Psalm 18: 21-51

The LORD dealt with me by my merit,

For my cleanness of hands He requited me.

For I kept the ways of the LORD

And did no evil before my God.

For all His laws were before me.

From His statutes I did not swerve.

And I was blameless before Him,

And I kept myself from crime.

And the LORD requited me for my merit,

For my cleanness of hands in His eyes.

With the faithful you deal faithfully,

With a blameless man, act without blame.

With the pure one, You deal purely,

With the perverse man, deal in twists.

For it is You Who rescues the lowly folk

And haughty eyes You bring low.

For You light up my lamp, O LORD,

My God illumines my darkness.

For through You I rush at a barrier,

Through my God I can vault a wall.

The God, His way is blameless,

The LORD’s utterance unalloyed.

For who is god except the LORD,

And who the Rock except our God?

The God who girds me with might

And keeps my way blameless,

Makes my legs like a gazelle’s,

And stands me on the heights,

Trains my hands for combat,

Makes my arms bend a bow of bronze.

You game me Your shield of rescue,

Your right hand did sustain me,

And Your battle-cry make me many.

Your lengthened my strides beneath me,

And my feet did not trip.

I pursued my enemies, caught them,

Turned not back till I wiped them out.

I smashed them, they could not rise,

They fell beneath my feet.

You girt me with might for combat.

You laid low my foes beneath me,

And You made my enemies turn back before me,

My foes, I demolished them.

They cried out – there was none to rescue,

To the LORD – He answered them not.

I crushed them like dust in the wind,

Like mud in the streets I ground them.

You saved me from the strife of people’s,

You set me at nations’ head,

A people I knew not served me.

At the mere ear’s report they obeyed me,

Aliens cringed before me.

Aliens did wither,

Filed out from their forts.

The LORD lives and blessed is my Rock,

Exalted the God of my rescue.

The God who grants vengeance to me

And crushes peoples beneath me,

Frees me from my enemies,

Yes, from those against me You raise me,

From a man of violence You save me.

Therefore I acclaim You among nations, O LORD,

And to Your name I would hymn,

Making great the rescues of His king,

Keeping faith with His anointed,

For David and his seed forever.

“But God, because of His great mercy, made us alive with Messiah, and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him…”

Bible Reading: Romans 12: 19-21

V. 21 is one to memorize.

Proverbs 24:28, 29

Be not a witness against your neighbor without cause,

And do not deceive with your lips.

Do not say, ‘I will do to him as he has done to me’

I will pay the man back for what he has done.”

I don’t know who first said, “Two wrongs don’t make a right.” But it’s a good phrase to remember. Our proverb brings this truth out. In each situation you need to do the right things, regardless of what has happened in previous situations.

Perhaps your neighbor has irritated you by mowing his lawn on Sunday afternoons. You gently approach him and remind him of the other six days of the week. He lashes out at you and now makes it a point to rev it up right at 3 pm on Sundays. Moreover, he criticizes your sensitivities to other neighbors. And so the injury grows.

One day you’re driving and see the jerk neighbor’s dog several blocks from your street, and wandering dangerously close to the busy road. The dog has escaped from his yard!

What to do? 1) Call the dog over to your car and then…step on the gas! 2) Call the dog over, take him into your car, bring him back to the Jerk.

If you were smart, you would take the second approach. The smart thing is to do the right thing in every situation, regardless of what has happened before. Righteousness trumps history. Always. Wisdom gives place to vengeance. Always.

Bible Reading: Romans 12: 17,18

You saw it – no hands were behind my back! God’s perfect timing has allowed the correspondence between the Bible reading and the Proverb! Someone needs this lesson. Perhaps me.

Proverbs 24: 27

Prepare your work outside;

Get everything ready for yourself in the field,

And after that build your house.

Here is how to live: do the right things in the right order. You must do both.

Creation, partly, can be explained as God bringing order into the chaos. He divides things, places them where they should be.1 Order becomes an important concept in the Scriptures. The people of God, in the Old Testament, were sometimes threatened with the specific judgment of Chaos coming back into the Order. Paul says, “God is not a God of confusion.”

The bad thing is for chaos to rule. Just look a little further down in this chapter of Proverbs, and you see chaos: walls broken down, nettles and thorns throughout. This might be a chilling metaphor for your life. Call unto the Creator who also rescues! Ask for His order to be established.

If He rescues, it will be in this fashion: You will be given the grace to prepare your work outside. God moves people, He gives them room, to prepare. You do some investigating into some people’s lives and you think: these people are set up to succeed. Other people you think: ‘of course they failed, that’s what they prepared for!’

Your supply must be attended to first, before the immediate creature comforts. I have been into houses of people mired in debt, hanging on by a thread – no hanging on by a thread and a Magnavox big screen TV. Something is not right here, which is to say, there is something out of sequence. First a job, then savings, then somewhere down the line – the Magnavox!

Preparation, sequence. Preparation, sequence. If you’re failing, it is probably at one of these points. You’re racing ahead. You’re starting too fast. You’re expecting too much too soon. You’re not getting dressed before you start working.

Bible Reading: Romans 12: 15,16- Don’t live by merely your own rhythms!

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 ^{1 Of course, He also made the things, ex nihilo.}

Consider joining us in prayer tonight at 7

**Please pray for me, Colin, today**

Proverbs 24: 26

Whoever gives an honest answer kisses the lips.

As we work through the problem of how to love one another within the assembly, consider this proverb. As we ask, ‘how can we honor people above ourselves, show that we hold fellow members in highest regard’ – let this proverb give an answer.

Failure to keep commitments, not allowing people access to the truth as you know it, on some deep level is a diss. You attack as you lie. You kiss as you speak the truth.

Remember the command through Paul, and remember its rationale:

“Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you [yeah, you] speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.”

Bible Reading: Romans 12: 14

Some people are wrong when they assert that this reaction is the essence of Christianity. But they’re not that far off.

Proverbs 24: 23-25

These also are sayings of the wise.

Partiality in judging is not good.

Whoever says to the wicked,

“You are in the right,”

will be cursed by peoples,

abhorred by nations,

but those who rebuke the wicked

will have delight,

and a good blessing will come upon them.

But what if the wicked – no, “the wicked” – are cool? What if they’re the smart ones, the ones with insight, the ones whose cleverness makes all others seem cramped, facile, stodgy?

The only reason we would not denounce the wicked is they are so refreshingly…interesting! Finally, someone who makes me grin. Or someone with real talent. Or someone who is producing real art.

If I hold this kind of talent to a moral standard, haven’t I missed the point? Isn’t my looking at the world through a black and white lens a little immature, a little shallow?

NOOO! The people of God have also looked past the transient features of rhetoric and impression and seized onto character. We have for several thousand years intoned, “O you who fear the LORD/ Hate evil.” We refuse to downplay the question of righteousness. We won’t sit before entertaining but unrighteous people.

In other words we live with abiding and stringent opinions. And the blessing.

Bible Reading: Romans 12: 9-13

The people constituting the church care for each other, WITH PARTICULAR ATTITUDES. One of these attitudes is zeal.

Dear, dear people: the world, whatever else you want to say about it, is a deadening place. This is more and more the case. Much of the entertainment has a deadening affect. Much of modern music seems to…strip away. As people interact there is an almost deliberate distance built in: “Just remember, I don’t have time for you.” “Just remember, I don’t have plans for you beyond this conversation.” “Just remember, I’ve been living quite fine without you.”

But you, “Do not be slothful in zeal.” We are the eager ones. We are the ones extending ourselves, time after time after time. We’re like Vivaldi’s Spring – you’d have to say, a little perky.

Watchword

They’re no longer posting the Moravian Daily Watchwords! Perhaps for next year I’ll buy the hard copy.

Proverbs 24: 21,22

My son, fear the LORD and the king,

And do not join with those who do otherwise,

For disaster from them will rise suddenly,

And who knows the ruin that will come from them both?

The trend now is to eschew reverence. Nonchalance is in – anything else would be inauthentic. But the problem is, most of the time, nonchalance leaves no room for good, honest fear. But we need to live with fear – it protects us from disaster.

Recently I read this: “On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it?”

And I’ve been reading Exodus, when the LORD gives Moses instructions in how the Israelites should tabernacle with Him. Many of those injunctions are given with a simple explanation for carrying them out: “that they may not die.”

Don’t go to church with those trying to undercut the establishment. Don’t read authors who give a cynical spin to every structure of power. Be uneasy around the spirit of rebellion and strangers to rebels. Herein is wisdom. Herein is safety.

Romans 12: 3-8

A truth occasionally buried: Responding wholeheartedly and unconditionally to God will land you in church, among a people.

Men’s Breakfast 8:30; Church Work Day 10:00; Furniture Give-away 10:30

Watchword

(Isaiah 60.1-6; Eph.3.1-12; Matt. 2.1-12)

You shall not make for yourself an idol … in the form of anything. Deuteronomy 5.8

Jesus said ‘Whoever has seen me has seen the Father’. John 14. 9

Psalm 18:1-20

For the lead player, for the LORD’s servant, for David, who spoke to the LORD the words of this song on the day the LORD saved him from the grasp of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul.

And he said:

I am impassioned of You, LORD, my strength!

The LORD is my crag and my bastion,

And my deliverer, my God, my rock where I shelter,

My shield and the horn of my rescue, my fortress.

Praised I call the LORD

And from my enemies I was rescued.

The cords of death wrapped round me,

And the torrents of perdition dismayed me.

The cords of Sheol encircled me,

The traps of death sprung upon me.

In my strait I called to the LORD,

To my God I cried out.

He heard from his palace my voice,

And my outcry before Him came to His ears.

The earth heaved and shuddered,

The mountains’ foundations were shaken.

They heaved, for smoke rose from His nostrils

And fire from His mouth consumed,

Coals blazed up around Him.

He tilted the heavens, came down,

Dense mist beneath His feet.

He mounted a cherub and flew,

And He soared on the wings of the wind.

He set darkness His hiding-place round Him,

His abode water-massing, the clouds of the skies.

From the brilliance before Him His clouds moved ahead -

Hail and fiery coals.

The LORD thundered from on high.

Elyon sent forth His voice -

Hail and fiery coals.

He let loose His arrows, and scattered them,

Lightning bolts shot, and He panicked them.

The channels of water were exposed,

And the world’s foundations laid bare

From the LORD’s roaring,

From the blast of Your nostril’s breath.

He reached from on high and took me,

Pulled me out of many waters.

He saved me from my daunting enemy

And from my foes who were stronger than I.

They came at me on my day of disaster,

But the LORD became my support

And brought me out to a wide-open place,

Set me free, for His pleasure I was.

I wish God go to this trouble for me and all for whom I pray. I wish He would bring us “out to a wide-open place,” away from besetting sins, set free of debt, our minds renewed to understand His will.

Bible Reading: Romans 12:1,2

A person presenting His whole self to God as a “living sacrifice”; a deliberate renewal of his mind – now he’s in a position to discern what God wants.

“Perhaps the most striking and pastorally relevant feature of these verses is…that worship and obedience of this sort really does ‘please God.’ Centuries of post-Augustine and post-Reformation thought have quite rightly emphasized the free, unmerited grace of God, and the response of faith alone, as the basis of the Christian’s standing in Christ, his or her membership in the family whose sins have been dealt with through Jesus’ death. But this tradition, precisely in order to avoid the impression of compromise at this central point, has often failed to give due weight to the proper and regular Pauline emphasis that those who are justified in Christ and indwelt by the Spirit can, should, and regularly do ‘please God,’ that God is delighted with them not merely because they appear ‘in Christ’ but because of what they are, and are becoming, and are beginning to do.” (Wright, 707)

Watchword

(Ruth 4.7-22; Hebrews 11.24-31)

You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God. Joel 2.26

Taking the five loaves and the two fish, Jesus looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people, and he divided the two fish among them all. And all ate and were filled. Mark 6.41-42

Proverbs 24: 19,20

Fret not yourself because of evildoers,

And be not envious of the wicked,

For the evil man has no future;

The lamp of the wicked will be put out.

Perhaps some of your restlessness stems from envying the wicked. Have you considered that?

Just think – your way consists of hard work, monitoring your thoughts, choosing your words carefully, searching the Scriptures, scanning for the decisions of God – a good life, but no one’s calling it an easy one.

In a bleak moment, when work is particularly grueling or people are more prickly than normal, you muse over other ways. ‘I’ve seen other people take more time for themselves.’ ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to just relax and not be so strict with myself?’ ‘Why should I concern myself with other people at all?’

‘God is invisible. The Bible can be arduous to read and remember. I would love to sleep in on Sundays. Living by principle is too principled!’

Separate yourself even momentarily from the truth, and lies become easier to swallow. You could start confusing the thin pleasures or excited bursts that sometimes attend evil with the substance, the merriness, of walking before God and living alongside God’s people.

So what is the one sure protection from the itching of envying evil people? Remember the end of their choosing.

Bible Reading: Romans 12: 1,2

According to v. 2, we will be passively at the mercy of the world’s culture OR we are actively renewing our minds. As one modern paraphrase has it: “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould.”

These bursts of images and approximations and preoccupations and stresses and fears and associations and syllogisms and words and stories and ending of stories – these thoughts that flit through our minds have to be first taken seriously and then renewed. The fact is that we have worn grooves in our minds that will have to be abandoned. New trails pushing to a new country have to be cut.

Watchword

(Ruth 3.14-4.6; Hebrews 11. 13-23)

Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield, your reward shall be very great. Genesis 15.1

Those who believe are blessed with Abraham who believed. Galatians 3.9

Proverbs 24:15,16

Lie not in wait as a wicked man

Against the dwelling of the righteous;

Do no violence to his home;

For the righteous falls seven times and rises again,

But the wicked stumble in times of calamity.

So many surprises are in store, so many surprises. We might be so accustomed to seeing a person flat on his face that we begin to assume that posture will become final. There’s a flop, we say. But, against all odds, the righteous gets back up, though his whole life might be one fall after another.

This proverb is warning us against exploiting the failure of the righteous. The reasoning behind the warning is a little surprising. To exploit failure is to become wicked, and the wicked are slated to stumble, while the righteous will pick themselves up again. The speaker says, the tables will be turned.

Do you know, EBCers, it takes a certain skill to live next to people who are having a string of accidents or runs of bad luck. We could mess up and 1) treat them as pariahs 2) be dismissive 3) opposite – be condescending 4) feel an unseemly pity for them 5) criticize them more often and more harshly than is appropriate 6) steal from them – what’s one more sting going to matter? 7) make them the butt of jokes 8) secretly despise them 9) be careless around them

Be careful. You define yourself as you live next to these people. And things change.

Bible Reading: Romans 12:1,2

What is appropriate for the creation that is thoughtful and reflective to do in worshiping God? Present Him their entire being!

Where is our holiness? How are we distinguished from fallen persons and irrational creation? By our unqualified sacrifice of self to God!

How do people please God? Through wholehearted living toward Him!

If we were smart, it would make sense for us to present our whole bodies to God. We are slow and dull and unfeeling as we don’t.

Consider joining us in prayer tonight at 7

Watchword

(Acts 7.55-60; 1 Peter 2.2-10; John 14.1-14)

O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. Psalm 104.24

You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power. Revelation 4.11

Proverbs 24: 13,14

My son, eat honey, for it is good,

And the drippings of the honeycomb are sweet to your taste.

Know that wisdom is such to your soul;

If you find it, there will be a future,

And your hope will not be cut off.

Honey tastes good. Wisdom brings eternal life. The first of these statements is true, experientially true; it’s so apparent that not much time has to be given to proving it true. Of course!

You’ve come upon Breyers Mint Chocolate Chip: eat it! Don’t complicate things now. When you come upon a pint of such a quality ice cream (with no artificial ingredients), that situation calls for, not mulling nor philosophizing, but THREE LARGE SCOOPS!

That same refreshing pleasure can be had, not just by the taste buds, but by the Colin of the Colin – the soul. It is possible to have satisfaction and hope and the vitality that bubbles up from hope. Where is that found? How can I experience it? “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.”

Those outside of wisdom look at the life spent fearing and loving God as something pinched, demanding – a burden. But listen to God in Christ: “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Those who have walked before God discover at some point that nothing else feels quite so sweet.

Strange question for today: Have you made wisdom your sister, called her your intimate friend? In other words, have you given over your existence to responding in trust and obedience to what God has revealed?

Bible Reading: Romans 12: 1,2

“Present your bodies” to God – in other words, give Him your whole existence! To hold back on God, to offer him just the thin, “spiritual” tokens, is not enough.

It is a parched and confused life that claims to respond to God without actually doing so wholeheartedly. Our lukewarm, slushy spirituality is not just distasteful to God but is hard on us. Dear people, respond wholly to God. Keep nothing back for yourself.