Sovereignty of the Lord Over Human Society/Socio-Economic Hierarchy

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[2:14] Amen.

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[5:07] Thank you. that you may gain wisdom in the future. Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand. What is desired in a man is steadfast love, and a poor man is better than a liar.

[5:24] This is God's holy and authoritative word. In this world, depending on where you are, on the socioeconomic ladder, which realm you occupy, you get treated differently.

[5:38] When you enter a shop, if you look like a wealthy patron, you will receive preferential treatment from sales associates who are called for a purchase. But if you are perceived to belong to a lower socioeconomic class, instead of a glowing welcome, you might get a cold shoulder, or worse, suspicious glances, and perhaps even a security guard that is shadowing you.

[6:04] Proverbs 18.22-19.22 acknowledges this harsh reality, but teaches us as God's people instead that those who desire what is good should conduct themselves with the fear of the Lord amidst various socioeconomic realities.

[6:23] And so first we see how we have to function in light of the economic realities, verse 22 to chapter 19, verse 7.

[6:37] And then we have to function in terms of society and its order in chapter 19, verse 82, verse 22. And fittingly in a passage dealing with social relations, chapter 18, verse 22 begins with the most intimate of social relations.

[6:52] He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord. Often literary units in Proverbs begin with an exhortation to listen to or to find wisdom, to acquire wisdom.

[7:10] And in this passage, verse 22 functions as that kind of introduction. Because we've seen throughout the book that Solomon frequently personifies wisdom as a woman.

[7:21] Lady wisdom. And so in chapter 8, verse 35, Lady of Wisdom said something very similar. She said, Whoever finds me finds a good thing. Whoever finds me finds life, rather, and obtains favor from the Lord.

[7:37] Very similar to chapter 18, verse 22. He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord. So here, the God-fearing, prudent wife, the wise wife, acquiring such a wife is compared to finding God's wisdom.

[7:53] This is because, as we'll see later in chapter 19, verse 14, a prudent wife is from the Lord. Finding a wise wife, a wise spouse, like finding God's wisdom, is God's gift.

[8:07] An expression of God's favor. And it says, Whoever finds a wife finds a good thing. The word good is a key word that recurs throughout this passage. Chapter 19, verse 1 says, Better is a poor person who walks in his integrity than one who is crooked in speech and is a fool.

[8:24] That's literally, Good is a poor person who walks in his integrity than one who is crooked. So every time you see the word better, it's the same Hebrew word that's occurring in this passage.

[8:35] Similarly, 19.22 says, What is desired in a man is steadfast love, and a poor man is good compared to a liar. Better than a liar. And it's used again in chapter 19, verse 2, to begin the next subsection.

[8:50] And so, in other words, this passage is about finding what is good. Every day, the world bombards us with messages of what is good and what is not good.

[9:01] But as Christians, we must not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of our mind. That by testing, we may discern what is the will of God, what is good, and acceptable, and perfect.

[9:13] And that's what we're doing this morning, asking ourselves, What does God say is good? How can we conform ourselves to this good in our dealings with people in various socioeconomic standing?

[9:25] And after this introductory verse, this passage dives right into human relationships complicated by money. It says in chapter 18, verse 23, The poor used in treaties, but the rich answer roughly.

[9:39] People who are impoverished cry out for relief, but the haughty rich answer them roughly. As I've mentioned in this series before, the word poverty is used consistently throughout this book in a negative way.

[9:53] But the word poor is used consistently in a positive way. Poverty in wisdom literature is a result of divine judgment for sins such as slothfulness, stinginess, or love of luxury.

[10:07] But the poor are so because of circumstances that are outside of their control, such as societal injustice, and because of that, they receive God's special compassion throughout the book, His care.

[10:20] And so here, what's in view is the undeservedly poor crying out for relief, but the undeservedly rich person rebuffs Him. And then it says in chapter 18, verse 24, A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

[10:37] The rich, as it later says in chapter 19, verse 6, have many friends. In contrast to the poor person who is answered in a rough manner. But this verse warns us, A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

[10:56] The implied message is this, that's the kind of friend that a poor person needs. In a world where the rich answer roughly, the poor person needs a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

[11:10] Not a fair-weather friend, but a friend who is there through the thick and thin. Being poor is hard, but nonetheless, chapter 19, verse 1, insists, Better is a poor person.

[11:23] Literally, good is a poor person who walks in his integrity than one who is crooked in speech and is a fool. This is an example of imprecise parallelism, where a precise antithetical parallel would have compared or contrasted a poor person's righteousness from a rich person's unrighteousness, but this verse contrasts a poor person's integrity from the fool's crooked speech.

[11:48] And parallels that are intentionally imbalanced like this invite us to fill out the picture. So what's in view then is a poor person is who is wise and walks in integrity and speaks forthrightly, and the fool who is rich but walks in unrighteousness and speaks deviously.

[12:08] And if we were to assess the lives of these two people, which of them, would you conclude, has the good life? By many people's standards, it's the rich person that has the good life.

[12:24] But God's assessment is different. He says, not the haughty rich who seem to be enjoying God's material blessings, but rather the humble poor person who holds onto his integrity is better, is good.

[12:39] That's because the righteous poor are miserable only for a moment, but the crooked rich are miserable forever. The poor person is the one who is in the will of God.

[12:50] And this imagery of walking in integrity and the word good in verse 1 connects it to verse 2. Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way.

[13:04] In the Hebrew, there's an escalation from the first to the second clause in verse 2. The New International Version, the translation captures this. It says, Desire without knowledge is not good.

[13:16] How much more will hasty feet miss the way? This proverb can simply mean that if you desire to get to a destination, but you don't know how to get there, just hasting to get there is going to get you even more lost.

[13:31] But the immediate surrounding context suggests that there's a deeper layer of meaning. In Proverbs, the word knowledge invariably refers to the knowledge of God.

[13:41] So Solomon is saying here, if even desire without knowledge of God is not good, how much more will the one with hasty feet miss his way?

[13:53] Desiring to be rich apart from God is not good. Rather, we saw in verse 1, good is a poor person who walks in integrity.

[14:05] But if even the desire itself is not good, how much worse is the fool who hates to get rich quickly using devious, crooked means? Now this distinction between desire and action is helpful because acting on one's sinful desires is worse than simply having sinful desires.

[14:25] but having the sinful desires is nevertheless evil. It's sinful. There is a difference between being tempted to sin and sinning.

[14:37] So for example, in Genesis chapter 39, when Joseph is tempted by Potiphar's wife to, she tries to seduce him, he runs away, he flees.

[14:50] So he was tempted but he did not sin. So because of this distinction between temptation and sin, I think sometimes Christians think that desiring sinful things is okay as long as you don't do something about it.

[15:04] But that's not true either. There's a reason why one of the Ten Commandments is you shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that is your neighbor's.

[15:20] Even desiring for yourself something that belongs to another is sinful. This is why 1 Timothy chapter 6 verses 9 and 10 say this, But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.

[15:39] For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains. Getting rich as a byproduct of your industriousness and faithfulness to God is one thing.

[15:57] But desiring to be rich, loving money, is something entirely different and the Bible calls it sin. We should nip such desires in the bud long before we act on them.

[16:11] Desire without knowledge is not good. And whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way. Verse 3 continues this metaphor of walking in the way. It says, When a man's folly brings his way to ruin, his heart rages against the Lord.

[16:27] Now, when a foolish person seeking gain, quickly, quick wealth, through gambling, pyramid schemes, smuggling, dealing, or stealing, when he gets busted by the authorities, his heart rages against the Lord.

[16:41] We've seen this in our own lives. People blame God for what they have brought upon themselves. The word rage here is typically used exclusively to refer to kings and God who rage.

[16:58] And so here, it kind of conveys the pride of this fool who is raging against the Lord. He has this sense of indignation against God saying, Well, I deserve better.

[17:12] God isn't alone. He owes me something. When in reality, God owes him nothing and it's he who has brought this upon himself. We've all done this in some ways, haven't we?

[17:25] Imagine you're having one of those very bad days. Perhaps after the service this morning, I guess it's Sunday so maybe this won't happen, but you return to your car.

[17:39] A car driving by had locked off your side mirror clear off the car. No notes on it. And then, right after you examine that, you see that you also got a ticket for not feeding the meter in time.

[17:58] And then, you get angry so you kick the tire as hard as you can and you break your toe. And then, you raise your fist at God and say, God, why me? I blame you.

[18:09] Why have you brought this about? Why is my life so hard? Why do bad things happen to me? If you're harboring anger, indignation, or resentment against God in your heart, ask yourself this question deep down inside.

[18:31] Do you blame God for your past, for your sin, for your pain, for your disappointments, for your lie in life? Surely, there's pain that others inflict on us, but most, our vocational troubles, our health troubles.

[18:49] And often, the consequences of our own folly and the wise person accepts that responsibility and seeks the knowledge of God and the community of God to bring correction and reformation.

[19:03] Verses 4-7 continue to teach us what it looks like to conduct ourselves with the fear of the Lord amidst various socioeconomic realities. It says, wealth brings many new friends, but a poor man is deserted by his friend.

[19:15] A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who breathed out lies will not escape. Many seek the favor of a generous man, and everyone is a friend to a man who gives gifts.

[19:25] All the poor man's brothers hate him. How much more do his friends go far from him? He pursues them with words, but does not have them. The word friend occurs four times in these four verses, and behind this is a generic Hebrew word for the word friend, which usually has a neutral or a negative meaning.

[19:45] If you look at Proverbs 18-24 for a minute, it's the same word that was translated there as companion, but it's not the same word as the one translated friend in chapter 18-24, the true friend.

[19:58] A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there's a friend who sticks closer than a brother. In other words, the friends that wealth brings are not true friends. They are fair-weather friends and gold-dating friends.

[20:11] Friendship with them is not relational, but transactional. And this is why a poor man is deserted by his friends. When the man's wealth is gone, he has nothing to offer, but he treats, words, to pursue them, and it's not enough.

[20:25] They leave. And this unfortunate reality has implications for justice because a rich man will have many pseudo-friends willing to take his side in court, even to the point of bearing false witness, thinking that they will not be caught.

[20:42] Verse 9 warns, a false witness will not go unpunished, and he who breathes out lies will not escape. So he's warning us, don't be a pseudo-friend to the rich and the powerful.

[20:53] Currying the favor of such people betrays our lack of faith in God because we're thinking that the way to improve our lives is by curing favor with the rich, taking their side even when they are in the wrong.

[21:07] But instead, we have to seek the favor of God by being a faithful and true witness, living with integrity, even if that means being poor. Verses 6-7 continue the same thing.

[21:20] Many seek the favor of a generous man, and everyone is a friend to a man who gives gifts. All a poor man's brothers hate him, how much more do his friends go far from him, pursues them with words, but does not have them.

[21:37] It says, this is a sad reality, even the poor man's brothers hate him. Even his blood-related siblings despise and deserve the poor man when the demands that he makes on them become too burdensome.

[21:51] how much more than will these pseudo-friends deserve him. And this reality accentuates the importance of chapter 18, verse 24.

[22:02] Yet again, for the poor person, a man of many companions may come to ruin, but there's a friend who sticks closer than a brother. Since even the brother deserves a poor person, the poor need a friend who sticks closer than a brother, and that's the kind of friend we are to aspire to be to one another and to those in need.

[22:26] Those who desire God's good gifts should conduct themselves with the fear of the Lord amidst these socioeconomic realities. This is the complex reality created by money.

[22:38] And then in chapter 19, verse 8, to verse 22, it instructs us on how to navigate the complex realities in society, in societal order. Now just as the preceding subsection began with the exhortation to find what is good, the good thing, chapter 19, verse 8 begins with the idea of finding good.

[22:57] Whoever gets sense loves his own soul. He who keeps understanding will discover good. Whoever acquires sense, the understanding of God, the knowledge of God, his wisdom, is a person who loves his own soul because the knowledge of God presents one's soul unto eternity and produces what is truly good.

[23:18] And then verse 9 repeats verse 5 word for word, but it means a slightly different because it's a different context. This is a false witness will not go unpunished and he who breathes out lies will perish.

[23:32] In the former context, the proverb warned against bearing false witness in court as a favor to the rich. But now in this new context, the emphasis is on the senselessness and the incongruity of a false witness.

[23:46] If society is to be rightly ordered, we must rid it of false witnesses who pervert justice. And God threatens that he will ultimately punish those who bear false witness.

[23:58] The perjurer will ultimately perish and therefore he who lies in court lacks sense. He does not love his own soul. He will discover evil instead of good.

[24:08] The perjurer doesn't belong in the court of justice any more than an incompetent slave belongs in the royal palace. It says in verse 10, it is not fitting for a fool to live in luxury, much less for a slave to rule over princes.

[24:25] Slavery in Israel back in those days was an economic institution that did not make distinctions based on the color of someone's skin. And neither was it sourced through kidnapping nor enforced for life like transatlantic slavery.

[24:42] Slavery back then were indisputable by race and they made similar wages as other people. And they usually bought their own freedom when they had accumulated enough money to repay their debt.

[24:54] So in that sense, ancient Israelite slavery is more akin to modern day contractual servitude. For example, a cadet that graduates from the military academy owes five years of service to the military for his free education.

[25:10] He is essentially a servant of the state. And if he does not discharge his duties, he has to pay back all of his tuition and room and board. Often, slaves back then were highly educated and educated and competent.

[25:26] So Proverbs chapter 14, verse 35 speaks of a servant who deals wisely and therefore has the king's favor. And in chapter 17, verse 2, spoke of a servant who deals wisely who will rule over a son who acts shamefully and will share the inheritance as one of the brothers.

[25:44] So there's clearly a very accomplished and competent and servants who are well deserving of acclaim. But what's in view in chapter 18, verse 10 is not that kind of wise, loyal, competent servant.

[25:58] He is here, as the parallel indicates, a foolish slave. It is not fitting for a fool to live in luxury, much less for a slave to rule over princes.

[26:09] It is unsuitable, incongruous to have the fool be sated with luxury and the slave rule over the noble prince. Proverbs chapter 30, verse 21 and 22 is a close parallel and it says that the earth trembles and cannot bear up under a slave when he becomes king.

[26:29] When a person who does not have the character and the competence to rule takes the throne, he becomes intoxicated by his newfound privilege and power and becomes overbearing.

[26:43] He abuses his power, perverts justice, his rule is erratic, his temper is uncontrollable. In contrast, when the rightful king, a person of noble character, reigns, it looks like verses 11 and 12.

[26:59] Good sense makes one slow to anger and it is his glory to overlook an offense. A king's wrath is like the growling of a lion, but his favor is like dew on the grass.

[27:11] A person with noble character has good sense, which makes him slow to anger, is a vice. It's the vice of cowardice and vice of indifference.

[27:22] It's not a virtue. But though he does not get angry at times, so he does get angry at times, this righteous person, he is slow to anger. Anybody can, you know, floor the accelerator and get into a huge wreck.

[27:39] But it takes a NASCAR driver to control the car at such high speed. The wise person controls his anger, channels his anger, and he is slow to get angry.

[27:52] It is in fact his glory to overlook an offense. A wise person considers his magnanimity, his mercy, his forgiveness to be a badge of honor. He relishes the opportunity to forgive and extend mercy when he has been offended or hurt.

[28:09] It brings him glory because it shows that his character resembles the character of the glorious God who revealed himself this way in Exodus 34.

[28:19] The Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin.

[28:33] But the passage continues in Exodus 34. He who will by no means clear the guilty. Growing in godly character not only involves patience, being slow to anger, and mercy, but it also involves justice.

[28:51] So verse 12 says a king's wrath is like the growling of a lion, but his favor is like the dew on the grass. The king reserves his intense wrath for the wicked and shows his gentle life-giving favor.

[29:03] for the righteous. This is what a rightly ordered society should look like. And then in verses 13 and 14, Solomon turns to what a rightly ordered family should look like and should not look like.

[29:17] He says, A foolish son is ruined to his father, and a wife's quarreling is a continual dripping of rain. House and wealth are inherited from fathers, but a prudent wife is from the Lord.

[29:29] A son should bring prosperity and honor to the father, but a foolish son, it says, is his father's ruin. A wife should be the husband's most trusted confidant and helper, but a quarrelsome wife is her husband's most tiresome enemy.

[29:49] In this part of the ancient world, roofs were made of crisscross layers of wooden boards and sticks, and then it was covered with layers of clay, water, chalk, and chaff.

[30:01] And unfortunately, like everything else that human beings make, such roofs eventually deteriorate and they crumble. And it gives way to dripping rain. This is an appropriate image because a leaky roof makes the home, which is supposed to be a place of rest and refuge, a work field that perhaps even feels like a battlefield.

[30:26] A wife's quarreling is a continual gripping of rain. Brothers and sisters, some of us have quarrelsome households. Whether it's with our housemates or with other family members, but a home is supposed to be a place of rest and refuge.

[30:46] We call Proverbs chapter 17, verse 1, Better is a dry morsel with quiet than a house full of feasting with strife. Maybe your house is full of strife because you're trying so hard to put together a feast that will impress other people.

[31:04] A dry morsel with quiet is better. Maybe your house is full of strife because you're always getting into arguments about your children and the unrealistically high expectations you have for them.

[31:16] perhaps more basic expectations and activities with quiet in the home is better. Maybe you think your house is full of strife because you don't have enough feasting.

[31:28] Your spouse doesn't earn enough money. But that's not true either. He says there are houses full of feasting with strife. But it's possible to have peace in your home with the meager portion of dry morsel.

[31:42] Some of you have formed new households or you have recently moved in with your housemates. We ought to all be people who offer peace and rest to those in our household.

[31:56] And verse 14 offers the ideal picture. House and wealth are inherited from fathers. So one obedient son instead of ruining his father honors and offers him so he can inherit house and wealth.

[32:08] But while we can inherit material wealth from earthly fathers, it says a prudent wife is from the Lord. This verse echoes chapter 18 verse 22. He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.

[32:23] Once again, like wisdom which we can only receive from God, a wise wife is a gift from God. It's an expression of his favor. So I want to encourage every single man and woman in our church.

[32:35] If you desire to get married instead of serving the Lord in your singleness with single-minded devotion, pray and seek the Lord like you seek his wisdom.

[32:48] Make the pursuit of the Lord your first priority and not the pursuit of a husband or a wife. Because your fulfillment in this endeavor depends not on how many available singles there are in your pools of friends, not on how attractive or well-established you are financially, not on how active you are on the dating apps, but it depends on the grace and favor of the Lord if what you really want is a prudent, wise stop.

[33:20] Verses 15 and 16 then continue to explain the difference between the foolish son who ruins his father and the wise son who inherits house-in-law from his father. Slothfulness casts into a deep sleep and an idle person will suffer hunger.

[33:36] Whoever keeps the commandment keeps his life. He who despises his ways will die. Deep sleep that's speaking of is similar to a coma. It's a picture of death and it is paralleled here at the end of verse 16 by he who despises God's ways will die.

[33:55] Idleness and slothfulness lead to hunger and eventually to death and God commands instead for us diligent and honest work. And not only does a righteous person provide for himself through hard work, he also provides for others who are in less fortunate situations.

[34:14] So verses 17 to 22 return to the teaching about how we should treat the humble poor. This begins and ends with the mention of the poor in verse 17 and verse 22.

[34:27] It says in verse 17, whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord and he will repay him for his deed. In this passage about the right ordering of society, this is a startling verse because the poor by any measure are at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder.

[34:46] They are often despised and deserted as we've seen throughout this chapter. And yet, this low class of people God associates with himself.

[34:58] He's associated with the most high God. If you are generous to the poor, it's like you're lending money to the Lord. What an amazing promise.

[35:10] There are plenty of people who are willing to lend money to people with good credit with the expectation that they will be repaid in full with interest. But fewer people give generously to the poor.

[35:22] Why? Because they know that they will not be repaid in any shape or form. Precisely because they are poor. And yet, this proverb subverts that logic.

[35:33] When you give to the poor, you are lending to the Lord, the master of the universe, the creator of the cosmos. Do you think he... Do you know of poorer brothers and sisters in the church that would be surprised with the generous gifts?

[35:50] Do you have a poor housemate or a neighbor you can help out? Don't ever fear that you will not have enough for yourself. Give generously because when you do, the Lord himself will repay you in this life and in the next.

[36:08] And in order to rear such self-controlled, hard-working children who are generous to the poor, discipline is necessary. So verse 18 says, discipline your son for there is hope.

[36:22] Do not set your heart on putting him to death. People sometimes think that by disciplining their kids that they will shatter their fragile psyches and ruin their prospects for the future.

[36:34] But wisdom literature from every major civilization throughout history, and the book of Proverbs, which is God's holy and authoritative word, strongly enjoys corporal discipline.

[36:48] And humanity has not crumbled under this supposedly bad advice in the many millennia of people doing it, of parents doing it. And I can guarantee you that generations of children who are growing up right now without such corporal discipline are not going to create utopia that eluded previous generations just because they supposedly received better parenting.

[37:11] Later in chapter Proverbs 23 verse 13 it says, do not withhold discipline from a child. If you strike him with a rod, he will not die. Contrast this with verse 18 of our chapter which says that if you don't discipline your children, you're extinguishing all their hope and you are in fact setting your heart on putting them to death.

[37:34] It's counterintuitive but it's true. I will elaborate on this further when we get to chapter 22 but for today it's sufficient to note that discipline is never to be a form of abuse, verbal or physical.

[37:50] Biblical discipline is always meted out in love, not in hatred or uncontrolled rage. Abuse does ruin children's lives but that's a world apart from the biblical discipline that is in view.

[38:04] If you do not discipline your child, he says, you will not learn good sense that makes him slow to anger, which verse 11 spoke of. And then Solomon warns us in verse 19, a man of great wrath will pay the penalty for if you deliver him you will only have to do it again.

[38:20] At some point the child will be beyond correction and he will pay a costly price for his undisciplined life. And he won't learn his lesson but you will need to bail him out again and again and again.

[38:31] So verses 20 to 22 adjure us. Listen to advice and accept instruction that you may gain wisdom in the future. Many are the plans in the mind of a man but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.

[38:45] What is desired in a man is steadfast love and a poor man is better than a liar. Humanity has its own desires and plans but ultimately it is the purpose of God that will stand.

[38:56] So it's in our interest to align our purposes and priorities with God rather than stubbornly insisting on our own way because God's will will prevail. Because and though many people in our world shun steadfast love and faithfulness in exchange for wealth Christians are to stand firmly on the truth that a poor man is better than a liar because God takes interest in the plight of the poor because God involves himself in the affairs of the holy.

[39:30] Because as verse 17 says whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord. God delivers the poor and this is true in a material sense but especially and most importantly in a spiritual sense.

[39:45] Luke chapter 16 says blessed are you who are poor for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now for you shall laugh.

[39:58] Throughout his gospel Luke makes a connection between material poverty and spiritual poverty. The poor who will be blessed by God are those who humble themselves before God and acknowledge their sinfulness, their neediness, their spiritual impoverishment before God.

[40:16] Brothers and sisters, we are spiritual paupers. There is quarreling in our homes. We have not been slow to anger. We have lied.

[40:28] We have been slothful. We have answered the weak and the poor roughly. We have been disobedient children toward our parents. We have raised our fists at God and blamed him for the consequences of our sins.

[40:40] And in this dire spiritual poverty, we have no hope. There are no friends who will come to our aid. But there was one.

[40:53] There was one friend who stuck closer than a brother. The rich God of the universe, instead of entering us roughly, sent us his son, Jesus Christ, as a faithful friend and deliverer.

[41:08] And Jesus left behind his glory as of the Son of God and he took on human flesh so that he might live the life of obedience that we failed to live.

[41:18] And so that with his perfect life and righteousness, he might die on the cross in our place to pay our insurmountable debt of sin. And then he rose from the dead to give us eternal life and to declare that his sacrifice, his payment for our debt of sin on the cross has been accepted by God, his Father.

[41:44] And it's because Jesus paid this ultimate price, Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 8, 9, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.

[42:09] That's what Christ has done for us. We had no hope of saving ourselves, yet Christ gave himself, made himself poor, that we might be rich, and that's wonderfully captured in this hymn, entitled, Thou Who Was Rich.

[42:26] Thou Who Was Rich Beyond All Sanger Didst Surrender, Sapphire Paid Courts For Stable For Thou Who Was Rich Beyond All Splendor, All For Love's Sake Becomes Poor.

[42:41] Thou Who Art God Beyond All Praising, All For Love's Sake Becamest Man, Stooping So Low, But Sinners Raising, Heaven Worth By Thine Eternal Plan, Thou Who Art God Beyond All Praising, All For Love's Sake Becamest Poor.

[43:02] Let us put our faith in this Christ, who became poor for our sake. It's only by doing that that we'll be able to live more like him in this world and relate as he did toward the poor in the power of the Holy Spirit.

[43:25] Let's take a moment to reflect on that and then we're going to respond hopefully together by praying our love. Hey, after that for talking to