The Wisdom of Humility
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Introduction
Introduction
Published in 1979, Douglas Adam’s bestselling novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy aired a typical sentiment of the last fifty years, poking fun at the futile efforts to find truth. The most sophisticated computer ever designed, Deep Thought, works for over half a million years to conclude that the answer to “The Great Question,” The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything is a startling forty-two—a number!
This morning we are going to hit on an interesting passage. Most of the collected proverbs in the Old Testament are attributed to a man named Solomon, who is one of the most famous (perhaps second only to his father), most prosperous, wisest, most powerful kings that Israel ever had. 1 Kings records this about Israel’s third monarch:
God gave Solomon wisdom, very great insight, and understanding as vast as the sand on the seashore. Solomon’s wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the people of the East, greater than all the wisdom of Egypt. He was wiser than anyone—wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, Calcol, and Darda, sons of Mahol. His reputation extended to all the surrounding nations.
Solomon spoke 3,000 proverbs, and his songs numbered 1,005. He spoke about trees, from the cedar in Lebanon to the hyssop growing out of the wall. He also spoke about animals, birds, reptiles, and fish. Emissaries of all peoples, sent by every king on earth who had heard of his wisdom, came to listen to Solomon’s wisdom.
Three thousand Proverbs, 1005 songs, and emissaries of all peoples came to listen to Solomon. No one was more perceptive, more sage, more in tune with the good ordered ways of the created world than Solomon. His rulings brought wealth and favor and justice to his kingdom.
And yet, Solomon fell short. He became selfish and egotistic. He subjected his people to forced labor to build a palace many times larger than the temple to YHWH. He built an army by making a deal with Egypt, which was the one thing the book of the Law said not to do. And he set up high places to foreign gods to appeal his many wives and secure his borders, and he offered sacrifices to foreign gods and turned his back on the one true God of Israel. Solomon was meant to be the ultimate human, the best version of Adam the world could offer. And he falls short.
Our proverb today is not from Solomon. But it might as well be about him. Really, it’s about all of us. Let’s pray and dig in.
PRAY
You Are Not God.
You Are Not God.
We are going to be in Proverbs 30 today. The last two proverbs are not attributed to Solomon, but by a man named Agur and a king named Lemuel. This is Agur’s proverb. And it’s starts in a very peculiar way.
The words of Agur son of Jakeh. The pronouncement. The man’s oration to Ithiel, to Ithiel and Ucal:
This first verse is absolutely fascinating to me, even though it looks pretty boring on the outside. Agur, son of Jakeh, to Ithiel, Ithiel and Ucal. The thing is, I read maybe 15 different translations, and each one of them is different. So, being that we’re hanging out in Hebrew poetry here, let’s translate:
The words of a gatherer. Son of an obedient one. The man’s oration to I am Weary God; to I am Weary God and Worn Out.
Think of this a proclamation to his own mind and body, stretched and torn and taken to the limit. He has gathered and worked and accumulated everything he could, and now he has hit the wall of his own humanity. These are the words of Agur, but they are also the words of any one of us who has sought to gain the world by his own merit and strength.
Who has sought to be filled by the stuff of earth.
Who has gained knowledge and made that his identity.
Who has built up a fortress of security through financial means, hard work, a nuclear family.
Who has at one point or another decided he needed to keep up with the Joneses, whoever they are.
If this is you, you are a gatherer, and I encourage you to let Agur’s words be yours today.
What does he say?
I am more stupid than any other person, and I lack a human’s ability to understand. I have not gained wisdom, and I have no knowledge of the Holy One.
I am more stupid, more brutish than anyone.
I lack the human ability to understand, to perceive.
I have not gained wisdom.
I do not know the Holy One.
These words are jarring at first, aren’t they? It’s almost like they come from one of the fools we’ve been hearing about. In fact, Agur’s words are like admission of foolishness, especially if you look at core passages like Proverbs 9:10:
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
It seems like Agur is admitting he’s a fool, right? But wait, would a fool admit to being a fool? Do you remember the Dunning-Kruger effect graph that I showed you a few weeks ago? If you were to put Agur on the graph, where would he be? He’d be moving toward wisdom, away from foolishness.
Foolishness is confident stupidity. But the path to wisdom starts with knowing that you do not know.
This is the inner wrestling of a man who has come face to face with the vastness of the universe and the impossible pursuit of meaning and value and worth, and he has fallen short.
Look what Agur says: I am a brute. I lack what it means to be truly human. Wisdom escapes me, because I do know the Holy One.
I call this the Wisdom of Humility. And it starts with a proclamation. Go ahead and say this out loud, because you need to hear it come from your own mouth.
I am Not God.
You are not God. In other words, you are physically, emotionally, mentally limited creature, bound by time and space. And despite your every effort to be like God—this was Adam and Eve’s desire in the Garden (Gen. 3:5-6), and it is embedded in your fallen nature—you will constantly be found wanting. The curse of humanity is a constant desire to gather and consume and take for itself without ever reaching the point of satisfaction. We trade a life of contentment for regret, shame, and anxiety.
And like Agur, what you will find is that, despite your pursuit of what you think it means to be truly human—wealth, knowledge, pleasure, power—despite every effort to be the ultimate human, it is that pursuit that leads you to a substandard human existence. The average person today is truly less than human, beneath the bar set at creation long ago.
You are not God. You are not even human, because to be human means to accept the boundaries that you were made to have.
The wisdom of humility starts with your acceptance that the answer to everything is not 42. It’s something else.
YHWH Is God.
YHWH Is God.
Agur moves from admitting to seeking. Verse 4:
Who has gone up to heaven and come down? Who has gathered the wind in his hands? Who has bound up the waters in a cloak? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is the name of his son— if you know?
This is powerful here. And boy, is it a loaded verse. What is Agur seeking? If you look at the first three verses, it looks like Agur is seeking truth, knowledge, wisdom. He wants to be a wise person, and he has been gathering and taking and accumulating. It seems like what Agur wants is wisdom.
But in Agur’s questioning, he does not ask, “what?” He asks, “who?”
This is where the wisdom of humility must lead you. Outside of your own ability, your own capacity, your own skill and judgment and power. To another, greater than you. Better than you. Able to go where you cannot go and see what you cannot see and do what you cannot do.
Who has gone up to heaven and come down? Who has gathered the wind in his hands? Who has bound up the waters and established the ends of the earth?
Agur is describing the ancient cosmology of the day, from the viewpoint of a limited creature, the span of the cosmos that seems so large it makes him feel small. And he comes to a conclusion. He is not God. But someone is. And he has a name. And he has a son. Do you know it?
Now, you might be look at this and thinking, Of course you would go there, Jacob. Of course you would answer “God,” or “Jesus,” or “Yahweh,” if you want to get technical. This is a church! Why would you say anything different?!
You are right. This is a church, and it would be weird if the answer to “who” is anyone else but God. And if you are coming to church with a better than skeptical attitude, you might dismiss the message today as basic or simplistic.
But I want you to be honest right now. Your lips confess, but does your heart believe?
Because here’s the thing. I would wager that a small part of you still wants to be god. I showed a picture of the universe a few weeks ago which I hope inspired awe over the vastness of the created cosmos. But there’s still that small voice that creeps up that says, I can get there.
Even in the church, where we worship a God who was and is and is to come, who made all things and hold all things together, there’s still a part of us that says, I need God, I just need him less than that person over there. Oh, I still sin, but not so much that you’d notice. If I were to name my sin, it’s probably pride because I’m so awesome.
Somehow, sanctification in the church has become less about our increasing dependency on God and more of our increasing independence from him. I become a better, more sinless person, I know more, I make better decisions, and so I don’t need God’s forgiveness and strength as much as I used to.
We make wisdom about the what, but it’s really about the who.
It’s frighteningly easy to reach this point, church. In fact, we raise up and venerate leaders in the church who pursue the grace of God and depend on God less than others. It’s no wonder the church is in crisis; literally, it is no wonder, because the church has lost its wonder. It has left behind the otherness, the ungraspable nature of true wisdom, in favor of other, more attainable things.
To ask who is to admit that you cannot get wisdom in your own ways. Wisdom does not require a certain intellect, a certain age, a certain experience. It requires an open hand. Wisdom is a gift, given by a relational God. Do you know him? Do you know his son? (Interestingly, “son” here likely refers to Jacob, or the nation of Israel by extension; do you know YHWH, and do you know his people? But boy, “son” has a pointed tone for us this side of the cross, doesn’t it?)
The Wisdom of Humility accepts that I am not God, but there is one who is, and he offers me what I cannot obtain for myself.
Follow YHWH.
Follow YHWH.
So, if you are not God, and YHWH is God, than what are we left with?
Every word of God is pure; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Don’t add to his words, or he will rebuke you, and you will be proved a liar.
If YHWH is God and you are not, than whose voice needs to take pride of place in your life?
Agur looks at his own life, his knowledge, everything he has accumulated, and it pales in comparison to the one who holds heaven and earth in his hands. So he says, I gotta look to the Scriptures, to the written word of God, and value this, and seek safety in this.
Agur reads the word of God and realizes that man’s knowledge and understanding are not like this. They do not compare. This word is the gift.
Church, this my last message before I take Sabbatical this October. And if there was one word I could leave you with for a few months, this would be it. Look to this for your direction. Look here for your revelation and discovery. Look to this for your hope and your security. And look to Jesus, because he is the fullness of that word; he is the one in whom true wisdom is found, the true Word of God, the true gift of salvation that rescues and embraces you by his love. Find Christ, find wisdom.
Hold true to this church. Stop seeking whatever it is you think you want in your own power and strength, and start leaning fully into the presence of Christ dwelling among you, and speaking to you through his Word. Do not add to it. That doesn’t just mean change the Bible or add more sacred texts. It means don’t speak for God out of your own charisma. Don’t take your wisdom and call it divine. Don’t add rules and requirements to Jesus. You cannot be more than Jesus. Jesus is everything. Dwell deeply in the reality that without God you are not enough. But in Christ, who is everything, you are seen and loved and cherished and sealed for eternity.
Trust in the Word of God, who has gone up to heaven and come down, who displayed authority over the wind and seas, who descended to the depths of the earth and rose victoriously, and who sends his disciples even now to establish his kingdom across the ends of the earth.
There is nothing more than this. There will never be anything more than this. Know that wisdom is found whenever you follow Jesus wherever he leads.