Proverbs 14 - People Matter

Hello, and welcome back to Strength for the Day.

And I am guest hosting. I am Bryon Self, as many of you already know. And Pastor is not with us this morning, but did want to mention just what a great day we had on Sunday.

And started off our series in First Corinthians, in the world, not of it.

And I love the Book of First Corinthians, and really, really looking forward to the series, which I assume will be in for a little bit, given just kind of how long First Corinthians is.

But there's so many awesome little nuggets of truth that we'll see as we go through that. So really looking forward to going through that with Pastor. Good morning to Molly, and great to see you on the podcast today.

Andra as well, good to see you. We're gonna get started here in just about one minute. Diving back into the latter half of Proverbs 14.

And so we're gonna be doing that. If you could, in the comments, let us know kind of how your weekend went. If you were here in Moses Lake, maybe something that you were encouraged with this past weekend.

Maybe something you've got upcoming this next week. And would love to hear about that. And so we can pray for you as well.

If you have any prayer requests, you can also let us know that. As was mentioned, last time we ended kind of at the halfway point or so of Proverbs 14. And so today we're gonna be jumping right in to the next part of this chapter.

And last time we ended, I believe, at verse number 16. But now we have verse number 17. And I've entitled today's podcast episode, People Matter.

Because everything that we're gonna be going through today kind of hinges and focuses on that aspect of these verses that we're going through. And we'll see more what I mean here in a second. Also wanna say hi to Veronica and Deanna.

He that is soon angry dealeth foolishly, and a man of wicked devices is hated. The simple inherit folly, but the prudent are crowned with knowledge. The evil bow before the good, and the wicked at the gates of the righteous.

In these first three verses, we see here kind of a recurring theme of the fact that the natural man, the things that we would do or that come by our very nature, our human nature, our sin nature, are not necessarily the things and the qualities that

we want to always exemplify in our life. Just because something comes naturally to us doesn't mean that it's a good thing that it comes naturally to us. Here in verse number 17, he that is soon angry dealeth foolishly.

The person that has a quick temper, and man, that's a natural thing to be able to have. Most of the time, people don't have to instruct you on, okay, here's how you lose your temper more quickly. Most people don't have to teach you that.

That's something that comes naturally, but it's something that is incredibly bad. It's something that we shouldn't want to lose our temper quickly. Same here with verse number 18, the simple inherit folly, but the prudent are crowned with knowledge.

The simple, it says they inherit folly. Now, an inheritance isn't something that you necessarily earned. It's not something that you get through whatever amount of labor.

Instead, it's something that you get kind of in the same way as from your nature, that you get from your parents, that they're humans, you're humans, they're sinners, you're sinners.

In the same way, an inheritance of folly is not something that maybe someone has to cultivate in their life, though they can certainly do that. It says here the simple inherit folly.

It's this foolishness, this way of looking at sin and God comes naturally to us. And instead of just allowing that natural thing to occur in our lives, instead we should seek, like the prudent, to be crowned with knowledge.

A crown is something that is given to you.

And so in just the same way as the simple inherits folly from their nature, the prudent, because they're looking forward to what would be coming in their lives, they would follow God and as a result, they're crowned with knowledge that they are

given, hey, here's what God's word says about these circumstances or these types of people. And then in verse number 19, the evil bow before the good and the wicked at the gates of the righteous.

Here you have God's kind of general statement of, hey, those that are righteous are going to be the ones that rule. They're going to be in control. They are going to have notoriety in the best sense of the word.

20 through 22. The poor is hated even of his own neighbor, but the rich have many friends. He that despiseth his neighbor sineth, but he that have mercy on the poor, happy is he.

Do they not err that devise evil, but mercy and truth shall be to them that devise good. These next three verses kind of deal with how we view those who are less fortunate than us.

You have here, the poor is hated of his own neighbor, but the rich has many, and I could almost put it in air quotes here, the rich has many friends. That a poor person, because they don't have much, people look down on them.

The people that are rich, they have a lot of people that surround them, they have a lot of people that kind of wait on them hand and foot, but often it's only because of what the rich can give to those people.

And we have here in verse number 21, what God thinks about that. He says, he that despiseth his neighbor, so the neighbor that hates the poor, he that despiseth his neighbor, sineth.

If in our lives, we look down on and we despise those that are less fortunate than us, and we think that we are who we are, that we have the riches we have, because we're somehow intrinsically better than other people rather than the testimony of

scripture would be that God is the one that orchestrates in people's life and gives them their riches, gives them the ability to be able to work hard for the things that they have. But if we think, oh man, I'm just so much better than this person

because they only make this much a week or this much a month, and I make this much, so I must be that much harder of a worker and I'm that much better of a person than the other. The Bible says that we sin when we think that.

This is the same kind of partiality. It's the same kind of looking down on people that was happening in the Book of James. And you can read the first maybe 10 verses of James 2 and see that exact same thought brought out.

Verse number 23, in all labor there's profit, but to the talk of the lip, sorry, but the talk of the lips or vain speech or words tends only to penury or lack of money. I had here a more common word, poverty.

The talk of the lips tends only to poverty. So here you have a person that says, okay, in everything that you're working for, there's profit. Sometimes it might be profit from the actual work you're doing.

It might be that you're harvesting a field and that you're able to get the money from that job. And it's a great thing. Other times you might be working and it doesn't yield an immediate result for you.

But the diligence that you had in working is a reward for you as well. But it says empty speech, hear the talk of the lips, just talking doesn't do anything for you. And in fact, it only leads to poverty.

So it's much better to borrow the phrase, put your hand to the plow to get to working. And in all labor, there is profit, but the talk of the lips tendeth only to poverty.

Here you have in this next verse, the crown of the wise is the riches, but the foolishness of fools is folly.

The thing that sets the righteous apart in this verse is the crown of the wise is their riches, that people will realize, okay, this person didn't get here by deceit, they didn't get it by stealing.

Instead, it was this hard work kind of tied in with the previous verse, but it says the foolishness of fools is folly.

And it's the thing that sets the foolish apart is their foolishness, that people realize, okay, this person's righteous, they're a hard worker, and you can see it evidenced in their life, but for fools, you can also note, okay, what are they marked

by? And for us, we need to think about, okay, what is a marker in my life of the path that I'm going down? A true witness delivereth souls, but a deceitful witness speaketh lies.

Pastor Carlos and I went through First Kings, and there's a story in there about Ahab and Jezebel, and Jezebel was trying to get a piece of land for Ahab, and she set up some of these false, deceitful witnesses that condemned a man to his death.

And you can see there in the first part of verse 25, a true witness delivereth souls. So that would have been people that would have spared, spared the man from being killed, but the deceitful witness spoke lies.

And the fear of the Lord is strong confidence, and his children shall have a place of refuge. This is one of my favorite verses in the chapter.

And the fear of the Lord is strong confidence, that we can have confidence when we belong to the Lord, that whatever comes is from his hand, and is either meant to bless us, or if it's a trial, that we're still able to grow and to be blessed even

through that. So whether the good times come, it's God's blessing on us in that way, or if hard times come, we know that God is strengthening us and drawing us into a closer relationship with him. So we have strong confidence in the Lord.

In the multitude of people is the king's honor, but in the want of people is the destruction of the prince.

This is kind of just a general verse that would talk about the fact that if you have a lot of people in your kingdom, you've got a strong kingdom. If you have very few people in your kingdom, you're way more likely to be destroyed.

Verse number 29, He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding, but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly.

The person that thinks through what they're doing isn't going to promote foolish or stupid things, but it says a person that is hasty of spirit, that a person that's impulsive is going to exalt foolish, stupid things.

A sound heart is the life of the flesh, but envy the rottenness of the bones. When you have a sound heart, a heart that's complete, that's set, it's going to help your entire body.

But if you're quite literally here eaten up with envy, with wanting what other people have, with not feeling like God has given you enough, but that you're constantly wanting what other people have, it says here it's rottenness to your bones, that it

will literally kind of harm you and hurt you if that's what you're bent on in your life. Instagram can be great for seeing other people's successes and victories and things like that, but far too often on social media, we can tend to want what

everyone else has. We can say, oh man, I want that car, that house, that vacation, that relationship. And when we allow that kind of stuff to just eat us up inside, it can really harm us and our life.

Verse 31, he that oppresses the poor approaches his maker, but he that honors him has mercy on the poor. As we talked about at the beginning, we shouldn't look down on people because maybe they're less fortunate than us.

They make less money than us, anything like that. Instead, if we honor the Lord, we're going to have mercy on those and help those that are in need. Then verse 32, the wicked is driven away in his wickedness, but the righteous has hope in his death.

I'm thankful that as Christians, we do have hope in our life and in our death. Verse number 33, wisdom rests in the heart of him that has understanding, but that which is in the midst of fools is made known.

So here you have here kind of a parallel thing that wisdom rests in the heart of those that have understanding that it's a peaceful place, it sits there, it's good, but that which is in the midst of fools is made known.

So just as wisdom resides, it lives in the heart of a wise person, in the heart of fools or in the company of fools, it says that which is in their midst is made known, that they spread everywhere every thought that they have, every crazy thing that

they think. Verse number 34, righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. When a people, when a nation lift up what is good, blessing comes from that and there's great things that arise as a result of that.

But it says sin is a reproach to any people. And man, I think even of our nation where too often that which is sin is lifted up, it's exalted, and what is righteous is often downplayed. And you go, okay, well, how do we know what's righteous?

How do we know what's sin? Really, it's from God's word. And the more that we're in God's word, the more we're able to see, man, this lifestyle that's being promoted by these people isn't what's righteous.

This love and desire and covetousness for money is wrong and evil. And man, this thing over here that they're saying, hey, you have to have this, you have to do this, this is good when we realize, okay, God's word says something entirely different.

We can see that righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. The king's favor, verse 35, is toward a wise servant, but his wrath is against him that causeth shame.

Here you have a verse that is very particularly talking about a king's court and that he would have goodwill towards those that are wise servants and be angry against those that would cause him shame.

But I think even in our daily lives, maybe with business, that this would be something that we can think about. That okay, if I want my boss to like me, if I want my boss to be happy with my work, then I'm going to be wise.

I'm gonna follow a lot of these things of what God's Word says about my work ethic. It says, but his wrath is against him that causes shame.

Man, I think of, obviously I'm a bit younger, so I am able to see a few things on social media of some young kids that, man, they will just do the craziest things.

I think of even some people that I've seen that work at or did work at Disney World or Disneyland and they would just do crazy things for viral videos and it would bring shame on the company.

It would make the company look bad and people would go, hey, what in the world are you letting your employees do? And now they've got a million views on this crazy thing that they did at Disney World.

And so then the company would go to the kid and be like, all right, you're fired because you did this thing that was crazy and that you shouldn't have done, and that brought shame to the company.

And man, it makes me think about that with that verse, then these kids go, oh man, I can't believe I got fired, it was just this little thing.

But man, maybe if some of us would take this verse to heart, we would be better workers that we would be wise in what we do, and we wouldn't be those that would cause shame. Just in summary with this chapter, people are important, people matter.

And so whether they're less fortunate than us, whether they're those that maybe are simple, that don't know as much about God's Word, that they need to be encouraged to do the right thing, to get into God's Word, man, if it's a nation of people that

they need to know that righteousness is what will lift their nation up and not just economic success or social reform, but that following God's Word is what matters. Man, people matter in all of it.

So today, go, everyone you interact with, they matter. The people that you interact with at your workplace, at the grocery store, out at wherever you are, they matter, so treat them like they matter.

And I think we'll see from God's Word that there is a blessing, a huge blessing that comes from that.

Look forward to being with you all tomorrow, and I believe Pastor might be with Miss Hannah or anything, might be doing it Thursday, but always enjoy getting to hear some of their wisdom that they have from ministry, and look forward to being with

you again.