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Saturday, September 3, 2016

Let's Not Make a Deal

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, September 4, 2016.  The Bible verses used are Proverbs 3:3-12.


             We’re in the second week of our sermon series “The Bible’s Greatest Hits”, looking at the favorite Bible verses as determined by the people at biblegateway.com.  Today we look at number eight on the list, our reading from Proverbs Chapter Three.
            The book of Proverbs is one of my favorite books of the Bible.  So some of you may be thinking, “Then how come you never preach on it?”  And the fact is that I don’t.  In fact, this might be the first time I’ve ever preached a Sunday sermon on the book of Proverbs.  I’ve preached from it at funerals, especially the closing verses about the woman of noble character.  That one gets used a lot.  But the rest of the book, not so much.
            There is a reason for that.  A proverb, by definition, is “a short, and expressive saying in general use, stating a general truth or piece of advice.”  And that’s what most of the book of Proverbs is:  short sayings that contain truth.  Many of them are just one verse long.  And a lot of them are really good.  The trouble is that, quite often, the verse you’re reading has nothing to do with the next verse, and that verse has nothing to do with the verse after that.  So it can be very hard to find a group of verses with a common theme that you can actually preach on.
            To an extent, that’s true of our verses today, too.  But I think there is a common theme, at least to an extent, and I think it can be summed up this way:  when we are faithful to God, God will be faithful to us.
            Verses five and six tell us to “Trust in the Lord with all your heart...in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”  Verses seven and eight tell us that if we “fear the Lord and shun evil”, God will “bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones”.  Verses nine and ten say that if we “honor the Lord with your wealth...then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine.”
            Well, that all sounds good.  But you know, it kind of starts to sound like a quid pro quo, does it not?  It sounds like we’re making a deal with God.  “Okay, God, I’ll submit to you and I’ll shun evil and I’ll honor you with my wealth.  And now, in return, you have to make things easy for me, to give me good health, and to give me lots or material goods.  That’s our contract.  You live up to your side of the bargain, and I’ll live up to mine.”
            And we know that’s not the way life works, don’t we?  We’ve all known people who were wonderful people, who were faithful Christians, who at least as far as we can tell had submitted their lives to God and shunned evil and gave generously.  And they did not have things made easy for them.  They did not get good health and prosperity.  And that does not seem fair.  It does not seem right.  It looks to us like God did not follow through on God’s end of the deal.
            And sometimes, when that happens, our faith can be shaken.  Because we’re thinking, “Wait a minute.  This is not the way it’s supposed to work.  I’ve been trying to serve God all my life.  I’ve been trying to do what God wants, I’ve given up all kinds of things I could’ve done, I’ve given to the church, I’ve done all the things I’m supposed to do.  And for what?  What did it get me?  How has following God made me any better off?”
            We know, in our heads, that we cannot make deals with God like this.  But in our hearts, sometimes we think we can.  It’s easy to do.  Even though we know better, there’s a part of us that feels like if we’ve done things for God, then God owes it to us to do things for us.  And it can be really easy to read a section like the one we read today as backing up that feeling.
            But let’s look at this a little closer.  We talked last week about what the Apostle Paul said about love.  He said that it does not matter how great our spiritual gifts are if we don’t act out of love.  In other words, it’s not just what we do that matters.  Our feelings and motivations and attitudes, the reasons why we do the things we do, matter, too.
            So let’s look at these verses with that in mind.  Our verses told us to submit to the Lord and not to lean on our own understanding.  Well, if we act in a certain way because we want God to do things for us, we’re not really submitting to the Lord, are we?  We’re not trying to follow God’s will.  We’re not being faithful to God.  We’re trying to manipulate God, to make God follow our will.  Submitting to God means living the way God wants us to live just because it’s the way God wants us to live, with no expectation of anything in return.
            Now, there is a certain level of trust in God that’s involved in that.  But it’s not trusting God to do what we want God to do.  It’s trust that if we submit ourselves to God’s will, then God will do what’s right and things will go the way God wants them to go, the way they’re supposed to go.  In other words, our trust in God is not that if we follow God, God will do things our way.  Our trust in God is that if we follow God, God will do things God’s way, and God’s way will be better than our way ever could be.
            In fact, if we’re doing things because we want God to do things for us, we’re doing the exact opposite of what those verses say, right?  We’re leaning on our own understanding.  We’re trying to be wise in our own eyes.  We’re saying, in effect, “I know what God should do here.  So, I’ll do this and this and this, and God’ll see that and God’ll do what I want God to do in return.  I’ll get God to do it my way.”  And in fact, I suspect there are some of us who have tried that a time or two in our lives.  We probably did not spell it out that way, we did not put it quite that bluntly, but that really is what we were doing.  We were trying to manipulate God into doing things our way.  And it probably worked about as well as you’d expect it to, because God does not just know what we’re doing, God knows why we’re doing it.  And our feelings and motivations and attitudes matter to God.
            It works the same way with the other verses we read.  We cannot truly be said to “fear the Lord” if we’re trying to manipulate the Lord.  In fact, the whole idea of trying to manipulate God is very disrespectful of God.  It’s incredibly arrogant of us to think we could trick God or fool God in that way.  And yet, we still try.
            And how about honoring the Lord with our wealth?  Are we really doing that if we give with the idea that God will give us something in return?  That’s not honoring God.  That’s trying to bribe God.  Again, it’s very disrespectful.  And I’m pretty sure God can tell the difference.  
            When we spell these things out in this way, none of them make a whole lot of sense.  And yet, a lot of us have had times when we’ve tried to do them.  And I have, too.  We try to make it look like we’re trusting God, but we’re really just trying to make a deal with God.
            So why do the verses put it this way?  Why do they make it sound like we’re bargaining with God, and that if we do the right thing God will respond in the right way?
            Well, remember what a proverb is.  It’s a short statement that express a general truth or piece of advice.  It’s not something that is true each and every time, no exceptions.  It’s something that’s good advice for us because it’s generally true most of the time.
            And the fact is that, if we follow God’s rules, if we live the way God wants us to live, if we rely on God rather than relying on ourselves, if we shun evil and give generously to God, and if we do those things with willing hearts, out of love, rather than doing them because we want something in return, the chances are that things will go better for us.  Our paths will be straighter.  We will tend to be healthier.  We will tend to be more successful.  Not because God owes it to us to make things turn out that way, but because God knows more about how we should live than we do.  God gave us certain rules for living, but not to set up a reason for punishing us when we don’t follow them.  God gave us rules for living because God loves us, and God knows that if we follow God’s rules, things will tend to go better for us.  Not always.  There will be exceptions.  But it’s the percentage play.  It’s the best way to go.
            And remember, too, that God’s idea of success is not always the same as ours.  Humans tend to look at success in terms of numbers.  We look at the size of someone’s bank account, or the number of square feet in their house, or the number of friends they have, or things like that.  Those things may define success on earth, but they do not define success the way God sees it.
            And we get back to where we started:  to faith.  God sees success in terms of our hearts.  God sees success in terms of the trusting God, being faithful, and showing love.  When we do those things, God sees us as being successful, regardless of what the numbers show.
            So let’s stop trying to make deals with God.  Instead, let’s trust the Lord, and not ourselves.  Let’s shun evil and honor the Lord, with our wealth and with everything else in our lives.  We may or may not be successful in terms of numbers, but we will be successful to God.  Let’s be faithful to God, because God will always be faithful to us.


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