Haddon Robinson - Lessons from Agur (Proverbs 30:24-28)

president Belly members of the official board faculty grandparents parents spouses of the graduates graduating class and folks who came in early for the evening service I am honored to be here but I must confess that I'm a bit uptight it was a about 47 years ago that I sat were you sat we were at the guests in Avenue Baptist Church which is now the Criswell Bible Institute or Bible College the speaker that night happened to the em I don founder of the radio Bible class I don't remember anything doctor behind preached on except I realized he was preaching too long I have sat in countless graduations since that time and as always the universal experience the truth is that none of you came this morning to hear what I had to say the speaker of the commencement sort of like the beer hawker at the ballgame yes for the atmosphere but doesn't affect the game at all none of you came because I am speaking none of you saw my name in the program and decided to come this morning now you came because you wanted to dress up in black gowns wear funny hats get a diploma graduate and go out and celebrate and stuff best I can do for you is not to take too much of your time I'm also a little uptight because as I understand my assignment I'm supposed to say something to the women and men of this graduating class and to those of you who want to listen in they tell you about how to handle your ministry and how to be wise in the living of your days I'm excite because I don't know what to say I mean 20 years ago I had all kinds of ideas I could have given you but since most of them have turned out to be wrong I'm not quite sure I'm up to it today and so what I have decided to do is to plagiarize nothing wrong with stealing provided you steal from an upper-class neighborhood hi I decided to borrow the ideas and the outline of a another man I don't have much compunction about that after all this is in public domain because the man I want to play Jew eyes is a fella by the name of agar agar lived about 2600 years ago and the one qualification he has is that he was a wise man by the way if you ever got a chance to get around a wise man a woman take the opportunity and let's talk about wise guys there is plentiful is parking tickets in downtown Boston I'm talking about wise men and women there is scarce as parking spaces in downtown was and agar is a wise man wasn't a Jew wasn't the Christian and yet because his musings were considered wise they're included in the scriptures and there's one observation agar makes about the skillful living it's the observation which he gives us some models to live by he talks to us about ants and Kony's and locusts and lizards usually when we model we might look we model to the folks who have blazed the path made an impact upon history but agar models down he figures he picks out four tiny creatures and though he doesn't say it they're not only smaller kind of ugly I mean you may have answered at your house but not because you cultivate them as pets it's because you haven't called the term x-man lately you don't see many people walking there Kony after work at night and if you find the locust and lizard in your house you'll stop it today and yet agar says that these four unattractive little creatures can give you insightful living can give you wisdom for the living of your days the ants he says has no strength little power if they make their home yet they store up their food in the summit now putting that another way ants know what time it is in life out of the instincts of the past they use the present to prepare for the future and the kind of multi-dimensional creature meet a lot of one-dimensional people there are folks who live in the past these are the kind of people when they take a trip take along two cameras and a bag full of film and they don't really see the country they just see the country through a lens of the camera when they get back home they watch their slides they'll particularly enjoy the trip they enjoy the memories of the trip we've all met with folks who go through life looking in a rearview mirror the problem with such folks is that if you think you've done something big yesterday and chances are you haven't done very much today there are other folks who live for the present they had a Bible verse it would be now if we accept the time now is the day to have a blast these people live is though their word no tomorrow and for many of them tomorrow never comes they die with drugs in their veins and then there are folks who live for the future they borrow the theme song from Annie tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow well they sing with Dorothy and Wizard of Oz somewhere over the rainbow you know these things aren't very good now but when I graduate from seminary boy it's gonna be different or when I get married then I'll settle down or when I get out in ministry then you can see me come alive for God when we have children that's what we're looking forward to and then when the children leave home we'll get our act together and when we retire then we'll live life as it should be later and if you're a Christian when we get to heaven it's all going to be wonderful but the ant is multi-dimensional out of the past it uses the present to prepare for the future it gathers food in summer because it knows that winter is coming I think the biblical writers were applying that truth they would apply it to young people especially who need to have a knowledge of the Scriptures get it as soon as you can let us form your life and thinking the writers of the Proverbs tell you to know the Bible to memorize it to meditate on it and the reason that you need to do that is that winter is coming winter can come to you in a very personal way you'll come down with a disease that you thought only other people got you'll find a loved one somebody who has meant everything to you taken in death you'll be sued and not be able to defend yourself you'll get into a ministry in which you discover that the pulpit committee lied via churches Ambala was representative to do some place somehow you'll go through a winter what you take into that situation is what you'll have in that situation you need to gather in the summer or winter is coming winter is coming in our society you can already feel the cold blast as it comes across the terrain we thought once as Americans because there were oceans on either side that we protected from evil discovered that we're really vulnerable only a person blinds a reality would think that all of the trouble was in the past we have threatened with devastation like a woodshed this country has never seen we live with people who have no purpose no meaning they live with broken hearts and broken dreams broken lives broken homes children grow up in that environment it's winter will be the winter revived discontent if you're going to minister in that kind of the society you've got to have something solid to say you've got to bring something into that situation that will stand up to the bleak cold winds of winter therefore use the summer to prepare for what is ahead and stew them and work and then sort of picnics but they don't joy themselves while you're sitting back drinking that tall glass of iced tea munching on a hamburger there they're taking the sugar off one grain at a time you sit there long enough they'll be back for the potato chips but they know that winter is ahead and they have to prepare in summer if you got the brains of an end you'll do what they do if you ever get the an ant's office not very large but get there on the desk there's a little motto that says as now so then the aunt teaches us what time it is in life and then he says the ponies are creatures of little power yet they make their home in the cracks the Kony's are rock badges they're larger than a kind of exaggerated chipmunk and they are the color of rock when the Coney is sunning itself lying on the rock you can hardly see it if the cop eyes is that it's being attacked by a predator it digs into the crevices of rock hipa eagle or a vulture or an animal once to get at that cone you got to tear the mountain down but the cony knows where its security lies its security lies in the rock I have no doubt that the biblical writers would have applied that to God earlier in this chapter agar speaks of God as a shield to those who trusted a major image in the sons is that God is our rock and when Paul wrote to the people at Ephesus he said be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might the cony nose or its security lies but all that Kony has is the rock if it gets away from the rock out into the Prairie it's entirely vulnerable gets away from the rock even the smallest animal will find that it's dead meat under security in the rock wellthen imagine that the bunch of carnies would get together have a convention and since they tend to be academic in their approach they'd be reading papers to one another may be some people who would sum the Kony's will be talking about how high the rock is these are the high rock Kony's and then there'll be those who would talk about how wide it is these are the wide rock ponies then there'll be some practical papers on making the rock coney friendly the truth is if they're holding that convention out in the Prairie those papers won't do them a bit of good it is not your theology that saves you it is not your discussions about the rock that keep you secure a theology is important but theology is like a road sign that says the city is that way pity the man or woman who thinks that the road sign is the city the cony knows that security is in the rock and knowledge about the rock is not the same as finding your security and God trust in him to live in his shelter by the way if you ever get a chance to go to a Coney convention not to do it you'll be right at home there you'll know the songs their favorite song is Rock of Ages cleft for me let me find or hide myself in thee view have the brains of a Coney no no he has security lies well if the ant tells us what time it is in life and the Coney tells us where our security is then the locusts tell us where our power is locusts have no king yet they advance together in ranks locusts know of their powers we know the power of community one grasshopper hmm lose another threaten my Claudia but it won't fruit one threaten but when the grasshoppers locusts come together and they become a horde of locusts they have enormous power at the end of the 19th century a huge plague of locusts swept across our American Plains states and in a week in terms of our money did four hundred and seventy five billion dollars worth of damage locusts is shaken kingdoms locus of destroyed nations and one grasshopper in that order grasshoppers we have enormous power biblical writers would have applied that to the people of God the covenant community of the Old Testament the Church of the new but the locusts underlines for is something you already know and that is you can have a personal faith but you do not have an individual thing you cannot be a Christian alone the word saint is never used in the singular in the New Testament God knows nothing about an individual Christian you can't be a Christian by yourself when Jesus was here had a band of disciples around he also had a band of faithful women who supported the ministry kept the operation gone financially and when he sent out the disciples he sent them out two by two he understood the strength of an accountability group I'm something of a wimp I find myself faced with a challenge by myself I tend to buckle and to run but if somebody stands beside me that person's courage can be my courage my courage can be her courage jesus knew that when you go too long you're up and exposed to temptations that are overwhelming but if there's something that he's standing with you many of those temptations disappear Paul and Paul put his mark on the first century and then put his mark on history but Paul wasn't the lone ranger yet his countenance everywhere you turn New Testament you see them in his letters when he wrote to the Romans he had a whole list of people that had worked with him and stood with him and then there were people like Stefan artists and the characters and fortunatus there was Phoebe that wonderful woman who carried his letter to the Romans it was ticka kiss and nothing's Timothy and Titus when Paul was at the end of his life in the maritime dungeon in Rome his hair whitened with ages face furrowed with care facing death on the Emperor he wrote in his last letter to Timothy only Lucas with me Luke that faithful physician Luke was there to care for him to care about him but it wasn't enough Paul says that some of the you come and mark here you bring mark with me Paul needed a band of Bundys and he was facing that last hour of his life men and women of the graduating class hear me well you need other Christians you cannot put up walls between yourself and other believers and think you are doing the work of God in all its power you need other believers you and I don't have it all right you need to be aware that their love is that Christ is called and together we can confront the isms of our time you got the brains of a locust you'll know that there's power in community and finally he talks about the lizard if the ant tells us what time it is in life and the cony tells us where our security lives and the locust shows us where our powers the lizard the lizard is small but it can be found in King's palaces all I can make about it an emblem of incongruity I mean locusts get into Kings tongue can hold the locust in your hand you would want to do that only to a small boy but you could it's not very large thank the look where it gets years ago bonnie and i celebrated one of our anniversaries down in acapulco we were in that twenty fourth story of the princess hotel one afternoon I was reading and it looked up on the wall and there was a locust or there was a lizard I looked at it and didn't move went back to reading look it had moved up towards the ceiling or be noticed it was moving up after wondering how in the world did that lizard get there 24th story of Princess Hotel me to come up the outside wall did walk up the stairs gonna take the elevator how did it know which button to push but there it was and agar sized it if I guns who are Kings powers I would have found those of lizard there in Congress that this kind of ugly little creature would be in a suite of a princess hotel or in a king's palace I think the writers of the Proverbs would have applied that to young men studying in that and anticipation serving in Solomon's bureaucracy and as a whole section devoted to these folks that are on their way up think you're saying you don't be like a lizard don't call attention to yourself when go to a meal don't be a glutton watch your manners don't be a slob don't drink too much discovered it you'll go up in the bureaucracy I look at it with different eyes because there is an incongruity between a bit of Elizabeth being in a king's house one of the hardest things to get over is the incongruity of the way God works everything seems reversed couple of years ago when I was in Denver I was trying to fix our garage door it's a screw there and I worked and worked the harder I tried to try not to screw the tighter it got neighbor came over and looked at it he said oh that's the reverse screw the way you'd normally tighten it you loosen it in the way you'd loosen it now it's how you tighten it took me 50 years learn how to tighten the screw and they change the rules but when you deal with God there's always the reverse screw I mean things are not intuitively the way you would think they'd be with God the way to lead is to serve the way to live is to die you want to be first be less if you're last you'll be first want a crown find a cross want to be mature learn to suffer the incongruity that you deal with all of your life and nothing could be more in Congress than that a lizard could be in a king's palace nothing could be more in Congress that men and women like us could ultimately be in the palace of a king oh you look great in your gowns nice red hoods be sure you get your picture taken but the truth is after you take them off nobody gonna notice you like to go to the restaurant this even they don't give you a special place I mean you just you you discover as you and move along in life as money and I had it look more and more like a lizard yes the amazing thing is that creatures like us by God's grace gonna dwell with him CS Lewis has a great word in his little booklet the book the weight of glory and he points out that there are no ordinary Christians that the people that we know who are Christians with whom we pray with whom we praised with whom we struggle with whom we fight that the none of them are ordinary they bear the weight of glory I mean think of the most ordinary Christian you know and the person always bad breath the person who talks too much and talks too loud person who doesn't have it all straight I mean you know the most ordinary person you tend to avoid in a crowd did that Christian that's the one I'm talking about Lewis says that if that person were to come back today as they shall be ultimately you and I would be tempted to bow down and worship Wow and you live with that good news religions the guide when he gets finished with us will enable us to dwell with the king in his palace you understand how Congress God's graces it's like thinking of a longneck crab holding a conversation with Albert Einstein and yet that's not more strange than a lizard in a king's palace well from the ant you can discover what time it is in life McCarney you can discover where your security is from locusts you can know your powers from the lizards you can discover the incongruity of grace so if you ever get a chance you know run across an ant or kony locust little lizard sit at its feet if you could find its feet and learn from it these little creatures have a lot to teach and you and I still have a lot to learn you

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Length: 32min 4sec (1924 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 28 2016