Turn your Bibles today to Proverbs chapter three. We'll be looking at Proverbs three, verses 27 to 35. Finishing up chapter three as we continue our study through Proverbs. Let's hear the word of God in Proverbs 3, beginning in verse 27. Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due when it is in your power to do it. Do not say to your neighbor, go and come again. Tomorrow I will give it when you have it with you. Do not plan evil against your neighbor who dwells trustingly beside you. Do not contend with a man for no reason when he has done you no harm. Do not envy a man of violence and do not choose any of his ways. For the devious person is an abomination to the Lord, but the upright are in his confidence. The Lord's curse is on the house of the wicked, but he blesses the dwelling of the righteous. Toward the scorners he is scornful, but to the humble he gives favor. The wise will inherit honor, but fools get disgrace. This is the word of our Lord, let's pray. Our Lord, you tell us that all flesh is grass and the grass withers and the flower fades. And that only you and your word stand forever. And that you give us life through your word that we might to live forever. We thank you for the gospel in your word. We thank you for the grace that is proclaimed through your word so that we who are dust, we who are mortal, might live in eternity with you. And so God, we pray that you would open our eyes to understand your word, that you would, by your spirit work in our hearts, that we might receive your word with humility, with meekness, that we might receive your grace. We pray through Jesus Christ. Amen. Augustine was the bishop in North Africa in the fourth century, and a young man wrote him in a letter to ask him the key to growing as a Christian, the key to the Christian life. What's most important that I need to focus on? and he responded by using an illustration of an orator, a public speaker. When a public speaker, one of the great classic speakers, was asked once, what is the key to great speaking, he responded, number one, delivery, number two, delivery, number three, delivery. And so Augustine said that the key to the growth of the Christian life is, number one, humility, number two, humility, and number three, humility. The key to growing as a Christian is to grow in humility. Now, someone might say, isn't love what is supposed to be distinguishing of Christians? Isn't love what the New Testament and what Christ talks about so much? Well, yes, that's true, and I guess we could say love is the most important virtue for a Christian. But if you stop and think about it, doesn't love require humility? Love is not thinking about yourself. Love is putting others first and serving others, and so that will require humility. on your part. So if you want to grow in your Christian life and your Christian character, the most important thing you need to grow in is humility. In this passage today, as we finish up chapter three of Proverbs, he tells us that a wise life is a humble life. The father continues his lecture to his son that he begins really in verse 21, telling his son, and he's told him in verse 13, we saw last week, to find wisdom, and in verse 21, he tells him to keep wisdom. And in this passage, he continues telling his son what the wise life, or the good life, looks like. And the first part of what he says is that the good life includes loving your neighbor. It's about love. It's about ethics. It's about how to live. We talked in weeks before about how Proverbs is not just a practical advice manual. It's not just theological, but it's also ethical. He's telling you how to obey the law of God and how to live the godly life. And so that's what verses 27 to 31 focus on how to love your neighbor, how to treat your neighbor. But then in verses 32 to 35 is the why, why should you love your neighbor? And he focuses on the blessings of God towards the wise person. And one of those is then in verse 34, he gives favor, he gives grace to the humble. And so later on, we'll talk about especially verse 34, and I'll explain why we will focus on that verse. But he talks about the horizontal relationships first, verse 27 to 31, how we treat one another. and then the vertical relationship with God, verse 32 to 35. So let's go verse by verse through this passage, and we start with the horizontal, with one another. And the first one is in verse 27, where he starts out with, do not. And you notice each verse from 27 to 31 starts with, do not. And it's about how to treat your neighbor. And so it's clear that the father is shifting his style and he's shifting his topic away from keeping and finding wisdom to how you are to treat your neighbor. Now, one question that you should always ask when you're reading your Bible and you want to study the Bible, you should always ask the question, why? And that's basically all that Bible study is. You just keep asking why. Why does he say this? Why does he not say that? Why does he say it here? Why doesn't he say that later? And so, when we get to verse 27, we should ask the question, why does he start with all these do-nots? Do not do this to your neighbor. And by asking the question, we get the answer. Well, it's because the way that you treat your neighbor is a reflection of if you're living a wise life. The wise person, the one who finds and keeps wisdom will necessarily must then live that out with a good life, a life of love towards others. Or we could say that your ethics is related to your theology. And in our day, when people are so confused about ethics, what's right and what's wrong, what's moral, it's because they have really bad theology. It's because they have no wisdom. They have not found wisdom in the fear of the Lord, and so that results in how we treat one another. And so the Father is making this point and God in his word is making this point here by putting these do nots here, he's telling us that this is related to a life of wisdom. Jesus makes this point too. When he is asked, what is the greatest commandment? And he responds in Mark chapter 12 with a two for one package. He says the greatest commandment in the singular is this, love God and love your neighbor. So both of those, he's saying, are the same commandments. And his point is that if you love God, you love your neighbor. And so we could say that verses 13 to 26 here are about how to love God, how to fear the Lord, how to have wisdom. And then verses 27 to 31 are about how to love your neighbor. Before we go looking at verse 27, let's think about that for ourselves for a minute. How do we live this out? Our theology and our worship is important. and all of our good actions and deeds flow from the right theology and the right worship. Remember the story of Luke chapter 10 with Mary and Martha, and Mary, I always get them confused, Martha is the one serving, Martha is the one always busy running around the house, and Mary sits at Jesus' feet. And Jesus says, Mary has chosen the good portion. The primary focus, the emphasis is on worship of Jesus and hearing the word of God and learning about God and knowing God. So that is important. But from that flows love of neighbor. We do need to love people. We do need to do good to our neighbor. It's not that all we should do is worship God and all we should do is study the word of God and study theology, but those things ought to result in a life of love for others. And so Christians, love your neighbor, do good to your neighbor. As a church, we should do good to our community, to our neighbors. So, Here are some ways that we love our neighbor in these next five verses. Verse 27, we have the first one. I'll read the 27, 28 together. He says, do not withhold good from those to whom it is due when it is in your power to do it. Do not say to your neighbor, go and come again. Tomorrow I will give it when you have it with you. Verse 27 is about withholding help. Verse 28 is about delaying help. They're similar, but it's possible that verse 28 is different. You're not just delaying and delaying and delaying forever and always withholding help, but he says if you delay and delay and delay and then give help, well, you still could be doing the wrong thing. Don't delay. If you have the power and the ability to help now, then you should help now. So those are the differences between those two, but the first one is to help those to whom help is due. Don't withhold good from whom it is due. I think the key word there is to whom it is due. or literally to its owners, to its possessors. Good is due to people. This is what we would call human rights. Human rights. But human rights are not determined by the United Nations. Broadband internet is not a human right. Human rights are not determined by the American government. So, in one previous court case, the right for a woman to not be pregnant, just as a man cannot be pregnant, that is not a human right. Human rights are given by God. Being made in the image of God, everyone has the right to life. And so this is what it's talking about. Human rights, the basic necessities of life. So food, water, shelter to protect people, these are human rights. It is due to people. People are owed these basic necessities. And we are not to withhold good as believers when we see people who are in need. Now, of course, it's always difficult to know how to help people and when to help people. And we could sit around at lunch and we could debate that for hours and hours. When is the right time to help people? Because are they really do it if they have the money and then they go and spend their money on alcohol and drugs and on all these things? And then we could go on and on. We all know the scenarios, but that's not the point of what he's getting at. When you can determine with your wisdom that someone is truly in need, the Christian is to help. And then the other qualification is, he says, it's when it is in your power to do it. It's not always in your power to help. You yourself have limited resources. And sometimes someone who keeps taking and taking and taking those resources, you no longer have the power to help them. So When it is in your power, when it is due to them, when you determine that they truly need something, we are to not withhold the help that we can give. In other words, don't not help someone because it's inconvenient for you. Don't not help someone because you're just thinking about yourself. This is what it means to love your neighbor. Well, then the next one in verse 28 is about delaying help. Don't say, go and come again tomorrow. I'll give you help when you're able to help right now. Now, again, maybe you're just putting them off. Maybe you don't actually want to help. You just really want to say no. But instead of just being honest and saying no, you just say, come tomorrow. And then tomorrow comes and you say, come back tomorrow. And it happens over and over again. You always have an excuse that you can't help today. The idea is that your neighbor needs help now. He needs help now. And so help tomorrow isn't really going to help. So if you can't help, just say you can't help. Now in a similar way, we often talk to people and we often try to use polite language to say no, to say no that I can't be there or I don't wanna be there. And it's really just saying, ask me later and maybe I'll give you an answer later. But if you really know that your answer is no, just say no. Sometimes people say, well, sometime we will do this. And sometime in your mind means never. Or if you say to someone, well, we'll see, but you really mean no, why do you say we'll see? We'll see no later on, just like I see it today. Or when you say, I'll let you know. Well, if you know the answer is no, let them know, no, right now. Don't say I'll let you know. Or if you say, hmm, well, I'm not sure yet, but you're sure that the answer is no, then don't say you're not sure yet. Or if you say, well, we'll see if we can make it work, but you know you're not gonna make it work, then just say it. Or the worst of the worst. is when you say, I'll pray about it. I'll pray about it. I'll pray about whether I should share the gospel with my family members or neighbors. I'll pray about whether I should help someone. Now, obviously, it's okay sometimes that you need to pray about it, and you don't know the answer, and that's fine. You can say, you know what, I'm thinking about it, or you know what, I don't think that I should do that, but I will pray about it. But if you know that your answer is no, don't say, I'll pray about it. Because then you look so holy when you come back the next day, and your neighbor says, can you help me? And you said, well, I prayed about it, and God told me that I wasn't gonna help you today, not to help you. And so now you've brought God into the picture, when really, you just didn't want to help. So again, if you don't want to help, just say, or if you can't help, just say no. But in that case, to say, I'll pray about it, is to take God's name in vain. And it's to lie. You already know the answer is no. You don't have to go pray about it. Unless you do think it's right to go pray about it, and you don't know the answer. So do not withhold, or do not delay. Well, next, the third one, he says in verse 29, do not plan evil against your neighbor who dwells trustingly beside you. The first two verses were about how to help people. The next three are about how to not harm people. And both are necessary for love. You are to help people and you are to not harm people. So the first way to not harm people is not to plan evil against your neighbor. Your neighbor trusts you. Your neighbor dwells trustingly beside you, he says. In other words, your neighbor is trusting that when he's on vacation, you're not gonna break into his house because you are one of the few people who knows he's on vacation. Your neighbor trusts you. Your neighbor trusts you that you're not gonna go 60 miles an hour through his neighborhood and hit someone in his family. So neighborhoods and societies and states and countries depend upon people not planning evil against each other. Remember the story a few years ago of the man in New York City who took the U-Haul truck and drove it down the sidewalk and killed multiple people? Well, that's because we have sidewalks where we are trusting that people aren't going to plan harm by driving on sidewalks. You realize there's no way to keep yourself safe if you're walking on a sidewalk. except that you're trusting a stranger you don't know to obey the law. This is how society works. And when there is breakdown in society, it's because people don't care. People don't love other people. Everyone's out for what they can get for themselves. And so we see that there is no trust in society. One person said, trust is indispensable to community. Trust is indispensable to community. And we can apply that to the community of the church. In the church, there's a level of trust that we have for one another, that we're not going to plan evil or do evil towards each other. in the church as you get to know people and you open yourself up, you don't have to just unload every private matter of your life, but, but you're going to open yourself up. You're going to say things, you're going to reveal things about yourself and you're trusting each other. You're trusting that the other person is not going to go and gossip about you to someone else. You're trusting that the other person, when they get to know you, is not gonna condemn you or look down on you because of what they now know about you. And there is some element of trust that we have for each other in the church. You can't have a community without any trust. And so we need to be careful not to abuse the trust in the church. Maybe you know the saying that many people are known but not loved. So you learn things about people, you get to know them, and then you stop loving them. You might decide you don't want to be friends with that person. Or sometimes people, even in their own families, as they know things about each other in the family, they stop loving the person. And that's not a good thing, to be known and then not loved. And then there are other people who are loved, but not known, like celebrities. Maybe you claim you love a celebrity, but you know nothing about their life. You love Voddie Bockham, but you've never been into his house. You've never heard him speak to his children. So sure, you love him, but you don't know him. And what we want, all of us, is to be known and loved. Known and loved. That's what happens in the family. You get to know each other and you love each other more. That is what often happens in communities like the church. You get to know each other, you become friends, you love each other as you get to know each other. That's what we want. That's what is our desire for community that God has made us for as people. So, don't abuse. the knowledge and the trust that others place in you. Love your neighbor. Well, then the fourth one in verse 30, he says, do not contend with a man for no reason. When he has done you no harm. Don't be a quarrelsome person. Don't get into arguments. Don't post replies on the internet of people that you don't know just to argue with their points. You're not going to convince those people on the internet. Don't argue with your neighbor over petty, silly things. I saw a story about a homeowner's association and the guy wanted to plant roses on his four-acre property. And he planted 10,000 roses. And the HOA fined him and fined him and fined him and took him to court. And the man lost his house to pay for the fees for the HOA. And that's an example of don't contend with someone for no reason. Let the guy plant his roses. And if you have a neighbor, just let him plant his roses. So the idea here is that there's somebody with an axe to grind. You have it out for someone, or your neighbor has it out for you, and he's always trying to come up with something to complain over about you. Love each other. Look past the silly, petty, little things. Well, then the last one, verse 31. Do not envy a man of violence. Do not choose any of his ways. The violent man might be a physically violent man. He might be verbally violent. Basically, he's a bully. Bullies bully people. And you wonder, why would you envy such a man? Well, because a lot of times they get what they want. A lot of times it works. They bully people around, and they get to the top. They're the top dog. They get what they want. You might be tempted. Maybe if you're a young man, you look at other people and you say, well, look at this guy. He's successful. How did he become successful? It's by pushing everybody around so that he could climb the ladder to the top. And the father says, you don't want to be like that guy. Don't choose his ways. And you don't want to even envy that guy. So love your neighbor. Now, I don't particularly think that our church is struggling with suing our neighbors over rose bushes or anything like this, or that you don't help your neighbors. But again, we can just remember that the problems in society come when people forget the Lord, when people lack wisdom, when they don't fear the Lord, They don't love one another. So our job as Christians is to be this light in our society, to do these things, to be unlike the world around us and to love our neighbor because we have found wisdom. For those of you who are younger and you're gonna grow up in a world where it's a dog-eat-dog world, and everybody is just out for what they want. Nobody cares about rules. Nobody cares about morality. Who are you going to be? Are you going to follow the Lord and follow the way of wisdom? If you do that, then you need to love your neighbor and not always be thinking about yourself. So that's our horizontal relationship. And then finally, the second part of this passage is about our relationship with God. And so verse 32 starts with the word for. And he might be talking about why, verse 31, you should not be a violent bully. But it seems he's also talking about all of those verses. Why should you love your neighbor? Because, and he's gonna go through for, Four statements about how God will bless the godly and curse the wicked. Four statements about God's grace towards the godly. The first one in verse 32, for the devious person is an abomination to the Lord, but the uprights are in his confidence. You want to be in the Lord's confidence. You wanna have secrets with God. Would you like to know some secrets that God has? That God shares with select people? He doesn't share with the rest of the world. God shares his secrets with those who follow him and love him. Psalm 25 verse 14 says the friendship of the Lord or the secrets of the Lord is for those who fear him. You have a special place with God if you will follow him. Then in verse 33, he says the Lord's curse is on the house of the wicked, but he blesses the dwelling of the righteous. Here, the house is a metaphor for your life. In Proverbs chapter 9, remember, wisdom built her house and Lady Folly has her house. And he's saying, which one are you going to choose? Which house will you live in? Which life will you live? Jesus uses the same metaphor in Matthew chapter 7, when he ends the sermon on the mount. He talks about the one who builds his house on the rock, the one who builds his house on the sand. And he says that this is about those who will hear his word and do it. So it's about how you will live your life. If you live a wise life, then you're building a house on the rock. And verse 33 says, God will bless that house. And then the third promise is in verse 34. Toward the scorners he is scornful, but to the humble he gives favor. We're going to focus more on this one. This will be the rest of our time. because that word humble used for humility here only happens here in Proverbs. This is the only place in Proverbs where he talks about the wise life being a humble life. So we want to focus on what does it mean to be humble. And we'll also focus on this verse because the New Testament quotes this verse. Maybe these words will sound familiar. God opposes the proud. but gives grace to the humble." James 4, verse 6, and 1 Peter 5, verse 5, say God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble. And they are quoting verse 34. They're quoting Greek, so it's worded differently with the scorners, but it means the same thing. The proud is the scorner. God opposes the proud. He is scornful to the scorner. But the humble, he gives favor. And that's what favor means, is grace. God gives grace to the humble. So let's think about this verse. Again, the scorner is the mocker. He is the one who mocks God and mocks Christians, God's people. He is a wrecking ball, loud mouth, because he is so sure that he is right, that he mocks everyone who disagrees with him, everyone who worships God. And so you can see how the scorner is prideful. He is prideful because he thinks that he is right. And so God scorns the scornful. God has no good to say or to do towards that arrogant mocker of him. God opposes that proud man, but he gives grace to the humble. So what does it mean to be humble? Well, say that C.S. Lewis said that humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking about yourself less. So humility is not thinking less of yourself. It's not being a downer. It's not talking all the time about how you're no good at anything. Maybe you know those people, maybe you are the person in the conversation. How the conversation always turns to them and always turns to all the negative things about them. You start talking about how you were watching this TV show, and they say, well, that reminds me of my TV, and I don't really like my TV, but I can't really afford to get a new TV, and in fact, I would really like to get rid of my whole living room, because I don't like my living room, and so they go on and on and on about negativity about themselves. That's not humility. That's pride, because you're always thinking about yourself. Pride is basically putting yourself first, always wanting to be first, always thinking that you're most important, always thinking that the universe revolves around you. In 3 John 9, John mentions diatrophies, this false teacher, and he says, he loves to put himself first. That's pride, always wanting to be first. This pride shows up everywhere. It's all over all of us. We all need more humility. When you think about if you've ever boarded a plane, and you know how they board planes based on zones, and so they always call out first class first, and you think, I wish I had first class. I'd never get enough money to buy a first class ticket. So you're thinking about yourself, you're whining about yourself, and then they board zone after zone after zone, and then they finally announce your zone number. And what do you do? You jump up like you're at an Olympic sprint race, and you sprint to the front of the line with your bags in tow. You don't care about anybody else. That's a picture. Why do we want to be front of the line? Does it really matter if you board the plane 90 seconds after the 10 other people? It doesn't really matter. But to you, it matters. To you, it matters when you're on the road and you're beside the car, that instead of slowing down and getting behind the car, you have to speed up to get in front of the car because you have to be first. It's about you. This is what we're like. This is human nature. Those are just pictures of the reality of what happens throughout our lives and how we interact with people and how we live our lives and how, what you do when you're at work. You're always looking out for yourself. We're always thinking about ourselves. We always want to be first. And so humility is putting others first. If everybody wants to be at the front of the line, then why don't you let them have that privilege or honor? If everybody wants people to care about them, then how about instead of caring about yourself all the time, care about them? Because that's what they want, too. They want to be cared about, just like you want to be cared about, so you care about them. In conversation, Why don't you talk about them and ask about them instead of always talking about yourself? Those are just fruits of humility. But most importantly, humility is where we stand before God. We ought to be humble before God. God alone will be exalted. We are not to exalt ourselves. God is creator. We are creatures. God is holy. We are sinners. God is immortal. You are mortal. Thomas Watson says, meditation on death would pull down the plumes of pride. You are but animated dust. Shall dust and ashes be proud? Your body will be turned into grass and then shortly mowed down. What a picture. We're just gonna turn into grass that will get mowed. Who are we to exalt ourselves, especially before God? What can you give to God? What do you have that you have not received? Everything that this world can give you is all vanity. All the achievements that you can muster up, everything that anybody would say is good about you materially or physically speaking on this earth, it's all passing away. It's all vanity. You will turn into dust and you will go into the ground. Who are you to exalt yourself before God? So this is why God gives grace to the humble. Because the proud think they can do something for God. The proud think that they can work for God. And even when they fail, they think they can just try harder or do more. The proud think that if they just go to church enough, they can receive favor from God. If they just read their Bible enough, or if they get enough strong, powerful emotions while doing their devotional time, that then they can have favor with God. But we are nothing before God. And so the humble recognize that we have nothing to give to God. And then we're ready to receive his grace. And that's why salvation is by faith, because faith means that you do not work for anything. Salvation is by God's grace. It's by God's gift. That's what the word grace means. God gives you the gift of Jesus Christ and his work and his righteousness and it takes your place. That's how you can receive favor or grace from God because you stop trying to do it on your own and instead you receive because you're humble enough to know that you have nothing to give to God. Those who reject the salvation that God offers in Jesus Christ do it because they're proud. It's not because you're unconvinced about the arguments for God's existence. It's not because you think Christians disagree with your politics. It's because you're proud. You want to live life your own way. You want to continue in sin and determine for yourself what is right and wrong. But the Lord alone will be exalted. One day, God will humble everyone. Today, you should humble yourself today. Humble yourself by receiving God's gift of salvation and you will know God's grace. Well, the last verse in verse 35 is the, he finishes his lecture and he says, the wise will inherit honor, but fools get disgraced. If you notice, the first three, he talked about the curse first and the blessing second. And in the last one, he puts the blessing first and the curse second. Fools get disgrace. That's how he ends. And I mentioned earlier the Sermon on the Mount from Jesus, and Jesus in Matthew 7, and we read it earlier in Luke 6, Jesus ends his sermon that way too. The wise man builds his house on the rock, the foolish man builds his house on sand, and he tells the story and he says, the rains fell, the winds blew, and the house fell, and great was the fall of it. And that's the end. That's his ending. Great was the fall of it. Fools get disgrace. That's how he wants you to to walk away from this passage. That's what he wants to leave you with. If you're going to be a fool, it's going to end up in your disgrace. Disgrace means shame, failure, embarrassment. You're going to fall and you're going to be ashamed and embarrassed. Every young man. wants not to be disgraced. Every young man wants to be a man who is honorable when he grows up, not to be a man who is disgraced. That's why we work so hard. We want to make enough money to provide for our family. We want to be respectful and honorable because we want this honor. We would be terrified to have our lives end up in disgrace. So that's what he says to all of us. Be wise. Be wise because the fool gets disgraced. Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God and he will exalt you. He will honor you. Young men, young women, children, don't live a life that ends in disgrace. Let's pray. Our God, we praise you that you are a God merciful and gracious, abounding and steadfast love. Help us to humble ourselves under your mighty hand. We pray that you'd give us your spirit to search us and root out these depths of pride that are in our fallen man. where we, like Adam, question your word, desire to go our own way, to reject your law. Lord, we pray that you would make us people who are humble, who are wise, a people who love you and love our neighbor as ourselves. We pray through our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.