In the sermon 'Agur's Life Prayer', Peter Allison delves into Proverbs 30:7-9, focusing on Agur's prayer for wisdom and balance in life. Agur's requests to God are twofold: to be kept free from falsehood and to be given neither poverty nor riches. The sermon highlights that the true essence of prayer reflects one's spiritual health and desires. Allison emphasizes living with 'death in view', which means living deliberately and wisely, acknowledging life's brevity. He also warns against the futility of worldly thinking, urging believers to seek righteousness, peace, and joy in God rather than material wealth. The temptations and potential pitfalls of prosperity are discussed, illustrating how riches can lead to spiritual complacency. Ultimately, the sermon underscores the importance of contentment and aligning one's life with God's will, trusting in His provision and seeking to live a life focused on eternal rewards rather than temporal gains.

Proverbs chapter 30. Our text this morning is verses 7 through 9. This prayer of a Guru. Hear God's word. Two things I request of you.

Deprive me not before I die. Remove falsehood and lies far from me. Give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with the food allotted me, lest I be full and deny you and say, Who is the Lord? Or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God?" May Jehovah's merciful kindness comfort us according to His word to His servants.

Heavenly Father, may this word that we have heard be mixed with faith in us. May you apply it to our lives. May you speak to us. And I pray that you would sanctify my sinful lips that they might proclaim the holy mysteries of your gospel. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Some people like to have a verse in the Bible that they call their life verse. Because maybe they have found that verse, that passage to be especially helpful or especially meaningful in some way for their life. Well, in this passage, a guru gives us his life prayer. The overarching direction for his life. How he approached his work.

The things that He wanted to accomplish in His life, what He wanted for the purpose and direction of His life. You know, one's prayer says a lot more about them in many ways than a life verse. Because you see, what we ask for flows out of our heart, what's in us. It reveals a lot about us, about what we want, about our thinking, about our desires, about our goals, and the direction that we want to go. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good and an evil man out of the evil treasure of His heart brings forth evil, for out of the heart, out of the abundance of the heart, His mouth speaks." You see, it is out of our heart that our prayers come forward.

What do we pray for? What do we ask for? In many ways, our prayer life is one of the best indicators of our spiritual health. Do we pray at all? Do we pray without ceasing?

But when we do pray, what are we praying for? Is our prayer focused simply on the needs, the problems in our life that we're facing at the moment, the temporal problems, the needs that we have. It's good to pray about those things. Jesus does teach us to pray for our daily bread. He does teach us to pray in times of trouble and difficulty for deliverance.

But that shouldn't be all we pray about. And we might say it shouldn't even be the primary focus of our prayer. What about that relationship with the Lord? What about our sanctification? Remember, the Kingdom of Heaven is not eating and drinking, Even though it's right to pray for those things, they are necessary for life.

But that's not what the Kingdom of Heaven, Paul said, is about. It's about righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. And so our prayers ought to reflect what the Kingdom of Heaven is about. Righteousness and peace and joy. And so the first thing we see then in a Guru's prayer here, this short prayer where he asks these two things, before we even get to his requests, I want you to notice something.

He lives his life with death in view. A Guru is living his life with death in view. Two things I request of you, deprive me not before I die. That's not to say He was morbid, always thinking about his death and walking around in morbid introspection about his upcoming death. No, no, not that at all.

That's not what living our lives with our death in view means. To live our lives with our death in view is to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom. We have only so many days here on earth before we die. Each day is valuable. It's a gift that once lived.

It can never be lived again. You can't ever get it back. It's gone. The fool then says, well, live it up. Eat and drink and be merry.

We're going to die tomorrow. And then what's it matter? But see, a wise person recognizes that each day is an opportunity to apply our heart to wisdom, to build treasure in heaven. Each day is an opportunity to add to our eternal reward. Jesus said in Matthew 16, the Son of Man will come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then he will reward each according to his works.

Each according to his works. Reward is according to works. And in Revelation, John writing in the Spirit said, "'Behold, I am coming quickly. "'My reward is with me to give to everyone according to his work Now of course Our works are not meritorious and our works are done only by the power of Christ working in us. But nevertheless, God is pleased to reward us according to our works.

And so one day we will die. And the day of grace will be past, and the works by which we will be rewarded will be set, never to be changed. What kind of works will they be? Will they be the reward of a life spent in pleasure and the pursuit of riches? Or will our reward be a life spent in pursuit of Christ and holiness and treasure, putting treasure in heaven.

You see, to live our lives with our death in view is to number our days, to live each day deliberately. To live it with a single purpose. To make our choices about how we will spend our time that day, in that moment, in that hour, to make those choices in light of that purpose that we have for our life. Paul put it this way in his first letter to the Corinthians. If anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, and straw, each one's work will become clear.

For the day will declare it because it will be revealed by fire, for fire will test each one's work of what sort it is. If anyone's work which he has built on endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet as though through fire. Walk in wisdom, Paul told the Colossians, toward those who are outside redeeming the time. And so this is the first thing that we see in a Guru's prayer is that he is praying this prayer with the end of his life in view, with his death in view.

And that's appropriate no matter what age you are. Whether you're just starting out your life, You're in the first decade of your life, and your death seems like a long, long way away. Well, we're going to see that we don't necessarily know that it is a long, long way away. But maybe it is. That simply means that you have greater opportunity to live a deliberate life in building treasure in heaven.

You see, to live life with our death in view is to recognize that our life is short. Like a vapor, here today and gone tomorrow, the Bible says. And therefore, There is an urgency in our work. You know, deprive me not before I die. There is an urgency in this request.

Time is not unlimited. And yes, we all need to rest. We all need sleep to rejuvenate our body and to restore and refresh our spirits. And rest is good. But to live our life with our death in view is to recognize that time is valuable because we don't, this time right now, today is valuable because we don't know what will happen tomorrow.

And so we live each day of our life as if it was our last day. Now if that means that you would change what you would do, then maybe you don't understand how to live your life as if Christ is returning tonight, or maybe you do need to change what you're doing. You see, If we are living our lives, if we are doing what we ought to be doing, then the knowledge that Christ is returning tonight shouldn't change what we do today, one iota. Shouldn't change what we do in this hour, in this moment, one iota. Because that's what we should always be doing.

James said to those who say, come now, today or tomorrow, we're going to go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, make a profit. And he says, you don't know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, then we will do this or that.

Recognizing God is sovereign over our lives, over the days of our lives. See, when we are truly living as we ought to live, then we are living every day as if Christ is returning that day. As if that day is our last and that will be the day that we meet Him. Living as if Christ is returning today doesn't mean that we would stop what we're doing and put on a white robe and stand on a hill or spend all day just reading our Bible and praying. That's not how one lives in light of Christ's return.

We are to be busy. We are to occupy until He comes. It means that we are busy about our work, whatever that work is that God has called us to do, and that we are doing it not to please men, but to please the Lord, as unto him. We used to live in Kentucky in the heart of what they call horse country is between Churchill Downs in Louisville where they run the Kentucky Derby and Keeneland in Lexington where the international internationally famous horse sale is. By internationally famous I mean this is where the Queen of England sends her representatives to buy horses and the Arab sheiks send their representatives to buy horses.

So not very far away from us, or all around us really, were these horse farms that had horse barns that looked like mansions that people lived in. And we got a tour on one of these farms and it was owned by an Arab sheik. But he, and it's had this immense house, I don't remember how big it was, it was huge, you know, it had a guest house that would have been a mansion to most of us. And But he never stayed there or only very very very infrequently would he come there. And I remember the lady that worked there that was showing us around this place.

She said well yes, he had come recently a year or so ago, and they had spent a million dollars, you know, fixing the place up for His visit. In other words, when He was coming, they got very busy, and they did a lot of work in preparation for His coming. Well, that's the attitude that we should have, that Christ is coming. He's coming back. And we ought to be busy.

We don't know when He's coming, but He is, and we need to be busy. You know, Jesus said, I must work the work of Him who sent me while it is day. The night is coming when no one can work. You see, to work with our death in view is to realize that there is a night coming when we won't be able to work anymore. To live our life with death in view thirdly is to redeem the time knowing that the days are evil and that our focus is to know and to do the will of God.

Paul told the Ephesians, See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because of days of evil. Therefore, do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. See, the world, John said, is passing away in the lust of it, but he who does the will of God abides forever. You see, and so to work, to live our life with the end in view, with eternity in view, is to live our life to seek to know and to do the will of God. To live our life with death in view is to remember also that there is a time and a season for everything in our life.

There's a time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant, a time to pluck what is planted, a time to kill, a time to heal, a time to break down, a time to build up, a time to weep, a time to throw, a time to keep, a time to throw away, a time to tear, a time to sew, a time to keep silent, and a time to speak, a time to love, a time to hate, a time of war, time of peace. It takes care to engage in each activity at the appropriate time. I think all these things are involved to some extent in what it means to live our life with our death in view. A guru had two requests of the Lord in this prayer. He said, two things I request of you.

At first glance, it looked like three requests to me. Remove falsehood and lies from me, give me neither poverty nor riches, and feed me with the food allotted to me." It sounded like three, but I think after looking at it in a minute, maybe you got it right away, I think we can see that this third request is really A further elaboration of what is meant in the second request, give me neither poverty nor riches. Neither poverty nor riches. But his first request is, remove falsehood and lies from me. It has nothing to do with this world really, or the temporal things of this world, but it has to do with the spiritual things of his life.

Vanity, that word falsehood, the King James uses the word vanity there. It is the word for vanity. Like we should not take the Lord's name in vain. It's that word. And it does mean falsehood.

It's not an incorrect translation. The King James uses the word vanity or futility, which means without purpose. Something that's futile is something that doesn't accomplish anything useful. It's like rolling the rock up the hill only to have it roll down the hill again. You expend a lot of labor, and at the end there's nothing to show for it.

Everything you did is undone or doesn't do anything. That's futility. That's what vanity is. And so, this agur is asking for the Lord to remove what is vain or what is futile from Him and to remove lies. Lies is false speaking.

Literally, somebody speaking falsely. It's spelled out that way, false speaking. There are other words for lies, but this is false speaking. And so this really is a prayer for grace. Grace to be delivered from vanity or futility, from what is useless or pointless.

It's a prayer to be delivered from the feudal thinking which underlies the corrupt principles and practices of the world. The corrupt principles and practices of what the Bible calls Gentiles in Ephesians or just unbelievers. So this first request we might say is analogous to Jesus' request in the Lord's prayer that we not be led into temptation, but delivered from evil. It's a prayer to be delivered from the feudal thinking of the world. Paul told the Ephesian Christians that they must no longer live according to the feudal thinking of the Gentiles.

It said it's not Gentiles meaning Jews and Gentiles, but rather Paul is using the word Gentiles there to refer to the world, to the nations, to the unbelievers, to people who don't know the Lord, they're pagan. We are to be renewed in our thinking and not think like those who do not know God. Or as the New English Bible says, give up living like pagans with their good for nothing notions or thinking. You see, our guru is asking to be delivered from this feudal way of thinking. The feudal thinking of the world, I could just give you a couple of examples.

We could go on and on and on and on about the feudal thinking of the world. I'll give you maybe a few examples here of what is the feudal thinking of the world or representations of the feudal thinking of the world. The feudal thinking of the world says that language is relative and refers only to itself. In other words, language is something that's man-made and we make up the meaning for words. And that there's no objective truth, objective reality out there.

The feudal thinking of the world says that truth is relative, and it's up to each person or society to decide on truth. The Bible says God's Word is truth. And those ideas aren't compatible. The feudal thinking of the world says that our bodies and our time is ours. Sometimes we want to think that as well.

Our body and our time is ours to do with as we please. The Bible says that our bodies belong to the Lord. That we are His servants who are to live to do His will. The feudal thinking of the world says that spanking a disobedient child will teach him to be violent. And it will simply breed more violence.

The Bible says that loving chastisement brings a peaceable fruit of righteousness. The feudal thinking of the world says that you need to go into debt to buy a house and a car because those are necessary to life. The Bible says that debt is bondage. It doesn't say it's wrong, it just says it's bondage. And that to be in debt makes one a servant of the lender.

The feudal thinking of the world uses debt, which is a sum of money owed, as money and tries to pay their debts with debt money. The feudal thinking of the world says that in order to be educated, one has to have imbibed all the thinking of the great pagans of the past and of their unbelieving philosophies. The Bible says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Now there's nothing wrong with studying those things in order to answer them and refute them, but they are not at all necessary or even essential or even helpful to a Godly foundation. And many people are led astray, pursuing the philosophies of the Western world.

The feudal thinking of the world says that You have to be established in a career before you get married. Or that you need to live life free for a while before settling down and taking on the responsibilities of a family. Well, yes, a man does need to be able to provide for a family, but that shouldn't take till you're halfway through your fourth decade. The scriptures speak of rejoicing in the wife of one's youth. Or if you're married, the feudal thinking of the world says that a woman needs to focus on her career for five to ten years before having a family.

But the Scriptures speak about older women teaching younger women to love their husbands, to love their children, and to be keepers at home. The feudal thinking of the world looks to the government as their savior for everything. You need to educate your child. We need government schools. You need to provide for yourself and your family in your old age.

Well, we need government retirement programs. Need to provide for pregnant mothers. Well, we need government welfare. We have stray dogs tearing up the neighborhood. Well, we need a government dog catcher.

We need to be protected from incompetent doctors. Well, we need the government to decide for us who is competent to practice medicine and who isn't. We need to be protected from bad food, or we need a government to bless our food and to ban the stuff that they deem dangerous. We need to be saved from a pandemic. The feudal way of thinking of the world says that we need a government to do that and tell us what to do The Bible says in Jeremiah 17 5 Thus says the Lord cursed is the man who trusts in man and man makes flesh his strength Whose heart departs from the Lord, But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose hope is in the Lord.

Asa was a good king. He loved the Lord, he followed the Lord, he served the Lord, he walked in his ways, but he fell to vanity, to futility, a futile way of thinking, in a sickness when he became old. The Bible says that in the 39th year of his reign, he became diseased in his feet, and his malady was severe. Yet in his disease, he did not seek the Lord, but the physicians." He was a godly man. But he fell in this instance, into this futility that a guru prays, Lord, deliver me from this futile way of thinking.

Deliver me from these practices, from mistakes that are at the bottom of all sin. Deliver me from the love of this world and the things that are in it, which are vanity and a lie. To be delivered from futility is to be delivered also from futile work, a futile way of thinking, but also futility in our work. Ecclesiastes has a lot to say about our work. And his prayer is that the Lord would establish the work of His hands.

That it wouldn't be futile work like rolling a stone up a hill only to have it roll back down again, but that the Lord would establish what we do, that it may have an impact for eternity. The second part of this first request is remove me from vanity, falsehood, and lies. Remove vanity and lies far from me. The second part here is a request to be delivered from false speaking. Futile speaking, or I should say false speaking.

The psalmist prays, deliver my soul, oh Lord, from lying lips and from a deceitful tongue, Psalm 120. Or Psalm 144, rescue me and deliver me from the hand of foreigners whose mouth speaks lying words and whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood. Or Proverbs 14, 25, a true witness delivers souls, but a deceitful witness speaks lies. He's asking me to deliver it from these kind of people. He's asking to be first delivered from false witnesses.

Naboth, for example, was wrongly accused because of lying witnesses who falsely claimed that he committed a capital crime that he hadn't committed. And he was killed by Jezebel. Many today likewise are similarly convicted of crimes they did not do by false witnesses. There's a well-known case from right here in Montgomery County about a man who was falsely accused of murder by lying witnesses right here in the courtroom just around the couple blocks from here. Lying witnesses in the government who had a duty to do otherwise but who covered the truth.

It's well documented in a book written by a guy from out of town who just heard about the story and wrote it up. It's called white lies. And that's just one example of many, many, many examples. False witnesses. Or false salesmen, who hasn't been taken in by the false claims of somebody selling something to us.

Sometimes we recognize it beforehand, but most of the time hopefully, but sometimes we don't. We end up with something that turns out to be a wasted purchase. But far worse than that in the loss of money are false teachers. The lies that come from people in positions of influence. From teachers.

The lies of the government schools. The lies of our media, the government media. Recently, a journal released a video of a business meeting, a Disney executive meeting that outed, revealed their very pro-homosexual fornication agenda, made it quite explicit. They were having this meeting in response to Florida's parental rights and education laws. The new law that passes, it's the amazing thing is it's a very banal law really.

The The White House denounced this Florida law as cruel and harmful. And in an interview with CNN, the Secretary of Transportation, Pete Bettegeig, who's an admitted homosexual fornicator, agreed that the law is dangerous and his partner in fornication was even more emphatic, declaring that this law will kill kids. Now what was this law? Well, this law just required that classroom instructions by school people or third parties on gender may not incur in kindergarten through third grade. That's all it said.

You can't teach children our lies that there are 2700 different genders or that gender is a continuum or that people that are male can become female. You can't teach them that. That's all it said. Our Guru is asking to be delivered from these kinds of lies. His second request was materially related.

Give me neither poverty nor riches. But he goes on to elaborate why. He provides a reason for his prayer. Reasons that are grounded in the promises and in the laws of God. And I think just like we looked earlier at his view on living life, here we see in his prayer that we need to be those who bring arguments in our prayer.

He didn't just bring a request, but he attached reasons to this request. He attached petitions, and those reasons for this request are grounded in the Word of God. He is praying back God's Word to him. Feed me with food allotted to me, lest I be full and deny you, and say, Who is the Lord? Lest I be full and deny you, and say, who is the Lord?

Or as Deuteronomy 8 puts it lest, when you have built your houses and your properties, and you have trees and gardens, and you have an abundance of food, and you look around and you say, look at what my hand has gotten to me. God specifically warned the Israelites not to think like that. And that's what he prays. Lord deliver me from poverty and riches. Feed me with the food allotted to me, lest I be full.

Lest I be sated with riches, with an abundance of food, and then think that the Lord wasn't necessary. Who is the Lord? Rather Deuteronomy 8 tells us that we are to remember that it is the Lord that gives us the power to get wealth. It says, or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of God. Now this prayer is not to have neither poverty nor riches, is not an excuse for idleness or lack of planning to grow a business.

Well, I don't want to have too many riches, so that's easy to cover laziness with that kind of excuse. James didn't say don't go to another city, spend a year there, buy and sell. He said, when you do it, say the Lord wills, we will do this or that. In other words, He's affirming the need to plan. A righteous man gives an inheritance to his children.

It's not wrong to plan to grow your business and to spend time and effort growing it, to spend time building your estates and to spend time acquiring wealth. But this is the prayer of a man whose heart is set above, not on things on the earth. Poverty here, he's asking for not poverty and not riches. Poverty here is a lack of basic necessities. Paul said with that godliness with contentment is great gain and if we have food and and clothing, shelter, then we ought to be content.

Do you have food? Are you fed enough to keep your, to thrive for your body to prosper? And do you have clothing? Do you have shelter? Are you protected from the weather?

Are you warm on the cold days? If you have these things, then you don't have poverty. True poverty is lacking these basic needs. You see, and those who lack these basic needs, and there are many things that we might say are necessary to acquire these basic needs of food and shelter. We might say a car is of some necessity today to provide for those things and so on.

But those who lack these basic things are tempted to all manner of sins. Parents sell their children into slavery because they're not able to feed them. Women sell their bodies because they're not able to feed themselves in another way. These are some of the temptations of great poverty, and they're real. These things happen routinely, regularly, in places of poverty.

People sell their own family members into slavery for a little bit of money. And it's not all that much money. You know, my folks used to live in Nigeria a number of years ago. They were missionaries over there and recently I was talking to my mom and somebody that she knew as a little child over there that she had helped to teach to read had reached out and gotten in touch with her. And she was living in this level of poverty that she had no way to provide for herself.

And so she was selling her body. Now she had a son that had grown up and was a Christian. And so my mom reached out to this man's pastor whom she also knew and she provided a little bit of money, goes a long way over there, to set up this lady in a business. But she knew if she just gave her the money, it would be gone. She really didn't even know how to manage it.

And so she went to the pastor and said, here, can you help? Can you disperse this money? And can you help oversee and set her up in a little business selling food at the roadside? Just getting a little grill and cooking food and selling it. That can be a business for people that are at this level of poverty.

That can be a business that can provide for their needs. But she needed somebody to help her, just to even manage a little bit of money. And so Agur prays that the Lord would deliver him from this kind of poverty. Sometimes this kind of poverty comes because of circumstances outside our control, Often though it comes because of our lack of diligence. Bible says, do not love sleep lest you come to poverty.

Open your eyes and you will be satisfied with bread. But we recognize that even that necessity of bread doesn't come by our own ingenuity. It comes from the Lord. Even these basic things of keeping us out of poverty comes from the Lord. But he also prays, Lord don't give me great riches.

Now we might all agree, we might all everybody would want to pray a prayer, Lord deliver me from this poverty, but he prays deliver me from riches. Now how many of us have prayed, Lord, don't give me great riches? How many of us rather instead secretly hope that we come into great riches? Well, a Guru recognized the temptation that great riches bring. Just Google the lottery and people that win the lottery in the vast number of cases, and it's not every case, but in the vast majority, I would say the majority of cases, People that win the lottery, their life is destroyed by the very thing that they thought would save it.

People who go from poverty to millions of dollars in a couple of years end up with a destroyed life. Relationships destroyed, financially they're destroyed, and they're in debt far more than they ever were before they won the lottery. It's all too common. Great riches can be a great temptation. Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and in a snare and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition.

That's those who desire to be rich. Those who desire to be rich. Those who desire to be rich. This is speaking, it's not saying that being rich is wrong if the Lord blesses us, but it's saying that our focus of our life is not how do I get to be rich. It's not what career path do I take so that I can be rich?

What decisions, what things do I need to do so that I can be rich? It's rather asking what can I do to serve Christ? And yes, that means we do, do we do work. But see, it's a completely different focus. It's to seek first the kingdom of heaven and its righteousness and its righteousness.

And God promises that he will add all these other things to us. And he really does. He does. He richly blesses. Because you see Christ is really ultimately our inheritance.

He is the bread of life. He who comes to me, Jesus said, will never hunger. And He wasn't just talking about spiritual hunger. He who believes in me will never thirst. Paul had learned in whatever condition to be content.

He knew how to be abased and how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need." Paul had learned this contentment with his life. And this was a contentment that permeated every aspect of his life. Joy is something that we can have in every aspect of our life. It doesn't depend upon our circumstances, whether we have the things that we need.

Joy is something that the Lord gives to us, apart from any of our circumstances. And it's this contentment that a Guru is praying for. That he might know the power of Christ in his life. To bring this joy, this peace, this righteousness, regardless of his circumstances. May that be so with us.

Heavenly Father, we thank you that as our savior you know us, that you provide for all of our needs, that you richly bless us in Christ with every spiritual blessing, but also Lord that you have opened the storehouses of heaven and poured great wealth upon us. Lord may you give to us grateful hearts for the richness of Your blessing. And may we be those who wait upon You. For You have promised that those who do will mount up with wings as eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint." So Father, we ask that we may have this prayer for our life as well. To know the fullness of joy that is in your presence, and to know the treasures forevermore that are at your right hand.

We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.