Man, Proverbs chapter number 27,
we're in this kind of new section of the book of Proverbs
that started back in chapter 25,
the Proverbs that the men of Hezekiah copied out,
the Proverbs of Solomon.
And so it's a little bit of a different style here
over the last few chapters
where even though these are individual Proverbs
like we've had ever since chapter 10,
they're a little bit more connected at least
than chapters 10 through 24.
Those, most of the time,
were really just one-off individual Proverbs.
This chapter has a little bit more of a common thread.
There's a little bit more of a connection
between these various Proverbs.
Let's start at the beginning there
with that famous verse in verse number one.
Boast not thyself of tomorrow,
for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.
And of course, we have a New Testament passage
very similar to this.
If you flip over, if you would,
to James chapter number four,
keep your finger there in Proverbs.
Let's go to James.
And we'll look at the famous passage in James
about not boasting of tomorrow.
We don't know what is going to happen tomorrow,
and our life is so short,
and some people's lives are shorter than others,
and we don't know when the end is gonna come for any of us.
And the Bible says in James chapter number four verse 13,
go to now ye that say today or tomorrow,
we will go into such a city and continue there a year
and buy and sell and get gain,
whereas you know not what shall be on the morrow.
And what did it say back in Proverbs?
It said, boast not thyself of tomorrow,
for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.
So it's basically saying the same thing.
And it says, you don't know what's gonna be on the morrow.
And it says, for what is your life?
It is even a vapor that appear for a little time
and then vanish to the way for that you ought to say,
if the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that.
But now you rejoice in your boastings.
Notice the word boasting.
That's the same word that we had back in Proverbs 27.
Boast not thyself of tomorrow,
for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.
Now you rejoice in your boastings.
All such rejoicing is evil.
Therefore to him that knoweth to do good
and doeth it not, to him it is sin.
So here's what the Bible is saying,
that there are people out there,
they talk a really big talk
about what they're going to do in the future.
And this is why it says, boast not thyself of tomorrow,
because boasting is what?
Bragging or talking big about yourself, praising yourself.
That's what we would call boasting or bragging.
And he says, don't boast of tomorrow.
Don't say, oh man, I'm gonna do this next year.
And this year is gonna be like this.
Don't talk a big talk about what you're going to do
in the future, because you don't really know
if you're even gonna see tomorrow,
let alone if you're gonna be able to do those things
that you're boasting about.
But then he follows it up with this statement
that to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not,
to him it is sin.
Now usually that verse is something
that we would just talk about in isolation.
We just kind of quote that.
Hey, to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not,
to him it is sin.
And it works as a one-off verse.
But it says, therefore, to him that knoweth to do good
and doeth it not, to him it is sin.
So whenever there's a therefore,
you gotta see what it's there for, okay?
Because it's connecting to what we just saw.
And so what the Bible is basically saying is
that you don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow.
Therefore, to him that knoweth to do good
and doeth it not, to him it is sin.
Here's what he's saying.
The right things that you know need to be done,
do them now.
Don't have this attitude that says,
well, eventually I'm gonna go soul winning.
Eventually, you know, one of these days,
I'm gonna really get into Bible reading.
You know, I'll get back in church one of these days.
And if there's some good
that you know you should be doing,
then if you don't do it, it's a sin not to do
the good that you know to do.
And the way that fits the context is
because people often think, well, I'll do it later.
I'm gonna do it tomorrow.
Or I've heard a lot of people say this,
you know, right now, I'm just really focusing
on my finances because I've gotta turn the corner financially
and then once I get these ducks in a row,
then I'm gonna get back in church,
then I'm gonna get serious about serving God.
And what are they doing?
They're boasting of tomorrow.
I'm gonna fix my finances and then I'm gonna serve God.
All such rejoicing is evil.
To him that knoweth to do good
and doeth not, to him it is sin.
Don't tell me what you're gonna do down the road.
What we ought to be doing
is just doing the will of God today, now.
Because you don't know
if you're gonna turn the corner financially.
I mean, there have been many times in my life
when I thought that I was gonna turn that financial corner.
It turns out it was a round room that I was in.
There was no corner.
And it was just a cycle of financial despair, okay?
Because how many times have you gotten an unexpected bill
or some expense that your kid gets hurt
or they need something at the dentist
or the car breaks down and the part is $2,000?
I mean, stuff like this happens constantly in our lives.
You don't know what is gonna be on tomorrow.
And so don't wait until your life is all lined up
the way that you think it's gonna be lined up
six months or a year from now to start serving God.
No, you need to start serving God now,
even while your finances are messed up,
even while your relationships are messed up,
even while your health is messed up.
Serve God now, because you know what?
This might be the only time that you've even got,
because you don't know
if you're even gonna have a tomorrow
or if you have tomorrow,
what is that tomorrow gonna be like?
You don't know.
And our lives are short.
Our life is like a vapor that appeared for a little time
and then managed to the way.
So next thing you know,
when we start putting off the service of God,
when we start putting off the work of God,
next thing you know, life has gone by
and we're old and gray and it's over.
So you've got to take advantage of the opportunities
that you're given on a daily basis for serving God.
Let's go back to Proverbs chapter 27.
So it says in verse one,
boast not thyself of tomorrow,
for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.
Verse number two, let another man praise thee
and not thine own mouth,
a stranger and not thine own lips.
And you can see how this would tie in
with what we just heard,
because we're talking about boasting of tomorrow,
talking a big talk about what you're going to do
down the road.
By the way, it always cracked me up
when I was growing up in Baptist churches
and we'd have missionaries come in
and they would talk such a huge talk
about all the work they're going to do for God
over on the mission field.
But then some of them didn't even do any evangelizing
here in the United States.
And so you'd try to get them out soul winning.
You couldn't even get them to go out soul winning
in America.
You couldn't get them to go out
and take part in the church's outreach
and the church's evangelism,
but man, they're going to go to Asia
and they're going to turn it upside down
and they're not even going to plant a church.
They're planting churches.
It's like, hey, why don't you plant one?
And then we'll talk.
But man, they're going to plant all these churches
and do all these works.
But then you can't get them out soul winning in America.
This guy came one time and he talked this huge talk
about how he's going to go to Utah
and he's going to win the Mormons to Christ.
And he had this big plan, this big complicated thing.
It was all about winning Mormons to Christ.
I walked up to the guy after the service
and I said, have you ever,
and I wasn't trying to be a smart aleck at all.
I actually wanted to talk to the guy
because I found Mormons to be like impossible to reach
with the gospel in my own personal experience.
So I was trying to get some tips from this guy
because I was like, this guy must have cracked the code
because he's traveling around America raising money to go
and he's going to win the Mormons to Christ.
He's going to Utah.
And so I thought maybe he cracked the code.
So I was trying to get the tips.
So I walked up to the guy and said,
have you ever won a Mormon to Christ?
And he said, no.
But see, that's the kind of boasting of the morrow
where you talk this huge talk about what you're going to do
but you don't really know if you're going to do any of that.
You don't know if any of that's going to work out.
And I have a suspicion that this guy found the Mormons
to be a little tougher of a nut to crack
than what he expected because the Mormons are just
the absolute worst mission field on this planet
or any other planet, including Kolob, all right?
No, I'm just kidding.
No, there's only one planet with people on it.
But the Mormons, they think they've got other people
on other planets, but that's another sermon
that shall be preached at another time.
But anyway, it's easy to talk about
all the things you're going to do in the future
and there are two problems with boasting of the morrow.
Number one, the problem is you don't know
what a day is going to bring forth.
Problem number two is that all boasting is wrong, period.
Boasting about yesterday or tomorrow is wrong
because boasting is wrong.
Let another man praise thee, not thine own mouth.
Strangers, not thine own lips.
This is why I don't like about politics.
It makes me sick to hear a politician
tell me how great they are.
I don't want to hear anyone tell me how great they are
and I don't want to tell people what I'm like either
because people will ask me about myself.
I just say, well, you're going to have to ask someone else
what they think about me because I can't be the judge
of my own work or of my own character
or something like that because that would be wrong
first of all, I don't want to just self-deprecate
and I don't want to praise myself
because the Bible says not to
so I'll just leave that to other people to decide.
You know, this is what always made me uncomfortable
about like job interviews.
Tell me what your greatest strengths are
and I'm just like, you know, modesty forbids here.
I don't want to talk about my strengths.
Why?
Because that's not humility to praise yourself.
Now, a lot of people would say, well,
it's wrong to praise yourself
but in a job interview, it's appropriate.
That's what I don't like about job interviews
because I don't, you know, it makes me uncomfortable.
And you know what?
If I'm asked to say something positive about myself
that'd make me uncomfortable because the Bible says
let another man praise you not through no mouth.
And let me tell you something,
when I hear other people praising themselves
I get uncomfortable for them.
And you ever get around somebody
and they just start praising themselves
and you're just like, ah, like you cringe
because it's just so awkward
when people are praising themselves.
And so we need to make sure
that this verse gets drilled into our brains.
Let another man praise thee not that own mouth,
a stranger not that own lips.
I'm not telling you, you know,
not to tell them your strengths at the job interview.
I'm just telling you that if you do tell them your strengths
at the job interview, it should kind of go against the grain
a little bit when you do that
because you're not in just the habit of going around
telling everybody how wonderful you are.
But politicians, man, that's all they do
is praise themselves.
And in fact, when our country was first founded,
if you read about the history
of some of those early political races,
candidates were uncomfortable about even announcing
that they were running.
You know, they would be nominated by other people
and it was considered dishonorable to campaign for yourself
because it seems like you're praising yourself.
It seems like you're boasting,
going around and telling everybody how great you are
and how you're the best man for the job and so forth.
Don't be that type of person.
We as Christians need to be humble,
not braggarts, not boastful.
And you know, we quote this verse so much in our family.
Anytime, because little children don't,
they don't know better because they haven't been taught.
And so a three-year-old, a four-year-old, a five-year-old,
little kids will sometimes say like,
oh, I'm really good at X, Y, and Z.
And then we teach our kids like,
hey, let another man praise thee, not thine own mouth.
A stranger, not thine own lips.
And then, you know, apparently some parents
did not teach that to their kids.
And so they just go around talking about how good they are
at this, that, and the other.
And it's prideful and wrong.
Bible says in verse three,
a stone is heavy and the sand weighty,
but a fool's wrath is heavier than them both.
Wrath is cruel and anger is outrageous,
but who is able to stand before envy?
And so the Bible is talking about a fool's wrath,
a fool's anger.
You know, any idiot can lose their temper,
blow their top, get enraged,
but it takes character and self-control
to keep yourself from losing it, right?
And I think we've all lost our temper before.
You know, I can definitely think of some examples of times
that I just absolutely blew my top
and then regretted it afterward
and wish that I would have controlled myself
and not lost my temper like that, right?
We've all been there,
but the wise man should seek to keep his anger under control
and to put off anger,
not to let the sun go down on his wrath.
The fool just lets his anger go unchecked.
Do not go through life as an angry person.
It's not profitable.
It's not helpful.
Obviously there's a righteous anger.
Jesus got angry.
Other prophets are filled with the Spirit of God
in the scripture and they got angry,
but the person who is angry from day to day
is a foolish person.
And the Bible says that we should give place under wrath
and let not the sun go down upon our wrath.
And we need to be slow to wrath, the Bible says,
slow to anger.
And so, but even worse than that,
even worse than wrath, the Bible says, is envy, right?
You know, wrath is cruel and anger is outrageous,
but who's able to stand before envy?
And again, these verses are kind of thematically
linked to one another.
So let's look at the next couple of verses
and then come back to that.
It says, open rebuke is better than secret love.
Faithful are the wounds of a friend,
but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.
Now, when you read verses like that,
about how open rebuke is better than secret love
and faithful are the wounds of a friend,
but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.
You know, we're talking about Judas Iscariot types, right?
Isn't that what automatically pops around
when you think of the kisses of an enemy are deceitful?
Because Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss,
which is a sign of affection, a sign of love.
It's something endearing where he comes to him
and kisses, because he said to the people
that he betrayed Jesus to, to the soldiers,
you know, it's the one that I kiss, that's him.
You know, he didn't say it's the guy with the long hair.
Okay, because Jesus didn't have long hair.
Okay, but you know, the depictions of Jesus
always show him with long hair, right?
But Jesus actually just looked like everyone else.
He just looked like an ordinary person.
He did not stand out in some dramatic way
to where Judas could have just said,
well, it's that guy that's a foot taller
than everybody else or something, you know,
there was no obvious identifier about him.
And so Judas went and kissed Jesus in order to identify him,
but he could have chosen some other way.
He could have just, you know, I don't know,
extended him the right hand of fellowship, right?
Reached out to him or handed him something
or pointed at him or just described him in some way.
But obviously the Bible records this
as a fulfillment of prophecy
that Judas would betray Jesus with a kiss,
because there's all this prophecy
about the Messiah being betrayed by his friend,
by the one that he loved and so forth.
And so this betrayal with a kiss
makes you think of Judas and what was Judas?
Judas is someone who's pretending to believe in Jesus,
but actually doesn't.
He's pretending to love Jesus and he doesn't.
Why was he doing that?
Why was he even following Jesus if he didn't believe in him?
Why is he being a disciple?
Well, the Bible tells us in the Gospel of John
that he had the bag and that he was a thief,
that he was actually stealing
from the communal funds of the group.
So that could have been part of the motivation
is that the disciples and Jesus
are receiving a lot of donations coming in
and Judas is the treasurer and he was stealing.
So that could be one motive of get close to Jesus,
maybe get some of the fame, some of the popularity,
Jesus is really important,
crowds of people are coming to hear him
and I'm one of the 12 disciples,
so I'm in this top position, I have access to money
and of course he's abusing that access.
So those are some of the motives you could think of,
but there are gonna be people like this in 2023
that pretend to be our friends
and they're not really our friends.
And they will flatter us and compliment us
and say nice things to us, but then behind our back,
they're conniving, they're plotting against us,
maybe they're stealing, maybe they're lying,
whatever they're using us for.
And I'm not even just saying this as a preacher,
but just even in your life, even in your personal life,
you're gonna have people
that will sometimes attach themselves to you
for bad motives and pretend to be your friend
and use and abuse you.
But especially if you're in any kind of position
of authority, you're gonna have these kind of people
that are called sycophants, okay?
And hopefully you know that word,
but if you don't, then be a Christian for a while
and you're gonna see a lot of sycophants
and you'll figure out what this word means.
If you're ever a pastor,
you'll for sure know what this word means,
but sycophants are people who flatter you
and they try to get close to you,
but they have an ulterior motive for doing so
and these people will just tell you how wonderful you are
and treat you really well, give you a lot of gifts,
but then these people will turn around
and become vicious enemies
because they're there for all the wrong reasons.
The right reason to come to Faithful Word Baptist Church
is because you love the Lord.
And so you wanna serve the Lord,
you wanna study God's word
and you wanna be a doer of the word
and you wanna fellowship with God's people.
You know, ultimately the reason to be here
is because you love Jesus Christ, okay?
But there are some people
who will make it all about the pastor
and they'll even, and then it's funny
when these people then turn around
and become these backstabbing enemies,
they'll say things like,
I've done so much for you, Pastor Anderson
and I gave up everything for you, Pastor Anderson.
I'm just like, excuse me?
What?
Who are you?
What are you talking about?
Like, I gave up everything for you.
It's like, who asked you to do that?
No one.
Because this is not Stephen Anderson Baptist Church, okay?
This is, it's not about me.
Anyone who comes and attends church here, okay?
Praise the Lord if you're attending here,
but you're not doing me a personal favor by attending here.
Whether you attend or don't attend,
it doesn't change anything for me as a person.
Other than if you and I are friends
and we have some fellowship together,
well then great.
But that's kind of a two-way street, right?
Like if you and I have brotherly fellowship together,
then hopefully we're both kind of blessed by that, right?
Like hopefully I'm blessing you and you're blessing me
because that's how friendships work.
They're kind of a two-way street, right?
But let's say you show up and you listen to the preaching.
You know what?
Christ is pleased with you, right?
You're serving Christ, but you're not serving me.
Nobody comes to this church and serves me.
In fact, I'm called a minister.
What's a minister?
Minister means servant.
I'm the one that's doing the serving.
You know, I'm not here to be served, I'm here to serve.
So people don't come to Faithful Word Baptist Church
in order to serve the pastor.
They're coming to serve God.
They're coming to serve Jesus Christ
and I'm here to serve God, I'm here to serve Christ
and I'm here to serve you.
So I'm here to try to teach you and lead you
and bless you in some way.
But if you put money in the offering plate,
that is not doing anything for me.
I mean, sometimes it boggles my mind how people think.
Like do you guys think that the offering plate
just somehow just ends up in my pocket or something?
Because guess what?
When the offering is taken,
several guys take it into the back room here,
they count it, they write it down in a book
and it goes to a bank account,
that's a church bank account, that's not my money.
That is the church's money.
I receive a paycheck from the church
just like you receive a paycheck from your job.
And whether you come to church or not,
I get paid the same.
Whether you like the sermon or not, I get paid the same.
Whether you give or don't give,
whether you tithe or don't tithe,
I get paid the same, okay?
If 100 people show up or if 300 people show up,
I get paid the same.
And you know what?
Honestly, I would rather preach to 100 people
who love Christ and preach with integrity
than to preach to 1000 people
and the church is filled with bozos.
I love our church.
And of course our church has on Sunday mornings
over 300 people, evening services, what?
Tonight we probably have a little over 200 people here
or something like that.
Amen, praise the Lord.
But you know what?
If the church gets bigger, if the church gets smaller,
you know what?
Whatever, like that's, whatever God decides to do,
I'm gonna do my job,
you guys are gonna do your part in the ministry.
But at the end of the day, nobody's,
I hope nobody's here to serve me.
You know, it's not about me.
I'm not getting any kind of a benefit
when you go out and win someone to Christ,
it's benefiting Christ,
it's benefiting the kingdom of God, right?
And so that's what it's all about.
But you get these weirdos who just,
I've done so much for you and it's,
well, then you know, I'm sorry to hear that
because you should have been doing stuff for Christ
and leaving me out of it.
And look, people who do things for me personally,
I appreciate that when somebody actually does something
for me personally, you know,
somebody gives me a box of cereal or something.
Hey, I appreciate that.
I like that, I enjoy that, right?
Just like you appreciate it
when someone does something for you.
But you know what?
If somebody gives me a lifetime supply
of Cinnamon Toast Crunch,
but then turns around and slanders me,
lies about me and hates me,
then you know, it kind of gives a bitter taste in my mouth,
if you can imagine that,
with all that Cinnamon Toast Crunch,
it could still leave a bitter taste in your mouth.
I mean, think about it.
Like how much Cinnamon Toast Crunch
could make up for the fact
that somebody lied about me and slandered me?
Cinnamon Toast Crunch isn't gonna fix that.
Not even Peanut Butter Love Crunch is gonna fix that.
And Peanut Butter Love Crunch
is better than Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
Who knows what I'm talking about?
I know you do.
Peanut Butter Love Crunch,
because I saw you guys had a bag of it one time.
I love that stuff.
I mean, no.
And so, you know, I'd rather have open rebuke
than someone pulling a Judas
and having these deceitful kisses of the enemy.
You know, it's better the devil you know
than the devil you don't know.
I'd rather have somebody just say to me,
Pastor Anderson, I don't like you,
and you're stupid, and you're ugly,
and you're an idiot, and you're just trash.
I'd rather have that than somebody flatter me.
And look, some of these bozo pastors
who attach themselves to us temporarily,
and it's funny, I go through my text messages
that they sent me, and it's all positive.
Hey, great sermon, brother.
Keep it up, brother.
Great work, brother.
And then all these people coming to me
talking about how after the services of their church,
they just get together in a group,
and they just talk trash about Pastor Anderson.
They're making fun of me.
They're saying all these bad things about me.
But then, you know, I'm looking at my text,
and it's all positive, and I'm like,
what's the deal here?
What's going on?
It's because these people don't have any integrity,
because these people are phonies
when they are gonna talk bad about you behind your back,
and it's all flattery and positivity to your face.
You know, that kind of a person is a rotten person
that you've gotta watch out for.
And so faithful are the wounds of a friend.
You know, you'd rather have someone who actually loves you
hurt you for your own good, right?
Hurt you for your own good,
than the person who's giving gifts and flattering you,
and secretly, they're conniving and plotting against you.
Now obviously, you know, there are nice people
who give gifts and give you a compliment,
but then there are evil sycophants
who when they give you that gift, it's not sincere.
You know, and don't get me wrong,
I believe that every box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch
that I've ever received has been sincere, okay?
There's no example in my mind of any sycophant
who ever gave me Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
I'm just using that as a generic example.
But the point is though, that these people
that are nice to your face and stabbing you in the back
are worse than people who would just openly tell you
to your face what the problem that they have with you.
Because open rebuke is better than secret love.
Faithful are the wounds of a friend,
but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.
Bible says in verse seven,
the full soul loathes in honeycomb,
but to the hungry soul, every bitter thing is sweet.
And you know, isn't that so true
that as we go through life,
sometimes we can get spoiled, can't we?
And the full soul loatheth in honeycomb
to the point where even if you were presented
with your favorite food, if you've already eaten,
it's not appealing to you, right?
Everything is good when you're starving.
I mean, if you go a couple of days without eating,
you will literally start to crave the foods that you hate.
Because I've been there before.
I've been so hungry before that I started to think
about stuff that I don't like and just think like,
I would eat that right now and I would relish it.
Who's ever been that hungry before?
Where you actually would fantasize
about foods that you hate, okay?
And so we've got to make sure that as we go through life,
we don't get greedy and go overboard and overindulge
because then what happens is we won't be able
to enjoy anything.
This is why people that are drug addicts,
they can't enjoy life because they've already just
flooded their brain with so much dopamine
and so many feel good hormones and the reward center
of their brain is just lit up like a Christmas tree
all the time and it gets to where they loathe everything.
The full soul loatheth in honeycomb.
But to the hungry soul, every bitter thing is sweet.
Therefore, if we want to be happy in life,
we should go through life a little bit hungry all the time.
Because if you go through life a little bit hungry
all the time, then you're always enjoying your food.
And I even mean this, even literally.
Even literally, it's good to go through life
a little bit hungry.
You know, kids, eat your breakfast.
But you know, as an adult though, you know,
sometimes you skip breakfast as an adult, right?
And you kind of just let that hunger build.
And by the time lunch rolls around, you're starving
and no matter what you eat, it's gonna be good
because you're just really hungry.
And that's a good way to live, just to go through life
a little bit hungry all the time.
But not just with physical food.
I mean, that's just one example.
But like, what about just other areas of life?
You want to stay hungry, okay?
And not overindulge in anything
to the point where you've overdone it.
You know, you think about King Solomon, right?
I mean, here's a guy who can have whatever he wants.
He's incredibly rich.
He's got 300 wives and 700 concubines.
I always mix that up.
And he's, who cares at that point, right?
I mean, does it really matter?
Does it really make a difference?
He's got a lot of wives and a lot of concubines.
I mean, this guy just has access, exclusive access
to more women than, you know, could ever fill his time.
I mean, he's got a lifetime supply of these women, okay?
He's got all the food, the drink, the,
I mean, he's got apes and peacocks coming in.
He's got a petting zoo.
He's got it all.
He's got the animals.
He's got the precious metals.
He's got the pools of water, the men singers,
the women singers.
He's powerful, he's respected, he's wise.
He had everything, but at the end of it,
in Ecclesiastes chapter two, he says that he hated life.
Said, therefore, I hated life.
And you say, how in the world could you hate life
if you have all that?
Because the full soul loathes the honeycomb,
and he was full in every possible way.
He had overindulged with women.
He's overindulging in luxury, food, whatever.
And what goes up must come down.
And so if you're just constantly rewarding yourself
and just constantly feeling good,
constantly flooding the reward center with endorphins
and all the dopamine,
I'm telling you, you'll be miserable.
And I think that's part of the reason why this generation
that we're living in, the young people of our generation
are some of the most depressed young people
in the history of America.
Wouldn't you think the most depressed children
would have been the generation where they had to work
in a factory six days a week or something,
and then they go to Sunday school at church
because that's where they learn how to read and write?
That's where Sunday school originally came from.
It wasn't just like another morning church service.
It was actually school.
It's called Sunday school because it was kids coming
to church to learn how to read and write
because they're working in a factory during the week,
the Industrial Revolution.
So obviously you'd look at that and say,
man, that's poor kid.
He's a kid and he's working in a sweatshop.
But hold on a minute.
I think that in many ways,
kids today are often more depressed than that kid
because they get everything that they want
and they overindulge in video games.
They overindulge in entertainment in general.
They overindulge in food and drink
and comfort and luxury.
And your brain is seeking for equilibrium or homeostasis.
And so if you're just constantly wanting to be up, up, up,
your brain is gonna be like, no, let's go down.
And if you take it way up,
your body's gonna bring you way down.
And this is why people, when they take drugs,
they get high, right?
But what happens after they get high?
They have to get low because to every action,
there's an equal and opposite reaction.
And so for every high, there's a low associated with it.
And people, when they first take drugs,
they take drugs and it makes them feel good.
Oh, it feels incredible.
It's the greatest feeling ever.
Okay, but pretty soon it gets to the point
where they have to take drugs just to feel normal.
And when they're not taking drugs, they feel horrible.
So then they have to find a stronger drug.
And then that drug takes them even higher.
And then their body takes them even lower.
And then they need the drugs even more.
And then next thing you know,
they're a toothless hooker or whatever they are.
If they're a female, a toothless hooker,
strung out on drugs, a crack whore,
or some dude that's just living in the streets.
Dirty, miserable.
Just going from high to low to high to low.
But the highs aren't even high anymore.
The highs are just kind of just, meh, just maintenance.
I mean, think about it.
If you took your absolute very favorite food
and just started eating it every single day,
it's not gonna be as good as it was the first week.
The second week, the third week, the fourth week.
You gotta do that stuff in moderation.
Why?
Because the full soul loathes the honeycomb.
If you get filled up on whatever it is that you like,
you're gonna loathe even the sweet things.
Whereas to the hungry soul, every bitter thing is sweet.
And so I wanna go through life where everything's sweet.
So I gotta stay a little bit hungry, okay?
So don't do drugs, kids, because it isn't worth it.
Like, you're gonna, look, I've never taken drugs,
but I'm sure that taking drugs feels good the first time.
I'm not gonna ask for a raise of hands
of all the former druggies here tonight.
No, I'm just kidding.
But I guarantee you that there must be some enjoyment there
or people wouldn't be doing it.
They wouldn't be spending a bunch of money.
They wouldn't be involved in that.
But you know what, that's what the Bible calls
the pleasures of sin for a season.
And it is not worth it.
And literally, from what I've read about heroin addicts,
it's literally a season.
Like people that I've read, they said,
hey, the first three months on heroin was amazing.
But then after that, it was just a living hell
for five years, 10 years, 15 years or whatever.
And many of these people,
are they ever gonna enjoy life again?
Hopefully they can eventually get off that stuff
and repair their brain by living a normal life for a while.
But man, you could do irreparable damage to your brain.
You could ruin your whole life, ruin your whole outlook.
It's not worth it to enjoy that.
But here's the thing, it's not just drugs.
It's everything in life that you take to excess,
that you go overboard on just joy, fun.
And you kids, you wonder why your parents
don't just give you everything that you want.
And I sure hope that your parents
don't give kids whatever they want.
Why don't we just give you unlimited candy,
unlimited screen time, unlimited play time, unlimited fun?
Look, because we don't want you to grow up
and be a depressed, miserable person who hates life
because the full soul loads a honeycomb.
We gotta keep you a little hungry.
Whatever fun thing, we wanna take it away from you
when you still want a little more.
Keep you a little bit hungry so that you'll enjoy it
the next time so that you don't get burned out.
Your parents are actually trying to teach you
to live a balanced and moderate life
where ice cream is a treat.
Because if you have ice cream for breakfast,
lunch, and dinner, eventually the ice cream
will start tasting nasty
and you won't even enjoy ice cream anymore.
And then you'll move on to the next thing
and the next thing and you'll ruin everything.
And human beings are just by nature just greedy.
It's just part of our sinful nature
to be greedy.
We find something good and what do we do?
We just start overdoing it, start overindulging.
And I can think of times
when I've been guilty of the same thing.
We find something that we like
and then we keep doing it until we ruin it
because we're greedy.
Okay, so don't be greedy.
Enjoy fun and treats in moderation
and don't let them ruin your life.
So the Bible says in verse eight,
as a bird that wandereth from her nest,
so is a man that wandereth from his place.
Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart,
so does the sweetness of a man's friend by hearty counsel.
Thine own friend and thy father's friend forsake not,
neither go into thy brother's house
in the day of thy calamity,
for better is a neighbor that is near
than a brother far off.
So we have some verses here about friendship.
And if we jump down a little bit to verse 17,
there's another verse about friendship.
It says, iron sharpeneth iron,
so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.
And then look at verse 19, it says,
as in water, face answer at the face,
so the heart of man to man.
So let's kind of put some of these thoughts together here.
What's the Bible saying about friendship?
In verse 19, the Bible says,
ointment and perfume rejoice the heart,
so does the sweetness of a man's friend by hearty counsel.
You know, it's a sweet thing, it's an enjoyable thing
when you can get together with your friend.
And what does a hearty counsel mean?
Well, hearty means from the heart.
And counsel means that you're basically talking
about something that matters.
Because if I got together and just talked about the weather
and I said, you wouldn't call that counsel, would you?
But if I got together and talked to my friend
about some issue that actually is really near and dear
to my heart, and I really opened my heart to my friend,
and we talked about something that's important,
and took counsel together, then that, the Bible says,
is a sweet thing, it's like a spiritual ointment
or a spiritual perfume, right, in verse nine there.
Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart,
the sweetness of a man's friend by hearty counsel, right?
So that's one of the sweet things in life.
It's one of the joys in life, friendship.
Isn't it good when you have a friend
and you can really relate to them and talk to them
and speak to them from your heart?
And then it says in verse 10,
thine own friend and thy father's friend forsake not.
So that type of friendship
should also have loyalty attached to it,
which again, goes back to what we said a few verses earlier
about how open rebuke and the kisses of an enemy
and so forth.
So when this goes bad, it's horrible.
But when it goes right, when you actually have
a real true friend who loves you,
who is not gonna forsake you, who's loyal to you,
and you can have that hearty counsel with them,
you know, this is one of the most beautiful things
that we have in life, is friendship.
Now, one thing I would like to point out is that
we just said that the full soul loathes an honeycomb,
so even the sweet friendship can be overdone, can't it?
So let's say I have this excellent friend
and we take sweet counsel together,
it could still be overdone,
meaning that if I spend too much time with that person,
then I might get sick of that person
and they might get sick of me.
So even this kind of beautiful friendship
should be enjoyed in moderation.
Now, look, hopefully your marriage
is a beautiful friendship.
But again, it needs to be enjoyed in moderation.
Because if my wife and I were to spend
just way too much time together,
then we could just get totally burned out
on one another's company.
And you say, oh, well, you know,
that would never happen to me and, you know.
But here's the thing though, it does though.
If you're just together, day in, day out, all the time,
it's gonna get old.
And so even that wonderful sweet friendship
or that wonderful sweet marriage
should be enjoyed in moderation and not overdone,
just like you wouldn't overdo sweets in real life
as far as food, literal food.
But then as we move on here, it says in verse number 17,
iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth
the countenance of his friend, right?
So friends hopefully are also helping each other grow,
helping each other be a better person,
motivating each other, maybe keeping each other balanced,
keeping each other in check.
And this kind of connects to the part where the Bible said
that faithful are the wounds of a friend.
Because, you know, in order to keep each other sharp,
sometimes we might have to correct each other
or be blunt about something that's unpleasant.
Iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth
the countenance of his friend.
And then verse 19, the other verse about friendship,
it says, as in water, face answer at the face,
so the heart of man to man.
Now, what does that mean?
As in water, face answer at the face.
Well, what this is saying is that when you look
into the water, because back when the Bible is written,
you don't just have mirrors in the bathroom of your house
and, you know, just mirrors everywhere in public and mirror.
I mean, a mirror would have been a rare item, right?
Because, and it wouldn't have been like the mirrors
that we, it wouldn't have been of the quality
that we have today.
It'd be more like just something shiny
that you look at, right?
So probably people saw their reflection in water,
you know, as maybe the clearest picture
that they're gonna get.
Maybe a shiny piece of metal or, you know,
looking into the water or something.
They probably didn't have these super high-tech mirrors
like we have today that just look exactly like you,
crystal clear with no change.
So when the Bible says as in water, you know,
face answer at the face, he's saying, you know,
when you look in the water,
you see a reflection of yourself, right?
Face answering face.
And the Bible says that so is the heart of man to man.
So the heart of man to man.
What does that mean?
What this means is that part of what appeals to us
about friendship is that we see ourselves in other people.
So our friends are kind of like a reflection of ourself.
And this is why we typically like to have friends
with whom we have something in common.
Because we look at our friend
and the image that's coming back at us, we can't relate.
You know, we get around someone and we have nothing
in common, we can't really relate to that person.
You know, we're probably not gonna choose that person
as our friend.
You know, if you're a young man and you go out on a date
with a young lady and you don't have a lot in common,
you don't really have any common connection,
you're probably not going on another date.
Because we as human beings, we long to share life
with other people and to share an intimate connection
with other people.
We wanna have hearty counsel with our friend.
We want to have a friend whom we can look at
and basically see a reflection of ourself in a sense.
Not in a narcissistic way of just,
oh, we're just in love with ourself.
Because this is not a negative verse,
this is a positive verse, right?
As in water, face answereth to face,
so the heart of man to man.
And so when we look to our friends,
we're kind of looking for someone who's like us
and we wanna have some common ground.
And again, what did the Bible just say a couple verses ago?
Iron sharpeneth iron.
Now, what do iron and iron have in common?
This is not a trick question.
They're both iron.
Okay, so again, this is people being friends
that have something in common that are alike.
Now, when we go to church,
we typically we use the word fellowship, right?
What does that mean, fellowship?
We'll say like, hey, we're gonna have some fellowship
after the service.
Hey, we're gonna have a time of pizza and fellowship
down at the Tucson church.
What do we mean by that?
Well, what does the word fellow mean?
Your fellow is someone who's like you.
If I said fellow electrician, fellow plumber,
fellow American, I'm talking about someone with whom
I share something in common.
And so when we say fellowship,
when we're gonna enjoy fellowship,
when we have fellowship one with another,
what we're saying is that we have something in common
that we share and so we all get together three times a week
so that we can do what?
Share something.
And what is it that we're sharing?
Christianity.
We're sharing faith in Christ.
We're sharing the fact that we love the Bible.
We're sharing the fact that we believe that salvation
is by grace through faith and that Jesus Christ
is the son of God and that the Bible
is the perfect word of God.
And we're sharing fellowship, not everything.
What if I went to a church where people don't believe
what I believe?
They've got a different Bible,
different plan of salvation, different doctrine.
Can I really have fellowship with those people?
Now, maybe we can get together and talk and eat ice cream
and chew the fat or shoot the breeze or whatever.
But we wouldn't really be having fellowship, would we?
Because what fellowship has light with darkness?
What fellowship has right with,
they don't have anything in common.
There's no fellowship there.
So when we use the word fellowship,
I hope you know what it means.
It means that we're getting together
with like-minded people of like faith.
Now, if you look around our church,
you're gonna see people that are red, yellow,
black and white.
You're gonna see people that have a lot of money,
people that are struggling to get by.
You're gonna see young, old people from Arizona,
people from other parts of America,
other like inferior parts of the country,
other people from other parts of the world even.
What has brought us all together?
What has brought together this motley crew?
Christ, right?
We've been brought together by Jesus, by the word of God.
We're all here because we love the Lord.
That's why we're here, right?
So we have fellowship.
So I automatically have something in common
with people at church
because of the fact that we're both Christians.
And when I go other places in the world
and I run into a believer,
boom, there's kind of an instant connection there.
Iron sharpens iron.
And in the sense of our faith, we're both iron,
so we can sharpen one another,
we can help each other grow and improve
and become better for Christ.
As in water, face answer at the face,
so the heart of man to man.
It's nice to relate to someone, right?
And our closest friends,
we tell them maybe things about ourself
that we wouldn't tell other people, right?
We open up to them, open up to our friends.
Why do we do that?
Because we're seeking a deeper connection.
And what we don't wanna do
is we don't wanna betray that trust, obviously.
When someone opens up to you and tells you something
and then you betray their trust
and then you gossip about them or whatever,
well then that person's not gonna open up to you again
and you've probably destroyed the friendship, right?
The tail bearer separates chief friends, the Bible says.
And so the tail bearer, the gossip, ruins friendships.
So friendship is a beautiful thing when it's real,
when it's for the right reasons,
when it's not sycophancy or Judas Iscariot type friendship.
And it's funny, when Judas shows up and kisses Jesus,
what does Jesus call him?
Friend.
And so friendship can be beautiful.
Friendship in a marriage is beautiful.
Friendship between two men is beautiful.
Friendship between two women is beautiful, right?
Friendship can be one of the most rewarding experiences
that we have in life when we get that friend
with whom we have fellowship where we have that connection
and we can see something of ourself in them
and we can sharpen one another and make each other better
and we're loyal to each other
and we don't forsake our friend
because the Bible says,
thy own friend and thy father's friend forsake not.
We should love our friends, be loyal to them,
stand with them through thick and thin,
and hopefully our friends are real friends.
And I think about some of the friends over the years
that have turned on me,
but then people have often said to me,
no, Pastor Anderson,
none of your friends have ever turned on you
because those people weren't your friends.
You know, you thought they were,
and that's typically how I feel
when somebody turns on me is I feel like, you know what?
I thought that person was my friend,
but apparently they weren't
because look how they turned on me
and threw me under the bus.
And so it's gonna happen in life
when somebody turns on you like that,
when somebody throws you under the bus,
you know, you just walk away and you just realize,
hey, that person wasn't my friend in the first place.
And you know, thankfully,
I've never had anyone who I was really close to turn on me.
But man, I think about people that are truly close to me,
what it would be like to have someone
who's really close to me, like truly turn on me.
And it's kind of a horrifying thought,
but that's what Jesus went through
because I mean, you know, Jesus,
there's a lot of prophecy in the book of Psalms
about Judas turning on Jesus that it was very hurtful.
And that basically David, obviously,
David, obviously he's speaking about betrayals
that he felt in his own life.
I mean, he's betrayed by his own son, Absalom.
And he went through various betrayals.
We're gonna go through betrayals in our life.
It's painful, it's hurtful,
but all we can do is just walk away
and realize that person wasn't our true friend.
And if you do have a true friend,
if you do have a lifelong type friend,
man, you should really cherish that friendship
because that's a rare commodity.
And you should really make sure that you value it
and take care of it and not abuse that friendship
because real true friendship is a rare thing
where you really have a deep connection
with someone and a real loyalty there.
And you know, I think about some of the people
that I'm the closest to.
And honestly, most of them are my blood relatives
if I think about the people that I'm closest to.
You know, and obviously I would include my wife
as being immediate family,
but I'm talking family ends up being
some of your closest friends.
And so you kids, you should remember that
when you're thinking about mistreating your siblings
that family ends up sometimes being
some of the most important people in your life.
And some of the most important people in my life
are my relatives.
They are my family.
And it's pretty rare that you have a real,
true, close friend outside of family.
And when you do, that's a precious thing.
You know, and I don't wanna start mentioning
some of my really close friends
because then I'm leaving people out and whatever.
But you know, but honestly, you know,
one person I could bring up is Pastor Roger Jimenez.
And I have been friends for literally like,
let's see, 21 years now.
And I mean, you know, we've been pretty close friends
and had some really serious conversations
and really close connection over the years.
We've been good friends for 21.
I mean, that means a lot to me.
That's something that I cherish.
That's something that I find precious.
But you know, I do cherish that friendship,
but I'm not just constantly hanging out with Pastor Jimenez
or constantly talking to him, you know,
because then, you know, the friendship could get burned out.
You know what I mean?
So you don't necessarily have to just always be
with your friends every day
in order for them to be your close friends.
And the reason I bring this up
is because I have teenagers in my home.
And so I kind of understand the teenage brain
and I've been a teenager before.
And I'm telling you, when I was a teenager,
you know, it was all about being with my friends.
And when you're a teenager, you don't really sometimes,
and I'm not saying this about my teenagers or anything,
I'm just telling, even from my own heart,
when I was a teenager, being with your family
is kind of like, eh,
and it's all about being with your friends.
But then what's funny is that you end up
not staying in touch with any of those friends
and having a deep relationship with family
in the long run, a lot of times.
You know?
I mean, I'm closer to my mom and dad
than I am with any friend that I ever had growing up.
Okay?
I don't have any friends from when I was growing up.
I mean, Pastor Jimenez,
I became friends with him when I was 20.
What about my elementary school friends,
my junior high friends, my high school friends?
Who knows where they are?
I don't know.
We didn't stay in touch.
But you know what's funny is that my teenagers,
and when I was a teenager, I felt this way,
and I think this is just how teenagers are in general,
man, they wanna be with their friends all the time,
they wanna talk to their friends all the time,
they wanna hang out with their friends all the time,
and they don't understand that it could be
too much of a good thing, and they could get burned out,
even though that friendship is so sweet and enjoyable.
Or maybe they're dating,
and maybe they have a boyfriend or a girlfriend
once they're old enough and reach that age,
which in my house is 16 years old
when they're old enough to have those kind of thoughts,
no, I'm just kidding,
to have those kind of relationships when they're 16.
But here's the thing, you could overdo it,
and you can get burned out on people
because familiarity breeds contempt.
So even good friendships, even a great marriage
should be enjoyed in moderation.
Don't be greedy.
Enjoy the time that you have with your friends,
and if you get to hang out with your friends,
and you leave your friends,
and you're kind of like hungry for a little more,
that's good, that's good.
You know, one of my favorite hobbies is running,
I do a lot of running, I run every single day.
But you know, when I go running,
I don't just run until I don't wanna run anymore.
I don't just run until I'm just like,
I'm sick of it, I hate running, I'm done.
You know, I like to stop running
when I still kind of feel like running a little more.
I could kind of go a little further,
and I'm just like, nope, gonna stop right now.
Because I don't wanna overdo it.
And it's like that with anything.
But we're greedy, right?
Human beings are by nature greedy,
and they just can't stop eating the ice cream,
they just can't stop playing the video game,
they just, I mean, people stay up to two, three, four,
five in the morning doing what?
Or binge watching a TV show.
Because they just have to, you know,
they don't understand that, you know,
when we were growing up,
the stupid stuff that we watched on TV,
we had to wait a week to get another little half hour dose
of Gilligan's Island or whatever.
You know, but it's like,
they could just watch like
the whole Gilligan's Island season whatever in one night.
I remember a couple times a year,
there'd be like a Twilight Zone marathon.
Who knows what I'm talking about?
The 24 hour a day marathon.
And man, you know what we would do
on the Twilight Zone marathon in my house?
When I was a kid growing up,
we'd watch it the whole day.
That's all we did.
I mean, we would sit there and watch it for 10 hours,
12 hours, no joke.
It was on Memorial Day weekend.
So we just watched the Twilight Zone for days.
And nights.
Okay, we slept at night.
I'm exaggerating now.
And then on Labor Day was a Superman marathon.
The old black and white Superman show.
And we just watch it for eight hours, 10 hours, 12 hours.
Why?
You know what?
Because that's how human beings are.
They do stupid things like that.
I'm not proud of this.
Okay, it doesn't make any sense
to sit there and just overindulge
in Superman or the Twilight Zone.
You know, just watch it.
But the problem is in 2023 though,
people can literally have a marathon
like that whenever they want.
Like at least when I was a kid,
we had this bizarre compulsion to watch this stuff.
But we could only indulge in it two times a year.
So that kept us normal.
That's how we survived.
But if we would have been having a marathon
like that every weekend,
you know, then we would all be, you know,
brain damaged or something by now.
So don't overindulge because we have all this technology.
You know, it's so easy for people to just get involved
in video games and TV shows until the middle of the night
and junk food and just drugs, whatever.
You know, just look, live a disciplined life.
Live a moderate life.
Hey, enjoy being with your friends in moderation.
Spend time with family, spend time with your spouse,
spend time with your friends in moderation.
Leave them wanting a little more.
Leave yourself wanting a little more.
You don't have to eat yourself sick at every meal.
And you don't have to fellowship yourself sick
at every gathering.
Let's bow our heads in that word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord.
And there's so much wisdom in the book of Proverbs
and Lord, I pray that something that I said tonight
would be helpful to someone that we could unlock
some of this wisdom from your word and live a balanced life
and not go through life just full all the time.
Help us to know what it means to be hungry, to be thirsty,
to long for our friends and not to just overindulge
in every entertainment or pleasure that is available
in our day, Lord, help us to control ourselves.
And Lord, I pray that you would bless everyone
in this building, Lord, with good, godly friends,
with real, true friends that will be loyal to them
and that they can be loyal to.
And Lord, help them to enjoy that sweetness of friendship
and help them not to abuse that friendship, Lord.
And in Jesus' name, we pray, amen.