CPE Church

Proverbs 10 | Wisdom for Daily Living | Matt

The battle between wisdom and foolishness is seen in our hearts, in our words and in the daily battles of work, finances, family life, and in our character. This is a community battle and one in which we need friends and comrades for the journey.

Duration:: 30m
Broadcast on:: 13 Oct 2024
Audio Format:: other

All right, thanks. Well, thanks, Jerry. And good morning, everyone. My name is Madam with the Pastors here at CPE Church. Keep your Bibles open to Proverbs chapter 10. We'll get onto that shortly. But I was just thinking about Proverbs 10 and the sort of life that it depicts and the things and the places and the levels that it engages with. It tends to engage on a very kind of day-to-day life kind of way. Now, I was thinking about that because like I personally always find myself drawn to big, epic TV shows. So, you know, this one's going on and it's called The Rings of Power based on the Lord of the Rings universe. It's a show. It actually does start getting good. You know, somewhere in the second season for those who are like, "Oh, first one's really boring." But what I love about it is because it is so big. The scales is huge. There's kingdoms at war with each other. There's magical powers invested into jewelry and there's good and there's evil and there's the temptations of power all the way through the series. Now, I'm quite a daydream and so mine always drifts to these big epic kind of grand spaces in which a good and evil are fought out. But the truth is life's probably a little bit more like a sitcom, isn't it? Much more like a sitcom. Much more like daily life at work or at home with your flatmates at the cafe with your kids, that kind of thing. Because most of life isn't big grand adventures with very clear, good and evil where there's, you know, enemies to fight and victories to pursue and all the rest. Actually, a lot of life looks very ordinary, very mundane. But the truth is that just because it's mundane doesn't mean that it's any less important. It doesn't mean that the temptations aren't there. It doesn't mean that the options and the battles of what it means to kind of leave that out rightly don't exist there. See, I think that's one of the things that as we engage with Proverbs, and you might have got that sense as Jerry was reading out for us, Proverbs is very much engaging with the world of the sitcom, more than the world of the rings of power. It's much more in the daily living, on the kind of short, tiny little things, and Seinfeld in particular was famous for being kind of this whole show about the most minute moments that happen in life. Now, we're going to be unpacking some of those Proverbs shortly, but over the last couple of weeks, we wouldn't really unpacking the first nine chapters or Proverbs, which is a bit like an extended introduction to this middle section that's coming up. So Proverbs sort of roughly breaks up into these three sections. The first nine chapters are the introduction. Section two is a section where it's the middle, it's a heart of Proverbs, it's all those short little sayings that we read out earlier, and we're going to kind of have a look at how we unpack some of those. But hey, before we get there, it's worth kind of checking back in, especially if you missed a week or two, that this is some of the stuff that we've learned from the first nine chapters. You see, in the first nine chapters, there are very much long dialogues of a father passing advice to his sons. And the kind of things he talks about is the fact that wisdom, wisdom more than anything else is worth pursuing. Wisdom is worth more than God, because it helps you navigate life, all of life's challenges, all of life's decisions. And pursuing wisdom is going to set you up for life much better than just having a big golden inheritance or just being lumped with a lot of money. In fact, he says that actually life will go better for you if you're wise, life will go worse for you if you're not. But not only will it be better for you, it'll be better for those around you. You'll be a blessing. Proverbs and wisdom is very much about people and relationships and bringing good things, not just to you, but to those around you. And so that path to wisdom starts with the fear of the Lord, starts with knowing humbly that you need help, you need God to understand how to live rightly in God's world. And so what it really sets up is this drama, right? There's this drama that happens in everyday life, a moral drama. This isn't just about kind of stupidity and being smart. It's actually about doing right and wrong. And there's this moral drama that plays out in Proverbs that's fought in the center of every human heart, but then played out on the small scale and all the everyday little mundane things of life. So that's what Proverbs sets up for us in those first nine chapters. Okay, here's the conundrum, there. Here's the conundrum. The conundrum is that this second section of Proverbs, it's just like a whole series of tiny little life lessons, tiny little life lessons which pack quite a lot of profound truth into each one of them. So we're going to actually for this first section of today, we're going to unpack a little bit of how it is that Proverbs actually work. And then in the second section, we'll kind of take a theme, a bit of a bunch of Proverbs and unpack those along those, yeah, along a thematic line. But I thought we'd actually start with this idea about how does a Proverbs work? Okay. See, I don't know what Proverb or saying or thing that kind of jumped to mind for you earlier when you were discussing with someone. There's lots of short little pithy Proverbs and sayings out there that you can probably just name off the top of your head. So maybe it was something like this, the early bird catches the worm. Now there's quite a lot of truth combined and just contained just that tiny little what six, seven word saying. This idea that actually getting up early doing things, they don't leave things to the last minute, they get be proactive, take initiative, go and get out there early, because the early bird catches the worm. That's a very short little kind of metaphor, image, visual picture for a very profound truth. And that's one of the challenges of Proverbs that it contains a lot of truth in very few words. And often the way that Proverbs work is they are relating to kind of trying to use a metaphor, an image, a picture, something that's supposed to kind of help to jog our memories, help us to understand something and memorize this truth so you can bring it out at the appropriate time. At that moment when you're just in bed and you know that you've got a big day ahead of you and you can remind yourself that the early bird gets the worm. Or what about this one? You know, for any of those lawn fanatics out there, you know, always looking over the fence just observing how nice the lawn is or how nice the garden is next door. You know, we live next to some retirees who spend all of their time in the garden. So it doesn't matter how nice our lawn looks, it always looks better over the fence. That's a relatable thing. We're always desiring, envying, wanting what's over there instead of what we've actually got, appreciating what we have. You see Proverbs, all Proverbs, both secular Proverbs and biblical Proverbs work on this basis that actually you can contain a lot in just a few words. So even just reading one chapter of Proverbs, I don't know about you, but you just kind of become overwhelmed with the density of everything that's there. And there's just so much packed in to so little. But let me just pick out a couple of other things that are important as we think about Proverbs. It really brings out that there's a bit of a poetry to them, right? They often use things like like alliteration, for example, right? That's kind of similar sounds repeating after each other. Here's another famous one, Birds of a Feather, Flocked Together. You can anyone think of a smoother language, a smoother sentence in the used language just sort of just flows off the tongue nicely, doesn't it? All about this one, this is for those who always find it a bit scary kind of putting your hand up to ask the question. He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever. Doesn't that just kind of have a nice ring to it, a nice rhythm to it? And a good reminder at that moment where you're like, I really don't want to make a fool myself and ask this question. Yeah, better be a fool for five minutes and then spend the rest of your life knowing that thing, knowing the answer to that question than to not. So how are we to unpack these proverbs? What is it that we need to gather from all these tiny little lessons in life? Well, I'll give you a few quick things. You need to slow down. You kind of just kind of plow away through proverbs and expect like to be able to just suddenly be this bastion of knowledge. It's not like your computer that can just download all this information. In actual fact, what proverbs often do is that they're appealing to our hearts, to our imagination. And so you need to slow down and to dwell on them and to unpack them. Now, I wanted to kind of take you through a couple of examples of how you might do that. You see, proverbs in the Bible particularly like to use this thing called parallelism. Parallelism is when you put two ideas next to each other that kind of will help to highlight or contrast something about two different ideas. Here's a couple, right? There's a contrasting kind of parallel here. Lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth. You kind of put two things to opposite things against each other, one which highlights the other. If you're lazy, you're often procrastinating, well, you're never going to build up money, wealth for whatever reason, but those who are diligent, who work hard, will be able to receive wealth and then be able to use that to actually bless others, bless your family. What about this next one? It's one of my favorites. As vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes, so I slug it to those who send them. You know, for me, even in those moments, what I feel like procrastinating for the tenth time, and to remind myself. I remind myself not just for this truth to kind of get on with being productive, but actually, how does it work? It was appealing to my senses, isn't it? That taste of vinegar, that kind of tartness, that sour kit, or when that smoke blows into your eyes, when you're at the campfire, it just stings. That's what it's like to be a lazy worker to those who employ you. You're like a pain in the mouth or stinging to the eyes. And so, Proverse works like this. It works by appealing to our hearts, with our imagination. And as you slow down and as you unpack them, you're meant to sit there and feel it and to experience it, to feel the tension, to feel the foolishness of the foolish path, and to feel the wisdom and the benefits of the wise life. Now, that's actually a really important principle for anyone who's teacher, anyone who's in some form of professionally give advice, maybe you're involved in a teaching ministry here at CPE, maybe you're a parent teaching your children. Teaching involves much more than just information download. See, there'd be a lot simpler, easier ways to communicate some of these truths, but by packaging it up in a particular way, actually, it helps you to communicate, to memorize, to remember these truths, for someone listening to kind of gather that truth and to take it to heart and then to actually go and live it out. And that's an important space for us to be thinking through. It's not just about the content of your teaching, but the way in which you package it. Now, there's lots of ways that you might want to teach, you might want to teach through stories. Now, you want to teach through metaphors, through pictures. Well, Proverse is just another way of teaching, in short little memorable lines that might appeal to your sense of your imagination in some way, and give you something, some little piece of practical, important, profound advice that will help you live the wise life. So what do we do then? What do we do when we've got a whole series of Proverbs here? Well, I think one of the ways is to start picking some out and concentrating on them. You're not meant to kind of sit there and unpack every single one. I think you'll go along and will naturally be drawn to particular ones. So pick that out, slow down, pull it apart. There's lots of ways to read Proverbs. Now you can read through Proverbs and get a few of what Proverbs thinks is important. You can get the full scope of everything that goes on there in Proverbs. Even in chapter 10, what do we find there? We saw a whole bunch of different Proverbs covering different topics, your family, for example. A wise son brings joy to his father, but a foolish son brings grief to his mother. It's concerned about our integrity. The way we get what we want to get, ill-gotten treasures have no lasting value, but righteousness delivers from death. Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but whoever takes crooked paths will be found out. Right, this idea that actually if you do things the right way and it takes short cuts, you don't kind of do unethical means to kind of gain wealth or treasure or anything else. Actually, if you go that path, chances are you'll be found out. Chances are that is not going to last, but do things right. Don't cut corners. Do things diligently, and the chances are those things will last, and you yourself, life will go better for you. That actually also impacts our reputation, the name of the righteous is used in blessings, but the name of the wicked will not. Oh, there we go. Or obedience, the wise and hard except commands, but a chattering fool comes to ruin. Or maybe one of the biggest themes in all of Proverbs, particularly in chapter 10, but actually all throughout Proverbs, is the way that we speak. Right, the mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence. Right, this idea that actually what your words say can actually bring life to people in encouragement and appreciation and affirmation, but what's the mouth of the wicked do? Well, it flatters conceals violence. It kind of will say things one way, but actually is meaning something else, and it'll do that kind of thing. It's a means of violence. See, Proverbs covers a whole range of different topics in daily life. So what I thought we'd do this morning, for the second half this morning, is that we'd pick out one topic and really unpack that. Now, this is one of maybe one of the smaller topics on followers, but I think it's actually quite significant, right? It's all about the role of friends and mentors in growing wise. The role of friends and mentors in growing wise. Now there in verse 17 in chapter 10 said this. Whoever he's disciplined shows the way to life, but whoever ignores correction leads others astray. See, it's kind of making a point that actually how we live affects those around us. Those who heed discipline who live wisely actually show others the way to life, but the ones who ignore correction, who are always very wise in their own life, likely who is that you will not only lead yourself astray, but actually lead others astray. This idea in Proverbs that actually no man is an island. Everyone's kind of connected to each other. We all affect each other. In fact, I've heard it set out there. I've heard it set out there that we are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You think about that. So you know the people you spend the most time, the average of the five people you spend the most time with. It's not something we should think about, how we affect others and how they affect us, how you choose your influences. In fact, as it goes on it says this, chapter 12 verse 15. "The way of fools seem right to them, but the wise listen to advice." This is kind of an idea that if you can surround yourself with wise older people and you're willing to accept their advice, life will go better for you. We'll take this one. "Walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fools suffers harm." Or chapter 14 verse 7. "Stay away from a fool, for you will not find knowledge on their lips." Now these past couple of years, I've got a official mentor for myself. So he's a mentor. He's someone who's about 10 years ahead of me. He's a pastor as well. So he understands this line of work and the world of church and all of that. And it's been one of the best things that I've had, right? Because we get to sit down. It's about every couple of months we catch up and we catch up for a good like afternoon, two, three hours, and we just talk life, talk marriage, kids, ministry, church, working with people, dealing with pastoral issues. And what do I do? I just get to sit there and to learn, to bring my questions, to ask for advice, and to get, have the advice of someone, just that one step ahead of me, passing that advice down to me. It's great. It's one of the most valuable things I think I've done in a while. But think about that for yourself. But somewhere out of those five people that you spend with, spend it with wise people, maybe one or two of those people should be someone who's just that stage ahead of you in life, right? If you're a teenager, maybe it's your youth leader. Maybe if you're dating someone, you're thinking about getting married, or maybe having that married couple to talk to you. If you've just started working life, having someone who understands your particular area. If you're married with young kids, just trying to work out how to do life and navigating the business of having these young people around you, finding someone who's that step ahead of you with older kids, and so on and so forth. The opposite is also true. Being aware of the negative influences in your life as well. So if you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with, well, you don't want to spend too much time with fools who might lead you astray, people who might influence you. See, chances are that maybe somebody in your circle, your close circle, might have a negative influence on you. In the world of social media influencers, chances are you might even have a social media influencer in there. I remember a time where I actually had to stop watching my favorite TV show of all time. Scrub. Scrub is one of my absolute favorite shows. When I was a medical student, just getting to watch grads, you get to learn medicine, but you also learn about how hospitals run, you learn about how people relate to each other. It's a great show, actually. I really enjoyed it. But there's a time, especially when I was a young, single doctor, where I had to stop watching it. Because just part of the show is all about how the characters kind of get with each other and sleep with each other, or they're in hospital kind of working, but then they kind of have this moment where they're gazing at the good looking nurse over there and really having these little fantasy moments. And for this young, single doctor, that was actually quite unhelpful. And so I actually had to stop watching it. But think about those five people, those five influencers for you. Chances are in that circle are your friends, your friends. Now, one of the things I love most about Proverbs is a way that it really upholds the value and the importance of friendships, okay? Of friendships. Now have a look at this first. Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Woons from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses. You get the little sense of what true friendship looks like. Sometimes, true friendship actually looks like people being able to say things to you openly. In fact, it reminds me of a quote by Oscar while you might have heard of this before, true friends, stab you in the front. Right, so dear, your enemies will come, they'll stab you in the back when you're not looking. A true friend, though, might wound you in a positive way. They might actually bring something to you that you need to know. And I've had those friends in my life who've definitely brought things up with me, and I've really appreciated that. But I thought I was thinking through this about friendships, and I tracked them through time when, yeah, actually, you know, in my younger years, in my younger years, I reckon I had friends, but it was the sort of friends which are going to have fun together, right? It's a very superficial kind of friendship. Right, in fact, I think even, and maybe it's a guy, I think we kind of had this thing where, well, you'd never want to admit weakness to them, because there's sort of always this one upmanship going on within our friendship group. And there's kind of a bit of a jovial fun with that, as a lot of male friends can do. A lot of egos involved. But what does Proverbs tell us that true friends are? True friends are those who can, well, who I think, well, they're trusted. Trusted enough to actually tell you what you need to know. Or vice versa, to be a good friend means sometimes having to bring up something that might be potentially hard for someone to hear. But in the long run, it'll be good for them. Now, it shouldn't be a kind of case where someone sort of stands over you, and is constantly judging you. I think that's the kind of thing. In fact, I think this sort of plays out in some of these other Proverbs, perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of a friend springs from their heartfelt advice. Do what do you need from that friend? What do you need from the truths and the wounds? Well, you need someone who brings out with a pleasantness, with a calmness, who brings out not as a way to kind of condemn you, but actually to, in a kind way, bring you to a knowledge of a truth that you might not have otherwise understood. Nor should it be all just one way traffic. Verse 17, there as iron sharpens iron. So one person sharpens another. That actually, a good friendship is one which you actually can say things to each other, and that you actually consistently, in a way, sharpen each other. Actually, you're knocking those hard edges off each other. You actually make each other sharper. You can do life better. When you can do that, when you have a place of safety, where you feel like you can be truthful and honest with each other, and you trust each other, that you've got each other's good in mind. And when you have that kind of relationship, you are sharpening each other. You're making each other better. Someone asked, how often, when was the last time that you went and was honest with someone? Like, honest, like real hard, honest, things that you've been going really hard for you. When you've got deep fears or struggles or desires or temptations. When was the last time you went and asked for genuine advice from your friends? Or when from your mentors? When was it that you went, ah, there's something coming up. I'm interested in that girl. I'm thinking about buying that house. I've got these struggles within my marriage. When have you gone and brought that to others, opened up about them in your life groups, in your prayer triples, to your friends, to your mentors? When you do that, you are being wise. The journey on the path of wisdom, it's not a solo journey, it's not so you can just sit and just learn everything you can to learn, download all that information, and you will go go well in life. Actually, Proverbs definitely presents this picture in which it's a community of people that become wise. As you walk with your friends, as you walk with your family, as you walk with others hand in hand, encouraging each other to stick to that wise path, correcting each other when we're off path, giving each other affirmation and appreciation when we're actually doing things that are encouraging and helpful and good for you or for them. See, I think it comes down as true friends. They're close, they're compassionate, and they're candid. They're close, compassionate, and candid people that you trust, people that you can enjoy spending time with to build that trust. But then as you do that, you can actually have the care and concern for each other. When things are going wrong, you'll jump in there for each other, but that you'll also bring truth and honesty into those relationships. You will say the words when they need to be said. See, I think this problem, this world in which we're very lonely, okay, we're very, very lonely. So definitely a thing over the last 15, 20 years, we've become a very lonely society. And I don't think the problem is that we just don't have people to kind of do life and just be in community or to have friends. I think it's much deeper than that. It's actually that we just don't even have the people to share the deep aspects of life, to share what's really going on in your heart with somebody. You know, it's interesting, I was reading an article this week about how there really hasn't been any real big sitcoms in the last kind of five, 10 years or so, right? People are going back and they're streaming friends and the office and modern family and some of these old sitcoms from many years ago. And part of that, they reckon, is, well, we just don't have friends anymore. That's not something that's enough space that we relate to as much as we used to. So much of our connection with each other is not in families or sitting at cafes together, it's through the internet. And we've lost that connection with each other. Dear friends, I want to ask you, Church, think about this. Think about the time and the spaces. Where are you investing time into your friendships? Friendships of trust or vulnerability? Friendships where you can spend time with it and you know that you will receive the word that you need to hear from them because they love you. Now, I have to say, I'm not that great at it myself. I'm definitely someone who kind of neglects that side. It's busy with family, it's busy with work and ministry and so on and so forth. But as I read Proverbs, I see it a real importance that this is not something that you can ignore. In fact, did you know that Jesus spoke very warmly about his friends? John chapter 15. Jesus said this, my command is this, love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no more than this to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends for everything that I learned from my father. I have made known to you. What does Jesus say? He's actually saying that you disciples can be Jesus's friend. I don't think that's just for the 12 disciples that he has in front of you. I think he means this for all of his disciples that as he has made known or what he knows from his father that he has passed that on to his disciples that they would know what it means to be Jesus's friend. But not only that Jesus says that he himself models what it means to be a friend. Just as the good friend will lay down their life for others, what do we see in Jesus? We see the friend who goes to the cross. In fact, this is the day before he is to go to the cross. So Jesus looks with utmost compassion on his friends. He invites us to be his friend. He says, you are my friends if you do what I command. As we understand him and his particular role in helping us to understand who God is. As he invites us into that relationship to truly fear God to actually know the God who made this world to live in the right way. That's friends of Jesus. We can know everything that he knows. He says, as I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my father, I have made known to you. Two friends is through Jesus that we can know God. Through Jesus that we can be friends with God. In a few short moments, I'm actually going to invite us all to take communion together. And what communion is, it really is an invitation to be friends with God, to kind of share at his table. Just as you might go and have a meal with your friends. So Jesus invites you to his table. And he invites you, not because you're perfect, but because you're imperfect, and because he has loved you by laying down his life for you. Indeed, Jesus actually invites us to his table. And if you're not a Christian here today, I want you to know this, that Jesus wants to be friends with you. He wants to invite you to join in his table. Now, if you know you're not a Christian and that you're just not ready yet, then I don't want you to feel any pressure to do something that actually isn't true for you, okay? But if you'd like to receive his invitation, I'd also invite you to take the Lord's Supper. The hosting will start handing that out to us. But just to say this, that as we take this little cup of juice and that little piece of bread, there's nothing kind of special or magical about it. It represents something that is important and significant though. It represents Jesus' body broken for us and his blood poured out for us. That we made ourselves enemies of God, and yet God invited us back in to be his friend through the breaking of his body and of his blood.