Collage with “WELCOME: ALL NEIGHBORS,” neighbors sharing food, painting a mural, and meeting together

A Milestone Worth Noting

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“The father of a righteous son will rejoice greatly, and one who fathers a wise son will delight in him.” (Proverbs 23:24 – CSB Read the chapter)

If you are doing the math and puzzling over why we have jumped from chapter 10 to chapter 23 in our journey through Proverbs, bear with me because there’s a method to my madness today. I remember being in a conference one time with a guy who had written a book about parenting when he still had young children at home. Fortunately, this was many years later, and he was looking back at his effort with some wry humor at how much he had learned since then. I feel the same. In eighteen years of ministry, I have never preached a sermon about parenting. Honestly, I haven’t even thought about it more than once or twice. Perhaps I will yet someday when I don’t have anymore children at home, and I can be more properly reflective of the whole endeavor. Well, today I am officially a third of the way there, and I can’t help but be a bit reflective.

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Senior women learning computer skills during a digital literacy workshop

In Which Direction Are You Heading?

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“The hope of the righteous is joy, but the expectation of the wicked will perish. The way of the Lord is a stronghold for the honorable, but destruction awaits evildoers. The righteous will never be shaken, but the wicked will not remain on the earth. The mouth of the righteous produces wisdom, but a perverse tongue will be cut out. The lips of the righteous know what is appropriate, but the mouth of the wicked, only what is perverse.” (Proverbs‬ ‭10‬:‭28‬-‭32‬ ‭CSB‬‬ – Read the chapter)

Jesus once described the person who heard His teaching and put it into practice to be like a wise person who built a house securely on a good foundation. When the storms of life arose and brought all their chaos to that person’s life, they were not moved because they had a secure foundation. As well versed in the Scriptures as Jesus was, I suspect He had the proverb in the middle of this last set from chapter 10 in mind. Let’s see what else Solomon has to say here about wise living.

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Team Sports

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No one really accomplishes anything on their own. As we go through our journeys, there are all sorts of people who are pouring into us and enabling us to accomplish the things we do. Some of this is formalized and intentional; a great deal of it is unplanned and circumstantial. But all of it shapes and directs where we go and what we accomplish on the way. This is true about life in general. It is even more true about the growth and development of our faith. As we continue our look at how God designed us to be as a church today, we are talking about the second part of our identity: growing. Growing in Christ is never something that happens on its own. Let’s talk about how it actually works, and what that means for us.

Team Sports

On occasion the world discovers an athlete who seems to have gotten really good at some sport entirely on his own. In the 2024 Olympics in Paris, there was a member of the Turkish shooting team named Yusuf Dikec who took the world by storm and was the source of an endless number of memes. In the 10-meter pistol competition, while all his other competitors had expensive headphones and glasses and guns and uniforms, Dikec was just…casual. With his rumpled shirt and shorts, a pair of Dollar Store ear plugs, and his normal, everyday glasses—and his non-shooting hand stuffed casually in his pocket—he calmly won the silver medal. Everyone else absolutely looked the part. Dikec looked like somebody’s dad who had woken up late and just slid into the parking lot in time to make his scheduled slot in the event. His nonchalance instantly became legendary. As much as they made for fun stories and speculation, the truth is a little more complicated than that. 

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Three adults discuss community matters beside a “Community Event” sign and “OUR VOICE” mug.

Getting Our Priorities Straight

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“Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever takes an oath by the temple, it means nothing. But whoever takes an oath by the gold of the temple is bound by his oath.’ Blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that sanctified the gold?” (Matthew 23:16-17 CSB – Read the chapter)

I have been working through the Gospel of Matthew with my church on Wednesday nights for nearly three years now. We’ve taken a break here or there along the way, but mostly it has just been Matthew for a while now. And I’ve got to say: it has been good. I know that I’ve never taken such a deep dive into a single book from the Scriptures, and I’m sure none of them have either. Taking time to meditate so long and so deeply on a single, Spirit-inspired author’s work has yielded much in terms of applicational rewards for us. We are currently in chapter 23 where Jesus blows up the scribes and Pharisees for their religious hypocrisy and bad spiritual leadership. It is one of those chapters that’s easy to ignore because at first glance Jesus is just berating His enemies for religious practices and traditions that are long gone. But a bit closer of a look uncovers volumes of uncomfortably relevant critiques for modern church members to consider. Let’s take a look at one of them together today.

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Artisan shaping a heart model beside a sign reading Project: The Unbreakable Heart

The Worth of Doing Good and Godly Work

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“The Lord’s blessing enriches, and he adds no painful effort to it. As shameful conduct is pleasure for a fool, so wisdom is for a person of understanding. What the wicked dreads will come to him, but what the righteous desire will be given to them. When the whirlwind passes, the wicked are no more, but the righteous are secure forever. Like vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes, so the slacker is to the one who sends him on an errand. The fear of the Lord prolongs life, but the years of the wicked are cut short.” (Proverbs‬ ‭10‬:‭22‬-‭27‬ ‭CSB‬‬ – Read the chapter)

When the first man and his wife ate fruit from the tree God told them not to eat from, thus introducing sin into the world, God took some time after their disobedience was revealed to tell them about exactly what they had unleashed on themselves. One of the things He said specifically to the man was that sin was going to bring futility to his work. He would spend his life working the ground by painful effort. What was once a purely joyful activity was going to become hard for the sake of being hard. Now, anytime work is experienced as the joyful effort God created it to be is a blessing. Solomon reminds us of that here at the beginning of this next batch of proverbs. Let’s talk about that and some others today.

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