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Good morning.

Good morning. Welcome to Wilmington Community Evangelical Church. Always a joy to see you. I think some people are back for the summer and some of us are departing for the summer. I know some people are going on mission trips. Actually, some people are going on multiple mission trips, so that's great news. I know today we have a send-off blessing for them, so, uh, that's wonderful. And also some people are taking family vacations. Some people are visiting families and friends in China. So whatever the plans are, I just pray that we have a safe, fun, and meaningful summer. Today we get to learn the wild wisdom of God. Normally when we talk about wisdom, we think of the book of Proverbs, but today Pastor Paul is actually speaking from the book of Job. I oftentimes associate Job with the subject of suffering, so I had not previously connected it to wisdom yet. So very interested to hear what Pastor Paul have to say. But speaking of wisdom, I do want to share two verses that I memorized.

One—

hold on— one, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And the second one is, do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and shun evil. Let's pray. Dear God, we just thank you for your wisdom and your love for us. You have instructed us to trust in your— trust in you wholeheartedly and lean not on our own understanding, because your ways are better and your words are true. Lord, please help us to submit to you in all our ways So we may walk safely on the path leading to eternal life. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Please join me in standing as we worship God. And I do want to remind you that today is Communion Sunday. So as we sing these songs, just reflect on what Christ has done for us. You are my strength when I am weak. You are the treasure that I seek. You are my all in all. Seeking you as a precious jewel, Lord, to give up, I'd be a fool. You are my all in all. Jesus, Lamb of God, worthy is your name. Jesus, Lamb of God, worthy is your name. Taking my sin, my cross, my shame, rising again, I bless your name. You are my all in all. When I fall down, you pick me up. When I am Dry you fill my cup, you are my all in all. Jesus, Lamb of God, worthy is your name. Jesus, Lamb of God, worthy is your name. Jesus, Lamb of God, worthy is your name. Jesus, Lamb of God, worthy is your name. You are beautiful beyond description, too marvelous for words. Too wonderful for comprehension, like nothing ever seen or heard. Who can grasp your infinite wisdom? Who can fathom the the depth of your love. You are beautiful beyond description. Majesty enthroned above. And I stand, I stand in awe of you. I stand, I stand in awe of you, Holy God, to whom all praise is due. I stand in awe of you. You are beautiful beyond description, yet God crushed you for my sin in agony and deep affliction. Kāvathā, that I might enter Who can grasp such tender compassion? Who can fathom this mercy so free? You are beautiful beyond description. Lamb of God, who You died for me, and I stand, I stand in awe of you. I stand, I stand in awe of you, Holy God, to whom all praises I stand in awe of you. And I stand, I stand in awe of you. I stand, I stand in awe of you. Holy God, to whom all praise Jesus is too. I stand in awe of you. What is the truth? Truth that ever anchors me amidst the waves of all my guilt, that Christ has shed his blood and pardoned me at the cross, at the cross. He bore my sin, I bear his righteousness. Oh, what a glory, exchange! The wrath of God laid on the spotless Lamb. Oh, what grace! Oh, what grace! Grace. Behold the cross, there is no greater love. Heaven's Son laid down his life for us. Oh, my soul will be lost with no hope to find, but for The cross of Christ. How do I walk? With humble confidence, I look to Christ who is my peace. He's still my hope.— and my inheritance at the cross, at the cross. When I am weak and stumble into sin, there is an ever-flowing stream, his cleansing His blood revives my soul again. Oh, what grace! Oh, what grace! Behold the cross, there is no greater love. Heaven's Son laying down his life for us. Oh, my soul would be lost with no hope to find but for the cross of Christ. One day I'll stand before the King of Kings. One day I'll see his face. To face. For Jesus rose, death lost its bitter sting. Christ has won, Christ has won. Behold the cross, there is the greater love. Heaven's Son lay down his life for us. Oh, my soul would be lost with no hope to find but for the cross of Christ. Behold the cross, there is no greater love. Heaven's Son, laid down his life for us. Oh, my soul would be lost with no hope to find but for the cross of Christ. Oh, my soul would be lost with no hope to find But for the cross of Christ, but for the cross of Christ. Let's pray. Lord, we just thank you for this cross, the cross where Jesus went to die for our sins. And not only did he die, but he suffered on that cross and paid the ultimate penalty by shedding his blood to cover us from our sins. And that's why we offer our thanks to you, for it is by this grace— we did nothing but what Christ has— only what Christ has done for us that we have this eternal salvation. And again, we give you thanks and praise to you. In Jesus' name, pray. Amen. Before you sit down, please take a moment to just welcome each other and greet each other.

All right, uh, good morning everyone. Today's scripture reading is from Job chapters 28, verses 12 to 28.

Oh, all right.

Do people who know where to find wisdom, where can they find understanding? No one knows where to find it, for it is not found among the living. It is not here, 'Nor is it here,' says the sea. 'It cannot be bought with gold. It cannot be purchased with silver. Wisdom is more valuable than gold and crystal. It cannot be purchased with jewels mounted in fine gold. It is hidden from the eyes of all humanity. Even the sharp-eyed birds in the sky cannot discover it.' Destruction and Death say, 'We've heard only rumors of where wisdom is.' can be found. God alone understands the way to wisdom. He knows where it can be found, for he looks throughout the whole earth and sees everything under the heavens. He decided how hard the winds should blow and how much rain should fall. He made the laws for the rain and laid out a path for the lightning. Then he saw wisdom and evaluated it. He set it in place and examined it thoroughly. And this is what he said to all humanity: The fear of the Lord is true wisdom. To forsake evil is real understanding.

Thank you, Kevin, for reading, and thank you, Tony. That was some great song selection, and I really enjoyed some of those old songs, songs from the '80s. Do I need to put this down? Some great songs from the '80s that I remember fondly. Thank you for that. And I really appreciate what everyone does to make this service. There's a lot of people up early preparing the elements, and thank you everybody for doing your part. The wild wisdom of God— whoever could search it out, as we just read from the Scripture. What's wild about wisdom is that it's unpredictable, sometimes unexpected, and even can be dangerous, as we will see in a few minutes. But what we're going to do today is not really just about Job. We're going to be in Job the next 2 weeks, but we're actually introducing this whole series for the summer called Wisdom Lit, or Lit Wisdom. Wisdom literature, which includes the book of Proverbs, book of Ecclesiastes, and the book of Job. And we'll probably do one week from Song of Solomon, which is sometimes also considered about wisdom. Now I know what some of you are thinking, wisdom, that's for the PhDs, right? Or maybe that's for the smart people. But the number one point I want us to know about wisdom, if you remember nothing else— so this is getting to you before before you nod off is that wisdom is for all of us. It's for everybody. We all need it. We all use it every day. It's not really information. It's not education. It's what we do. It's not our intelligence or what we think about things, but how we act on them. So, wisdom is for all of us. And the biggest thing you need to know about God's wisdom is He's willing to share it with us. And he just says in the book of James, "If any of you lacks wisdom, just ask God. It will be given to you." Now, James, as you may know, was the brother of Jesus. James had the opportunity to observe Jesus growing up for his whole life. So he must have seen this happen over and over and over, that some issue came up and Jesus would like pause for a minute, and then he'd have like the exact right idea what he should do next. Now, we could read proverbs about wisdom, but the way that the Bible communicates God's wisdom is through stories. We could memorize proverbs, but we might not be able to apply them. But the stories are very subtle and very powerful, really. And so today I just want to share a few stories from the Bible about wisdom that will illustrate the key takeaways for today and get us set up for this summer of messages from wisdom literature. And the first one is from the life of Solomon. And I think everybody probably knows this story. It's very famous in Christian and non-Christian circles alike. When Solomon was a new king and two women came to him, two mothers came to him one day. One of them had a dead baby in her arms and the other one a living baby in her arms. And it turns out these women were two prostitutes that were living in a brothel together. They had both become pregnant around the same time and gave birth around the same time. And one night, one of the little ones, infants, passed away. And when they woke up in the morning, the mother said, "Hey, wait a minute, I think that's my baby." There was a dispute over whose baby had died. Well, this dispute made it all the way to the king, and before the throne they made their accusations. Now Solomon gave the verdict. Do you remember what he said? Since nobody can agree, we're just going to give half to you and half to the other. And you can imagine if, you know, ABC reporter was there and he'd get on to, we have a terrible— the king has gone nuts. He's going to kill the baby. Solomon is bonkers. They're going to say this of him, wouldn't they? But sure enough, the intended effect was when the one mother said, "Okay, neither of us will have the baby." But the other mother, the one who was the true mother, said, "No, you take it. Give it to her. Don't kill it." And that act, we sometimes think of Solomon being wise, but it was really the prostitute, it was the mother. Who was being wise in that situation. She had just said, "I'm the mother," but then she turned around and she denied her own words and said, "Let her have it just so that it can live." The next story I wanted to share was of these 10 lepers, and I'm trying to illustrate how any of us can have wisdom, even this prostitute in this case, and in this story, a leper. The 10 lepers would hang out together because they were cast out from their normal society, right? So they hung out together, and one day Jesus was walking down the road. They asked for healing. He said, "Go to the priest and you will be healed." And sure enough, they were. And when the 10 of them were healed, what? It's party time, right? So they all rushed off to go have a good time somewhere, except one of them came back. And praising God in a loud voice, threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And here is another great, small act that he did, but one that showed the kind of wisdom that God is teaching us about. And the third one is also another relatively— not a hero by any means. He's committed a capital crime. He's being put to death. He's a criminal. But the two criminals on either side of Jesus when they were crucified, the one of them said to Jesus, "If you're the Messiah, save yourself and save us too." But the one who we're saying was exercising wisdom in this case said, "No, don't you fear God. We deserve what we're getting, but this man has done nothing wrong." And in this small act, he is again, although he must have had a rough life, And yet in this instance, he is doing the right thing. He is showing wisdom. So that just underscores with these three short stories how all of us, anyone, can have, should have, will have, does have their moments to exercise godly wisdom. But there is a catch, and as we saw before and we'll see now, we need to be proactive. We can't just be passive. And expect to gain wisdom. And what does that look like? Well, as we knew from Solomon, many of us know the story when Solomon first became king, and while he was asleep, God appeared to him in a dream and says, "What do you want?" It's kind of like the joke that starts out, the genie, you know, somebody rubs the bottle and the genie comes out and, "You can have anything you want, what is it?" And what did he want? He said, "God, give me a discerning heart to distinguish between right and wrong. And indeed, that is what God gave Solomon and made him what is sometimes thought to be the wisest man that ever lived. So I want to stop right now, and we're gonna do that. We're gonna see if we can follow this example. And I just wanna say, Lord, I wanna stop and say, as Solomon did, to give us understanding hearts, because all the things, the people that we deal with in situations great and small small. They can really go— get messed up quick, but they can also transform. They can turn into, uh, very fruitful things as well. So Father, just ask that you will give us the wisdom we need in every situation, that we can understand what is right and that we can have the courage to do it. So this is one way that we can be proactive But David, in this first Psalm, in the way he writes it, he talks about a man who is like a tree planted by the living water. Where does that man get his strength? His delight is in the Torah, in the words of God, in the Old Testament, of course, that's all they had then. And on his Torah he meditates day and night. The stories that he had learned, they were something that he could turn over in his mind and apply them to whatever situation He was in. And so we both pray for wisdom, but we also meditate on the word that we know. And the way Jesus put it, same idea, that we should ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened. So that's what proactive looks like. So when we get out of the bed, out of bed in the morning, we're in the driver's seat. We don't have to feel passive because because we can be asking for a little bit of help because we need it. Alright, that's the first main point. The second main point I want you to come away with is that the wisdom that we learn from God, in some ways it's very simple, but it doesn't mean that it's easy to apply. And the reason is, as we're going to see in the book of Ecclesiastes, and this is a famous passage that you probably before. Sometimes we need to— you could have both ways are right. So there's two choices you have, and neither one of them is wrong. It's not between right and wrong, it's between right and right. So it's between good and maybe a little better. So you're having to balance things out. So it says, for everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven, a time to tear down and a time to build up, a time to cry and a time and a time to laugh. A time to search and a time to quit searching. A time to keep and a time to throw away. A time to be quiet and a time to speak. So we might be doing the right thing but at the wrong time, and that could also have either very good or very bad consequences. I'd like to share a couple stories, and if you have your good Bible knowledge, you will know some of these and picture, but you don't really— when you get that back up, I'll show you the picture. But the first story, here it is, is from right after Solomon. So here Solomon was this great wise king. He had made Israel very rich. He had charged high taxes, but he built ports, he built cities, he built temples, he built palaces. He did so much good for for the country. But then when he died, his son Rehoboam took over. Now, Rehoboam was a young, you know, fairly young new king, and the first big issue that came up was about taxes. Because the 10— they had 12 provinces altogether, or 12 states, 12 tribes— and the 10 tribes from the north sent their representatives down to say, hey, you need to lower taxes, because Solomon had taxes real high because he built all this stuff. But hey, It's time to lower taxes. And so Rehoboam said, "Give me 3 days to think about it." Now during those days he talked to his advisors. Who do you think he went to see? First he went to see his father's advisors, and they all told him, "Yes, the request is reasonable. You know, after so many years it's time to lower taxes because everything's been built." And then he went to ask his buddies, his other palace brats that would hang around, the other guys that were 19 or, I don't know, 21 years old. He asked them, "What should we do?" And they said, "Are you crazy? We're not gonna lower taxes. You should raise taxes and teach them a lesson." So what do you think he did? Rehoboam followed the advice of his young advisors, and he said, "I'm going to make—" He said, "My father laid on you a heavy yoke. I'm going to make it even heavier." And those 10 provinces, they revolted. And they never— was that whole kingdom was never united again, ever after that. So it was a very disastrous result. There was another situation where you all know the story of David and Goliath, where Goliath is challenging the armies of Israel, and day after day for 30 days he's saying, you send out someone to fight me, and whoever wins between the two of us will be the victor, and the other country will have to be our slave. Now, did you know the tallest person in the kingdom at the time was none other than Saul himself? He stood head and shoulders above everyone else. So since they had— on the Philistine side, that Israel should have sent Saul out there to fight him, but he didn't want to go, nor did anyone else. So they offered a reward. The reward for fighting Goliath was you can marry the princess. And what good is it to marry the princess? You become a prince yourself. You can live in the palace, and who knows, you might be a future king. Well, David heard about that reward, and he saw Goliath, and he said, "I'll take him on." And they called him up before the king, and the king said, "You can't go up." He was afraid. And anyway, they had this conversation, and finally— why is that going click-click-click? Does that mean By pushing what? So after their long conversation, Saul finally says, "Okay, you're the best we've got, so you can go. But here, take my armor with you." So he gave David a helmet, armor, shield, and a sword. Was that smart? According to, you know, the worldly wisdom, you want to give them the most technology, right? You can give them the best outfit, the best equipment you could. So Saul thought he was doing the right thing, but David put it on, he's like, "I can't wear this stuff. I've never even tried it before. It's just going to weigh me down. I don't even know how to use these things." So he put it down on the ground and went off without it. But this is a great metaphor for how we and our own thinking or our advisors or the world will give us an idea of what we should do, but it ain't necessarily So, and so we have to think twice and come up with what we're calling godly wisdom, which may not be the same. Now there is finally, we are going to touch at least a little bit on Job today. And if you know the story, it's a very, very wealthy and well-loved man called Job in the ancient world who had a disaster befall him when these raiders came in and just stole everything he had, they burned it all down, and they killed his whole family. And then to boot, he got skin rashes and boils all over his body. And he was in bad shape. He had just gone from— you've heard rags to riches— he'd gone from riches to rags. And his best friends, he had 3 of his friends came to see him. And for 7 days, they felt so bad for him, they didn't say a word. They just sat there together for 7 days grieving. Then the 3 friends started to give him advice, and it goes on for almost 30 chapters, the 3 of them, one at a time, giving Job advice. It was really not wrong advice. A lot of it came from Proverbs that were in the book of Proverbs or were later written in the book of Proverbs, saying essentially, "You must have done something to deserve it." 'Cause God rewards good people and He punishes bad people. So you got punished, so you must be a bad guy or doing something wrong and you should say you're sorry or repent or something. So they were giving him all of this and he was pushing back and saying, "No, that's not right. No, that's not right." And the point— and then finally, God had his chance. Job kept saying, "I want to talk to God directly. I don't accept your advice." And when he did, God finally appeared to him, it says, in a whirlwind, like a hurricane or a tornado or a whirlwind, whatever that was. It scared Job half to death, I think, because God was finally speaking to him directly. But God didn't directly answer his question, and we'll talk more about this next week. He said— he started out saying, "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?" "Speak up if you know so much." So he basically puts Job in his place with these like 4 chapters of speeches. It's well worth reading starting in Job 38. So he knew well enough, Job did, to not accept the friend's advice, but then he wasn't too pleased, I don't think, with the advice that God finally had when he got it. Now this is when you get advice from other people. So you've had this happen, I'm sure. You're already thinking to yourself that time when you either made a mistake or you did the right thing because you had somebody coaching you. Or maybe you had someone coaching in the wrong direction. But sometimes it's just self-talk. You could be your own advisor. And in that self-talk, there's this one case where Jesus mentions this man. It's a story. It's a made-up story. But he says there was a rich man who did so well he was going to build bigger barns. To store everything that he had earned. And he says, "I will say to my soul, 'Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, eat, drink, and be merry.'" And, you know, was that a wise choice? There's not wrong. It was not wrong. If you went to a financial planner, what would he say? We have a financial planner in the room, right? Would you say he's doing the right thing? He's diversifying his assets, right? He's building more barns and he's got other kinds of savings over there, different asset classes, right? So he's following the script. But something's wrong. He's not rich towards God and he gets criticized. Jesus says that, "God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul is required of you.' And so is the one who lays up treasure for himself." without also being rich toward God. So this is yet another case of how advisors could be on the outside or even within. Now the third and last big point I wanted to make today is how these wise actions, unfortunately, sometimes they carry risk. It's not always the safe option, and it's easy— It's sometimes easy to notice like the hazards or what could go wrong, but we also have to be aware of what could go right and sometimes be willing to take the risk. And so here, of course, there are multiple stories. I had the hardest time narrowing it down, narrowing down to just the 2 or 3 that would be the most impactful. And the first I wanted to share was the story of Abigail, who was married to a rich man called Nabal. Nabal had a lot of fields and animals, and they were in a war with the Philistines. So Nabal's goods were at risk of being poached or stolen from by the Philistines. But David, who was one of— had his army, they were rabble-rousers at the time, they protected Nabal's goods from being stolen in the war. And David expected that Nabal would share some of the harvest at the end of the summer, that he'd share it with the soldiers because they had done him a good— they'd done well by him. But Nabal said, "No, go away." Basically, "I don't know you, David. I didn't want to get involved." So David got mad and he got his men to go over and to extract the resources. If they weren't given freely, they were essentially going to to tax them. But Abigail, the wife, heard about it. And what she heard was that David was going to come and with blood and to kill a bunch of those people and take their stuff. But she trusted that that wasn't God's will and that she threw herself into the situation. If you were the wife, you should run away, right? Take your kids and run in the other direction. But she— what she did was she understood and she knew enough about David to love him and to know that he was the next king of Israel. She gathered together bread and raisins and some of the goods that her husband had not shared and rushed into the way to meet him. And what do you think the chances were that it was going to be successful? There was no guarantee she had that David would even notice her or that that she would find grace in his sight, but she did. And that is a great story well worth reading in more detail, worth a whole sermon at some time. She trusted God in that situation, and it worked out even though it was risky. Now the other one I really love, this is the story of Gideon, which is a long story, but the part that we want to focus on is when Gideon is preparing to fight the Midianites. So this is a war not against Philistines, this is the Midianites against Israel. And the Midianites had the upper hand. They had been dominating or oppressing Israel for a number of years. And Gideon called out— he was bravely organizing the Israelites. He said, "Let's muster an army." But these guys hadn't fought in a whole generation. So the 30,000 people showed up, but they didn't look like much of a fighting force. Their knees were kind of wobbly, knocking back and forth. And Gideon had a little help. He had a prophet there that said, "Gideon, you got too many people. You can't fight with 30,000." So Gideon announced, he said, "If any of you are a little bit scared of this conflict, you get to go home. Just go home." And sure enough, 20,000 all left. So now he's down to 10,000. But then the prophet said, "Nope, that's still too many." So he proposed this test and he lined up 10,000 people to drink from the river. And you know the story, right? Some of those people, when they went down to the river, got on their hands and knees, kind of in the posture of like Baal worshipers, and they lapped up the water. They stuck their face right in the water and lapped it up. And when they were looking down in the water, they drank that way. But some of those guys, a minority, then when they were like looking out, they would reach down for water with their hand and drink it this way. And the prophet said to Gideon, "All of those guys that drink like this, those are your men. They're going to fight for you. And those people who drink like Baal worshipers, you don't want them." But Gideon was, "But then we're only down to 300 people." They dismissed everyone except for those 300. They're going to say 300 against a whole army? How is that even possible? But by this time, Gideon had learned to trust God. And sure enough, they came up with this scheme or method to make 300 people seem like a lot more. And they attacked in the middle of the night. And they surrounded on 3 sides the Midianite camp that was asleep. And each of the 300 had a torch underneath a ceramic bowl, and they had a trumpet. I don't know how they taught them all how to blow the trumpet. So they blew 300 trumpets, smashed their— and when the guys, the Midianites woke up and they saw these torches, they assumed it was 300 columns of 300 individuals. They assumed behind every individual was a whole line of soldiers. So they said, "We are outta here." And they chased the Midianites away and they were able to then dominate the— throw off those oppressors for a whole generation because of that wisdom. They had to do something that was very risky at the time. Now, in my mind is echoing the voice of my daughter-in-law who said, "You know, when you talk about the Bible all the time, it has nothing to do with our life today. Sometimes it's just old stories." And so I wanted to relate the story of Gideon to a modern event that was very personal for me because many of you know I used to be in business before getting into the ministry. And our company was in China and it was doing pretty well for a time.. And we were approached by an investment bank, actually a banker, a guy who said, "I can make you really rich. We're gonna go public. I'm gonna take your company and go public." Do you know what that means? It means going on the stock market. But there's a catch. In order to take your company and sell stock, you first have to quadruple your sales in 3 years. You have to double your sales and you have to double it again. I'm like, "Well, how am I gonna quadruple my sales?" He says, "We're gonna give you a big pot of money, like millions of dollars, like $5 million to go do advertising. Then you're gonna quadruple your sales and then we're gonna go public." That was the basic plan. I said, "Well, give me 3 days to think about it." Why did I ask for 3 days to think about it? I don't know, that just sounded like the biblical thing to do, right? So I'm thinking about it for 3 days and you know the story that came to my mind was was this one about Gideon. And I thought to myself that if he gives us like $5 million to try to grow the company through advertising, it's kind of like those 30,000 soldiers. And maybe it would work and we'd get some sales, but that's like— I didn't want to use that because then we'd be stuck in that partnership. And so I felt like we could just use what we had. It was like the 300 men. What we had was the 300 men. We didn't need any help for that. We could just do our best with what we had and let God do what he could. And that's what we decided to do. So I got back to him and said, "You know what? Thanks, but no, we're not going to try to go public." He said, "Oh, you're making a big mistake." Have you ever had people tell you that? I had a few. "You're making a big mistake." It wasn't a mistake. Now, of course, you can't run your life more than once, so you never know what would could have happened. But I'm very happy that we didn't try to go down the path of IPO or to try to go public. It would have made life very complicated and we're very happy that we didn't. And the other, the last story that I wanted to share is another one of great courage where Mordecai and Esther are talking about what to do because, and this is in ancient Persia during the exile. When there was a threat against all Jews were going to be wiped out by the authorities of the Persian Empire. But they had an ace in the hole, which was that the queen was Esther, who was from Judea. So Mordecai says— the cousin, I guess, technically he was cousin, adopted father— he says, "Esther, you got to go to the king and tell him to help." And she's like, "But—" I can't. I can't go to the king unless he calls me. If I do go uninvited, then it's death. Totally against the law. I can't go. And he said, "Well, how do you know that this isn't the whole reason that you were made queen in the first place? Who do you think you are? God made you queen. He must have a reason, right?" So she's like, "Ugh." So she said, "Okay, well, let me think about it." So how many days do you think she was thinking about it? 3 days. She said, "You pray, get all you guys to pray, and me and my friends here in the castle palace, we're going to pray and fast for 3 days." And she did. And at the end, she said, "I will go to the king even though it's against the law, and if I perish, I perish." And you know, of course, the end of the story. She did it very cleverly. She didn't walk right up into the throne room. She stood out. She first, she put on all the nicest dresses and gowns and crown, whatever she had, and she stood out in the courtyard. And she lined up with the line of sight of the king so he could look outside of the throne room into the courtyard and see her there. So he could discover her instead of her just sort of jumping into his presence. Very clever. And he extended the scepter, accepted her, and the threat At least after that was over, they still had the threat of what to do about the edict that had been sent saying all Jews would be killed on a certain day. And they said, "Well, you just have to—" Mordecai then and Esther to the king, "Just cancel that law and the threat will be over." He said, "You don't know. The Persian laws can never be undone. They can never be canceled. That's the way we do it." So then what are they going to do? They had to think 3 more days or something like that, and they came up with another plan. They couldn't get rid of the plan to kill the Jews on a certain day. So what they did was allow anyone the day before to kill the enemies of the Jews. So on March 15th, kill all Jews. That's the law. So they made a new law on March 14th, kill all enemies of the Jews. So then no one's left to kill the Jews. So that was a kind of a way of working around the system, and it succeeded. So that's the kind of wisdom that God is— a little risky and a little unexpected and a little wild. So that is what I wanted to share today, that God's wisdom is for all of us, even though it's not always easy to apply. We know the pieces. And if we have the stories in our mind, we'll have them at our disposal.. But then when it comes time to actually put them to use, we might be taking risks. So therefore, we need to use the whole 3 days sometimes to think about it, to pray over it, to meditate, and to come up with, I hope, a courageous decision that God can honor. So let's stop there. Father, we are thankful for your word, which has proven itself over and over through millennia and generations to be the source of your Spirit, your words, your wisdom. And we know that's easy— more easily said than done. I just ask for your guidance as we learn day by day, uh, enough information from the Bible, but also that we can observe in practice through others in this room, through others in our families, what it looks like to do the right thing for your namesake. And so, Father, we can be part of what you're doing in this world to bring your peace, your love, and your light, to transform this world into what you meant for it when you created it. Let's pray again for wisdom for all of us and that we'll be inspired to— Inspired to seek, to ask, and to knock. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Uh, please stand. You are beautiful beyond description, too marvelous for words, too wonderful for comprehension, like nothing ever seen or heard. Who can grasp your infinite wisdom? Who can fathom the depth of your love? You are beautiful beyond description. Majesty enthroned above. And I stand, I stand in awe of you. I stand, I stand in awe of you, Holy God, to whom all praise graces do. I stand in awe of you. You are beautiful beyond description, yet God crushed you for my sin. In that good In the end deep affliction, Karl Lothar by entering. Who can grasp such tender compassion? Who can fathom this mercy so free? You are beautiful beyond description. Lamb of God who died for me, and I stand, I stand in awe of you. I stand, I stand in awe of you. You, Holy God, to whom all praises do. I stand in awe of you, and I stand, I stand in awe of you. I stand, I stand I stand in awe of you, Holy God, to whom all praise is due. I stand in awe of you. You can be seated.

Well, good morning again.

I said earlier that Solomon was thought to have been the wisest man whoever lived, but actually there was one other. Jesus was even greater than Solomon, and he lived such a short— had such a short ministry, so we only have a glimpse of all the things that he said and did. And yet one thing he did was to institute this meal, this Lord's Supper, this communion that we're about to celebrate. And, you know, if you been in the church before, it doesn't seem like much, does it? A very simple, you know, it's not much. But if you knew what was behind it, and if you ever went to like the temple in ancient Israel and observed all the sacrifices and all the rituals and all the prayers and all the incense and see how basically Jesus concentrated all of that complicated stuff into this. What we have now. We've saved so much trouble and time and expense by doing it this way. I have wondered though, where did He get the idea of bread and wine? Does anybody have an idea where? You could say, "Well, Jesus, He could just make it up, right? Because He's the Son of God." But actually, He might have made it up, but He also could read the Bible, right? He knew the scriptures very, very well. And in the scriptures is the story of this guy called Melchizedek. Melchizedek was the king of Salem, which is later called Jerusalem, at the time when Abram, before he was Abraham, before he was Abraham, Abram was under attack. These guys from the north, I think 4 or 5 kingdoms, 4 kingdoms from the north had attacked the land of Canaan, a bunch of kingdoms, including where Abram lived, and they had taken a bunch of people hostage, including Abram's nephew Lot. Well, Abram jumped into action with his 300 men, and off they went to recapture— they went up north, they recaptured all the loot and brought Lot and all of the other people back. And on the way back home, they passed by what is now Jerusalem.. And Melchizedek, who was king of Salem, but he was also a priest of God at that time— this is a before-Israel priest— he came out and he blessed Abram. He said, "Here is wine and bread." Now, the actual scripture is very short, so we don't have much detail, but he did say, "Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth." 'And blessed be God Most High who has defeated your enemies for you.' He gave God the credit for the victory that they had won. And then Abram gave a tenth of all the goods he had recovered to Melchizedek. Now Hebrews, the book of Hebrews in the New Testament, says that this Melchizedek was— that Jesus was also a priest of the type that Melchizedek was. He was after the order of Melchizedek, and therefore He also served this blessing of bread and wine. And I can only imagine that Jesus had this thought, that He knew about the Lord's— He knew about the Last Supper before it happened, and that He was anticipating. I just imagine that Jesus was looking forward to this night when He could institute this ritual and tell them, "This is the New Covenant." that this covenant that God had made with Abram, that he would bless the whole world through him— this was Melchizedek basically blessing Abram with that covenant. But this is a new covenant in Jesus' blood, and it also says that God has defeated our enemies for us. This is the salvation that we enjoy now. Let me have the ushers come forward, please. And musician. Paul has written, let a person examine himself and then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. So let's do that now. Lord, hear our prayer. We've talked about wisdom, but We've been unwise. We've sometimes played the fool and done things we shouldn't have done or neglected to do things that we knew very well that our heart was telling us that we should do. And because of those twin— because of both of those, we've done damage. We've fallen short. Lord, you've prepared this feast with all of the meaning that we've been ascribing to it. And we ask that you look on this bread and remember your Son whose blameless body was broken for us. And look on this cup and remember the innocent blood of your Son that was Jesus spilled a ransom for us. And as Melchizedek blessed Abram, as Jesus blessed his disciples, we thank you for blessing us this day. We accept your forgiveness, and like that leper, we want to say thank you. Thank you in the name of Jesus Christ, the Messiah. At the Last Supper, Jesus told his disciples, "Do this in remembrance of me." And Paul says, "For as often as you do this, eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim his death until he comes." This is the body of Jesus broken for you. Eat it now. Now, in memory of him. And this is the cup, which is the blood of Jesus poured out for us. Drink it now, in memory of him. Thank you, though, Lord, that we can share this moment together, that we receive true food, bread, and strength. Help us to be courageous this month in your service. In Jesus' name, again I pray. Amen. Is there the—

oh, sorry, sorry. Uh, this Sunday is our mission send-off Sunday, and so I want to invite all of the youth and adults going on mission trips to come up. Come on up. So we have 3 different trips. So one is Advent Taiwan. So Advent is a 3-week-long a student-led short-term mission program that combines discipleship training and cross-cultural outreach, majorly in Taiwan. And so this year, the team will first receive training and then serve in local middle and elementary schools, partnering with local ministries through evangelism, youth programs, teaching, and relationship building. And the goal is to help young people grow as disciples while sharing Christ's love across cultures. And our other trip, uh, going to Kenya. So the Kenya mission team will partner with local churches and ministries to serve communities through evangelism, children's and youth programs, discipleship, and practical outreach. So the team seeks to encourage local believers, build relationships, and demonstrate the love of Christ while learning from the faith and testimony of the Kenyan church. And then lastly, we have our work camp team. And work camp is, uh, they're going to Altoona, Pennsylvania. Is that right, Don? Altoona, Pennsylvania, where youth and adults, they serve communities through hands-on projects such as home repairs, maintenance, and community improvement efforts. Through practical service, participants demonstrate Christ's love in tangible ways while growing in teamwork, humility, and servant leadership. So if you would, I'm going to pray now as we send them off. Lord, we pray for our youth and the parents as well. There are many more parents that are going on the trip, on these trips. And Lord, we pray that you would prepare the hearts of our students and our adults as they get ready to, to go out to Taiwan and Kenya and to Pennsylvania. To the ends of the earth, as you'd say. We pray that your Spirit would speak to them and that while they're on mission, that you would grow them and mature them and fill them with your love. And I pray that you would help them to reap a great harvest while they're on the mission field and that they would be able to communicate well and find people whom you've already been speaking to and preparing.. And we ask that you would keep them safe in their travels and keep them healthy, and that it would just be an excellent, excellent mission trip. We love you and we pray these things in your name. Amen.

One other announcement related to this: we will also be having another send-off down in the Manbird congregation where we have all the adults and all the youth up there on the stage to receive the blessing. For the pastoral staff and from the church. So that's around 12 noon, so you're invited to come down to that also. All right, thank you.

I'm going to transition from that into a time of corporate prayer, so if you would please pray with me. Lord, we're so thankful for everything that you're doing here in this church, and we're thankful that we get to celebrate sending out missionaries. Lord, what a, what a great thing to, to have an experience. And Lord, we pray for unity within this church and the many projects that you have going on. Pray for our building project and the different teams that are working on it, the different committees and subcommittees. We're thankful for the time of those who who have given up so much of their, their evenings, their hours to plan and work with one another. And we pray for your, your great wisdom and all of the, the plans that we have. And we pray that your spirit would help us and be with us, because if you're not with us, this will all be futile. And so we, we pray that you would strengthen us through this process. We pray for our state And ask that you would grant our, our government leaders wisdom and guidance as they care for the people of this state, and for our national leaders as well as they decide policy and are dealing with so many foreign issues right now. We pray that you would grant peace to the places where there's conflict, and again, that you would grant wisdom And strengthen and guide our leaders. And we pray for our communities here in Hokkaido and the greater area and ask that this church, that we would be a light to that area and that we would be able to witness to many people and see your fruit grow inside of them and in this community, that more people would love you and display your righteousness. Pray these things in your name.

Amen. Okay, is there anyone first-time visitor to our church? We have a little gift for you. Okay. All right, so the announcement: every Wednesday we have a prayer circle. It's at the church. Well, it's via Zoom, I'm sorry. So the email address, you can, if you want to go to the church or ask Pastor Paul, and you can get an email address and get on the prayer. So June 27th, 4 PM, is the Sword and Light meeting. I will be here, right, at church. And then the VBS annual event, July 20th to 24th, during the day. So if you— well, I guess if you have young children, welcome to join. Any other announcements from— no? Okay. So let's stand up for the Epistology.

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Amen.

May the God of all peace and comfort be a friend to you in your time of struggle, and may you listen closely to his words that you would find life and joy and refreshment in them. Please go forward. God bless you all. Amen.