Proverbs 3:19-35
Let’s hear God’s word together
from Proverbs chapter three, beginning at verse 19. And it says this, the Lord by wisdom
founded the earth. By understanding, he established
the heavens. By his knowledge, the deeps broke
open and the clouds dropped down the dew. My son, do not lose
sight of these. Keep sound wisdom and discretion
and they will be life for your soul and adornment for your neck. Then you will walk on your way
securely, and your foot will not stumble. If you lie down,
you will not be afraid. When you lie down, your sleep
will be sweet. Do not be afraid of sudden terror
or of the ruin of the wicked when it comes. For the Lord will
be your confidence, and he will keep your foot from being caught.
Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is
in your power to do it. Do not say to your neighbor,
go and come again, tomorrow I will give it, when you have it with
you. Do not plan evil against your neighbor who dwells trustingly
beside you. Do not contend with a man for
no reason when he has done you no harm. Do not envy a man of
violence, and do not choose any of his ways, for the devious
person is an abomination to the Lord, but the upright are in
his confidence. The Lord’s curse is on the house
of the wicked, but he blesses the dwelling of the righteous.
Towards the scorner he is scornful, but to the humble he gives favor.
The wise will inherit honor, but fools get disgrace. Amen, this is God’s word for
us. Back in March, April, when COVID-19 sort of got going strong
in the maybe middle of the March, people started staying home a
little more. That coincided with this bicycle pathway from Elon
to Burlington that goes down Front Street here, and then it
hits somewhere back over here, Canterbury and Woodland. And
then it connects right in front of our house and goes down through
Davis Street to the downtown area. And it also coincided with
the opening up of the Willowbrook Park Arboretum, the little pathway
through the center of the park. And so since March, there has
been a lot of foot traffic. And it has made my daily walk
difficult because my dog has too many other dogs now to attend
to. Used to be we were mostly alone, no other people were out
walking. He walks beside me and generally
stays beside me, but there’s a lot to sniff, a lot to smell,
and a whole lot to look at. Nowadays, there’s way more distractions
and it’s hard to keep him focused in order to get my walk done. Well, that’s a little of what
the book of Proverbs is telling us tonight is there’s all kinds
of distractions around And he says, and I believe it’s in verse
21, my son, do not lose sight. Do not lose sight of wisdom,
do not lose sight of understanding, do not lose sight of knowledge,
and keep sound wisdom and discretion close to you. Proverbs is probably
getting a little bit repetitious. You think of these words that
we have listed up here on the whiteboard, wisdom, instruction,
insight, prudence, knowledge, discretion, learning, guidance.
You keep hearing these words over and over. My son, get them. My son, don’t ignore them. My
son, if you have them, you’ll be blessed. If you go with the
wicked, your life will be terrible. You’ll end up dead, but not blessed
along the way. And so one of the things that
Solomon is trying to encourage us, one of the things we need
to encourage the young generation, even though we’re not pups, chasing
rabbits or sniffing out everything that comes along the path, we
have a lot to distract us. And you know how this goes. You
sit down and you think one evening you’re gonna read your Bible,
but you get the remote and you flip the TV on. The next thing
you know, two and a half hours later, you’ve rotted your brain
on the news or some TV show or two or three, and then your desire
to read your Bible, where has that gone? It’s gone to bed where
you probably should have gone a little while ago. Or we get
the phone out and the Netflix pops up. Or we get on Facebook
and we meander our way through lots of people’s lives we really
don’t know and probably shouldn’t care that much about. And so
we wake up from our TV binges, our Netflix binges, or our Facebook
binges. We wake up two and a half hours
later and realize we lost sight of our goal. That’s how it goes. It’s easy to lose sight. It’s
very easy to lose sight in this world of wisdom, understanding,
knowledge, discretion, and sound wisdom. The world offers a buffet. I haven’t been in a while, but
you know the buffet at Golden Corral, the feeding trough, that’s
what a friend calls it. My grandparents used to love
to take us. My grandmother would say, do you want to go to that
place where you can pick what you want? That was her way of describing
the Golden Corral. But you go in there and you can’t
possibly even eat a 20th of what they offer. I mean, it’s just
food, food, food galore. And the world offers us so much,
and now it’s all in our hands through our little devices. It’s
all at our fingertip. But the world offers us a buffet
of options, a smorgasbord of things. The devil, the devil
likes to turn our head and get our attention towards other things. And our flesh loves to go astray.
And so we’re in a dangerous predicament in a sense, aren’t we? What the
world offers, what the devil deceives us with, and what our
heart will go after. And so what’s so interesting
here about Proverbs 3, 19 through 35 is this. God offers you wisdom. Okay, we got that from Proverbs
so far, right? God offers you wisdom, but notice
what kind of wisdom he offers. And it pops up there in verses
19 and 20. He offers you the same wisdom
by which he founded the earth. It’s pretty amazing, isn’t it? He offers you the same wisdom
by which he established the heavens. Ought to be mind blowing, shouldn’t
it? The wisdom he will give you for life. to keep you on the
right path and away from the wrong path is the same wisdom
by which he founded the earth, he established the heavens, by
which the deeps broke open, or the seas, and by which the clouds
dropped their dew upon the earth. It can be yours. That sounds
like an infomercial, doesn’t it? For the low price of $19.95.
No, it’s the high cost of seeking first his kingdom. It’s the great
cost of being his disciple. It’s the great, effort of seeking
God’s wisdom by his word. It can be yours. And so what
I want us to take a few minutes to look at is three general sets
of benefits that come from seeking this wisdom. And the challenge
is not to lose sight, not to lose sight of what God offers,
not to be called to other stuff, not to be distracted, and to
wake up someday realizing we failed to pursue wisdom. So look
at verses 21 through 26. There’s a benefit to your life.
He says, my son, don’t lose sight of these. Keep wisdom and discretion.
Keep wisdom and sound discretion. They will be life for your soul
and adornment for your neck. They’ll give you strength, right?
Life for your soul. They’ll give beauty, adornment
for your neck. Then you will walk in your way
securely. Your foot will not stumble. If you lie down, you
will not be afraid. And when you lie down, your sleep will
be sweet. So there’s not only strength and beauty, but there’s
also preservation in life. And then he says in verse 25,
do not be afraid of sudden terror or of the ruin of the wicked
when it comes for the Lord will be your confidence and he will
keep your foot from being caught. So the benefit to our life is
strength. The benefit to our life is beauty.
The benefit to our life is preservation. The benefit to our life is no
fear, even if the greatest disaster in the world were to fall upon
us. We can have great confidence,
trusting in the Lord, living wisely. And so that’s the first
benefit. The second benefit comes in verses
27 to 30. And the benefit of wisdom is
in how we relate to our neighbor. Do not withhold good from those
to whom it is due when it is in your power to do it. Do not
say to your neighbor, go and come again tomorrow. I will give
it when you have it with you. Do not plan evil against your
neighbor who dwells trustingly beside you. Do not contend with
a man for no reason when he has done you no harm. I would guess
that most of us, well, y’all are good folks, right? You know
your neighbors a little bit. There’s this Christian book out
there called The Art of Neighboring. And the goal is, I think, to
know, to take your house and look at the, you know, neighborhoods
are different now. Everything’s symmetrical and
cookie cutter, but maybe some of you live in older neighborhoods
where houses are a little scattered about. But the goal is to take
your house and say, who are your 10 closest neighbors? Do you
know their names? Do you say hi to them? Do you
know something about them? Do you know something about them
that’s serious that maybe you’re praying for? And you see, you
go a little deeper and a little deeper with these levels of knowledge
and interaction with your neighbor. Most people in America now, they
leave early and they come home late. Well, that was pre-COVID,
right? But you would see your neighbor’s
garage door go up, their car back out. And then you would
see later in the day their garage door go up, their car go in.
And as the door shut, they went in their house and their yard
was surrounded by a six and a half foot high fence. So you really
don’t see your neighbors that often. And if you go out to roll
the trash, A lot of people peek out the window and they make
sure they don’t roll their trash out when you roll your trash out
because then you might have to have some social interaction.
And that’s generally the sense, I think, that goes on in America.
We live a very private life and we don’t know our neighbors very
well. But notice how wise people interact. If they see that their
neighbor has a need and it’s in their power to meet that need,
they do it. In 2002, we moved into a house
down in Charlotte area where we lived. And before we could
even get settled in for the first night, the husband and wife neighbor
knocked on the back door, brought us a chest pie, introduced themselves. And I can remember with great
clarity, this has been 18 years ago, our backdoor neighbor Banks
said to Mandy and me, I want to be a good neighbor. And we
took him up on it one time when I think Patrick was on the way. Carolyn was in bed asleep. We
woke up and needed to go to the hospital. And it was about 3
in the morning. And we called Banks and Sarah. I said, we got
to go to the hospital. Can y’all come? And they came. They said,
call on us any time. And I said, I called them at
3 in the morning. I said, I’m calling in your favor. You said I could
have. And they were there in five minutes.
Happy, happy to do it, but always learning as tools, always encouraging. I would walk most mornings early
in ministry, struggling through a lot of difficulties. And he had been a middle school
principal in that town, and he told me, don’t you back down.
You keep those teeth gritted, and you don’t let the evil people
win. That was his good advice. They
were good neighbors. It was in their power to do good,
and they did it. They didn’t shut their curtains
and lock their doors. If you needed something, and
I can tell you hundreds of examples of how they were good neighbors,
but can you name the eight to 10 houses around you? Can you
think of the last time that somebody needed something and you saw
that need and met it? or they asked for something and
you were able to help. So wise people have good relations
with their neighbors and serve them. The other thing in verse
28, don’t say to your neighbor, go and come again tomorrow, I
will give it. When you have it with you, don’t lie. I’ll come
get the lawnmower tomorrow. Then they come over and say,
well, I’ll lend it to somebody else. Or I changed my mind. You know,
this kind of thing. Verse 29, don’t plan evil. against
your neighbor who dwells trustingly beside you. I can’t tell you
how many stories I’ve heard of people who live 80 feet from
their next door neighbor and they hate each other. And it
was over something silly like your dog got in my yard or, you
know, your kid threw their football and it landed in the yard and
they stepped on a bush or something like that. We dwell trustingly
beside others. Verse 30, don’t contend with
a man for no reason when he has done you no harm. So a wise person
interacts with their neighbors, their coworkers, the people they
see. We don’t live in a life of lawsuits when our neighbor
has done us no harm. Then the last section, verses
31 to 35, it gives us the benefits of wisdom in relation to the
wicked. Do y’all believe there are wicked
people around you? Yes, very good. So how do you deal with
them? Well, you deal with them wisely. Verse 31, don’t envy
a man of violence. Don’t choose any of his ways
or imitate them. You know, one of the things that
we like to do in our culture is we like to take our cues or
we like to look at how others are doing it and succeeding and
we imitate them. What did everybody, what did
everybody wear in the 1980s? They wore number 23. Who was
number 23? Michael Jordan. And then in the
90s, it was number 24. Who was that? Well, we moved
from basketball. Jeff Gordon. Everybody wanted
to be Jeff Gordon. And now whoever the heroes are,
it changes every decade. I’m not saying these fellows
are evil, but we imitate those we see. And isn’t it very easy
to imitate those around us, what we see? It’s easy to do. So he says, don’t imitate the
evil. Don’t envy a man of violence. Don’t choose any of his ways.
Don’t take your cues from the wicked. It reminds us of Psalm
73. Remember the psalmist in Psalm
73 was cast down because to him, it looked like the wicked prospered.
And to him, it looked like the righteous suffered and dried
up. And it says in Psalm 73, he became
so cast down that he was upset with God. And then it says, and
then I went to church. I went to God’s house and I no
longer envied the righteous or the unrighteous. So it’s good
for us to remember week by week as we come into God’s house and
day by day as we read God’s word, it’s good for us to remember
what is good, right, and true. And then we won’t envy the wicked
and choose any of their ways. Verse 32 steps it up a little
bit. The devious person is an abomination
to the Lord. What’s the joke? How do you tell
if a politician is lying? His mouth is moving, right? We’re
getting a high dose of that, aren’t we? One day it’s, we’re
gonna frack. The other day it’s, no way we’re
gonna frack. Well, which is it? It can’t be
both, right? One day it’s, we’re gonna tax
you. The other day it’s, oh no, we’re not gonna raise your taxes.
And all they gotta do is get elected, then they just do what
they want and they get away with it for four years or so. But the devious person is an
abomination to the Lord, but the upright are in his confidence. Then verse 33, the Lord’s curse
is on the house of the wicked, but he blesses the dwelling of
the righteous. You see the compare and the contrast, the devious
person, the upright, and now the house of the wicked and the
dwelling of the righteous. And then 34, towards the scorners,
he is scornful or he mocks, literally says in the Hebrew language,
he mocks the proud mockers. So towards those who are scorners
or mockers, he is a mocker back to them and even greater. But
to the humble, he gives grace or favor. And then finally, the
wise will inherit honor, but fools get disgrace or shame. And so with all that’s offered
to us by the world, all that’s available for the devil to trick
us into, and all that’s out there for our heart to desire. We ought
to desire the wisdom that is offered to us, and it is that
same wisdom by which God founded the heavens, the earth, the sea,
and the dry land, and by which he sends the rain on the land.
Isn’t that a great gift? The exact same wisdom that he
used to do all that’s magnificent around us. It can be yours for
daily living. So remember these great truths.
Let’s ask God for his blessing. Lord, we commit ourselves to
your word tonight. We want to believe it. We want
it to affect our daily living. So give us confidence. Help us
to not imitate the wicked. Help us to be good neighbors
and help us to be wise livers of life so that we can live a
blessed by your hand life. We pray this in Christ’s name.
Amen.