Proverbs 10:9-21
Whoever walks in integrity walks securely,
but whoever takes crooked paths will be found out.
10 Whoever winks maliciously causes grief,
and a chattering fool comes to ruin.
11 The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life,
but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.
12 Hatred stirs up conflict,
but love covers over all wrongs.
13 Wisdom is found on the lips of the discerning,
but a rod is for the back of one who has no sense.
14 The wise store up knowledge,
but the mouth of a fool invites ruin.
15 The wealth of the rich is their fortified city,
but poverty is the ruin of the poor.
16 The wages of the righteous is life,
but the earnings of the wicked are sin and death.
17 Whoever heeds discipline shows the way to life,
but whoever ignores correction leads others astray.
18 Whoever conceals hatred with lying lips
and spreads slander is a fool.
19 Sin is not ended by multiplying words,
but the prudent hold their tongues.
20 The tongue of the righteous is choice silver,
but the heart of the wicked is of little value.
21 The lips of the righteous nourish many,
but fools die for lack of sense.
Listening guide
Get a little more integrity
Everyone lives with a deep conflict between what we profess and practice.
“a chattering fool comes to ruin”
“The tongue of the righteous is choice silver, but the heart of the wicked is of little value”
“The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life” (10:11)
“The lips of the righteous nourish many” (10:21)
Whole lives mean we profess and practice the same thing.
Sermon
I planted a hydrangea for my wife with my kids this mother’s day.
For years, I’ve resisted. My wife would say things like, “I’d like a hydrangea. Can we get a hydrangea? Wouldn’t a hydrangea be nice?” I’d say, no. I’d say, they look nice but they’re a huge mess. The bring bees. And then this year I said, yes, let’s get one.
I’m trying to get better at saying, “Let me think about it. Give me some time.”
What I love is saying, “Yes, let’s do it” and then do it right away. The kids say, can we have ice cream. Let’s do it! Excitement everywhere. “Can you pray for us?” Sure. “Got some time to talk?” Get to listen well, see the pleasure and delight.
Adventure
That’s the promise today. If you and I live with integrity, we’ll bring delight to the people around us.Proverbs opens today saying, “Whoever walks in integrity walks securely”. Integrity does so many things for your life – joy, excitement, celebration, security.
We’ve said, let’s accept correction and experience delight. We’ve said, Be humble and you’ll get more than you deserve. People who give freely have security.
Let me help you do those things. Brene Brown says that integrity is “you choose to practice your values rather than simply professing them.” Let’s do that.
Discover
We way underestimate the challenge of saying what we want and then doing it. Sometimes we have to say things like “Just tell the truth”, “be honest”, or “let your yes be yes and your no be no.” I think what we all experience is so much harder. Jesus gives us this example of two sons.
When you read these two sons (change slide), you’ve got to put aside “right”. Jesus tells us of a dad and his two sons. He asks the first to go to work. He says no and later goes. The other says yes and then doesn’t go. Jesus praises the first. I think most of us say, “wait, what about the third”.
We imagine the third son, the ideal son. The one who says, “yes dad, I’d love to chop down that tree for you and then I’ll log it, then split the logs and stack them right there next to the fireplace.” Okay that doesn’t happen anymore. More likely, yes dad, I’ll actually make sure the bathroom light is turned off when I leave it. But that’s not Jesus’ point.
Jesus is saying, you’re right, there should be an ideal son. There should be a perfect son who always does the right thing. We’ll get to that later. He is saying, let me tell you the two ways you can mess integrity up.
The first way, the first son, he tells dad “no”. This is a picture of irreligion. We say, “let me do what I want to do. You can’t tell me what to do with my life.” While we might say this to friends or family or a boss, Jesus is pointing out, look, ultimately, everyone of us says no to God an awful lot. We do it all the time in our lives. That’s not Jesus main concern though, is it?
That's the crazy thing! The second way to fail integrity, the second son, he tells his dad “yes” but then he doesn’t do it. He doesn’t follow through. This is a picture of religiosity or legalism. It’s saying, I just want to make you happy. If I agree to what you say, will that make you happy God? Will you accept me God?I'm going to say yes and give it my best effort, how does that sound?
This is the kind of thing religious people do all the time. Jesus is not so concerned with fixing everyone else. He is saying, do you have your stuff together? Can I give us an example?
One of the things that bugged Martin Luther was all the statues and relics in the churches of the 1500s. Relics were items supposedly left over from religious heroes long dead, like slivers of the cross. He told people, why do you hold on to these things? Why do you revere and adore them? They don’t rescue you.
What he never said was, destroy it all. Destroy the relics, destroy the statues, and destroy the churches. He never told people to get rid of the public buildings or damage the items that weren’t theirs in anyway. When someone else started telling people to do that, he left hiding and preached some of his most famous sermons. He said, “[if one] forces the issue, it follows that those blaspheme who do not understand and who act only because of the coercion of the law and not with a free conscience. Their idea that they can please God with works becomes a real idol and a false assurance in the heart. Such legalism results in putting away outward images while filling the heart with idols." (Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 40: Church and Ministry II, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 40 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 84–85.)
Luther was convinced that people couldn’t be compelled to get rid of the relics and the churches. That was like saying to them, “say yes!” “You’ve got to say yes! And then we’re going to make you do it. That’s the only way God will be happy.
The problem is much worse than we imagine. I think so many of us say, if I just learn to say no to things, then I’ll actually be able to do what I say I want to do. That is something we should say. We need to practice that. That barely gets at the problem.
Or we say, if I just get more organized and figure out what tasks are really important to me, then I’ll be able to follow up. That’s good. Do that. That only gets started too. The problem is worse than we imagine. Let me share this illustration.
I've got here some vegetable oil and water. I think it’s pretty common knowledge. If I try to mix these two together, what happens? Will they mix together? No, they won’t. Like this.
Here is the thing. Everyone lives with a deep conflict between what we profess and practice. That’s our first take away today. Even the people who have the most integrated, the most put together lives. They live with a deep conflict.
Proverbs has two great proverbs for it:
Twice in these verses he says, “a chattering fool comes to ruin”. That means the problem is someone’s mouth. So we start to think, the problem is what we say. We just need to shut up.
But then he goes “Proverbs 10:19 The tongue of the righteous is choice silver, but the heart of the wicked is of little value. What’s the problem? It's not just the tongue of the foolish person. It’s the heart. Remember in the ancient world, the heart is not what you feel. It’s who you are.
It’s true that everything comes from who you are. It’s also true that your tongue has incredible power to direct you. Our identity and our mouths drive a conflict. Everyone lives with a deep conflict between what we profess and practice. And I would suggest to you, that there is only one thing to do.
We need to add something to make them make mix. Oil and water only mix if I add something. Common ones are milk or soap. Yes, I know, there is some really cool science now that breaks down oil into such tiny particles that it can actually mix, but that is kind of beside the point. Normal people, we need to add something.
There are a couple of neat proverbs that show us what we need to add. For example,
“The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life” (10:11)
“The lips of the righteous nourish many” (10:21)
Proverbs points out, we need a mouth that brings life. We need lips that nourish. I bet you, like me, know some people who have nourished you. But ultimately, not many. Most people don’t make me say, “hooray”! Most people don’t make me celebrate. Most people can’t hug me after a bad and really convince me that it will be okay.
I would put to you that ultimately, this is Jesus. I don’t think you’ll find anyone else who could say, “this is what I promise you I will do” and actually did it. Even the people alive with Jesus noted his integrity.They noted his ability to bring life to other people. The religious teachers one time said, “teacher we know that you are a man of integrity and teach the way of God in accordance with the truth”. How did he do so well keeping his professing and practicing together?
The basis of his claim is that he is both God and man. He is fully God and fully man. He was never mixed up about it. It’s not like he was random oil particles floating around in water. He didn’t have a God finger her and a man toe there. There was nothing mixed up about Jesus.
That means, when you say, “I believe in Jesus as my Savior and Lord”, you are finally taking something into your life that has its act together. You profess anything else, you practice anything else. I guarantee you that at some point in your life, where you are going to have to deal with conflict. Not just out there, but inside yourself. But do you know what you get with Jesus?
You get the one guy who could resolve the conflict. Who could bring two things that don’t go together,together. You got the one guy in the world who could bring truth and love together. He is the one guy who could say, Sin deserves death. Sin must be punished. God hates sin and the sinful people who carry it around. He wants nothing more than to drive it from himself. At the same time he could say, God loves the world. God loves real people. God loves this world he has made. He wants nothing more than to be with this world.
Look at this. Look at what Jesus does on the cross. The cross means God’s law cannot be broken. God’s holiness and righteousness have to be satisfied. He must keep his word. At the same time the cross means we are pardoned. We are forgiven despite our sins. We are embraced and accepted.
The moment Jesus died, it’s not just God’s truth or God’s love were satisfied. At that moment, both the truth and the love of God were totally and completely satisfied.
The cross brought them together. I know that sometimes they seem to be in conflict. “But if I tell the truth, I don’t know if that’s loving, or if I really …” In other words, they seem to be in conflict, they but heads, but they aren’t, and when the cross comes into the center of your life, they won’t be, either.
One of the best examples of this, its also one of the worst examples of breaking integrity in the Bible. I was reminded of this during my devotions the other day. After Jesus ascended, the Christians began to integrate the uncircumcised Gentiles into the Christian church. They had always accepted the converts who got circumcised, but there was an event with a man named Cornelius. Then they began to welcome the uncircumcised.
This is how Peter lived. Peter was one of the most important followers of Jesus. Definitely a guy showing people the way. He welcomed the uncircumcised Gentiles and ate with them. One day some visitors came. Peter was concerned they wouldn’t accept him. He felt the conflict. And he stopped eating with the Gentiles.
Finally the apostle Paul came. Basically he said, “What are you doing? Faith in Jesus Christ saves, not doing the right thing.” Then he went on to say, “if you find yourself with the people who say “no” to keeping all of God’s law, you’re not breaking God’s law. All you’re doing is proving that truth and love are satisfied in Jesus.” And Peter changed.
Whole lives. Whole lives mean we can profess and practice the same thing. That’s what you and I get with the cross. Whole lives.
Action
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Whole lives mean we profess and practice the same thing. That's wisdom for a good life.