Pt.4 Living
on the Edge
Proverbs
4:10-19
My son, listen. Accept what I say. Then you will
live for many years. I instruct you in the way of wisdom. I lead you along
straight paths. When you walk, nothing will slow you down. When you run, you
won’t trip and fall. Hold on to my teaching and don’t let it go. Guard it
well, because it is your life. Don’t take the path of evil people. Don’t live
the way sinners do. Stay away from their path and don’t travel on it. Turn away from it and go on
your way. Sinners can’t rest until they do what is evil. They can’t sleep until they make
someone sin. They do evil just as easily as they eat food. They hurt others as
easily as they drink wine. The path of those who do right is like the sun in
the morning. It shines brighter and brighter until the full light of day.
But the way of
those who do what is wrong is like deep darkness. They don’t know what makes
them trip and fall. Proverbs 4:10-19
Opening: Today is the closing message in the teaching
series HOW TO EAT AN ELEPHANT. We missed one message due to the ice and
frigid weather, creating a safety risk for last week. I really want to close this series with a
practical message about holiness. Holiness is perhaps one of the most
misunderstood terms of our time. A study by The Barna Group reveals that though
the Bible talks a lot about holiness, most people are confused and even
apprehensive about what it means.
Pastor Ray Stedman observed, “Most of us associate [holiness] with some kind of grimness or
solemnity. We think holy people are those who look as if they have been steeped
in vinegar or soaked in embalming fluid.”
No wonder few
Christians aspire to be holy. We have been talking about holiness as a pursuit
of God in an area of your life. The Proverb we read talks about applying wisdom
to our life to pursue holiness.
God is Holy and calls us to be Holy. As we have discussed
since the first of this year – our lives are often filled with guilt, shame,
regrets and failures in trying to pursue holiness. We are discovering that through repentance
and redemption we can pursue God in discovering Holiness.
Try your best to live in peace with everyone. Try
hard to be holy. Without holiness no one will see the Lord.
Hebrews 12:14
In his book: Why
Holiness Matters – author Tyler Baum states that Holiness is not new behaviors. Holiness is
new affections. He goes on: “We cannot view Holiness simply as a piety,
worked out in private and never shared in the day to day of our lives.”
I believe that true Holiness is a work of God, though His
Holy Spirit – enhancing God’s Word and wisdom in us – influencing how we live
each moment of every day.
ILL: Larry was excited about serving Jesus. He was saved at
the revival in his church a few months prior. Larry’s attitude was changed. Now
Larry was a completely new person. Everyone knew that something had happened to
Larry (examples)… If anyone had ever been saved, you knew Larry had. But Larry
began to sense that something was missing. He knew with certainty that he
wanted to follow Jesus, but there was often a struggle inside Larry. He
struggled to do what was right while also being pulled away to do what was wrong.
Often, Larry failed to do the right thing and would have to repent. Also,
something about his faith began to turn mechanical. Larry still wanted to serve
God, but he was often distracted by his friends and relatives who couldn’t
understand his new outlook on life. Sometimes that would build up and build
pressure to where he wasn’t sure that he wanted people to know about the
difference God made in his life. Why was this happening to Larry?
We become discontented when we lose spiritual focus; when
we live on the moral edge of life. Living on the edge is living with a personal
instance of doing what I want.
Here are 2 questions to help you determine if you’re living
too close to the edge:
1. Is there any tension inside of me about how I am
living?
2. Are you satisfied with the level of sin in your
life right now?
If we emphasize living on the moral edge, we are really
describing distance from God. A sign of
this is when we find ourselves trying to rationalize our decisions and
behavior.
Oswald Chambers: “God
has one destined end for mankind – holiness! His one aim is the production of saints. God
is not an eternal blessing-machine for men. He did not come to save men out of
pity. He came to save men because He had created them to be
holy.”
Living too close to the moral edge is rules without
relationship, emphasizing standards more than the Savior and laws more than
love. It produces futility instead of freedom. God has created us to be holy!
There is a way that seems right to
a man, but its end is the way of death. Proverbs 14:12 NKJV
Would you agree that people are dangerous decision makers?
A
Test: Words on the screens – shout out the color
of each word:
A caution I give is when we reach a place in our spiritual
life that we think we have mastered Biblical principles – I know enough to be
good. When we stop pursuing holiness –
we grow stagnate in our spiritual life and we step further and further away
from God.
To start being wise you
must first get wisdom. No matter what it costs, get understanding. Proverbs
4:7
I want you to know that
wisdom is like honey for you. If you find it, there is hope for you tomorrow. So
your hope will not be cut off. Proverbs 24:14
As Ralph Cudworth (1617 – 26 June 1688) explained many
years ago, “I do not mean by holiness the
mere performance of outward duties of religion, coldly acted over, as a task;
not our habitual prayings, hearings, fastings, multiplied one upon another,
even though these are all good, they are subservient to a higher end. I mean
cultivating the principle of intimacy with Jesus, the principle of being
renewed to His image and character, hating what He hates and loving what He
loves.”
Closing:
My son, listen. Accept what I say. Then you will live for many years. I instruct you in the way of wisdom. I lead you along straight paths. When you walk, nothing will slow you down. When you run, you won’t trip and fall. Hold on to my teaching and don’t let it go. Guard it well, because it is your life. Don’t take the path of evil people. Don’t live the way sinners do. Stay away from their path and don’t travel on it. Turn away from it and go on your way. Sinners can’t rest until they do what is evil. They can’t sleep until they make someone sin. They do evil just as easily as they eat food. They hurt others as easily as they drink wine. The path of those who do right is like the sun in the morning. It shines brighter and brighter until the full light of day. But the way of those who do what is wrong is like deep darkness. They don’t know what makes them trip and fall. Proverbs 4:10-19
Make
a Plan to Stay in God’s Wisdom.
- Our
Daily Bread - A chapter of Proverbs
a day
Following our worship together today we have a membership vote taking place. Here is a sample ballot for those in attendance to vote today:
Election of the Membership
North Raleigh Church of the
Nazarene
January
31, 2016
1. We agree to allow the church board of the North Raleigh
Church of the Nazarene to negotiate the sale of the church property, in
conjunction with and with the approval from the District Advisory Board.
q YES q NO
2. We agree to authorize the church board of the North
Raleigh Church of the Nazarene to refinance the church mortgage in conjunction
with and with the approval of the
District Advisory Board.
q YES q NO
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