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NOT FITTING

NOT FITTING

Proverbs 26:1 NET.

Like snow in summer or rain in harvest, so honor is not fitting for a fool.

Today’s passage is another standalone proverb from the book of Proverbs. It is not part of a series focused on a specific theme. I chose this verse because it is highly relevant to our modern 21st-century culture. We have a biblical responsibility to speak into our current culture and shed light on it with the principles taught in God’s Word. If we don’t do that, we might give people the impression that the Bible has nothing to say about what people are discussing in the public arena.

We need to be cautious when we do this so that we don’t give the impression that we agree with people because we oppose their opponents. This often happens when Christians speak out in the political arena. If we advocate for compassion for refugees, we might be perceived as aligning with Democrats. If we oppose abortion, we might seem like Republicans. However, Christians can support both positions because our understanding of justice is based on the Bible, not the platforms of either major political party.

So, please understand that what I am saying this morning does not come from the right or the left. It is not from the red or the blue. It is a biblical proverb, and those are meant to teach all people how to make appropriate decisions in their lives. In the Bible, the wise choice is not based on strategy. It is not based on majority rule. It is not based on economics. In the Bible, the wise choice is the morally correct choice—always.

The fools will think you are a fool if you do the right thing. The mocker will mock you for being naïve. The sluggard will accuse you of acting recklessly. The schemer will criticize you for not being devious enough. But if you focus on doing what is morally right, God will smile on you. You may not get rich quickly, but you will never have a reason to feel guilty or ashamed of your actions.

Some things just don’t fit right.

Today’s proverb begins by discussing two things that don’t belong together. They are out of place. First is snow in summer. We might expect snow in the cold winter months. But seeing snow on a summer day means something is off. The weather isn’t right for snow. I grew up in Florida, and I remember it snowed once. It landed on the ground but melted right away. The only place it stayed was on the tops of the cars. So, we kids collected it from the car tops to make snowballs—which, of course, is what snow is for. If we got snow here in Delco during the summer, I bet it would melt fast. The point of the proverb is that snow in the summer is out of place.

The second thing that is out of place is rain during harvest. You don’t want it to rain then because it would interfere with the harvest. You need dry weather to get the crops in before they spoil. Once again, the point is that such rain would be out of place. It wouldn’t be fitting.

The thing that these two similes point to – the thing that is not fitting – is honoring a fool.

Some people we should honor.

We know from the Bible that God should always be honored and glorified. He is our creator and sustainer. We are also told that the Son should be honored as well as the Father, so Jesus is worthy of our honor and worship.

The fifth of the Ten Commandments tells us to honor our parents. It is the only commandment that promises that those who follow it will have things go well with them and that their lives will be long.

The Bible also encourages younger people to honor and show respect to the elderly. When my family lived in the Philippines, we got used to younger folks placing their hands on their elders’ foreheads as a sign of respect and blessing.

The Bible also encourages respect and honor for the governing authorities. This includes more than just paying our obligatory taxes. It also means showing community, state, and national leaders respect for their offices. We could use a lot more of that in our society today.

The Bible also encourages believers to honor their church leaders. Some faith communities do this very well, but many of our evangelical denominations are so careful not to idolize their leaders that they wind up not showing respect for church offices at all.

The Bible also encourages us to honor the institution of marriage. We often find this challenging. So many marriages fail. Many of our marriages appear to be under attack, both from outside influences and internal struggles.

The Bible also encourages us to make note of those whose lives reflect God’s wisdom and righteousness. We should honor such people and make them our heroes. We should pattern our lives after theirs.

The Bible also encourages believers to treat one another as equals – especially when it comes to honor and respect. In fact, the command is for us to honor one another above ourselves. That means giving deference to others instead of our own opinions and backgrounds.

With all these instructions about honoring others, it seems odd that the Bible would teach us not to honor someone. But this is the case. There are two reasons why honoring fools is not fitting.

Honoring fools encourages their foolishness.

Fools despise wisdom and instruction (1:7), so if we honor them, we affirm their choice to remain ignorant. They have chosen careless ease when they should have chosen diligence. To honor such a choice is to dishonor the wise. They have chosen the path of destruction, and the more honor we show them, the more they will continue down that path.

In fact, Proverbs tells us that the wise person will inherit honor himself, but he is instructed to hold fools up to public contempt (3:35). It is not wise to simply ignore the foolishness around us. We have to expose it. If we do not expose it, the foolish will never learn how ridiculous they are. Children do silly things, but if their parents are wise, they will rebuke and even punish their children so they know. It is not healthy or loving to ignore it when the child acts up.

The Bible encourages us to choose wise friends so we learn to act wisely as they do. It says, “The one who associates with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm” (13:20). As teenagers, we learn that if we run with a bad crowd, we will find ourselves doing the bad things that our friends do. Imagine that!

We need to be discerning about who we spend our time with. Both wisdom and foolishness feed on the approval we give them. If we choose to be around foolish people who do irrational things, not only will we learn those behaviors, but the fools will never learn to do anything else.

Honoring fools spreads their foolishness.

The second reason that honoring fools is not fitting is that it turns the wise into fools. If we stay around people who have chosen to live ungodly lives, that ungodliness will spread to us. The people we listen to and learn from will make us like them. They can infest us with their foolishness.

I believe this proverb is highly relevant for our 21st-century audience because we now have many different ways to invite someone into our lives. In the past, if you wanted to establish a connection with someone, you would have needed to visit them at their home or ask them to come to yours. Today, people connect through many different methods. The old ways of mail, television, movies, and the telephone have now been supplemented by texting, email, streaming, and social media.

One of the things this entails is that there are now various ways we can be influenced by people we don’t know. If we don’t know them, we don’t know what their attitude toward God and his word is.

Let me present another analogy to illustrate how risky this is. Imagine you took a bunch of pills and stored them all in one box. You grabbed some pills from your medicine cabinet, others from mine, and some from the local pharmacy. But you don’t recognize any of the pills, and you have no idea what they’re for or their side effects. Would it be wise to open the box, pick a random pill every hour, and swallow it with a glass of water? Anyone would agree that this isn’t a good idea. When it comes to our medicine, we prefer to take only what a trusted doctor prescribes, and even then, we want to know all potential side effects, the condition the pill is meant to treat, how often we should take it, and when we should stop. Pills influence our health, so we are very discriminate about which pills we take.

I hope the Lord comes back soon, but if he delays his coming, I think people will look back on this period of human history and characterize it as one in which the population as a whole was indiscriminate in whom it chose to honor. We let just anybody in to speak to us and tell us what to eat, who to love, what to buy, and how to live.

Some people think we are on the wrong road by introducing artificial intelligence into our culture. That may be true, but it might also be that the human intelligence we have been relying on is already faulty and corrupt. How do we know what we know? If we have no standard to determine whether a statement is true or untrue, how safe is our knowledge?

One of the most elementary ways to show respect to someone is to trust what they say. But in a world full of fools, sluggards, mockers, and schemers, it is not wise to trust everyone. It is not wise to honor everyone. Some of the people trying to educate us deserve public contempt. Some who are trying to lead us need to be voted out of office. Some who are trying to gain a following should be censored because they are telling lies. We can defend their freedom of speech without allowing them to teach our children. We can protect their freedom to believe what they want without allowing them to indoctrinate our children. Respecting them as citizens does not entail our honoring their influence.

We should be asking ourselves how the next generation will evaluate us. Will they consider us wise? The apostle Paul said that Jesus gave the church its leaders so that we could become mature, no longer like children, “tossed back and forth by waves and carried about by every wind of teaching by the trickery of people who craftily carry out their deceitful schemes but practicing the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Christ, who is the head” (Ephesians 4:14-15).

He envisioned a world in which believers matured so they could be influencers. That is what Jesus said he wanted, too. He told us that we are the light of the world.

The world has enough fools. Are you ready to become wise and spread God’s wisdom? Are you prepared to let God change you so that he can then use you to change others? That is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

HEAVY LIFTING

HEAVY LIFTING

Proverbs 12:25 Anxiety in a person’s heart weighs him down, but an encouraging word brings him joy.

Tuesday, we began reading through the book of Proverbs, two chapters a day. Some time ago, we spent several months studying the Proverbs in our Sunday evening Bible Studies. For that reason, I don’t think we must cover everything the book has to say in the two Sundays we have for sermons on Proverbs. Instead, I will summarize some of the main ideas in Proverbs while considering the teachings of just two verses that I believe are especially relevant for life today.

Proverbs is a collection of wise sayings compiled by Solomon, the son of David. This compilation occurred approximately a thousand years before the birth of Christ. There is only one hero of the Proverbs. This is the wise person. Wise people learn wisdom from their parents and live the right sort of lives so that they avoid the pitfalls of being unwise.

There is only one kind of wise person, but there are very many different kinds of unwise person. The unwise people are the villains of the book of Proverbs. They appear throughout the book and take different names. Each name identifies the way in which this particular kind of unwise person deviates from the wisdom the book teaches.

So, here is a roster of the villains in Proverbs:

The Stupid Villains

The book of Proverbs refers to these people as fools. They are fools because they choose to ignore God’s wisdom. They disregard the instructions of wise people, whether from their parents or other leaders. They “despise wisdom and instruction” (1:7). They hate knowledge (1:22). They live carelessly, even when making decisions that can potentially destroy them.

I saw a cartoon once that illustrates the power of stupidity. It was a Hägar the Horrible cartoon. There is a character in this cartoon called Lucky Eddie. Lucky Eddy has a bow and arrow. He has pulled back the bow, getting ready to send the arrow to its target. But there is something wrong. Eddie has the arrow pointed not away from him, but directly at his own face. A passerby sees this and tries to intervene. He wants to tell Eddie that the arrow is aimed in the wrong direction and it could kill him. But Hägar stops the man from intervening. He explains, “No, that’s the only way he’ll learn.”

The point of the Proverbs is that these fools are making choices that will inevitably lead to their own destruction. Wise people must intervene because the fools are making unwise choices, which will lead to disaster. The fools are convinced that they are right, but they are not only wrong; they are often mistaken with a loud voice.

The Psalms tell us that fools convince themselves that there is no God (Psalm 14:1; 53:1). They begin with a practical atheism that renders them incapable of approaching wisdom. The Proverbs teach us to stay away from such fools and not to listen to their babbling.

The Scoffing Villains

The second type of villain introduced in Proverbs is the mockers. They are arrogant and disrespectful, and distrustful. If we try to correct the scoffing villains, they will insult us (9:7). When I was growing up, we used to say about such people that they were too big for their britches. The Proverbs warns such people that “The eye that mocks at a father and despises obeying a mother — the ravens of the valley will peck it out and the young vultures will eat it” (30:17).

The Slothful Villains

The third type of villain in Proverbs is not foolish because they are ignorant or arrogant. They are just too lazy to learn the correct way to live. These are the sluggards. They are not motivated to do anything, so they will not amount to anything. They should learn the lesson from the ant and be industrious. But the way they are going is going to lead them to poverty and destitution.

The Scheming Villains

The final type in my little roster today is the scheming villain. They may seem to be our friends, inviting us to share in their table. But there is always an angle to their kindness. They are trying to get rich by taking advantage of others. If they give a party, we should politely decline their invitation.

But the book of Proverbs is not always trying to get us to avoid the villains. Often, the goal is to teach us how to be the heroes of our own lives. The goal is not simply to avoid foolishness, but to act wisely. Wisdom is about learning to do the right thing and making wise decisions. Today’s verse is an example of that.

It talks about anxiety, but the Hebrew word used is not the same word that is usually translated as fear.

Fear is a gift, but anxiety is a curse.

There are, of course, some abnormal fears. We call them phobias. But normal fear is actually a gift. It is a heightened sense of danger that can trigger in us the adrenaline we need to either fight off the threat or flee from it. Normal fear is a gift from God, and it is not something we should try to eradicate from our lives.

But the anxiety that today’s verse talks about is something else entirely. It is a sense of dread that lodges itself inside the human heart. This anxiety sits in the heart and weighs it down. It removes the everyday happiness that makes living a joy and working a blessing. It creates its own gravity, sending every thought downward into depression and disillusionment.

The heart in the Bible is a symbol of the central thoughts and desires of the human being. When the heart becomes weighed down, its owner feels as though there is no longer any reason to live. Many commit suicide because they stop having any hope of things getting better. They see only despair and disappointment in their future.

This feeling can happen at any stage in a person’s life. This horrible gravity can weigh down both young people and older individuals. It can inflict its damage on a person anywhere along the spectrum of intelligence. It can attack a man or a woman, a boy or a girl. The rich are not immune to its power. People experiencing poverty cannot avoid its influence.

Many live with the pressure of anxiety.

In 2021, they did a survey that discovered that anxiety was the most common mental disorder and affected an estimated 359 million people in the world. Between 1990 and 2019, the number of people being affected by anxiety increased by over 55%. They discovered that people at a higher socio-economic level are more likely to suffer from anxiety. Poverty can cause depression, but wealth is no defense against it. They also discovered that anxiety disorders are becoming more and more prevalent among adolescents and young adults. Age can lead to depression, but youth is not a defense against it.

But the heaviness that today’s verse talks about is not just the result of a mental disorder. The Proverbs seems to be discussing a problem that any one of us can experience. Anxiety can lodge itself inside our hearts, putting pressure on us and keeping us from seeing any way out or any hope for recovery.

That is the problem. However, the Holy Spirit never introduces us to a problem without revealing an answer to it. In fact, every situation presents an opportunity for us to make a wise decision that alleviates the problem. The solution to the problem of a heavy heart I an encouraging word.

Our encouragement can help.

This is where the heavy lifting (from today’s title) comes into play. Our friends, our family members, and our fellow church members are in danger of falling prey to the heavy heart syndrome. They can become victims. That means that we have the opportunity to become the heroes of their stories.

The book of Job is a lesson in how not to deal with personal anxiety. Job suffered loss, disaster, and despair. His wife was no help. She just told him to curse God and die. His friends were no help. They just lectured him about his hidden sins that supposedly led to his troubles. Job’s story is a lesson for all of us in how not to lift the heavy burden of anxiety from a hurting heart.

But today’s verse tells us how it can be done. It says that an encouraging word brings joy to the anxious person. That is what we have the opportunity to do. We can replace the heavy heart with a joyful heart.

There are probably as many ways to encourage someone as there are ways to become discouraged. Here are some ways to encourage a person with a heavy heart.

We can encourage them with our testimony. If we have ever experienced the kind of anxiety that the victim is experiencing, we can tell our story, showing them that rescue from that predicament is possible. One reason that anxiety can be so damaging is that it convinces its victims that they are the only ones who have ever felt this badly. But by sharing our testimonies, we let the victims know that we were once there too, and by God’s grace, we were able to overcome it.

We can also encourage them with our prayers. Even if we have never experienced the kind of pressure that our anxious friends are facing, we can show them that we care by interceding for them in prayer. I, myself, have been there. I have been going through a rough time, and when my friends prayed for me, I saw no immediate result of the prayer. But as soon as they prayed, I felt the result in my heart. The heaviness I had felt began to lift slightly. Prayer does change things, even when the prayer does not seem to be answered. The act of praying itself can be a source of encouragement.

We can encourage them with the promises from the Bible. The devil wants to destroy people with anxiety. He wants them to feel like they are all alone in their problems, and God is somewhere distant. But the promises of God can lift that burden. Psalm 23 shows how the psalmist encouraged himself by meditating on God’s promise to guide him as a shepherd.

We can encourage them by reminding them who God is. They need to know that there is a power greater than the problem they are currently facing. They need to be reminded that God is Almighty. There is nothing too complicated for him. They also need to be reminded that God is loving and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in mercy and faithfulness.

But what if we still cannot find the words to say? My advice is – wait it out. Stay with our hurting friends and give them the gift of our time. At some point, the God of all comfort will provide us with words to say to lift the heavy loads of anxiety from the hearts of our friends. While we wait for the words to say, we can be silently praying for those encouraging words. Jesus commands us to ask, and he promises to give what we ask for. Surely, he wants us to minister to those of a heavy heart.

Encouraging those who are feeling anxiety is just one of the many ministries that every believer can be involved in. You do not need a seminary degree. You do not need an impressive church title. You don’t have to be on the church board. You don’t have to possess a special spiritual gift. Today’s text tells us that all we need is an encouraging word. It seems like a tiny thing. But most of us can share our own experience when we were weighed down with anxiety, and somebody came along and just said the right thing to lighten our load. Let’s be that somebody for somebody else.

HIS MAJESTY EXTENDS

HIS MAJESTY EXTENDS

Psalms 148 NET.

¹ Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD from the sky! Praise him in the heavens! ² Praise him, all his angels! Praise him, all his heavenly assembly! ³ Praise him, O sun and moon! Praise him, all you shiny stars! ⁴Praise him, O highest heaven, and you waters above the sky! ⁵ Let them praise the name of the LORD, for he gave the command and they came into existence. ⁶ He established them so they would endure; he issued a decree that will not be revoked. ⁷ Praise the LORD from the earth, you sea creatures and all you ocean depths,⁸ O fire and hail, snow and clouds, O stormy wind that carries out his orders, ⁹ you mountains and all you hills, you fruit trees and all you cedars, ¹⁰ you animals and all you cattle, you creeping things and birds, ¹¹ you kings of the earth and all you nations, you princes and all you leaders on the earth, ¹² you young men and young women, you elderly, along with you children! ¹³ Let them praise the name of the LORD, for his name alone is exalted; his majesty extends over the earth and sky. ¹⁴ He has made his people victorious, and given all his loyal followers reason to praise — the Israelites, the people who are close to him. Praise the LORD!

We are now into our eleventh month of reading through the Scriptures, two chapters a day. So far, we have encountered four main types of literature. We have read about the history of God’s people starting in Genesis and continuing through the historical books, ending with Esther. Along the way, we have read some of God’s instructions for his people. The LORD has taught his people how to live rightly and how to worship appropriately. In Job, we got a glimpse of another type of biblical writing: wisdom literature. Now that we are nearly finished with the Psalms, we have sampled the poetry of the Old Testament.

The author of Hebrews wrote that God spoke long ago “in various portions and in various ways” (Hebrews 1:1). We should not be surprised that he did so. We learn different things through different teaching methods.

Some things are best learned through experience, but that doesn’t mean we have to have the experience. We can learn from other people’s experiences. That is what history is for. We should not all have to experience loss to know that loss is painful. The lessons of the past are there to help us in the future. Learning history is not like doing an autopsy, where all you can do is discover why the death happened. Learning history teaches us how to live today, without making the mistakes of the past. It helps us make wise choices. We imitate the best options and avoid the worst choices.

However, God has not given us a mere history book in the Bible. He has also taught us principles to help us live right and doctrines to help us think right. He has taught his people how to live rightly and how to worship appropriately. He has done this in the instructional and wisdom literature portions of the books we have read so far.

Some of you have struggled with what we have been reading for the past seventy-four days. Like me, you don’t read a lot of poetry, so it is hard to figure out what is being said and why. But I hope we all have learned to appreciate the creative way the biblical poets have communicated God’s truth. Like songs, poetry is designed to help us feel what we are learning. Poems make it easier to remember the things that we are being taught.

The Hebrew poetry of the Old Testament used repetition. It said the same thing in two or three different ways to ensure that the message sinks in. It painted pictures with words to give its readers images in their minds. It took some of those same historical stories taught in earlier passages of the Bible and poetically restated them. So, we relived the crossing of the Red Sea and the conquest of Canaan through the words of the psalmist.

It took some of the same doctrines taught in the Torah and expressed them using word pictures to help us apply them to our own lives. It taught us not the mere fact that God is everywhere. It expressed that truth by talking about the feeling of having nowhere to hide from the presence of God’s Spirit.

It took some of the wisdom literature and enabled us to understand not just the fact that we should live right, but the reasons we should. It taught us that living according to God’s truth would make us like a well-watered tree that never stops producing fruit.

The poetry in the Psalms has a variety of styles. We have listened to the psalmists complain, train, and explain. We have read the Psalms of Lament and the Psalms of Ascent. Many of the Psalms in this final book (107-150) are songs of praise. They are designed to incite believers to worship and praise God for who He is and what he has done. That is what today’s Psalm is doing. Psalm 148 focuses on the majesty of Almighty God.

The LORD’s MAJESTY extends from the sky (1-6).

The poet encourages his readers to go out and look up into the sky. He is encouraging praise from God’s people, but he is not saying that if they go out and look hard enough at the sky, then they will see God. No, notice that the phrase is “Praise the LORD from the sky!” Here is what the psalmist is doing. He is telling us that a praise concert is going on right now, and it is going on in the sky and in the heavenly assembly.

Who is praising God? All God’s angels are praising him. The sun and moon are praising him. The shiny stars are praising him. The waters above the sky are praising him.

Why is this concert going on in the sky and in heaven? Because he gave the command, and they came into existence. He established them so they would endure; he issued a decree that will not be revoked.

In Genesis 1, we read that God created this expanse, which he called the “sky.” But it was empty, so he filled up all the empty spots with lights, planets, suns, moons, and flying creatures. We read elsewhere that the highest heaven is filled with angelic beings who serve the Lord and minister in his name. What we are seeing here is a picture of all these created things and created beings breaking out in song and praising their creator.

This dark world in which we live often forgets to praise God. But if we could only look up and realize that praising God is not an unnatural thing that only the intensely religious fanatics do. Praise is the regular, ordinary, typical activity of the sky and its inhabitants.

Worship is going on in the sky right now. Praise is regular for the sky beings because they recognize that their creator is worthy of that praise. The majesty of our LORD extends from the sky. His throne is there, so it is understandable that he is exalted there.

Now, the poet who wrote this Psalm is telling us that we, creatures of the land, are lagging. The LORD is our creator as well, and we should join in the celebration that began out in the sky.

The LORD’s MAJESTY extends from the land (7-14).

The poet introduces a new praise celebration. Its choir consists of the sea creatures, fire, hail, snow, clouds, storm wind, mountains, hills, trees, animals, kings and princes, young men and women, older people, and children. Everything and every person on this planet should join in the praise for the LORD.

The same creator who made an empty sky and then filled it with wonders also created an empty land and filled it with amazing things and wonderful beings. The psalmist urges all of us who are part of that creation to praise the name of the LORD, for his name alone is exalted; his majesty extends over the earth and sky.

The poet includes a final line in his writing, aimed at the people of Israel. His purpose is to add just one more thought. He reminds the Israelites that they have all the more reason to praise God, because they are the people who are close to him. Other nations hear about God’s miracles, but the Israelites have experienced those miracles. They of all people should be leading the praise celebration.

But this Psalm is for us as well. Each of us can look up and see a sky full of reasons to praise our creator. Each of us can look around at the fantastic world we were born into and find a reason to be grateful to its maker. But we must also ask the question of personal application:

Does the LORD’s MAJESTY extend to your life?

God lovingly created you, but he did not go on vacation afterward. He stayed around and taught you a few things. But he was not satisfied with even that. He saw you at your worst—after sin had turned you into someone repulsive and degenerate. He could have turned his back on you and abandoned you to the repercussions you deserved. But our great God decided to redeem you.

He sent his only Son, unspoiled, untouched by sin himself. God sacrificed the life of his Son to pay the debt that you owed. Through the shed blood of Christ, you had access to the miracle of the ages – forgiveness. God, your creator, became God, your redeemer. He decided to extend his majesty to bless you in your lowliness and lift you into his greatness.

But our heavenly Father is a perfect gentleman. He will not force forgiveness on anyone who does not ask for it, and He will withhold His blessing from anyone who refuses to approach His throne in repentance. The ground is level at the foot of the cross. We all need Christ’s atoning work, but the time to come to Him and request it is drawing to a close.

That is why my final point for today’s sermon is a question. I cannot answer the question for you. God is a God of glory whose majesty extends over the earth and sky. He is also a God of grace who has made forgiveness possible for whoever asks for it. But the sand in the hourglass is running out. The tickets to the great party in eternity are getting scarce.

Does the LORD’s Majesty extend to your life? It can. All that God has in store for you is available. You only have to come to him once. He is near, right now, even at the door. Will you open that door today?

UNITY

UNITY

Psalm 133 ESV

A Song of Ascents. Of David. ¹ Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity! ² It is like the precious oil on the head, running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes! ³It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion! For there the Lord has commanded the blessing, life forevermore.

Israelite pilgrims probably sang the songs of ascent as they traveled to Jerusalem to worship the Lord during the annual festivals. As the believers climbed toward Jerusalem, they prepared themselves spiritually for the importance of their visit to Mount Zion. This particular Psalm is attributed to David. It celebrates the unity of God’s people.

I believe we Christians should meditate on this Psalm. Unity is also a significant theme in the New Testament. Jesus prayed for us to live in harmony with one another when he asked the Father that we may be one, just as he and the Father are one (John 17:21). The Apostle Paul taught us not to focus on our differences but to see ourselves as one in Christ. He knew that the Christians in his time had a lot of diversity. They had ethnic diversity because the gospel had spread to many nations, and now there were Greek Christians as well as Jewish Christians. He knew the gospel had been preached to both high-class nobility and lower-class slaves. He also knew that the good news had been proclaimed to and by women as well as men. So, he taught that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female — for all of you are one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28).”

Our relationship with Christ allows us to overlook our differences and treat each other as He commanded us to. He taught us to love, respect, and be considerate of one another. In fact, we are warned that if we only claim to love God but do not love each other, we are hypocrites. When we consider all these things the New Testament teaches about unity, we would be surprised if the same principles are not found in the Old Testament, the Bible Jesus read.

Some of the oldest Bible stories actually depict unity in a negative light. Adam and Eve were united in their defiance against the Lord in the garden, and the people of Babel were united in their attempt to disobey God’s command to scatter across the Earth.

But as revelation progresses, it becomes clear that God is not against human unity. He wants to unify us in a way that is different from the way we want to unify ourselves. We want to unify ourselves against his plan and against his heart. He wants to unify us according to his plan and in line with his heart. The way he wants to do that is to unify us in the Messiah. He wants us to be one in Christ.

The final book of the Bible, Revelation, reveals what this will look like in eternity. It shows us a vision of the redeemed from every tribe, language, people, and nation. But this vast multitude of people is one despite their former ethnic, geographic, social, and economic differences. They are the redeemed in Christ, and they are one. That’s what God wants.

Now that we have surveyed the concept of unity in the Bible, let’s examine the teachings of this particular passage.

Unity is a good thing (1).

We don’t use the word “behold” very often now, but it was frequently used in Bible times. We use it when we want to attract people’s attention to something. When we write something, we can do this by changing the font, underlining the word, or putting it in bold print. We are telling our readers to notice this word or phrase because it is crucial.

David wanted his readers to see that fraternal unity was a good and pleasant thing. He paints a picture with his words, portraying the entire nation sitting together as one person. We can understand how David could feel that way as king. He did not want his kingdom to be divided, he did not want civil war, and he wanted peace and harmony among the citizens of his nation.

But his words are more general than that. Perhaps he is expressing his gratitude for the peace that he has known in the United Israel. But he wants us to notice that God wants this of every nation.

Here is where the rubber meets the road for us in 21st-century America. This psalm reminds us that our country’s name is the United States. You all know that I rarely talk politics in the pulpit because I don’t think that is what this pulpit is for. But I need to address the reality that is all too evident in this nation today. We are taking sides and attacking each other. We are defining ourselves as us and condemning them. The last time we were polarized to such an extent, it resulted in a civil war.

God speaks to our current situation and calls us to peace, reconciliation, and unity. We need to recognize that unity is a good thing and that, as a nation, we are far from dwelling together in unity.

Unity is a calling (2).

David uses two similes to explain how good it is for brothers to be unified. In verse 2, he shows Aaron, the nation’s first high priest, being anointed with oil in his ordination ceremony. We watch as the anointing oil flows freely down Aaron’s head and drips down his beard to the collar of his robes. No one screams, “Somebody get a towel.” Nobody wants to clean up the mess. Why? Because this is the anointing oil. Aaron is the anointed of God. He is called to represent the people before God as their high priest.

Part of explaining Scripture is showing the connections between its words so that the readers understand how they relate. There are several connections here that are not obvious, so I need to point them out. First, as high priest, Aaron unified the whole nation of Israel. They were a multitude of people, coming from a dozen tribes, but they had only one high priest. When Aaron was anointed, he stood as a symbol of the unity of Israel.

Secondly, anointing oil was an ancient symbol of purity. People anointed their heads to cleanse them from impurity and keep bugs out. Thus, oil itself became a symbol of a promise to obey one’s calling with integrity. In the Ancient Near East, three types of people were ordained by an anointing ceremony: prophets, priests, and kings.

Each would be tempted to exercise their position in a self-centered way. Their anointing was a promise and commitment to avoid corruption and selfishness. The oil flowing down their heads was a symbol of a commitment to purity.

Thirdly, every prophet, priest, or king who was anointed realized that the Scriptures predicted a coming anointed one who would be God’s ultimate anointed one. He would be not just a prophet, not just a priest, and not just a king. He would be the prophet, the priest, and the king. He would be all three. He was called the Messiah: the Anointed One. Consequently, every anointing ceremony would itself be a foreshadowing of the great event of the coming of Christ. Thus, everyone who was anointed took on the responsibility of predicting Christ through their own life choices.

Unity is a calling. That is why the Apostle Paul called the church, “those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, and called to be saints, with all those in every place who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours” (1 Corinthians 1:2). He says that we “were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:4-6).

We have not all been anointed with oil, but all of us have been anointed with God’s Holy Spirit. We have been given different gifts, but we are expected to use our gifts to build one another up “until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God — a mature person, attaining to the measure of Christ’s full stature” Ephesians 4:13). So, just like Aaron in Psalm 133, every Christian is anointed. Our calling is to represent Christ as we grow to be more like him.

Unity is a blessing (3).

The simile changes in verse three. We are told that unity is like the dew of Hermon, but we don’t know who Hermon is. Mount Hermon is a high, snow-capped mountain located in the northern region. The picture is of the dew from this distant high mountain descending into the area of Zion, way to the South. We have heard of mountains being so large that they create their own weather. Something like that seems to be implied here. The difficulty is that there are numerous mountains in Israel, many of them in Judah itself, which is much closer to Jerusalem than Mount Hermon is. So, why did David draw attention to Mount Hermon?

I can only guess, but this is my guess. David chose a distant mountain to show us that the unity we can experience today is only an approximation of the unity we will experience when Christ returns. The dew from Hermon is a blessing upon all the pilgrims from the north as they make their way to Jerusalem for the feast. Our present unity is a blessing as well. But what we have in store when our Savior comes to reign is the blessing that the LORD commanded at Zion.

And what is that blessing? Life forevermore! Unity is good and pleasant, but the command of our God is more than unity. God wants more from us than merely getting along with others. He wants us all to make it to his destiny for us. As pilgrims together, we are blessed by the cooling dew from Mount Hermon, but we are all on our way to something even better. We are on our way to Zion. There the LORD has commanded the ultimate blessing: eternal life.

Some churches teach that we all already have eternal life. But that is not what this church teaches. The word of God speaks of a judgment day. The sheep and the goats will be separated. The goats will go to the punishment of permanent destruction, while the sheep will go to permanent life. The lost will die the second death, while the saved will get a second life. This second life will be the blessing that the LORD pronounced on Zion: life forevermore.

It is fitting that this short psalm about unity concludes by reminding us that something more important than unity exists. The unity in the Garden of Eden ended with our ancestors being expelled from paradise. The unity at Babel resulted in disorder and scattering. As we journey on this pilgrim path, we should all aim to get along with each other. However, our ultimate goal is not merely coexistence but to attain the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Communion Meditation:

Ephesians 2:15

“(Christ) nullified in his flesh the law of commandments in decrees. He did this to create in himself one new man out of two, thus making peace.”

After Christ’s death on the cross, there is only one people of God. He made forgiveness possible for both Jews and Gentiles. He enabled a unity based not on pedigree or works accomplished. His death made it possible for all of us to approach the throne of God based on his perfect work, not our imperfect works.

ALEF

ALEF

Psalms 119:1-8 NET.

¹ How blessed are those whose actions are blameless, who obey the law of the LORD. ² How blessed are those who observe his rules, and seek him with all their heart, ³who, moreover, do no wrong, but follow in his footsteps. ⁴ You demand that your precepts be carefully kept. ⁵ If only I were predisposed to keep your statutes, ⁶Then I would not be ashamed, if I were focused on all your commands. ⁷ I will give you sincere thanks when I learn your just regulations. ⁸ I will keep your statutes. Do not completely abandon me!

Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible, with 176 verses. I doubt any of us chose to memorize this psalm. But there is something else special about it: it is an acrostic. It has 22 sections, each with eight verses. The first letter of every verse in a section begins with the same Hebrew letter. That’s why I titled today’s sermon “Alef.” Alef is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It doesn’t always match the English letter “A.” Alef serves as a placeholder letter representing a vowel sound. Words starting with Alef can begin with the sounds of a, e, i, o, or u.

Here is a chart showing the first words of Psalm 119:1-8 (the Alef section) and what they mean in English:

אֶשֶׁר	esher	blessed (1,2)
אַף	af	also (3)
אַתָּה	ata	you (4)
אַחֲלַי	ahalay	if only (5)
אָז	az	then (6)
אוֹדְךָ	odecha	I will thank you (7)
אֶת־חֻקֶּיךָ	et chukecha	your statutes (8)

The main message of Psalm 119 highlights the greatness and glory of God’s word and stresses the importance of obeying it. It also introduces a list of synonyms for God’s word. God’s word includes his law, rules, precepts, statutes, commands, and regulations. Each term carries a particular emphasis, but they all refer to his word.

The entire psalm praises scripture as a source of guidance, wisdom, and comfort, and shows the psalmist’s deep love for God and desire to live righteously according to His teachings.

There is no way to cover the entire psalm systematically in just one sermon. My friend Kimon Nicolaides preached on this psalm on the radio in Hawaii. He focused on one section at a time each week, so it took him months.

For today’s sermon, I will focus only on the first section. I’ll review this section verse by verse.

The word esher (אֶשֶׁר), meaning blessed, appears as the first word in verses 1 and 2.

A blessed person is someone who is fortunate and makes wise decisions that lead to good fortune. The wise people described in these verses owe their fortune to blameless actions. Their behavior was upright, and no one could accuse them of wrongdoing. How did they achieve this? It was not by chance. They intentionally chose to obey the law of the LORD. Note that it was not just a choice to obey human law. Sometimes human laws are unjust. Many evil people justify their wicked acts by claiming they were obeying the law. But the law of the LORD is perfect. It is a just and moral law. You can’t go wrong by seeking to follow God’s law. It cuts through hidden motives and reveals the hypocrisy and selfishness behind human laws.

The people who are blessed are those who observe God’s rules. These rules are specific; they serve as God’s warning signs. We see human warning signs all around us, yet we often ignore them, which can lead to harm—like a stop sign. If we ignore the stop sign and keep driving, we risk crashing into something or someone.

The rules demonstrate the existence of those responsible for them. They are somewhat like the signs we see scattered around Columbus County right now, which list the names of candidates running for public office. These signs serve as reminders to vote for your preferred candidate in the elections on November 4th. Similarly, God’s rules remind us to remember Him when we make our choices. Observing His rules means living in a way that honors Him. Today’s text tells us that those who follow God’s rules and seek Him with all their heart will be blessed. Conversely, ignoring His rules and trying to fulfill our own desires with all our heart is the opposite.

The word af (אַף), meaning also, or moreover, appears in verse three.

This word shows an example of the same thing. People who seek God with all their hearts avoid doing wrong because they have chosen to follow in God’s footsteps. Now, God is a Spirit, and since he has no physical feet, it’s clear what it means to follow in his footsteps. It means to go where he goes and not stray from his path.

God has always made the correct path clear in His word. But since the Lord Jesus appeared, His path has become even more evident. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. People cannot come to the Father except through Him, and they cannot follow God unless they are following Him. Jesus said, “No one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son decides to reveal him” (Matthew 11:27). So, if you really want to know what it is like to follow in God’s footsteps, you should study the Gospels and learn all you can about Jesus Christ.

For a good three years, most of my sermons focused on Christ’s commands as revealed in the Gospels. I don’t regret that choice. Christ’s commands are so important that Jesus told the apostles before he ascended to teach all nations to obey everything that he commanded. That is how we follow in God’s footsteps. Jesus did not replace the law; he explained it and fulfilled it.

The word ata (אַתָּה), meaning you, is the first word of verse four.

The “you” in this case refers to God Himself. He requires that His precepts be followed carefully. A precept is a rule or principle that guides behavior or conduct. I might also call it a guideline. In the army, we had to be very diligent in following the SOP for every task. SOP stands for Standard Operating Procedures. What the psalmist is telling us here is that God Himself has established the SOP for how we live our lives. He doesn’t want us to do it our way; He wants us to do it His way. To ensure we live according to His way, God has provided some guidelines in the Bible. If we choose to ignore these guidelines, our lives may not immediately fall apart, but they will always be flawed. There will always be some dysfunction. God doesn’t want that.

The word ahalay (אַחֲלַי) means if only, and appears in verse five.

This word expresses a desire for something to be true. The psalmist reveals his inner longing here. After everything he has said before, you might think he’s an expert at obeying God. But that’s not the case. The psalmist admits that he also struggles to get it right. He says, “If only I were predisposed to keep your statutes!” This means the psalmist isn’t naturally inclined to follow God’s statutes. I appreciate how the psalms’ writers are open about their own weaknesses and failures.

Last Monday night, Brother Martin spoke about taking up our cross daily and following Jesus. I’m also glad he quoted Romans 7, which shows that even the Apostle Paul struggled with this. He admitted that he had trouble doing the good things he knew he should do. That is what the psalmist is expressing here. He knows the rules but struggles to follow them. The Bible’s message is not “Be perfect and God will save you.” The Bible’s message is one of grace. The good news is that God saves imperfect people through His grace.

The word az (אָז), meaning then, appears first in verse six.

It continues the idea from verse 5. Both verses say: “If only I were predisposed to keep your statutes, then I would not be ashamed if I were focused on all your commands.” The psalmist admits that he doesn’t always do it right. He struggles to focus on God’s commands, so his life often becomes something he’s ashamed of.

These verses introduce two additional synonyms for God’s word: his statutes and his commands. We understand what a command is, but what exactly is a statute? Our English word ‘statute’ refers to a written law passed by a legislative body. However, that is not precisely what is meant by the term here. The Hebrew word suggests something that is prescribed. In my translation, I use the word ‘prescription.’ We all know what a prescription is — the doctor prescribes medication for you to take, and if he is right, you will take it and get better. That is what a biblical statute is. That’s why the psalmist wishes he were predisposed to follow God’s prescriptions. He knows that if he simply straightened up and took his medicine, he would improve. It’s an if-then condition. The psalmist says that if he would only keep God’s statutes, then he would not be ashamed.

I’m picturing the walk of shame in my mind. You know, that walk into the courthouse for trial. The suspect often covers his head, partly out of shame and partly to keep anyone from taking his picture to broadcast on the six o’clock news. I can imagine what might be going through those people’s minds as they walk that walk of shame. They are thinking, “if only I had stayed away from that fight, if only I had not tried to rob that bank, if only I had not tried to get rich by cheating people.”

The word odecha (אוֹדְךָ) means I will thank you. It’s the first word in verse seven.

The psalmist thanks God for His regulations, while most of us do not thank the government for its regulations. We see those regulations as unnecessary barriers to our success and happiness. But God’s regulations are a means to our success and happiness. He sets limits on what we can do and when we can do it. If we are wise, we will seek out God’s instructions to guide our lives, families, and work. Wise people understand that living life God’s way will eventually cause them to thank Him for those rules.

The words et chukecha (אֶת־חֻקֶּיךָ) mean “your statutes.” They are the first words in verse eight.

We’ve already discussed statutes because the word first appeared in verse 5. We also see that the psalmist is honest enough to admit he did not always follow God’s prescriptions exactly. In this final verse of the Alef section, the psalmist pleads with God not to abandon him and promises to keep God’s statutes. These are the words of someone who has failed before and understands the shame and guilt that come with that failure. He is determined to do better next time. We have a word for that kind of person: we call that person repentant. A repentant person comes to God not based on their track record but because of their need. A proud person might approach God asking for help so they can be a winner. But a genuinely repentant person always comes to God, desperately seeking His help because without God, they know they are a loser.

The message of the Alef section is that the word of God serves as a way to connect with God’s righteousness and power. It speaks theologically about a God who has gone before us and prepared our path by giving us guidelines to live by. It demonstrates that humans often fail to do what God desires, even when we know it is right. It offers us a second chance. It tells us that God will not abandon us if we admit our failures and seek Him through repentance. Even if we have failed Him in the past, He remains faithful to His word. So, we can always return.