Word of Salvation – Vol. 25 No. 28 – April 1979

 

My Child, I Am Rich... What Shall I Give You??

 

Sermon by Rev. A. I. De Graaf, B.D. on Proverbs 30:7-9

Scripture reading: Luke 11:1-13

Psalter Hymnal: 408; 265; 137; 444

 

Brothers and Sisters, Boys and Girls, Young People, Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ,

Each year is a year of the Lord Anno Domini. It's His to give, with all that's in and on it. And so, whether thinking of the present or about the future, a Christian can and should GO TO THE OWNER OF THIS YEAR, Who is also OUR OWNER, and pray. But how should we pray? We only have to think of the wars in the early days, when Christian nations before battering each other's heads in, both asked the Lord to bless their arms.

But what do we do now? We are part of the rich quarter of the world. Is not whatever luxury we ask God - from that trip to Europe right down to the new home, or even employment in our sick economy - is all that not given to ME at the expense of thousands who do not even have bread?

But then, does it make THEM any better off if I, here, go without these things? If I do NOT have that trip and let my ageing parents die without us having seen one another, is THAT helping anybody? What must I pray? For myself - my children my church - my country my world?

When God would say to you - His child - for you believe in Jesus and you ARE THAT, are you not? Now then when He would say to you: "My child, I am rich, ask what I shall give you!" what would you answer Him as you look to the future?

In fact He DOES ask you, and what must you now desire? That's no easy thing in a world where we cannot see further than our nose is long!

A sick patient could ask for healing, only to live through years of terrible war and bloodshed. Would he not have been better off when dying before that?

Parents could have asked for that nice young man for their daughter to become her husband, only to find out later that he was a cheat after all.

We cannot look what's ahead in time, neither can we see what's inside people. Prayer is difficult. We may ask for peace here - that is, no war with the communists, but there may be Christians in communist lands who fervently ask God that someone will come and break open their prison.

We could well do with some guidance in our prayer.

Jesus, of course, gave us that guidance in THE LORD'S PRAYER, which is not just something we should REPEAT, but is a PATTERN for all our praying. God's Name, Kingdom and will first. Then our wants and desires. And God's glory to end with, even then, when it does come to our wants and desires. HOW to pray about that? Here in our text we are given good guidelines.

Two things, Agur - the writer of this chapter says - two things I asked from Thee O God:

HONESTY and MODESTY.

1. KEEP DECEPTION AND LIES FAR AWAY FROM ME

It is clear that he does not mean so much that he shall be spared BEING LIED TO or BEING DECEIVED. That of course is very much worth praying for, too. It is an utterly rotten experience to be deceived. Especially when the deceiver is a brother in the faith. But it is worse - INFINITELY worse to be so dragged away by the insecurity of our world that one starts becoming deceitful one's self. LORD, cries the small child of God in a world full of pressure and evil, KEEP DECEPTION AND LIES FAR AWAY FROM ME. Make me go straight, please, Lord, make me straight myself, straight not only to my neighbour, but - and that is more difficult - straight towards You - and straight towards mySELF!

I have heard people complaining bitterly about others deceiving THEM, and there was real grief in their voice when they told me AND MEANT it too. How can people be so bad...?

We all have such moments of disappointment and anger. But how long is it, my brother, since you have looked into your own heart and seen the front you keep up before your neighbour, your God, and.... yourSELF. What about the way you keep telling yourself what a good bloke or nice girl you are? And your opinion is usually helped along by being REALLY upset by the sins of others! But then you no more see your own utter need of Christ, your own utter need of day-by-day forgiveness, your own utter need of grace ...and grace alone.

We live in a world of image-makers. Television, film, even newspapers and other media, are constantly out to show people who our leaders are. Let us hope and pray that a man like our Prime Minister (Malcolm Fraser) will not believe all the trash that's published about how he is. He'd better ask his God to show him who he really is - and then with this prayer: Lord, make me real, KEEP DECEPTION AND LIES FAR AWAY FROM ME.

But that is, then, also what we small people must pray, so that we remain open for the Word and remain open for the corrective influence we can be to each other. Husbands and wives to each other, children and neighbours to you and you to them - straightforward, knowing that you have nothing to glory in but what God gives you.

Spurgeon says in a beautiful sermon of his that this straightforwardness is the result - one of the results - OF A BROKEN HEART. A broken heart, he says, a heart that God has broken as we cry over our sin and really humble ourselves before God. A broken heart has nothing to hide. An unbroken heart, like an unbroken box or vessel, may look great on the outside but may be full of sinking rottenness inside. But break it and everybody will soon know.

When you pray for deceit and lies to be kept from you, you pray that you may be humble enough to be broken in heart, knowing day by day that all you CAN - and ever NEED - live by is the same grace your neighbour can get from God - in Jesus. Then, after that, you also pray that because you have nothing to hide AND nothing to fear anymore - for everything has been cleared up that you can go I straight in the paths of God. He is your Shepherd now, what shall you ever want?

And that — quite logically, really gets this writer, this messenger of God, onto that second prayer:...

2. THAT GOD SHALL GIVE HIM NEITHER RICHES NOR POVERTY.

Note that it is not indicated HOW MUCH it would be you'd need have to be RICH or POOR. Agur does not pray: Lord, will You please make sure I stay nicely between $100 and $200 per week. Just give me my portion, he says. That means then: the portion that is fair for me and that will do me. Lest I... and then he sees two dangers - lest I be so full that I'd say: WHO NEEDS GOD ANYWAY? Or lest I be so desperately in my poverty that I try to be my own God and steal. Thereby making God's Name a laughing-stock to all who see me do this. Yes, if I look after myself by going against God's law, I am thereby saying to the world around me that I am not trusting God very much, that, REALLY, He is not GOD to me.

Now in this prayer Agur first of all recognises GOD as the giver. Job did that too, after he lost everything: "It is the LORD Who gave...now it is the LORD Who took: still, blessed be the Name of the Lord."

We know that this is more easily read than said, but Job and Agur could have shaken hands on this one. Riches... or poverty... they come not from anyone, but from God. I am to work of course, but then from Whom comes my job, my health, my gifts and abilities?

In recent years people have tended to look increasingly to governments to solve the problems of society. Our leaders will give us wealth! Our government will right the wrongs...!

But God's child knows, that for all the responsibility governments and people themselves have, it is to GOD Himself that we must direct the prayer: Lord give me neither riches - which would make me forget Thee - NOR poverty which would make me curse Thee and sin against Thee.

And how easily can the one man already make false security out of an old 1964 Holden, while another still feels insecure with his house paid off and a few thousand in the bank - so insecure that even with all that he cheats with his tax, which after all is a form of stealing!

Not being too rich and not being too poor. That is not just a matter of economic egalitarianism - which means that everybody gets an equal share the way communism started talking. Because for the one is too much what for the other would be quite right. There is what God entrusts to people NOT only in money but also in ABILITY to handle it. One five, another two, and a third one talent.

But, Lord, no more than I can handle without turning away from You. Lord, give me never so much that I would make a god out of it, getting out of it false security. And when each of us prays that, we might not quite know when we would get over the danger line.

We might have an idea. And now we pray with Psalm 37: Lord, give that I have nothing NEXT TO YOU in the heavens, and nothing to delight in APART FROM YOU - away from You! - on earth. No more than would be clearly blessings FROM YOU. And when something OR SOMEBODY would take Your place, then take it away, it would be no good for me.

But Lord, no poverty either. Keep me from becoming so despondent that I'd turn away from you and steal - steal from my boss by not working my full day for my wage - steal from the tax man or steal from the church when cheating with my contribution - or steal from my family when slaving away time that I should spend with my kids. Lord, make me so relaxed that I will trusting You not do any of these things.

And this is prayer for a quality inside for godliness with CONTENTMENT, which, Paul says, is great gain. But it is of course also prayer for the real thing, the just division of earth's wealth. Then I cannot help but pray that God give this to others also. Not only to me, the white Australian citizen, but also to the Aborigines and the Indian, whose country has political strife and bad droughts - and the Ethiopian in Africa - the Latin American and the Pakistani.

I say give me - but also give THEM - for Jesus, when bringing in the daily bread, said: "You better pray give US.. Once I do that I may be content with less and give more - and then not only the government but I also become a tool in God's hand through which He answers OTHER PEOPLE'S PRAYERS.

Honesty and Modesty....!

Keep deception and lies away from me, that I may walk straight and look You and my neighbour in the eye, and even myself when I look at myself in the mirror in the morning.

Oh, God, that is Your gift - your grace - how otherwise can a sinner EVER have this. This is worth more than all the gold in the world for it means that I am at peace with You and THAT is through Jesus.

But then also: the bit of bread just good for me - so my neighbour get his piece as well. That which is good enough for me - and the great gift of being content with that - free from the trap of HAVING that so many are in. These are things to pray for.

And when God begins to answer these prayers, He does that by teaching me contentment within but He also does that by giving my government wisdom...! He does it by making ME responsible for my neighbour and by teaching us in Australia and other rich countries to share with those poorer in the world. But we look around and know there will always be people praying for this who seem far, far away from the answer. Our world is so sick, that human resources - even directed by God - without miracle cannot solve it all. And so, this prayer, too, is part of the prayer the Bride prays who knows she cannot EVER COMPLETELY BE CONTENT without the Bridegroom being back. For He is the bringer of righteousness, Who at last will make truth and justice kiss each other.

This prayer, too, is part of the sighing of a creature in bondage: the prayer as we look to the future: Lord Jesus, come quickly!

We know this is a life in which the Lord can give you pleasures or may give you trials. So it is good to remember these words of a wall-text in a Christian home:

"PERHAPS TODAY...?

Agur's prayer looks out to that Day.

So, I trust, does yours and mine.

Even when we work for righteousness and fairness in the world or for God's Word to be known far and wide there is in it all the longing for the great Event which we are daily coming closer to. Perhaps today? Perhaps this year?

Maranatha - Come Lord Jesus - even so, come quickly.

Amen.