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Apr 29, 2018

Let Wisdom Tell You the Story of Every Sin

Let Wisdom Tell You the Story of Every Sin

Passage: Proverbs 1:8-19

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: Proverbs, Searching for Wisdom

As we’ll see throughout the Proverbs, wisdom is oftentimes out to pre-empt in us error. But it’s also to pre-empt what is worse, namely, sin. Not all error is sin, but all sin is tragic error. Our passage tells us a story, a story of a particular kind of sin. We’ll argue though that there’s an allegory to be found in that story in how it tells us the story of almost every sin. We want to take that story to heart, hear and heed its warning, but then also see that story in the context of a Greater one. In hopes that, like the Greek tale of the Sirens’ call, we might learn not to be seduced by a gain that in the end is loss.

Order of Worship

Pre-Service Text: Psalm 23:3
Call To Worship: Psalm 119: 171-176
Sermon Title: Let Wisdom tell you the story of every sin
Central Text: Proverbs 1:8-19
Benediction: Romans 11:33, 36
Post-Service Text: Psalm 119: 169

04.29.18 Sermon Slides

04.29.18 Song Lyrics

Readings/Scripture

Pre-Service Text: Psalm 23:3
He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Call To Worship: Psalm 119: 171-176
LEADER: 171 My lips will pour forth praise, for you teach me your statutes. 172 My tongue will sing of your word, for all your commandments are right. 173 Let your hand be ready to help me, for I have chosen your precepts. 174 I long for your salvation, O Lord, and your law is my delight. 175 Let my soul live and praise you, and let your rules help me. 176 I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments.

Central Text: Proverbs 1:8-19
Hear, my son, your father’s instruction,
and forsake not your mother’s teaching,
9 for they are a graceful garland for your head
and pendants for your neck.
10 My son, if sinners entice you,
do not consent.
11 If they say, “Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood;
let us ambush the innocent without reason;
12 like Sheol let us swallow them alive,
and whole, like those who go down to the pit;
13 we shall find all precious goods,
we shall fill our houses with plunder;
14 throw in your lot among us;
we will all have one purse”—
15 my son, do not walk in the way with them;
hold back your foot from their paths,
16 for their feet run to evil,
and they make haste to shed blood.
17 For in vain is a net spread
in the sight of any bird,
18 but these men lie in wait for their own blood;
they set an ambush for their own lives.
19 Such are the ways of everyone who is greedy for unjust gain;
it takes away the life of its possessors.

Benediction: Romans 11:33, 36
LEADER: 33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

ALL: 36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

Post-Service Text: Psalm 119: 169
169 Let my cry come before you, O Lord; give me understanding according to your word!

Related Scriptures:

  • Psalm 1
  • 1 Tim 5:24

Discussion Questions & Applications:

  • Sins are each one unique. But in what ways is every sin alike? Try to name several ways.
  • If you had to imagine any sin you’ve committed as having a story-quality to it--a beginning, middle, and end--how did that story unfold?
  • Why is the offer of community in the pursuit of “unjust gain” such a potent force? Can you remember a time when the company you kept presented you with a difficult moral choice?
  • The proverbial parents in the passage mean to warn the budding child against the wiles of sin. What is Jesus’ primary means of warning us against the same? How is His means similar and different from these “parents”?

Quotes

  • When I was still just a kid, I remember my father telling me what he thought that it took for a man to be happy. Simple things, really. A wife he loves, a decent job, friends and neighbors who like and respect him. And for a while there, without hardly even realizing it, I had all that. I was a happy man.  - Hank Mitchell in A Simple Plan
  • There is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft. When you kill a man, you steal a life... you steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness... there is no act more wretched than stealing. - Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
  • Nothing in the record of human history argues for divine morality and a great deal argues against it. What we know is that good people very often suffer terribly, while the perpetrators of horrific evil backstroke though all the pleasures of the world. There is no evidence that the score is ever evened in this life or any after.  - Ta-Nehisi Coates
  • a sense of the love of Christ in the cross; lie at the bottom of all true spiritual mortification. . .be killing sin or it will be killing you.  - John Owen, The Mortification of Sin

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