Proverbs 6:1-19 – Wise Up

If you'd like to go with me to the book of Proverbs, chapter 6, in your Bibles or your instrument of Scripture, I'll read, My son, if you have put off security for your neighbor, have given your pledge for a stranger, if you are sneered in the words of your mouth, caught in the words of your mouth, then do this, my son, and save yourself.

Proverbs 6 · chapter mention

For you have come into the end of your neighbor.

Go, Asen, and plead urgently with your neighbor.

Give your eyes no sleep, and your eyelids no slumber.

Save yourself like a gazelle from the end of the unter, like a bird from the end of the fowler.

Go to the ant, O sluggard.

Consider her ways and be wise.

Without having any chief officer or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in Avest.

How long will you lie there, O sluggard?

When will you arise from your sleep?

A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber and want like an armed man.

A wordless person, a wicked man, goes about with crooked speech, winks with his eyes, signals with his feet, points with his finger, with perverted heart, devices evil, continually sowing discord.

Therefore, calamity will come upon him suddenly.

In a moment he will be broken beyond healing.

There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: oughty eyes, a lying thong, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devices wicked plans, feet that make ace to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.

And so reads God's word.

Welcome to you if you join us while we're uh singing.

My name's Mark.

I'm the lead pastor here at City, and you're very welcome here with us on this uh St.

Patrick's Day weekend if you're visiting and in town uh and going to go to the parade or or uh enjoy that.

Well, you're very welcome.

We're in Proverbs chapter six, the precious red for us.

You can open that up uh if if you've got a Bible with you, or you can uh look it up on your phone uh as well.

Let me ask you this.

Uh when was the uh when was the last time you made a decision that you ended up regretting?

It doesn't have to be a big one.

You don't have to you just start kind of bawling in the darkness.

That's okay.

But you just say, okay, well, what was the decision where you think, oh, maybe it was like you went to a restaurant and you thought, do you know what?

Or do you know the greatest pitfall?

Ordering a Chinese.

You've got your order, and then every now and again you go, do you know what?

I fancy something different.

That is always a decision that you will regret.

You have your order, right?

Don't think, oh no, I'm gonna try the the the orange chicken or something like that.

No, it's a spice bag.

That's it.

Don't change your order.

That might be a decision, that's maybe a decision that I've regretted from time to time.

What's a decision that you have come to regret?

Something that you've ended kicking yourself over.

You know, people say the hindsight is it's 2020, and you know what they mean by that.

You know, you you look back down the road and you and you notice this this huge pitfall, and you think, how did I end up falling into into that?

It was right there.

Why why didn't I see it?

How did I not realize that that was there?

How stupid I was.

How stupid and foolish that decision was.

Maybe sometimes life feels a little bit like you know those trust exercises.

You might have done these on like corporate days or team days, those trust exercises where uh where one person is uh uh has a blindfold on and they have to kind of navigate through a maze, and the rest of the team is uh is saying where they ought to go and to guide them through the maze.

And there's so many other voices, it's hard to kind of figure out.

Well, what is the right move?

Am I supposed to go straight three steps or am I supposed to turn left?

And you think, well, maybe life feels a little bit like that, that I'm actually a blindfolded person, and there's so many other voices that are speaking at me, it's hard to know how best to move forward.

What is the right decision?

Where is the the right path?

And and you end up, you trip and you fall into something, and you you lift up the blindfold and you go, Well, why didn't you tell me that was there?

Of course I was gonna stub my shin off that little parapet or ledge because you didn't tell me it was there.

Maybe you think that that's how God wants you to live your life.

You know, he's a little bit twisted, right?

And so he likes the fact that you're a little bit blindfolded because we don't know the future.

You realize that?

We don't know the future, and so he's kind of wringing his hands up there, going, ha ha, let's see.

Uh let's see if they they fall into this pitfall that I'm laying for them.

And maybe actually one of the things that you've done as you've fallen into a pitfall of a bad decision is you've, in a sense, kind of lifted up the blindfold and gone, God, why didn't you tell me that was there?

And you felt angry and resentful towards him because you think that actually he's taken some sort of glee and delight in laying all of these uh pitfalls before your feet and keeping you blindfolded.

You ever thought like that?

I think people might sometimes think that that's what God, how he entertains himself.

But in this section, one of the things that we we see, it's as though it's as though God, a good father, brings us up to the parapet above the maze of life.

And so he shows us the whole outlay.

And he says, okay, you need to watch there.

There's a there's a pitfall there.

So when you come to that one, you need you're gonna need to walk around it.

And then when you go a little bit further along, round that corner, there's actually gonna be another trap.

Do you see, do you see it?

Do you see it before before you kind of start walking along the path?

Can you see that there are certain pitfalls there that you're gonna fall into?

I want to forewarn you, I want to let you know.

I want you actually to go in with your eyes open, that you have a sense of the path that you're gonna walk, because I don't take pleasure in you just falling into a pit, actually.

And so one of the things that I'm trying to teach you as a good father is where the obstacles are along the road.

That's what he's doing in Proverbs chapter six, so that we can pay attention as we walk through this life, so that we're not just either blindfolded or just kind of willfully closing our eyes.

He wants us to see where the certain pitfalls are.

And there are three in the three sections uh that Precious read for us.

There are traps, time wasters, and troublemakers.

There are traps, time wasters, and troublemakers.

Those are the three pitfalls.

Now, a little health warning uh for where we're going over the next half an hour or so.

There will probably come a moment, and I know this because it came, it came to me as I was preparing this, where you'll sit there and you go, Oh, that's me.

I've done that.

And you'll think, oh, I just feel really kind of feel really bad now.

Feel really kind of, oh, I'm such an idiot, or feel judged that Mark's even mentioning it.

In that moment where you go, oh, I've done that, can I encourage you to think, okay, that's the whole point.

That's why God, because we're Proverbs is about teaching us wisdom.

Why do we need to be taught wisdom?

Because we don't inherently have it, right?

And so when you feel that, oh yeah, I've walked into that pitfall before, don't despair.

Think, so good God, that you brought me to church this morning and that you are teaching me that wisdom.

You're showing me now that pitfall.

And hopefully going forward, I'll learn from it and I'll not fall into it again.

So let's jump in.

Three pitfalls.

First, traps.

There's a trap in verses one to five, picking up with me.

My son or daughter, if you have put up security for your neighbor, have given a pledge for a stranger, if you are snared in the words of your mouth, caught in the words of your mouth, then do this, my son, and save yourself.

For you have come into the hand of your neighbor.

Go hasten and plead urgently with your neighbor.

Give your eyes no sleep, give your eyelids no slumber.

Save yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the hand of the fowler.

What's the trap here?

What's a financial trap?

There's a trap that money can be here.

The person is snared by making a poor or naive or misjudged financial decision.

I have a friend who uh was reasonably recently found himself in this sort of trap.

He couldn't get his his spending under control.

He liked new things, and so the the debts mounted up, and the uh the credit card uh payments were going unmet, and and so the letters started to come in, and he was hiding them from his wife.

And he was not telling her what was really going on.

He tried to borrow money from friends, and those good and godly friends who loved him started asking questions.

Why why is this happening?

Why why do you need this money?

Are there other things that we can help you with?

Because my friend was was trapped and he didn't know how to get out of it.

There are financial pitfalls that wait for all of us if we don't have our eyes open.

And so God very kindly is bringing us to this kind of bird's eye view and saying, look, there's a there's a pitfall there.

In this context, what's going on is that somebody has asked you to be the guarantor of a loan for them.

So say that person needs 5,000 euro and the the bank or the credit union won't lend it to them unless you sign on.

So you sign on and say, look, I will I will stand as collateral for this loan.

Uh I will I will be the guarantor of it.

And what happens in that situation if your friend is unable to pay?

Who does the bank come to?

Who does the credit union come to?

Do they go to your friend?

No, they go to you.

And you look at your friend and go, ah, you told me that you could repay this.

You find yourself in a trap that you've entered into somewhat naively.

Wisdom urges us not to make naive financial decisions.

It says that uh in verse one, it talks about putting up security for a neighbor or giving a pledge for a stranger.

And those are overlapping but slightly different aspects.

You know, we could be asked by a neighbor, that is, someone that we know, someone that we care for, someone who we assume that everything will be fine.

And because we're friends with them and we want to be kind and generous, we maybe go that extra mile.

Have you ever done that?

I've done that.

I've fallen into that pitfall.

I've fallen into that trap.

I remember when I was like 21, 22 years old saving up for theological college.

A friend of mine wanted to get engaged and couldn't afford couldn't afford an engagement ring.

So I lent him a fairly substantial amount of money that I was saving up for theological college.

And you know, I was his friend.

He was my best friend.

And so the the initial repayments started and maybe lasted for three, four, five months.

And then it was a oh gee, it was the car broke down this month.

I mean, don't don't of course like don't worry about it.

Month six.

We had to put down a deposit on a on a venue for the for the wedding.

And it just I just don't have it.

Oh my this one.

Sure, fine.

Month seven.

We've just booked the honeymoon.

Um and so I I don't have it.

And you begin to realize, oh hold on.

It's maybe wasn't intentional.

I'm not criticizing my friend, and if he listens on Spotify, it's fine, I've written it off.

Um although you know if he sent me a check, that'd be fine.

It was but the problem was with me.

I made a financially unwise decision.

I was naive.

I needed that for theological college.

Or if it's not a neighbor, it can be a stranger.

That is the uh the person who does not do their financial due diligence, and so you make an investment without considering what it is you're investing in.

You make rash decisions without proper research and care.

And God's saying you gotta be careful.

There's there's a trap there.

You could end up losing it all.

The result is that you find yourself snared, either trapped in debt because you loan money that you couldn't afford to lose, or trapped in the awkward strain of a relationship.

Felt that?

You're like, you've brought it up a couple of times, and now it's starting to get really awkward, and the person gets super defensive, and so you're like, I can never raise this again, but you hope that they will.

And it's just it's this elephant in the room every time you're with them or you talk to them, and you begin to feel a little bit resentful of them because you're like, Well, why haven't you like I was acting in good faith towards you?

Why haven't you been more forthcoming with me?

And you find yourself trapped in that strain, not sure what to say, or you're trapped as the one who needs to bail out a friend who the banks regarded as too high a risk.

But you thought you knew better, and you thought you know knew him or her.

Does this mean what does this mean for our generosity?

What does this mean for our generosity and our giving and things like that?

Because you might end up thinking, well, I can never really give generously because what if it's an unwise decision?

No, there are plenty of passages in the Bible that teach us on generosity.

We must lend what we can lend, but I think perhaps the principle here is uh don't lend or give what you can't stand to lose.

It's where you're like, no, no, I I needed that.

That's where you've gone into foolishness, into unwisdom.

And what's the answer that the father graciously gives?

He's like, Don't don't wait.

Like, go on, go and clarify, get yourself out of that arrangement as soon as is possible.

Resolve that situation without delay, don't sleep.

Send that text.

Say, can we have a could we talk this week?

And and you're not accusing the person in anything, you're confessing something of yourself.

You say, look, I've actually not acted in wisdom, I've acted foolishly, and so this is part of my seeking to be wise.

And so I'm asking for your gracious understanding.

Or if you're if you're just making loss after loss after loss, you don't throw good money after bad.

Don't try and continue to cost average down on something that's just gonna go to the floor, just cut your losses straight away.

This is part of the reason why why we've partnered with uh an organization called Christians Against Poverty.

Uh we have people here in the room right now who are money coaches with Christians Against Poverty.

I see Stefan.

If you're a money coach with Christian Against Poverty, stick a hand in the air.

So there's David, there's Stefan, there's Michael up the back.

Is Anna here?

Yeah, she just didn't want to put her hand up.

She's there as well.

So you look around.

So there are people that you can talk to if you feel like you're trapped in debt.

They will do that in confidence and they will seek to help you.

You want to get and put if you didn't turn around and see a hand, you can ask me and I'll put you in touch with somebody.

And they run courses periodically through the year helping people to manage their debt.

Manage their budget, rather, I should say.

Why?

Because our finances are an area that needs to be imbued with wisdom.

We can make financially foolish decisions.

And we all have done from time to time.

But I want to I want to encourage you with something else.

You know, as I was thinking about it this week, you know, we have all made bad bets, bad decisions at one time or another.

Taken risks that are too great for us.

And this wisdom comes just to help us to make uh to move forward in in wise ways.

But I want you to consider the God who is giving us this wisdom.

Because the God who is giving on this wisdom doesn't just He doesn't accuse us in our bad financial management.

He's a good father.

And he takes on bad debts.

You think about your life, you think about my life.

We're we're high-risk people.

We've got some bad debts going on.

We've got some bad debts in our past, things that we're ashamed of, things that we regret.

There's even stuff now that we're keeping secret.

We're we're bad debts.

And yet our God clears them.

We're all risky plays spiritually, morally.

We're in debt because of our sin.

You remember what Paul says in the book of Colossians?

What does Jesus do?

He cancels our debt by nailing them to the cross.

He takes our spiritual indebtedness and he clears it.

And so when you're sitting here thinking, ah, I've been such an idiot financially, run to the God who clears your debt.

Flee with urgency to him and cast yourself upon his mercy and grace.

There's traps, there's time wasters, secondly.

Verses 6 to 11.

Go to the ant, oh sluggard.

Consider her ways and be wise without having any chief officer or ruler.

She prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest.

How long will you lie there, O sluggard?

When will you arise from your sleep?

A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands at rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.

The sluggard or the lazy person is someone who shows up frequently in the book of Proverbs.

And you might think it's just because, well, God doesn't like rest.

Well, that's not true.

Uh in fact, the whole goal of creation is that we might rest.

That we might rest in him, that we might rest from our seeking to achieve our status with God.

That we And what does Jesus offer us?

Come to me, all who are weary, and I will give you more work to do.

No.

Come to me here, all who are weary, and I will give you rest.

Rest is the goal of all of creation.

So it can't just be that God hates rest.

No, there's something more going on with a sluggard with a lazy person.

And we're all guilty of them.

Here's a few things that mark out the the sluggard.

The sluggard is somebody who always goes for the easy option.

Who just doesn't want to do anything that's too hard.

It's far easier to stay in bed, a little slumber, a little red, you know, how long are you gonna lie in your bed?

Then to get up and to seize the opportunities that are before you.

Proverbs elsewhere says, as a door turns on its hinges, so a sluggard turns in his bed.

We struggle to make hard choices, things that would require self-discipline from us.

Or, and this is the uh this is the one that uh hit me this week.

Here's another thing that the sluggard is marked by.

The sluggard starts things and struggles to finish them.

I ain't a finisher.

I'm a I like to start things.

I'm not a completely.

Philippa is not here, but you can ask her afterwards, is is Mark a finisher?

And she will laugh in your face.

Or you think about it, that so um there are two types of people in the world.

There are uh there are leavers and there are putters.

You've got something, you've got a you've got a book that you've been reading, or you've got your your laptop or whatever, and you've finished using it.

What's your next step?

Do you put it where it's supposed to go?

Do you put it back or do you leave it?

There are two types of people in the world.

There are putters and there are leavers.

Hands up if you're a putter.

Weirdos.

Hands up if you're a leaver.

Yes! Come.

We're the I think we're the that's all the non-finisher completer people.

Yeah, it is.

There's like couples like jabbing one another in the ribs, going, that's you.

I struggle with this.

Do you know what Proverbs says?

The sluggard buries his hand in the dish, but he's worn out by bringing it back to his mouth.

As in he goes to he goes to feed himself, and so he starts by putting his hand in the dish.

And he's like, Oh no, I'm too tired.

He can't even, he can't even draw to there.

He doesn't finish the task of feeding himself.

The sluggard is not a finisher completer.

Another thing that marks the sluggard is indecision.

Verse 9 says, Essentially, how are you gonna how long are you gonna lie there?

And there's no answer.

There's no definite decision, there's always putting things off.

Or as the Spanish speakers call it, mañana.

Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.

Mañana, mañana.

The indecision.

The sluggard struggles to face reality.

Decisions must be made.

Opportunities need to be taken.

Choices must be acted on.

And yet they lie there.

Where can such a person go for wisdom?

To coach, a mentor, a counselor, a sage, a guru, a self-help book or psychologist?

Grab twelve rules for life by Jordan Peterson, go home and tidy your room.

What does Proverbs say?

Where does Proverbs encourage you to go?

Look at the end.

Look at the end.

There's something kind of there's something humbling about that, isn't there?

You have to think, oh, I've got I've got these sluggardy tendencies.

And actually, in order to learn the lessons that God has ingrained in the universe, I have to look at this tiny thing scurrying across my kitchen floor as it's happening at the minute.

We don't know where they're coming from.

I need to go to the ant.

And so before I squash them under my fist, I need to learn lessons from them.

What lessons does Proverbs want us to learn?

Well, there are a couple here.

First is that the ant has a kind of inner drive, uh, an initiative.

Do you see that in verse 7?

Without having any chief, officer, or ruler.

The ant has the inner motivation to get on and act.

That even if we you know even if you don't know how to fix the big decisions in your life, there might be an overall direction that you can build on, that you can begin to take little decisions.

So you kind of you kind of test and you learn, you think, oh, okay, uh, that's that's giving me a little bit more confidence to make this medium-sized decision.

And you make a couple of those, and you think, well, okay, that's the the feedback loops working now.

That's giving me a little bit of confidence to now make this big life decision, right?

And so we can start small, start somewhere with that initiative.

Where is there, where is there in your life right now that actually you need to take a little bit of the initiative where there needs to be a little bit of that self-motivation?

Okay, I need just to need to act upon this.

There's an email in my inbox, and the person is being saying, uh, just uh circling back, just following up on this here.

Oh, yeah, I know you are.

Um, does that need to be replied to this afternoon?

Do you need to take a little bit of initiative on that?

Or is there an application form that's been sitting kind of half filled in on your desk?

Because your passport's in another room, and you have to go get two forms of identification, and you can you can't find you know, where is your electricity bill anyway?

Uh, do you need to go and actually just take the initiative to get that off your docket this afternoon?

Initiative.

Secondly, uh, she seizes opportunities when they present themselves.

Uh, look at the first part of uh of uh verse eight.

She prepares her bread in summer.

We have an English idiom uh that explains what she's doing.

What is it?

She makes hay while the sun shines.

Make hay while the sun shines.

She can't harvest in winter.

The opportunity is here now.

And she's like, okay, I'm gonna seize it now while I can.

I'm gonna make hay while the sun shines.

Is there a job that you want to apply for?

And you know the deadline's coming.

Well, make hay while the sun shines.

Is there is now the time to speak to your boss about taking on more opportunities?

By taking on more uh responsibility.

Make hay while the sun shines.

Sei those opportunities.

Spiritually speaking, there are many opportunities that we ought to, as believers in Jesus, as followers of him, as a community of believers here at City Church, that we should be seizing, that we should take the opportunity now, as believers, to do great things for the kingdom.

The sun is shining.

Make hay.

Who is the person that is in your life that you that you know has deep longings, that they're looking for satisfaction in all of the wrong places?

Make hay while the sun shines.

Do you need to have a conversation with them?

You need to tell them about the hope that you have.

Make hay while the sun shines.

That's why we as a church want to want to continue as far as God enables us to uh to grow and to plant more churches and to see the kingdom extended in a whole bunch of different ways to start new community groups in different areas of the city.

We just started our ninth there a month ago in Sagart.

Because why?

Because we're trying to make hay while the sun shines.

There's people, there's opportunities, there's willingness, there's a desire, there's longing.

What things can you be doing for the kingdom?

In what ways for Jesus can you make hay while the sun shines?

And thirdly, she prepares for the future.

The aunt doesn't just think about today's bread, nor does she just think about today's bread for herself.

No, she harvests.

That is, she stores up for the future, for herself and for her community.

How are we preparing for the rainy day?

How are we preparing for the winter of our lives?

And how are you preparing for your own future before God?

The sun's shining now.

Now is the hour of salvation, Paul says.

Don't be a spiritual sluggard.

Don't think, well, I'll get to the uh to the spiritual harvest, I'll get to turning to Jesus.

It's on my to-do list, it's just a little bit further down.

No, no, no.

Winter may come before you know it.

Don't be a spiritual sluggard.

Gather in God's word.

Seize the opportunity to grow in faith now, to grow in godliness while his spirit is brooding among us.

Traps, time wasters, and then finally troublemakers.

Verses twelve to nineteen.

A worthless person, a wicked man, goes about with crooked speech, winks his eyes and signals with his feet, points with his finger, with perverted heart devises evil, continually sowing discord, and therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly.

In a moment he will be broken beyond healing.

There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him.

Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hand and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness that breathes out lies, and the one who sows discord among brothers.

Finally, the father.

Saying, look, there isn't just kind of dugouts in the path that you're going to fall into.

There's actually people that you're going to meet.

There's people that you're going to meet that you're going to want to avoid.

And what's more, actually, rather than sitting just in judgment over them, you certainly want to avoid becoming like them.

But there are certain characteristics that you do not want to take to yourself.

And when you meet a person who embodies those characteristics, you need to get as far away as possible, as quickly as possible, because I am opposed to just such a person and just such characteristics.

The overarching theme of these verses is of dishonesty and divisiveness.

Dishonesty and divisiveness.

You've noticed this strange little kind of literary device in verse 16.

Six things that the Lord hates, seven that are abomination to him.

Do you think God was like, do you know what there's six things?

Oh no, actually, seven.

Like the old Monty Python uh sketch about uh the Spanish Inquisition, um, which nobody here in this room gets.

Do you get that reference, Ben?

Yeah, Ben, because he's old, understands that reference.

If you understand, uh, if you understand the uh Spanish Inquisition reference, then then we can be best friends.

Uh, but it's not just that God has uh God was just like, oh, actually, there's there's one more.

What this device does is it emphasizes the last one, that the last one is the one that's really important.

Six things, oh actually, and that that's oh, that really grinds my gate.

That's the one that I'm really opposed to.

And so what's number what's number seven?

The one who sows discord amongst his brothers.

Just keep that in mind.

Because God loves it when his people are united, he loves it when people set aside differences, cultural differences, differences in styles of worship, or whatever it is, differences.

And they come together for his glory.

They love one another, even if that means flexing slightly to one another.

And what he's opposed to is to anyone and to anything that would seek to destroy that.

He says, watch out for them, and watch out becoming like that.

But as we see in these verses, divisiveness can be hard to spot.

Verse 13 winks with his eyes, signals with his feet, points with his finger, subtle actions which communicate a lot.

Have you ever been in a in a work meeting?

You're kind of sitting around a say a conference table or a boardroom table, or even just sitting together at lunch and you're talking about uh kind of team strategy going forward.

Or maybe you've been a community group and and somebody's talking, and you you catch the eye of uh of one of your colleagues or your friends, and they just roll their eyes, or they screw up their facing.

Nobody else has seen it, but you've seen it, them kind of kind of and you know what that's communicating that dismissiveness this person's an idiot.

I'm not listening to this person, and you shouldn't listen to this person either.

Those subtle little cues that actually just begin to sow discord that begin to make us mistrust, that drive a wedge between us and others.

God says you gotta be very careful about interacting with a person like that.

You certainly gotta be very careful about becoming a person like that.

Because God opposes such behavior.

Look at verse 15.

Calamity will come upon him or her suddenly.

In a moment, they will be broken beyond healing.

You know, the rest of the team might not see those subtle actions that sow discord and mistrust.

The rest of the community group might be continuing on obliviously, but God sees it, and God's opposed to it.

God is opposed to tearing at the fabric of a united community.

And each of these characteristics foster division and claw that unity that he loves.

You look at the say you know, it begins with haughty eyes, pride, looking superior, superior, superiority, looking down on others.

Well, such a demeanor will always undermine our community life together, won't it?

If some people go through uh our life at City Church thinking, well, I'm actually just I'm I'm theologically more knowledgeable, and uh that person's actually just a bit of an idiot.

Uh or I, yeah, whatever it is, a sense of superiority will always undermine our life together.

So will lies, false accusations, that is, false witness.

Both of those things can can flame up and spread like a wildfire before anyone has even checked out what's really true.

By which point the damage is already done.

Harming the innocent.

When injustice becomes part of a community or society culture, then that community or society will inevitably begin to fracture apart because there's no longer any confidence left in the structures of justice.

And so people begin to take matters in their own hands because they're like, well, there is no objective standard that we should all adhere to.

You are unity together as a church.

You wanted to like, I think back to just what two weeks ago.

To our our weekend away, all of us who were there, what 117 or so people, and the sense of God honoring unity, of community together, different ethnicities, different backgrounds, different cultures, different linguistic groups, different educational backgrounds, different professions, and all together.

Having the crack on Saturday night, playing squid game and traders and and enjoying one another's company all together, worshiping.

Our unity is not something that we should take for granted.

It's always changing, it's always dynamic, and it always faces certain threats.

There's always the temptation to look down on someone else.

There's always the desire to poison the well against someone else or against other people.

Have you ever done that?

We've just kind of who does that person think they are?

Or can you believe that he said that?

It just begins, just subtly, that gangrene, that rot can begin to set in.

Or when we read someone's actions or their speech in the worst possible light, like they absolutely did that to me for this reason.

Have you clarified that way?

Is there a more charitable way to consider these things?

It is something that we must be perpetually vigilant about.

And our community, look.

Our community is not perfect.

We're not a perfect church because there isn't one.

There are things that need constant attention.

This is why we pursue unity.

This is why we continue to kind of care and preserve that unity as we go forward.

Because we're not perfect.

We're not perfect people.

We will sin against one another.

We will hurt one another.

But the answer is to seek forgiveness and reconciliation as far as it is dependent upon us.

You know, as we try to pursue unity with as many people as possible, it means that there will always be aspects of our life together that you don't like.

You probably have it in your mind.

Like, what's the thing that you struggle with most at City Church?

Hopefully it's not a list that's too long.

But there's got to be things on the list, right?

And what are you going to do with that?

You're going to let that kind of feed into kind of a bitterness and a kind of a grumbling and cantankerous spirit.

Or you think, well, actually, this is part of this part of my gracious kind of flex towards others.

It might not be the way that I prefer it.

The teaching might not be the way that I prefer, the worship might not be the way that I prefer, the way that we do community groups might not be the way that I prefer.

And maybe there are things that can be can be changed, and maybe that maybe it is that actually the others need to flex to you a little bit more.

But don't let all of those things just kind of gnaw away at you.

As we're trying to kind of hold a community together by the grace of God, there is going to be this need to extend and to receive grace from one another in order to preserve that unity.

have to flex and where we're feeling like we're flexing too far or we're just too too unhappy don't let division and discord take root come and come and talk to me come and talk to us and let's see if we can't together build a deeper and more meaningful community but the opposite is also true you know where we seek to genuinely love care for enjoy seek the good of those whom God has put beside us then he makes us into a glorious diverse family you're such a community and such a community that I believe that by and large though we are not perfect God is making amongst us such a community beautifies the wisdom of God it confounds and rebukes the tribalism of our age and it makes us by his spirit that city on a hill whose light cannot be hidden you're none of these things avoiding naive financial traps seizing the day with the ant or seeking to nurture unity amongst us none of those things can we do on our own strength.

But the Father graciously has taken us up to high ground and said here's the pitfalls here's the traps and now by his spirit he empowers us individually and corporately by his grace to walk that path for his glory let us now cry out to him that we might be rich beneficiaries of that grace that enables us to live for him for listening to this week's sermon.

If you found this helpful or want to know more about City Church Dublin visit our website found in the links below