A Philosophy Of Life Series

A Philosophy of Life

(Proverbs 20:28-30)

1. This week our friends in the UK celebrated the 60 year anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s reign.

2. During that reign, the values of her society and ours have changed rapidly. The UK and the US have gone from a Leave It to Beaver perspective to cohabitation, gay marriage, and lost gender roles and distinctives.

3. When it comes to the purpose and nature of living life, people often think that imitating those around them is the best way to live life. That is because they have no stable philosophy of life, no connection to God’s values that are perennial & relevant.

4. Why settle for speculation when you have God’s revelation – his Word?

Main Idea: Rather than going through life bumping around for direction, we need to develop a Biblical philosophy of living life.

I. We Succeed in Areas that Matter Most When We Have Two Majors: Love and TRUTH (28)

• Many kings vulnerable to conspiracy, as in Israel…

• Some of the same qualities that make a successful life make for a good reign!

A. Two important words: HESED (faithful love) and EMET (truth/faithfulness)

Hesed refers to faithful, merciful love, a love that keeps promises. Sometimes translated as kindness, loving-kindness, mercy, steadfast love.

Emet is sometimes translated as truth, sometimes faithfulness. The emphasis is upon certainty and dependability, faithfulness. If you are a person of emet, your word is your seal and you are not out to deceive or misrepresent. The word “Amen” is related to emet, and is basically an affirmation, strong, “yes!”

Obadiah, King Ahab’s servant, loved Yahweh. When Queen Jezebel had Yahweh’s prophets killed, Obadiah hid 100 of them in 2 groups of 50 & provided them daily rations (I Kings 18). He had a commitment to Emet and he expressed Hesed to them.

B. This takes the READER back to Proverbs 3:3-4

“Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man.”

Ephesians 4:15, “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ…”

I Corinthians 13:6, “[Love] … does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.”

C. BALANCE: Major on love, compromise truth; major on truth, compromise love

If you look at people who are generally disliked, it is because they are out of balance in one of these. They are either tedious for truth or, in their attempts to please people, are noted as undependable and two-faced.

D. Good leaders have BOTH God and most people on their side!

A Biblical philosophy of life: focus on BOTH love and truth

II. Aging is Normal and to Be EMBRACED (29)

A. The YOUNG have advantages over the old

B. The OLD have advantages over the young

1. Their glory is their gray hair.

2. Seeing her friend Sally wearing a new locket, Meg asks if there is a memento of some sort inside. “Yes,” says Sally, “a lock of my husband’s hair.” “But Larry’s still alive.” “I know, but his hair is gone.” [Reader’s Digest]

3. The idea is we grow in wisdom, experience, perspective

4. Just as a child plays with toys and an adult leaves them behind, so we leave some interests behind & find others that now appeal to us

5. As we age, we must focus on who we are, not who we used to be.

C. The temptation: to overly VALUE what we have lost

We can flourish and develop in new ways or we can drown in despair.

Story from India: One night two frogs found themselves in a diary. Hopping and jumping around as frogs do they both jumped into a milk pail half full of milk.

After swimming around for some time they tried to get out. But the inside of the pail was too slippery and there was nothing on which they could rest so that they could jump out. One frog thought it was useless trying to swim on and just gave up hope and sunk and was drowned.

The other carried on swimming hoping against hope that something would turn up. He swam and he swam until he began to feel tired. But by this time the milk which was full of cream had become thick. When the frog had swum some more the cream had been stirred so much that it became a solid lump of butter.

On this the frog could scramble and rest. And from it he could easily jump out of the pail into safety. [soure: home.freeuk.net]

A Biblical philosophy: Focus on what you can develop, not what you lost

III. The Pain of Discipline Can Have a CLEANSING Effect (30)