THE WAY OF INSIGHT”
Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 15)
August 16, 2015
Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church
Glenshaw, Pennsylvania
TEXT:
Leave your simple ways and live, and walk in the way of insight.
Proverbs 9:6 (ESV)
Probably one of the most difficult and frustrating experiences in
life is watching someone who you really care about heading for certain
disaster. It may be a child or some other relative, a dear friend, or
some other acquaintance. The individual in question is pursuing a
course of behavior that will ultimately end in illness, injury, or
worse, and everyone in the world can see it coming a mile
away--everyone, that is, except for that individual. No amount of
warning, gentle prodding, or argument will be able to steer that
person away from the present self-destructive course. The “bottom
line” for you in this situation is that no matter how much you love
and care about this person, there isn’t a thing that you can do but
stand by and watch, preparing yourself to be there for the person when
the inevitable happens and to help to try to pick up the pieces when
it’s all over.
I think that’s probably a pretty accurate description of what God
goes through as He looks down from heaven on sinners who, instead of
looking to His redeeming grace in Christ as the only way out of the
maze of sin, are still so intent on doing things their own way that
they delve deeper and deeper into sin, alienating themselves from the
God who is their Creator and Judge and rejecting Him as their Savior.
By redeeming us from sin with the blood of His Son and sending His
Holy Spirit to us in Word and Sacrament God has enabled every sinner
on earth to receive in faith the forgiveness of sins and the sure hope
of everlasting life made possible through the merits of Jesus Christ.
But God did not create a bunch of robots or computer programs that
always and only do what they are told. He created people--people who
have the free will to reject Him and everything that He has to offer.
On the basis of this morning’s Old Testament Reading (particularly the
verse that serves as our text), we will take a look today at the
foolishness (called “simple ways” in this text) that we pursue by
nature and “the way of insight” in which the Spirit of God seeks to
lead us.
The first and most obvious example of man’s foolishness is unbelief.
The Holy Scriptures (particularly in Psalms 14 and 53) bluntly call
the unbeliever a “fool.” Unbelief is foolishness because it requires
a blatant ignorance of everything in nature that makes it abundantly
clear that there is an orderly and wise Maker and Controller of it
all. You might think that it’s foolish for me to be saying this to
you. After all, the people who don’t believe in God are not exactly
the kind of people who are likely to assemble in a church on Sunday
morning for a worship service. But there is a lot more to faith than
just words. While we all are willing to confess our faith, do we
always live as if we really believed that God is in control? How
often do we, like Abraham and his wife Sarah, doubt the promises of
God and feel the need to take matters into our own hands? Or how
often do we, like the rich young man in Jesus’ parable, try to provide
for ourselves a future of wealth so vast that it will be a long time
before we’ll actually have to rely on the Lord for anything?
Another manifestation of human foolishness is the attitude of
self-sufficiency that lulls so many people into a feeling of false
security and keeps them from seeking and receiving the grace of God in
Jesus Christ. If you don’t believe me, just ask any counselor: As
long as a person thinks that he can handle his problems on his own,
that person’s pride will never allow him ask for or be receptive to
any kind of help from anyone. Here again we need to remember that
saving faith in Jesus Christ is more than just paying lip-service to a
few religious sentiments. It means that we truly rely on Christ and
on Christ alone to make us not only acceptable in God’s sight, but
righteous--even perfect--since, through faith, we are clothed with the
perfect righteousness of our Savior. It means knowing for a fact that
we are going to heaven when this life is ended and knowing why: not by
any means on the basis of our own merits, but only because of the
perfect merits of the One who, after accomplishing our salvation,
proclaimed from the cross: “It is finished!” (John 19:30).
We are encouraged in the text before us to forsake the foolish
attitudes of unbelief and self-sufficiency and to “walk in the way of
insight.” This involves, first of all, an understanding of our sin.
Sin is such a short and simple word but, at the same time, such a
complex and devastating thing. With the help of the Holy Spirit,
speaking through the Law, we have to learn to look beyond the comedy
and trivialization with which the world characterizes sin to see it in
all its naked ugliness. Sin is not a cute or harmless fantasy as so
many people suppose. It is real--and it really damns. It prevents
the creatures of God from approaching their Creator and it prevents
the God of perfect justice from closing His eyes to the guilt of those
who have rebelled against Him after He created them in love. It’s not
a laughing matter at all--or an unimportant one. There can be no
fellowship between the perfectly righteous and just God and the
arrogance of human sin.
Walking “in the way of insight” also involves an understanding of the
grace of God revealed in His Son Jesus Christ. Of course, we all
realize that we can’t really understand the grace of God, because the
grace of God is beyond our understanding. But just realizing that
fact alone is a pretty big part of understanding it. We need to
realize and keep reminding ourselves that God’s capacity to forgive is
always greater than our capacity to sin--that the perfect life and
innocent of death of Jesus Christ are God’s answer to our sin and all
of the consequences that it brings upon us. Because Christ did it all
for us, we don’t have to keep on struggling, trying in vain to do it
for ourselves. And because He did it completely and perfectly in our
place, we don’t ever have to wonder or doubt when it comes to the
matter of our eternal destiny.
Faith in Christ is not something that we discover or something that
we do; it is something that God the Holy Spirit works in us through
the Gospel. In pleading with us to “leave [our] simple ways and [to]
walk in the way of insight,” the Lord is not telling unbelievers that
they have to decide to believe. That is something that the
unregenerate sinner simply cannot do. He is, however, telling the
unregenerate that unbelief and an attitude of self-sufficiency are
futile, and that those who deny God or try to justify themselves on
the basis of the Law may just as well give up and succumb to the
urgings of the Gospel of Christ. He is also encouraging us who by His
grace have faith in Christ to keep that faith alive and growing by
making use of the means that He has appointed for this purpose. His
Spirit, working through these means, gives us the strength and the
motivation that we need to daily grow in His grace, “leav[ing our]
simple ways . . . and walk[ing] in the way of insight.”
Amen.
May the Lord bless your hearing of His Word, using it to accomplish in
you those things for which He gave it. May you be enriched and
strengthened in faith that you may leave here today to go out into our
world armed with the whole armor of God, prepared to be able
ambassadors of your Savior Jesus Christ. He who calls you is
faithful, and He will do it. Amen.