Beeson Podcast, Episode #606 Karen A Ellis June 14, 2022 >>Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your hosts, Doug Sweeney and Kristen Padilla. >>Kristen Padilla: Welcome to the Beeson Podcast. I’m your host, Kristen Padilla. You know, we’re so grateful to sit under excellent preaching and teaching each week when school is in session. So, we wanted to share some of these sermons with you over the summer break. We hope you were edified by Dr. Ken Matthews’ sermon last week. Before I introduce today’s sermon, I want to remind you that this summer a few of my colleagues at Beeson will be on the road traveling to different annual meetings and conferences. They would love to meet and see you if you will be at one of those, too. This week, the week that this episode is airing, you will be able to find us at the SBC Annual Meeting, which is taking place June 12-15. As well as the Evangelical Fellowship of the Anglican Communion which is June 15-17. Then next we will be at the PCA General Assembly, June 21-24. And next month at the EK Bailey Preaching Conference July 11-13. One other announcement. Tickets are already on sale for our Beauty of God Conference: Preaching Worship and the Arts. This conference will focus on how the beauty of God’s love is manifested through the ministries of preaching, worship, and the arts. And how the arts may support ministries of preaching and worship. And more fundamentally, this conference aims to give a more profound awareness of how such practices are rooted in the beauty and glory of the triune God. Doesn’t that sound amazing? Well, I hope you’ll look for more information and even purchase a ticket to attend at www.BeesonDivinity.com/events. Okay, now for the sermon that we are playing for you this week. This sermon was given by Karen A. Ellis at Beeson during our Fall 2021 chapel series called, “Tokens of the Providence of God in Times of Trouble.” Her sermon was called, “God’s Wisdom For God’s Call,” which was based on Proverbs 4:4-9. This was also part of our Global Center’s, Go Global Missions Emphasis. This was my first time to hear Karen preach and teach. And she is a dynamic communicator of God’s Word and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She captivated our attention at the very beginning and held it throughout, glorifying Christ in all that she said and I’m excited for you to hear from her today. Karen was also a guest on the podcast back on November 2, 2021. So, I encourage you to go listen to that episode. She is the Director of the Center For the Study of the Bible and Ethnicity at Reformed Theological Seminary in Atlanta. She serves as the Robert Canada Fellow for World Christianity at RTS. So, let’s go now to Hodges Chapel and listen to our friend Karen A. Ellis preach God’s Wisdom for God’s Call. >>Karen Ellis: Well, good morning. It is a pleasure to be here with all of you this morning and I just want to take a moment and thank every single person who made it possible for me to be here and share with you some things from Proverbs this morning. And around the subject of God’s wisdom. Now, I’m not so high minded to think that I’m going to tell anybody here anything that they don’t already know, but what I hope to do this morning is to remind you of some things you may have forgotten and maybe help you think about the things that you already know in a different kind of way. For an application, for a cultural moment, it’s a horrible time to be a Christian. And yet it’s a wonderful time to be a Christian. Full of opportunity. Our current struggle against institutions that are failing and crumbling, political institutions, religious institutions, academic institutions. This isn’t new. This has gone on since Israel and Judah. Come on, do we know our bibles? And yet, God has always kept his set apart people. It’s him who does the keeping, not us. And when our institutions become bloated and corrupt and fall with abuse and scandal, God is still doing his work. Because he’s a covenant keeping God. He’s a promise keeping God. And the promise that he made to Adam and woman, when he created them at the beginning of time and said, “I’m going to make a set apart people for myself to worship me.” He’s going to keep that promise. All the way through the life of Israel, all the way through the New Testament who also had their issues with corporate corruption. Into our present moment and beyond until the nations are harmonized around his throne in Revelation 7:9, “Every language, tongue, and tribe.” Don’t tell me our God is not a promise keeping God. He has said he will get us there. And he will do it. So, in the midst of crumbling institutions, and the midst of life cycles of organizations and denominations and ministry, that people have told us throughout history have their seed and their blossom and their flower and their fade and their decline – in the midst of this normal pattern how do we be a separate set apart community of the people of God? That indicts all the surrounding cultures around us just by virtue of being God’s people? We have a choice. We can dwell in the house of wisdom or we can dwell in the house of folly and destruction. And that’s where we’re going right now. Foolishness has been with us for a long time. Since the garden. And every choice in scripture, every choice in history boils down to whose house are you going to live in? Are you going to choose wisdom’s house? Or are you going to choose folly’s? And there are consequences and results for each. Before there was foolishness house there was wisdom. And this morning I’m going to point you to the grand housing project that undergirds scripture from Genesis to Revelation that has not been built by human hands. We just sang, “The Church’s One Foundation,” is Jesus Christ Our Lord. Well, let’s take a look at that foundation. Let’s take a look at God’s ongoing housing construction project and decide at this critical moment in church history, global church history, there’s never been a moment quite like this one in the history of the church. Who’s house will we dwell in? Proverbs tells us that the Lord by wisdom founded the earth. By understanding he established the heavens and by his knowledge the deeps broke open and the clouds dropped down the dew. So, Christ created the universe by wisdom, understanding, and knowledge. And then the Apostle Paul works with this. And he shows us that the uncreated Christ, ‘cause God is God all by himself – always was, always is, always will be, doesn’t need any help from anybody else, right? Wisdom’s imprint from him on each of us is a part of the image of God. It’s a part of the garden package. By dwelling with wisdom, created by wisdom, in the person of Christ by whom, in whom, and through whom all things were made Adam and woman, our first parents, relied on him to explain the world he had made. They were to pattern themselves after his image by understanding the world through his eyes. And while the bible speaks of wisdom as a person, it also speaks of wisdom as an asset, a force, a benefit to life, created by Christ at the foundation of the world. So, you have wisdom creating wisdom. Wisdom emanating wisdom. Wisdom giving away wisdom. Proverbs 8 says, “The Lord brought wisdom forth as the first of his works. Before his deeds of old. Appointed before eternity, before the world began.” So, before the “Let us make’s” and before the “Let us be’s” wisdom was. So, let’s continue to think of wisdom both as a person of Christ and as a force used by that person to create and order the universe. Wisdom and truth are part of the testament of the richness of the image of God bestowed on humankind that separates us from the animals. We cannot deny that wisdom the force was imparted to man by wisdom the person. When Christ breathed life into mankind and he became a [foreign language 00:10:49], a living, breathing soul contained in a body. Genesis 1:26-28 reminds us that on the sixth day God said, “Let us make men in our image after our likeness.” Adam first out of the dust and then woman next out of his side. And ironically among all the non human creatures of which God made many couples man is the only one where he fashioned two out of one. The man and the woman were a physical extension of the relational intimacy of wisdoms’ created force. The imprint of wisdom contained three aspects. Knowledge, Adam and woman’s ability to see divine things clearly and truly in their access to the one who created everything. “What is that?” “That’s bird.” “Why does it fly? How does it do that?” “Oh, that’s called aerodynamics. You guys will discover that soon.” “What’s that?” “That’s fish.” “Fish. How does it breathe under water?” “Oh, that’s hydrodynamics. How it moves and lives and breathes. You’ll discover that later, too. But that’s how it goes.” So, in knowledge – to see divine things clearly and truly. In righteousness, in that they complied readily and completely to the will of God and in true holiness. And this imprint of wisdom shapes the byproduct of what they enjoyed in the garden before it all went to pot. (laughs) It was called Shalom. My daddy was a carpenter. Actually, my father was a teacher, counselor, and rent-a-carpenter. So, it was kind of a natural progression for me to see my earthly father to understanding my heavenly father. And my father would always say, “A place for everything, and everything in its place.” And that’s usually what we would get when we left something out of its place. You know? “There’s a place for everything and everything should be in its place.” That’s the ordered world. The imprint of wisdom was marked by three distinct blessings: presence, where God dwelt with man, property, a brand new unspoiled heaven and earth, and peace, harmony with each other, with the world around them, and with God. The garden was created for presence, property, and peace. Created to be their sanctuary, their safe and protected dwelling place. Presence, property, and peace. Hold on to those. Because they’re going to matter when we get to Revelation. What are they again? Presence, property, and peace. Good. You passed your first quiz. Wisdom is a part of the very good of garden life. There were no hindrances to the first human’s understanding God’s world, his intentions, his purposes, all through his eyes. Shalom or flourishing is dwelling with wisdom himself and it’s directly tied to obedience, to the source of wisdom. A place for everything and everything in its place. And it was as the creator declared, “Very good.” But it was not yet perfect. Do you remember that song that they used to sing? I don’t know if you guys ever listen to the gospel station, but there was a song that people used to play in their cars, “Let’s get back to Eden. Sit on top of the world.” And I’m like, “Why would I want to go back there?” (laughs) That’s the provisional place, I don’t want to go back to Eden. But the trajectory of the bible is always forward. I don’t want to go back to Eden. There’s sin back there. So, it’s not perfect. Perfect comes when Christ harmonizes everything. Perfection is reserved for glory. But for now it was very good. And then ... What happened was when you get to this point in the story in African American storytelling we want to explain how a bad thing happened – you start it off with the great preamble, “See what had happened was ...” (laughs) And that phrase always introduces the most interesting plot twist in the story – usually a justification or further explanation of how things just went horribly wrong. So, see, what had happened was ... that phrase is totally appropriate here because we know Satan, the purveyor of chaos, the antithesis to Shalom and wisdom, slithers into our peaceful picture. Isaiah 14:12-14 tells us, “Satan ruined himself by desiring to be like the most high.” And he took his own lie and sold it to us. Isaiah says, “How you are fallen from heaven you day star, son of dawn? How you are cut down to the ground who laid the nations low. You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven, above the stars of God. I will set my throne on high. I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north. I will extend above the heights of the clouds. I will make myself like the most high.’” Ambition. At its most foolish. As if he could. An attempt at an act which could never be attained. So, the one who could not bear to dwell with the Prince of Peace convinced the woman that she couldn’t dwell with him either. And so they ate from the knowledge of the tree of good and evil, the tree that had been forbidden, and it was good for food, and it was a delight to the eyes, and the tree was to be desired to make one what? Wise. And she took of the fruit and ate and she gave some to her husband who was with her, whose job he had one job. Well, he had several jobs, but he had one job when it came to her and that was to stomp that thing’s head and say, “No. Not in my house.” But he did not. Isn’t it ironic that wisdom is included in the deception? They were already wise. Since they walked and dwelt with Wisdom himself. What more wisdom could they have possibly wanted? Wisdom was our first and natural orientation in the garden. But they chose instead to dwell with foolishness and we still to this day have to fight to keep our institutions and organizations from dwelling in the house of destruction. Obedience is the component and personal wisdom based on the knowledge of how we were created by a God of order and life for the purpose to bring glory and honor to God that produces shalom. It’s obedience that puts the life force in wisdom and the result of disobedience and the abandonment of wisdom shows up in Romans 1. “For although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise they became fools.” And in the exchange we traded wisdom for foolishness. Obedience for disobedience. Shalom for chaos. Relationship for brokenness. Affection for resentment. Harmony with creation to disharmony. Trust for doubt. Unity for discord. Agreement for discrepancy. Security for danger. Balance for oppression and injustice. Abundance for scarcity. I imagine what it must have been like for the first couple to experience the never before known emotions of fear and shame that cascaded down through their souls after only knowing pure and sweet shalom. Foolishness was not a part of the created order. It was not supposed to be. And it’s not supposed to be for us. Put another way, wisdom and truth brought peace and harmony and focus on God. Folly and lies brought chaos and disorder. And an unhealthy and constant focus on self. [foreign language 00:20:27] A principle still at work in the world today. And at the fall the tuition (laughs) for forsaking biblical wisdom became astronomically high. Yet throughout Proverbs and the rest of scripture Christ’s breath of life and his open invitation to the house of wisdom remains constant. Every choice in the bible is a choice between wisdom that leads to life and foolishness that leads to death. Chapter three of Proverbs gives us a snapshot of the personal results of seeking wisdom. And keep the events of Genesis 3 in mind as I read these verses because they drip with knowledge and regret over what was lost. Can you imagine the writer, man, don’t be like them. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and don’t lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths. Don’t be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones. What if Adam and woman had done that? Lean not on your own understanding, acknowledge his ways. Don’t be wise in your own eyes. Keep your house and the presence of God. Then we get to Proverbs 8 and 9. Which frames the garden choice as two women, two houses, two meals, and two separate orientations. Wisdom’s house is built on seven pillars. Since seven is a sacred and complete concept the house in which she dwells is the image of a peaceful world. The writer of Proverbs gives us these orientations even in the feminine which almost feels like they’re tied to Eve’s choice in the garden. It’s almost a literary absolution. Let’s compare the two houses side by side. Wisdom’s house – she calls aloud in the streets. She invites in the simple. Those who lack judgment. Well, that’s all of us. I’m simple. I’m simple-minded. I need help, y’all. I’m not afraid to admit that. Everyone is welcome to come into Wisdom’s house. And Folly, just like the lie in the garden, she parrots wisdom in her invitation. She sees what Wisdom is doing and she goes, “Yes, come into my house, too. I, too, have things for you to do in here. Everybody come in.” Just like in the garden. So close to being right. “You will not surely die.” Over here at Wisdom’s house, she has maids and there’s a spirit of community, mutual respect, cooperation, the guests are robust and full of life and significance and dignity and identity and purpose. Meanwhile over at Folly’s house, she has no attendance. And it says her guests are the dead. I think about them like The Walking Dead. I don’t know if you guys have followed that show. People who are still alive yet decaying and dying, slowly. At Folly’s house there’s rampant abuse. Physical, spiritual ... there’s exploitation. There’s dehumanization. There’s debasement. There’s death. Over at Wisdom’s house, her meal is planned out. She’s got the biscuits coming out at the same time as the chicken and when the bell rings the coffee is going to be ready. And it’s all going to be hot. And you’re going to enjoy it at the same time and it’s a sumptuous banquet. She’s got it laid out. Over in Folly’s house, she lacks discipline. Wisdom’s house, her way requires repentance; turning from your simple, foolish, destructive ways. Whether they’re self destructive or whether they’re destructive towards others. Folly’s house, she says, “You don’t have to change. You come on in here just like you are.” She requires no transformation. Wisdom, in her house, the intimate knowledge of God is the doorway to life. Folly’s house, no knowledge of God required or provided. Wisdom and her sumptuous banquet, her meat and wine represent the good, good teaching of wisdom that will be palatable, it will be tasty, and it will be profitable, it will be healthy, and it will foreshadow the flesh and blood of Jesus. Folly’s meal, she stole it. She probably stole it from Wisdom’s house. Bread and water, prison rations. Nothing there. Folly eats in secret. She offers temporary reward like the lie in the garden. It’s pleasing to the eye and good for food and desirous to make you wise, but it holds empty calories, like fruit juice. (laughs) It won’t deliver on any promise of fulfillment. Meanwhile, Wisdom’s house offers lasting reward, gracious words, like a honeycomb sweetness to the soul, and health to the body. And Wisdom’s invitation holds no requirement of externals. Wisdom doesn’t say, “If you’re married, come in.” Or, “If you’re single, come in.” She doesn’t say if you have 100 children or none, you can come in my house and be wise. Wisdom doesn’t call you only if you’re female or male or young or old or tall or short or Black or White or Hispanic or first nations or Asian. Wisdom makes no external requirements. She simply beckons all to come, repent, and live. In which house and with whom will we spend our days? But the housing project doesn’t just exist in the nasty now and now. It actually also exists in the sweet by and by. And we go and look at Revelation 21 and 22 for eternally dwelling in Wisdom’s house. What awaits us there? It’s described in the best of human terms. It’s grand and it’s fortified with high and strong walls. It’s a safe and protected place. And just as in Wisdom’s house in Proverbs there are guests and there’s a meal. This is the place that Wisdom himself has gone to prepare for his people that he speaks of in John 14. Just as he lovingly crafted a place for us at creation. And now here’s your second quiz. What are the three basic blessings of the garden? Presence, property, peace. And now they’re a glorified reality. In presence now the dwelling of God is with man and the covenant promise is fulfilled. He will be our God and we will be his people – fulfilled. And property, we know occupy the new heaven and the new earth – fulfilled. In peace he wipes every tear from our eyes in this fortified and protected city – fulfilled. We’re no longer inhabiting a garden. Now it’s an entire city. Justice and mercy are perfectly dispensed for all the damage foolishness has caused. Christ has accomplished what Adam could not. So, no unclean or accursed thing will ever enter these fortified walls. And just as it was described at Wisdom’s house in Proverbs is just how it is in the garden dwelling. In this fortified city there’s a shelter and there’s a meal. And we have a banquet in these walls of safety. The marriage supper of the Lamb in the presence of Wisdom himself. The tree of life, giving us 12 different fruits, springing from one tree such is the abundance. Nothing is wasted in the economy of the Kingdom. Even the leaves are useful for the healing of the nations. Presence, property, and peace. Shalom. So, what does this mean for us in the nasty now and now? (laughs) God proves with each generation in church history that he will keep his covenant promises, even when we are foolish and disobedient. However, his covenant keeping doesn’t absolve us of our responsibility to obedience or the exercise of wisdom according to his word. At any given time in our walk we’re either moving toward life or we’re moving toward death. Every single person in this room: faculty, staff, student, guest. We need to learn to discern now in whose house we’re living and choose whose house we’re going to spend the rest of this cultural moment. Our culture wants us to move towards death and destruction. Like the lies they told us in the garden, they want us to focus on ourselves and our agenda and the things we want to accomplish all day, every day. They want us to make a choice between idolizing either the red hat or the raised fist. They want us to put our ethnicity or our gender or our cultural status or our political party or even our good works for humanity, like helping the poor and oppressed, on the throne of our hearts and our lives. Well, some of those things may be important they are not supreme. They are not ultimate. They can’t be. Because they can’t fill the purpose and the presence and the peace and the wisdom that Christ gives us to live our role as the set apart people of God. If you’re in Christ you’re not merely called apart to be a counter cultural witness to this world. It’s not about being counter cultural. And it’s not about being apolitical and completely uninvolved. It’s about being an other cultural, other political witness altogether. And a witness that’s based on a different set of politics and a different kind of culture that’s based on the life, death, resurrection and glorification of Jesus Christ. And when we are that, we look different from every other culture in the world. Not seeking political power. Not seeking only earthly liberation. But living a different set of politics and culture altogether. And as it says in Proverbs, you all know this, I’ve seen the hall of martyrs. I’ve seen the busts of the martyrs on this campus. Being other cultural and being other political will cost you everything you have. But this is real Christianity. This is what it means to be people of God in harmony with other marginalized Christians in the bible and through history and around the world. We all know the compelling call of foolishness. We can’t be afraid though to risk our relationships to say, “That path is destruction. I am choosing life.” Wisdom and life was our right in the garden. Stolen from us. Wisdom is our right in the present for all who have inclined their hearts to the ultimate source of wisdom. Wisdom will be our right in the new dwelling place, the new heaven and the new earth. This is the restorative work of Wisdom. This is the redemptive work of Christ. And as we learn to live in Wisdom’s house, we can discern the difference between the two calls. Christian nationalism will not lead us to the Kingdom of God. America is not the Kingdom of God. Neither is anti-racism. They are not the Kingdom of God. Both are focused on the outcome of the American experiment as ultimate. Earlier I mentioned raised fists and red hats. They’re poor and empty symbols next to almighty wisdom, bloody and battered and bruised and hanging on a cross, buried in a tomb, raised on the third day, and seated in glory at the right hand of the Father. It cannot compare. And so at this cultural moment we have the opportunity to join and disciple people into the historic line of people following ultimate wisdom to the cross and into glory. People who are and always have been and always will be kept by God and set apart for him. I leave you with these words from Proverbs 4. My prayer for you is the same as my prayer for myself. I pray that the kingdom ball that’s been passed forward to us by unnamed saints who will never have a bust of themselves made, who will never find their names written in men’s history books, the names that are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life – really, the only one that matters – I mean, realistically speaking, nobody’s going to remember any of us in 100 years if the Lord tarries. Those are the people who have passed the kingdom ball forward to us in faithfulness and in obedience. And my prayer for you is the same as my prayer for myself. Just as he shows saints in North Korea and China and Iran who have risked and lost everything to live in Wisdom’s house, my prayer is Holy Spirit, come. Come to this generation. Help us to make more disciples than converts, God. Help us, Lord. Give us lives of adventure and obedience unto death with you in this present wicked global age. Save men and women, God. Snatch them from the snares of Folly’s destruction. Come to this place. And I leave you, again, with the words that Ava read to us at the beginning of this service, from Proverbs 4. Get wisdom, develop good judgment, don’t forget my words or turn away from them, don’t turn your back on wisdom, for she will protect you. Love her and she will guard you. Getting wisdom is the wisest thing you can do. And whatever else you do, develop good judgment. If you prize wisdom, she will make you great. Embrace her. She will honor you. She will place a lovely wreath on your head. She will present you with a beautiful crown. Whose house do you want to live in? [SINGING] I told Jesus it would be all right if he changed my name. I told Jesus it would be all right if he changed my name. I told Jesus it would be all right if he changed my name. And I told Jesus people will hate me if you change my name. I told Jesus people will hate me if you change my name. I told Jesus it’s still all right. You can change my name. [END SINGING] Amen. >>Kristen Padilla: You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pasquarello. Our co-hosts are Doug Sweeney and, myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson podcast at www.BeesonDivinity.com/podcast or on iTunes.