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Preacher: Ross Macdonald
Scripture: Ecclesiastes 5:8-10
Well, this morning we return to Ecclesiastes chapter 5 and we break into some relatively new ground compared to what we've been seeing across the past several weeks in verses 1 through 7. In verses 1 through 7, the focus was on the worshiper approaching the house of God, what it means to enter into courts of praise, what it means to stand before Him who sits in heaven, the effect that has on our lives as we guard our way, the effects that has on our thoughts and how our thoughts pour from our hearts out in our speech, and therefore we ought to let our words be few.
The voice of the fool is known by his many words, but the one who fears God does not speak rashly, does not speak foolishly, but rather is sober-minded, thoughtful, reverent in all of the ways that commend his fear and faith in God.
And so we've turned now from the house of God in verses 8 and following to a familiar subject. We saw it in Ecclesiastes 3 and we'll see it again in chapters to come, which is this matter of injustice.
Certainly injustice is in the very timber of a world under the sun. That's the king's way of speaking of the fallen condition of mankind. And we're going to look at that and then bridge toward concerns about wealth or the love of money.
In fact, I was considering just looking at verses 8 and 9 in preparation this week, but I want to begin verse 10 this morning because that is a very important bridge into where we're going. And I think, I hope you'll see verse 10 is the engine that drives verses 8 and 9.
And so it is very relevant. Remember, wisdom literature has all sorts of ways that we're compositioning things together that don't seem necessarily to fit, and we're meant to discern and understand how do these things belong together?
Why are these things placed together in these ways? So verse 10, this love of silver, this love of abundance is the engine that drives verses 8 and 9. And then that engine itself will be analyzed and criticized in verses 11 and following.
So that's where we'll be going. And this morning, we're looking at verses 8 and 9 in particular. If you see the oppression of the poor and the violent perversion of justice and righteousness in a province, do not marvel at the matter.
For high official watches over high official, and higher officials are over them. Moreover, the profit of the land is for all, even the king is served from the field. He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver, nor he who loves abundance with increase.
This also is vanity. Well, what we're going to do in looking at verses 8 and 9 especially is look at them through the lens of demand and supply. I know economically, you usually hear the phrase supply and demand, and we're going to invert that because I think verse 8 speaks of demand, and verse 9 speaks of supply, and verse 10 speaks of the vanity of either of these things, the vanity of both demand and supply.
And when we're talking about demand and supply, we're particularly talking about this restless quest for honor and gain. The Lord has given the world a certain supply that is meant to provide for mankind, to be a supply for man's needs, and yet there's this restless demand that is placed on the supply that God freely gives to us.
God freely gives resources for our needs to be met, for us to be blessed by, for us to enjoy and to share together with in thanksgiving to God, our Creator and Provider, and yet the supply is met with this lustful demand for more and more and more, and economically that creates a system of greed and corruption, of bribery, of extortion, in short, injustice.
The king is looking at the way that God has provided through the field in ways that he'll talk about the simplicity of the laborer who does not lust after silver, in ways that we've seen all along. There's nothing better for man than he should work and enjoy the fruit of his labor, and yet because of this demand on God's supply, we find that all is driven in honor and gain, all collapses into vanity.
We see that concern marked by injustice. When you see the oppression of the poor, the violent perversion of justice and righteousness, that's the demand of honor and gain at work in human authority. The position of human authority speaks of honor, and then using that position as a means of gain, that's a demand of honor and gain.
It leads to the oppression of the poor. Notice this language, the violent perversion of justice and righteousness. High official watches over high official, and even higher officials are over them, so we're getting the chain of hierarchy here.
Managers and supervisors and managers and supervisors all the way up the chain. Some translations, some commentators take this actually as a positive note, that there is oppression of the poor and the violent perversion of justice and righteousness, but don't be surprised and don't be concerned.
There are higher officials, there are higher courts where you can seek justice. I don't think that's a proper reading. They also translate verse nine in that way, you know, well there's actually no better advantage than to till the field, and even the king or the king can establish the advantage of the field.
So they're like, if you go up high enough, eventually you'll have justice, and that just does not jive, I think, at all with what we've seen in Ecclesiastes. I think it must be framed negatively. If you see the oppression of the poor and the violent perversion of justice and righteousness, don't be surprised, it goes all the way up.
In fact, that demand, that comes from the most basic supply that God has given. Remember at creation, man was planted in the fields to work and to keep that he might labor in thanksgiving to God and be blessed by the fruit of his labor, and even that field has to serve the one all the way up, the king.
So the oppression of the poor, the violent perversion of justice and righteousness, this is the focus, corruption, extortion, perversion. Remember what we saw in Ecclesiastes 3, 16 and 17, the king was there lamenting, I have seen under the sun, that's where this is taking place.
I have seen under the sun that in the place of justice, there's wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, there's wickedness, and I said in my heart, God will judge both the righteous and the wicked.
So we haven't left that familiar terrain, where there ought to be justice and righteousness, there is none, we're under the sun. You can't appeal to a higher court because even those higher courts are corrupted.
There ought to be justice somewhere under the sun, but ultimately, because fallen human beings create fallen human systems, there can only be perversion of justice. That sets in tension the desire for the world to come to right, the king to return and establish justice and righteousness, and fulfillment of all that the prophets yearned for.
Righteousness would come down like rain, justice flow like rolling waters. That's a desire that can't happen under the sun from the ground up, it must come from heaven above down to earth. Perversion here is literally the robbery of justice.
I think that's giving us a little key, the robbery of justice. In other words, these officials are taking what does not belong to them, taking more than their share, and they watch over each other, everyone's in like Flynn, everyone's palms get greased, as we would say.
It's a robbery of justice. Thieves with official titles and official offices perverting justice. And you can't go higher because they're all cronied up together. And the king sees this, the king throughout his reign would have known this.
How many times would examples of bribery and extortion and corruption have met his ears, but because of the network of political intrigue and alliances, he could not unsettle that delicate balance? We find this language of injustice throughout the prophets.
An example, I think, sometimes we just think of it as a ruler or maybe a man in power, much to disgruntle modern-day feminists. Listen to Amos chapter 4, hear this word, you cows of Bishan. That's not putting it mildly.
These are elite women. These are women who are living off the excess of pleasure and they're bribing and extorting and abusing those in positions of need. Listen to this, you cows of Bishan. The idea is these cows that were notorious for being fatted up, the best wagyu steak you could get in the ancient world.
And that's what he calls these elite women. And what do they do without knowing that they're doing it? Who oppress the poor, who crush the needy. That's the language, crush the needy. There's injustice that's described in the most graphic and violent terms, a violent perversion of justice.
We see that all around us today, don't we? The needy being quite literally crushed, quite literally torn apart. Happening in abortion mills throughout our country. Because the need of a certain lifestyle, the great cow of Bishan, I have to have everything go this way.
And for me to continue going in this way means I must crush the needy. I must silence the poor, the helpless, the defenseless. And God says he will take vengeance on those who oppress the poor, who crush the helpless.
The Lord God has sworn by his holiness, behold, the day will come upon you and you will be taken away. That's the language of God putting the earth to right justice finally being settled in the land. And we're told, meanwhile, under the sun, do not be surprised by this.
We're living in a fallen world. Do not marvel that there's corruption in every human institution. Fallen human beings make fallen institutions. In other words, don't be disillusioned by this. Don't let the prevalence of injustice cause your faith to waver.
Remember that this is everything the scripture has shown to us. So don't let it rock your trust in God's sovereignty. Don't let it dissipate your faith in God. Don't let it in any way compromise your fear of God.
And I think that's why we come from verse 7 to this. How do we end in verse 7? We ended with the fear of God. The one who is not speaking like a fool, who knows the heart of true worship is the one who fears God.
And we know that those who fear God are often put in very vulnerable positions in a world full of corruption and extortion and injustice. And so we should not be surprised. We should expect that kind of vulnerability and hardship to come.
Fearing God puts us in a difficult place very often. As Zach Eastwine in his wonderful book, Recovering Eden, says, we've left God's house in verses 1 through 7 and now we're back in the world. We came for a little moment into the sanctuary where we could enjoy the worship of God, the anticipation of His coming, the enjoyment of His fellowship and communion and that with His people.
And then we walk out of the doors of God's house back into a dark world where there's corruption and perversion of justice, where there's murderous, bloodthirsty headlines, where it seems like nothing can be straightened out that is crooked under the sun.
As Eastwine puts it so memorably, why should we go to the house of God if when we come back out of its doors during the day, we still have to lock our own doors at night? That's the tension. We come into the place where God is known and we enter into a world where God is rejected and rebelled against.
This is something we're not to marvel at. Don't be surprised. 1 John 3 .13, don't marvel brethren if the world hates you. Don't be surprised that this is what it's like when you leave the house of God and return to a world that perverts justice.
And we see that there's high officials watching over high officials in the Hebrew. There's no word official there, it's just supplied by the translators. The idea is there's the high over the high and yet still higher and I think in that way we're meant to see at the end of that chain, at the end of all authority and power and principality is the God most high.
It's a reminder, fear God and you're at the top of the chain. Don't fear someone who can just destroy your body, fear Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell forever. That's what the Lord Jesus said.
So the idea is don't stop too short. Even the king over the empire falls short of the most high. And we wrestle not against flesh and blood. In fact, we wrestle against powers and principalities. I feel like a lot of the camouflage that used to lull Christians to sleep over the past century has largely fallen away from the political realm.
If you can't see demonic agency in between the lines of some of the headlines and laws and agendas that are being passed, I don't know that you're reading the culture at all. We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against powers and principalities.
The chain stops at the highest place which is to say even those kings who lorded over their people with corruption and bribery and extortion who crushed the needy and oppressed the poor will ultimately answer to the king of all kings and the Lord of all lords.
It's a call to remain in the fear of God. Don't be marveled and don't compromise. Submit to the highest authority even when that involves submitting to lesser authorities that he has appointed. This is why 1 Timothy says we need to pray for our rulers.
We need to pray for their salvation. Pray that we can have a peace of a life under the sun in the midst of such a fallen and crooked world. This is something the Lord warned his people about. Perhaps this is some backdrop to this passage as well.
In 1 Kings 8 we read of the time when the kingship was given over to a man and the people rejected the kingship of God and Samuel the prophet who had set his sons to be judges over the people warned the people over what that human institution of kingship would revolve around, what it would be like.
We see the same concern now reflected in reality here in Ecclesiastes 5, 8 and following. The people came to Samuel and said give us a king and the Lord said to Samuel heed the voice of the people in everything they say to you.
They've not rejected you, they've rejected me so that I will not reign over them. We want to be like the other nations. We just want a man figure, a man like unto us, someone that we can kick the ball around with, someone that we can dialogue with, perhaps we can persuade, perhaps we can gain leverage.
It's really hard with God. There's no leverage with God. His authority is absolute. With a king maybe we could get somewhere. And so they reject the kingship, the perfect justice of God and they embrace the kingship of a man.
And so Samuel warns the people this will be the behavior of the king who will reign over you. He'll take your sons, appoint them for his own chariots to be his horsemen. Some will run before his chariots.
He'll appoint captains over his thousands, captains over his fifties. We'll send some to plow his ground, reap his harvest, make his weapons of war for his chariots. And then he'll take your daughters to be his perfumers, cooks and bakers.
He'll take the best of your fields, your vineyards, your olive groves, give them to his servants. He'll take a tenth of your grain, all of your vintage, give it to his officers and his servants. He'll take your male servants and your female servants, the finest of your young men, your donkeys and put them to work.
He'll take a tenth of your sheep and you'll be his servants. And you'll cry out in that day because of the king that you chose for yourself, but the Lord will not hear you. You see what's being said? We can see the flip side of that in Ecclesiastes 5.
Those who are higher and higher and higher, they're looking out for themselves and they keep extracting and taking what does not rightfully belong to them. And who's at the top of that chain? It's the king.
It's the king. The king who pads his servant, who turns a blind eye to bribery and extortion and Solomon could see it all. This is oppression. This is oppression. The tension is when will God come and be the king we've always yearned for, the justice we've always desired, a world put to right?
When will oppression finally be overturned? There was a comment from John de Saris, who was a student of John Calvin's in Geneva. And he talked about this. He was, of course, witnessing the outrage of injustice in the days of the Reformation.
And he says, the magistrate being appointed by God to be the guardian of the innocent often becomes the hangman of the innocent. And this is an old complaint, even against the magistrate, which was in the very bosom of the church of God.
Blood touches blood. They pitch their nets in judgment. That is to say, all are thieves and cutthroats. They don't hide in the woods, but they're hiding in the chambers of courts and palaces. And altogether, there is such disorder that cannot be restrained with such a great corruption.
It's just, we're in the midst of the Reformation and we're up against this. And the very people that ought to be doing justice and righteousness in that place, there is wickedness, Ecclesiastes 3. Of course, Israel should have remembered what it was like to be under a man ruling them for his own gain, for his own works, for his own benefit.
Israel knew what it was like in Exodus 5 to have their backs whipped and be told to make bricks without straw, to increase that quota and pad the officials all the way up to Pharaoh. They cried out for deliverance from that kind of slavery, from that kind of oppression.
And God heard them and delivered them. And then they went back to saying, give us another ruler to extort us and use us and enslave us again. That's the tragedy between Exodus 5 and 1 Kings 8. And so here we are in the conditions of the world.
What do we see in the king's concept of vanity? Again, in verse 10, we refer back to vanity. This also is vanity. Well, we see that he's driven by this desire. We saw it in chapter 3 that the world would finally be straightened out, that righteousness would be established in the land.
And he can't understand the mystery of God allowing these things to take place in this world. So he wants to become wise and he recognizes Hevel is this thing that permeates the fallen condition and there is no answer under the sun.
We can't conjure up the right form of government or the right governor. We can't actually create the conditions that will escape the Hevel, the vanity, the fleeting ness of life under the sun. But he knows there's a world without it.
It was the great insight of Eric Ortlund. Hevel exists because he can imagine a world without it. Injustice exists because there is a world of perfect justice. You only know that there's something crooked by what is straight.
That's the testimony that is surging through this chapter. And so as Luther said in his great commentary, do what you can. Commit the rest to God and bear it. And let me just return to the first point.
Do what you can is the first thing Luther says. We should not start with the second thing Luther says. Commit the rest to God and bear it. Sometimes we want to start there. I just committed to God. I'll get through it.
No, start with do what you can. This is an encouragement. It's been an encouragement to see some of the young men in this church. Sacrifice time and commitments to go out and hold up signs and be a light post and a lighthouse to awaken consciences and stir people to repent of their sin and turn to Christ for salvation.
That's doing what you can. You get side eye, you get laughed off, you get middle fingers or worse. You're doing what you can. Is that ultimately going to make the difference in that day, in that week, in that month, in that year?
No. But you fear God and trust even that small cog is part of seeking first the kingdom and its righteousness. So do what you can, even though you must commit the rest to God and bear it. Under the sun, it's crooked, but we do what we can.
Luther says, in accordance with the proverb, whoever cannot lift a heavy stone should leave it alone. But lift the stone you can. It might not apply to me that I should be one to go before kings and governors and neither be ashamed, but I cannot be ashamed in my own workplace.
I cannot be ashamed in my neighborhood. You lift the stones you can lift. You do what you can and commit the rest to God. Therefore, he says, when you see evil in princes, the abuse of authority by magistrates, wicked judgments by judges, the murmuring of the common people, quarrels among those who are to be wise, keep in mind God will come and set things straight.
Again, there is yet one higher who watches over them all. There is still one to whom all must give account. Him and him alone you must fear. We see verse 9, the supply of the land. Again, this is in tension with the demand, the demands that's placed on the land.
And this is a very, very difficult verse to understand. You'll see that just when I share some of the English translations. But here's our translation, Ecclesiastes 5, verse 9. Moreover, the profit of the land is for all.
Even the king is served from the field. Very, very difficult. And even when it was originally written and you look at some of the ancient commentators around this, they're all wrestling to understand exactly what's being said.
Is this over against verse 8? Is this in line with verse 8? Here's some of the other translations that we have in our English Bible versions. The increase from the land is taken by all. The king himself profits from the fields, NIV.
The profit of the land is among all of them. Even the cultivated field has a king, RSV. So the idea is that there's from the field, from the ground, the most basic position up, there's authority. And there's an advantage or a supply in that.
The abundance of the earth is for everyone. Even the king is dependent on the field. In other words, it doesn't matter how high up you go, man requires bread from the field. Man requires the basics of what it means to be created as a dependent creature.
Most English verses, however, deal with it in this way. A king who cultivates the field is an advantage to the land. That's the new American standard. This is an advantage for a land. A king has a plowed field, NRSV.
You get this idea there's an advantage or a gain or a profit to be had in the land. Again, I don't think that's exactly right. I think the idea is actually a little bit closer to the NEC, the New English Translation.
And let me just read it in that translation with verse 8. If you see the extortion of the poor or the perversion of justice and fairness in the government, don't be astonished by the matter for high official is watched by a higher official and there are higher ones over them still.
The produce of the land is seized by all of them. Even the king gets served by the fields. I think that's right. I think that's in line and in momentum with how verse 8 and verse 9 fit together. The all in verse 9 is the all in reference to the higher officials of verse 8.
There's extortion and bribery, injustice against the poor, and that goes all the way up and the land is for or taken by all of them. It's for them. And even all the way up, even the king gets served by those fields.
Do you see? It's a despairing picture of corruption run through and through. You think of the former Soviet Union and how usually it was the middlemen who were seen as inept, corrupt, but somehow the party chairman, you know, somehow the men in the bureau, these were sterling men.
These men were immune to corruption. If only they could. It was like poor Luther when he was rather dim-witted about the pope and he thought, well, all the priests are corrupt. If I could just get to the pope, he would set things straight.
And you had some poor peasant worker in Soviet Bulgaria thinking, if I could just get to the party chairman, he'd set things right. That's the most corrupt. And that's the idea. The produce of the land is seized by all of them and even the king gets served.
Even the king gets the kickback from that field. That's the idea. Think of Joseph storing up grain for Pharaoh and how did it go with Pharaoh? He started extracting and demanding the supply of the land until that land went from private hands into the hands and the coffers of Pharaoh's court.
That's the idea. And all of this is vain. Now, what did I say? Verse 10 is the engine that drives verse 8 and 9. It's this vanity of the demand for honor and gain. That's the engine that drives verses 8 and 9.
And we're going to see that critiqued in verses 10, 11, and 12. Honor and gain that we all seek, whether we have the office or not, to extort. We all seek honor and gain. We want our reputation. We want our name.
We want profit. We want gain. We want fruit from our labor. And it's never enough to satisfy us. Verse 10, he who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver. Why did we jump from agriculture to silver?
Well, I think now we're seeing how the extortion, how the corruption, how the perversion of justice is working. It's the silver. It's the silver in exchange for land or for goods or for a blind eye or for a missed quota.
And so we're seeing now it's he who loves silver. But the problem is the one who's extorting and causing injustice, the one who's padding his pockets, will never be satisfied with that silver. Think of Judas Iscariot.
He loved silver too. What did he do with that silver in the end? He threw it away when he hugged himself in the field. He threw it away. The one who loved silver was not satisfied with that silver. The one who wants more abundance, increase, gain.
I want to be higher in the chain. I want to extract more, have more leverage, have a better reputation, have more honor. I want more. And the king says, no, it's all vanity. It's Hevel. It's grasping for wind.
I had it all. I was once the king at the top of the chain. I can tell you from the inside out. It's vanity. It's the thought, I would actually be satisfied with just a little bit more. Some of you are daydreaming about what a wage increase would mean for you.
Then I would be satisfied. What a new car would mean. Then I would be satisfied. They could just have a different location. Then I would be. No, you won't. You will never be satisfied with the things you think under the sun will satisfy you.
As Bobby Jameson said, as he titled this great book, everything is never enough. Nothing under the sun will satisfy you because of God putting eternity in your heart. The same eternity in your heart that yearns for justice and righteousness in a king who is actually a king ruling as a king should.
That same eternity in your heart will never be satisfied with the things under the sun. So the thought, if I just had a little bit more, if I just had something new or something different, or if I could just go back, if I could just have that again, then I would be satisfied.
And no, the one who wants that honor, the one who wants that gain will never be satisfied with those honors or with that gain. Let me ask you the question, brothers and sisters. Are you fighting the question in your life, just a little bit more, just a little bit more, just a little bit more?
If I could just get here, if I could just get that, if my life could just go in this way, Lord, then I would be content. Do you know yourself better than that? Have you lived long enough to look back and see how absolutely hollow and false that sentiment is?
And does that realization lead you into godliness with contentment, which is the only gain that Paul speaks of? There is great gain in godliness with contentment. That's where the profit is. Because we all seek honor and gain, don't we?
We all seek honor and gain. Again, the higher up in the chain we go, the more leverage, the more prospect we have for honor and for gain. But wherever we are, whether we're working the field or not, we're all seeking honor and gain.
What is the antidote to that? How do we actually avoid this restless quest for more, the engine that drives us to ignore and marginalize and perhaps crush or oppress the needy without even knowing it?
The needy get crushed just because people pass by. They suffer because no one's there to shine the light. No one's there to speak. No one's there to stand for them. Couldn't we say there's blood on our hands in these very ways when we don't do anything about the evils that we see?
We don't lift the stones we can lift. We don't do what we can. And then we assuage our conscience, well, I just committed to God. How do we avoid this quest, this restless quest for honor and gain? The answer, we've had it before, even in this series.
The answer is, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. It's by the renewing of our mind in accordance with God's word that our lives are actually transformed from one degree of glory to the next.
And that mind that we're being renewed to is not some mind in the abstract outside of Christ. It is the mind of Christ. You are being conformed to the image of Christ. Your mind is being renewed to the mindset of Christ.
And what is the mindset of Christ? He, unlike anyone who was ever born in this earth before him, did not live seeking honor and gain. And though he was worthy of all honor, of all gain, being due to him who created all that is for his own glory, he did not consider that something to be grasped.
He did not go chasing after the wind in a fallen world, but he entrusted himself wholly to him who judges justly. You see what Paul is doing. I love what Donald MacLeod says in light of this passage. He says, you have these practical problems, as of course Philippians 2, that the Christ hymn doesn't just drop out of thin air.
Verse 4 through 11 is preceded by several chapters where problems are being relayed. And he says, you have these practical problems. The answer is theological. Remember your theology and place your behavior in light of that theology.
That's what the scriptures are always doing. You need the right theology. You've got a practical problem. You need to have the right theology. When you have the right theology, you place your behavior in light of that.
If this is true of me, because this is true of Christ, then I can no longer live in this way. Our doctrine is that which flows into our practice. So you place your little difficulty, and I don't mean to be smiting to anyone, but on the grand scale of eternal things, every difficulty we face is a little difficulty.
Isn't that what Paul says? It's not even worthy of being compared. You place your little difficulty against the most massive theology. You'll find Paul doing that again and again and again. You'll find the holy scriptures doing that again and again.
And what does Paul say? You want to deal with these problems? You want to deal with these issues in your life? Have this mind in you. It was the mind of Christ Jesus. You're all positioning yourselves for honor and gain.
I want a name, and I want gain. I want profit. I want increase. Do you want the antidote to that? To that Ecclesiastes 5 problem? Have this mind in you. For Christ to be born was the most supreme act of condescension imaginable.
Let's not even get to Calvary and just speak of his birth, the creator becoming the creature. What honor and gain was there in that? He didn't lack some honor that required his incarnation in order to receive.
He was eternally worthy of all honor, all praise, all glory. Not one micron of that glory was missing. Not one iota of that honor was absent. Eternally worthy of all praise. Alone worthy of all praise.
And he willingly entered in to the virgin's womb. What honor and gain was there to be had in that? It was a dishonor to be born of a virgin and walk in the midst of a filthy world that would reject him and scoff at him and spit on him.
And he willingly made himself dishonorable in the sight of fallen man. He became weak, made himself dependent, bore shame. Think of that. The one who is worthy of all honor and all glory made himself shameful, shameful.
I've been reflecting for a few weeks now when Jesus says a prophet has no honor in his hometown. And I understand the context. He's using it to justify why he does not stay in his hometown, but he goes on to minister elsewhere.
And usually that's the only way that passage ever gets brought up. A prophet has no honor in his hometown. It's a way immediately in the context to understand I cannot speak to them. They're too hard for this message.
And so I move on as he instructed his disciples to do. They don't receive you, dust off your sandals and keep it moving. A prophet has no honor in his hometown. But it made me think, well, what is a hometown?
What is a hometown? And I thought three things. First, a hometown is the place that is most familiar to you. And perhaps you could say the place where you are most familiar. Locals know you. Hubbardston's not that small, but it's small enough where occasionally if you drive down 68, you'll get someone to wave.
I remember there used to be this man that seemed to have a daily routine of walking up and down 68. And whenever a car drove by, he would lift his hands. And there's a lot of cars that go up and down 68.
And so this man was working out his arms, apparently. I made a point to almost slow down and make sure. It's like I appreciate that neighborliness. A hometown is someone where you're most familiar. You're most familiar to the town and the town is most familiar to you.
And secondly, it's the place where you dwell. The place where you dwell. And then thirdly, it's the place that has shaped you. And so I think a prophet has no honor in his hometown. But here comes the Lord Jesus Christ, the prophet that we're looking for, the one that Moses says, this prophet you must hear.
This is the prophet, the one who will reveal the nature and word of God to you. One greater than Moses, whose we've waited for. And if the first thing is true, it's the place where you're most familiar.
He comes into the earth that he formed. What's more familiar than that? He made it. Like the potter sits down and fashions the clay, he made everything that is. All that was made was made through him and for him.
What's more familiar than that? And yet, as John's gospel says, we did not know him. He came to what was his hometown and there was no honor there. Where he should have been known and recognized, but he was willfully unknown.
I think that's John's point. I'm like, who could this possibly be? Every human being being born in the very image of their creator, born in the supernal image of Christ, the creator, has a deeper knowledge of Christ that is repressed.
Can I put it this way? They know that they don't know. They know that they don't know. He came to his own and they didn't recognize him. At some point, the scribes and the Pharisees and the Sadducees knew that they did not want to know him.
I was watching this video clip of a World War II vet named Don Graves. He was a survivor of the Battle of Iwo Jima. It was one of the most ferocious battles in the Pacific campaign. He was the 5th Marine Division.
He's an elderly man in this little clip and he was recounting what it was like. He said that the first thing I noticed is we're preparing to leave the ship to head toward the beach. That night they gave us eggs and steak.
And I thought, what's the deal? We always get eggs, but we never get steak. And one of his buddies said, use your brain. What do inmates get before they're executed? And he said, oh, that's how we're getting steak.
We're about to die. And so they load up his whole company of 300 men. They surge toward the beach and he said, everything was so silent. And then we heard a large whoosh and all of a sudden, one of the amphibious landers went up in flame.
Everyone was gone in an instant. By the time we actually hit the beachhead, we were so pinned down. We could do nothing but crawl over our buddies and place our faces in the sand. And then he said at that moment, and I buried my face in the sand and I had a talk with God.
And then he said, no, atheists and foxholes. No, that struck me. It's like he said, that's what it took for me. In other words, I knew that I didn't know. I knew there was something in my heart, something in my mind that Jesus is the way.
He's the truth. He's alive, but I don't know. And I don't want to know. And I don't want to be accountable. And I don't want to respond to that. Until he was pressed with his mortality and he buried his face in the sand.
He said, then I had a talk with God. There's no atheism, folks. No, they know that they don't know. When you're witnessing to someone, you're praying for someone's salvation. Let me tell you, they know that they don't know.
They suppress the truth of Christ in unrighteousness. It's why sometimes you go to the missionary fields or you think of the great missionary movement and you're going to aboriginal tribes. And it just seems all too easy that within a matter of months, these people who know nothing of Western civilization, nothing of the technology or ways or history of human society, all of a sudden spontaneously worship and praise Jesus.
Because they know that they don't know him by whom they were created. And he came into this world where he is the most familiar in the dishonor of being unrecognized, marginalized, repudiated. It's a realization of a Christian that Christ is suffused in all things at all times.
Christ's presence is all around me all of the time. Everything that is exists for the sake of Christ. It was made through him. It was made for him. It's the beauty. And I'll just read a piece of it of Patrick's breastplate.
And I agree with Michael Hagen. Patrick is Protestant. Patrick belongs to us. Lowercase s, St. Patrick, if you understand what I mean. He's a Protestant. Before there were Protestants. And in his famous prayer, his invocation for God's protection, the key word, the key refrain throughout that is the strength that can be found in Christ.
And he says, I arise today through a mighty strength, through belief in the threeness, through confession of the oneness of the creator of creation. And note now, where's he going to go with this creator?
I arise today through the strength of Christ's birth with his baptism, through the strength of his crucifixion with his burial, through the strength of his resurrection with his ascension, through the strength of his descent for the judgment of doom.
So he's talking about in grand sweep, the redemptive moments of Christ in his in his redemptive work on the earth, Christ's birth, Christ's crucifixion, Christ's resurrection and Christ's return. And then what does he say?
I summon today all these powers between me and evil against every cruel and merciless power that opposes my body and my soul. What does that sound like? Ecclesiastes 5, 8 and 9. And what's the difference for him?
Christ against black laws of paganism and false laws of heretics and craft of idolatry of witches and smiths against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul. Christ to shield me today. Christ with me.
Christ before me. Christ behind me. Christ in me. Christ beneath me. Christ above me. Christ on my right. Christ on my left. Christ when I lie down. Christ when I sit down. Christ when I arise. Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me.
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me. Christ in the eye of every man that sees me. Christ in the ear of every man that hears me. What is Patrick tapping into? Everything that is is for him, belongs to him.
The oppression, the evil, the corruption, life under the sun. The answer to that is Christ. And he's coming even as he came. And so the hometown where he's most familiar, everyone knows, but they don't know.
And the place where he comes is, what's a hometown? A dwelling place. It's where he dwelt. He dwelt among us. This is not speaking specifically to Jerusalem. When he came, he came for the world. It might have begun in Jerusalem, but read Acts.
It doesn't end there. That's why Paul can say in Ephesians 2, when he's speaking of Christ and the pronoun continues, he came and preached peace to you who were far off. And the church at Ephesus could be going, when did Jesus of Nazareth ever come to Ephesus?
Paul is saying, no, he came to you through our ministry. Christ came for the world. And then thirdly, it's the place that shapes you, the hometown that shapes you. He was not shaped by his hometown. He shaped his own hometown.
He made the contours in Nevada. He chose the dotted coastline off the Cape. He fashioned this hometown for himself. And so I think there's a lot of depth behind him saying a prophet has no honor in his hometown, but I didn't come for honor and I didn't come for gain.
I came to bear the reproach of my people. I came to be a scourge for their sins. I willingly allow myself to be the butt of their jokes, of the scoffs and the mockeries, so that I might redeem them from their sins.
I'm not seeking honor and gain under this sun. I'm bringing a whole new world, a whole new heavens and a whole new earth. That's the mind of Christ that we're called to have. So much of our lives are dishonorable.
And so we do what we can to patch up and seek honor and gain. How can I make it worthwhile? How can I make myself a little bit better than the rest? What causes me to differ from the others? We take that in the wrong way.
What causes me to differ because I want to be above and ahead rather than what causes me to differ? I'm no different at the end of the day than any image bearer. Solely dependent upon God's grace. What's that beautiful song by Chris Tomlin?
I love that he asked it as a question. The whole song begins almost like a corporate confession. Do you feel the world is broken? We do. Do you see the crushed needy? Do you see the oppression of the poor?
We do. And it runs to the chorus. And the question is, is he worthy? Is he worthy of all blessing and honor and glory? Is he worthy? But you don't get to sing the he is without recognizing what he became.
He made himself subject to the violent perversion of justice. He was crushed by the rulers and the high officials that were over and over and over. Why? Because there was this demand. They had their demand for his blood.
They had demand for them to escape the light and the fear that he inspired in their conscience. But God had a demand too. His law had a demand. God demanded justice and his grace supplied it in the person and work of Christ.
Are we seeking honor and gain under the sun? Could there be a more foolish errand? Could there be something more abjectly against the mindset of Christ? I lay my honors down in the dust ought to be the sentiment of every Christian.
He and he alone is worthy of all blessing and honor and glory. He who became my shame and my dishonor. He who constituted my sin and my rebellion and hatred of God. He and he alone is worthy now of all honor and all praise and all glory for all of eternity.
And I'm being transformed from one degree of glory into the next into that image with that mindset. What does that mean for the one who loves silver? Who loves gain? Who loves honor? Who wants their name?
Who wants their comfort? Who wants their safety? It means they don't have the mind of Christ. So brothers and sisters, let this mind be in you also. The very mind of Jesus Christ who having the form of God did not consider it something to be grasped.
But emptied himself. Made himself a slave even to the point of death. So that in the fullness of time. He would be raised up and be given a name which is above every name. The highest of every high position.
And that at that name every knee would bow and every tongue would confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Amen. He who loves silver would never be satisfied with silver. He who loves honor will never be satisfied with honor.
He who loves gain will never be satisfied with gain. But he who loves Christ will have satisfaction forever. Let's pray. Father, we pray that we would have the heart and mind of our Savior. That we would have the realization of Patrick.
That we would see ten thousand thousand beauties of our Savior all around us all the time. Even in a world where the needy are crushed and the helpless are thwarted, Lord. May we sense your presence and your answer from your great work of redemption and return.
To know that this life under the sun though it is a vain thing is not the ultimate thing. And may we then have the mind of our Savior and walk by faith and not by sight. Be willing to subject ourselves to be poorly treated.
As Peter would encourage believers. That we would do it all for the sake of honoring him who made himself dishonorable for our sake. Of blessing him who became our shame. Of loving and serving him who so loved and served us at his own cost, at his own blood.
Forgive us, Lord, we're often so fickle. We care more about our own gain, our own honors, our own comfort and reputation. We care far too little about your name, your work, your kingdom, your calling.
Lord, may each of us ask the question, are you worthy? Of us letting go of gain. Of us opening our hands. Of us bearing a cross of dishonor and shame and ill reputation. For you will not abide those who are ashamed of your coming.
Nor will you tolerate those who are embarrassed of your name. Give us a boldness, Lord. From the own mind that you possess, a mind that we would have. As we draw near to you, Lord, conformed to your image, may you grant us this mind.
Grant us this heart. Grant us this faith. According to your holy will, we ask it in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen.