God and Kings
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Introduction
Introduction
We are back in our series on the book Proverbs called Sophia Street. If your just joining us, Sophia means wisdom, and in Proverbs, there are two roads you can take. You can the road of the wise, or you can take the road of the foolish. And which road you take says less about what you might be thinking in the moment, and more about the condition of your heart and what you truly value.
If you were to ask the average person on the street, wisdom would probably be defined as deeper understanding of the way the world truly works; an accumulation of learned knowledge and lived experience.
Dunning Kruger effect: psychological measure of confidence and competence.
And you can make foolish or wise decisions at any given time, and eventually you will learn through living how to make fewer foolish decisions and more wise ones. And there is a measure of truth to that.
Here’s the thing about the Wisdom of the Bible. Proverbs (and the rest of Scripture) calls you and I to a deeper dependence upon the active rule of a living, all powerful God; for the follower of YHWH, wisdom is a product of fear-inducing awe and a humility that says, I am not the answer to the question of meaning and value.
Wisdom is Justice-Oriented
Wisdom is Justice-Oriented
This morning we are diving into a proverb right near the end of the book, in Proverbs 29. An important part of the wisdom of God, the re-ordering of what is right and good and beautiful, is our sense of justice. Because as your heart and your mind are re-ordered according God’s way to be human, the intended design of Eden, the pieces fall into place, and you come to realize as you look out what is working according to that good ordering, and what is tragically broken. That brokenness leads to human suffering and loss in a myriad of ways (social, emotional, physically, marital, familial, I could go on).
I don’t think this awareness of injustice is limited to the God-fearers. I think even the most self-centered people recognize that there is injustice in the world, even if they assume that injustice is only done to them. The question is not whether injustice exists, but how to solve it.
And so a global and unending search continues to find the answer to healing the brokenness, to ending the perversion of good and beauty and making people whole again. But Proverbs reminds us that it is all too easy to put our faith in the systems and structures of our own making, instead of in Gods. And so our proverbs today are going to take a deeper look at how that’s going for us, and where we might want to look instead. There is a difference, Sophia says, between the justice of kings and the justice of God, and we would be wise to see it.
PRAY
25 The fear of mankind is a snare, but the one who trusts in the Lord is protected. 26 Many desire a ruler’s favor, but a person receives justice from the Lord. 27 An unjust person is detestable to the righteous, and one whose way is upright is detestable to the wicked.
The Fear of Man
The Fear of Man
Let’s start with verse 25. The fear of mankind (adam, man) is a snare. What does that mean? What is the fear of man?
We started out this series talking about the fear of the LORD, the fear of YHWH. This fear is a wondrous fear. It comes when the power of God overwhelms us and draws our attention away from our comforts and our self-centered ideas, and it calls to us to align our will and our desire with God’s, because it’s better. It is good. It is life-giving.
The fear of man is not all that different. But in place of YHWH, we put men. Ordinary people just like you and me. But these people have power. They have status. They have influence. They have resources. They have the ability to bring about change that we cannot. And they invade our lives; through our televisions, our social media accounts, our workplaces, our friend groups, even our churches. Fear is expressed whenever you give up your power to another to rule over you, not just in the greater governing way, but in the determining-the-direction-of-your-life sort of way. When another person exerts influence and authority over your thoughts, your speech, your actions, and your relationships, you reveal the extent of your fear.
The fear of man. We fall into this way more than we realize. You might be thinking, this doesn’t apply to me. I’m not afraid of people.
Hear me out: how much of your attitude is influenced by the people you hang out with? How did certain ways of talking come about? How much is your contentedness or happiness defined by your political party and determined by their power and influence in the current government, for better or for worse? Maybe it’s not your party, but maybe it’s your country; maybe it’s a thought leader or a social influencer, maybe it’s that popular kid in your class, maybe it’s a church leader. We say we don’t fear people, but our actions and our attitudes toward powerful people and organizational systems often betray us.
I’m willing to bet that to some degree, every one of us possess a fear of man that realigns our hopes and dreams and desires around human personalities and societal structures.
Why? The end of verse 25 gives us the clue.
We want protection. We want to be safe and secure. Our fear is rooted in this inner desire. And it’s more specific than that; the Hebrew word here, shagav, means to be lifted up to a high place, away from the chaos and uncertainty and danger down below, to be raised up so high that you are inaccessible to your enemies. When you are down below and you see people being taken advantage of and hurt and broken up—when you see injustice happing around you, in other words—it’s easy to be confronted by our own powerlessness to right the wrongs that we see. And it’s natural to want to say, get me out of here. Give me some sense of relief, some sense of safety, some sense of being lifted up out of the mess. And in the moment, as your eyes scatter about and look for that relief, you see a heroic figure who shares our values, fighting off the evil, beating down the enemy, and we run to our hero and fall in line gird up for battle.
We love our human heroes, because they are just like us, but better. Heroes in our world are usually those who have something we don’t. They are better looking, richer, better public speakers, better positioned to change things. They have a power we don’t, but we want it. And it’s strange how much we put our hope in them making things right for us. I don’t know about you, but have you ever “grieved” when a parent or teacher or a political leader or an artist or a pastor has a moral failure or suddenly shifts on a belief stance you really care about? That’s because, in this almost unconscious way, our dream of protection, the righting of wrongs and the bringing about of human justice, has been aligned with their success? We fall behind people of power because we hope that they will achieve what we cannot on our own.
Sophia calls this a snare. A trap. And not just because human heroes let us down. It’s because when we put our fear in human heroes, we are subject to their power. And human power has this way of pushing down rather than lifting up. You may find that while your hero gets elevated higher and higher, you are brought lower and lower, driven and conformed by their authority. You trade one injustice for another. And you will be trapped by forces you gave power to in the first place (Eph. 2, anyone?). You may think you are winning, but in the end, you will be no closer to the protection you seek.
Instead, wisdom says that protection can only be found in YHWH. [expand]
The Favor of Man
The Favor of Man
On to verse 26. Many desire a ruler’s favor. What’s going on here, and how is this different from fear?
I thought this was fascinating. The Hebrew word here for “favor” is paneh, literally meaning “face.” You desire a ruler’s face? What?
When the bible speaks of favor with this word, it is the idea of making your face shine on another. It’s like the face of the sun that shines warmth on you and restores you and brings you life. Here’s where it get’s even more interesting. Every time the Bible uses the phrase make your face shine on you, it is always referring to God. Every time.
25 may the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;
16 Make your face shine on your servant; save me by your faithful love.
3 Restore us, God; make your face shine on us, so that we may be saved.
To see God’s face in this way means justice will be done, grace will be found, and salvation is at hand.
But here’s the issue. Many seek the face of kings. Or presidents. Or celebrities. Or pastors. Or teachers. Or parents. Or friends. Or spouses. We seek grace, value, worth, comfort, and yes, salvation, in faces of others. When they shine upon us, our glory is found, and everything is right with the world (that’s justice: everything “right” with the world). When they darken, our hopes are dashed, our salvation is lost.
Do you see how easy it is to take our fear and favor away from the God of the universe and give it to lesser beings? But it happens all the time.
Like fear, favor is something we seek that is outside of your control and outside of yourself. It is found in what others think about you. Isn’t it crazy how much of your identity and who you are is defined and determined by sources who are not you? But it’s true. Again, even the most egotistical person would have to admit that perhaps the greatest human need is not to love yourself, but to be loved by another. And that need, to be loved, inspires a search to find wholeness and peace in others. Especially others that we admire. As much as it pleases me to hear from my students at school that I’m their favorite teacher, it’s categorically different to receive love from my kids. And another thing entirely to hear it from my wife. And with each expression of favor, it makes me want to examine my life and keep conforming into the image of admiration. It’s addicting to receive favor, to have someone’s face shine upon you. It makes you do whatever it takes to keep that face shining.
And so, like fear, you fall in line. You reorder your life, your desires, your interests, your routine, to accumulate more and more favor. You compromise values and ideals, you shift goals and plans and purposes, so you that your worth in other’s eyes may increase. That shining face becomes the joy of your salvation. Our justice is found in favor.
But boy, how easy it is to fall out of favor. And often that addiction to favor means that you become a people pleaser, constantly conforming to make others happy, and you become two-faced, hypocritical, less effective, and less purposeful in your life. And your standard of face shining becomes dimmer and dimmer, to the point where just the faint glow of content becomes all you need to change everything.
It is a fool’s errand to court the favor of man.
Instead, wisdom says that justice—making everything right with the world—is only found when the face of YHWH shines upon you. When he shows you his favor. [expand]
You have to choose.
You have to choose.
So, fear and favor of people. Fear and favor of God.
Sophia ends with this: “An unjust person is detestable to the righteous, and one whose way is upright is detestable to the wicked.”
When you fear man and seek his favor, you align with man’s version of justice and rightness, and your pervert God’s. When you choose to fear God and seek his favor, you align with God’s version of protection and justice, and you pervert man’s. And the bottom line is this. You have to choose. You can’t waffle when one is literally detestable to the other.
Because who you choose to fear and favor will ultimately reorder your life accordingly.
Here’s why you should choose YHWH.
He will never fail you. He will always use his power to lift you up and not push you down.
His graciousness will never fail you, his face will not dim. His glory is without end, and it is always marked by grace and compassion, truth and love, forgiveness, and yes, justice.
God always has the bigger picture in mind. He will never use you or abuse you, but he will always work to bring out your good, to truly make everything right with the world. It’s not just cliche for him.
Jesus did it.
5 Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, 6 who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. 7 Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, 8 he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death— even to death on a cross. 9 For this reason God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow— in heaven and on earth and under the earth— 11 and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.