in chapter 6 of Matthew. Our Lord is restraining He's limiting all the things we have to do. He's giving us a lighter touch to our lives. And that makes us healthier. It's not healthy when you look at someone's life like your children's lives or someone you care about and you assume too much responsibility for that person. I know lots of people that are unhealthy because they've been doing that. They don't know how to
commit someone to the Lord to do what you're supposed to do. But you're not supposed to do everything. And see how our Lord has limited all the things you're supposed to do. Now the second observation we want to make from this text is that how we see the things that we have also has an important effect upon our health. Seeing the things that we do we talked about that. Now what about the things we have? Now
we are to see the treasures that we have and notice I pointed out that the treasuring instinct is not demeaned by Christ. He does not say we shouldn't treasure things because where our treasure is there our heart is. In other words our hearts yearn for things. But Jesus says that we are not to treasure we are not to hold treasures too tightly. And if we hold them too tightly it will affect our health. We don't treasure
treasures but we treasure the goodwill of God behind the gifts that He gives. We're thankful for the goodness of God behind the treasures. And when we see treasures this way, we'll have a stewardship view of treasures and we'll be healthier. We now give alms not to be thanked but to see the good that can happen with alms that are given. We now become an investor in the world an investor in the future an investor in the
future generations. And that's why we want to give. To see something happen. And I'll tell you I can spot a healthy person. Healthy people have two marks about them. One, they are more relaxed. They're more generous. There's no question about it. There's more haplos. There's more openness in a healthy person. And I can spot a person who's discovered Christ's love. Their hands loosen up. It's true. And they become more generous with their money, more generous with
their time, more generous with their lives. They become looser in that wonderful sense. And a second thing you can always tell with a person who's discovered Christ's love and has been loosened up in that way is they become more strategic. And they become concerned about being a part of what's happening in the world that changes the world for good. And now they're giving to the Red Cross or they're giving to the Earthquake Relief Fund or they're
giving to the church or they're giving to causes because they want to see something happen in the world. And they don't care whether people give thanks or not. They're not keeping score because they're seeing the thrill of investing in what God is doing in the world. You know, I never thought of it until this week when I was working on this passage that the biblical principle of tithing, which is, you know, giving one-tenth of what
we have to the Lord and to human need as a symbol of the fact that all of our lives belong to Christ so that we don't treasure treasures. And you know something? I never thought of it. I always thought of tithing as something that was good for the world and good for the, you might say, it was good for getting God's work done and good for us in that sense as a disciple. But now I see
in this passage it's good for our health. It keeps us from becoming compulsive. And it keeps us from becoming becoming constipated in a sense with the possessions that we have. And so this is the health of an eye that is uncluttered in the way it looks at the things that we have. And now let me make one last observation. How we see ourselves has the most important effect of all upon our health. How do you look
at yourself? Jesus says that when the eye is healthy in the way it looks at itself, myself, as well as what I do and what I have. And let me just say that the Sermon on the Mount is good medicine for that. Our Lord makes it clear to us that we are more valuable than all of Solomon and his glory. All of the glory of the flowers and all the glory of the animal kingdom that God
cares for. He says, are not you of much more value than they? How do we see ourselves? We see ourselves, first of all, as valuable in God's sight, as precious in His sight. And we see ourselves as those who belong to Jesus Christ. We belong to the Father. We don't have a split loyalty. We see ourselves in the light of God's love for us. And now we are able to take on the task of being and
doing and having. What He wants us to do in the world, how He wants us to hold the treasures He's given us, and then what He wants us to be in the world. You know, there's a very important book that's just been written, and I have been fascinated by this book. In fact, next week I'm going to ask Logos to have a book table after all the services next week and have a lot of the books
that I've been quoting from in my series in the Apostle Paul. And I'm going to have those books there, and I'm going to also have them have this book there. It's called Habits of the Heart, written by Robert Bella, here at the University of California, and also several of his colleagues in the sociology department. This book is a book on individualism and commitment in American life. They have studied hundreds of respondents all over America grappling with
the question of what do we believe in. And what they've come to an amazing set of conclusions in this book. And let me read you one of the comments that Robert Bella makes toward the opening of this book. He says, We engaged men and women in conversations about their lives and about what matters most to them. We talked about their families and communities, their doubts and uncertainties, and their hopes and fears with respect to the larger
society. We found them eager to discuss the right way to live and what to teach our children and what our public and private responsibilities should be. He said that people were eager to talk about it. But also dismayed by these subjects. These are important matters to those to whom we talked. It was interesting. Throughout every one of the studies, no one takes lightly the subjects that they chose to talk to these people about. And they found
that everybody felt it was very important about values, very important about what children believe, very important about what happened in the family, what happens in the society. But he says, But when we got in and asked them about their values, they found a great sense of vagary, a scary vagary. And they put it down in this book, it's because of the individualism that's taken over it so much that everybody is on their own. Everyone's on their
own. And I'll read the rest of the quotation. But he says, These important matters, he said, we found dismayed by these subjects. These are important matters to those to whom we talked. And yet concern about moral questions is relegated to the realm of private anxiety. Think of that. Moral questions that they found in this incredible study. By the way, my neighbor is the editor of the University of California Press. He says, Already they've sold more copies
of this book than the University of California Press has ever printed in any book Cal Press has ever put out. This is a very important book on what we believe as Americans and what the study has brought out is that we're not sure. We're sure that we have got to decide. But we're not sure what we've decided. In fact, he says, When moral questions are raised, there's what came out over and over again in all the
interviews, and I read about 10 of the case studies just last night, that over and over again the case studies show a deep sense of anxiety about what actually happened and what really would be the moral position I would come to. Now, that's what Jesus is talking about in the sixth chapter of Matthew. An eye that sees clearly. How do you understand yourself? How do you understand what God has given you? And how do you understand
what you're doing in the world? And how it touches other people and other people's lives? That's what the parables of Jesus are about. And during this series, I hope we can get into focus our Lord's reply, His anecdote for the kind of opposite of Apollos, the kind of confused eye that a lot of people have. Too many things for any one thing to be in focus. Jesus says, Health is to have a singleness of eye to
see what I have and what I'm doing and who I am in God's perspective. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this great text. We thank you for the way our Lord in very practical and whimsical ways has shown us just by these illustrations of almsgiving and of fasting and of prayer, has shown us what it means to feel good about ourselves, to be close to you as the one who knows us, and then to jump right
into the world and make a difference. Lord, help us to be that kind of person in today's world. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.
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My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments. For length of days and years of life and abundant welfare will they give you. Let not loyalty and faithfulness forsake you. Bind them about your neck. Write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favor and good repute in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. And do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him and he
will make straight your path. Be not wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and turn away from evil. It will be a healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones. Honor the Lord with your substance and with the firstfruits of God. Be not afraid of all your produce. Then your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will be bursting with wine. My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline or be weary of
his reproof. For the Lord reproves him whom he loves as a father the son in whom he delights. Happy is the man who finds wisdom and the man who gets understanding.
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