Let's go ahead and let's pray and then we'll spend some time in the text this morning. Father, we thank you so very much for your word. We thank you for this opportunity we have as brothers and sisters to come together and to look into the things that are are found in your word. We just ask that as we are here in the text, that your spirit would be working, would be working in our hearts, that we would seek to honor and glorify you, and that we would look at this text and say, this is what you're teaching us, and these are the things that need to be implemented into our lives. We just thank you so very much for everything you've given us in Christ, that is ours on the basis of faith and off of your grace. So we're just so very thankful. In your son's name, amen. So, as I accidentally hit the wrong button and erased all of my sermon notes, by the way, if you want to know the greatest fear that a pastor has, I just did it. Where you erase your sermon notes. That was neat. So I don't know what we're going to talk about today. No, I'm joking. No, that is the biggest fear is you accidentally get a blank screen. As I think about guitar players, just because somebody owns a guitar doesn't necessarily make them a guitar player, right? I own plenty of them, and that doesn't make me a guitar player, so I don't think that's the case. And we would say, why? Well, because there's certain things that happen, there's certain things that accompany a guitar player, right? And there's certain things that they do. Well, the same is true for us as believers. Just because somebody goes to church, or just because somebody has a Bible on their nightstand, Just because it's open to a certain text throughout the week doesn't necessarily mean that that's the life of a believer, right? We know that a believer is one who places their faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ alone. They're trusting in Jesus alone. And from that, there's certain things that come, right? There's certain things that believers do in everyday life. And one thing that's really amazing to me is when I think about the Bible and I think about biblical theology, Biblical theology is for everyday life. There's a practicality to scriptural wisdom. And as we start looking through the text and as we start reading the Bible and we become more acquainted with the grace of Christ and the things that happen in our life, we begin to realize Jesus is, for me, every day, right? And every moment is a time of worship. This is worship, what we're doing now, but every second, is a time for worship. And that there's this thing that happens with the life of the believer, or it should be, and it should be clearly seen in our life. is this thing that we could call practical worship, right? This everyday living out our faith, living out the implications of our faith, living out the gospel, glorifying and honoring Jesus, and there's things that just come from that, and there's things that just flow. We'll call that, just for a lack of better term, practical worship. And so this morning that's what we're going to talk about. We're going to talk about this practical worship, the stuff that flows from the life of a believer. So go with me to Proverbs chapter 27. This morning we're going to look at verses 11 through 18. I want to show you three things here about this practical worship. To have this practical worship, first and foremost, means to honor our parents. We'll talk about this. This seems like something that we would tell Sunday school kids, and as adults, and when we get married, we go, well, that doesn't apply to me anymore. En grand chair. This definitely applies to adults as much as it applies to children. The second thing we're gonna see in verse 12, is prudence in avoiding temptation. Practical worship means I'm avoiding temptation. I see sinful traps and sinful things that will distract me from Jesus, and the prudent avoid it, whereas the fool, they go right into it. And then from verses 13 to 18, we're gonna deal with this idea of practical worship also is included in how we navigate through certain relationships, right? Because we deal with a lot of people throughout the week. So how do we deal with them in a way that's honoring to Christ and wise? And so we're gonna talk about the practicality of that worship. So, in verse 11, practical worship is honoring our parents. Verse 12, practical worship is avoiding temptation. And verses 13 through 18 is practical worship is navigating the differing relationships. So let's first look at this first one. about honoring our parents. Notice what the author says here. He says, be wise. my son and make my heart glad that I may answer him who reproaches me. So we're coming back to this imagery that we saw at the beginning of the book of Proverbs. Remember, the book of Proverbs started with this, my son, listen to me, I'm your father. There was a lot of that. And so remember, as we were going through that section, I said it's important for us, when we come to God's word and God's wisdom, that we start with this fundamental understanding and this paradigm that I'm not coming as an adult, I'm coming as a child who needs my father to teach me. So every time I come to God's word, You're the dad. I'm the kid. I don't understand. I have a childlike understanding of everything around me, and you're the father. You know. So I'm going to listen to you. I'm going to respect you, right? So we come to Solomon like that. We also said in that section that a lot of the times when we see this phrase, my son, Yes, it applies to how we deal with Solomon. Yes, it applies with how we deal with our parents. But it also applies to how we view God. God is our heavenly father, right? He's our heavenly father. So anytime that we talk about honoring parents, we have to include our heavenly father. And notice at the beginning, it's kind of a breaking of what we've seen in the book of Proverbs. It's kind of interesting how Solomon does this. Because most of the time, Solomon doesn't give commands, right? He gives principles. These are principles to be lived out. So anytime that there's a command, it should be something that goes, oh, he added a command. Why did he say a command? Why did he give a command in the midst of the principles? And so notice the command here, be wise. Be wise. This is the Hebrew word hakmah. That's what we're studying. We're studying hakmah literature. What is wisdom? We could say it's everything from 2711 all the way back to chapter 1 verse 1. All of those things that we've been talking about, that's wisdom. For us as believers, wisdom is found in Christ, it's found in God's word. So be wise. This speaks of having a skillful life. Wisdom is not just that I'm smarter than everybody else, and I can navigate through difficult situations, it's that I can live a skillful life. I can lead a Christ-like life, and I'm able to go through life living a life that looks like Christ, dealing with people in the way that God asks me to, right? That's what it is, and so notice it says, be wise, my son. So obviously, there's this idea that we must be Christ-like in our dealings, we must be wise, we must be discerning, we must have good judgment. And once again, we're coming into this as we're children, right? We're children, we're navigating a really big, scary world out there as children. And here's our Father giving us good, fatherly advice, something that we need to be reminded of. Be wise, my son. By the way, if I could just, break for a moment and just say this to all the fathers and grandfathers and all of the mothers and all the grandmothers. This passage is a really good template for the type of things that you should be saying to the children in your life, right? What we're about ready to talk about, this is good advice. This is the best advice. Let me also say this. Notice this next part when it says, and make my heart glad. A lot of parents put on their children expectations and goals that, I guess they're okay, but they're not necessarily the most biblical. As parents, we need to pray for one another that the thing that makes a parent the proudest and the happiest is when the children are walking with the Lord. I don't care if my kids go to a great college and get a great job. As long as they're walking with the Lord, amen. Everything else on top of that is gravy, right? That's what I want. I want my kids and I want your kids to live for the Lord. And our greatest joy as parents and as grandparents and as people inside of this church is When we see young kids living for the Lord, and we should applaud living for the Lord, amen, when young people live for the Lord and do things that are wise, wise beyond their years. Let's be careful the expectations we put on kids, and let's be careful to not live vicariously through them, and just because I couldn't do something in high school, now I'm gonna make my kids do that and accomplish that. We laugh, but I've been to little league games before. I've seen those dads who thought that they could have made the major leagues, and they didn't. So now their kid has to. And the kid is rewarded whether he plays good on the field or not. I don't care if my kid ever joins a baseball team and plays second base and misses a grounder. Who cares? The world still spins tomorrow, right? Unless Jesus comes back. Well, it still will spin the next day, but you get my point. So as parents, we need to be careful. We need to be careful. This is the thing that should make our heart glad. Amen, amen, when children are living for the Lord and acting in wisdom. We who are reading this also need to realize, yeah, but I'm also a kid. I'm somebody's child, or else I wouldn't be here. And what's amazing to me is as I think about that command that's given in the book of Exodus chapter 20, we don't have to turn there, but it's, you know, honor your father and mother. We kind of think of that as just a juvenile command, right, that we tell kids. You do that. What's amazing to me as I think about that is there's no age, right? Like it doesn't go, once you reach the age of 21, then you can stop honoring your father and mother. That's not the case. In fact, the way that it's phrased, you step back and go, actually, the way that I honor my parents is actually an act of worship. I'm not honoring them for who they are. I'm honoring them because God's telling me to, and look at all that they've done in my life. Now, not every parent is perfect, and some are worse than others. But that doesn't matter. It doesn't say honor those who are honorable, because then no parent would be honored, because we're all sinners. It says honor your parents, right? And how do you honor your parents? Hear, be wise, act in wisdom. What parent isn't happy when their child acts wisely in their life, right? That's a sign of maturity. Right? And so notice here Solomon says, man, if you act wise, man, you'll make my heart glad. You'll make it dance. You'll make me really excited. And then there's this other thing. It's kind of an interesting thing, what Solomon says here. He says, that I may answer him who reproaches me. almost as if Solomon is thinking, okay, the things that I'm gonna be saying, there's gonna be people who are going to be speaking against me, right? I have these enemies, and they're gonna try to say, don't do what he says. And I can point to my child and say, look, my child is acting in wisdom. These things that I'm saying are true. These things that I'm saying do cause a good life, a skillful life. So it's almost as if the parent's teaching is validated in the life of the kids, right? As a principle, this isn't saying, by the way, that if your kid sins once they grow up, that that means that you were automatically a bad parent. No, you can't do that to yourself. You train them up in the ways of the Lord, And the principle is they will never flee from it, but we know the reality that they often do. And so for us, as we think about raising kids, we do the best that we can raising them, and then we give them up and we say, here, Lord, you take them. But as us as being children, from our perspective as being children and honoring our parents, we go, you know what, I'm gonna act in wisdom so that nothing can be said negatively about my parents. I'm going to act in wisdom to honor them. I'm not going to sit there and belittle them in public. I'm not going to do those things. I'm going to act in a way that would make my papa and mama proud, right? I'm going to act in a way that's going to make mama proud. And how is she going to be proud? I act in wisdom. Let's also think about this from a point of view of as believers representing Christ and our Heavenly Father. There's a passage in Romans. There's many people who bad mouth God because of the behaviors of those who follow. Man, I. How many people are not willing to listen to the claims, foolishly by the way, but they're not willing to listen to the claims because of our bad behavior? We did something bad. We did something selfish. We did something that wasn't consistent with the scriptures. And then somebody would say, well, why should I be a Christian if so-and-so does, if so-and-so says? Now we understand that we're sinners, the Bible teaches that we're sinners. And we understand that we're all becoming more and more like Christ. He who began a good work will complete it. And so we kind of understand that it's not the most convincing argument, but it is an argument, and it does happen, and it's a real thing that happens. And so let's act in a way that honors and glorifies our Heavenly Father. How do we do that? Walk in wisdom, walk in a manner worthy of the gospel, that we live a skillful life. This morning Greg made a couple good points when we were talking about Jesus. One of the things that we were talking about this morning in Sunday school, I would encourage everybody to come out to Sunday school. It's a great time in the book of Colossians. But one of the things that we constantly see is to live a life that's worthy of the gospel. Last week in Philippians, what did we see on Sunday night? We saw this be of the same mind, of the same spirit, having the same goal. Wisdom is living a Christ-like life worthy of the gospel, worthy of our calling, with that singular focus that Christ is honored and glorified. Walking in wisdom protects that. Walking in wisdom avoids all those other things. Walking in wisdom and honoring our Father says, I'm about the thing that He's about. His goal becomes my goal. And that's all I'm concerned about, is Christ being exalted and glorified in my life, whether it's by death or by the things I do, whether it's with my brothers and sisters here or those who don't know. I want Christ to be exalted. That's a life of wisdom. This is practical. This is the practical worship. You want to have good practical worship. Honor your father and mother. Honor your heavenly father. Now notice the next thing in verse 12. It says, the prudent see danger and hides himself. It's kind of interesting. Remember a couple weeks ago we talked about the fool and the fool saw a danger that was imaginary, right? He says, I'm not getting out of bed and I'm not going to work because there might be a lion in the street and how dare you tell me to go to work if there might be some danger in the street? How dare you? Here, this is different. The prudent actually see something that is dangerous. Says, I see something in the future that could potentially lead to something really serious. And what do they do? They hide themselves from that danger. They avoid the future calamity that may come. And as I was thinking about this, I was thinking about the idea of temptation, right, as believers. we are tempted all the time. And the most prudent amongst us are those who see the temptation for what it is and take that escape that is offered to us in Christ to avoid that temptation, right? Because we say, well, there's a problem with this sin, there's a problem with this lifestyle, there's a problem with this thing, and this could lead to something really, really, really bad, so I'm going to avoid this. thinking of temptation, just go with me quickly to the book of James, James chapter one. Keep your finger here in Proverbs, we're gonna flip back. James chapter one, here's a church, they're dealing, a lot of stuff. James, the half brother of Jesus is writing, he's dealing with a pretty interesting situation, he's dealing with a situation where there's Inside of the same church, there's extremely wealthy and extremely poor. And there's these problems that are going on in the interaction between these two, okay? And as James is trying to navigate through this issue, right, you have a lot of abuse, a lot of abuse happening. As he's trying to encourage and talk about the mature Christian, what a mature Christian does, notice in chapter one, Notice in verse 12 what he says. He said, blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. Let no one say, when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desires. Then the desire, when it's conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Of his own will, he brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruit of his creatures. So notice here in verse 13, When we're tempted, one of the things that we need to remember is this, is that God doesn't tempt us. God doesn't put us in a situation that will... Say, I want you to sin. I want you to do something against my will outside of my timing, right? God will never put us in a situation to do that. Now God might put us in some difficult situations that test our faith and cause us to be faithful, but that's not a temptation, that's a trial. There's a difference. The goal of a temptation is to get you to fall. The goal of a trial is to get you to be stronger, right? Steadfastness. And so notice, as James kind of walks through this, he says the reason that we know that God can't be the source of the temptation is because, one, God is not tempted with evil. So there's never a time in which he's going to be tempted and he's going to succumb to temptation. And we know that because that's the case, he never wants anybody to go against his will or separate themselves. So then notice what he says. He says, but each one is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desires. Realize this, friends. When I'm tempted, it's because I want the thing that's being offered. That's what it is. It's a lure. It's an enticement. And the only way that a lure and an enticement works is if there is I want that thing, right? So for example, if I go to a buffet of nothing but fruitcakes, I'm not gonna be tempted to take a bite of any of that stuff because that stuff is grade A gross. Walk in, not gonna eat a thing. There's nothing on that buffet that I desire. Or let's say we walk in and there's nothing but garbage on the buffet table. Who's gonna be tempted to overeat? No one, I don't wanna eat garbage. Now imagine you go to a buffet that has nothing but bacon on it. We live there. I wanna go to there. And I just wanna stay, right? That's something that I want. And so there's that lure, there's that attraction. So realize this, anytime you are tempted, it's a temptation of a desire. Now sometimes these desires are not necessarily sinful desires. What the temptation may offer you is getting something that you desire outside of God's timing and outside of His will, right? There's nothing wrong with eating, but there is something wrong with overeating, right? There's nothing wrong with eating good food, but overindulgence, that's a bad thing. There's nothing wrong with some of the temptations that we have. It's just outside of God's time, outside of his plan. And so, but we need to remember, man, the temptation, I already want that. There's already a part of me that's craving that thing. And then notice the danger, right? Notice the danger that when we give into it, it's like a fishing lure. It looks like an easy, easy target, something that will have no consequence. But it says, and when the desire is conceived, it gives birth to sin. And when sin has its full, when it's fully grown, brings forth death. Guys, if we indulge in something that brings forth death, it is by nature and by definition bad for us, right? If a practice that I'm doing brings forth death, well then I shouldn't do it. That's why, notice what James then says next. Gotta love this. Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Don't be deceived. Well, how can I be deceived? Deceived in what? Well, notice, notice. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above coming down. God's a good God, he's a good father, he gives us, he supplies our needs. Don't be deceived, do not think that you have to go outside of God's timing and outside of God's will to get the thing you desire. God makes a way for us to exhibit those things and to have those things, but it's gotta be done according to his way, according to his plan, according to his word that honors and glorifies Jesus. The prudent knows this. The prudent sees the danger in temptations. The prudent sees the danger in being distracted. The prudent are able to look at a situation and go, oh man, if I do that, that will start a domino effect that could turn out to be really, really bad. Bad for me, bad for my family, bad for the gospel witness, bad for the testimony. It's bad all around. The prudents see that and they go, I'm not doing that thing, no. And the one thing that I find really encouraging about fighting temptation and this ability to say no to these things is I'm not strong enough to say no and neither are you. Isn't that encouraging? You already know, you already know you're not strong enough to fight the temptation, amen. But the Lord has given us his spirit. And guess what? He gives us the strength to say no. Amen. All I gotta do is rely on his strength, right? This isn't me versus some greater army and force. I already know I'm sick. I already know I already want these temptations. I can see it for what it is. But I know that the true way to fight these temptations is by yielding to the power of the Spirit. Now, if we go back to Proverbs, notice what he says. He says, but the simple, the naive, the gullible, those who will believe anything other than God's word, go on and suffer for it. So they might see the danger and go, yeah, but you don't know me. You know, I can avoid that consequence. Man, practical worship is this idea of being prudent, of avoiding temptation, of saying no to temptation. Being prudent is not putting ourselves in a place where we might have to suffer temptation. There's nothing wrong with staying away from those things which so easily entangle us. We're supposed to do that. The prudent, we know ourselves and we know our proclivities and our sinfulness and we know. I've used the example numerous times. I have no problem using this example. I remember. I would meet a guy for discipleship, and I was addicted to fried chicken. I'm okay with saying that I can easily get addicted to fried chicken, and I knew it. And I would have lunch with this guy, and I knew what would happen. I knew it. I would call my wife and say, hon, do you need anything from the grocery store? I knew what was in the grocery store. I already knew. And as you know, I would go in and I'd be on the phone with my wife like a good husband would do. Do you need anything from the grocery store? And then as she's saying stuff, I go, well, you need anything from the deli? As a good husband would do. I already knew my intentions. There was no hiding the intention. I was trying to get as close as I possibly could to the fried chicken so that I would go, ah, I'll just buy one. Right? It was giving in to a desire, not walking by the power of the spirit, right? It was a lack of self-control. But I kind of think of that as a comical example of what we do with sin. We do that, right? We know that if I'm in a certain place at a certain time doing a certain thing, I'm gonna fall. And I try to put myself in that situation with good intentions. It's not good. The prudents see that and go, no, I ain't playing that game. Why would I want to play that game? It's not worth even starting to roll the dice. Now there's this other thing of these different relationships. A lot of these we've already seen. Some of them are kind of comical in this section. But just notice in verse 13, practicalism is also dealing with people. and dealing with people in the midst of life and differing relationships. So notice in verse 13 it says, take a man's garment when he has put up security for a stranger and hold it in pledge. When he puts up security for an adulteress, the idea is, look, if somebody says, I'll buy this thing for you, and I'm going to put down the down payment, the idea is take as much as you can get on that first initial down payment, because there's a really good chance he's not coming back to pay for it. So the idea is be smart in the way that you are stewards with your money and how you deal in business. That's really the gist of what he's saying. We've already talked about this in chapter 20. It's almost the exact same thing. The only thing that's changed is this idea that whoever this guy is who's putting up a security, he's putting it up for somebody who's an adulteress. And in the book of Proverbs and in life, that means liar. Right? I mean, somebody that does this is willfully lying, breaking covenants, breaking their word. They're not worthy to be trusted. This is a bad situation, adulterous. And somebody says, yeah, I'll put up security for an adulterous. Bad move, right? That's a bad financial move. But if you're on the other end of that, sure, I'll take your down payment. I'll take collateral for that because I'm not sure I'm going to see my money. It's basically saying, be good stewards of your money, be good stewards and don't go to somebody who, and just throw your money away, and don't be unwise, but be wise as you deal with these people. You know, one of the things that I think is really helpful for us as believers, as we read in the scripture reading in Hebrews, We should not neglect to do good. And sometimes just doing good says, you know what? I'm just going to give it to you. You don't owe me any money. Here you go. I know you're not going to pay me back. Just take it. And then just share the gospel with them. Say, here you go. I'll share the gospel with you, and I'll give it to you for free. If you want it, you got to listen. There you go. That's it. But we also need to remember, we need to be good stewards of what God's given us and our resources and use them to honor and glorify him. And sometimes we gotta deal with people like this. And so what do you do when you deal with a fool financially? Protect yourself so that you're not on the hook for their foolishness, right? That's a smart thing to do. Notice the next thing, this one's kinda comical. By the way, You should be glad that I'm not an early riser because I might do this next thing just knowing myself. Notice it says, whoever blesses his neighbor with a loud voice rising early in the morning will be counted as a curse. Yep. How many of you love to rudely be awakened by a blessing? I don't like to rudely be awakened by anything. let alone if somebody has good intentions or bad. This just isn't a good idea, right? Just yell happy whatever early in the morning to wake somebody up because trust me, it will not be received in the spirit it's given. So the question is why is this a proverb? Okay, we get it. Don't yell at people early in the morning. Don't be loud. I think it's a proverb that asks us to think how our words are going to be received. It's saying the right thing at the right time with the right motivation, but considering, if I say this particular thing, how will it be received in the moment in which it's given? There are times where we will say the right thing theologically, we will have the right intention, will have the right motivation at the wrong time. And you know how disastrous that can be? It's incredibly disastrous, because the other person takes it as an insult. They don't take it in the spirit in which it's given. In the New Testament, as we think about living by the power of the Spirit. Remember in the book of Ephesians about loving one another and speaking the truth in one another and putting up with one another. There are people who wake up early in the morning and they like to call and they like to say good morning. That's annoying. But as a believer, I have to put up with early risers. We as believers should be careful with the words we say. We should say things in the right way at the right time with the right motivation and go, you know what, this might come off, this might come off bad. This might not be the right way to say this. This might not be the right way to do this. And so we need to be mindful of this. This is all in that process of being wise. And how do I deal with my neighbor? Well, I gotta be careful how I talk to him. And just because I'm excited about something, Doesn't necessarily mean that my neighbor will be. And I gotta say the right thing at the right time. Notice the next thing. Speaking of annoying, notice this next thing. It says, a continual dripping on a rainy day. That's a very interesting translation, by the way. It's not really necessarily a rainy day. It's in the midst of a storm. That's what the word is here, storm, a deluge. Well, I guess here, you know, I come from Wyoming, and on rainy days, anytime any water comes out of the sky, and we view that as a huge storm, I've come out here and said to people, man, it's really rainy out today, and you guys say, what are you talking about? It rained today? Wow, yeah, I guess it did. So, I guess this is all relative, I guess. Maybe the people from, that were the translators of the ESV were in Portland or Seattle or here in Astoria going, a rainy day, you know, when it really rains. But that's the idea, right? Have you ever been inside a house in the middle of a storm? Have you ever been in a camper trailer in the middle of a storm? Have you ever been in a tent in the middle of a storm and there was a, there was a, Something was coming from the ceiling. And you're like, that ain't fun. Water from a ceiling? It's annoying. It causes problems. You're always concerned about it. You got to fix it. And it's in the middle of a storm. And we got to get out on the camper trailer to fix the hole in the roof in the camper trailer? Notice it says, a continual tripping on a rainy day and a quarrelsome wife are alike. No explanation is needed here. No, I'm joking. Can husbands be quarrelsome as well? Yeah. And is that just as annoying as a leaky roof? Yeah. The point is spouses, right? Any spouse that just wants to fight for the sake of fighting. You know how annoying that is? You know how draining that is? You just go, oh, why do we have to deal? It's raining. When it's raining, it's literally pouring, right? I mean, that's literally it. We can't win for losing here. Literally, it's like every time I turn, there's this problem, and that problem, and this problem. We've already talked about this quarrelsome wife, or this quarrelsome spouse. It comes from selfishness. I want my way, and I want it the way that I want it. This is annoying, and it hurts, and it takes so much energy. This isn't what God has planned for us in our marriages. Notice what the husband does in this situation. To restrain her is to restrain the wind. Have you tried that? I tried that this week just to see what it looks like. Yeah, doesn't work. Good luck. You can't control it. You can't stop it. Everybody knows it's there. So here you get the picture of a spouse, two spouses, and they're fighting. And the one's trying to say, stop. It's out. It's out. The fight's there. Everybody sees it. And one's saying, please, let's not fight today. I don't want to fight today. Boom. It's a fight. And then notice this next one. It says, and to grasp oil in one's right hand. I use beard oil in my beard. This just doesn't come natural. It comes through products and oil. You know how hard it is to keep oil in your hand? Man, that stuff is slippery. You can't grab onto it. If Solomon was today, he'd probably say it was like nailing jello to a wall, right? Really hard to hold. It doesn't stay. You can't control it, and it's just out of control. Some people have to deal with this, and we pray for you. Right? Some people have to deal with this. We all have family members that we have to deal with. We all have to deal with this. And a wise person, you would say a wise person would have seen this beforehand. A prudent person would have said, yeah, it's cute that she has a dimple, but I don't like any other part of her. Right? And so the wise would have avoided some of those things. A fool would just go right into it and just like, oh, now I got to deal with this. Now I got to work on this. And now we got to work on this. Lots of prayer solves this. Lots of spending time in the word. A lot of the Holy Spirit does this. You know, I think all of us at heart are quarrelsome and arrogant and selfish, and we all like to fight, and it's only because of the power of the Spirit and our love for Jesus and the example of Jesus that we can even live with one another, right? And as a spouse and as a husband, The greatest gift I can get my wife is to walk by the power of the Spirit. And my wife, the greatest gift she can give me is to walk by the power of the Spirit. That's the solution. A lot of things are solved in marriages with that. Notice this next one, this one's pretty well known. Verse 17, it says, as iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another. Kind of an interesting thing, right? You have this idea of how one piece of metal sharpens another piece of metal. And so this talks about the idea of these, it's good to be around people that sharpen you. This is a good thing. It might be annoying as well, but it's a good thing. It's a good thing to have somebody, a good friend, who's willing to tell you the truth in love from God's word so that you're sharp. A lot of people use this verse to say, you know, I need to invest my life in people that are willing to tell me the truth in life. And if they see something in my life, they're willing to be that sharpener, and I'm willing to be that sharpener to another person. That's great. This is a good thing. This is a good thing. This is part of that process of why we have to live with other believers in a church, right? As we come together, we're sharpening each other, right? That's why we're here. to think about how I can stimulate you to love and good deeds. And you're thinking, well, how can I stimulate someone else to love and good deeds? How can we sharpen each other? How can we help each other? How can we encourage one another? Sometimes the blades are sharp already and there's not a lot of sharpening that needs to happen. Sometimes, It's a rusty blade, right? There's a lot of sharpening that needs to happen. But this is important. This is something that we should do, right? As brothers and sisters in the Lord. So think about all the relationships, right? You have the neighbor, right? You have the foolish guy who's buying stuff. You have the fighting spouse. Now you have this good friend who's helping to sharpen you. And then notice this next one. It says, whoever tends a fig tree will eat of its fruit, and he who guards his master will be honored. The idea is, the idea is that as you're working and there's somebody above you like your boss, if you work hard and you seek to help your master from falling into ruin, you will eat from that fruit. It is a good thing to be a good employee. You will eat from that fruit. Sometimes you don't, right? Sometimes things fall apart. That's really sad. But the principle is, you do the best for your boss. You do it, you do it. And you don't do it so that you could get something, you do it as to the Lord, right? This thing that I'm doing in my job, I'm doing this to honor the Lord and to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ so that people will say, look at the power of the gospel even in this one. So I'm working hard and I'm protecting my boss and I'm helping my boss and I want him to be successful because I realize if he's successful, I get to eat from that tree, right? I'll get dividends from that, amen, right? That's the principle. We should not be, it shouldn't even be named amongst us as believers to be people that are part of coups, to overtake bosses, right? We should never be one of those people that is the source of workplace drama. We should not be a part of that. This is wise. This is that practical worship that we have throughout our life. Every moment, worshiping the Lord. Every moment thinking, how should I act? How would Christ act here? Walking by the power of the Spirit. And as I think about this, I think this is incredibly practical, right? This past week I was, I bought some guitar stuff. I know that's probably a shock. I bought some guitar pedals. I know that's probably a shock to a lot of people. But I needed a new pedal. Once again, probably not a huge shock. But I had one pedal that was designed by an engineer. I had another pedal that was designed by a player. You know the difference between those? The one that's designed by the player is a lot easier to use. The one that's designed by the engineer, that's really difficult to use. Now, it might be a better machine, right? But it's not the most practical because it doesn't have the player in mind. It has the product in mind. The other one has the player in mind, right? As I'm playing, I needed to do a certain thing. I can't be sitting there goofing with my feet while I'm trying to play. It just needs to do what it says it does. I think of this, and I think of it like this. Think about how practical this worship is. This is the advantage of biblical theology. This is the advantage of being biblical. Just think about how easy this is. No legalism, no other adjectives. It's just practical every day. I can go out and do all of this as soon as I leave, and this brings honor and glory to Jesus Christ when I'm not here. Right, isn't that great? I don't need t-shirts and bumper stickers and all these other things. All I gotta say, here it is, here it is, it's outlined, it's so simple, so practical, so easy, and I can honor and glorify Jesus Christ in this. And so, I would implore you to be practical worshipers. every day, every second, every situation. Be Christ-like, walk by the power of the Spirit. Worship in those little moments. Honor the Lord Jesus Christ in those little moments. Whether it's with believers or non-believers, it doesn't matter, in those little moments, honor and glorify God. Let's go ahead and let's pray, and then the musicians will come up. Father, we thank you so very much for your son, Jesus. We thank you so very much for the things that You've afforded to us because of him. We thank you for the word and for the spirit. Just thank you for my brothers and sisters who are here. We just ask that you would help us be better at worshiping you and that we would seek to honor and glorify you in every moment, in every aspect of our life. We thank you and love you in your son's name, amen.