How to Have the Good Life

Church Life

Introduction of New Service Structure (3 min)

Good morning and welcome to the gathering of God’s people on this Sabbath day!

Today is going to be the beginning of something a tiny bit different in our order of service. There are three elements that we’ve tweaked slightly, but they each have significance so I want to explain the reason for the changes.

The first change is that we’re going to start our worship service at 11, and this time at 10:45 is going to become our Church Life time when we can spend time connecting with each other and with our mission as a church family. And, in just a few minutes we’re going to hear from one of our outreach ministries. Of course, every element of the Christian experience should be worship to God, including our social connections. But we want to distinguish this time from the Worship of God to help our own hearts to enter into worship.

Worship requires a singular focus, a pause, a surrender. But sometimes our minds and hearts are being pulled in so many directions that we don’t end up settling into worship until sometime after the children’s story or half-way into the sermon. So, to help all of our hearts engage in worship, we’ve decided to make a physical, visual and audible distinction between the church life stuff and worship time.

A second change that we’re making this week is to add a new element of worship that we’re calling the Garden of Prayer. You’ve probably seen it done in other churches, so we’re not trying to reinvent the wheel. What we’re trying to do is create another opportunity for your heart to connect with God. The garden of prayer will begin with a prayer song and while we’re singing the prayer song we invite you to come forward to the front of the church and bring your praises and requests to God.

I don’t want you to think that coming forward or kneeling down or standing up or raising your hands or any other physical action will make God to hear your prayer better or make him want to answer it differently. Coming forward isn’t about changing God, it’s about a shift in your heart and your focus. There’s something about the physical action of publically joining with your church family in prayer. The movement forward changes the state of your heart. Maybe you recognize the glory and mercy of God in giving you help, or healing your loved one, or giving you a new family member or whatever other blessing you’ve received. Standing up and moving forward in worship physically communicates to your own heart and to your church family that your soul is praising God. And you’re welcome to tell us about your praise on the Prayer card in the pew—bring it forward with you and put it in our prayer box.

If you have a significant need such as a need for healing, wisdom, financial help, a solution to a pressing problem, or salvation for a loved one, then write it down a prayer card and come forward to put it in the box. This action does two things: it brings our your church family into your need so that we can pray for you. Every Sabbath morning at 8:30 the elders and anyone else who is interested meet to pray for the church. The other thing that coming forward does is it underscores a spirit of surrender. You’re putting that need before the Lord and letting Him provide or protect or heal or help. That surrender is an act of worship.

Again, there’s nothing magical about stepping out of your seat to come forward for prayer. What it does is make a change in your heart, and it gives our church family an opportunity to join with you in your need. We won’t be reading prayer requests from up front, but if you have a need that is appropriate to share with the church, we’ll include it in our corporate prayer on future weeks. We’ll try to ask you before sharing your prayer request with the wider church family.

This is one of the bigger changes in our schedule so I want to point it out for you in our bulletin. As soon as the children’s story has ended our worship team will come back up to lead a prayer song and that’s when they’ll invite you to come forward for prayer. Children’s story time is the perfect opportunity to write down a prayer request. Since this hasn’t been the culture of this church family, we might not have a lot of people join us up front for prayer today. That’s totally fine. There shouldn’t be any pressure in your heart to come forward. Only come forward if the Lord is calling you to reach out to Him in an act of worship and surrender. Over time this will become a normal part of our worship experience and you’ll find yourself coming forward at times and staying in your seat at other times, depending on what’s going on in your life.

Offering Emphasis (2 Min)

There’s one last thing that we’re changing in our service and it has to do with our offering. Returning tithe and giving offering to God is an act of worship. However, back in the 18th and 19th centuries there were churches that raised funds to pay their pastor by renting out seats. If you wanted to sit in a pew you had to pay a nickel or a dime. Some people paid a monthly rent for their family pew. To collect the rent, the church would pass the plate around the church.

In years past we’ve continued that long tradition of pew rental fee pickup by passing the plate in church, but perhaps a more Biblical and worshipful way is to do what Jehoiachin did when he collected offerings for the temple repairs, or what the temple did in Jesus’ day—they used an offering box near the entrance to collect tithes and offerings. And, that’s what we’re going to do starting today. This shouldn’t be new because we did this during covid.

Today’s offering is for our local church budget. When you give to our church budget you invest in the discipleship of our members, in our children and youth’s spiritual and social lives, and in the evangelistic and outreach ministries of our church. I can assure you that every dollar you give to our local church is invested in the growth of God’s kingdom in the Pasco community. If you look in the bulletin we’re about a month behind in our church budget, so please keep that in mind as you pray about how God is inviting you to give.

You can use the offering envelopes in front of you and put them in one of the white offering boxes in the lobby, by the church office, or at the end of the children’s wing hall near the exit. Or, you can give online at adventistgiving.org. Please mark “Church Budget” on your envelope to give towards today’s offering emphasis. Any loose or undesignated offerings will also go to local church budget this week.

Announcements (2 min) There are a few important announcements today. This afternoon, immediately after the service, I’d like to meet with the worship teams in the event center. That’s accompanists, musicians, singers, and song leaders. We need to iron out a few details for a change we’re making in scheduling our worship teams.

There is no potluck today, but we’ll resume our regular visitor potluck next week. If you see someone you don’t know, why not ask them home for lunch and get to know them?

If you’re a youth or young adult, you’re welcome to stick around after the worship team meeting to record our next episode in the Youth Intersections podcast. I’ve got pizza for the podcast crew and families, so you don’t have to stress about food. And for the rest of you, if you haven’t heard our first episodes, check us out on apple podcasts, Spotify or audible by searching for Youth Intersections.

Next week there will be a graveside memorial service for Ted Kroner who passed away in February. Next Sabbath at 1:30 we’ll have a memorial at the Desert Lawn Memorial Park in kennewick followed by a celebration of life and reception at Ted’s daughters house. You are welcome to attend both.

There are all kinds of good things going on. Check out the announcements in the bulletin to find out about Cinco de Mayo celebrations and school activities in the coming week or two.

Don and Janece Kendig 70th anniversary (2 Min)

Now, enough of announcements. We need to celebrate with some of the finest people that God put on this earth. Don and Janece Kindig are celebrating their 70th anniversary this week. They pastored this church from 1983 to 1998 when they retired. They loved this church so much they decided to make this their retirement home. And in retirement they’ve helped with an untold number of ministries and tasks from important sounding things like the head of the greeter ministry to daily upkeep like cleaning the church. And wow! 70 years married. Your service for God and your love for each other is a testament to God’s goodness.

We’ve been collecting cards for you and we have a celebration bouquet of flowers for you.

Let’s praise God together as we give them a round of applause?

Interview with Lana Franklin (5 min)

I’d like to give the last few minutes of our Church Life time to The Daily Bread Ministry team. Please, tell us a little about what’s been happening lately in your ministry.

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Invitation to Worship (30 sec)

Psalm 138:1–3 ESV

I give you thanks, O Lord, with my whole heart; before the gods I sing your praise; I bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your name and your word. On the day I called, you answered me; my strength of soul you increased.

Prelude

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Introduction — Context and Structure

You may have heard before that you can read one chapter in proverbs for every day of the month. There are 31 chapters in proverbs, so if you’re wondering what to read in the Bible one day, just pick up Proverbs, turn to the chapter for this day of the month, and you’ve got something good to chew on.

For example, today is the 4th day of the month, and If you picked up Proverbs and read chapter 4 this is some of what you’d read:

Proverbs 4:14–15 ESV

Do not enter the path of the wicked, and do not walk in the way of the evil. Avoid it; do not go on it; turn away from it and pass on.

Proverbs 4:18–19 ESV

But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day. The way of the wicked is like deep darkness; they do not know over what they stumble.

The book of proverbs if full of thoughtful sayings like this. But to understand how to read Proverbs we should probably back up and look at the bigger context of wisdom literature in the Bible and the structure of the book of Proverbs.

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The Books of Wisdom

There are three books of wisdom: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job and they each talk from different perspectives about how to live a good life in this world.

If you explore Proverbs first you’ll find that it presents an ordered perspective of the world—if you do right things you’ll be blessed, and if you’re foolish you’ll inherit trouble. The wisdom of Solomon is designed to help you live the really good life. It’s full of good advice, and we’ll explore it more in a moment, but everyone knows that life is not as simple as the formulas shared in Proverbs. Sometimes good people find trouble and bad people are blessed.

And that’s where the book of Ecclesiastes comes in to answer the questions we have about the unpredictableness of our world. The teacher in Ecclesiastes is a critic pointing out the exceptions to the rules in Proverbs. He points out three realities that shape our life and bring chaos into the order of Proverb’s ideas of wisdom:

The march of time — “generations come and generations go, but the earth was here long before us and will be here long after we die… Everyone will be forgotten by those who come after them” — He’s pointing out that our lives are a blip in time.

We are all going to die — “humans and animals, the righteous and the wicked all share the same destiny — death.”

The random nature of life— “The race doesn’t always go to the swift or the battle to the strong or favor to the wise… time and chance happen to them all” — He’s saying that you can’t control anything in life.

The teacher’s conclusion is that because time and chance happen to everyone, we should enjoy the moments God gives us—a simple meal, time with family and friends, or a sunny day should be cherished because you don’t know what’s coming next. The author of Ecclesiastes summarizes the teacher’s sayings and draws a conclusion: “Fear God and keep his commandments, this is the whole duty of humans, for God will bring every deed into judgment, every hidden thing whether good or evil.”

The teacher’s critique of the wisdom of proverbs introduces another question: is God really wise and just? And that’s where the book of Job comes in to fill in the gaps.

We did a whole sermon on the accuser motif in Job, so make sure to go check that out if you haven’t heard it yet. Job’s point is that we wouldn’t be able to comprehend the complexity of the universe that God is running even if we could have seen Him make it all. But even though we can’t see it all or understand it all, we can trust the goodness of God. Job’s claim is not that God is purely just, but that He is wise and good as well.

Which brings us back to the wisdom of Proverbs.

The Structure of Proverbs

Proverbs was assembled and written by many people, but it has its roots in the original wise-man of Israel—King Solomon.

The first section of the book, chapters 1-9, has a father talking to his son encouraging him to seek Lady Wisdom.

In this section Wisdom is personified as a woman, but it’s also described as the fundamental rules of nature. In Proverbs 8 Lady Wisdom talks about her origins:

Proverbs 8:22–32 ESV

“The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth, before he had made the earth with its fields, or the first of the dust of the world. When he established the heavens, I was there; when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of man. “And now, O sons, listen to me: blessed are those who keep my ways.

Wisdom includes the law by which the ocean boundaries are formed. It holds up the skies and shapes the mountains. In a sense, Wisdom is both the attribute of God that governs the universe, and the natural and moral laws through which God governs. The word, Wisdom, in Hebrew means technical skill, creativity, or craftsmanship and its used to describe the work of creative people in the Bible. Wisdom is like the thread of God’s creativity that he uses to weave together all the things He has created. And we can harness God’s wisdom to create our own good life.

Wisdom is not just a moral or natural law, wisdom is integrated into the nature of God himself. Which is why the Bible tells us:

Proverbs 3:7–8 ESV

Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.

To fear the Lord is not to cower in fear, but to humble yourself before Him. To fear God is to recognize his lofty position and your lowly position. When you recognize God as your creator and the designer of all things, then you start to realize that you can’t make up your own rules of life. You can’t determine what is good and what is bad. You have to humble yourself before God and accept his rules because we can’t see the big picture, but He made it all and He understands it all.

You can’t defy God’s natural or moral laws without being impacted in some way. At some point, whether sooner or later, you’re going to come crashing into the reality that you can’t make up your own rules for the universe. Just try to defy gravity for any length of time and you’ll realize how quickly natural laws will slam you back down to earth.

The foolish person denies the existence or authority of God and tries to define what is good and moral and right on their own terms. To fear God is to recognize the reality of God’s existence and authority and lean into God’s design for the good life.

After the first 9 chapters Proverbs becomes a reference work of ancient wisdom. Short quips and one-liners fill the next 21 chapters. You’ll read things about all sorts of subjects such as Marriage, justice, speech, character, family, forgiveness, friendship, sex, alcohol, generosity, poverty, work, debt — all filtered through the context of proverbs 1-9.

Here’s a few good ones:

You’ll find this one repeated in the new testament when Paul says that love covers a multitude of sins:

Proverbs 10:12 NLT

Hatred stirs up quarrels, but love makes up for all offenses.

Here’s one about leadership:

Proverbs 11:14 NLT

Without wise leadership, a nation falls; there is safety in having many advisers.

This one is for the kids:

Proverbs 13:1 NLT

A wise child accepts a parent’s discipline; a mocker refuses to listen to correction.

I like this one about friendship and food:

Proverbs 15:17 NLT

A bowl of vegetables with someone you love is better than steak with someone you hate.

And here’s one that my parents repeated to me often as a child:

Proverbs 17:28 NLT

Even fools are thought wise when they keep silent; with their mouths shut, they seem intelligent.

Sometimes my dad would paraphrase it this way: “better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”

And speaking of talking foolishness, here’s one about the hurtful kind of jokes that we sometimes tell people:

Proverbs 26:18–19 ESV

Like a madman who throws firebrands, arrows, and death is the man who deceives his neighbor and says, “I am only joking!”

There are wise sayings about alcohol, debt, how to treat an enemy, what happens when you lack self control, and so many other things.

It’s important to know that these sayings are human expressions of wise principles that come from God. There are lots of wisdom books in ancient cultures, but without the wisdom that comes from God they’re just interesting thoughts to consider. Proverbs on the other hand is based on the wisdom that comes from the creator, which is why it says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning—the origin—of wisdom.

Lady Wisdom

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The last two chapters of Proverbs pull away from the wisdom library and instead describe two people who apply wisdom. Chapter 30 is a story about Agur, someone who claims that he is without wisdom. But Agur is kind of like the ideal reader of Proverbs—he finds wisdom in God’s word.

The final story is about a king named Lemuel teaching his son things his mother taught him. This is an interesting structural element because Proverbs begins with a king talking to his son about lady wisdom. Now, at the end, we find a king talking to his son and he tells the story of a lady who applies wisdom to the blessing of her family.

Proverbs 31:10–11 NLT

Who can find a virtuous and capable wife? She is more precious than rubies. Her husband can trust her, and she will greatly enrich his life.

He goes on to tell about her generosity to the poor, her diligence in providing for her family, her skill in negotiations, her craftsmanship, and her faithfulness. She is said to be civic minded and well known in the halls of power. She has strength and dignity and laughs without fear. As a result her children bless her and her husband praises her.

Now notice one of the last verses of Proverbs:

Proverbs 31:30 ESV

Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

Conclusion

Wisdom starts with the fear of the Lord and it ends with the fear of the Lord. But where is Jesus in proverbs?

Turn back to Proverbs 3 where the author begins to build a foundation for wisdom:

Proverbs 3:1 NLT

My child, never forget the things I have taught you. Store my commands in your heart.

Proverbs 3:3 ESV

Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart.

Proverbs 3:5–6 ESV

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

Over and over again we find the author pointing to our hearts—the center of our reasoning and emotion. He says store this up in your heart, plant it in your heart, trust in the Lord with all your heart.

This is New Covenant language. It is from our heart that we are either humble and teachable, or confident and hardened. Notice Ezekiel 36 .

Ezekiel 36:26–27 ESV

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

Revelation 14 tells about a people who have done exactly what Proverbs says to do—store up God’s wisdom in their heart. God has put his spirit within them, and they follow closely after God:

Revelation 14:1 ESV

Then I looked, and behold, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads.

Revelation 14:4 (ESV)

…It is these who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These have been redeemed from mankind as firstfruits for God and the Lamb,

The result of the fear of the Lord in your heart is transformation. From hardened and self-willed to softened and teachable.

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Proverbs tells us how to have the good life. Follow it’s wise sayings and you’re less likely to get divorced, and more likely to be faithful to your family; less likely to get into a fight, more likely to live a long and healthy life; less likely to go into debt, and more likely to have good friends. But it’s not in the sayings that you’ll find true wisdom—it’s in the God who made wisdom that you’ll really find the good life. He says that we are all foolish. We have all followed after our own paths and to one extent or another rejected the wisdom of the Creator. And then he says he will take your hard, self-willed heart and make it all soft and pliable. And on that soft heart He’s going to write the Father’s name. He’s going to mark you as His and bring you along down His path towards an eternity with Jesus.

And he’s not going to drop you when you’re a little difficult or mess up:

Philippians 1:6 ESV

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

The wisest thing you can do is to turn to God and say, “you made me, you gave your life to redeem me—I’m yours twice over and I surrender to you.”

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Please stand as we sing a hymn of response ……