Lifestyles Of The Rich And Righteous.

Instead of using a traditional Mother’s Day text, such as Proverbs 31:10-31, Pastor Richie instead focused on a rarely-read Scripture passage: Proverbs 31:1-9.

In that passage, King Lemuel is given advice by his mother. At the heart of her counsel is a caveat that our pastor summarized (paraphrased here): either we can focus on exercising our rights, or we can focus on doing what is right.

In King Lemuel’s time, it was the right of kings to amass wealth and women, to live in excess, and to oppress their subjects. But the mother of King Lemuel had a different ethic, and she passed it on to her son. Although sexual promiscuity and alcohol consumption were present in many king’s palaces, Lemuel’s mother warned him that such behaviors would actually serve to ruin his rule. Specifically, such behaviors would lead the king into a lifestyle of oppression and subjection of the disenfranchised.

Those of us who are authentically Nazarene (not just attending a Nazarene church, but in fact subscribing to its tenets) can say, Well, I don’t drink alcohol, and I’m not a king, so this really doesn’t apply to me. But what other rights are we holding to that, though legally sound, are not ethical? Are we harboring anger and resentment towards others? Are we reluctant to give of ourselves and our substance to the work of the Lord? Have we, especially in these times, chosen to hoard our resources instead of helping those who are in worse situations than we?

What behaviors are we clinging to which, though within our rights, might serve to ruin our testimony?

Lord, help us to relinquish our "rights", so that we might do what is truly right and good.