Get Wisdom, Get Jesus

She is really progressing. I really do appreciate your prayers. So what we’re going to do tonight, and I’m not going to do a lot of preemptive things like we did last night where we’ve been over the last few nights together because we’re going to do all 27 of these verses because I really want to go and get the whole chapter. And if you’ve read through any of the first probably maybe nine chapters of the book of Proverbs, they’re very similar, at least from chapter two up through chapter eight or nine.

Similar in Solomon’s approach to maybe Rehoboam’s and his radar because he speaks as a father to the son. But obviously this is God’s word and wisdom in the book of Proverbs is Christ. I think that really comes out predominantly in chapter 8. So wisdom is Jesus. And we’ll say wisdom, but just kind of keep that in your mind. And that’s kind of what we’ve been talking about all week in the gospel narratives that we looked at last night, looking at the word from Psalm 19.

Tonight in Proverbs, looking at wisdom. It’s still just Jesus. Everything that we need, whether it’s in the book that we have, is through the Spirit of Christ that lives within us. Everything that we need, the answer is the simplicity of the gospel, the simplicity of the one person that we have living inside us that will walk with us, love us, redeem us, forgive us, use us. So just, again, just so you know, wisdom in this particular passage.

If you go to verse number, I guess, 22, this is kind of, and it goes with a little bit from last night’s message, inviting him into our life. Verse 22, for they are life, they, the words, the commands, the way, the path of wisdom, they are life unto those that find them. I could tweak that a little bit and say find him. It’s not like Jesus is elusive.

It’s not like he’s hard to find. It’s just like he’s incomprehensible. You can spend your whole life chasing him, get to know him, and you’ll never know everything there is to know about him. He’s amazing. He’s overwhelming. So that’s again, that was one of my takeaways from being here these nights is that you would just get so hungry for Christ. Love your church, love your pastor, love your wife, love your husband, love your children, love golf.

I don’t know whatever the radar things you love. And some there’s less value, some have more value. But the highest thing is wisdom. My first thought, really, in the first 13 verses, and I’m just going to give you three little simple thoughts, first 13 verses, wisdom is the principal thing. And that’s stated in verse number five and then verse number seven, get wisdom, get understanding. Verse seven, wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom, and with all thy getting, get understanding.

You’re gonna see a lot of redundancy and a lot of repetition in this particular passage, but it’s all emphasizing with importance and priority and preeminence that we need to be in the pursuit of Jesus. Wisdom, I don’t know, there’s a lot of definitions for wisdom and it talks about understanding in this passage as well. And understanding is kind of what I’ve heard as being like the stuff you can pack in your head and your heart from God’s word.

Wisdom is the navigational ability to use it. So wisdom is taking God’s Word and making real-time application in life. Like I mentioned last night, there’s not a Bible verse for every decision or choice that I need to make. But there is Bible truth that I can hide in my heart and my head that God can use to navigate everything in life. It doesn’t make any difference what it is.

As we go through these verses and we have, there’s not enough time. It would take way too much time to really even expound this passage, so we’ll just kind of overview it. But I would like you just to kind of make a note, maybe a mental note, or just dot the promises that are in this passage. And remember, these are promises from God. They’re not like get rich quick or lose weight fast.

These are real promises backed up by a holy God that cannot change or cannot lie. So again, I hope it creates like last night a little hunger for the word of God that we spend time in it. So again, we’re gonna read all these verses. We’re gonna make comments on these verses and have some things to wrap it up at the end like we’ve had most every night.

So first 13 verses, wisdom or Jesus is the principal thing. Really the emphasis of these verses, all of them, all 27 verses that we’re going to be looking at will kind of emphasize the words, the will, the ways of wisdom. A warning, I guess, before we get into this passage, a warning. You do know who’s writing these words, right? Solomon, under the influence of the Spirit of God, with much intentionality in his own personality to impact his son Rehoboam, maybe, and others.

And will God use this passage as the word of God to impact us? But I just want to remind you, Solomon didn’t do anything he told his son to do. Nothing. I don’t even know when Solomon, you know, made things right or got stuff fixed or got stuff confessed. There’s really nothing in the narrative of the Bible that tells me that. I do have inclinations that it happened from the book of Ecclesiastes, but I don’t know when it happened.

It might have happened after years of living for all the wrong stuff. And that seems to be the testimony of the book. So I’m just making you a warning that you can go to church every day of your life. You can memorize scripture and have them packed in your brain. But until you create the ability, it’s not just hearing the word, and you’ll see these repet things.

There’s going to be like, hear, attend, forsake not. You’re going to hear that repetition. So it’s going to like, you need to give God access. You need to lean in and you need to obey. In fact, most words in the Old Testament, when it says hear, it means you heard it, so you do it. It’s not just it made it into your ears. It gets into your life.

So again, you can do a lot of things, but if it never becomes following Jesus like we’ve talked about, if it never comes to a place where you give God all your stuff so you have a front row seat to see him use it way beyond anything you could imagine. Until you taste and see for yourself that the Lord is good. You can sit on a pew.

Look, I’ve pastored now for 46 years. I’ve watched a lot of people, moms and dads, husbands and wives, sit on church pews three times a week and their marriages destroyed and their families in shambles from pews. So just understand Solomon’s writing good stuff but never took the good stuff that he was writing from the God of heaven with much intentionality to direct his son. He himself went the opposite direction.

So that’s just a little preemptive warning. So let’s dive into one through 13. First couple of verses, we’re gonna hear this little repetition thing that we’re gonna be God, even though it is Solomon. Three words, hear, attend, and forsake ye not. Hear is the same thing we talked about last night. You decide how much access God has in your world. You decide if you listen to God’s word on the way to work.

You decide if you take things in your peripheral life that’s really important, like job, like other activities, like your kids playing on the ball team. I’m not saying you got to be almost celibate to everything that’s going on in your life, but I’m telling you, if you do not give God access into your life with consistent regularity on the intention, it will not happen. It won’t happen on accident.

There’s a lot of things going on in my life or your life that’s gonna happen because it’s in the flesh DNA. Like pigeonholing money for a vacation or saving up money for the things that make your eyes know, might be a gun, might be a car, whatever. It doesn’t matter what it is. You don’t have to work that up. That’s in the DNA. But you got new DNA and that new DNA must have purpose on your end to give God access.

The next thing, attend, it means you’re going to focus enough on it to learn it. I don’t know how many times I’ve had people tell me over the years, I can’t study the Bible. I can’t understand it. Yes, you can. You might have to go back to it. You might have to ponder it longer. You might have to reread it. You might have to go back to God in prayer.

But I’m telling you, there is nothing in the Bible that is locked to any believer. And it makes no difference where you are academically. Hungry, thirsty, God will give you something to drink and something to eat. It’s just that simple. So again, here you gotta give. Attend. You’ve got to focus on it because you want to know. That next word, attend to know. I want to get this.

Listen, I believe I can speak for your pastor. I’ve told about everybody that I’ve ever preached to for the last 40-something years, look, I am not naive enough to think. Now, maybe I was in my first 10 years of preaching. I probably was. But at some point, I realized, I got over myself and I realized there’s no way that every time I preach, everything is just clear and so concise and so packaged.

It’s just amazing. So I invite the phone call. I would love to be inundated and I am not lying on Mondays. I would love to be inundated. Preacher, you said something and it just tweaked in my brain. Can you help me? Can you talk to me? Or you said something that kind of confused me. I would love to be inundated with it. Why? Because I want you to know what’s in this book.

My job is to make it as clear as possible. My job is to be a mockingbird for God’s word. Repeat what he has already said and don’t put my spin on it. So I don’t have any problem with saying, can you help me with that? Because you want to know. Last thing, don’t forsake it. That just means, when it talks about forgetting or forsaking God’s word, it’s not like you forget it.

It just doesn’t have any sway over you. You can sit on a church pew, preacher man preaches, and he preaches some stuff you need to stop doing, preaches on some stuff you need to start doing, and you go home and do neither. It has no impact. It’s like a stop sign, you just boom, right through. So again, three little simple thoughts, and you’ll see these repeated. Three to nine.

We’re looking at wisdom is the principal thing. So verses three through nine, he’s remembering. Solomon is remembering David as he instructs Rehoboam. For I was my father’s son tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother. He’s remembering as a son the teachings of his dad as he thinks about teaching his own son and tonight the Word of God teaching us. I just want to remind you what is implied in these verses and is taught throughout the scriptures is we need to make sure as moms and dads, the word taught there has the idea of lessons verbally given and lessons visibly seen.

So it needs to be both. It needs to be not just words, but it needs to be life. One of the best things we ever did with our kids, and obviously being in a pastoral role, our kids were always involved in church. And we were always involved in if we had visitation night or if we had this, we was there because we’ve got leadership, so you better be there.

But it was when we just randomly took our kids knocking on doors. I wanted our girls to know this is not something the church does. This is something we do. This is normal life. We used to do things like at Christmas time, we would try to help like individual families that were maybe struggling. All he’s reminding us of in verse 3 and verse 4, they need to see more than mom and dad taking them to church.

Then you see mom and dad leaving out the principles of God’s word day by day by day by day. I learned to pray as like a maybe 10, 11, 12 year old kid. Woke up in the middle of the night to go use the bathroom or whatever. And my mom’s in there crying out to God because my brother’s in Vietnam and he’s lost. No preacher man taught me to pray.

He preached on it. He taught it. I heard it. But I lived it when my mama did it. When my brother would come home and man he’d been living it up and not doing right and he’d be sprawled out on the couch. I’d watch my mom pray over him on the couch. I also remember the day he gave his heart to Jesus. So I’m just saying, what he’s reminding us of in these verses is crucial.

That you transfer what you have learned from God. That’s why I said last night in those Jesus stories, you need God’s stories. Every time, my girls got tired of hearing them and they could both tell you the stories. I could say like three sentences and they could repeat the whole story. Every time God did something for me and Wanda, we rehearsed it in the ears of our girls.

And I told them, you need your stories. My stories are good, but you need yours. Now my girls got their own stories. He’s reminding us that it’s on us to make sure we transfer this. Now, back to the text. Five and seven, he makes two proclamations. In verse five, he says this. Get wisdom, get understanding, forget it not. Neither decline from the words of my mouth. Look at verse seven.

Wisdom is the principal thing. Therefore, get wisdom. And with all thy getting, get understanding. You get it, right? I mean, it’s like a boxer punching. Get it, get it, get it. Don’t forsake it. So again, he’s just proclaiming that there is value in wisdom. Now, look at verse six and verse eight and verse nine. Here’s the process. Here’s where we’ll spend a few minutes. Here’s the process.

First in verse six, and you’re gonna see the process and the benefit. Are you ready? Forsake or not. Now, everybody, here’s a question. Her. Her. With wisdom is Jesus, who’s her? Well, it’s the best answer I’ve got. It’s not that great, but it’s the best answer I’ve got after reading and whatever, pondering and ciphering for the last 35, 40 years. The best answer I have is Solomon is writing, right, to Rehoboam.

Solomon is using the influence of his mother, maybe, you know, because it’s not gonna be too long in the chapters. It’s gonna be talking about a strange woman. That’s about the best I’ve got, that maybe he’s thinking that his son will listen to maybe the voice of his own mom or my mom to be the influence for righteousness. That’s the best I’ve got. When we get to heaven, we’ll get that one figured out why it’s her.

So, back to the story. Forsake her not, wisdom, and she shall preserve thee. Not weak promises, real promises. Love her and she shall keep thee. Verse eight, exalt her and she shall promote thee. She shall bring thee to honor. That’s the benefit. When thou dost embrace her. Here’s more of the benefits. She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace. A crown of glory shall she deliver to thee.

Forsake her not. Love her, exalt her, embrace her, all simply reminds us of what we looked at last night. It’s value. It’s treasure. It’s the principal thing. You can’t live without it. I was raised around sports. I had two loves in high school, sports and cars. I had a hot rod, built my own engine. I loved hot rods. I loved cars. I spent money on them. I spent time in them.

Grease up to my elbows. I know what it’s like for something to be treasured. It consumes you. Sports was another one. I could hear the ESPN thing. I mean, it was in my brain. I needed to know scores. I needed to know things. Now, both of those things are not sinful necessarily, but I know what it’s like to treasure things that really have no lasting treasure. That don’t mean you can’t have a hot rod.

That don’t mean you can’t like sports. It just simply means that you understand that the principal treasure that you exalt and you love and you embrace is his word because his word gets you to him. And when you get to him, you got a front row seat of him and who you are and you’ve got an exit ramp to life. ESPN ain’t gonna get you there. They ain’t no car you got that’s gonna get.

Can I just be honest? They ain’t no wife gonna get you there either. No husband, no kids, no money, just Jesus. Don’t put nothing in his place because he’s the only one that gets you life. So we see the process. Look again at some of these things. Preserve thee. It could be like what we looked at last night. Keep you from sin. Secret sins. Presumptious sins. It’ll keep thee.

That could be like the peace thing. Give you perfect peace. Right? It says in verse 8, promote thee and honor. It talks about an ornament of grace, a crown of glory. Those are blessings. It doesn’t necessarily mean money, but it could. It could be influence. My grandfather was an uneducated man. Typical of people that grew up when my grandfather grew up. You know, we’re talking about the 19 teens and the 20s.

You know, he didn’t have any education much. He was a farmer. All I can remember, I got my granddad’s Bible. One of them, he went through several. He was a godly man, holy man. He did farming in the mornings and he did the meal in the afternoon. Second shift at the cotton meal. So farmer, cotton meal. The Bible I have has this dirty thumbprint. It was like me working on cars.

I never really got the grease out of the creases of your fingers. They just don’t come out good. But the dirt from an old farmer didn’t come out of his thumbs either. So every page has a little dirty thumbprint. My papa might have been over this way. I think he came over this way when we do his prophecy talks. And my papa, and again, this is back in the 1930s and 40s.

He spoke in all kind of churches. Church of God churches, Baptist churches, Methodist churches. Things were different back in the 30s and the 40s. Talked about prophecy, talked about the gospel. When my papa died, and I was about seven, eight years old, you couldn’t get them in the building. All I’m saying is, I’m not saying my papa was a great man. I’m just saying you walk with Christ.

He’ll do more in your life than you can ever imagine. That’s all he’s saying. It might be as simple as your kids will walk right behind you and live for Jesus. It might be that he’ll give you a voice bigger than you ever dreamed. That’s all he said. These promises are real. And they’re all found in wisdom, getting that principle thing. Now 10 to 13. And I got to keep rolling.

10 to 13. Final admonitions. Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings. So it’s like he’s repeating himself. Has any parent ever repeated yourself to your kids? Right? Okay, you get what he’s doing. He’s repeating himself. Bible does that a lot. And the years of thy life shall be many. Do you see that? The years of thy life shall be many. There’s a promise. I have taught thee in the way of wisdom.

I have led thee in right paths. There’s that dual responsibility, that dual priority. I’m not just talking it. I’m walking it. Now, here’s a good one. Verse 12. We’ll spend a few moments here before we jump to verse 14. When thou goest. Now, this is if you make wisdom the principal thing, and if you’re following the paths of wisdom, when you go, your steps shall not be straightened.

You know what that means? You will not be halted. You’ll make progress. You will make progress. Look at the next one. And when thou runnest in times of urgency, what does it say? Thou shalt not stumble. Isn’t that great? If you’re navigating your life with wisdom and the paths of God, even if it’s anxious moments, you’ll still have stability and confidence that God’s got this. God will get me the other side of this.

And when there’s opposition, you’ll keep making progress. 13, he ends this section with, again, punches like a boxer. Take fast hold of instruction. That tandem words there have the idea of cling. Like grabbing a hold of something you don’t want to let go. Maybe in this thought you don’t want to lose. Take fast hold. Look, he ain’t done. Here’s punch number two. Let her not go. If you didn’t get it the first time, here’s the second one.

Well, in case you didn’t get it the second time, keep her. Why? Look at it. For she, wisdom, Jesus, your Jesus stories, they’re your life. This is where your life is. Everything you got is going, even your own life, everything’s going away. He isn’t, for she is thy life. That’s the way it ends before it goes into 14. Okay, one to 13, wisdom is the principal thing.

Here’s 14 to 19. Sin is a terrible thing. 13th verse, he ends with take fast hold, let her not go, keep her, for she is thy life. And then he warns us about sin. Look in the first two verses, 14 and 15. This is the warning about sin. And this is for us. We have a predisposition for sin. We have a tendency, even as believers, an inclination to lean towards sin.

I don’t know what’s left in there. Talk about the old man being dead. I don’t even want to name it, call it. I’ve been preaching for a long time. I don’t want to name it other than whatever it is is still in there that leans in. So what he’s saying is enter not into the path of the wicked. Go not in the way of evil men. I love verse 15 because here comes punches again.

Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away. Do you get that? I’ve been pastor in 45, 46 years. Teenagers usually come to me with all these questions. Basically, the question is, what do you think about this? It’s always these borderline issues, you know, whether it’s drinking or whatever it is. Whatever mud hole you want to come up with, where can we get? My grandpa, the one that passed away when I was seven, I remember he used to take us down to the well in the property.

There’s beehives. We’d walk by them, you know, and he’d talk about stuff. We’d go to the well and we’d sit around the well, me and my cousins, and he would whittle. He was a whittler. He’d whittle stuff out of things. I remember, and I don’t remember a whole lot about my grandpa saying, but I remember him saying, if there’s doubt, don’t. That one stuck. Because he would talk to us about Jesus, talk to us about the Lord when he was whittling.

And I’ll think about this verse. Flee the very appearance of evil. And that’s what I always share. Now I’ll give them all my theological parameters that I have about whether it be drinking or whatever it is. But anything that even looks suspicious, stay away. I mean, get the verse. Right? Avoid it. Pass not by it. Turn from it. Pass away. I got a cell phone. It’s out in the car.

I never bring it with me. I’m a 66 year old man. Right? Me and my wife’s phone are together. You know why? I don’t trust me. Y’all hearing me? I hate sin. I got a preacher man right now, preacher friend of mine that I preached probably 15, 16 revivals for. He’s left his wife, his two precious girls and just you wouldn’t imagine the mess that he splatters all over Facebook because he just pondered what it might be like.

He just peaked in. These verses are saying, flee the appearance of evil before it becomes a confession for sin. They ain’t no little ones. It’s all contagious. You never come back the same. Forgiveness is complete. Consequences remain. You better fear that’s what he’s saying about evil. You have an inclination to do wrong. So don’t get any, listen, I’m not into blowing up. I mean, I grew up during the time when they were shooting TVs in the 60s and the 70s.

You know, TVs became evil and wicked. And I’m not saying they ain’t. No more than that stinking phone, right? We’d have to throw them in the river too. You can’t blow up the TV and fix your heart problem. But if you have a problem with this, figure it out. If you’ve got a problem with that, figure it out. If you’ve got a problem with this, figure it out. Why?

Because I don’t want anything that leans me in to what I already lean in on. I don’t need no help. So it’s not a weakness that I can’t do Snapchat. It’s not a weakness that I’m not on Facebook. It’s not a weakness that I don’t do this or that. It’s a fear of sin because sin destroys. Sin fills your head and your heart with baggage that God will completely forgive you for, but you try to let it go.

Hate sin and fear sin. Look at the next few verses, 16 and 17. Sinners, for they sleep not, these evil men, these wicked, except they have done mischief and their sleep is taken away unless they cause some to fall. For they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence. Now, this doesn’t mean we don’t try to influence sinners. This doesn’t mean we don’t witness to the laws.

This doesn’t mean you don’t have friends that are lost people. But you’ve got to be careful. You’ve got to be careful. 18, 19, we’ve got to keep rolling. Kind of gives us a contrast. But the path of the just is as a shining light that shineth more and more into the perfect day. That’s what we’re supposed to be. Look, they might not even like you at work.

Now, not because you’re just obnoxious or anything, but because you just want to live right. Look, I had a boss one time with a church going, man, he thought I was crazy. One, because I wouldn’t drink. He just couldn’t believe it. You know, we’d go someplace, whatever, business meeting or whatever, and he said, I’m not drinking. I believe if God said don’t look at it when it’s working and moving and fermenting, I ain’t going to mess with it.

I ain’t touching it. I can get all the buzz I want from a diet Mountain Dew. Right? I don’t need it. God, I was crazy. He was a church-going guy. All I’m saying, you can be kind, you can be gentle, you can be firm, but you’ll be light. Right? That’s what we’re here for. The way of the wicked is darkness. They don’t even know why they’re stumbling.

They don’t even know why their marriage is ruined. They have no idea why they’re discontented. They have no idea why they’re empty. We do. That’s why we stay away from it. Now, 20 to 27. And we’re done. Here’s the last little thing. And this is key. Wisdom is the principal thing. Sin is a terrible thing. Your heart is the most important thing. Not the TV, not the computer access or the phone.

Your heart. So let’s look at these last verses. The heart is an important thing. And that’s the inner man. Obviously it’s not the blood pumping organ. But that inner man, the real you. That drive. That inner man that is what you think. It’s your worldview. It’s the engine to your feet and your hands. So it’s super important where your heart’s at. Bible tells me it’s deceit. Do we know it?

No, we don’t. It’s deceitfully wicked. Right? Peter walking with Jesus. Jesus looking right at him. Looking right at him. Telling him he’s going to fall. And what does Peter say? I got this. I got this. Jesus the son of God has just told him you’re going to fall. You’re going to get converted. when you get converted, you can help your brethren because they’re going to fall too because they’re just like you.

And Peter just... So it’s pretty important that I figure out how I protect my heart. So that’s kind of where we are in 20 down to verse 27. So 20 to 22 is just kind of reminding us of how important it is. Look at it. My son attend. There’s that word again, attend. Lean in. Lean in. Incline thine ear unto my sayings. He’s going to mention your ear and your eye, your foot’s mentioned.

So your heart is what drives all those things. Let them not depart from thine eyes. Them is those ways of God, wisdom, the words, commandments. Keep them in the midst of thine heart. Make sure God’s word is operating in your heart. What’s that verse? Is it in Corinthians where it talks about capturing things in here? Wouldn’t it have been great if David could have captured that on that rooftop?

You see, we have the ability, if we protect our hearts, if we put enough of the yield signs and the stop signs and the warning signs and the wisdom direction from God on the inside, stuff that makes it in here through our eyes, through our ears. They get captured in there and they get killed in there because James says there is a process by what starts but when it is finished.

God help us in the process of that weaving of the tendency to see and it gets captured by a heart that is driven for God. That’s why God’s word needs to be operating in our hearts. You can’t get that just on Sundays. Okay? You can’t. I don’t care how great the preaching is. You can’t get that just on. That comes from a daily diet. That comes from constant time that you intentionally give God access into your life.

22, for they are life unto those that find them. We’ve talked about that. It’s not elusive. It’s just you gotta be diligent and go get them. You gotta be diligent to give them access and health to all their flesh. Now I’m just, like I said, we can’t go through all this. It would be here way too long. But the word help there is the word for medicine.

To what? My flesh. When you are driven by the things of God, it even helps your flesh. It’s like medicine. It’s like medicine to your mind. I’m not saying you won’t get sick. I’m just saying that when you are consumed with the things of God, it not only helps you spiritually, but it helps you physically. That’s a promise that’s in these verses. Now, 23 to 27. Here, that’s the importance of it, this truth in our hearts, but here’s how we protect our heart.

And he just makes a command in verse 23, and then he’s going to give us some practical steps, and we’ll work our way to the end of the passage. 23 is just a command. Keep thy heart. Protect, treasure your heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues you’ve lost. So you get it. If my heart’s in the wrong place, then my thinking’s in the wrong place.

If my heart’s in the wrong place, my moral compass is in the wrong place. If my heart’s in the wrong place, then I’m apt to do about anything. Everything’s off kilter. So it’s super important that the heart, and you can fake hearts. You can. Preachers do it. People do it. I’ve told our people on more than one occasion, because we have new people coming every once in a while while and nobody getting no weird idea that I’m Mr.

Perfect. I’ve told our people I have left that house right across the street, the parsonage, strutted right across there, walked right into this building with known sin in my life and preached my little message because I’m a human. Not perfect. And so what he’s reminding us of is all of us need to be intentional 24-7, 365, consumed with protection because out of it are all the issues.

And husband, wife, preacher man, all of it can be faked. That’s why it needs to be intentional that we protect our heart. How does that happen? Okay, here’s some of the practical steps that he’s going to give us. Verse 24, I call this holy restraint. Put away from thee a froward mouth and perverse lips put far from thee. Holy restraint. I mentioned that earlier. If you struggle with the TV, learn to cut that thing off.

If you struggle with websites or whatever, hook it up with your wives. You know, whatever. Whatever you got to do to your phone, whatever you have to do to make sure that your heart stays pure, because I’m going to tell you what he’s reminding us of in verse 24. If you want to have a heart check, get you a tape recorder and get it somewhere in your pocket and let it record your mouth for about 24 hours.

One of the best things you could ever do is write down the stuff you say. Now if you can handle it, me and my wife’s done this before. I’m just telling you. I’m not saying you need to do this because this has created some big arguments. Because we got these little fights, whatever, arguments, discussions. And so what we would do is we would write down stuff we’d say through the process of the day.

Brother, you all of a sudden be eye-opening? What he’s telling us, there needs to be restraints in my life to make sure nothing’s getting this eye gate and this ear gate that creates a heart problem. Because a heart problem will reveal itself in the mouth. From the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. If you’re a complainer, you got a heart problem. If you’re discontinued, lips, heart problem.

There’s got to be holy parameters in your life that’s healthy. Number two, there’s got to be a holy focus. Let thine eyes look right on and let thine eyelids look straight before thee. Did Jesus not say thee? What’s he say about my life? Single! Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. What did we tell you about Peter? Once he saw God and who was in his boat.

He saw himself and the next thing he did was he laid his nets, he laid his boat and he laid his profession and he laid it all down and he followed him. That’s what happened. When you get God into your life all the time, your focus is easy. I’m going too long tonight. I had a pastor friend. I ain’t perfect. But I had been kind of a mentor to him.

And he got real mad at me this time. But we’d had some conversations because somebody I’m mentoring, trying to disciple, you’re going to hear honesty every once in a while. And I got people in my life like that too. It’ll bust my chops every once in a while and I need to hear it. I got no problem with that. Got no misconception. I’m perfect. So he called me one day and they had rebuilt their building.

Fairly large church, five, six, 700 people. I preach up there about every year in August. So they’d configured the parking lot different, right? And so the pastor always had his parking space and then they had the associate pastor and the assistant pastor. Stay with me. This is big, deep problem. Well, they took associate off of his and now they were both assistants.

Hoopie doo. But he was distraught. I’ve been here longer. I’m the associate pastor. They need to get that fixed. I said, no, buddy, you need to get your heart fixed. Now, before we go throwing rocks at him, I’ve had people tell me, that is not the way you spell my daughter’s name in the bulletin right there. And I’ll tell you right there, I don’t appreciate that you messed up the spelling.

Or I sang in that last Christmas cantata. I didn’t even get a thank you card. Now I’m not saying you shouldn’t get the spelling right. One of the biggest arguments we used to have at Oakwood. And I was down at Oakwood. So we got a very large church. We got a Christian day school with 700 students in it. We got a daycare with 150, 60 kids in it.

Every room in those buildings were being used by multiple ministries. You know what I dealt with almost every week? Some Christian school teacher that’s upset with the Sunday school teacher because some little kid didn’t put this eraser or this thing back in her little spot. And then the Sunday school teacher would be mad at the class. I used to just, I used to struggle thinking, you know, we’re here for one purpose.

Now, you need to put the stuff, I get all that. But we forget. We get to serve Jesus. We forget that one focus and get so out of whack. That’s all he’s saying. We need some holy restraint and we need to remember that we’re serving Jesus. One focus. Last thing, 26 and 27, we need to make holy decisions. Ponder the path of thy feet. Now when he says ponder, that means calculate.

That means weigh it out. That don’t mean weigh it out. And let all thy ways be established. That means wait till you’re sure. That means wait till you have confidence. Anything that’s not of faith, it’s sin. That’s kind of in the Bible. Not when there’s doubt. So just be careful. Just be careful. Verse 27, turn not to the right hand, nor to the left. Remove thy foot from evil.

Holy decisions, holy choices made. Bible’s closed and I’ve went too long but I’m going to ask you three questions and I’m done. And this goes along with last night. How is it with you in this? There is no plan B. It’s the most tangible thing I got on planet earth that lets me touch Jesus, hug Jesus, smell him on the pages, feel him in my life. And the more I put this in my head and in my heart, and I’ve never been able to memorize nothing, but I’ve got bits and pieces of this book just bouncing around in my brain, in my heart.

I gotta have them in there. And I gotta be putting more in because every day there’s a new weakness. Every day there’s a new lure. Every day there’s whatever. And the onslaught’s never over. Peter tells me that I’m in a battle that never ends. And it’s a soul battle. It’s a soul battle. It’s not so much what’s in the peripheral. It matters what’s going on in my heart.

Where’s this at? Where’s your Bible? If it’s just on a coffee table and it ain’t in your heart, you got a problem. Number two, do you hate sin? Do you hate sin? All of it. I want to remind you, all sin is an affront to God. So that makes it pretty big. Hate it. Lastly, you have to know with God’s help in His Word through His spotlight where your heart is.

It’s on the way you’re going to figure it out. You don’t know it unless you’ve learned it from here. Bible tells me it’ll be a mirror. It’ll show me me. No fixed up AI. It shows me all the wrinkles. Shows me all the bumps. Shows me facts. I need this mirror. I need the surgery of Hebrews 4. I need him to get down into why I’m doing this preaching thing.

Why are you singing? I need that. Because I can fake it. I can do it for me. I need that surgical cutting in my heart and my life. So how is your heart? Pastor, you come.