PROVERBS 28-23 ESSENTIAL WISDOM2016 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Proverbs 28-23 Essential Wisdom

Well, this morning as we look at

The book of Proverbs, we'll be finishing up our time in the book of Proverbs for Sunday mornings by looking at chapters 28 through 23. And you might think, well, Jerry, you didn't learn much going through Proverbs because your numbers are backwards. But just the way the Lord put the message on my heart this morning, we're going to go backwards. So we're going to start in 28, and we're going to work our way through chapter 23, looking at some of the various Proverbs that are here for us

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And yet, as we read through them today, and as we consider these things today, I would suggest to you, it's clear, it's evident, this wisdom is still relevant and still absolutely needed today.

I was thinking back to when I was young, and I remember my dad sharing with me at least one time, maybe a few times, that he wished that this generation, talking about me, could learn the lessons of the previous generation, talking about him, that he wanted me to learn from him in

in a way that I wouldn't have to repeat many of the same mistakes and learn the hard way in many of the different areas that he had learned or that the previous generation had learned. And I remember him expressing that. It was like a frustration, a lamentation. Like, man, I wish, you know, we could really pass on, you know, to the next generation the lessons that we've learned.

And I remember as he shared that, I kind of really didn't get it. You know, I didn't really understand what he was saying. And in my mind, I looked around and, you know, hey, we've progressed a lot. And look at the advance in technology and look at how, you know, from my perspective in those days, you know, society has gotten better and, you know, technology has advanced and, you know, things are going forward and progressing. And, you know, we've gone so far in so many ways. And,

But then as I got older, I began to recognize and understand more of what he was saying. Although we've progressed in so many ways, we are still the same in so many ways as the people who lived 3,000 years ago. And the wisdom that they needed to hear is the same wisdom that we need to hear. We have not escaped our human nature. And we have to go through the same things again.

that people 3,000 years ago went through. It's our humanity. It's the wisdom that we need. We still wrestle with foolishness, even though we have much history. We've got much more education, much more access to resources and materials, but we still have the same messed up hearts.

And so as we look at these things this morning, I want to encourage you to really consider these things. This is essential wisdom. This is stuff that we really need to grasp hold of and learn. And although collectively we haven't progressed really, we're in the same spot we were 3,000 years ago, individually we can change.

We can take this wisdom and apply it to our life, and we can learn from it, and we can grow from it, and as a result, experience the fullness of life that God would have us to live. And so I want to encourage you to take to heart these words of essential wisdom from Solomon that we consider this morning. And we'll be looking at seven different Proverbs, again, working our way from chapter 28 through chapter 23.

The first one we'll consider is here in verse 26 of Proverbs chapter 28. And point number one is test your heart. Test your heart. Verse 26 of Proverbs 28 says, he who trusts in his own heart is a fool, but whoever walks wisely will be delivered. He who trusts in his own heart is a fool, but whoever walks wisely will be delivered. Here Solomon says, if you trust God,

in your own heart,

You're a fool. Don't trust your own heart, he says. Instead, what I would suggest to you is that we need to test our hearts. Now, as he talks about the heart, I would like to point out that the Bible uses the word heart to talk about the internal workings of a person. It talks about the inner man, the deepest feelings, the innermost emotions. As you look through the Bible, as it talks and uses the word heart, it

All the whole spectrum of emotions are attributed to the heart. Whether you're talking about great joys and highs and excitement, that's related to and attached to the heart. And then the lows of sorrow and the depths of despair, that's attributed to the heart as well. And so that's what he's referring to here, the collective being of who you are within, those emotions that you experience, your heart, your mind, your will, your feelings, that's what the heart is all about.

And so here Solomon says, if you trust in your own heart, if you trust in what happens within you internally, if you trust your emotions, you're a fool. If you trust your own thoughts, you're a fool. If you trust yourself and your own opinions, your own motivations, your own ideas and attitudes, he says, you are a fool.

And this is something that we consider from time to time as we talk about the importance of walking by faith and not by sight. That we don't walk by how we feel, but we walk by trusting God. And so we've talked about it before, but it's important to remember these things because it's easy for us to get caught up in living based upon how we feel. That we allow our emotions to make decisions for us and it dictates decisions.

how we live and where we go and what we do. And as you consider that, I want to encourage you that emotions are good, that they are part of how God created us. And so it's not that, and some people, you know, take it to the other extreme and say, you know, you should not be really emotional. You shouldn't have highs. You shouldn't have lows. You know, you should kind of just be even all the time. And that's not what God has designed us to be.

But on the other hand, God has also not designed us to have our emotions rule over us. I would invite you to think about it like this. Have you ever over-salted some food on your plate?

Now, it's amazing to me. You guys know I'm not the cook. Kim's the cook. And so she'll call me into the kitchen to taste something that she's making. And she'll say, how's it taste? It tastes pretty good. Does it need salt? I don't know. I mean, it tastes pretty good. I don't know if it needs salt, but it tastes good. And then she'll add some salt because it usually does need salt. And so then she'll say, how's it taste?

Then she'll have me taste it again. I'm like, whoa, this is amazing. And so a little bit of salt took that dish that I thought was good to a whole other level. Now it's vibrant. It's flavorful. Whoa, it's amazing. And it makes a huge difference.

Something that was already good becomes even better with the right amount of seasoning. Something that's bland and boring, you know, mashed potatoes we love, but, you know, if you just mash the potato by itself, it's not that exciting. You know, it's when you add all the other stuff that it begins to be really enjoyable and exciting. And salt is one of those elements. Now, here's the thing. Salt is an essential part of the recipe, but if you bring too much...

It ruins it, and it becomes inedible. It goes from, wow, this makes it amazing, to this is not enjoyable. I really don't like this. Why am I continuing to eat this? Or maybe even, I can't eat this because it's just over-salted. And so salt can do really great things for a recipe in its proper place and in the proper quantities. And I would suggest that emotions are the same.

Without them, life is bland and boring. If you don't allow yourself to enjoy things, if you don't allow yourself great joys, and if you don't allow yourself great sorrows, life is going to be bland and boring. But with emotions, man, life becomes vibrant and full and flavorful and exciting. But there's a problem when the emotions become the main ingredient and your emotions are

Become the basis for which you make your decisions, for the conversations that you have, for the attitude that you have, for the way that you approach the day in your life and whatever may lie before you. It's trusting your heart when you're operating based on how you feel. It's trusting in what you think, what you feel. And Solomon says that is foolish. But then he goes on to say, whoever walks wisely will be delivered.

So the opposite of that is to walk wisely. Don't trust your feelings. Don't trust your motivations. They may be good, and they can be good. They're a part of you, but test them first before you trust them, before you allow them to have that place in your life. As we went through the Psalms, we got to see that reflected a lot. The psalmist would basically describe, this is how I feel,

And then they would take it to God and say, let me consider what God has to say. A good example of that is Psalm chapter 73, where the psalmist is overwhelmed by the events of life. And he's wondering, God, why is it that I'm trying to serve you? I'm trying to seek you and my life is hard and I experience pain and there's difficulty. But then I look around at people who are wicked and don't care about you.

And they just are enjoying life. And, you know, they don't have any pains. They've got abundance. They've got more than enough. And as he's going through this, he's taking his emotions to the Lord. In Psalm chapter 73, verse 16, he says, when I thought how to understand this, it was too painful for me. He's overwhelmed by the emotion that he feels as he considers these things. But then notice verse 17, until I went into the sanctuary of God, then I understood their end.

So he took the overwhelming emotions that he was experiencing into the sanctuary of God. And then he understood. He couldn't figure it out himself. He couldn't just base life on his own emotions. It was overwhelming him. It was too painful. But then as he brought God into the mix, as he submitted his emotions and what he felt and what he thought to God, then he began to get the right perspective. And this is a practice that we need to learn.

to test our hearts by taking them to the Lord and seeing what God has to say. That's what it means to walk wisely, to consider what God says, and to let God override how I feel, to let God override if I think this way, but God says differently, to let God win that debate, to let God win that battle, that he gets the final say about how things are to be and what I am to do.

So consider what God says to walk wisely. And if you're wrestling with that still, you're having trouble with that, I would encourage you. Another aspect of wisdom that we've talked about over the past couple weeks is getting counsel. When you are overwhelmed with emotions, especially when those things are ruling and reigning over your life, well, take it to God and also seek out godly men and women. Listen, there's plenty of godly men and women around you

who could give you good counsel, who could help you discern and understand what the right things are for your situation and what are good steps for you to take. And so it's essential wisdom for us to test our hearts and not just live our lives based on what I think, how I feel, my opinions, my motivations, my desires. That is foolishness.

Well, moving on to point number two, we're going to look at Proverbs chapter 27, verse 22. And here the point is, receive correction. This is essential wisdom. Every one of us needs to learn how to receive correction. Verse 22 of Proverbs 27 says, though you grind a fool in a mortar with a pestle along with crushed grain, yet his foolishness will not depart from him.

This is a good verse for us to consider. Now, you might be wondering what a mortar and a pestle are. Well, that's what this is here. You've seen this before, I'm sure. It's the bowl, and you've got the grinder, and you use it to grind up, to mash down, to pulverize different types of things. And this idea of...

putting a fool, I'm sure you've had some experience with this. There's someone you'd like to kind of like fit in the mortar and just like, you know, can I just get it through your head? Can I just, you know, make you understand this is what's right, this is what's wrong. And there is those desires that we have from time to time. There's those people in our lives that we just wish we could make them understand, receive what's good and true.

Now, Solomon is not saying here that it's impossible for a foolish person to depart from foolishness. He's not saying that a foolish person is stuck that way, they can never change. What he's saying is that someone else cannot take foolishness from them. So I might be foolish. That doesn't mean I have to be stuck that way and always live my life as a fool. But what it means is you can't take my foolishness away from me.

Another way of putting this is you can't help people who don't want help. And this can be really hard for us to understand in the grass. And it can be really frustrating in our lives when we want desperately to help people, but we find that no matter how hard we try, you can't help people who don't want help.

I was talking to a police officer recently. He comes by and checks in with us from time to time, just checking in on the homeless in the area and how things are going with that. And he specializes in that. And so when he comes by, every time, I can count on it, every time he comes by, he will, at some point in the conversation, express some perplexity and some frustration about their attempts to try to help people who don't want help.

And over and over, I mean, it's predictable. Every conversation I have with this guy, he'll tell me, I have a hundred beds available at a rehab facility that are available. I can put someone in there today. If they want help, if they would let me, I could have them there today. They could be on the road to recovery. They could be on the road. And as he's talking about, you know, those who live in the parks and things, you know, he's expressing that they like their life.

As much as I want to help them, they won't receive it. Nobody will take me up on the offer. They, you know, have their drug dealer come by. They get the drugs they want. They have different ministries come by to give them food. They get the food that they want during the day, and they wake up the next day and do it all over again. People bring them food. People bring them drugs, and they just get what they want, and they don't want to change. They don't, and it's, you could see the perplexity in him. Like, why don't they want change? Why don't they want to change?

You could see the frustration. I wish I could make them. You know, I wish I could help them. I'm sure you've experienced that. Do you ever wish you could, you know, live someone's life for them? If only I could make all their decisions. You know, their life would be so much better if they would just let me tell them what to do. Now, we say that. We're looking on the outside and, you know,

Maybe we do have some good perspective on their life, but at the same time, you could kind of look back and say, you know, well, is that because you've done so well with your life? You know, most of the time we've made similar mistakes and gone through similar things, but you can't help people who don't want help. And so that's important for us to understand. Not that we don't try to help people.

But to recognize we can't force foolishness out of anybody, even if you could put them in the mortar and grind them up. Even to that extent, you can't remove foolishness from someone. They have to want it. And that's why I want to flip the verse around a bit for us to consider our own hearts. And again, to receive correction, we need to put ourselves in the place of the one who is the recipient because there is foolishness in us.

And I would encourage you to be the kind of person who wants help. You can't help people who don't want help. So be the kind of person who wants help, who invites help, who solicits help, who reaches out and calls for help. This is really important for you because it can't be forced upon you. Even God, who is almighty, the creator of the heavens and the earth, he will help.

correct you. He will bring discipline in your life, but he will not force you. And so you will never receive the fullness of what he wants for you, the greatness of his plans for you, if you don't want help from God. You will never receive it unless you want it, unless you are open to it, unless you receive it and accept it. God will not force it upon you. And nobody else can force things upon you either.

And so we need to understand that in order to really receive the benefits of life, the benefits that God has for us, we need to willingly accept help and counsel and encouragement and advice and exhortation. We need to be open and keep ourselves in a place where we are open to receiving instruction and correction from others. Proverbs 26, 12 says, "'Do you see a man wise in his own eyes?'

There is more hope for a fool than for him. Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? That's someone who's not open to correction. I already think I know. I'm already convinced I have the answers. Instead, we need to keep ourselves in a position of being open to receive correction from God and

And again, from the godly people that he's placed around us. Though you grind a fool in a mortar with a pestle along with crushed grain, yet his foolishness will not depart from him. Next, we're going to jump to verse 12. Here's point number three, and that is think ahead. Here's some essential wisdom for you.

We need to learn to look ahead at the things that are about to come. Verse 12 says, A prudent man foresees evil and hides himself. The simple pass on and are punished. To be a prudent man, to be a prudent woman, to have wisdom is

We're going to need to think ahead. As it talks about foreseeing evil, he's not talking about prophetic revelation, where suddenly, you know, you know the future. That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about using your brain, using your head, using your observation, looking around at the things that are going on, and coming to conclusions about where that is going to end up. What's that going to look like in the future?

We could save ourselves much hurt and heartache if we would sit down and consider where the path that we're on is taking us. We could save ourselves so much hurt and pain. That's quickly demonstrated in the whole issue of temptation. If you're facing temptation of some type, some type of sin that is before you, you're there, you're tempted, you're drawn to it. There's these desires, your cravings.

And what you're thinking about in that moment, what's appealing to you is those moments of pleasure. Perhaps the gratifying feelings or whatever it is that is there before you that you're being tempted by. And that's the focus. That's the huge draw. That's what's calling out to you. And yet, if we would stop and think about the end results, that temptation would be resolved.

For a person who is tempted by, let's say, having an affair, there's, you know, this fantasy in their mind. There's this idea that, oh, these moments, they would be awesome and it would be worth it and so much better. But there's not the thought about what the end result of that is and the destruction and the hurt and the pain, not just to others, but to the self. And that's not in the picture, though.

It's so important for us to think ahead. What are these actions going to accomplish? And what is it going to develop in my life? And to foresee when those actions are not good, when the results are not good, and to hide yourself, to protect yourself. In other words, don't go down the path of destruction because the end is destruction. The prudent foresee evil and hide themselves, but the simple pass on.

and are punished. The simple don't think about the end results. They don't consider if I keep drinking like this, it's going to destroy my life. They don't consider if I keep being lazy like this, it's going to ruin the rest of my life. They don't consider if I keep refusing to learn, it's going to mess me up for a long time. And the simple don't consider what the end results of their actions are, but they just keep going in the direction that they're going and

without considering those end results. It's essential wisdom for us to consider. You need to stop, have a seat, think ahead. Think about where your life is taking you. I would encourage you to do it this way. Just consider for a moment this past week. Last Sunday, hopefully you were here. Through today, you've had a good week. Maybe you've had a bad week, a rough week, a difficult week, or a blessed week.

You've spent time with family. Hopefully you've spent time with God. You've done work. You've relaxed and enjoyed yourself. What happened in your life this past week? Now, take that and what if every week of the rest of your life was exactly like this week? What would your life look like in 10 years? In 10 years, repeating this last week over and over and over again, where would you be? Would your walk with God be strong if every week was like this last week?

In 10 years, would you be healthy in your relationship with the Lord and walking with him and hearing from him and passionate about him? Would you be serving him and moving forward in your relationship if every week was like this past week? Where would you be in your marriage? Would your marriage be more blessed than ever 10 years from now if you repeated this week for the next 10 years? Would you be blessed and refreshed and encouraged? Would your relationship with your spouse be healthy?

In 10 years, if this week was repeated, would your family be loved? Would you have good relationships with the people in your life? Where would you be in 10 years if every week was like this week? Now, if you look back to this past week and you think, man, yeah, I don't want to repeat that for the rest of my life. Okay, great. So what do you want to do different this week? It's a simple exercise, but that's what it takes to foresee evil, to sit down and think about where is this path taking me?

Because the reality is how I live today is basically how I live the rest of my life. Now I can convince myself otherwise and think, well, today's an exception because of this and that and all these other things. And that's why I didn't spend time with God and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But then the reality is if you look at your past, if you look at your track record, most of your life is just like how you live today. And that's the reality. We need to start living today how we want to live for the rest of our lives.

to foresee evil and hide ourselves, to turn from behavior that we know isn't good, that we know is not godly, and to start doing that today and not put it off for another time, because if we put it off for another time, 10 years comes by, we're going to be further and further and further down that road of destruction that we are walking. And so what can you do this week to stop repeating what happened in the previous week, or to improve on what happened in the previous week? That's the idea here. Stop and think ahead.

Now listen, if you look back at the past week and you can see the problems, but not the solutions, you don't know how to resolve, how to take different steps, then again, I would encourage you to seek counsel. Ask God. God wants to help you. He wants you to foresee evil and hide yourself. He wants you to protect yourself from those things and make good decisions. And so call out to the Lord and ask him. He'll help you. But also you can reach out. There's men and women, godly people around you who can give you counsel.

who can help you, who've walked through similar experiences and can help you make better decisions so that you are not the simple one who passes on and is punished because you would not stop and consider the future evil. Jumping now to verse five and six, we have point number four, and that is love correctors. Love correctors. This is a good one for us to consider. Verse five, open rebuke is better than love carefully concealed.

Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. Open rebuke is better than love carefully concealed. Is this a truth that you can accept wholeheartedly? Can you hold on? Can you carry this flag? Say, yes. Open rebuke is better than love carefully concealed. This is a hard one for us to take many times because we hate correction. But here's the point.

The people who rebuke you are the people who love you. Now just let that settle. Let that sink in. The people who rebuke you are the people who love you. That's so important for us to grasp hold of because the way it feels during rebuke is not that they love us, but that's the truth.

And there's great danger in rejecting rebuke because we don't like how it feels. Again, letting our emotions dictate what we do. It's not a good thing. It's trusting in our own heart. But to learn to receive correction. Now, when he talks about open rebuke,

That doesn't, you know, I first read that and I think about, you know, Dave Burns standing up in the middle of service and saying, I have a rebuke against Rick. I need to just deliver it. Open rebuke right now in front of everybody. Well, that's not really what open rebuke is about. Although there are occasions perhaps where that might be appropriate. I would say probably kind of rare. But the idea of an open rebuke is that it's clear, that it's plain, that it's easy to understand.

We all know how it is when someone's trying to tell us something, but they won't just come out and say it. They get beaten around the bush, maybe kind of like making little gestures like, mm-hmm. Like, just tell me I have cilantro between my teeth. That's a little bit easier than trying to interpret whatever motions you're making there. There's that beating around the bush. We don't like to tell people many times things that need to be said. And so we just kind of try to subtly hint at it. Like, do you get the hint? Do you get the hint?

No, but what he's saying here is open rebuke. Just clearly saying, hey, you have stuff on your face, your zipper's down, you know, that kind of stuff. That's better than love carefully concealed. It's better for us, and we might be offended at open rebuke, but that's better than if they would conceal their love for us. John Corson puts it this way. He says, the people who love you the most...

are the ones who don't flatter you. They're the ones who encourage you, yes, but also rebuke you in love, caring about you enough to point out your weaknesses. The people who really love you are not the ones who flatter you. Now, we have to look beyond the moment and how we feel about things in order to grasp these truths, because I would much rather you come and flatter me than come and rebuke me. But the people who love me are the ones, yes, they encourage me, he says, that that

Maybe doesn't need to be said, but it should be said anyways. Yes, it's not all rebuke. That's not all that love is. There's great encouragement and expression of that love as well. But people who love you also rebuke you because they care about you enough to point out your weaknesses. You see, to not rebuke is to not love because the reality is sin is destructive.

And so if I see you engaged in sin and I don't rebuke you, I don't love you because that sin leads to destruction and it brings hurt and pain. And if I just sit back and say, well, yeah, go ahead. Experience all that hurt and pain. I don't love you. But if I bring the rebuke, if I bring the correction, it's because I care enough. I don't want to see you be destroyed. I don't want to see you hurt and experience more pain. I don't want to see you experience those things. And so I love you enough to tell you

that this is wrong. It's open rebuke. It's better than love carefully concealed. Verse 6 says, faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. Would you rather be kissed or wounded? Now, I suppose you could kind of consider who it's coming from, right? If Carlos is coming at me, I'd rather be wounded than kissed, right? It's like, be careful with that. But

You get the point, right? Hey, yeah, I'd rather people treat me nice and be gentle and only give me, you know, encouragement and only give me good things and candies and things like that. I would rather that. But faithful are the wounds of a friend. And we need to have friends who can wound us. If you don't have friends who can wound you, you're in a bad spot. You're in a bad place. If you don't have friends who can wound you, who can bring you the truth and who can tell you the truth because they love you,

We need to learn to let people wound us. Now, sometimes because we don't like the feeling of being wounded, we set up protection, we set up barriers, and we become the fool who other people wish they could help us. But even if they put us in a mortar and ground us, they couldn't get the foolishness out of us. Instead, we need to be open and to love those who would love us enough to correct us.

Even to learn to thank them for it, to love them for it. And this can be so hard because, man, they humiliated me telling me that. They humiliated me. It hurt telling me that. But they told us because they love us. Man, we need to accept this, receive it, and love those who love you enough to rebuke you. Sometimes we lose friends because we don't like that they rebuked us. Those are the friends you should hold on to. Those are the friends you need to grasp hold of.

and draw near and stay close to you because they love you. That's why they rebuked you. Or maybe I don't like how you rebuked me. You could have rebuked me better, but who cares? The fact that you did rebuke me shows me that you love me. Even if you could have done it better, I'm going to love you because you love me enough to try. You love me enough to open my eyes, to bring truth into my life. The commentator William McDonald says this,

Most people do not want to be honest with you about your faults. They are afraid that you will turn against them. It is a true friend who is willing to risk your goodwill in order to help you by constructive criticism. It's not normal. Most people are not going to be honest with you about your faults, but a true friend will. Most people won't because they're afraid of what might happen if I tell you the truth. What's going to happen? Am I going to lose you as a friend?

That's what Paul wrote to the Galatians, right? Do you love me less because I'm telling you the truth? That's a genuine fear. Do your friends have that fear? They don't want to tell you the truth because they might lose you as a friend. But the one who loves you is willing to risk and say, I'm going to hurt.

If you turn away from me as a result of this, it's going to be painful to me to lose you as a friend, but I love you more than I love myself. I love you because I don't want you to continue in this pattern of destruction. And so let me bring forth this correction that is necessary. Man, those kinds of people, we need to learn to love them. As much as we hate correction, we need to bring ourselves to a place where we can love those people.

who would bring instruction to us. Consider what the psalmist wrote in Psalm 141.5. Here the psalmist says, Now let me point out, there are also people who rebuke you who are not righteous. Right?

And just, there are people who like to find faults and like to call out those things. And that's not what Solomon is talking about here. But the righteous, people who are walking with God, who rebuke you, do so because they love you. And so the psalmist says, let the righteous strike me, it shall be kindness. And I pray, Lord, let this be the condition of our heart that we would say, yes, it's a kindness. I receive that. Thank you for being so kind as to correct me.

Let him rebuke me. It shall be his excellent oil. It's a gift. It's a blessing. Thank you for bringing correction. He says, let my head not refuse it. And as much as I hate to pray this prayer, I pray this prayer. Lord, help me to have this heart.

to not refuse correction, but to love those who would bring it. We need to learn to love correctors because the people who rebuke you are the people who love you. That's essential wisdom to grasp hold of. Well, moving on now to chapter 26, we'll look at verse 20 and 21. And here we see point number four, stop gossiping. Stop gossiping. If you liked the last one, you're gonna love this one. Verse 20 says this,

I think we all understand that picture, right? You have a fire in your fireplace.

runs out of wood, what happens? The fire goes out. It has no more fuel. It can't continue to burn. And Solomon says, in the same way where there is no tailbearer, strife ceases. Now, as you contrast this to the previous point, it's interesting how we are. We won't correct people to their face, but we'll go tell everybody else about the problem we have with that person. We become tailbearers.

And where there's tailbearers, there's fire. There's strife. It stirs up issues, animosity, bitterness, anger. But where there is no tailbearer, all of those things die out. They all go away. Now, this is important for us to understand because, well, for us as a church, here we are living water. We are a group of people that God has called us to gather together and be linked together. And so here we are, a group of people.

When you group people together, because we're fallen, because we're messed up, there's always going to be hurts. There's going to be difficulties. We're going to mess up each other. We're going to hurt each other. We're going to sin against each other. That's all part of normal spiritual life. Learning how to relate to one another, learning how to relate to you even when you hurt me, learning how to forgive you when you hurt me, learning how to ask for forgiveness when I hurt you, that's all part of what God wants for us. That's part of spiritual life. That's part of what God desires for us.

But there's a problem. That's all normal. The problem is when there's tailbearers who don't allow that process to come to conclusion in the way that God has designed it to. And so there's this adding fuel to the fire. There's this continuing of this fire. And it doesn't die out because there continues to be this stirring. This can happen, of course, not just in church, but in a family.

And there are the tailbearers in the family who just continue to add fuel to the fire that continue the hurts and the burdens and the, you know, difficulties between people. It happens in the workplace. It happens wherever people are gathered together. But especially in the church, this is something we need to consider because as believers in Jesus, we know God loves unity and he hates division. He loves unity and he hates division.

And he's given us instruction for how to handle situations where there is division between us. Jesus talks about this in Matthew chapter 18, verse 15. He says, If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. If your brother, if your sister sins against you, he says, keep it private. You go talk to them directly.

You do your best to work out that situation directly, privately between you and them alone. Now, then he goes on later in the next couple of verses to describe, okay, what happens next if that doesn't go so well? So if they continue to sin against you, even though you went and had a conversation with them, well, then it's appropriate to get other people involved. But so often what we do is we go talk to everybody else and we never have this private conversation. We become tail bearers.

We stir up things and now there's problems that other people have and they weren't even part of the original situation. But now all these other people have problems and there's this animosity. There's this fire that's burning amongst the group because we're not handling things the way that God has instructed us to. Verse 21, as charcoal is to burning coals and wood to fire, so is a contentious man to kindle strife. So like charcoal,

which just keeps the embers burning. It holds on to that heat for a long time. That's like a contentious person in a group, in a workplace, in a family. It just keeps that strife coming back up. And there's something insidious, I think, within us many times where we kind of like to watch the fireworks. You know, you stir up a fire a little bit. You see it roar. It's like, oh, that's nice. That's real satisfying. And sometimes we can be that way with people sometimes.

I know it's a sore spot with Jonathan, so let me just poke it a little bit and see him blow up a little bit. There's fireworks. It's a good show. That's the work of a contentious person, stirring up the fire. Remember what Chico did to you, Jonathan? Can you believe that? Let me just stir it up, provoke you a little bit. Oh, that's a good fire, man. Good fireworks. Good show. But it's evil. It's foolish. And we need to stop it. We need to stop being tailbearers to make sure that we don't continue on those patterns. J. Vernon McGee puts it this way.

Bitterness is repeatedly stirred up in certain groups because there are certain ones in there who keep putting a little wood on the fire. If no one were fueling it, the fire would go out. The strife would cease. If no one were fueling it, these hurts would be healed. These situations would be resolved. We would grow beyond them. But here's someone just putting another log on the fire. Let's just let it burn a little bit longer. And the process that God has orchestrated and designed is disrupted.

because we're tailbears, because we're contentious. We need to stop gossiping. Stop talking to other people who are not involved and start following what God's word has to say and deal directly with the people who have hurt us. Deal directly with the people who've wounded us. Going back to a previous, maybe they wounded us because we needed to be wounded because they were correcting us in love. Whatever the case may be. Let me say this too, and I'll just apologize in advance. If you want to get up and leave, you can, okay?

If there's drama everywhere you go, you're the one bringing it. You go to your workplace and man, there's all this drama. Boy, it's crazy. You come with this new story every week. Yeah, can you believe the drama? Then you go to your family and there's drama. And then you go to church and there's drama. If there's drama everywhere you go, you're bringing it. Now, maybe that's not a universal truth, but just maybe let it marinate in your mind for a little bit. If there's problems with people everywhere you go, I don't know what's wrong with people. Everywhere I go, there's problems. Someone, I just remembered this, so...

try to get it right. Someone called into the church a couple weeks back asking advice for what he should do for a situation that he was involved with in another church. I don't know how he got our number. He's never been here. He doesn't even live in the area, but he looked up a church and called the number. And so he's telling me these stories. Well, I was at this church for a while, and I got kicked out of that church, and

Then I was at this other church and I got kicked out, but I'm trying to go back to that church and they won't let me back in. And what do you think I should do? And is it right for them to not let me back in? Even, you know, I'm sorry for what I did, but they kicked me out. And he's talking about all this series of churches he went to, he's been kicked out of. And this is kind of the idea that I began to talk about with him. Like if that church, you know, you had problems there and then that church, you had problems there and that church, you had problems there and that church, you had problems there. Think about where the problem is.

Yes, every church has problems, but if that's happening everywhere you go, it's the stirring up. It's the tailbearing. It's those things that you're bringing to the situation that often are causing those situations. So we need to think about the words that we use, the people we talk about, the way that we talk about them, how we handle problems and situations. Do you have a problem with someone? Go talk to them.

Deal with it. God loves unity. He loves harmony. And learning to grow beyond those things is definitely part of what God desires for us. Well, enough about that. Number six, now moving on to chapter 24, verse 10. If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small. If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small. This is one of my favorite Proverbs.

Because it deals with all of the excuses that I like to come up with. If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small. We love to excuse ourselves by shifting the blame. All the way back since the Garden of Eden, when God said to Adam, did you eat of the true I told you not to eat? Adam says, it was the woman you gave me. Yes, I ate of that. He doesn't actually admit that, but

Yes, I ate of that, but it's not really my fault. You see, you gave me this woman. So it's kind of your fault, Lord, because you gave her to me. And she gave, you know, you gave her to me. And now she presented me with this fruit and I didn't want to upset her. It was kind of a real difficult situation. Lord, you know how she could be sometimes. I didn't want to sleep on the couch. So I just ate the fruit. God speaks to Eve. You gave this to him. You did this.

Well, you see, there was a serpent and he was real tricky and crafty and he deceived me. And so that's why I ate. And there's this shifting of blame that we continue to replicate ever since then. And we don't like to accept responsibility for our failures, for our decisions. But here's the truth. If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.

You see, if I fail, I'm usually convinced it was because that difficulty was extra great, extra big difficulty, extra huge trial, extra big temptation. And that's why I failed. And so I'm shifting the blame from myself to the great difficulty that I faced. And so we'll say things like, you know, I wouldn't normally do that, but it was a really tough situation.

Or I wouldn't normally talk like that, but they were just so offensive. I mean, I had to. And it's this blame of, it's not really me, you know, it's just the situation was so difficult. And when we're thinking that way, when that's our mindset, we are confused and we have things backwards. You fail in adversity, not because the adversity is strong, but because you are weak. Accept that and admit your weakness.

Your circumstances are not to blame for your integrity. You could maintain your integrity in that situation if you weren't so weak. Your circumstances are not to blame for your walk with God. Oh yeah, I used to have a real good walk with God. You know, I was really strong. I walked with him, but you know, I got this job now and man, it's so busy and so hard and that's why I just don't really have a good relationship with God right now. Your circumstances are not to blame for your walk with God. Your walk with God is weak because you are weak. Your circumstances are not to blame for your character because

It's not the great adversity. It's not the great trial. That's the problem. The problem is your own weakness. The problem with not admitting our weakness and blaming others is that we never then develop and grow in that area. As painful as it is for us to acknowledge and admit that that's our weakness, we need it.

That's why the Lord says to confess our sin to him. We need to openly bring those things to him so that we can ask God to give us strength and to teach us how to grow in those areas. Admit your weakness to God. Admit your weakness so that you can overcome and develop in the strength that he provides. There's an Old Testament scholar named Derek Kidner, and I like what he had to say about this. It's a little bit rough, so just brace yourself a little bit.

We never know our true strength until we find ourselves in situations that demand much from us. Weak people plead adverse conditions so they can justify quitting. Just let that marinate for a moment. Weak people plead adverse conditions so they can justify quitting. This is a hard truth, but it is a truth. That sometimes we don't like to quit. We don't want to quit. We know it's not right to quit. But sometimes we're just looking for something.

Those difficulties, those tough times, those hard things, so that we have what we think is a reasonable excuse to quit. The reality is we wanted to quit the whole time. We didn't really want to walk that way. We didn't really want to have righteousness. We didn't really want to know God. We didn't really want those things, but we'd feel too guilty if we just outright quit. And so we look for, we plead for adverse conditions so that we have an excuse to quit. But it doesn't work before the Lord. If you fail,

It's because you're weak. If you quit, it's nobody else's fault. If you dive into sin, it's your choice. And if you don't know God, that's your doing. You have every opportunity to know God. You have every opportunity to walk with God just as much as anybody else. The beautiful thing that we see in the word of God is that God can take a weak person and then give them strength. Remember Peter? The Lord told Peter, you're gonna deny me. And he says, no way, never. Even if everybody else falls away, I'm never gonna fall away.

And then what did Peter do? He fainted in the day of adversity because the adversity was so huge. He had no other choice but to faint. I mean, that little girl asked him, don't you know Jesus? It was a really tough situation. I'm making light of it, but yeah, it was a tough situation. And he fainted and he said, I don't know him. Just like Jesus told him he would. It wasn't that the adversity was so great. It was that Peter was weak. But then we see the rest of the story. Jesus

restores Peter, forgives Peter, strengthens Peter, so that just a few weeks later, he's standing before religious leaders who crucified Jesus and preaching the gospel boldly. God, when you admit your weakness, when you acknowledge, when you recognize your weakness, God can turn that around and give you strength. He can transform your life in those areas where you were once weak. But if you won't admit it, as I mentioned before in the previous point, you're not going to be able to do it.

God's not gonna force you. If you won't admit it and accept it, God won't help you. He can't help you until you acknowledge, until you accept, if I faint in the day of adversity, my strength is small. Well, the final point we're gonna look at is in chapter 23, verse 17 and 18. Here the point is, remember eternity. Verse 17 says, do not let your heart envy sinners, but be zealous for the fear of the Lord all the day.

For surely there is a hereafter, and your hope will not be cut off. He says, don't let your heart envy sinners. You're looking around at those who don't walk with God, and it can be tempting at many times to envy. Man, it'd be so much easier if I just didn't walk with God. It'd be so much easier if I didn't try to do things right. If I just lived like them, I'd have so much more fun, and things would be so much better.

But here Solomon says, watch your heart. Don't let your heart go there so that you start to envy sinners. This is good for us to consider because this life does not make a whole lot of sense all by itself. As we look around, there is all kinds of injustice in the world. And there are wicked who prosper and there are the innocent who are killed. We see that. It's in the news continually. Christina Grimmie this week,

I guess someone told me there was a mass shooting this morning. There's stuff happening with ISIS all around. It's just constantly, there's all kinds of crazy stuff happening in this world. People getting away with murder, people getting away with things. This life does not make a lot of sense all by itself. And that's why Solomon says, don't let your heart envy sinners, but be zealous for the fear of the Lord because surely there is a hereafter and your hope will not be cut off.

He says, remember eternity. Now this is really appropriate for us to consider as we prepare this week to go into the book of Ecclesiastes. Because the book of Ecclesiastes is also written by Solomon. Now Proverbs, written by Solomon, because of the great wisdom that he had from God, and there's great wisdom and eternal truths found there. And yet, later in Solomon's life, he walked away from God.

He wandered from the Lord. And the book of Ecclesiastes really describes that journey. It's a journey of foolishness because he's searching for meaning and purpose in life. And as you read through chapter by chapter, he's looking for meaning. He's looking for purpose in a variety of different ways. Trying this, trying that, trying to find some good reason for living and life to understand it.

But the problem with his journey and this search that he endeavors on is that he limits it to things under the sun. And that's a repeated phrase all throughout the book. Things under the sun. Things in this life. And he comes to the conclusion over and over again, life is meaningless. Life is pointless. It has no value because he's only considering this life.

And when you think about this life and you limit it to this life, you're gonna come to the same conclusions. It's meaningless. It's worthless. There's no value. It's vanity of vanities. Life will not make sense in that scope. But here's where it makes sense. For surely there is a hereafter. There is life after this life. And he says, if you fear the Lord and you're zealous for the fear of God and you seek the Lord and walk with him, your hope will not be cut off.

There is value to walking with God. There is value. There will be justice. All things will be made right. All things will be made whole. That's God's promise to those who love him, to those who seek him, to those who pursue him. So be zealous for the fear of the Lord all the day. The fear of the Lord, remember, is the beginning of wisdom. And so as we look back at these truths, these proverbs we've been considering today, these are part of

of the fear of the Lord. These are things that we should be zealous for, testing our hearts, not just trusting our emotions, not just trusting how we feel or what we think or my conclusions, but I need to be zealous for checking those things with God. Lord, is this what you say? This is how I feel. Is this the truth? Is this the way that you want me to operate? I need to be zealous for receiving correction, letting people speak into my life, letting people correct areas that are out of line.

I need to be zealous to think ahead, to not just continue as I always have or continue in the direction that I think is best, but to stop and think, where does this path take me? And do I want to be at that destination? Do I want to end up there or do I want to end up somewhere else? And if I want to end up somewhere else, okay, Lord, show me, what do I need to do to hide myself from that destruction and to go down the path that you desire? I need to be zealous to love correctors.

So when people do correct me and I receive it, that I love them for it, that I thank them, that I appreciate that they care enough about me to correct me. I need to be zealous to stop gossip, to not cause division, to not continue things that need to die down and things that need to be let go, things that need to be forgiven and healed. I need to be zealous to admit my weakness and

to acknowledge I fall short, I fail, and that's nobody else's fault. That's my fault, and Lord, help me to grow and overcome and be strong in that area, and I need to be zealous to remember eternity, to make sure that I'm living not for this life, that all of my goals and dreams and objectives and everything is not based on this life, but that I'm looking ahead at the eternity to come.

and that I keep the priorities and the values that God has established for all eternity. This is essential wisdom. May we live it out. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I pray that you would help us to grab hold of these truths, Lord, that they would really make a difference and an impact in our hearts, that we would receive the wisdom that you have for us, that we would keep ourselves in a place where you can continue to work in us and through us,

Lord, as we seek to walk with you, as we're zealous for the fear of the Lord, stir us up, Lord, in our zeal and our passion for knowing you. And Lord, I pray for any of these areas that might be out of line for us. Lord, highlight them. Show us. Correct us. Lord, that we might respond and be obedient to you and your word. Help us, God, to not live according to our own feelings or what we want, but to really, truly submit our lives to you and let you be our Lord.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.