The Prayer of Agur, Part 2: Living in the Sweet Spot
INTRO
Good morning! Please turn with me to Proverbs 30. How many were here last week? Or watched online? Awesome. How many of you are doing the Prayer of Agur devotional through YouVersion? Great! Well, once again, we are going to link to that in the YouVersion outline. We also have a link to it on Glynwood’s Facebook page.
How many of you went home and read all of Proverbs 30 including verse 7 – 9: The Prayer of Agur?
How many sincerely meant to read Proverbs 30, but it just slipped your mind?
Thanks for being honest. Grace abounds, and you can make that a goal again this week.
Remember “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”? Do kids still know that story? It’s one of the most famous fairy tales of them all. It’s the story of a juvenile delinquent named Goldilocks who starts a one-girl crime wave against three helpless bears. I mean, we’re talking breaking and entering, vandalism, theft by eating, you name it. I’m actually not even sure what the moral of the story is. But the 19th Century fairy tale did give us a concept we all know and it’s a great place to start our conversation today.
Goldilocks breaks into the house of the three bears and tries three bowls of porridge, one is too hot, one is too cold, and the third is . . . . (say it with me) “juuuuust right.” And, with one misdemeanor count of petty larceny, she finishes it.
Goldilocks tries three chairs. The third one is . . . . “juuuuust right.” She sits and it breaks into pieces. So we can add willful destruction of private property to her rap sheet.
Exhausted from her little crime spree, she finds one bed too hard, one bed too soft, and one is . . . “juuuuust right.” And falls asleep. So… vagrancy.
The three bears come home and discover the damage. And before they can even call Jake from State Farm, the little felon escapes, and the wheels of justice grind to a halt. The end.
But we are left with the two-word worthy goal of how to do life . . . “just right.” Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Food the right temperature. Furniture just comfortable enough. Getting life “just right” – not too much, not too little -- when it comes to the demands of work . . . financial security . . . our emotions and relationships. What if we enjoyed just the right amount of romance. Just the right amount of caution. Or were motivated by just the right amount of ambition.
In review:
Proverbs has 31 chapters. Solomon wrote one through 29. Chapter 31 was written by King Lemuel in which he describes a “wife of noble character.”
But Proverbs 30 is written by a guy that is easily overlooked. His name is Agur. This is the only time he’s mentioned in the entire Bible. His prayer is the only prayer in Proverbs.
Last week we looked at the first six verses of Proverbs 30, and talked about Agur’s humility, how he acknowledged his weaknesses. We also talked about him as a prophet who, through the inspiration of the holy spirit, revealed that God has a divine Son. And we also talked about how Agur affirmed the authority of God’s Word, how in verse 5 he affirmed that every word of the Lord is true, and that God is a shield to those who take refuge in him.
But we saved the best for this week. The buried treasure in Proverbs 30 is the three-verse prayer that delivers a shocking formula for trusting God, discovering his will for our life.
Here it is - and let’s make it our Opening Prayer. If you are physically able, please stand to honor the reading of God’s Word, and let’s say the words of Agur’s prayer out loud:
Two things I ask of you, Lord;
do not refuse me before I die:
Keep falsehood and lies far from me;
give me neither poverty nor riches,
but give me only my daily bread.
Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
and say, “Who is the Lord?”
Or I may become poor and steal,
and so dishonor the name of my God.
Proverbs 30:7–9 NIV
I’m not going to say, “Would you pray with me, because we just did. But I do pray that the Lord will make his word come alive for you in the next few minutes!
So the first principle we can apply from The Prayer of Agur is to…
1. Be simple with your prayers. Look at verse 7
Two things I ask of you, Lord;
do not refuse me before I die:
Jesus warned us about long, drawn out, complicated prayers. In the Sermon on the Mount, he told His disciples:
7 “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
Why is this such a good strategy for prayer? Well, it has to do with attention span. I’m not saying God has a short attention span. You could give God a list of a hundred million requests, and he would remember every single one. God’s attention span is limitless!
But ours isn’t. And if we have a personal prayer list that it would take hours to pray all the way through, we’re going to have a hard time tracking God’s response. But I think Agur’s example is an approach to prayer worth remembering.
Any time you can boil your prayer requests down to a small number of specific heartfelt desires you’re going to find yourself more aware of God working in you and through you to deliver answers.
I’m not saying you pray for the same few things every time you pray. Right now, there are over 100 things on my prayer list. But I use an app on my phone called PrayerMate, and it selects ten items from my list for me to pray for each morning. [Talk about this]
The other thing that strikes me about Agur’s prayer is the phrase “Do not refuse me before I die” It’s a small detail, but it’s a good reminder that Agur is praying for stuff in his every day, real world, practical life. Sometimes we get into this super-spiritual mindset where we somehow think that the only thing God cares about is heaven, and eternity, and what happens to us after we die. And don’t get me wrong, that should be our ultimate concern. But we have immediate concerns about what’s going to happen here on earth, and our heavenly Father longs to talk to us about what is going on in our every day lives. So, Be simple with your prayers. Talk to the Father. Philippians 4 says, “Don’t be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.
What two things does Agur ask for? He has identified his top two personal weaknesses. The two things he struggles with most: Discerning truth and owning stuff. Let’s tackle one at a time. This brings us to our second lesson from Agur’s Prayer:
2. Be a stickler for the TRUTH
Agur prays, “Keep falsehoods and lies far from me.” You can almost hear Agur’s thought process as if he’s saying, I know the world is filled with lies, and they trip me up way too often. Father in heaven, please protect my ears from hearing lies that might lead me down the wrong path. And keep my lips from lying so that I might not deceive others.
And can I jump ahead a little bit to make an important point about this? The next part of Agur’s prayer is about moderation and balance—give me neither poverty or riches—I don’t need to live in a mansion, but I don’t want to live in a carboard box, either. But when it comes to discerning truth, Agur isn’t asking for moderation. He’s not saying, “give me a little truth, and a little shadiness. Help me to be mostly honest.” No. He says, “keep falsehoods and lying FAR from me.”
I think Agur is on to something. Truth matters. There is truth. One of the things I hear quite often these days is that people don’t know what to believe from the media anymore. Or people don’t know who to trust. With respect, that’s hogwash. There is absolute truth, and we can know it. We don’t have to be like Pontius Pilate. In John 18, Pilate is questioning Jesus, and Jesus says,
For this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” 38 Pilate said to him, “What is truth?” (John 18:37-38)
Church, we do not have to throw our hands up in the air and pretend we don’t know what to believe and who is telling the truth. We have the mind of Christ, and Christ has come into the world to bear witness to the truth.
So when we pray the prayer of Agur—keep falsehood and lies far from me, realize that is a two way street. We pray for
• Discernment with what we receive. Not every news source is trustworthy. Having a Twitter account does not make you an expert. And just because something is shared or liked or retweeted six million times, that does not make it true.
• Discipline with what we share. Truth matters, and it dishonors the name of Jesus if we pass on something we know to be false.
Agur recognizes God is the source of virtue and integrity. He wants to be on the winning team. That comes from hearing truth, discerning truth, and speaking truth.
1. Be simple with your prayer.
2. Be a stickler for the truth.
3. Be satisfied with your stuff.
The first half of Agur’s prayer is universal. After all, everyone wants to know what’s really true. Even crooks and liars. They may ignore the truth, but they want to know it.
However, Agur’s next request is a stunner. He dares to pray for a life of moderation: “Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.”
Moderation? That’s not on anyone’s checklist. Especially in the twenty-first century. We are living in an age of extremes.
Bigger is better. More houses. More cars. More closet space. More shelves for more trophies. More activities. More responsibility so you can gain more and more and more.
Did you know that in 2018, there were over 60,000 self-storage facilities in the united States? There are more self storage facilities than McDonald’s, Wendy’s Starbucks, and Dunkin Donuts COMBINED! We spent almost $5 billion in the construction of new facilities so that people would have a place to store all the stuff they didn’t have room for in their houses! This is a 27% increase compared to 2017, a 344% 10-year increase, and a 444% 20-year increase. Experts predict that construction will continue to increase.
On the flipside is another extreme. There’s an entire subculture choosing to live as minimalists. Maybe you know someone cutting up credit cards and clearing out clutter. They don’t want the latest gadgets. Their entire wardrobe fits in one knapsack or cardboard box. They live in micro apartments and tiny homes. They use Apple products. Marie Kondo is their prophet—if it doesn’t spark joy, throw it out!
Now, you are probably never going to hear a prosperity gospel preacher quoting Proverbs 30:8. They might agree with the first part—"don’t give me poverty” but not the second part—“don’t give me riches.” And the minimalist crowd would agree with the second half, but not the first half.
Agur is not endorsing minimalism. Nor is he saying wealth and influence define success. He endorses neither fast or slow, big or small, fancy or simple.
Agur is praying for the grace to live in the sweet spot. The perfect mixture of getting what you need and needing what you get. He sums it up nicely: “give me only my daily bread.”
When Agur wrote this chapter, his peers would have instantly connected his prayer to the daily manna God had provided their ancestors during their 40 years in the desert. Exodus 16 tells us that for the Israelites, manna appeared once a day provided by God in just the right amount at just the right time. If they gathered more manna than they needed, it would spoil. Isn’t that true of so many things today? Not too much, not too little. There’s a balance. Otherwise whatever you’re doing goes off the rails. It spoils. You can look at just about any area of your life and see the danger of overindulging—food, drink, exercise, work, hobbies, whatever. We need balance.
Your daily bread. No more, no less. Your finances, health, relationships, activities, emotions all have a balance. Even with romance in a marriage, a husband and wife need to find mutual balance to meet each other’s needs.
Agur’s prayer for only his daily bread was written down almost a thousand years before Christ. Today, we recognize that phrase from The Lord’s Prayer delivered by Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount. “Give us this day our daily bread.”
The words are comfortable and we nod our heads. Yes, Lord, please meet our daily needs.
The thing is, that’s not what Agur prayed. He added the word only. That introduces an entire deeper level of trust in the one who provides. It takes a bit of courage to pray, “Give me only my daily bread.”
Why, by the way, would anyone pray that way? The last challenge from Agur’s prayer give two good reasons help us understand.
4. Be honest with yourself.
Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
and say, “Who is the Lord?”
Or I may become poor and steal,
and so dishonor the name of my God.
Proverbs 30:7–9 NIV
Agur identified his weakness. It was materialism. Stuff. He knew if he had too much, he would take the credit himself. “I don’t need God after all.”
I
f he had too little, he would steal and dishonor God. Agur was asking for his cash flow to be . . . just right.
To be clear, money itself was not the problem. It was Agur’s emotional attachment to money. The Bible doesn’t say “money is the root of evil.” It says, “For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil” (1 Timothy 6:10).
Let’s applaud Agur’s self-awareness. He is praying, in essence, “Lord, keep me dependent on you. Having complete trust in you is the balance in which I want to live. I can’t do life without you.”
Agur’s overarching concerns were that he would neither forget God nor dishonor God. God’s glory was his first and only passion.
So let me bring this in for a landing. The reason this is called the prayer of Agur is because it addressed Agur’s two biggest needs—discerning truth and owning stuff. And I would argue that at least the first one is a universal. We all need to pray that God would keep falsehoods and lying far from us. But what about the second one? Is owning stuff and being content with what you have the thing that is tripping you up right now? Do you need to find the sweet spot between poverty and riches? Or is it something else for you? Let’s move beyond Agur’s temptations and vulnerabilities, and talk about yours.
I want to suggest to you that Agur’s prayer can be a blueprint for any area of your life that feels out of balance to you. At the bottom of your listening guide, you’ve got an assignment. First thing: write your name where it says, “The prayer of _______________.”
Ok. Now, think about a specific area of your life that feels out of balance. Maybe you just feel mad all the time. Maybe you’re constantly comparing yourself to others. Maybe you deal with insecurity. Maybe you’re afraid of confrontation. Whatever it is, in just a minute I’m going to ask you to write that down.
Then, I want you to think about the two extremes of that behavior. If yours is anger, then maybe the extremes are rage on one end of the spectrum and cowardice on the other. If its comparison to others, then maybe you’ve got jealousy and entitlement as one extreme, and worthlessness and self-loathing on the other. You get the idea.
Third, think about what would be in the middle between those two. That’s your sweet spot. If you aren’t sure, ask God. God promises in James 1:5 that if we lack wisdom, he will give it.
Then, just as Agur did, think about how living at either extreme might cause you to dishonor God. If you tend toward being passive, you’re going to dishonor God by letting injustice go unanswered. If you tend toward unhealthy self-deprecation, you are going to dishonor God by forgetting that you are made in his image. So let that be your commitment to staying in the Sweet spot.
In his book, Jay Payleitner gives a couple of examples. Keep thinking about your own prayer, but consider these:
For someone dealing with anger:
Give me neither furious rage nor vapid cowardice,
But give me a consistent sense of composure.
Otherwise, I may wimp out and allow injustice to prevail, and say, “Where is the Lord?”
Or, I may lose my cool, and so dishonor the name of my God.
For someone dealing with comparison:
Give me neither hateful jealousy nor feelings of worthlessness,
But give me a healthy self-respect and appreciation for the good fortune of others.
Otherwise, I may forget that I’m a precious child of God, and say, “Not even God could love me.”
Or, I may become spiteful and bitter, and so dishonor the name of my God.
Now, we are going to play some music, and for the next three minutes, I want you to work on your sweet spot prayer:
[cue video]
Invitation
