CHS Downtown sermon | Tim Henderson+

Welcome to Church of the Holy Spirit downtown. If you've not been with us before, you walked in and thought, "Wait, what happened to the rows of chairs?" We're very sorry to surprise you with this, but we hope that you love it and that you make some friends and enjoy this.

The very short version of the reason we have you seated this way is that this is how the early church did it. When they would gather together, they would share a meal—like actual food that you could eat and drink. We're trying to recapture that so that we wouldn't just have something that's presentational where you're just an audience member, but something that we participate in, that we're able to share in dialogue and conversation around the table as we gather into the word.

Tonight, we are joining a series that we started at our main campus on the Proverbs. We're gonna jump in there and get folks caught up to speed on what we're doing. Some of this might be review if you've been at our main campus in the last couple weeks, but stay with us because the word is rich and it always bears multiple hearings.

The Book of Proverbs

Who has ever done anything foolish? Wouldn't it be amazing if you could say no? How about today—have you done anything foolish today or yesterday? The book of Proverbs is a book for you. It's basically a bucket of wise sayings. Most of them are very short and self-standing—these little pithy things. They rarely have any context either before or after them. They just exist in their own right. But taken together, they are observations about the world in which we live and observations about us.

Very often, they'll pit two different options against each other. If you choose this, this is the likely outcome. But if you choose that, this is the likely outcome. By and large, it's not that hard to tell which outcome is more desirable. The promise of the book of Proverbs is that if we will read them, consider them, roll them around in our minds, they will make us wise. They'll protect us. The next time you come to a fork in the road—left or right—you'd be better equipped to know what to do.

As we'll see as we go on, knowing what to do is not the same as being able to do the right thing. Have you noticed that? There's more to this than just data or information. But the information is important.

If you read through the first eight or nine chapters, over and over and over again, you're gonna hear this refrain. It's essentially a father speaking to his kid and saying, "I'm serious. Just listen. Okay? Just lean in because I promise you, this is gonna be helpful to you. If you don't do that, it's gonna go badly." There's a sense of imploring throughout it.

My son just got a motorcycle. He went to get his motorcycle driver's license yesterday, and they wouldn't let him get his license because he was riding an antique bike. I'm like, we're not testing the bike here, people. We're testing the kid. Nevertheless, we're gonna go back and try it again.

But throughout Proverbs, there's this sense of, "I want you to get it right. I want you to choose the right thing because if you choose the right thing, it's gonna go well for you and it's gonna go well for the people around you."

Wisdom and Folly

As we walk through it, there are very often these forks in the road, and essentially, the book of Proverbs is gonna personify these two driving issues using two women as personification. Do you know who these women represent in Proverbs? The women of Proverbs are wisdom and folly or foolishness. They're not literal actual people. He's not teaching us that there's some spiritual being named Sophia, although some have made that claim. Rather, when God ordained the world, he created a world in which it's possible to be wise—which is to say, it's possible in some regard to be like him, for he is wisdom itself.

And as we all know too well, it's also very possible to ignore her and to choose foolishness.

It's one thing that's really a stunning little detail: if you read through Proverbs, you get the woman who is wisdom and the woman who is folly. They both are pictured as standing at the street and calling to people to say, "Come follow me. Come do what I say. Follow the instructions that I give." And what's so fascinating is that each one uses the exact same phrase. Wisdom and folly are both making the same claim. They're both making the same promise, but one of them is lying.

And as we grow wise, we become better capable of distinguishing between the two options that are being offered: Which path do I want to take? The hope is that over time, we more and more choose the path of wisdom, and less and less go down the path of folly. And one of the things that helps us not go down the path of folly is that when we do, it tends to go badly. These sayings are a collection of those things. So the hope is that as we go through it, you might read them. And then for the rest of your life, you just might read Proverbs. There are 31 chapters. There are 31 days in a month. You could read one chapter a day and get all sorts of insights. Most of it, honestly, when you read it, it's just going to go right through your brain and you're going to forget it. That happens all the time. But then you read it again, and then you read it again, and then you read it again, and different things might stick for you. That's what we're hoping will happen as we go through it.

Overview of Proverbs

So we're going to try to give you a bit of an overview here. Proverbs is a strange book because there's no flow. There's no plot line. There's no development. Everything is like this big bucket of fortune cookie length insights, and there's not much cohesion to it.

The first eight or nine chapters have cohesion. Each chapter has more or less a main point. Chapter five is all about sexual immorality, and it's a very sympathetic look at sexual immorality. It's going to make the case that the lips of an adulteress drip honey—which is to say she's attractive, this seems really fun. And do you know why it seems so fun according to Proverbs? Because it is fun in the beginning. But in the end, she's as bitter as gall. That's chapter five.

Chapter six is all about the ways that you can ruin yourself financially. So if that's your thing, chapter six—go for it. We get all kinds of tips on how to shipwreck your life over money.

Chapter eight is the storyline of the woman who is the personification of wisdom. So those first several chapters have a bit of order to them. But once you get to chapter 10 and following, all rules are off. It's just this whole list of things that you might go through and you start grabbing different ones. There's not an organizing principle. They're just in there. And so you can go through and grab the one that might be meaningful to you to roll around in your head.

Reflection and Personal Proverbs

In a couple of minutes, when we break for this meal together, I want you guys to have a chance to start to share with each other: What are some of your favorite proverbs? Something that you learned or heard growing up or that has stuck with you? Maybe something you've learned through bitter experience that was true, and you wish you had obeyed it much earlier?

Here are some of the ones that have been meaningful to me.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. — Proverbs 13:12

That's so absolutely true. Hope deferred makes the heart sick. I think when I first memorized it, it was, "Hope deferred makes the heart grow sick," from a different translation. But a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.

This is how I felt when I was engaged to my wife. I did not want to be engaged to my wife. I wanted to be married to my wife. And hope deferred is just a long wait—you're committed, but you don't get to enjoy the sweetness of that commitment. We just wait. But marriage is that longing fulfilled. Hope deferred makes our heart grow sick, but a longing fulfilled is the tree of life.

Or how about this?

He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm. — Proverbs 13:20

I can hear this in my wife's voice as she taught this to our children. "He who walks with the wise grows wise." This is the thing that drew me to come on staff at Campus Crusade, which is what my wife and I did for about twenty years before we came here. It was my experience of being on staff with Crew, being a student in Crew, and meeting all these amazing staff at JMU where I went to school—and where I wish you guys went to school because it's like the happiest place on Earth.

But then I went on an international mission trip with Crusade to The Soviet Union when that was a thing, and all the staff that I met there were just these incredible people. I began to put two and two together that whatever else was going on inside of Campus Crusade, it attracted these men and these women. They were the sort of people that I wanted to become like them. He who walks with wise grows wise. And I wanted to surround myself with these sorts of people and, God willing, that their life would influence mine.

The people you spend time with—there's another proverb about this. There are multiple proverbs that say the same thing. Bad company corrupts good character. This notion is true. You've seen this. You've experienced this. The people you spend time with are the people that you become like, for better or worse. Both of these things are true.

He who is full loathes honey, but to the hungry, even what is bitter tastes sweet. — Proverbs 27:7

That has enormous explanatory power for the decisions that people make. If you've ever seen somebody enter into a destructive relationship and you're like, "What on earth are you thinking?" Well, they're not thinking. They're just hungry. And if you're hungry, even the bitter tastes sweet.

Draw to your mind—are there a couple of these that have been meaningful to you? We won't talk about them now, but around the table, I'd love you guys to have a chance to flip through and find the ones that might remind you of something and maybe benefit each other. Something that's never been lifted off the page for somebody else at your table, you guys might be able to point that out.

The Nature of Proverbs

Proverbs tricky though. I will tell you this: as you go through them, the rules of making sense of them can be strange. Here's one that is baffling, I think, to a lot of people.

The words of a gossip are like choice morsels that go down to a man's inmost parts. — Proverbs 18:8

What is he saying about gossip right there? It's so satisfying. What is more satisfying than having a conversation with somebody about somebody else that you both hate? Is there anything more like, oh, wash over me with happiness? Now, is it advocating that? Is it telling us to do that? It's not. The proverbs don't tell you what ought to be. They just tell you what is. So you might be able to recognize this: the words of a gossip are like choice morsels. It is so satisfying and fun. But like so many other things that start off really good, the ruin down the road can be just enormous.

It says the same thing about sexual immorality. We mentioned this:

The lips of an adulterous drip honey, but in the end, she's as bitter as gall.

So they're telling us not what ought to be, very often, but simply what is. Sometimes it can be very odd and contradictory. Look at Proverbs 26:4 and 5. This one is kind of famous in its puzzlement.

Do not answer a fool according to his folly or you will be like him yourself. — Proverbs 26:4

That's good advice. Do not answer a fool according to his folly. That's why you don't debate people on Facebook. Nothing good is going to come of this. It's simply not going to work. Don't take the debate. It's not going anywhere. More often than not, you'll just get dragged down to the level. So just don't.

That's clear. It makes sense. So you get to verse five, which says:

Answer a fool according to his folly or he will be wise in his own eyes. — Proverbs 26:5

What? So what do you do with that? Do not answer a fool according to his folly. Oh, also, answer a fool according to his folly. I'd love you guys to think about this: is this a contradiction? Is the Bible just hopelessly unreliable because it's giving us contradictory data? The author knew. He wrote them right next to each other. He knew. Why are these juxtaposed as they are? What does that mean for us? I'd love you guys to try to untangle that a little bit around the table. What does it mean when it says the exact same thing opposite? How does this work?

You'll also find that the Proverbs are not just telling us what's going on in the world, but also what's going on in me. Because as I said, sometimes you have all the information that you need, but you'll still blow it. Here's one that I have blown more times than I wish to admit:

Proverbs 15:1

This thing is so spot on true, I know that it's true. And sometimes, I just can't resist it. Proverbs 15:1.

A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. — Proverbs 15:1

Have you noticed this? A harsh word stirs up anger. And yet sometimes, that's all I have. Right? And sometimes, I'm pretty sure how this is going to go, and it's going to go badly for me, and yet, a harsh word is coming. Right? It's not just the information of knowing what to do. It's how do I apply it? What do I do about it? And you might be able to come up with some instance where that's been the case for you, right, where you just chose to respond sharply and then regretted it bitterly. Right?

The problems are telling us what this is. It might be that over time, if you choose the wrong fork, that eventually you realize, you know, this keeps getting—there's a proverb about the fool. How does it go? The dog returns to his vomit and a fool returns to his folly. Eventually, you might get tired of eating vomit. Maybe. Right? And something might get changed. And that's what we're looking for.

If I read these, if I understand these, if I roll these around in my head, will there be a change in my life? Could I grow wise? Because you're not just wise or foolish, but you're growing in wisdom, or you're sinking deeper into folly. We're dynamic. We're moving. We're changing. He walks with the wise grows wise, and we can grow wise too. They're like hard candy. You just kinda keep them in your mouth. You roll them around. You ponder, what does it mean? What do I do with this?

But the first thing you gotta do, of course, is load them into your brain, which is why I would just advocate just every week, every day, read that day's chapter. What is today? The thirtieth? Read Proverbs 30 today. And in a couple days, read Proverbs 2, Proverbs 3, Proverbs 4.

But here's what I want to kind of leave you with before you guys go to the table and you guys start your discussions. You could read the Proverbs and you could despair at just your inability. Some of these things you just didn't know or don't believe or have a hard time convincing yourself of. Or it might be that, yeah, I get it. I know it, but I still can't do it. Right?

Christ as Wisdom

And if that's you, flip over to the New Testament. I want you to meet somebody.

Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. But to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength. — 1 Corinthians 1:20-25

Paul asks the question, where is the wise man? Who of us can claim to be wise? Every one of us is drawn into patterns of behaving and reacting that simply do not produce the desired end, and we do it repeatedly. We've done it over and over and over again.

But there is a man who came, and he lived his life so absolutely differently. He was unlike anyone who had ever been. He took the lowest place. He chose weakness over strength. He was willing to be thought foolish by a world that was incapable of recognizing wisdom. And because he sought the good of others, he himself was tortured to death. This is just so bizarre.

But having taken the lowest place and been exalted to the highest place, he has been declared to be wisdom itself. It is paradoxical. It is upside down. It is backward. He changes everything because the foolishness of God really is wiser than man's wisdom, in fact.

And when you read Proverbs and despair at what you cannot be, rest in the peace that he became what you cannot be but need to be. He took your sin, and he offers you his righteousness. He took your weakness, and he offers you his strength. He took your folly, and he offers you his wisdom. There's an impartation, imputation, a gifting of that which we don't deserve. And wisdom is found in him.

And it's because he is at the center of all things, he is the source of wisdom, that we are seated at tables tonight. We want to share a meal that commemorates his death and his resurrection and anticipates his coming again, for he is coming again. And in just a minute, Quig's gonna come up on stage. He's gonna lead us through a very ancient ceremony that you've probably practiced.

Many of you perhaps have practiced or perhaps have seen others practice, but we're gonna do it a little bit differently. And as much as there's gonna be real wine and real bread at the table, the expectation is not that we would share this meal in solemn silence as we often have done, but rather we might share it in fellowship face to face. Not shoulder to shoulder, but face to face.

And so you'll find at this counter, there's trays. And on those trays are bread and wine. And I will say that the bread here on these tables or on these trays is distinctly for those that have made the decision to place Christ at the center of their lives. And if that's not you yet, we are so glad that you're here. His table is a generous table, and we have food for you.

But in a way that might seem odd to you, this bread has been set apart. The word we use for that is consecrated. All it means is that it's special and it's distinct, and that is it's reserved for those that have already made the decision that Jesus is the center of all things and they wanna follow him. If you're on that journey, you're not sure where you're at on that yet, we've got bread for you too. It's just a little bit different because there's something here that we wanna set apart.

And we really eagerly look forward to the day that you might share this meal with us in the fullest sense. Until that day, you are always welcome here. We would love you to come to join us in the conversation. We'd love to hear your thoughts and for you to participate with us. We would just ask you to not partake of this bread that has a special particular significance to us. Does that make sense?

So what I'd love to do, as Quig makes his way on stage, if you could just have one person from each table—not yet—one person from each table, go to the bar and grab the bread and the wine. And if you would like, if anybody at your table needs the special bread that's not set apart for Christians, just ask them for that. Just let your person here know that, and we'll make sure there's special bread for you.

And oh, and there's gluten free bread, and there's grape juice. We've got it all. Whatever you need. So if you need gluten free bread, if you need bread that's not consecrated for Christians, if you need grape juice, it's all right there. Just make sure that your one person you set up knows what to get. You can go get that now.

And then, Quigg, we'd love to have you come and walk us through this.