It happens to everyone’s parents. Soon or later, they start to lose it
intellectually. One day we awoke only to
find them, well, dumb! Don’t misunderstand,
I am not talking about dementia or Alzheimer’s at all. The funny thing is that it’s not related to their
age at all, but ours.
Can you remember when you started thinking that your
parent(s) were just a little behind the times -- that you clearly knew more and
understood more than they did? Somewhere
between the age of 12 and 18 we discovered the secret - that in this short
amount of time, our brains had developed far beyond that of the parents who
birthed us. This secret “phantom knowledge”
is almost miraculous. We didn’t have to
go to school for it, and we have no degree as proof of our accomplishment. But, somewhere, somehow it became abundantly
clear that we were smarted and knew more about how to live life than they did.
Time has a way of turning life on its head. It’s funny that as some of us are getting older, we see our own IQ diminishing while that of our parents has increased – even
though they may have already died. Could it be that we may not have been as smart as we once thought? And
it all has to do with one particular aspect of sin called pride, because the
sin associated with pride is what produces phantom wisdom!
Five weeks ago we began our current series “If God is so
good why we feel so bad.” And we began with
some FAQ’s like: Why are we like we are?
Why do we do the very things that seem to hurt ourselves, our
relationship with our neighbors and our relationship with God? And I said then, if we are willing to dig
into that question, all the questions about God make more sense. In doing so we discovered we are not the way
we are supposed to be. This Sunday, we
will see how the sin of pride has produced in us phantom wisdom which renders us
unteachable, dumbing us down and trapping us in continual error and folly.
Here's the problem. Pride is an aspect of sin which invites us
to supplant God’s wisdom for our own. Like
the prodigal son in Jesus’ parable, we are more than happy to oblige because we
are pretty sure we know what’s best for us, and we would very much like to make
those important choices ourselves.
Unfortunately,
this gives us the illusion of knowledge or “phantom wisdom” which we employ in
all our life decisions. Milton, in
Paradise Lost, wrote that “A proud person tires to reinvent reality. He tries to redraw the borders of human
behavior to suit himself, displacing God as the Lord and boundary keeper of
Life.” In John 8:34 Jesus
says, “Everyone who sins is a slave to
sin” so now through sin - we have become a slave to phantom wisdom - bound by
its mastery over our thinking which then directs our life. Worst of all, by believing our own phantom
wisdom, we find we are know-it-alls which render us unteachable even to
God.
Phantom wisdom actually dumbs us down, and when we
find we have messed up, we keep on pushing forward. But, we would build on folly would we?
We have all heard of the Hubble telescope
that was launched in 1990. It is known for producing the best imagery of the universe ever known, but not at first. Huston had a small problem at the beginning of Hubble's creation. They worked 12
hours a day for five years to grind the reflective mirrors, key to the
clarity of the device.
They ground the mirrors
to perfection within one millionth of an inch. But in the
process, a minute micro chip of paint flecked off a measure rod. That error, which was 25 times smaller the width
of the human hair, rendered the Hubble telescope a useless failure. They had to start over and make repairs. Pride keeps us from the very repair we need. It may seem minute to us, but from God's view we are way out of focus.
We can’t improve on wrong! We can’t improve our way out of sin, but there is reason for great
hope. This Sunday, we will hear this way of hope as we conclude our series. You may gather
with us or hear the message from our web site www.mwpcusa.org.
Enjoyed the sermon.
ReplyDelete