I just spent the night sitting with a co-worker/friend whose house had burned to the ground with everything they own still in it. My friend, his wife, and son made it out alive. However, there were 4 members of this family. Their four year old daughter did not make it out. This was truly a sobering experience.
The apostle Paul told the Roman brethren, “For I say, through the grace that was given me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but as to think soberly…” (Romans 12:3). When beginning to preach, a wise preacher by the name of Ronnie Hinds always said the word “sober[ly]” is thinking about things the “way they really are.” Is that not what God is trying to impress upon us as He tells us “not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought…”? In reality, we are the created and not the creator!
Not many situations in life will provoke personal reflection more than that of watching as a family reels from the pain of losing a child. Solomon, in all of his wisdom, wrote, “It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart” (Ecclesiates 7:2). In other words, the living will “think soberly”. “Examine yourselves to see whether ye be in the faith” (2 Corinthians 13:5). What is my life? What is my eternal destiny if I continue living this way?
Soberness prompts mental focus. It allows one to see clearly with unclouded vision the most important things in life and that those things that hours before, we thought so important are in reality not. We can understand when we read, “for what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul” (Mark 8:36)? Moses exemplifies this ability to see clearly when it says of him, “considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward” (Hebrews 11:26-27). Moses was able to “see” the reward through the eyes of faith.
I read one time that “faith is looking at things through the eyes of God.” What he meant was that faith is trying to see things the way God sees them; the way they really are and not the way we want them to be. There is a world of difference in those two points of view! This night has been a reflective night indeed. But, what do I see when I look at my life? Do I need to make a change? Am I right with God? This is the point to all Biblical teaching, writing and preaching! It is to cause people to “think soberly” and realize that “vanity of vanities, all is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 1:2). That is, except for being right with God.
