[0:00] Wonderful. Proverbs chapter number 20. Great job. It's always nice having the kids in here on Sunday night. The kids choir and then them singing. Love that song. When Andrew learns to play the guitar, that song's going to get even better, isn't it?
[0:14] He just comes out of the sound booth every now and then just to show us he's still got other skills that he can have. Proverbs chapter 20. I like having the kids here on Sunday night. I know being a dad, especially when they're little, it's a little bit harder to get them to sit still, try to be mindful of the time, but it's nice that we get all studied together.
[0:33] Like the book of Proverbs, simple and practical. It should be simple. Unless a preacher makes it complicated, it ought to be simple. But we do all have a way of doing that at times, don't we? Making the simple complicated.
[0:44] Before we get into it, we have been looking at Proverbs as themes, and then in this chapter I decided I was going to look at each verse, and now we've been in it three Sunday nights in a row. And so a little bit different, and we're going to look at a few more verses at the end of Proverbs chapter 20.
[0:59] But the overarching look in verse number 8, it says, A king that sitteth in the throne of judgment scattereth away all evil with his eyes, that a good king upon his throne will keep the people in his kingdom in subjection to him, because they know the eyes of the king are in every place.
[1:15] And we say as children of God, we know that our Father is watching us, so we pay close attention to the word of God when it's taught, because we know that the eyes of the king are upon us, and we want to live lives that are honoring the hymn.
[1:29] It's good when you're reading the Bible to zoom out sometimes, to look at where it fits in the big story that is happening. Sometimes when I'm going somewhere on my traveling, and I'm using Waze, or one of those things, I zoom out and look at the overview, because I want to make sure that I'm going in the right direction.
[1:48] I one time ended up in Dayton, Tennessee, or Dayton, Ohio, from Cincinnati, going to Denver, because I didn't do that, and I was driving in the wrong direction for a long time.
[1:58] And so it's good to zoom out. So when you're studying Proverbs, and we want to zoom out a little bit, and see what it is that we're looking at, we're going to get into the verses, I'm going to read the verses to you, I'm going to make application to it.
[2:11] In Proverbs, by the time you finish the verse, you probably know what you need to do. Isn't that great? I mean, you read a verse, and you're like, I know what needs to be done, or I know what to avoid. The application is right there.
[2:22] But in Proverbs, it advances this overarching theme of the Bible, which is that God is calling and preserving and shaping a people for Himself. All the way from the beginning of creation, God created Adam and Eve, and He had a people for Himself.
[2:37] And Satan tried to destroy that picture that was there. But throughout the Bible, the children of Israel, He was constantly calling and preserving and shaping a people for Him. And the day in which we live, in this church age that we live in, that we are supposed to live lives that are distinct and that are different.
[2:53] That God has called us out, called us to be holy and separate. It gives us wisdom, reflecting God's glory in the details of our daily life and in our relationship. It demonstrates clearly that God's ways are intensely practical and apply to every aspect of our lives.
[3:11] You can't tell me after reading Proverbs that God just doesn't care about the details of your life. That religion is something far off, something that's not for the everyday, not for the person.
[3:22] Proverbs is right where we live. Some of you have the story, and the rest of us kind of envy the story, where you would say, yeah, me and my dad, we would sit on the back of the pickup truck, and he would give me wisdom about life and business and relationships, and he just told me what I needed to hear.
[3:37] Well, a lot of us didn't have that, and you feel like you're missing out, and now you want to provide that to your kids. Well, the best thing that you can do is you can sit down with the Word of God and say, God, I would make a mess of my life if it wasn't for you to tell me how to live my life out.
[3:52] So we should be grateful that Proverbs are practical. The main emphasis of the book is the show that relating rightly to God involves first seeking to understand His truth, and second, embracing and obeying that truth.
[4:05] So we pray, as Ezra 7.10, that he prepared his heart to seek the law and to do it, and then to teach it, that we would say, God, I'm going to go to your Word, and whatever you tell me is what I want to have.
[4:17] So we should be very grateful for the book of Proverbs. Kids in here of all ages, Proverbs is nice. You can read the proverb of the day in your Bible reading, you know, each month or every day inside of the month.
[4:29] We give you a proverb to read. You can read it quickly, and there's always something that you can, in your reading it, that you can make quick application to your life. And so there's four primary characters in the book of Proverbs.
[4:41] The wise one who embraces God's commands and covenant that is given there, and His love that He's showing, and His precepts that He is teaching. That's the wise person. The fool, on the other hand, is the one that's opposed to it.
[4:55] But God is constantly calling them. They're not beyond hope. There's always these warnings to the fool, that you don't have to, you may be a fool right now, but you don't have to end this way as a fool. And we see tons of warnings to the fool in here.
[5:08] Or it's the simple ones, who either remain uncommitted to either wisdom or folly. You know, they're easily misled. Sometimes that could be young people, but it can be even when we're older, we can be as the simple ones, that we're just easily persuaded.
[5:22] They go the way of the wise person, the foolish person, and then the scoffer, the proud and the arrogant, the one that scorns God's ways. And we're not even supposed to sit with that person. We're not supposed to be around the scoffers of God's Word.
[5:36] And so, so far we have seen that we don't want, and I'll go through this quickly, but I don't want to be drunk on wine, or I don't need to be drunk. I don't want to live a life where I would even need to be, because I don't need anything outside of Jesus to meet and bring my comfort.
[5:49] I don't want the King seeing me cover my lack of integrity by writing my own press releases. I don't want the King seeing me being easily provoked because I know my anger can be destructive. I don't want the King to see me meddling where I should not meddle.
[6:01] I don't want the King hearing me make lame excuses for my responsibilities. I don't want the King seeing me cover my lack of integrity or seeing me use unfair business practices.
[6:12] I don't want the King to see me sleeping when I should be awake, nor do I want Him to find me awake when I should be sleeping. And then last week we looked at, I don't want the King seeing me keeping a tailbearer in business.
[6:22] They don't have anybody to talk to. They're going to quickly go out of business. I don't want the King seeing me dishonoring my parents at any age of my life. I have the privilege and responsibility to show honor to them.
[6:35] I don't want to see the King mismanaging my unexpected blessings in life, whether that's financial or skills or talents or influence or opportunities. And I don't want the...
[6:46] And now the next one that we're going to see here, Proverbs 20, 22 says, Say not thou, I will recompense evil, but wait on the Lord and He shall save thee.
[6:57] And I do not want the King to see me usurping His authority and seeking my own revenge. If we think about Proverbs, especially if we think about this morning in the book of Luke, I believe that the Bible was showing us with these two different stories, that there's times that we need to act in faith and we need to do something that seems risky, maybe even, that we need to take an opportunity.
[7:19] The lady reached out, but there was another man, Jairus, and he was in a season where he... a moment where he needed to wait, but the thing that both of them have in common is that they needed to live dependent upon God, that they needed to make their actions fully dependent upon Him.
[7:36] So in this area of revenge and forgiveness, it's practical, but it's also a matter of the heart. It shows if you're dependent on God. When you say that I'm going to take revenge into my own hands, then you're saying that I'm not going to trust the Lord, I'm not going to live dependent on Him, but I'm going to live independent of Him, and I'm going to take matters into my own hands.
[7:57] So the book of Proverbs gives us tons of applications for the lessons that we're learning. I shared a definition with a life group this morning about bitterness. Bitterness is unresolved violation of your justice system.
[8:10] It's where when somebody has done something that you think's against you, you either trust God and say, vengeance is of the Lord, and He will repay, as the Bible would tell us, and we just trust Him, or we say, I can't trust You, Lord, because in this world that I live in, you may be in control of the big things, but you're not able to look down here in my life and see what I'm going through.
[8:31] I'm going to need to kind of correct things and change things and balance things out, but He doesn't need us to. So one of the ways that we can show trust in the Lord is say not I will recompense evil, but wait on the Lord and He shall save me.
[8:47] One of the ways that we show dependence upon Him is we say, I'm going to wait on the Lord. There's some things in life that don't seem right, but I'm not going to go through fleshly methods of balancing the scales.
[8:58] I'm going to trust You, Lord, no matter how long it takes. If it's on this side of eternity or on the other side of eternity, I don't have the right to take matters in my own hand. Because as Christians, we never need revenge.
[9:11] 1 Peter 4, 19, Wherefore, let them that suffer according to the will of God commit to the keeping of their souls. Another way to say that is to trust the keeping of their souls to Him in well-doing as unto a faithful creator.
[9:28] How do we do good to those who are hurting us? How do you do good to those that are hurting you? There's a question. I love, and I have to believe that the Holy Spirit would answer these questions for each one of you.
[9:41] Because I look in here, and I wouldn't even begin to think about the hurts that we have. You share stories, and you say this all the time. I had no idea. I had no idea that you were going through that. Well, the Holy Spirit most certainly knows these things that you're going through.
[9:53] So how do you do good with those that are hurting you? This is an important question that we all need to be able to answer. We had a meeting before church about halo ministry, how to help families who have loved ones that are dealing with addiction.
[10:06] That's a question that they're going to need to be able to answer, is how do I help somebody who has repeatedly hurt me? But they're not the only ones. Every one of us are going to deal with this. And if you're not, as I told you this morning, I would encourage you to open yourself up and be around more people.
[10:22] It's not your job to live this safe, away from all the harm of this world. It's your job to make much of Jesus with your life. And so how do you do good to those that are hurting you? Bible says, according to the will of God.
[10:34] It says, wherefore, let them not suffer according to the will of God. So there's two different ways that you could see this here. Is he saying that it's God's will will decide if we suffer or not? The Bible does teach that, that what comes into our lives is filtered through the hand of God.
[10:50] Job was at, the question was asked Satan of Job, this is your servant. And he said, don't take his life. And so that we know that the suffering that comes into our life, that God is aware of, not the author of sin, but these things that come into our lives.
[11:03] But is he saying that we should suffer in a proper way? I think that's a better understanding of this passage is that we suffer according to the will of God, which is how we're supposed to live our lives, right?
[11:14] According to the will of God. What is the will of God? That you would live according to the will of God, that you live according to how the Bible would tell us to do things. And so how are we to suffer?
[11:25] The Bible says that we're to suffer, but in so doing, we're supposed to be doing well to those that would hurt us. And so that's what we're commanded to do. We're commanded to trust God with our lives and to do good those that cause us to suffer.
[11:39] Suffer according to the will of God, commit the keeping of their souls to Him in well-doing. And so we're supposed to do good to those that are hurting us.
[11:50] And how would we do good to those that are hurting us? And we do it by fully depending on God. How should we think about God? That's seen in the way we view Him as our faithful creator.
[12:02] There's a lot of different names for God used, you know, in the Bible. And we should always take note of why it says faithful creator as opposed to father, or why it says father as opposed to shepherd.
[12:15] None of the Bible wastes any amount of words every time. You ever been to a church where it has the names of God around the room everywhere? It has a lot of names of God around the room. So many different ways that God gets referred to.
[12:27] Here in this, where it's telling you that you need to do good to those that hurt you, and the way that you do good to them is to live dependent upon the father, that here it says faithful creator, which we should take note of.
[12:39] We would say in a world that isn't faithful, and to a person who hasn't been faithful to us, in a world that's very harmful, one that we can't trust, I'm not supposed to look here, but I'm supposed to look unto the faithfulness of God.
[12:52] They're looking to the creator of the universe. Luke 23, 46, And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, He said, Father, and to thy hands I commend my spirit, and having said thus, He gave up the ghost.
[13:07] What was Jesus doing here? But He was doing good to those that would hurt Him. He was living in submission to the Father. He was just living dependent. So one of the ways that you do good to people that are hurting you is that you don't seek to correct the matter of yourself.
[13:24] You don't seek your own revenge. You trust the Lord. The promise that frees us from an unforgiving and a bitter and avengeful spirit is the promise that God will settle our accounts.
[13:35] Romans 12, 19, Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place under wrath, for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.
[13:46] So when you've been hurt by people, we don't take from God the power of the situation, but we trust Him. We don't seek vengeance. We don't look for revenge.
[13:56] So Proverbs would tell us, what is one of the ways this morning we said we will live lives dependent upon the Lord? Well, Proverbs here would tell us the way that you would do that is in regards to when people are hurting you, you don't retaliate.
[14:08] Number, verse Proverbs 20, 25. They call this shotgun preaching, not the manner in which I'm preaching, but you know, you have one point and then you have another where you have a lot of points and it just spreads out.
[14:21] I'm hoping to hit all of you before the night ends, okay? Proverbs 20, 25. It is a snare to a man who devoureth that which is holy and after vows to make inquiry.
[14:32] So this is what I don't want to do because I know the king is watching in regards to this verse. I do not want the king to hear of me making rash and foolish vows that I cannot pay.
[14:43] Making a rash promise without thinking them through is very dangerous. Making a vow rashly, then considering what he did, can get a person in as much trouble as if he stepped into an animal trap, it is better to think before acting.
[14:57] To make a promise and then to think about it afterwards, you know you put your foot in a snare. On a small level, have you ever done this as a parent before? You say something and you're like, oh man, did I really just tell the kids that we are going to go get ice cream if they clean their room?
[15:14] Which is always great because who doesn't want ice cream, right? And so you make a, you say it and then you say, oh wow, as soon as I said this, I should have been thinking sooner. That's the easy one. Or you're on the phone with somebody and they ask you to do something, they're like, oh yeah, I'll be there.
[15:27] And then you get off the phone and you're like, what was I thinking? I can't be there today and you're going to have to call them back. And so those are silly examples. But every one of you in here, what is the, one of the big examples of the Old Testament of a man who makes a rash vow and he regrets it?
[15:46] This man's name is Jephthah. Man, what a great group here. All right. Jephthah. And 5,000 points for our children's pastor right there. Right? Greg had that. And so Jephthah, if you're not familiar with it in Judges 11, need a little background on Jephthah to see what motivated this rash decision.
[16:03] A lot of insecurity in this guy's life. He wanted to really prove his allegiance to a group of people. And so he says, the first thing that comes through the doors of my house, I'm going to make a vow and I'm going to commit it.
[16:15] I'm going to kill it and make a sacrifice unto the Lord. And we learn that his only child, his daughter, comes through the door. And so this allegiance or this insecurity leads to this rash vow that is made.
[16:30] And that's far worse than saying that you're going to get ice cream when you don't want to get ice cream, isn't it? And so look at, look at with me in 2 Corinthians 1, verse 15, looking for an example of a person who wanted to do something, but then they weren't able to and then them giving a reason why they couldn't.
[16:48] 2 Corinthians 1, 15. I know what I just said didn't make a lot of sense. Stay with me. I'll try again, okay? We're going to look at a person who had a desire to do something, said he was going to, but then later on wasn't able to and how he explained himself.
[17:01] 2 Corinthians 1, 15. And in this confidence, I was minded to come unto you before that you might have a second benefit. I wanted to see you guys again. I enjoyed my last visit with you and I'm wanting to come by and see you guys again.
[17:16] Paul had been communicating to the church in Corinth that he was coming, but he had to change his plans. Well, that's a problem, isn't it? Because James 5, 12 says, Above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath, but let your yea be yea and your nay be nay, lest you fall in the condemnation.
[17:34] So Paul had communicated to the church he wanted to come, but he had to change the plans. Now, 2 Corinthians 1, 17 and 18. When I therefore was thus minded, did I use likeness? Was I being cavalier?
[17:45] Was I being nonchalant? Or the things that I propose, do I propose according to the flesh that with me there should be yea, yea and nay, nay? But as God is true, our word towards you was not yea and nay.
[17:57] So Paul's defense for not following through on his initial plan was that he was not motivated by fear or selfishness, but by love. 2 Corinthians 1, 23 and 24.
[18:09] Moreover, I call God for your record upon my soul that I spare you that I came not yet as a Corinth, not for that we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy, for by faith you stand.
[18:20] So Paul had an obligation. He said, I'm going to come visit you guys. And then he had to say, I'm not going to be able to make it. But he said, I want you to know that the reason I didn't do what I said I was going to do, it wasn't because I was afraid to go there.
[18:32] It wasn't just because I wanted to back out, but I did it motivated and loved towards you because it wouldn't be best for me to follow through with the original plans that I gave.
[18:43] And so that's a real question that you ought to ask yourself is that when you make a plan and you're not able to keep a plan, is it selfishly motivated that you're not keeping the plan? If so, you should swear into your own hurt and you should follow through with the plans.
[18:56] Or if you're doing it in the best interest of the other person, then you need to let them know that. You know, I'm sorry I can't come to your house today. I'm sick. I don't want to make you sick. All right? That would be an obvious answer, but there'd be other times.
[19:07] Or to call and to say, hey, when I made my commitment to you, I wasn't aware of these other things that were going on. And I'd like to let you know this is what I have going on.
[19:18] And here's some, so that's one thing you've got to ask yourself, am I the person that's keeping my word? If I'm making commitments and then I'm breaking them, are you breaking them out of a selfish manner or are you doing it in the best interest of people?
[19:30] Because Paul seems to think that's pretty important. I mean, did you look at the word there? He says, moreover, I call God for a record upon my soul. All right? Like, calm down, Paul. We know you're not coming. All right?
[19:40] Next time somebody invites you over for dinner, you need to start with that. All right? Moreover, I call for a record upon my soul. I want to come, but I shouldn't come. They'll know you're serious if you talk like that. And so here's some terminology.
[19:51] That's a way of thinking about it is what would be in the best interest is my heart motivated. And that's a lot of times the only way that you can tell the decision between a good decision and a wrong decision is what is motivating the decision that needs to be made.
[20:05] I could ask for some volunteers in here and I could say, how many of you are willing to come help me on this day at this time and do something? And for many of you in here, it wouldn't be wrong at all for you not to do that.
[20:16] But then there'd be others in here that would say, that's exactly what I would need to do. The question would be, what would be motivating your decisions? Here's another thing that can help us when it comes to keeping our word.
[20:27] Acts 16, Tim. And after I'd seen a vision, immediately we endeavored to go into Macedonia assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them.
[20:39] There's other terminology we don't use very often, but it is a way that we should speak. We should let people know, I assuredly gather this is what I need to do. And there's a lot of decisions that we make like that, that I've assuredly gathered.
[20:54] You know, there's people in our community that are hurting because their loved ones are dealing with addictions. Our church ought to be in a position where we can give answers of hope according to God's word.
[21:04] So I'm just assuredly gathering that with the group of people we have in here that this might be something as a church that we ought to do. And so can we pray about it? That's assuredly gathering. When it comes to the word, if we don't have the word of God on something, if we don't have the promises of the word of God, then we make decisions based on the information that we have.
[21:23] And so we ought to talk like that. What's another way that the Bible tells us to talk? It says in James 4.15, for that you ought to say, if the Lord will, you shall live and do this or that.
[21:34] And so that the saying, if the Lord wills, that ought to be common in our way of speaking. I will be there if God wills. Lord willing, I will be there. And it's not just sprinkling a phrase on your expressions, but it's really thinking like that.
[21:48] And it's qualifying what you're doing so that you say, if God allows for me, I want to be there. And so it seems like vows are a necessary part of our life. Ecclesiastes 5, 4 and 5.
[22:00] When thou vowest the vow unto God, defer not to pay it, for it hath not pleasures and fools pay that which thou hast vowed. Better is it that thou shouldest not vow than thou shouldest vow and not pay.
[22:12] So you'd think the easiest way, well, let's just get away from making vows. I'll never say anything again. That way I won't break it. That's just not how life works. You know, that wasn't the agreement my wife wanted when we went. That doesn't make for a very pretty wedding vow, does it?
[22:24] When you go forward and say, if it works out, it works out. If it doesn't, don't worry about it, you know? That's not what it means. Your mortgage wouldn't work like that either, right? Like, if I can pay, I'm going to pay. If I can't, you know, we'll work something out.
[22:35] No. We're going to live in a life where we're making promises and we need to be people of our word and we can help ourselves by saying things like I've assuredly gathered when we can't know for sure to say things like, Lord willing, and also when we have to change plans, to say, what is in my heart right now?
[22:53] Because I need to not make a selfish decision, but I need to do what's best for the other person and to prefer them over myself. So the two that we looked at tonight, and then Stephen told me, he promised me actually, that we could sing this song, all right?
[23:07] You told me that we could, all right? You told me we could sing the song that the kids sung tonight, and that's how we will end the night. So I'll just leave you with these two tonight, which is, we don't want to see the king, the king see us taking revenge in our own hands, because that has to do with our trust in God.
[23:22] We trust him with our lives. We don't have to be the lords of our own universe. He is the lord of the universe. And then lastly, we do not want to make the king to hear us here making rash and foolish vows that we cannot pay.
[23:36] Let's be slow to speak. Be slow to make the commitments. Let's count the cost, and then when we make a decision, let's follow through with those as we are people whose lives are being shaped by the word of God.
[23:48] Heavenly Father, I thank you for your word, and Lord, I pray that you would help us. Lord, I pray that you would make my brothers and sisters in this room, Lord, distinct and different by the way we live. Lord, we might not be seen as a bitter or revengeful people, but we are people that are able to let go in the trust and the sleep knowing that you, Lord, see all and you know all and we can trust you.
[24:10] Lord, I also pray that you would help us be people that are true to our word, that when we make commitments, Lord, that we follow through with those and that we don't quickly make decisions that we cannot follow through with and we want this to glorify you, Lord, as you make us different in this world and pray that the world will know us because of what you have done in and through our hearts through the gospel.
[24:33] In Jesus' name I pray, Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
[24:43] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.