Working to Live or Living to Work? Work and Labor in the Book of Ecclesiastes

            Tomorrow, as you know, is Labor Day, the day when we celebrate the contributions of workers to our country. I think I can safely say that the vast majority of people have kind of a love/hate relationship with their job. Some people have managed to get into a career that they absolutely love, but for most people, their job is just a way to pay the bills. This is really kind of sad when you think about it, because as adults, where do we spend a large portion of our waking hours? At work! This means that many, many people spend the bulk of their lives doing something that for them is little more than a necessary evil.

            I hope I didn’t just describe you, but if I did, I think I have some good news for you. It may surprise you to learn that the book of Ecclesiastes actually has some encouraging news about our work and labor. Now you might naturally think, “I don’t even want to hear what Ecclesiastes has to say about my job! That’s the really pessimistic book! Whatever it has to say will probably make me feel worse than before!”

            Well, let’s give this book the benefit of the doubt, because I think you might be pleasantly surprised to hear what Ecclesiastes has to say about the subject of work. As we look at this theme today, I think we will see that Ecclesiastes teaches us this:

Our work in this world is supposed to enhance our lives, not hinder them.

I. Excessive devotion to work or profit is a futile thing (2:18–23; 5:10–17)

            Ecclesiastes first of all gives us a helpful corrective to the obsession with work that may plague our lives. Solomon points out two observations that lead him to this conclusion.

            A. Whatever you earn, you can’t take it with you! (2:18–23)

            In light of our mortality, excessive work trying to earn a profit is futile because we have to give it all up when we die, and everything that we earned might be frittered away by someone else. [READ 2:18–23]

            Solomon was greatly troubled here by the thought of leaving everything that he had worked so hard for to someone who hadn’t worked for it at all. There was no telling what the next man would do with all of his stuff, but like it or not, Solomon had to give it up. Solomon understood that timeless principle that money that is easy to come by is easily frittered away.

            I remember when I got my first summer job in high school how I felt like I was living the high life. It was a pretty cushy job and at the time, I had no major expenses in my life. I was still living at home and basically had no bills, so my paycheck was easy come, easy go. I threw away money on a leather jacket and movies—all kinds of teenage stuff.

            And the worst part of it all is that sometimes I feel like I still haven’t learned my lesson. To this day when I receive an unexpected gift of money, its still much harder to put that money to good use than it is to put my paycheck to good use.

            Money that is easy to come by is easily frittered away. This observation is important for us think about. If we are hoping to leave our kids a large inheritance, we may not necessarily be doing them a favor. Now in 7:11 Solomon says that if we pass along wisdom with an inheritance, that can be a good thing, but an inheritance alone may not be a good gift.

Second observation about excessive devotion to work or profit…

            B. Profits will not bring the satisfaction that they promise (5:10–17)

            If we wear ourselves out at work trying to accumulate wealth and possessions, we’re going to be disappointed when we get them, because we’ll discover that they don’t bring the satisfaction that they promise [READ 5:10–11] I’m sure we’ve all heard the stories of lottery winners who suddenly discover that their family is a lot bigger than it was before! Let’s keep reading [READ 5:12–17]

            Notice how Solomon highlights the emotional grief that we experience when we hoard our profits and the fruit of our labor—our sleep is disturbed; our daily routine symbolized by eating in v. 17 becomes shot through with grief and sickness and anger. That excessive devotion to working and profiting and holding onto what we earn brings all kinds of grief with it.

So rather than devote ourselves excessively to work and building up a profit, we need to learn that…

II. Work should be done in the right way for the right reasons (4:4–8; 10:10; 11:6)

Solomon makes three observations along these lines…

            A. We should not work in order to “one-up” our neighbor (4:4)

            If our primary goal in our work is to “keep up with the Joneses” or if we are working out of a spirit of jealousy, we’ve got the wrong motive. [READ 4:4] Notice how Solomon is really condemning envy and not hard work per se. Business has a natural element of competition to it—businesses are always competing with one another with their goods and services, and that can be okay if a person conducts his work with godly attitudes and motivations. But if we are motivated in our work by jealousy of someone else, work practically ceases to be work and becomes some kind of vendetta. So jealousy or envy is not a proper motivation for work.

            B. We should work diligently, but not at the expense of rest (4:5–6)

            Ecclesiastes presents us with a wonderfully balanced view of labor and rest [READ 4:5–6] Notice the two extremes that we have here: first we have the fool who folds his hands. The picture is of someone reclining with their hands across their chest. Solomon says all kinds of negative things about the sluggard or the lazy man in the book of Proverbs. The other extreme is the man who goes after labor with both hands, and what Solomon commends is a balance—one hand full of rest, with the idea being of course that the other hand is at work.

            This is such an important lesson for us to take to heart, because I fear it is so easy for us to buy into the idea that time spent resting is simply wasted time. And sometimes in church we sanctify that idea because we say, “Well the Bible says to redeem the time for the days are evil, so there’s no time to just sit around.” Friends, what did God do on the seventh day of creation? He rested! We don’t really think He needed to rest, do we? No—He was setting an example for us!

            So we should understand that rest is not a bad thing. It is a hard thing to get, however, because there’s always something else that we could be doing. And you know what—that will always be the case! So perhaps what we need to do is make time to rest, and not feel guilty about it, but understand that its okay.

            C. We should work smarter, not harder (10:10)

            [READ 10:10] If we don’t employ wisdom in our work, we will only make things harder on ourselves. Imagine if no one had ever invented the wheelbarrow. I don’t know who invented the wheelbarrow, but imagine if that person had said, “I can’t waste my time with all of this silly daydreaming about a basket with a wheel—there are rocks to be moved! What I really need to do is just put in a few more hours moving the rocks—that’s the answer!”

            Now that sounds pretty silly, but its no sillier than what we often do! Its so easy to think that answer to every problem at work is a few more hours. How many times have you thought, “If I only had a few more hours?” Well usually at the end of those hours, we’re still thinking the same thing!

            I think the application to rest comes into play here once again, because when our bodies and our minds are properly rested we can use them to the best of their ability. We can think more clearly about our work when we’re rested, and that will allow us a better opportunity to see how wisdom can help us improve our work.

I think one way that we can apply wisdom to our work is by taking to heart our third lesson…

III. Finding the good that our work accomplishes is a gift from God (2:24; 5:18–20)

            A. We should look for the good that our work produces (2:24)

            Now I have said “look for the good” for a reason, because it is so easy to start feeling like your work is pointless and meaningless. If we embrace that attitude, then work will be drudgery for the rest of our lives, but if we can focus on the good that our work produces, we can find satisfaction in it.

            [READ 2:24] Notice that the verse says we are to “find enjoyment” in our toil. Now this doesn’t mean that we have to deceive ourselves or anything like that. A slightly more literal translation from Hebrew here would read “cause your soul to see good in your labor.” Solomon is talking about a choice—the attitude that we choose to have about our work. If we choose to think that our job is just pointless drudgery, that’s exactly what it will feel like. But if we choose to see the good that our work accomplishes, we can find satisfaction.

            But how do we choose to see the good, especially when work often has so many hassles and frustrations? I think the answer is to focus on the way in which your job allows you to serve other people. I briefly worked at a bank at one point during seminary. That really wasn’t a bad job—I had a good work environment and a very good boss, but nevertheless, that was not what I wanted to do with my life at that time. I didn’t wake up every day with a burning passion to be a bank teller, and there were days when it was very easy for me to have a bad attitude as I went off to work. But I started to become convicted about my attitude, and I decided that God had me there for a reason, so I decided to focus on the good that our bank accomplished. I started to focus on the small businesses that relied on our loans to get by, and the homeowner’s who had taken out a mortgage with us so they could buy a home. I started to focus on the financial planning that we offered to help people take control of their spending, and I started to see that our bank really did accomplish good in this community. We were providing a service that allowed our community to improve, and when I thought about my work like that, I was able to find satisfaction in it.

            So what about you? How does your work allow you to serve people and improve their lives? That’s what you need to focus on, because serving people is always a satisfying thing, and you can serve people in any profession (provided of course that profession is within God’s moral standards).

            B. We should enjoy the profit that comes from our work (5:18–20)

            We saw earlier that Solomon instructs not to devote ourselves excessively to the profit that we can make in our work, but that doesn’t mean that we’re not supposed to get any enjoyment from our profit at all! [READ 5:18–20] Notice the benefit that we get from enjoying our profits in v. 20 [READ v. 20]. Enjoying our profits takes some of the sting out of life.

            I think we all know that it can be very, very easy to become overwhelmed with all of the problems that we encounter in this world. If we focus on our own problems and the problems in our government and the problems in our world long enough, it is easy to be overcome with despair. But what Solomon is telling us is that the profits we receive are a gift from God that he allows us to enjoy to lift up our spirits as we deal with life in a fallen world. What a beautiful perspective on the fruits of our labor! I think this tells us that we don’t need to feel guilty if God allows us to be successful in business; we don’t need to feel guilty about enjoying some of the fruits of our labor.

            Now this is to be balanced of course by Solomon’s warning about devoting ourselves excessively to money and profits. And you know, as we look through Scripture, the Bible doesn’t give us a clear-cut guideline about how much is too much. The New Testament treats us like people who are supposed to be mature in Christ, and mature people are supposed to be able to achieve a balance in the various areas of their lives. So as we seek to mature in Christ, that’s a question we should wrestle with—“How am I handling the profits of my labor? Am I being too selfish with them? Am I enjoying them appropriately?” We may not always have an easy answer, but we need to wrestle with the question.

            I hope we have seen today the appropriate way to deal with work and labor, something that consumes a large portion of our lives. Friends, I hope we have seen that God does not consider your job to be an unimportant thing. It is not a waste of your time, it is not less important than a “spiritual” job like being a pastor, it is not even a necessary evil—it is a gift from God to you to give you an outlet for serving other people, to provide for your family, to be generous to others, and to get some enjoyment out of what your labor produces. I hope that you will buy into this perspective, because I believe it will make your days at work much more pleasant, and it will allow you to find satisfaction in what you’re doing. So, enjoy your day off tomorrow, and I hope you can return to work on Tuesday with a new appreciation for the gift of labor. 

Dealing With Decisions--Proverbs series

A farmer once hired a man to work for him. He told him his first task would be to paint the barn and said it should take him about three days to complete. But the hired man was finished in one day. The farmer set him to cutting wood, telling him it would require about 4 days. The hired man finished in a day and a half, to the farmer’s amazement. The next task was to sort out a large pile of potatoes. He was to arrange them into three piles: seed potatoes, food for the hogs, and potatoes that were good enough to sell. The farmer said it was a small job and shouldn’t take long at all. At the end of the day, however, the farmer came back and found the hired man had barely started. “What’s the matter here?” the farmer asked. The hired man replied, “I can work hard, but I can’t make decisions!”1

I imagine that many of us sometimes feel the same way. We feel as though we could glide through life rather smoothly if we just didn’t have to make so many decisions. There is a sense of responsibility that comes from making decisions that can be overwhelming to us. If someone would just tell us what to do, we could do it, and we could do it well.

But the truth is, we cannot escape the fact that we have to make decisions. We make millions of decisions in our lives, dealing with everything from what we will wear on a daily basis to who we will marry. Some of these decisions feel very insignificant, but some feel so important and life-changing that the fear of making a bad choice can become a crushing burden in our lives.

So how can we make good, God-honoring choices? How should we approach the process of decision making? These are the questions that we will deal with today in our study of the book of Proverbs. Let’s look together at three principles that Solomon shares with us about how to make good decisions.

I. Choose to Follow God’s Way of Living, Not Your Own

For every decision that we face in life, we can find guidance in God’s written Word—the Bible. This is true for every decision, without exception. In the Bible, God has explained the kind of life we should live, so as we make our decisions, we should choose to follow His way of living—not the way of living that might flow from the sinful desires that we have in our hearts.

Let’s look at a very familiar passage—Prov. 3:5–6. First of all, Prov. 3:5 says [READ 3:5]. One thing that we need to realize in life is that our understanding of the world has been influenced by many different things—such as the culture in which we live, the time period in which we live, and the part of the world in which we live. Our understanding of the world is influenced by many things, and they haven’t all been good influences!

Therefore, we need to trust in God and embrace His way of looking at our world. And as this verse says, we need to embrace His way whole-heartedly, because sometimes God’s way is really different from our way of looking at the world. For example, think about the command that God gives us to love our enemies. That command seems so backward to us. We’re tempted to think, “How in the world will it help me to love my enemy? I’ll just become a doormat, and he will just walk all over me!” But we can’t even imagine how God may work through our love, so when we’re faced with a choice like this in a relationship, we have to follow God’s way of living instead of our own.

Verse 6 then goes on to say, “In all your ways acknowledge him.” Now we could misunderstand this statement if we only took a casual glance at it. Sometimes we use the word “acknowledge” to speak of thanking someone after we have accomplished something, but this verse isn’t talking about something that we do after we have made a decision. In the American Heritage dictionary, the first definition for “acknowledge” is “to admit the existence, reality, or truth of.” The last option is the one that fits here. When we “acknowledge” God in this sense, we are admitting the truthfulness of His ways; we are agreeing that His way is true and correct.

So, in every path that we choose to follow, if we will admit that God’s path is true and right and then choose to follow that path, the last part of v. 6 says, “he will make straight your paths.” The picture behind this phrase is of someone walking in front of you to move things out of your way. That person is making your path smoother and easier.

A few years ago, President Bush visited the suburb of Kansas City that I was living in at the time, and I went out to the road to see his motorcade pass by. It was really a fascinating thing to watch. Before he came by, the police department went ahead of him and closed down every intersection that his motorcade would pass through. That way, there would be no other vehicles on the road, and he would have a smooth and steady ride all the way to his destination.

That’s the picture in v. 6—if we will trust God and follow His way of living, He will go ahead of us to make life smoother and steadier. This is quite a blessing, and we can enjoy it if we will choose to follow God’s path instead of our own.

Now oftentimes, we find ourselves facing choices where we say, “I would be happy to follow God’s path if I just knew what it was!” These times may come when we face choices about “big” life decisions, like what to do after high school or where we should live or whom we should marry. We often feel like the Bible doesn’t give us specific guidance for these choices, but in fact it does. It gives us specific guidance by helping us assess our motives and our goals.

In every choice that we make, we have certain motivations for making that choice, and we have certain goals that we hope to achieve by making that choice. The Bible has a lot to say about the motives and the goals that we should have in life, and we can get very specific guidance for our choices if we will assess our motives and our goals in light of Scripture.

The Bible is where we should look when we want to find God’s will for any decision. Too often we try to interpret how we feel or what our circumstances are or what the clouds look like on a certain day. But when you face a decision, God doesn’t expect you to try and interpret a shiver in your liver that supposedly tells you what His will is. In the Bible, God has given us all of the guidance that He feels we need, and all He expects of us is to make our choices within the parameters of biblical morality. If you will simply do that, you will be on the right path.

II. Seek and Accept Advice from Other People

After we have looked for God’s will in the Bible, we should seek and accept advice from other people before making our decisions. Follow with me as I read a few verses [READ 11:14, 12:15, 13:10, 15:22, 24:5–6]. All of these verses encourage us to get advice and counsel from other people. Remember who was making these statements—this was Solomon, the wisest man on the planet. 1 Kings 4 says “God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding beyond measure, and breadth of mind like the sand on the seashore” (4:29). People from all nations came to hear his wisdom (4:34).

So what does the wisest man on the planet say about making plans and decisions? He says it is wise to accept advice from other people. If there was ever a man who didn’t need advice from other people, it was Solomon, yet even he recognized its value and importance.

There are at least a couple of reasons that we need to be willing to accept advice from other people. First, we need to admit that we simply don’t know everything. Only God is omniscient, thus, consulting with other people can help us fill in the gaps in our knowledge so that we can make a better-informed decision.

Second, we have to remember the possibility that exists that we might deceive ourselves when we make our choices. Prov. 14:12 says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.” When we face a choice that has two or three or four options for us, it is very easy to deceive ourselves about why we prefer a certain option. Think if you were offered a better paying job than you have now. This job had better pay, better benefits—the whole package. A motivation of greed could come into play at that point, but it is very easy to dress up greed in nice clothes by saying things like, “I just want to provide more for my family.” Pride might also serve as a motivation, but we can dress that up with phrases like “career advancement” or “climbing the corporate ladder.”

But when we seek counsel from other people, they can help us see through our self-deception. They can bring in points-of-view that will help us think clearly again and make us take a cold, hard look at why we truly prefer a certain option.

III. Avoid Making Hasty Decisions

Follow with me as I read Prov. 19:2 [READ 19:2]. Your translation may read “a soul without knowledge” or “a person without knowledge.” The Hebrew term has a very broad range of meaning. It can refer to the entire person, or just the inner person—the soul—or even specifically to the desires of the soul. Regardless, this verse is warning us about making a decision before we have acquired adequate knowledge to make a wise decision.

Proverbs 21:5 carries a very similar warning [READ 21:5]. One definition of “diligence” is “attentive care.” A person who exercises attentive care in planning would be very thorough—he would take the time to consider every option and every possibility. The hasty person, however, is in too much of a hurry to give attentive care to planning and decision making and thus ends up in poverty.

Now, “haste” is not a word that we commonly use today. In one sense, it can simply speak of doing something quickly, which is not necessarily bad. But in the verses that we just read, “haste” clearly means making decisions too quickly, without taking the time to think them through. A quick decision is not necessarily bad if you already have enough good information to make a decision, but that’s a big “if.” That is also usually the problem—we simply assume that we have enough information without taking the time to make sure that we’re correct.

Sometimes we feel pressured to make quick decisions because we feel like we have to be “decisive.” That’s a popular term in leadership training today—being “decisive.” We’re told that a leader is decisive—“when you’re on the horns of a dilemma, you have to grab the horns and take charge. You have to be decisive! You can’t let people think that you don’t know what to do, so you have to make a decision!”

Well, again, a quick decision can be okay if you already have all the information you need, but as we have already seen, you better not simply assume that you already know what you need to know. Sometimes hasty decisions are motivated by pride. Perhaps we think we will look weak or ignorant if we seek out advice, so we just make whatever decision looks best and we run with it. Then sometimes we compound our problems by sticking with a bad decision that was made too quickly!

Giving careful thought to your decisions is not a sign of weakness—it is in fact a sign of wisdom. The simple act of making a quick decision means nothing in itself. It doesn’t mean that you are wise, confident, or a good leader. It could actually mean that you are rash, impulsive, impetuous, and downright foolish. So be careful in making your decisions—exercise attentive care in considering your options, and take the time to gather all the information that you need.

We all know the painful consequences that can come from making a bad decision, because we’ve all made bad decisions! We’ve failed to consult the Bible, or we’ve allowed sinful motivations to push us into a bad choice, or we’ve made a decision without really thinking through it. Our decisions are so very important, so it is vital that we take these lessons to heart today. Solomon has encouraged us to take advice from other people; we should start by taking his advice as he has laid it out in this book. Choose God’s way rather than your own; seek and accept advice from others; avoid making hasty decisions. If we will do these things, we can make choices that will keep us on the right path.


1From http://bible.org/illustration/can’t-make-decisions
Accessed May 13, 2011

Honoring Our Mothers and Wives--Mother's Day 2011

A little boy once forgot his lines in a Sunday School presentation. His mother was in the front row to prompt him. She gestured and formed the words silently with her lips, but it did not help. Her son’s memory was blank. Finally, she leaned forward and whispered the cue, “I am the light of the world.” The child beamed and with great feeling and in a loud clear voice said, “My mother is the light of the world!”1

Our mothers may not be the light of the world, but undoubtedly they are the light of our lives. They deserve our thanks and our gratitude every day, but it is also very appropriate for us to celebrate a day like Mother’s Day, where we set aside some time to give them special recognition.

This morning we are going to look at a few verses that encourage us to honor our mothers—and not just our mothers, but our wives as well. We’ve been studying the book of Proverbs for several months now, and at the end of Proverbs we find a poem that praises the “virtuous woman” or the “excellent wife.” Why don’t you turn with me to Proverbs 31?

We find this poem in vv. 10–31. We’re not going to look at this entire poem today; we’re just going to focus on the last four verses that describe how this woman’s children and husband respond to her. If the majority of this poem teaches women to live, then these verses teach children and husbands how to honor their mothers and wives. Let’s read these verses [READ 31:28–31].

Let’s take a look at the behavior of the family in these verses. First, look at the children. Verse 28 says that they “rise up and call her blessed.” You can think of someone standing up to give a toast at a banquet or a party. That’s the idea here—the idea of making a declaration of kind words about another person. The end of the verse says that they call her “blessed,” which means that she is worthy of this praise that they give her.

So we can see that this action from the children even goes beyond the casual compliments that we HOPEFULLY give to our mothers on a regular basis. This behavior is more formal, more solemn, and I think we can say that it is even more public. At the very least, these compliments are spoken to a larger audience than just our mothers. Many of the things for which our mothers deserve praise are unknown to other people because they happen in the privacy of the home. Thus, I think it is very appropriate for us to praise our mothers to other people so that their godly deeds do not go unrecognized.

Next, the poem mentions the husband, and he, too, is praising his wife. He really shows us how to do it, men! He says, “Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.” That’s good stuff right there!

I think it may be very significant that the Bible records what the husband says to praise his wife. Men, it is very important for us to continually offer verbal praise and affirmation to our wives. This is a need for them that we don’t always understand because of our differences.

There is a book that was published about five years ago that I would encourage all men to read. It is called “For Men Only.” The book was based on a nationwide survey of over 3,000 women, and it was written to help men understand their wives more clearly so that we can love them more perfectly.

In this book, the authors write about the deep need that woman have to receive verbal affirmation from their husbands. In one chapter, they write about feelings of insecurity that women deal with. In their survey, they found that 70% of all women said that they occasionally or often wonder how their husband feels about them. But this might be the most surprising statistic for us, men—only 20% of women said that these thoughts only come up during a period of difficulty in the marriage. Do you understand what that means? Even if things are going fine by all accounts, your wife might still be feeling insecure about your love for her! This is not the way that we think, is it men? We tend to think that everything is fine unless we see our wives walking out the door with luggage! But women don’t feel that way, so they need to hear that you love them, and they need to hear it often. Among women who were younger than 45, 91% said that they occasionally or often feel insecure about their husband’s love. If that’s the case, then we should tell them often that we love them.

Our wives also need to hear that we think they’re beautiful. According to the survey, 60% of all women said that they have a deep need to know that their husband thinks they’re beautiful. Among women younger than 45, that percentage rose to 77%. But here’s the best part, men—when asked how they feel after their husband tells them they’re beautiful, 89% of all women said it makes their day. Only 8% said, “It’s nice, but I don’t care that much,” and only 3% said, “It makes no difference to me.” This means that even if your wife doesn’t feel like she needs to hear this from you, most likely it will make her day if you just tell her! So the husband in this poem sets a great example for us by verbally praising his wife. He tells her how he feels about her, and we should do the same.

Verse 30 is a great verse for every young man to keep in mind as he thinks about a potential spouse. The greatest trait a woman can have is the fear of the Lord. Charm is nice, but it may deceitful. Charm may be the only thing a woman possesses, and if that’s the case, she will not make a great wife. Beauty is great, but it will fade over time. Thus, both charm and beauty pale in comparison to the beautiful spirit that is manifested when a woman fears the Lord, and a woman with this kind of spirit deserves to be praised.

Verse 31 then continues on that theme. It says first of all, “give her of the fruit of her hands.” The concept of “fruit” speaks of what the woman has produced with her hard work. In this poem, the wife has brought prosperity to her home through her hard work, and this verse would tell us that she should be allowed to enjoy some of the benefits that her work has created. It would be unfair and unjust to deprive the wife of such blessings. Various lines in this poem describe other people enjoying what the wife’s work has provided, and she should be allowed to enjoy it as well.

Finally, the poem concludes by saying, “let her works praise her in the gates.” In Old Testament times, many cities had a wall built around them, and the area where the gate was located became the place where public matters were dealt with. Business affairs and legal matters were dealt with there. In Montezuma, USA, we would talk about Main Street; that’s where much of our business is conducted and where people bump into each other. So in the New Montezuma Translation of the Bible, we might say, “let her have a good reputation over on Main Street—among the people who gather for coffee at Eva’s, or the people you bump into in the post office. A virtuous wife deserves a good reputation in public.

Do you know what this means, men? It means that we need to be careful with the things that we say about our wives to others. When the All-Boys Club is in session, its easy to air our dirty laundry a bit, isn’t it? We might joke about our wives or tell stories about some of their short-comings. But—let her works praise her in the gates! Let her enjoy a good reputation among others. A virtuous wife and mother is like an angel from God, so don’t clip her wings with careless words!

Women have such an important role in our world, and that goes for mothers in particular. I want to close by reading a poem that beautifully describes the impact that mothers have on our world. It is called “The Hand that Rocks the Cradle.”

Blessings on the hand of women!
Angels guard its strength and grace,
In the palace [or the cottage],
Oh, no matter where the place;
Would that never storms assailed it,
Rainbows ever gently curled;
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

Infancy's the tender fountain,
Power may with beauty flow,
Mother's first to guide the streamlets,
From them souls unresting grow--
Grow on for the good or evil,
Sunshine streamed or evil hurled;
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

Woman, how divine your mission
Here upon our [native] sod!
Keep, oh, keep the young heart open
Always to the breath of God!
All true trophies of the ages
Are from [mother’s] love impearled;
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

Blessings on the hand of women!
Fathers, sons, and daughters cry,
And the sacred song is mingled
With the worship in the sky--
Mingles where no tempest darkens,
Rainbows evermore are hurled;
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.2

1 Bits and Pieces, August, 1989
From http://bible.org/illustration/my-mother-light-world Accessed May 4, 2011

2 Poem by William Ross Wallace. Brackets represent my own updates to the language.

Being a Best Friend--Proverbs series

It has often been said that dogs are a man’s best friend. I hope that relationship says more about dogs than it does about men, but maybe that’s up for debate! At least dogs are almost always cheaper than diamonds, which are said to be a girl’s best friend. I don’t know how true that is, but if we modify that phrase a little bit, I think we can hit on something that really is true. Perhaps we should say that best friends are like diamonds, because they are precious and rare. You don’t meet a best friend every day, but when you do, you have truly found something that is very valuable.

Friends play a major role in our lives. That’s true even if you feel like you don’t have many friends! Our friends are often on our minds, and always in our hearts. We spend a lot of our social time with them, and they have a big influence on the way that we think and act. And since we have such a close bond to our friends, it is natural and appropriate for us to desire to be a good friend to them.

So how can we do that? How can we be a good friend to these people who mean so much to us? It should be no surprise that a wise man like Solomon recognized the value of friendship, and he gave us some advice in the book of Proverbs about how to be a good friend. That’s what we’re going to learn about together this morning.

How can I be a good friend?

I. Be loving toward your friend at all times (17:17)

This statement may seem like the equivalent of 2 + 2 = 4, but there’s a little more to this than meets the eye. Let’s look at Prov. 17:17 [READ 17:17]. This verse mentions two of the closest relationships in our lives. From a biological perspective, there is no one more closely related to you than a brother or a sister, and ideally our relationships are supposed to reflect that. We should be there for our siblings in times of adversity, and they should do the same for us.

A friend, as we see, fulfills a very similar role in our lives. In fact, Prov. 18:24 even says, “there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” A friendship happens by choice, so sometimes we’re closer to our friends than our siblings, because our siblings had no choice.

Prov. 17:17 gives us a basic statement about how we should act as a friend—we are to show the love of God to our friends at all times. That last phrase doesn’t place any limits on our love, does it? This means that we need to show the love of God to our friends even when they’re not very lovable, even when we get nothing in return for it, even if they have hurt us.

This idea really rules out any selfish motivations that we might have in our friendships. From time to time, we’re all tempted to look at our friends and think, “What have you done for me lately? Why haven’t you called? Why didn’t you invite me to do such and such?” But if we want to be a good friend, we won’t let such temptations motivate us. We will endeavor to show the love of God at all times.

Now we do need to make sure that we understand what it means to show the love of God to our friends, because there is a grand canyon between godly love and the way that many people think of love today. Many people in our culture think that loving your friends means that you are supposed to support every decision that they make, no matter what it is. An acquaintance of mine has recently made some sinful choices in her marriage, and consequently she has separated from her husband. Not long after they separated, she posted an update on Facebook that basically said, “I guess now I will know who my true friends are.” What she meant is that anyone who supported her decision would be a true friend and anyone who disagreed with her decision would be a false friend.

That’s the kind of confusion about friendship that we have all around us today, so we need to take a look at God’s description of love. There is no better place to find out what love is than 1 Cor. 13, so why don’t you turn there with me? Let’s walk step by step through vv. 4–7 and we’ll talk about what this description means in the context of friendship:

• Love is patient. This would mean that love is slow to take offense. Let’s face it—even our friends hurt us at times, so loving them would mean that we are gracious toward their faults and patient with them when they step on our toes.
• Love is kind. This means that we act for the good of our friends. We seek their benefit and welfare through our behavior.
• Love does not envy. Thus, we would not desire to take what our friends have for our own gain, and we would rejoice when they are honored rather than succumb to jealousy.
• Love does not boast. Thus, we would not brag to our friends to exalt ourselves over them.
• Love is not arrogant or rude. This means that we would not act in ways that are prideful or impolite.
• Love does not insist on its own way. Love for a friend thus means that you are considerate of them and not domineering.
• Love is not irritable or resentful. We should not become easily angered with our friends or harbor a grudge against them, bringing up their failures again and again.
• Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. This is exactly what we touched on a moment ago. If I love my friend, then I cannot celebrate when they sin; I cannot encourage them when they choose a sinful path. Instead, I rejoice when they are living in the truth.
• Love bears all things…endures all things. Love does not vanish when the going gets tough.
• Love believes all things, hopes all things. Love believes the best about others. It stands ready to give a friend the benefit of the doubt and to think the best of them.

This description of true, biblical love is an inspiration for us in our friendships. Just imagine the depth of the relationships that we could cultivate through this kind of behavior toward others. Paul wrote this description to the Corinthians because there were some broken bonds of friendship there, but this kind of love could mend even the deepest wounds. So to be a good friend, we must love with this love at all times.

II. Be considerate when your friend is grieving (25:20)

One of the sweetest privileges that we have as a friend is to be a source of comfort during a season of grief. But if we don’t approach this task in the right manner, we can actually do more harm than good. Let’s read Prov. 25:20 [READ 25:20]. The idea of singing songs to a heavy heart is basically the idea of trivializing someone’s grief—laughing it off or treating it like its no big deal. Sometimes when we visit a person who is grieving, we find ourselves thinking, “I just need to make them smile before I leave. I’ve just got to get them to laugh again.” I think we might take that approach because otherwise, we just don’t know what else to do or what else to say. But we really don’t need to feel compelled to do that. In fact, we may simply make our friend feel lonely, as though we really don’t understand their pain and thus they have no one to share it with.

This verse says that by trivializing someone’s grief we are “like one who takes off a garment on a cold day.” That’s obviously not beneficial. It also says that such an approach is “like vinegar on soda.” You probably made this combination in a science class at some point. This combination is used in the experiment that simulates a volcano erupting. Well, just as vinegar and soda produce this overflowing reaction when they combine, we might cause our friend’s grief to overflow if we treat it like its no big deal.

When you are ministering to a grieving friend, you don’t have to feel the need to make everything out to be rainbows and sunshine! A much better approach is given when the Bible tells us to weep with those who weep. That doesn’t mean we have to manufacture tears; it simply means that we should sympathize with the other person. If they feel like weeping, then let them weep on your shoulder. If they feel like remembering happier times, then help them reminisce. And if you can’t think of anything to say, don’t worry about it! Just don’t minimize or trivialize your friend’s grief, and you’ll be on the right path.

Proverbs also gives us a couple more very practical suggestions.

III. Be considerate in visiting your friend (25:17)

Let’s look at Prov. 25:17 [READ 25:17]. To put it simply, don’t wear out your welcome! A literal translation of the first line would read, “make your foot precious in your companion’s house,” with precious being understood in the sense of something that is rare and thus valuable, like a gemstone or a precious jewel. This is how we want our visits to be, isn’t it? Rather than an annoyance, we want our visits with our friends to be precious times.

Now this lesson may not seem like a particularly spiritual one, but it is important to consider as we relate to our friends. Its ironic, but sometimes the recipients of our most inconsiderate behavior are the people closest to us, like our family members or our friends. Sometimes we almost feel like we don’t need to be considerate of our friends because they’re our friends, and we think they should just understand our behavior. But in reality, we need to treat our friends with the same consideration that we would give to anyone else so that we don’t take advantage of their love for us. From Prov. 25:17, its clear that we should not take advantage of their hospitality. Obviously, this is not saying that we have to purposely avoid our friends, we just need to be considerate of them.

Its along this same line that we find our final lesson.

IV. Be considerate in how and when you talk to your friend (27:14)

Prov. 27:14 is kind of a humorous verse, except if you’re on the receiving end of this blessing. Turn with me to this verse [READ 27:14]. This blessing did not have the desired effect because it was spoken at the wrong time and in the wrong way. We learned in a previous sermon that our words have the power to do tremendous harm or tremendous good, and part of that depends on when and how we speak. Proverbs 15:23 (NET Bible) says, “A person has joy in giving an appropriate answer, and a word at the right time—how good it is!”

This is another area in which we need to be considerate of our friends, because it is very easy to let your mouth run wild with a friend. One of the best things about a friend is that you can tell them what’s on your heart, and you can discuss anything with them, but that doesn’t give us a license to be careless with our words. Sometimes we talk to our friends in very careless, and again, we think that they should just understand because they’re our friends. But if we’re considerate in how and when we talk to our friends, then we can avoid causing any unnecessary conflict or irritation.

Our friends are a great blessing in our lives, and I’m sure we can all agree that we don’t want to give them anything less than true, godly love. After all, they’ve often stood by us in our darkest hours and loved us in the midst of our strangest behavior.

An old “Peanuts” comic strip recorded a conversation between Peppermint Patty and Marcie. In the first panel, Pepperment Patty said, “I’d like to read this book Marcie, but I’m kind of afraid. I had a grandfather who didn’t think much of reading.” She continued in the next panel and said, “He always said that if you read too many books, your head would fall off.” And in the final panel, Marcie replies, “You start the first chapter, and I’ll hold onto your head!”1

Sounds like true friendship, doesn’t it? People like that, who are willing to love us in our strangest moments, deserve our strongest love.


1. From http://bible.org/illustration/charlie-brown Accessed 4/12/11

Your Family--Handle With Care!--Proverbs series

Its interesting to watch commercials and think about how the companies are trying to sell their products. Oftentimes, their commercials seem to suggest that all of our wildest dreams will come true if we buy their product. We will reach a whole new level of fulfillment and enjoyment in life that simply would not be possible without their product!

Imagine with me for a moment that a company created a product that could actually live up to that kind of hype. This product really could give you a level of fulfillment and enjoyment that is matched by almost nothing else in the world. That would be quite a product, wouldn’t it? I think every one of us would want to own something like that!

There is, however, one little catch with this product—if you use it incorrectly, it will introduce emotional pain into your life like nothing you’ve felt before. That raises the stakes, doesn’t it? So this product is capable of giving you the highest highs and the lowest lows. I hope they would mark the box, “handle with care!”

Now if you had a product like that, I’m sure you would read the instruction manual to find out how to use it correctly. You wouldn’t want to take the chance of bringing that kind of emotional pain into your life.

Well, as you know, there is no such product like this in the world, but we all have something that is capable of giving us the highest highs and the lowest lows, and it is called our family. Family relationships can be one of your greatest sources of fulfillment and enjoyment in life, but they can also bring you hurt and pain like virtually nothing else. The difference lies in the way that we handle those relationships, so we would be wise to read the instructions given to us by the creator of the family, God Himself.

Today we’re going to take a look at what the book of Proverbs has to say about family relationships, and we’ll answer this question together:

How should we handle our family relationships?

I. Obey and honor your parents

I won’t spend much time talking about obeying your parents, because we’ve already discussed that in a previous sermon. Let’s just touch on a few verses here. Look at Prov. 23:22 [READ 23:22]. The first part of that verse tells us to “listen” to our parents, and the point of course is that we would take to heart what they have to say and then do it. Several other verses tell us that we will bring tremendous happiness to our parents if we will obey them, because by doing so we will display wisdom [READ 23:15–16, 23:24–25].

Its difficult to understand the emotional impact that you have on your parents until you become a parent yourself. You can think of it kind of like this—emotionally speaking, its like there’s a gun aimed at your parents’ hearts at all times, and your finger is on the trigger. Through your choices, you can either fill their hearts with holes, or you can leave them filled with joy. This is true even when you’re grown and out of the house, so just remember the emotional impact that your choices have on your parents.

Notice one more thing about Prov. 23:22. The second part of the verse says, “do not despise your mother when she is old.” Think about that for a moment—when your parents are old, you will be an adult by that time, so according to this verse, we need to consider our relationship with our parents even when we are adults. Our obligations to our parents don’t change when we exit the teenage years!

Now from a biblical perspective, we are no longer asked to obey our parents in our adult years, but as this and other verses say, we are still called to honor them. So no matter what stage of life you’re in, if your parents are still living, you still have an obligation to them. How sad it is to think that we might “despise” our parents! That word means that we would treat them as though they have little value, as though they are not worthy of our attention or our concern. How sad it is to think that we might have such a mindset! Our parents have given us so much, and they deserve honor from us in return.

II. Remember that your spouse is a gift from the Lord

Marriage has been the source of countless jokes over the years about the way that husbands and wives relate. We joke at times about nagging wives or stubborn husbands, but one reality that’s no joke is that if you have a good spouse, you truly have a gift from God. Look with me at Prov. 18:22 [READ 18:22]. No jokes, please, about how the verse doesn’t mention husbands! Remember, King Solomon—a man—wrote these words, so naturally he writes about a wife, but these words are just as true of a husband.

Next, turn with me to Prov. 19:14 [READ 19:14]. What a beautiful way to think about your spouse! A house and wealth are very nice things to have, but Solomon says that humans can give us that stuff. A prudent or wise spouse on the other hand—that is a blessing that only God can give.

That’s God’s desire when He gives us a spouse—He desires to bless us, to give us something that will be a source of goodness and joy in our lives. What a difference it would make in our marriages if we remembered to think of our spouses in that light! How about if we told each other regularly, “You are a blessing from God in my life?” Ladies, wouldn’t your hearts melt if you heard that from your husband? Men, wouldn’t you stand up just a little bit taller if you heard that message from your wife? This would certainly be an improvement over the other ways that we could think of our spouses—such as a hindrance, or a ball and chain, or a leash!

Now it is certainly true that our spouses do not always turn out to be a source of blessing for us. Sometimes through their choices they bring tremendous pain into our lives (and actually, we’re going to talk about this in just a moment). But as Christians, we of all people should know that exceptions do not disprove this rule. That would be like saying that a kite flying in the air disproves the law of gravity! God intends for your marriage to be a blessing in your life, and it will be if you follow His instructions for your marriage.

III. Remember the grief you can cause by being a quarrelsome spouse

As a husband or wife, you have a tremendous capacity to make life either sweet or sour for your spouse. In fact, you can make life within your home almost unbearable! Look with me at Prov. 21:9 [READ 21:9]. Now men, don’t say “amen” too loudly here! Just be careful! And remember, verses like this apply to both a husband and a wife; Solomon simply writes about a wife since he’s writing from his perspective as a man.

Let me explain some cultural background here that will help us understand what Solomon means by living “in a corner of the housetop.” In those days, the Jewish people built their homes with a flat roof. They weren’t angled like ours; they were flat, and they often served as some extra living space—kind of like a patio. It was common for people to build a small room on the roof that basically served as a guest bedroom.

So in more modern terms, Solomon is basically saying that its better to live out in the guesthouse than in a home with a quarrelsome spouse. That word “quarrelsome” basically refers to someone who is always ready for a fight. This person is an argument waiting to happen. I hope that doesn’t characterize you, but we’re all like that to a certain extent. We all have our limits, don’t we? We all have things that can set us off. Some of us will lose our cool and throw a tantrum, and others of us will shift into “cold war” mode and refuse to make eye contact with the other person the rest of the day.

When we make choices to respond like that, we make home life almost unbearable for the other person. The home is supposed to be a sanctuary, an escape from all the troubles and battles of life. But when we bring those battles into the home by choosing to be contentious and argumentative, that peacefulness evaporates until we kick those sinful choices out the door.

Solomon makes a very similar statement in 21:19 when he says, [READ 21:19]. It wouldn’t be very comfortable to live in a desert, but at least there you could get some peace and quiet! We must not destroy the environment of the home through sinful choices. Fighting will cause peace to move out, and when peace is gone a home is a very empty place.

IV. Understand that a peaceful family life is better than wealth with hatred

Nothing is worth more than peaceful and loving relationships in your family. Let’s read Prov. 15:17 [READ 15:17]. In today’s terms we might say that a salad dressed with love is better than steak with a side of hatred. Prov. 17:1 spells out the same idea [READ 17:1].

In each of these verses, two families are compared according to two criteria—the wealth or affluence of the family, and the quality of their relationships. The first family in each verse is getting along with humble means, whereas the second family is enjoying the so-called “finer things in life.” Solomon then assigns either love or hatred to their relationships to make a point that can be stated one of two ways—we can say that wealth will never compensate for a lack of love in a family, or we can flip it around and say that love will more than make up for any lack of material things in the home.

Now Solomon is not saying that wealthy families are more likely to hate each other or that poor families are more likely to love each other. He is simply saying that if we have to choose between loving relationships in the home or wealth in the home, loving relationships win every time.

So this lesson, then, should shape the priorities that we set for our homes. Our top priority should be to cultivate peaceful, loving relationships in our homes. That goal should be second to none, but these proverbs warn us about the danger of allowing our families to suffer as we pursue wealth.

This is a lesson that our culture really does not understand today. In a survey conducted for a life insurance company, 35 percent of respondents said that lack of family time is the most important reason for the decline in family values. However, despite their expressed desire for more family time, two-thirds of those surveyed say they would probably accept a job that required more time away from home if it offered higher income or greater prestige.1

Where’s the logic in this? Two-thirds said they would probably sacrifice more family time for more money even though half of those people said that lack of family time was the biggest threat to their family! Somewhere along the line we have bought into the lie that we can rob our children of the time and effort it takes to build love and yet somehow pay it back to them with designer clothes and a fancy car! Friends, clothes from The Gap will never fill the gap in your child’s heart if you sacrifice your relationship with them to pursue wealth. Whatever you gain materially, you will lose even more emotionally if you leave behind a lack of peace and love in your home.

As human beings, we are all someone’s child, and many of us are also someone’s spouse, and someone’s parent. We all have much to gain or much to lose depending on how we handle our family relationships. Solomon was a man who saw this first-hand in his own family. His father, King David, was a very wealthy man, but David made some choices that brought violence and hatred into his home, which undoubtedly grieved him the rest of his life. So let’s learn from a man who has lived through some of these things and take his godly advice to heart.


1. Moody Monthly, December, 1989, p. 72.
From http://bible.org/illustration/greatest-threat-family
Accessed 4/4/11

God: The Wisest of the Wise--Proverbs series

According to the biblical record, King Solomon was the wisest and most powerful king of his time—perhaps of all time. We have this conclusion from no less an authority than God himself. Early in King Solomon’s reign, God appeared to him and basically gave him a blank check. He simply said to Solomon, “Ask what you wish Me to give you.” You may know this story already—Solomon decided to ask for wisdom, and in response God said, “Behold, I give you a wise and discerning mind, so that none like you has been before you and none like you shall arise after you. I give you also what you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that no other king shall compare with you, all your days” (1 Kings 3:12–13).

We’ve been studying the words of this wise man for several months now in the book of Proverbs, and I think we certainly have seen some keen and penetrating insights into life. But perhaps the quality that truly made Solomon the wisest man around was that he acknowledged that God was even wiser! Solomon said this and more about God in the book of Proverbs, and today we’re going to study what this book teaches us about our Creator.

This subject is one that is of no small importance. Pastor A. W. Tozer once wrote, “What comes to our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. Worship is pure or [impure] as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God. For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most [important] fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like. We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God.”1 If this is true, then let’s allow Proverbs to clarify our mental image of God today!

What does Proverbs teach us about God?

I. God Knows Our Actions And Attitudes

This is a lesson that we teach our youngest Sunday School kids, but a man as wise as Solomon felt it was important enough to mention. Look at Prov. 15:3 [READ 15:3]. Here we are told that God watches everyone and takes note of our actions. Notice something about God’s knowledge here—His knowledge is first-hand knowledge. He doesn’t have to rely on someone else to tell Him what is going on—He observes everything first-hand, so there’s no possibility that a messenger got the story wrong or that details were left out.

Compare this with the knowledge of someone like the President of the United States. Our president has a tremendous amount of information available to him, but that’s only because we have a network of people around the world that collect information for him. Ambassadors, spies, our government allies—all of these people make information available to him, but this is nothing like God’s knowledge. God doesn’t need anyone to inform Him of anything. As Paul wrote in Romans 11:34, “Who has been his counselor?”

But God not only knows our actions—He knows our attitudes as well. He not only has an external knowledge of us, but an internal knowledge as well. Let’s read Prov. 15:11 [READ 15:11]. These two words—Sheol and Abaddon—are simply Hebrew words spelled out in English letters. So the first part of what I just read from the English Standard Version isn’t actually a translation—they just brought the Hebrew words into English in order to leave the interpreting up to us. Now some translations say, “hell and destruction,” and others say, “death and destruction.” I think “death and destruction” would be more accurate because the idea of sheol is not exactly the same as the idea of hell; its basically the idea of the grave or the afterlife. The destruction mentioned here would probably refer to the decomposition of the physical body in the grave.

But the basic idea of this verse is very clear—if even the grave and the afterlife are known to God, then how much more does He know our hearts!

But apparently God doesn’t just know our hearts—it seems that He actually knows them better than we do! Turn to Prov. 21:2 [READ 21:2]. This verse touches on the potential that we have for deceiving ourselves. We can convince ourselves that we are right in basically any situation—even when we’re doing something sinful! We can convince ourselves that we have some kind of special exception in certain cases. We can justify virtually any kind of behavior, but God sees the reality of things. He understands our true motives when we may not even understand them. God revealed the same message to the prophet Jeremiah when He said, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds” (Jer. 17:9–10).

The application that we should take from all of this has both a challenge and an encouragement to it. The challenge is that we must not think that we can hide anything from God. He knows us better than we know us, so how could we hide something from Him? The encouragement is to remember that God doesn’t miss anything that happens to us. If someone hurts us or robs us of justice, God knows! If we are dealing with fear or deep emotional wounds, God knows! He knows, and He is there for us.

But not only does God know all things…

II. God Is In Control Over All Things

We see a lot of turmoil and upheaval in our world right now, but be assured that our world does not operate by chance or simply by the whims of human beings. God, the Creator, is still in control over His creation. Look at Prov. 16:9 [READ 16:9]. Verses like this strike a blow at our pride, don’t they? Now, there’s nothing wrong with planning, but as the old poem says, “the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry,” and that’s because we’re not ultimately in control! We can make all the plans we want, and have every detail accounted for, but ultimately it is God who determines what actually happens. History has rightly been called “His-story,” because God is the author.

Now, common people like ourselves can certainly understand that we’re not in control, because we’re used to being effected by things that are out of our control—like the economy, or the weather, or international politics. But surely this lesson wouldn’t apply to a king, would it? Who has more control than a king? Well, let’s read Prov. 21:1 [READ 21:1]. I love the picture of ease that comes through in this verse. It’s like when you water your lawn. It’s not hard—you just turn the water on, and turn the water off, however you please. And if you want more water in a certain spot, you just move the sprinkler. Aside from maybe a little walking, its as easy as can be!

That’s what God’s control over the most powerful people in the world is like! Its not difficult for Him; its really very easy. He just directs their hearts any way He wants!

Now this lesson brings up all sorts of questions for us that we really cannot completely answer. Some of these are philosophical questions, like “How do our choices play into God’s control?” or “If God is in control, do we really determine our own destiny?” But some of these questions are much more personal and even painful, such as “If God is in control, why do bad things happen in my life?” As I said, I don’t think we have a complete answer for this question, but I do think that our next lesson gives us at least a partial answer.

III. God Works To Purify Our Hearts

One of the purposes behind everything that God allows is to remove the impurities of sin from our hearts. Notice what Prov. 17:3 has to say [READ 17:3]. You probably know that when silver and gold are mined out of the earth, they don’t come out of the ground ready to be formed into jewelry. Because of geological and chemical processes, they are often bonded with rock and other materials, so they are put through a refining process to separate the precious metals from everything else—to purify the silver and the gold and thus reveal their true beauty and quality.

According to Prov. 17:3, God puts our hearts through a similar process. The contamination of sin is thorough within our lives, so that even our hearts are corrupted. Thus, even our most noble and godly desires may be bonded together with impure motives, goals, or aspirations. And so as God sovereignly directs our lives, part of His design is to melt away these impurities that pollute our hearts.

This purifying process is what Paul had in mind in Romans 8:28 when he wrote, “we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” And the good result that Paul had in mind is defined in verse 29: “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” There’s the goal; there’s the point of this whole process—that we might be conformed to the image of Christ, so that we can be faithful representatives for Him today and become joint-heirs with Him (Rom. 8:17) as servant-leaders in His coming kingdom on earth.

Now I do not mean to minimize the pain that any of you have endured through the circumstances of your life, because that pain is very real and it can be very intense. Let’s face it—when we talk about being purified by God and compare it to gold being melted in a furnace, that doesn’t sound entirely pleasant, does it? I’m sure if gold could talk, it would probably scream as its being refined. Sometimes that’s where we find ourselves—screaming and crying out to God to put an end to all the pain. But please remember the final product, my friends. If you allow God to purify you, you have that moment to look forward to when Jesus will say, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your master.” That’s why Paul could say, “Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor. 4:16). Don’t lose hope as God shapes you to be more like His Son.

IV. God Desires Obedience From Us More Than Religious Formalities

One of the reasons that God purifies us is so that we will offer Him obedience from the heart rather than just go through the motions of religious activity. Turn with me to Prov. 21:3 [READ 21:3]. This verse expresses a consistent theme of the Old Testament—God certainly did want the people to offer sacrifices, but He wanted the worship that flowed from the people to be consistent with the rest of their lives. He wanted their obedience first and foremost, and then their worship was to be simply one more expression of a life of obedience.

It is far too easy to go through the motions of worshipping God and not follow through with a lifestyle of worship. In corners of the world like Montezuma, KS, we often find what we might simply call “countryanity.” Countryanity is the basic religious mindset in many rural areas. It embraces a strong tradition of going to church, but sometimes it means little more than that. We hear this loud and clear in a lot of country music. The basic religious worldview of country music sounds something like this: “Yeah, I may get drunk and chase cowgirls over at the honky-tonk on Saturday night, but I’m in the front row at church on Sunday morning singing old-time gospel hymns at the top of my lungs.” Well, I don’t think “hymns with a hangover” is quite what God desires from us. He’ll take the hymns, but the hangover He can do without. He is pleased with our worship when it flows from a life of faithfulness and obedience.

And in light of what we’ve learned about our God today, how can we give Him anything less? If we simply give the Lord half-hearted obedience and worship, who do we really think He is? Do we truly think of Him as the God who knows all things and controls all things and who works to purify us, or do we think of Him as some kind of optional accessory in our lives? To quote A. W. Tozer again, he said, “We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God.” What does the direction of your life say about your mental image of God? We would be wise to take a cue from a man of wisdom like Solomon and make sure that we think of God the way He truly is—the King of all things, who works for our good and His glory.


1. A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy, (San Francisco CA, HarperSanFrancisco, 1961) Pg. 1. Updated wording in brackets is mine. The original words are “base” and “portentous.”

Let's Get Ready to Reconcile--Proverbs series

There’s a little poem I’ve heard that describes life in the church, and it emphasizes the difference between life in heaven and life on earth. It goes like this—“Living above with saints we love, oh that will be glory; Living below with saints we know, well, that’s a different story.” That is a sad but true commentary on living life together as Christians, isn’t it? We’re kind of like a bunch of porcupines walking around with our quills stuck out, and every so often we bump into each other and cause some hurt and pain.

But this reality isn’t just limited to life in the church, is it? This is true of every part of our lives. Conflicts, disagreements, fights, feuds—these things are all just part of relationships in our fallen world, whether you’re talking about friends, family members, church members, book club members, sports teams, booster clubs, co-workers, the ladies in the quilting society or the good ol’ boys over at the Elks Lodge! Wherever you have two people interacting with each other, you have the potential for conflict.

I’m sure we’ve all lived through some conflicts that were handled well, and some that we’re not handled so well, and perhaps you’re still living through the fall-out from a conflict that blew up on you. So how can we end up in that first category? How can we do our part to handle our conflicts in a godly way? Conflicts are going to come, and they’re not necessarily bad things in our lives if we handle them in the right way.

Today we’ll look at what Proverbs has to say about this, and we’ll answer this question together:

How should we respond to conflict with others?

I. Resolve the Conflict as Soon as Possible (17:14)

The best time to resolve a conflict is immediately—before it puts down roots, before it blows up and takes on a life of its own. Look at Prov. 17:14 [READ 17:14]. The picture in this verse is of some kind of container that springs a leak. That kind of problem will never get better on its own—it will only get worse until its solved. In our day and age, we can think of dam that starts to fail. The whole thing might be destroyed if the problem isn’t addressed immediately. Allowing a conflict to remain unresolved is like allowing a wound to remain exposed to the elements—there is a great risk that it will become infected and get even worse. Conflicts have a way of getting worse even if we’re not trying to make them worse! For example, many times we deal with conflict by simply ending our relationship with the other person. Sometimes we announce this to them and everyone, but more often we don’t. We simply stop talking to the other person, and thus we think we have kept the conflict from getting worse. Sometimes we even pat ourselves on the back at this point and say, “Well, its sad that the relationship had to end, but at least we’re not fighting anymore!”

But sooner or later, the people around that relationship start to notice, and they may start to talk, and that talk may turn to gossip, and that gossip may lead to people taking sides, and before long a whole family or a whole church is destroyed by the weeds of a conflict that we thought we had buried. So we must deal with conflict through confession, repentance, and forgiveness, and we must do it right away before it gets any worse.

II. Realize the Folly of Having a Quick Temper (12:16, 14:29, 15:18, 16:32, 19:11, 29:11, 25:28)

Many conflicts get worse in a hurry because one person or both people lose their temper. Some kind of conflict comes up and its like a match fell into a powder keg because someone loses their cool and blows up. According to Proverbs, this is an extremely foolish way to respond to conflict. You might be surprised at how often Proverbs talks about this. Look at some verses with me [READ 12:16, 14:29, 15:18, 16:32, 19:11, 29:11, 25:28].

I want to talk about that last verse for a moment. In those days, every moderately-sized city had a wall around it to protect it from attacks. If its wall was broken down, it would be vulnerable and defenseless. So the picture from this verse is that if you can’t control yourself, you are vulnerable to attacks from temptation. You are easy prey for Satan because you don’t have the proper defenses in place.

Sometimes we try to play down our responsibility for our tempers or shift the blame to others. We might say that we just can’t control ourselves or that other people “shouldn’t be so sensitive.” A lady once came to evangelist Billy Sunday and tried to rationalize her angry outbursts. “There’s nothing wrong with losing my temper,” She said. “I blow up, and then it’s all over.”
“So does a shotgun,” Sunday replied, “and look at the damage it leaves behind!”1 We can try to downplay angry outbursts all we want, but the reality is that they do tremendous damage.

So what should you do if your temper is out of control? First, you need to ask for forgiveness from people that you’ve blown up on in the past. Whether that’s your wife, your kids, or your co-workers, they need to know that you acknowledge that what you did to them was wrong. Second, you need to realize that controlling your temper will only happen as you grow spiritually. That is a process that must start today, before you face any other conflicts. There really aren’t any tricks or techniques that are going to save you in the heat of the moment. You’ve got to build up the walls around your soul, so you’re no longer vulnerable to that temptation. Galatians 5:23 says that the Holy Spirit will produce self-control in our lives, but we must walk by the Spirit. We must live in dependence on the Holy Spirit to help us make our choices and to help us learn how to think about life and how to respond in godly ways. Then we can avoid making conflicts worse by blowing up when we face them.

III. Respond with Love, not Hatred (10:12, 25:21–22)

Proverbs 10:12 says, [READ 10:12]. If we allow hatred to enter our hearts and fester there during a conflict, it will only make things worse. Our focus will be on destroying the other person rather than reconciling with them. Instead, we must respond with love, because love seeks to put the matter to rest rather than stir it up and make it worse. Love makes us willing to confess our sins if we have done wrong, and it makes us willing to offer forgiveness if someone else has wronged us.

In his great description of love in 1 Cor. 13, the apostle Paul says that love is kind, and Proverbs offers a great illustration of this kindness in Prov. 25 [READ 25:21–22]. Love does not respond by attacking an enemy or by taking advantage of his weaknesses; rather, it responds with displays of kindness. The picture of heaping burning coals on your enemy’s head speaks of the shame and conviction in a person’s conscience which could be stirred up by such acts of kindness.

So love asks the question, “How can I put this matter to rest?” Instead of adding fuel to the fires of conflict, love seeks to starve the flames so that they will be extinguished.

IV. Watch Your Words (15:1, 17:27)

It’s so easy to let your mouth run wild during a conflict, but that will only make matters worse. Here’s what we should do instead [READ 15:1, 17:27]. Notice that that last verse ties our words together with something else we just talked about—keeping your temper under control. Those careless things that we say when we lose our temper can be the most painful part of a conflict. Sometimes they can take on a life of their own and overshadow the original problem! We can forget what we were even fighting about in the first place. Our words are like the winds that turn a campfire into a forest fire.

There are all kinds of ways that we can make a conflict worse with the things we say. We can attack a person’s character, their intelligence, their motives, even their upbringing (“You’re just like your mother!). We can exaggerate their faults and minimize our own; we can even generalize their faults with statements like “You always act this way!” or “You’re never going to change.”

This can be another area where we think to ourselves, “People just need to stop being so sensitive. They just need to realize that I don’t mean these things that I say. I’m just letting off some steam.” Friends, we can’t put the blame on other people for taking offense at the things we say. The problem is ours, not theirs. And we need to remember that everything we say comes from the heart, so every word that we speak is an expression of our true feelings. So when we say these cruel things, its because deep down inside we really do mean them! We might embellish them or exaggerate in the heat of the moment, but all of these hurtful things we say contain at least a kernel of our true feelings. That’s why they are so hurtful; they’re not just empty words! They are the fruit of a root that reaches into the heart.

V. Don’t Launch a “Cold War” Against the Other Person (10:18)

Do you know what I mean by this? I’m talking about those situations where you refuse to talk to someone else, or you may talk to them but you refuse to admit that anything is wrong. Look with me at Prov. 10:18 [READ 10:18]. These verse talks about two activities. The first is when you conceal your hatred for someone by the things you say to them. Maybe you flatter them or you just act like nothing is wrong. That’s what I mean by a “cold war”—you’re not openly expressing your hatred to the other person, but you’re still hostile toward them even if you won’t talk to them about it.

The second activity in this verse is uttering slander. Basically we’re talking about gossip here. Sometimes we’re not willing to talk to the person we actually have a problem with, but we’re more than willing to talk to everyone else about it! Gossip is another way of indirectly attacking someone. We may not be calling the person names to their face, but we’re trying to get everyone else to share our feelings toward them.

I hope its obvious that neither of these activities constitute a healthy way of dealing with conflict. We can so easily fool ourselves into thinking that this is a better way to handle conflict, but the simple fact that you’re not openly fighting with someone else doesn’t mean anything. The United States and Russia never technically fought a battle during the Cold War, but no one would say we were on friendly terms. We cannot openly or secretly harbor hatred for someone else if we want to have any hope of reconciling with them.

VI. Remember How Hard it Can Be to Undo the Effects of a Fight (18:19)

A poorly handled conflict can stay with you for the rest of your life. Prov. 18:19 says, [READ 18:19]. This proverb is so honest. God does not want us to harbor grudges against each other, but sometimes, that’s exactly what happens, and those grudges can be very hard to overcome. How many times have we seen families permanently divided over a poorly-handled conflict? Or church members separate forever over a petty issue that exploded?

The devotional book Our Daily Bread once recorded the last will and testament of a man who carried a grudge against his daughters to the grave. It read, “Unto my two daughters…by reason of their rebellious attitude toward a loving father, …I leave the sum of $1 to each and a father’s curse. May their lives be fraught with misery, unhappiness, and poignant sorrow. May their deaths be soon and of a lingering, malignant and torturous nature. May their souls rest in hell and suffer the torments of the condemned for eternity.”2

How terrible it is to read those words, but that kind of soul-polluting hatred can be the end result of a poorly-handled conflict. Conflicts don’t have to end up that way; they don’t have to blow up or result in hatred and estrangement. But if we’re going to bring a positive outcome out of a conflict, we have to follow God’s principles. We have to do things God’s way, and as you can see with some of these principles, we have to work on these things now, before conflicts come up. So let’s ask the Lord to carve these principles into our hearts so that we will be ready the next time a conflict comes up.


1. From http://bible.org/illustration/anger-shotgun Accessed 3/23/11

2. Our Daily Bread, February 18, 1994, as recorded at http://bible.org/illustration/father%E2%80%99s-will Accessed 3/23/11

Watching Our Words--Proverbs series

Mark Twain once said, “The difference between the right word and the nearly right word is like the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.” If that’s the case, then we need to be very careful when choosing our words! Words are very powerful—just ask anyone who has been saved by reading the Bible, or anyone who loves poetry. When was the last time you read a book you just couldn’t put down? Chances are for many of us, it wasn’t that long ago. Words are powerful—we’ve known it since we were kids. Remember that playground philosopher who said, “Sticks and stone may break may bones, but words will never hurt me?” When do kids usually say that little rhyme? After they’ve already been hurt by someone’s words! They’ve already been hurt, and they’re trying to play it off. In reality, that little rhyme should probably go something like this: “Taunts and jeers will bring me to tears, but stones will only bruise me.”

Words are very, very powerful! The Bible attests to this fact in several places, but none more so than in the book of Proverbs. Proverbs has a lot to say about “the tongue” and the way we use it to speak to each other. Its teaching is summarized nicely by Prov. 18:21—“Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.” Our words have tremendous power to do a lot of harm or a lot of good, and however we use it, we will have to deal with the consequences. Today I want to direct your attention to four types of speech that are mentioned in the book of Proverbs so that we might get a better picture of how to use our words. I think we will see how important it is for us to harness the power of the tongue for the right kind of speech.

I. Lying

Proverbs talks about several different types of speech, but the activity that it reserves the harshest condemnation for is lying. Look at a couple of verses with me [READ 6:16–17, 12:22]. The word “abomination” is a very strong word, and the fact that Solomon uses it to describe lying puts this sin in some pretty bad company. Other sins that are said to be abominable to God include homosexuality (Lev. 18:22–30, 20:13), idolatry (Deut. 7:25), human sacrifice (Deut. 12:31), engaging in occult activities (Deut. 18:9–14), practicing ritual prostitution (1 Kings 14:23 and following).

This seems like a very harsh view of lying, and it is, but it really makes sense when we realize that lying is the antithesis of God’s character. Titus 1:2 tells us that God cannot lie, and Hebrews 6:18 says it is impossible for God to lie. God is not capable of it; in fact, Jesus said that Satan is the father of lies (John 8:44). So when we lie, we’re engaging in satanic behavior; we’re acting the way that Satan acts! No wonder God finds it abominable!

So we must ask ourselves, then—why do we commit an activity that is so reprehensible to God? If He hates lying so much, why do we do it? Well, there are many reasons why we lie, and Proverbs deals with several of them. We might lie for personal gain, but notice what Prov. 21:6 has to say about that [READ 21:6]. Sometimes we lie to try and get something. We might lie at work to get a promotion or a raise, or we might lie at school to get a good grade or a scholarship, but Proverbs says that this is a “fleeting vapor.” Whatever we gain through lying could immediately evaporate when our lie is uncovered. The verse also calls such lying “a snare of death.” As we’ve noted in our Proverbs series before, at that time the death penalty was assigned for a wide range of crimes, and lying under oath in a courtroom was potentially punishable by death.

That brings up another reason that we might lie—we might lie in order to hurt someone else. Prov. 24:28 envisions a courtroom setting, and it says [READ 24:28]. In this verse, Solomon was warning us about lying in order to damage someone in a court case. Most of us may never even be in a situation like that, but we can hurt people with lies in other ways. We might spread a false story about someone else in order to damage their reputation, or we may “exaggerate” certain facts in order to paint them in a negative light.

We might also lie to try and save ourselves from harm, but notice what Prov. 12:19 says about this [READ 12:19]. There’s some real irony here—we might lie to try and keep ourselves safe and secure, but in reality we have put ourselves on a shaky foundation. Lying really has the opposite effect; it actually exposes us to more harm and danger.

God says that truthful lips will be established, and when that comes from a God who cannot lie, I think we can trust Him. The bottom line on lying is found in Prov. 26:28 [READ 26:28].

That last verse connected lying with another type of speech mentioned in Proverbs, and that is flattery.

II. Flattery

Flattery is quite similar to lying, though they’re not exactly the same. Lying usually denies the truth, while flattery distorts it. It puts a bit of a spin on the truth, usually by exaggerating it or embellishing it. Because of this, flattery is also condemned in the book of Proverbs. Solomon frequently writes that it is characteristic of the behavior of an adulteress. He describes it as “smooth talk.” Look at a few verses with me [READ 2:16, 5:3, 6:24, 7:5, 7:21].

Solomon writes about the adulteress because he is writing from a man’s perspective, but certainly men can be guilty of this kind of flattery as well. When it happens in a romantic way like this, we call it “flirting,” and I don’t think anyone is better at this kind of flattery than high school and college-aged guys. Let’s face it guys—we love to be the ladies’ man, don’t we? It feels good to make the ladies smile and laugh. And sometimes even though we may have no intention of dating a girl, we’ll talk to her like we do. But we say, “What’s wrong with a little harmless flirting?” What’s wrong is that it can never be harmless. Flattery always hurts, because when you flatter someone, you give them a distorted view of reality. Guys, when you flirt with that girl, she’s going to start thinking things, and then she’s going to think that you’re thinking things, even if you aren’t thinking things! And before it gets out of hand, you’re forced to tell her the truth, and it crushes her because you led her on.

But flattery certainly isn’t limited to flirting. People flatter other people all the time in an attempt to get on their good side, but look at what Prov. 28:23 says about this [READ 28:23]. We looked at this verse not long ago. Notice that it does say that whoever rebukes will afterward find more favor. People don’t always accept correction very well, and that’s why its so much easier to flatter someone and just tell them what they want to hear.

But ultimately, it’s the person who rebukes that will find more favor, and why is that? Well, look at Prov. 29:5 [READ 29:5]. When you flatter someone, you’re putting them in a vulnerable position because you’re giving them a distorted view of reality. It’s like putting a pair of glasses on someone’s face that are out of focus. They won’t be able to see things correctly, and thus they might easily stumble and fall. That’s why this type of speech is condemned, and that’s why we should avoid it.

III. Hasty Speech

There is a third type of speech that is condemned in Proverbs, and we might simply call it “hasty speech.” This is essentially a failure to think before you speak. We may not think this is a very big deal, but when you consider the power of words as Proverbs describes it, you realize that we can’t afford to be careless in how we handle our speech.

Guarding our speech is a bigger task that you might think. The average person spends one-fifth of his or her life talking. If all of our words were put into print, a single day’s words would fill a 50-page book, while in a year’s time the average person’s words would fill 132 books of 200 pages each. That’s 26,400 pages of text, and it all came out of your mouth!

Among all of those words, there are bound to be some that were spoken in anger, carelessness, or haste. Look at Prov. 10:19 [READ 10:19]. Prov. 17:27 has the same idea [READ 17:27]. Notice that the end of that verse associates hasty speech with a short temper. The very next verse is one of my favorites on the subject. Look at 17:28 [READ 17:28]. Silence is connected with thinking and deliberation. It is so important that we think before we speak, because our words are so powerful. They can hurt other people; look at Prov. 12:18 [READ 12:18]. We can also hurt ourselves with our words [READ 13:3, 21:23].

Calvin Coolidge once said, “I’ve never been hurt by something I didn’t say.” When we say something, we have to deal with the consequences that our words bring about. Our words have tremendous power to hurt other people, so we must think before we speak.

The bottom line on hasty speech is found in Prov. 29:20 [READ 29:20]. Think about that for a moment—there is more hope for a fool than for the person who is hasty in his words. Remember that a fool is one who does not fear God and does not understand the way that God’s world works, but as we just read, as long as a fool keeps his mouth shut, other people might think he is wise, and he can spare himself a lot of trouble! But for the person who cannot control his words, there is little hope of avoiding trouble.

IV. Kind Words

The final type of speech that Proverbs deals with is a positive one—kind words. This kind of speech stands in contrast to everything else we have seen so far. Solomon has had nothing but condemnation for the types of speech that we have seen so far, but kind words are recommended and praised. Let’s read a couple of verses [READ 15:4, 16:24].

Isn’t it true that words can bring up emotions within us that are comforting and pleasant? They really can have positive health benefits for us as well. Another verse mentions a specific ailment that kind words can cure, and that is anxiety [READ 12:25]. When you’re weighed down by worry and fear, it can mean so much just to know that someone cares. A compliment, a kind greeting, an empathetic tone of voice—all of these things can be like medicine to the heart that is weighed down by anxiety. The bottom line for kind words is found in Prov. 15:23 [READ 15:23].

Friends, when kind words have this kind of power and benefit for others, why don’t we use them more often? We may have a friend or a loved one who means the world to us, but too often it just feels awkward to tell them that. I don’t know exactly why that is, but its sad, and I think we need to change that reality. A kind word is a very simple token of God’s love that we can give to someone else, and its impact can be huge. Now certainly we need to put actions behind our words when that’s appropriate, and the Bible tells us to do that, but kind words are a very simple gift that we can all give away every day. Whoever you are, its very, very rare that you won’t talk to at least one other person every day, and speaking kind words to that person is a very simple way to show God’s love.

We’ve looked at four different types of speech today, and you may have noticed, but the ratio of bad kinds of speech to good kinds of speech was 3 to 1. I think this tells us that it is much more common for us to use our words in sinful, negative ways rather than godly, positive ways. But let’s just keep in mind what we’ve learned. First, lying does not actually achieve what we think it will. We might think that lying is a way to protect ourselves or to get ahead, but in reality when we lie we are simply inviting more trouble into our lives.

Second, flattery is a subtle trap for other people because we are giving them a distorted view of reality. It is not kind to flatter other people—on the contrary, it is deceptive and potentially harmful to them.

Third, we have to make it a point to think before we speak. Since words are as powerful as they are, we can’t simply toss them around or blurt them around without thinking about it. That’s like casually handling a loaded gun, so if your mouth is liable to go off at any moment, you’ve got to learn to keep the safety on.

Fourth, remember that power that kind words have to do good for other people. You can help someone’s emotional and even physical well-being simply by speaking some kind words to them. If you are ever going to be quick to speak, let it be an encouraging word that will lift someone else’s spirits.