Sunday
Morning Bible Study
August
27, 2017
Introduction
Do people see Jesus? Is the gospel
preached? Does it address the person who is: Empty, lonely, guilty, or afraid
to die? Does it speak to the broken
hearted? Does it build up the church? Milk – Meat – Manna Preach for a decision
Is the church loved? Regular: 2900
words Communion: 2500 words Video=75wpm
Israel information meeting today after Second Service. We will serve lunch.
This year a brand-new movie hit the theaters that chronicled Lee Strobel’s
journey from being an atheist to becoming a Christian.
If you have someone close to you who is an unbeliever, you should see this
movie. But I warn you, by the time the
movie is over, you will also wish you had brought them with you.
Solomon was the wisest man that
ever lived.
He became king over Israel when he
was a young man. God appeared to Solomon in a dream and promised to give
Solomon whatever he asked. Solomon replied,
(1 Kings 3:7–9 NKJV) —7 Now, O Lord my God, You have made Your servant
king instead of my father David, but I am a little child; I do not know how
to go out or come in. 8 And Your
servant is in the midst of Your people whom You have chosen, a great
people, too numerous to be numbered or counted. 9 Therefore give to Your servant an understanding heart to judge
Your people, that I may discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge
this great people of Yours?”
God gave Solomon wisdom.
The book of Proverbs contains just
some of the 3,000 proverbs that Solomon was known to have written (1Ki. 4:32).
(1 Kings 4:32 NKJV) He spoke
three thousand proverbs, and his songs were one thousand and five.
Proverbs are sayings, typically short, that give wisdom and insight into
everyday things.
They are intended to lead to a prosperous life.
They are not absolute promises that your life will always be healthy,
wealthy, and things will always go your way.
They are general principles – that if you do them your life will be
generally better than if you didn’t do them.
The big word that summarizes the
book is “wisdom”.
Wisdom is not a mere collection of
facts.
Wisdom is about practical living.
It’s how to live.
3:1-12 The God Connection
:1 My son, do not forget my law, But let your heart keep my commands;
:2 For length of days and long life And peace they will add to you.
:3 Let not mercy and truth forsake you; Bind them around your neck, Write
them on the tablet of your heart,
mercy – checed
– goodness, kindness, faithfulness
truth – ‘emeth
– firmness, faithfulness, truth
:4 And so find favor and high esteem In the sight of God and man.
:5 Trust in the Lord with all
your heart, And lean not on your own understanding;
:6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.
We’ll talk about these last two verses at the end.
:7 Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the Lord and depart from evil.
:8 It will be health to your flesh, And strength to your bones.
:7 Do not be wise in your own
eyes
(Proverbs 3:7–8 NLT) —7 Don’t be
impressed with your own wisdom. Instead, fear the Lord and turn away from evil. 8 Then you will have healing for your body and strength for your
bones.
The smartest thing you could do in life is to learn to give God the proper
respect, and turn away from things that He says are wrong.
:9 Honor the Lord with your
possessions, And with the firstfruits of all your increase;
:10 So your barns will be filled with plenty, And your vats will overflow
with new wine.
:9 Honor the Lord with
your possessions
Lesson
God-led giving
How do we honor God with our possessions?
By learning to give when and where He leads us.
God wants to be the “Lord” of our entire lives, and that includes our
wallet.
Illustration
The story is told of Sam Houston, hero of Texas history who gave his life
to the Lord in the later years of life and asked to be baptized. He was taken
down to a little country stream and the pastor said, “General Houston, you
should take your glasses off, because I am going to immerse you in water.”
There also were some papers in General Houston’s pocket, so he took those out
as well.
Then, just as he was getting ready to go into the water, the pastor noticed
that General Houston still had his wallet in his pants. He said, “Well,
General, you might want to take that wallet out of your pants. It is going to
get wet.”
Houston responded, “If there is any part of me that needs baptizing, it is
my wallet.” So Houston was baptized, wallet and all.
This doesn’t mean that if you want to get wealthy, that you need to give
all your money to the church.
It means that as a general principle, if you learn to give when and where
God leads you, He will take care of your needs. (2Cor. 9:6-8)
(2 Corinthians 9:6–8 NLT) —6 Remember
this—a farmer who plants only a few seeds will get a small crop. But the one
who plants generously will get a generous crop. 7 You must each decide in your heart how much to give. And don’t
give reluctantly or in response to pressure. “For God loves a person who gives
cheerfully.” 8 And God will
generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need
and plenty left over to share with others.
:11 My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, Nor detest His correction;
:12 For whom the Lord loves
He corrects, Just as a father the son in whom he delights.
chastening – muwcar
– discipline, chastening, correction
correction – towkechah
– rebuke, correction, reproof, punishment, chastisement
corrects – yakach
– rebuke, reprove, correct
:11 do not despise the chastening of the Lord
Lesson
Growing Up
This is one of the oldest wisdom
sayings in the Bible. It was not
original to Solomon, though he expanded upon it.
When Job was going through his
great difficulties of disease, losing his family, and losing his wealth, one of
his friends Eliphaz said this to “cheer” him up:
(Job 5:17 NKJV) “Behold,
happy is the man whom God corrects; Therefore
do not despise the chastening of the Almighty.
The author of the Hebrews brings up this verse in chapter 12 when
addressing the great persecution that believing Jews were experiencing.
The author calls their difficulties “chastenings”. The Greek word he uses (paideuo) describes the raising of
children.
(Hebrews
12:11 NKJV) Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful;
nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those
who have been trained by it.
If we learn from our trials, we grow up.
God is our Father, and like all good Dads, He teaches His children.
They’re supposed to teach us things, like riding a bike…
Video: Learning How To Ride a Bike
- BBC
We might receive instruction when our Dad sits us down and has a talk with
us – kind of like when you read your Bible or when you come to church and
listen to what’s being taught.
Sometimes a Dad has to discipline his child to get the lesson across –
whether it’s making us clean up the mess we made, or giving us a “time out”, or
even a spanking.
Has God been trying to teach you something?
Have you noticed a message that keeps repeating itself as you read the
Scriptures, listen to KWVE, or listen to a sermon?
Do you have a sneaking suspicion that some difficulty you’re encountering
has been God’s way of getting your attention and telling you to change your
behavior?
Don’t despise God’s instruction. Be
trained by it. Embrace it, learn from it, grow from it.
3:13-26 Lady Wisdom
Wisdom is considered to be one of the attributes of God. God is wise.
Wisdom comes from God.
Two weeks ago, we talked about how Solomon has taken this attribute of God
and has personified it at times as a woman.
:13 Happy is the man who finds wisdom (chokmah), And the man who
gains understanding;
:14 For her proceeds are better than the profits of silver, And her
gain than fine gold.
:15 She is more precious than rubies, And all the things you may
desire cannot compare with her.
:16 Length of days is in her right hand, In her left hand riches and
honor.
:17 Her ways are ways of pleasantness, And all her paths are
peace.
:18 She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her, And happy are
all who retain her.
:19 The Lord by wisdom
founded the earth; By understanding He established the heavens;
:20 By His knowledge the depths were broken up, And clouds drop down the
dew.
:19 The Lord by wisdom
founded the earth
God created the earth with “wisdom”.
We might call this “intelligent design”.
You can see this design even down to the level of genetics.
From last Thursday’s movie…
:21 My son, let them not depart from your eyes— Keep sound wisdom and
discretion;
:22 So they will be life to your soul And grace to your neck.
:23 Then you will walk safely in your way, And your foot will not stumble.
:24 When you lie down, you will not be afraid; Yes, you will lie down and
your sleep will be sweet.
:25 Do not be afraid of sudden terror, Nor of trouble from the wicked when
it comes;
:26 For the Lord will be your
confidence, And will keep your foot from being caught.
:26 will keep your foot from being caught
Again, the book of Proverbs is not offering us an absolute guarantee that
if we do these things we will never encounter difficulty.
This is a general principle. Life is
safer when we live it with God’s wisdom.
If God is our “confidence”, we have nothing to be afraid of.
3:27-35 The People Connection
:27 Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, When it is in the
power of your hand to do so.
:28 Do not say to your neighbor, “Go, and come back, And tomorrow I will
give it,” When you have it with you.
:27 Do not withhold good
Lesson
Don’t hold back
You are not going to be able to help everybody.
I’m not even sure we should “help” everybody.
I’m not sure it’s always a good idea to hand a $20 bill to
a drug addict.
Yet sometimes we have the ability to help someone we should help, they’re right
in front of us, and we don’t.
Sometimes it’s our own kids that we “withhold good” from.
Sometimes it’s our spouse.
Sometimes that “good” we have to offer is the gospel.
Illustration
On Sunday October 8, 1871, Dwight Lyman Moody was holding
an evangelistic meeting in Chicago.
He was telling his audience about the Savior who died for
their sins.
As he was getting close to the end of the service, he was
thinking that perhaps he ought to give people in his audience a chance to make
a decision to receive Christ, but he decided instead to tell the people, “Come
back next week and I will tell you how to get right with God.”
That night at 9:00pm, Mrs. O’Leary’s cow knocked over a
lantern in a barn and the Great Chicago Fire would burn for three days and
destroy 3.3 square miles of the city.
300 people died and 100,000 were left homeless. Many of those affected had been at Mr.
Moody’s meeting.
Mr. Moody vowed from that time on that he would never pass
up a chance to give people a chance to receive Christ.
The Bible says,
(2 Corinthians 6:2
NLT) …Today is the day of salvation.
You have no guarantee of tomorrow.
Today is the day to do good.
Today is the day to respond to God.
:29 Do not devise evil against your neighbor, For he dwells by you for
safety’s sake.
:30 Do not strive with a man without cause, If he has done you no harm.
:31 Do not envy the oppressor, And choose none of his ways;
:32 For the perverse person is an abomination to the Lord, But His secret counsel is
with the upright.
:32 His secret counsel is
with the upright
(Proverbs 3:32 NLT) Such
wicked people are detestable to the Lord,
but he offers his friendship to the godly.
When we learn to live our lives in
obedience to God, we will find a growing intimacy with God. He shares His “secret counsel”.
Jesus said,
(John 14:23 NKJV) Jesus
answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My
Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.
:33 The curse of the Lord is
on the house of the wicked, But He blesses the home of the just.
:34 Surely He scorns the scornful, But gives grace to the humble.
:35 The wise shall inherit glory, But shame shall be the legacy of fools.
:31 Do not envy the oppressor
Some people are what we call “pragmatists”.
They will do whatever seems to work at the time.
They don’t care if people are oppressed, if a neighbor is distressed, or if
wickedness takes place.
All they know is that they have gotten their desired result.
Pragmatism is what leads to people like Adolph Hitler rising to power by
promising to improve a failing Germany - at what cost?
Solomon is saying that God doesn’t just want us to see “results” in life,
He wants to see “right” being done.
Back to…
:5 Trust in the Lord with all
your heart, And lean not on your own understanding;
:6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.
trust – batach
– to have strong confidence or reliance upon someone or something
lean – sha’an
– to lean on, trust in, support
understanding – biynah
– the capacity for rational thought or inference or discrimination
acknowledge – yada’
– to know; to perceive and see, find out and discern; to recognize, admit,
acknowledge, confess
:6 He shall direct your paths
Lesson
Finding His Will
That’s what you want in life, isn’t it?
Don’t you want God to be directing your paths?
There are three things that make this happen.
Count on
We need to trust in the Lord with all our heart.
Trust is about counting on someone.
Illustration
When John Paton
was translating the Bible for a South Seas island tribe, he discovered that
they had no word for trust or faith. One day a native who had been running hard
came into the missionary’s house, flopped himself in a large chair and said,
“It’s good to rest my whole weight on this chair.”
“That’s it,” said
Paton. “I’ll translate faith as ‘resting one’s whole weight on God.’”
Illustration
One of the ways to descend into the Grand Canyon is on a
mule. The ribbons of rock that run
along the edges of these towering cliffs overlook vertical precipices that
descend hundreds of feet to the valley below.
If you’re on a mule, your best course of action is to let go of the
bridle and trust the mule navigate his way down the path.
Illustration
reminds me of a story …
A couple was celebrating their golden wedding
anniversary. Their domestic tranquility had long been the talk of the town. A
local newspaper reporter was inquiring as to the secret of their long and happy
marriage. “Well, it dates back to our honeymoon,” Explained the man. “We
visited the Grand
Canyon and took a trip down
to the bottom of the canyon by pack mule. We hadn’t gone too far when my wife’s
mule stumbled. My wife quietly said, “That’s once.” We proceeded a little
farther when the mule stumbled again. Once more my wife quietly said, “That’s
twice.” We hadn’t gone a half mile when the mule stumbled a third time. My wife
promptly removed a revolver from her pocket and shot him. I started to protest
over her treatment of the mule when she looked at me and quietly said, ‘That’s
once.’”
We need to count on God – don’t shoot Him.
My limits
I shouldn’t lean on my own understanding.
understanding – biynah –
the capacity for rational thought or inference or discrimination
My “understanding” is limited and I need to be careful on counting on it
too much.
This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t exercise our own
brains or learn to develop “common sense”.
We just need to be careful to not “lean” too heavily on our
own ability to evaluate a situation.
Things are not always what they seem.
Illustration
The train rushes across the Hungarian countryside. In a compartment sit a
mother with her attractive daughter, a Nazi officer, and a Hungarian official.
When the train passes through a tunnel, the compartment is engulfed in
darkness. Suddenly there is the sound of a loud kiss followed by a shattering
slap. When the train emerges from the tunnel, no one says a word, but the Nazi
officer’s face bears the unmistakable signs of having been slapped. The mother
looks at her daughter and thinks, “What a good daughter I have. She certainly
showed that Nazi he can’t fool with her.” The daughter looks at her mother and
thinks, “Mother sure is brave to take on a Nazi officer over one stolen kiss.”
The Nazi officer stares at the Hungarian official and thinks, “That Hungarian
is clever. He steals a kiss and gets me slapped, and there’s nothing I can do
about it.” The Hungarian official stares blankly as he thinks, “Not bad. I kiss
my hand and get away with slapping a Nazi.”
You and I have an amazing capacity to misunderstand what is going on, what
people are trying to say, and what God wants to do in our lives.
There are going to be times when God wants to work outside of what is our
ability to comprehend.
If we are leaning too heavily on our own understanding, we might just miss
what God is wanting to do.
When the disciples
were rowing their boat across the Sea of Galilee during a storm, Jesus showed
up at 3:00am walking on the water. They
guys are freaking out thinking it’s a ghost.
Yet Peter is willing to suspend his “understanding” …
(Matthew 14:28-29 NLT) —28 Then Peter called to him, “Lord, if it’s really you, tell me to
come to you, walking on the water.” 29 “Yes,
come,” Jesus said. So Peter went over the side of the boat and walked on the
water toward Jesus.
You and I might
criticize Peter because he then looks at the wind and waves and begins to sink,
but think of it – for a few steps he had walked on water.
If Peter had been
leaning on his own understanding, he would have never stepped out of that
boat. Never.
Look for
:6 acknowledge – yada’ –
to perceive and see, find out and discern
In all the paths of life that we walk on, we need to “perceive”, to “look
for” Him.
We need to find out where God is in this path we’re on, and then follow
Him.
(Proverbs 3:6a NLT) Seek his
will in all you do
(Proverbs 3:6a HCSB) think
about Him in all your ways
(Proverbs 3:6a The
Message) Listen for God’s
voice in everything you do, everywhere you go
Illustration
The snow covered the ground where three lads were playing.
A man came along and said to them, “Would you like to try a race and the winner
receive a prize?”
The boys agreed and the man told them that his race was to
be different. “I will go to the other side of the field,” he said, “and when I
give you the signal, you will start to run. The one whose footsteps are the
straightest in the snow will be the winner.”
The race commenced and the first boy kept looking at his
feet to see if his steps were straight. The second lad kept looking at his
companions to see what they were doing; but the third boy just ran on with his
eyes steadfastly fixed on the man on the other side of the field.
The third lad was the winner, for his footsteps were
straight in the snow. He had kept his eyes on the goal ahead of him.
Keep your eyes on Him. Don’t look at
your own feet, and don’t look at others.
(Hebrews
12:1–2 NKJV) —1 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of
witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us,
and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking unto
Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was
set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the
right hand of the throne of God.
When we learn to count on Him, know our own limits, and look for Him, we
can expect God to direct our steps.
For some of you, you will have a hard time finding His will because you
haven’t taken that first step of coming to know God.
Jesus died on the cross to pay for your sins, so it could be possible for
you to know a pure and holy God.
God not only wants you to “believe” in Him, He wants you to “receive” Him
as well.
(John
1:12 NKJV) But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become
children of God, to those who believe in His name: