The desert as a place of revelation (Week 5) - Matthew 7:24–29, Proverbs 8:1–21 & James 3:13–18
We are continuing our Lenten journey through the wilderness, joining the Desert Fathers and Mothers in their quest to go against the prevailing tide of culture: pursuing silence, solitude, and greater levels of spiritual maturity. In today’s session, we are focusing on the power of the wilderness to lead us into revelation and wisdom.
Did you know there is a crisis of wisdom in the world today? Narratives are constantly shifting around the nature of truth. This makes it almost impossible for a consistent and clear ethical framework to operate in society. As a result practical wisdom needed for everyday life becomes very hard to attain.
You’ve most probably heard the quote “Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad”. And yet, in our social media driven world with so much fake news and AI generated content, tomatoes get added to fruit salad with a dusting of icing sugar!
The world today is a confusing and complicated moral landscape to try and navigate. Social media makes it clear that life should look a certain way (heavily edited, beautiful, high levels of fitness and healthy eating). We seem to be bombarded with messages telling us what to eat, how to dress, how to appear chilled without a care in the world; beautifully smiley faces with perfect white teeth!
And yet nobody seems clear on how they should act towards one another or how to live responsibly with due regard for each other and reverence for God. Practical, godly wisdom is desperately needed.
But where are we to find this sort of wisdom? As always God’s word is our guide and starting point. Proverbs 9:10 says, ‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding (NIVUK). In other words, if we want to be people who are wise, we must begin our search at the source of all wisdom. And Who is that source? None other than God himself. We must begin by looking at God, worshipping God, honouring him above everything around us. The key is ‘the fear of the Lord’.
“Well, that’s not a very comforting thought”, you might say! “I don’t want to be living in fear. There are plenty of things that make me fearful”.
And you’re right – we don’t want to be living fearfully. Rather, we want to be living faithfully – full of faith in Christ Jesus, the fount and source of all wisdom, understanding and revelation. The One in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3). The One who says do not fear for I am with you always (Matthew 14:27; Mark 5:36, 6:50; John 6:20,14:27; Joshua 1:9).
And that is why we need to have a right understanding of what we mean by ‘the fear of the Lord’.
Fear of the Lord is very different to the kind of fear which produces anxiety or is concerned with punishment. It is not the same fear as in a fear of heights or of spiders. Fear of the Lord is a kind of awe-struck reverence or worship. As one commentary put it, the fear of God is an attitude of respect, a response of reverence and wonder.
To “fear the Lord” is to organise our lives with God at the centre, instead of anything else. To “fear the Lord” is to recognise God’s divinity and our own humanity. A life marked by the fear of the Lord is a life of God-centredness.
Too often we build our lives around fear of something else: fear of being lonely, fear of not having enough, or fear of not being liked, fear of missing out (fomo). I’m not saying these are not difficult things to face or that we should simply grin and bear it – living in self-denial. Far from it. There is a place to acknowledge and express these fears. You can do no better than to ‘take it to the Lord in prayer’ as the hymn puts it (What a friend we have in Jesus).
But that said, the truth is we have two choices in life: we can choose God as the central focus of our lives, or something else will take that place. And that is what it boils down to. It is easy to centre our lives around earthly fears and desires, but if we want to follow Jesus, there is only one pathway which leads to a full and wise life: it is the path which puts God at its centre. It is a life built on the rock that is Jesus.
Jesus’ parable of the wise and
Jesus’ wisdom for a firm foundation and a flourishing life is this: “hear these words of mine” and “put them into practice”. In other words, we need both steps: hearing and practising
This is what the desert fathers and mothers did. They deliberately chose to seek after God, to listen for his voice, to meditate on the teachings of Scripture. And as they did that, they grew in wisdom and understanding. Their habits and practices encourage us to do the same today.
The reading from James speaks of two types of wisdom: one comes from above and one is from the world. Heavenly wisdom is counter-intuitive, sacrificial, and rooted in humility. ‘Worldly’ wisdom harbours bitter envy, is disordered, and rooted in selfish ambition.
How do we operate in everyday life? What is the source of our daily wisdom? How does that affect our decision-making process? Is it rooted in self-interest? Does ambition dictate our decisions more often than humility? Some challenging questions for us to ponder.
James describes heavenly wisdom like this: it is “pure, peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere”. It produces “peacemakers who sow in peace [and] reap a harvest of righteousness”(v 17–18).
Lent is an opportunity to lean deeper into biblical wisdom so that we might live lives that honour God and bless others.
Conclusion
As I said at the beginning, we live in an age when social media influencers promise “the good life”: with slick, highly edited videos of their homes and families, offering us everything we ought to want, in exchange for numerous purchases or subscriptions. Advertising in general does the same thing.
As Christians, we know that “the good life” is actually found along a narrow path: a counter-intuitive, counter-cultural route to flourishing, which comes only through following Jesus. In 1 Corinthians 1:24, Paul calls Christ “the wisdom of God”. If we build our lives on his words, and on heavenly wisdom, we will have a sturdy and secure foundation for our lives. If, however, we follow the wisdom of the world, we will find that our lives are simply precarious sandcastles: beautiful and impressive, but perilous when the storms of life inevitably reach our door.
The wilderness is not only an escape from the world to seek God; it teaches us how to live well in the world. Desert places are places of encounter with God. As we spend time reading and thinking about God's word, we discover the wisdom and revelation of God: “more precious than rubies” (Proverbs 8:11). This wisdom then leads us out of the desert, to return to the world, armed with revelation to bring transformation around us.
We can’t live a life of wisdom and revelation without God. He is our source, our strength, and our guide. And so I want to encourage us all to find our own “desert places” where we can spend time in worship and reading of Scripture so that we might grow in godly wisdom.
Lets close with a prayer written by Patrick of Ireland, whose feast day is celebrated this Tuesday:
I arise today through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity, through belief in the threeness, through confession of the oneness of the Creator of Creation.
I arise today through God’s strength to pilot me:
God’s might to uphold me, God’s wisdom to guide me, God’s eye to look before me, God’s ear to hear me, God’s word to speak for me, God’s hand to guard me.
Christ to shield me today…
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me, Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
Amen.