Bible Verse: Psalm 37:8-17, 20, 27-29, 39-40
Full Sermon Transcript
TWO TYPES OF SERMONS
There are two types of sermons, good ones and bad ones. Long ones and short ones. I don’t know. But today you are going to hear two types of sermons.
TWO TYPES OF SERMONS
Not two sermons. I’m not saying you’re hearing two sermons today. I’m saying today in one sermon, you’re going to hear two types of sermons. Because as I got closer and closer to Sunday, I started to feel more and more like there was a word, not what I wanted to share, but that God wanted to share. And so that’s what we’re going to be talking about today. But before we get into all that, I should introduce myself.
WELCOME
My name is Chris Pavla. I get to be the senior pastor here at St. Mark. And yeah, we are in a series called Two Types of People.
TWO TYPES OF PEOPLE
And in this series, what we’re doing is we’re getting wisdom for life from the ancient book of Proverbs. And these are all proverbs by a king named Solomon who the Bible calls the wisest man who ever lived. And so, we’re just kind of digging through his proverbs and applying them to our life and responding to them. And one of the things he does every week in most of his proverbs, his art form, if you will, is that he likes to compare two types of people. And this or that, A or B, and he kind of compares and contrasts them and moves words around so that there’s a deeper, riddle meaning to uncover in his Proverbs. It’s a wonderful book. I love it.
WEEK ONE
And last week we talked about the wise and the foolish. And this is the most common type of people that he talks about in the book of Proverbs is wise and foolish people.
Wise people do this, foolish people do this. And it really comes down to, we talked about this last week, of how they respond to the truth. When the truth comes, do they apply it or not? If you show the light to a foolish person, they change the light. If you show the light to a wise person, they change themselves. And so, as a result, we talked about how, and this is the proverb that we encourage you to memorize, is that walk with the wise, to grow wise. Because a company of fools, a companion of fools suffers harm. And so that was last week.
FIRST TYPE OF SERMON: GOOD ADVICE
This week, we move on to another type of comparison of two types of people. It’s not the wise and the foolish. This week, it’s the wicked and the righteous.
THE RIGHTEOUS AND THE WICKED
And really those are two words that we don’t really use those words outside of religious settings.
Think about it. What else would we describe somebody as righteous or use that word? It’s kind of self-righteous, but again, that has religious connotations. It’s really a word that’s kind of in this sphere. And then wicked, I mean, unless you’re on Broadway and defying gravity, you don’t really talk about wicked any other time. It’s just like the righteous and the wicked. So, it would stand to reason that we kind of struggle with what the words might mean. But when Solomon uses these words, the righteous and the wicked, when Solomon uses these words, it’s kind of the idea of what Ms. Ashley was talking about with our kids, good and bad. But there’s a sense that they are responding to the law and they are either innocent or guilty. And so, there’s a sense like there’s a law that they’re responding to and they’ve broken it or they didn’t break it.
Or sometimes that’s the end result, but sometimes they’re pursuing lawlessness or they’re pursuing lawfulness. There’s rule followers and rule breakers. In my household, one of us is the rule follower. And one of us thinks that sometimes the rules don’t apply. And it’s the spirit of the law, not the letter of the law. You can decide which one of us in the household is which. But one of us is a rule follower. And probably in your household, there’s one person who’s a little bit more law abiding. And then one person who’s kind of. The rules are suggestions sometimes. And you can call them wicked. So the wicked are the people who bend the rules. We think the rules are for thee, not for me. And the righteous are those who love the law. They pursue it. They read the instruction manual before they build the thing.
THE LAWS
That’s the righteous. And Solomon, the reason we’re doing all of this is because Solomon, says that you should be able to recognize these people, but when you recognize these people, they have a profound potential to affect the health and direction of your life. So, it’s important to know if the people around you are righteous or wicked. And maybe this sounds a little judgy, but it’s just good judgment. Jesus will later on talk about this and say like, “By their fruit, you will know them. A good tree bears good fruit. A bad tree bears bad fruit. So, recognize the kind of people you’re interacting with because it will affect you.” And he’s saying some people are righteous and some people are just outright wicked. And it all has to do with the law. And he gives a lot of examples. Here are just three of them.
The mouth of the righteous is the fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.
Proverbs 10:11
So, “the mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.” Proverbs 10:11. And you can kind of see the parallelism that I was talking about where you can flip-flop the words. So, a righteous person is out in public. It’s a fountain that everyone, it’s out and it’s bright and it’s light and it’s visible to all. And the wicked, they conceal. It’s deceit. It’s in the darkness. It’s hiding something, but here it’s hiding violence. And in this sense, it’s either law givers, or law takers. And the law that they’re responding to is the law, thou shall not kill.
The wicked accept bribes in secret to pervert the course of justice
Proverbs 17:23
Or another Proverb, “the wicked accept bribes in secret to pervert the course of justice.” That’s who the wicked are. They’re unjust. They distort and pervert and twist the truth. It’s not the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
It’s the truth, the half-truth and something other than the truth. That’s what the wicked do. And so, the law they’re responding to here is thou shall not bear false witness. Don’t lie.
A wicked person earns deceptive wages, but the one who sows righteousness reaps a sure reward.
Proverbs 11:18
Or another example, Proverbs 11:18, “A wicked person earns deceptive wages, but the one who sows righteousness reaps a sure reward.” And there’s a sense here where there’s this greed that they have and they’ll take shortcuts and it doesn’t matter. They just want gain. It doesn’t matter how they get ahead. They just want to get ahead. And the law they’re responding here to is the law that thou shall not covet. The righteous person won’t covet. They’re not greedy. The wicked person doesn’t matter. They want gain. And so, you can kind of see this breakdown all throughout the book of Proverbs when you look at the wicked and the righteous, it’s all the difference is not how do they respond to the truth.
Now it’s how do they respond to the law? And what’s their response to it? And again, Solomon is telling us all this so that you know how to respond to them.
TWO TYPES OF WARNINGS
So, you recognize these people and you know how to respond to them. When you work with this person, when you are friends with this person, this is how he responds. And he gets to two types of warnings.
TWO TYPES OF WARNINGS
The first warning, don’t have anything to do with them.
Do not set foot on the path of the wicked or walk in the way of evildoers
Proverbs 4:14
Proverbs four verses 14, “do not set foot on the path of the wicked or walk in the way of evildoers.” Don’t do it. Don’t do it because they’re going to get what’s coming to them and it’s going to come to you too.
It’s going to happen. These are people who just want lawlessness. They wake up like Ms. Lannister and they choose violence. It’s what they want. They just want. And when you see these people, run away. Run away because you will be part of their downfall. So that’s the first warning. Don’t have anything to do with them. Don’t. When you see a lawless person run away. And then the second warning that Solomon gives, this is an interesting one. Don’t envy them. Don’t fret because of evildoers. Don’t be envious of the wicked. For the evildoer has no future of hope. The lamp of the wicked will be snuffed out. There’s something enticing about the shortcut. There’s something alluring about the quick gain that you can have all of the upfront thrills and enjoyment and all of the quick gains and none of the long-term expense. It’s so alluring.
It looks promising to get ahead, to get that promotion, to get that salary, to get a little bit more money out of the business deal. And if you were just a little dishonest, if you flubbed the rules just a little bit, don’t do it. Don’t be envious because the lamp of the wicked will be snuffed out.
And this is the ending of the first type of sermon. It’s good advice, but it’s bad news. Because when you read about the wicked and what happens to them, it just ain’t good.
THE SECOND TYPE OF SERMON: GOOD NEWS
And if you look at the rest of the Proverbs, Psalm one writes about it. He says again that the light of the righteous shines brightly, but the lamp of the wicked is snuffed out. He says the wages of the righteous is life, but the earnings of the wicked are sin and death. And he says the wicked will not go unpunished, but those who are righteous will go free.
And the reason this is good advice, the bad news is because you’re wicked. Me too. You’ve broken the law. And if you break one part of the law, well, you’re guilty of breaking the whole thing. You’re a law breaker. And the problem is, the reason this is bad news is because, well, the standard isn’t mostly good. It’s not good enough. It’s not like mostly law abiding. The standard a perfect God has, it’s perfect. That’s the standard. And so, the reason this is bad news is that a perfect God who’s defending the perfection of heaven and who’s protecting holiness will have this unrelenting standard of perfect. Otherwise, it compromises the whole thing. And that’s a problem for a lawless person like you and a wicked person like me.
So, it’s good advice. A sermon on Solomon, and you’ll hear lots of them. A sermon on Solomon is good advice, but it’s bad news in the end. But there’s a second type of sermon. It’s not a sermon about Solomon. It’s a sermon about Jesus. My friends, the book of Proverbs is a part of a bigger book and it needs to be read as such. It fits in the middle of a book about Jesus. The whole Bible, all of it is about Jesus. It all points to him. And even more, it’s all about him, all of it. And a proper reading of the book of Proverbs is to understand its context in a bigger book about God’s love for you in Christ.
When I was in seminary, they would tell us over and over, preach the gospel every Sunday. Gospel is another word for good news, right? Good news. So preach the good news every Sunday because someone might be hearing it for the first time. Someone might be hearing it for the last time, but everyone forgets it over time. So, preach the gospel every Sunday. And so, on the two types of sermons,
….no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law;
Romans 3:20
I could give you a sermon about good advice, but I also want to give you a sermon about the good news of Jesus. Because when you read what happens to the wicked, there’s one New Testament writer who notes that no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by works of the law. You won’t.
21 But now apart from the law of the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe…23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. 24 and are freely declared righteous by his grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ.
Romans 3
You’re going to stand in the sight of a holy God and he’s just going to see unlawfulness, wickedness. And no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by works of the law. No one. Rather through the law, we become aware of our sin, but he continues. He’s not done. But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been made known. A righteousness of God, the perfect law of God has been made known. This righteousness is given, not earned by what you do. It’s given through faith, not your works, through faith in Jesus Christ. What he’s done in your behalf to all who would believe.
For all have sinned. All are wicked. All of us are lawless lawbreakers. And we’ve all fallen short of the standard that God has. We’ve all fallen short of his glory. And now we are declared righteous for free by his grace, through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. This is the good news. And there are two ways to respond to the good news. You can reject it. No, I want to stand before God on my own merits, on the strength of my own merits. I want to look him in the eye and impress him by my life. That’s one option.
Or you can receive it. You can receive this righteousness from God by faith by simply saying, yes. I want to give you the chance this morning. This is not the sermon I wanted to preach, but I think it’s the sermon you needed to hear. Maybe for the first time, maybe the last time, or maybe you’ve forgotten it over time. But I want to give you the opportunity again to say yes. Will you pray with me?
PRAYER
Heavenly Father, first of all, we declare that you are righteous. You are perfect. You are holy. And we declare God that we are not. We’ve fallen short of your standard for us, let alone our standard for ourselves or the standard others have of us. We have broken the law. We are wicked.
And we need your forgiveness. And so, God, right now in this moment, whatever wickedness and lawbreaking means for each one of us, God, in the silence of this moment, just hear us as we admit it and acknowledge it. And God, we receive now the good news though, that at the hands of wicked men, your son was crucified for our sins in our place, that we might receive his righteousness. He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might become in him righteousness before you God. And so, for the person who’s saying yes to receiving this gift, maybe for the first time, maybe for the last time, or they’ve forgotten it over time. God, we say, yes, I believe. Yes, I receive. And it’s in Jesus’ name that we pray all of this. Amen and amen.
Can you do something with me, real quick? Can you just give a hand of just gratitude and appreciation for anyone in the room or anyone listening who has received Jesus for the first time? Can we just welcome them into the family? Powerful, powerful stuff.
