Sermon: The Vanity of Visible Glory

Sunday, September 1, 2013
The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Series C
Proverbs 25:2-10

The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost                           Proverbs 25:2-10

ILT Chapel                                                                                Psalm 131

Brookings, SD                                                                Hebrews 13:1-17

August 28, 2013                                                                   Luke 14:1-14

“The Vanity of Visible Glory”

Greetings to you on this day that the Lord has made–a day for us to rejoice and be glad.  Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

“It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.” (Pro. 25:2)  Solomon, who himself was the wisest of kings, delivers this teaching to you with all the weight of the Word of God.  Solomon, who himself was the wisest of kings, bankrupted the nation placed in his care in order to build a temple to the glory of God.  Solomon, who himself was the wisest of kings, dissipated his life among nine hundred or more wives, concubines, and mistresses.  Solomon, who himself was the wisest of kings, displays to you the limits of human wisdom and the limits of human rulers.

Solomon was the third and final king of the twelve tribes of Israel.  His successors could not hold the nation together; it divided into two kingdoms, North and South, Israel and Judah.  Solomon ruled as the Son of David… David, who himself came to be declared the greatest king the people ever had.  What does this tell you about the people who had the Lord their God rule over them as king during the four hundred years of the time of the judges?  They had grown weary of their Lord God’s kingship concealed within His Word and demanded a visible earthly king.

Samuel, the last of the judges, who himself had desired for his sons to succeed him, Samuel heard himself being rejected by the people when their elders demanded:  “Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations” (1 Sam. 8:5).  Samuel took this demand of the people to the Lord who said to him:  “they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them” (1 Sam. 8:7) The Lord then instructed Samuel to reveal to the people the realities of a king’s rule.  So Samuel told the people what their king would do to them:  He said:  Your king will conscript your sons; your king will choose his own leaders and all those who will benefit from the wealth of the king; your king will seize your daughters and your best fields; your king will tax the produce of your fields and flocks for the benefit of his favorites; your king will seize the best of your servants, your cattle and your donkeys; your king will make you his servants.  Samuel told the people that the king they wanted would make them cry out from their oppression but the Lord would not answer their cries.  What do you suppose the people did after hearing this litany of offences the king would commit against them?  The people again demanded, “Give us a king!”  “Give us a king like the other nations… a king to judge Most cocaine addicted patients are able to begin the ten day treatment program the day after admission without antioxidants services. us, lead us, and fight for us!”  Go to 1 Samuel, chapter eight; hear for yourself this sordid rejection of the concealed glory of God’s kingship and the people’s choice of the visible glory of an earthly king.

Solomon, who himself was the wisest of kings… Solomon, who himself had committed every oppression which Samuel had warned the people a king would impose upon them, Solomon, who himself was the wisest of kings, would—in his wisdom and old age—come to declare that it was all vanity… all things under the sun, included his own rule as king… all things under the sun are vanity (cf. Ecc. 1ff).

Solomon in his wisdom delivers this teaching to Profitez des PANDA machine a sous gratuite de code. you with all the weight of the Word of God:  visible glory is all-consuming.  From the mightiest of kings to the lowest of paupers, the pursuit of visible glory will consume all the wealth and all the relationships available to them.  Every aspect of their lives will be spent to achieve it… every aspect of their lives will be distorted by the coveting of it.  No wonder Solomon in all his wisdom would judge the entire pursuit as vanity.

The people of Israel grew weary of living by faith alone… weary of having a God whose glory was to conceal things… weary of the humility of not being like other nations.  The people of Israel in their weariness coveted the visible rule… the visible righteousness… the visible glory of other nations… the people coveted the visible justice, leadership, and victories the other nations received at the hands of their earthly kings.

Is it any different with you today?  Have not you, like those ancient Israelites, grown weary of living by faith alone?  Do you not covet a visible glory… a visible righteousness… a visible rule in your life?  Doesn’t the coveting of a visible justice, casino online leadership, and victory determine your choices both personal and political?  Do you not find that the pursuit of… the achievement of… visible glory consuming your wealth and your relationships?  You, who are sinners—covetous sinners–just like those ancient Israelites… you fare no better than they.

How then did they fare?  Well, their coveting after the visible glory of earthly kings… the visible glory of justice, leadership, and victory led them to a profound humiliation.  The God whom they rejected as king… the God in whom they wearied of living by faith… their God delivered them into hands of their enemies.  A hundred years after Solomon, the Northern Kingdom Israel was delivered into the hands of the Lord’s agent of humiliation, the Assyrians.  A hundred or so years later, the Southern Kingdom Judah was delivered into the hands of the Lord’s agent of their humiliation, the Babylonians.

If you, then, fare no better, into whose hands are you delivered?  Who will be the agent of your humiliation?  Who will be the one to reveal to you the vanity of your pursuit of glory?  That one will be Jesus Christ, the crucified.  Jesus Christ who forsook equality with God… Jesus Christ, who came in humility and poverty… Jesus Christ who refused every attempt to thrust glory upon him… who refused every temptation to seize upon a visible glory… Jesus Christ who himself grew weary in his living by faith nonetheless endured yet still he died… crucified by a world… by sinners… by the likes of yourself… crucified by the ones wearied of living by faith and coveting a visible glory… the glory of an earthly king.

Jesus Christ and him crucified is the agent of your humiliation.  You come coveting a visible glory… a visible righteousness… a visible rule in your life.  You come desiring to establish visible justice in the world… a righteous leadership… the victory of all that’s good, right, and honorable.  You come coveting and what do you receive?  You receive the humiliation of a simple pronouncement from the lips of your preacher:  “Your sins are forgiven!”  You receive the humiliation skimpy bath, merely a splash of water with a name attached to it.  You receive the humiliation of a banquet no greater than a morsel of bread and a sip of wine which is nonetheless the very body and blood of the king of all creation who died at the hands of sinners like you.

You come coveting the glory of a transformed heart to lead a transformed life in order to transform the world.  You come coveting such glory and what do you get?  Faith… faith is what you get as the agent of your humiliation is handed over to you at the pulpit, the font, and the altar.  Faith is what you get in spite of all evidence to the contrary:  a heart still beset with evil inclinations, a flesh resistant to change for the better and susceptible to temptation, a world unamenable to Jesus Christ as its agent of humiliation.

Week after week you grow weary of living by faith alone.  Week after week you succumb to the temptation of coveting a visible glory.  Week after week you come before the pulpit, the font, and the altar seeking glory yet receiving humility.  Week after week, you are renewed in faith, to live by faith, for faith alone waits for the glory… waits for the exaltation… waits for the revelation of the glory of its agent of humiliation… then, and only then, will the weariness of living by faith end for faith itself will become sight as your eyes behold the glory of the Lord!

Thanks be to God! Amen