New Grass, ‘Nuff Milk
What in the world does this obscure proverb have to do with our church?
Well, Proverbs 27:23–27, has everything to do with our church — and my aim today is to show you why. This sermon is pretty simple. Here’s what I want to do:
First, I’m gonna try to explain the meaning of these verses in order to, second, give you an image to hold onto; and then third, I want to fill in that image with three realities that I pray will mark our church in this new season that we’re entering together.
We can say it like this: Explanation. Imagination. Hope.
Let’s pray:
Father, we could never praise you enough. You are greater than what we could ever fathom, and you are more worthy than anything we could ever give. Regardless of our circumstances or emotions, in this moment, as best as we know how, we want to honor you. We wanna get in on your praise. Father, we worship you. We love you. We thank you for who you are and for all of your goodness to us. By your Spirit now, we ask, give us a greater vision of your goodness to us in the future, in Jesus’s name, amen.
Explanation: Proverbs 27:23–27?
Okay, so let’s take a look at Proverbs 27. As far as I can remember, I don’t think our church has ever heard a sermon from the Book of Proverbs, so this is a first, and without going into a ton of detail about this book as a whole, let’s just say that the Book of Proverbs is like a bag of treasure, and you never know exactly what you’re gonna pull out of the bag: Sometimes you get sage advice about how to conduct yourself, sometimes you get fatherly warnings about things to avoid; sometimes you just get statements like divinely-inspired fortune cookies; and sometimes they come in the form of poems — and one thing fascinating about the Proverbs is that you don’t simply read them to get wisdom, but you have to already have wisdom to even read them. You have to employ the resource you hope to increase.
That’s what we have to do in Proverbs 27, verses 23–27. This passage is a pearl that stands by itself. There are two parts: Advice and Rationale.
The advice is verse 23:
“Know well the condition of your flocks and give attention to your herds.”
Then verses 24–27 give us the rationale. There’s negative rationale and positive rationale:
Negatively, tend to your herds, verse 24,
“for riches do not last forever; and does a crown endure to all generations?”
Both of these things are blessings. Wealth and a crown. Think wealth and a secure income. They’re both good things; they’re gifts — but they’re also transitory. You can’t assume they last forever. Tend to your herds because some of the good that you enjoy today will not always be around. That’s negative rationale.
Positively, tend to your herds because, verse 25:
“when the grass is gone and the new growth appears and the vegetation of the mountains is gathered, the lambs will provide your clothing, and the goats the price of a field. There will be enough goats’ milk for your food, for the food of your household and maintenance of your girls [or milk-maidens].”
Now at one level this proverb gives us an investment strategy for a farmer. Cold, hard cash by itself depreciates over time (verse 24). It’s not a self-maintaining resource. But herds, on the other hand (verse 25), they have compounding value. Because if the billy-goats are happy and well, they’ll multiply and you can get clothing from them and can acquire more property through their sales, and the she-goats will give you milk. And now notice the trickle-down effect here in verse 27. The result is that: “there will be enough goat’s milk for your food.”
And I’ll be honest with you. I read verse 27 several weeks ago and started crying. I sent Pastor David Mathis a text message and said, “Bro, there will be enough goat’s milk for our food.”
The word “food” here is a stand-in for “life.” It means sustenance. The goat’s milk will be enough to sustain the life of the whole household, including the milk-maidens who milk the goats. Everybody is taken care of. This is the rationale for why you should tend to your herds.
Let’s track with what’s being said here. Put your thinking caps on. Start at the end:
Verse 27: The result is that everybody is living and thriving because, verse 27–26: the milk is enough, because, verse 25: “When the grass is gone and the new growth appears and the vegetation of the mountain is gathered…” This verse is important.
Another way to translate that phrase, “when the grass is gone” is to say “when the grass is removed” — this is talking about when the hay is harvested. That’s the idea. The grass here is wild grass that the goats would eat. The farmer would gather the grass/hay/vegetation — He’d gather it to feed the herd, and that’s how all the other goods would come from the herd (the clothes and fields and enough milk), and that’s how the provision of life came.
Tend to your herd because this is how it works, this interconnected sequence of events will take place.
But get this: although the farmer has responsibilities to harvest in verse 25, the whole thing is actually dependent upon something out of the farmer’s control.
He’s supposed to gather up the grass for hay, but if he uses all that hay to feed the herd today, what will he feed them in the future? Do you see the problem?
If he removes the grass, the grass is removed. It’s gone. It’s all used up. So what’s this farmer gonna gather up tomorrow if all the grass is gone today? What about the future?
Well, there must be new growth. New growth must appear. New grass must come. And who does that? Who makes the grass grow?
Look, I can tell you, it’s not us. Trust me. God makes the grass grow — and that is the only reason why any of this works.
If we had to shorten the logic of these verses to three lines, it’s this:
Tend your herds,
Because God makes the grass grow,
And the result is that there will be enough goats’ milk for your food.
And here’s how we apply that to Cities Church …
We’ve just come through a wonderful, head-spinning season. God gave us over $5.1 million dollars in two years. These new renovations are going to be amazing. And we’ve commissioned out of this church three of my favorite people … and also Pastors Josh and Kenny and Joe. (I was talking about their wives: Erica and Malaina and Jenny. I love those sisters, and thank God for them. I talked to Joe on the phone a few days ago. I just miss all of ‘em.) Here’s what it means:
The grass is gone, Cities Church. The grass is gone. We used it all up. And man, it was a harvest! Thank God for the harvest! But it’s gone now. We can’t use that past grass anymore. It’s not here. It’s over.
And that’s a word I think we need to sit with. “Over.” Call it a season or a chapter or whatever you want, but there was something about our church that is now over. That grass is gone — and so what about our future?
New grass has to grow.
And God will send us new grass, and there’s gonna be enough goat’s milk for our food.
Imagination: Green Grass
And this is where your imagination comes in. Put your imagination cap on; you might have to close your eyes to do this. Whatever it takes.
I want you to imagine green grass. Imagine wide-open space and rolling hills and a plain of green, lush, abundant, glorious grass. Imagine blue skies and green grass as far as the eyes can see.
Can you imagine that?
All that grass is new grass, and it’s our future.
And now I want to give you some details about that grass.
If you can hold that image in your mind, I want to fill in some of that image by telling you three things that we could call marks of our future together — and they’re aspirational; I’ve already started asking God for them. These are three realities that I pray will be part of our future.
As for this sermon outline, here’s where we are: we started with the explanation of our passage in Proverbs 27; then the imagination of green grass as far as you can see (keep holding on to that); and now this is about hope.
Hope: Three Marks of This New Season
Three marks of this new season of new grass:
Deepened theology
Increased surrender
Multiplied joy
Let me explain each one. First, deepened theology.
1. Deepened Theology
Almost a decade ago when a group of six families started meeting together to pray and dream about this church, one of the questions that we did not have to ask was “What do we believe?” This church was planted on the foundation of a firm doctrinal heritage. We had (and have) amazing doctrinal unity that is articulated in our Leader Affirmation of Faith, which has its roots in older statements of faith that date back to the 17th-century English Reformation, and even back before that.
In short, we really value the Holy Scriptures as the word of God — what the Bible says, God says. And so the truth we learn about God in the Bible is the truth that God himself tells us about himself. And of all his wonderful truth, God tells us most loudly that he is absolutely sovereign and good and happy — and he is who he is in feast and famine, in celebration and suffering — and most amazing of all is that this God loves us despite us. Our best efforts cannot earn his love; our best perception of his love cannot increase his love. God loves us because he loves us.
He has always loved us and he will always love us, and he made that clearest for us in the death of Jesus: “God showed his love for us in that, while we were sinners [— while we were most unlovable —], Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). In this great love, Jesus saves sinners. That’s our theology in three words. Jesus does not merely meet sinners halfway and expect them to do the rest. He does not help sinners save themselves. Jesus saves sinners.
And a lot of us in this room would probably say that we ascribe to that theology. A lot of us would say that we believe all that, but, hey: we need to believe it deeper.
And I think deeper is the perfect word here. I mean “deeper” for the same reasons that Pastor and Writer Dane Ortlund explains in a book he’s written titled Deeper. Pastor Dane says that a lot of times when we think about growth in the Christian life, we think in terms of three areas: behavior improvement, intellectual addition, and emotional experience.
Each of those are part of the Christian life — they matter — and so we think that if we’re going to grow, we need to be improving and adding and experiencing. We think we need to go out and get more of these things. Try harder. Do better. All that.
But the idea of deepening is different, because deepening implies that you already have what you need. You don’t need extras so much as you need congruence. You need truth to settle down and sink in. A deepened theology intends to bring what we do and say and feel into line with what we already know. Will we end up changing the way we act in certain ways? Yes! Will we learn new truths about God we’ve not really thought about before? Of course! Will we have a richer and more sincere experience of God? I hope so!
We are not anti-experience. I know that sometimes we Reformed-types can get nervous on the topic of experience, and I get it — but look: because God is real and we have a real relationship with him through Jesus, we can experience that relationship like we would any relationship. We get to talk to God. We get to hear him talk to us in his word. I want you to experience God. We want to experience God — but here’s the thing with each of these … with behavior and intellect and experience … we’re not pursuing any of them by themselves. We pursue God! Give me God! “As for me, the nearness of God is my good. I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all his works” (Psalm 73:28). Church, we want to go deeper with God. That matters more to me than anything else.
And so as you imagine the new grass, in the details include a deepened theology.
Practically, a deepened theology is the primary aim of The Cities Institute and our Wednesday Gatherings coming up. If you’ve not heard yet, starting on Wednesday, September 20, and then for a total of six Wednesday nights this fall, we are gathering the whole church for a big meal together and fellowship, and a time of teaching and discussion. We’re gonna have something for everybody, from young kids to students to adults, and pray for and expect a deepened theology.
Now here’s the second mark of the new grass:
2. Increased surrender
And increased surrender is actually inseparable from deepened theology. This mark describes what we do as we encounter a deeper understanding of who God is. It means that as we go deeper with God, we give more of ourselves to him. I’m calling it increased surrender, but another way to say it is that we need to increase the decrease of ourselves. Remember John the Baptist said of Jesus, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). That’s what we want. More of Jesus leading our lives, less of me.
But here’s the thing: we actually can’t surrender to God more of ourselves unless we come to understand more of ourselves. We can’t decrease what we don’t know. Which means an important part of increased surrender is self-understanding — we have to take ownership of our stories. I’ve heard it said that “we can only surrender as much as we know about ourselves to as much as we know about God.” Which means that deepened knowledge of God has to include deepened knowledge of ourselves. Both of these together is the recipe for true wisdom and that’s what makes us grow in Christ from the heart.
I recently read a book by a Christian therapist who has worked with many Christians over the years to help them get through the wreckage of bad decisions. And he said that in all his experience, none of those Christians made ruinous choices because of lack of facts about God. Actually, he said they knew a lot of truth, but they didn’t know how to apply the truth to themselves because they didn’t understand themselves. And I’m telling you that we must.
We must learn to take ownership of our stories and of our particular brokenness and of our particular idiocy — because God has particular grace for you in all of that.
When God saves us, he doesn’t just stamp us “SAVED” and toss us in the crowd, but he saves you. You. Everything about you. And of course you are part of a people, you become part of a community, a family — and all at the same time, God knows your name and your heart and the number of hairs on your head — and he wants all of you. He will save all of you. So understand more of yourself to give more of yourself to God. This is increased surrender.
So what does this increased surrender look like for us?
Two practical things: discipling relationships and corporate prayer.
When it comes to discipling relationships, we value them so much in our church that we have a structure set up to keep them always in view. We call them Community Groups and we have about 23 of them and counting right now across the metro, and we want to encourage everyone to plug into one of these groups, because the goal of these groups is mutual discipleship — we’re learning together how to follow Jesus in everyday life, open-hearted to God and others. And yeah, it’s weird sometimes. That’s okay. We believe Jesus is real and we want to be real with one another.
The second practical thing is corporate prayer. Our church has a lot of praying members, but we haven’t done enough of those members praying together. It is happening though.
Every third Sunday morning, before service, several of us meet and pray over here, and I want to see that grow. I want it to leak out and be a thing. I want to see more times of corporate prayer where we get together not just to ask God for things; we’re not just seeking God’s hand, but we’re seeking God’s face, and then we’re praying “your kingdom come.” Not my kingdom. Not our kingdom. God’s kingdom. See, corporate prayer like that is corporate surrender.
Increased surrender is part of the new grass.
3. Multiplied joy
We cannot remind ourselves enough that joy is deeper than the universe. “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).
I hope you know that if you could peel back reality and see what’s behind everything that is, what you would find is joy. And I mean joy as in joy. Sometimes we can get caught up on qualifying joy — serious joy, poker-face joy — and we do that because we don’t want people to think we’re talking about something cheap. I get it. But I’m convinced that the best way to clarify what we mean by joy is not in our adjectives but in our action. We don’t need qualified joy so much as manifest joy.
Like in the story of the prodigal son. Jesus tells this story in Luke 15, and it never gets old.
Jesus says there was a son who took all of his inheritance money and savings and he went out and abandoned his family, left his home, traveled the world, and he squandered everything he had on reckless living — what an idiot (just like us). He was a long ways from home, in the far country, and he had ruined his life … until finally he came to himself and thought, I guess I’ll go back home now. Maybe my dad will at least let me be a servant. So he starts walking home.
And Jesus tells us that when the son was still a long ways off down the road on the way back, the father saw him — and what did the father do?
He felt compassion for him, and he ran — which was a most undignified thing to do for a First-Century CEO — but he ran and he embraced his son and kissed him. And the son said, I screwed up. I’m not worthy to be your son.
But the Father put the best robe on him and put a ring on his hand, and do you remember what the Father did? He threw a party.
Because there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 self-righteous prigs.
It was a real party, and there was music and dancing and joy so real you could see it. Manifest joy. And it became controversial joy, because the older son didn’t like it, remember. The older son didn’t like the party. But the Father said, “It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found” (Luke 15:32). We’re going to party. Won’t you come party with us?
See, that’s one way to talk about our mission. It starts here, with joy. We want to have real, manifest joy, and then invite other people into that joy, not theoretically but truly. We want to be a happy people. Glad-hearted, merry, cheerful. We wanna be … a people who can sing their lungs out in worship and drink an ice-cold sweet tea for the glory of God; a people who value fellowship in the local church and achieve excellence in their vocations whether you’re a butcher, baker, or candle-stick maker, or an orthopedic surgeon or an attorney or athlete or educator or engineer or salesman or artist, dentist, therapist, scientist — all of them. We wanna be a people who rest and work unto the Lord, a people who enjoy meditating on God’s word and who have “babies, babies, everywhere”; a people who go and send missionaries near and far and who are the kind of parents who read their kids stories at bedtime about wild things — and I know there are a hundred hard things going on. And some of us are (and will be) in the valley of suffering, but we’re never alone.
And God is God and he is good, and we have his joy down deep in our souls, and if you’re around us you’ll see it. Real joy. Manifest joy. Won’t you come party with us?
Real joy, see, can’t help but be multiplied joy. You can’t contain real joy. So make that part of this new grass.
Practically, what does it mean? It means we’re for real about joy, and we’re going to keep commissioning people out of this church to multiply that joy. We’re gonna work on another church plant in 2024, and then in 2025, and as long as we can. And we’re launching a global missions pathway in the hopes of sending some of you to the unreached peoples around this world who have never heard the name of Jesus. We’re gonna multiply joy.
The old grass is gone. That’s over now. New grass is growing. Deepened theology. Increased surrender. Multiplied joy. And there will be enough goats’ milk for our food.
And that is what brings us to the Table.
The Table
And you might be thinking: How in the world does that bring us to the Table?
Because this table is a table of thanksgiving. We remember the death of Jesus for us, and we give thanks to him for that, and we also give thanks to him for all of the grace that comes to us through his death.
Every good we have, church — every good we’ve had in the past, every good we’ll have in the future — it all come through the blood of Jesus Christ, and we come to this table to give him thanks.
And so if you’re here this morning, and you’re a Christian, if you have put your faith in Jesus, we invite you to join us. Eat and drink with us, and let’s adore Jesus together. Come to the party.
