“Remember-We Are the Lord’s” Proverbs 8.1–4, 22–31, Trinity C, ’13,
Memorial Day observed…
1.
Grace,
mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ. Amen. The message from God’s Word this Trinity
Sunday is taken from Proverbs 8:1-4 & 22-31 and is entitled, “Remember, We are the Lord’s.” We belong to the Lord. He designed,
engineered, constructed, and repaired us. We belong to Jesus who bears
nailmarks on his hands, the eternal reminder that love held him to the cross to
buy us back. We are the Lord’s twice over. Once because he made us. Twice
because he bought us back! Here in
Proverbs 8 we learn that in wisdom Jesus has made us. (vv. 24–30) and by wisdom
He has rescued us. (vv. 22a, 23, 30b, 31)
2.
Proverbs
8:1-4 says, “1Does not wisdom
call? Does not understanding raise her voice?
2On the heights beside the way, at the crossroads she takes
her stand; 3beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance
of the portals she cries aloud: 4“To you, O men, I call, and my cry
is to the children of man.” Here we
can see that wisdom’s words are plain, spoken clearly and openly so that there
can be no confusion. Of course, those who reject the Lord don’t understand what
God is saying (1 Cor. 2:12–16), but this isn’t because the Word of God is
confusing or unclear. It’s because sinners are spiritually blind and deaf
(Matt. 13:14–15). The problem is with the hearer, not the speaker. Mark Twain
is supposed to have said, “It isn’t what
I don’t understand about the Bible that worries me, but what I do understand.” There are certain things in the Bible
that we are supposed to understand like the fact that we are sinners and that
we need a Savior in Jesus, but in regards to the Trinity we will never be able
to understand the fullness of God and who He is as Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit, but through Holy Scripture we are led to confess who He is and what He
does for us to save us from our sins.
3.
King
Solomon through the Holy Spirit explains the purpose of Proverbs: “For attaining wisdom and discipline; for
understanding words of insight; for acquiring a disciplined and prudent life,
doing what is right and just and fair; for giving prudence to the simple,
knowledge and discretion to the young” (1:2–4). Wisdom in God’s Word is
much more than an encyclopedia of facts. Wisdom is Christ. The apostle Paul
says it this way: “We preach Christ
crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those
whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the
wisdom of God” (1 Co 1:23, 24).
4.
Proverbs
8:22–30a says, 22“The Lord possessed me at the beginning of
his work, the first of his acts of old. 23Ages ago I was set up, at
the first, before the beginning of the earth. 24When there were no
depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. 25Before
the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth, 26before
he had made the earth with its fields, or the first of the dust of the world. 27When
he established the heavens, I was there; when he drew a circle on the face of
the deep, 28when he made firm the skies above, when he established
the fountains of the deep, 29when he assigned to the sea its limit,
so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the
foundations of the earth, 30then I was beside him, like a master
workman.” The Lord here is the subject. He’s
powerful and active. He remains the same yesterday, today, and forever. Not
changing is beyond all human understanding and experience. Everything changes.
Things wear out. They run down. They are used up. They become rusty, moldy, or
scratched. People change. Hair grows gray, then white. Our vision deteriorates.
Bones grow brittle. Hands once sure become shaky. Knees become weak. Sometimes
human change is sudden. Sometimes human change is unnoticeable. But it remains
inevitable. Because of sin we change for the worse.
5.
As
sinners we grow old & our bodies deteriorate, but the Lord never changes. His
anger burns as hot against sin now as when he scorched Sodom and Gomorrah off
the face of the earth for all their godless and sinful acts. His justice today
can be as swift as when Ananias and Sapphira lied and fell over dead! But God’s
love never changes either. His love is as powerful this instant as it was the
moment Jesus died on the cross. Jesus’ triumph over death is as certain now as
the moment Jesus rose from the prison of the grave.
6.
What
did this Lord do? God the Father has bought us. In the Old Testament the good news for the people of God was that the LORD had bought the Israelites and that they were his
possession. The Lord had delivered them from slavery in Egypt and made them a
people. They were his. He had a claim on them.
7.
So
too Jesus our greater and better Moses has saved us not from slavery in Egypt,
but slavery to our own sin and to the power of the devil. Jesus our Savior claims that he had been with
the Father “before the world began”
(Jn 17:5). When we read John 1:1–4, all these things come into clear focus.
Jesus, the Word, was with God and “without
him nothing was made that has been made” (v. 3). Hebrews 1:2 and Colossians
1:15–17 proclaim the same truth.
8.
As
we marvel at the great plan of God in creating the world. Solomon asks us to
consider the ocean, the mountains, the earth, the heavens, and the clouds. He
tells us that the Lord has created them all. When we look at them, even in this
world of sin, we’re impressed with the majesty of God’s created world. The
ungodly can see that too, as Paul states, “For
since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and
divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made,
so that men are without excuse” (Ro 1:20). Yes, the Lord made the ocean.
Only the Lord could make water so deep, so cold, so windblown and storm-tossed.
Only the Lord could make the great lakes, the everglades, the marshes, and
swamps—all of them full of wildlife. The Lord made the mighty rivers—the
rushing white-water rapids, the gentle gurgling streams. He made the ponds full
of frogs and lily pads. He made the puddles for stomping and splashing. He made
the drops of moisture on the petals of a rose. Before there was a drop of
water—the Lord was and is!
9.
Solomon
isn’t content to marvel at the created world. He forces our vision deeper. Before
the oceans, mountains, earth, and sky, God in wisdom planned our eternal
salvation. Out of the dust of the ground—out of soil and clay—God formed man
and breathed into him the breath of life. Yet long before that, the Trinity had
determined the Father would sacrifice his Son to redeem us. The Holy Spirit
would work saving faith through the gospel.
I can’t help but think of the gospel of John: “In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Through him all things
were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. He was in the
world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize
him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to
all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to
become children of God” (1:1, 3, 10–12).
10.
Proverbs
8:30-31 says, “and I was daily his
delight, rejoicing before him always, 31rejoicing in his inhabited
world and delighting in the children of man.”
“Delighting in mankind”? Read the newspapers—there seems little to delight
in. There’s bloody conflict as nations invade nations and civil war and ethnic
strife drag on for hundreds of years. There are battered spouses, abused and
neglected children, newborns abandoned, and babies aborted. There is obscenity
and pornography, rudeness, vile and gross hurtful wickedness with a lust and
hunger for worse! Our holy heavenly Father hates all that’s ungodly. But by
grace alone Jesus came to cover all our sin and guilt with his innocent blood.
By grace alone we are forgiven. By grace alone the Lord delights in his people
washed clean through and through!
11.
The
Trinity designed, engineered, and built us from the miracle of conception to
the present instant. The Trinity designed, engineered, built, and maintains the
universe. God’s attention to detail is such that he knows the number of hairs
on our heads. We race after the things and stuff of this world. Just stop and
look—a little lower than usual. Look at the lady bug. There are no less than
five thousand different species of lady bugs. Imagine the creative wisdom of
the Lord to make so many sizes, colors, and little dot patterns on a bug just
about everybody ignores.
12.
But
then look deeper still. Imagine the greatness of God’s love. He doesn’t treat
us like little insects to squash because of our sins. He loves us. When sin
spoiled everything, the Trinity was there to undo the work of the devil, to
overcome that ultimate enemy, death.
13.
Remember
each day to look with awe and wonder at all your Father made. It’s not Mother
Nature that rules the powerful forces of nature, the ever-changing weather.
It’s your Father, who controls everything for the ultimate good of his people. It
is the very Son of God, who became one of us—true God and true man. It is the
Son of God, who never sinned and then died bearing all our sin. It’s the Spirit
of God, the Holy Spirit, who works saving faith in our hearts through the means
of grace. The Lord redeemed and adopted us. Rejoice in his creative wisdom and
determined love in Christ!
No comments:
Post a Comment