2022-11-15 A Word to the Wise

The speaker talks about the importance of sharing wisdom with others and when to do so. They share personal stories about trying to correct someone and not being well-received. They emphasize the need to consider the audience and only correct those who are wise enough to hear it. They reference scripture from Proverbs that supports this idea. They also discuss the importance of repetition and the value of sharing wisdom with those who will appreciate it. The speaker encourages listeners to choose an audience who will listen and to share wisdom with humility. They conclude by encouraging listeners to stop and think before correcting someone and to assess their own motives for sharing wisdom. They emphasize the importance of sharing wisdom and the potential positive impact it can have. Well, tonight I am going to be talking about wisdom, about sharing wisdom with others when you should, when you shouldn't, that sort of thing. So if you're like me, then probably directly after you open up Facebook or Instagram or Twitter or the YouTube comment section or any kind of social media, sometimes you have to immediately shut it down and walk away, right? Many times I've scrolled past or through a controversial post or even more controversial comments down below, and before you know it, I'm trying to argue with somebody about their comments that I see as rude or disrespectful or ill-informed and all that stuff, and I'm trying to convince them of what I think about something. I remember a few years back on a Christian public forum, I came across this post, I was probably like, I don't know, like 15 or something at the time, and I came across this post and somebody jokingly basically made some sort of jokes saying, the joke was that they couldn't believe that a Canadian could also be a Christian, right? They were American, whatever, and that is a joke, and I was dumb and naive and it completely went over my head that that was a joke. So I responded back being like, well, you know, how ignorant is that, like, Canadians can be Christian, and I know lots of Canadians who are Christians, so what are you talking about, right? And they kind of sarcastically apologized, and that went over my head too, so when I tried to say something positive back after that, they just kind of responded like, what, you think we're best friends now, what's your problem, you dumb kid kind of thing, you know? And I felt really dumb and offended that someone on a Christian site, no less especially, was kind of throwing what I thought in my mind at the time was kind of just a gentle correction, right? And they threw it back in my face. Have you guys ever been here to try to correct someone like that, has it ever, like, ever in the history of the internet gone, like, positively, anybody walked away with a positive experience? And maybe you're not the social media type, but you can't help but correct someone when they're saying or doing something outrageous, you've got to say something, right? There's a time and a place for correction, I think we'd all agree with that, right? But if we agree with that, the implication is, if there's a time and a place for correction, there's a time and a place to not correct. My message tonight is titled, A Word to the Wise, because the big idea that I want to share with you is that we should correct, but only those who are wise enough to hear it, and we need to consider our audience, right? Let's see what scripture has to say about this. So in Proverbs 9, verses 7 to 9, we get, anyone who rebukes a mocker will get an insult in return. Anyone who corrects the wicked will get hurt. So don't bother correcting mockers, they will only hate you, but correct the wise, and they will love you. Instruct the wise, and they will be even wiser. Teach the righteous, and they will learn even more. So roughly the first nine chapters of the book of Proverbs focuses more so on the idea that wisdom is a good thing. You might think that's a no-brainer, but they really wanted to drive that home. Wisdom is a good thing, you should seek it. It makes a lot of analogies about pursuing wisdom the way one might pursue a beautiful woman and to run and avoid foolishness like you might run from a toxic person. Much of Proverbs, once it actually gets into sharing the wisdom part, also has a lot of statements, contrasting statements, right? Contrasting statements where it states something in the positive, and then the same thing in the negative form, and an example right here in what we just read says, so don't bother correcting mockers, they will only hate you. So that's the negative, but correct the wise, and they will love you. Same information, positive now. But the reason this is relevant is because good communicators know that repetition can be highly effective. Did you also know that good communicators know that repetition can be highly effective? You see what I did there, right? We as readers of God's Word need to take special note when we see repetition in the Bible as an alert to listen up if something really important is being said. In the original language, particularly in the Old Testament as well, when anything is repeated, that is their way of putting an exclamation point on it. That's how they wrote back then. So, you know, there are some times where maybe you've been reading in the Old Testament in the Bible particularly, and you're like, why did they just say, you know, like, and God told Moses, here's a whole bunch of details, and then Moses is like, cool, I'm going to go tell Aaron all the exact same details, and then Aaron's going to tell all the people all the exact same details, and you're like, why is this so repetitive? It's because that was their way of showing that what, the information that's being said is really, really important, right? So, Proverbs also strongly echoes the idea that the wise will get wiser, and the foolish will get more foolish, and wisdom can be found by those who really want it. Here we see wisdom can be wasted, too, right? There's a joke on the phrase that I've titled this message, A Word to the Wise. People sometimes say, why give a word to the wise? They're already wise. They don't need it, right? But the reality is the wise are the only ones who are wise enough to listen. So the thing that's funny is that we usually want to correct the people we disagree with, right? The people we're mad at, the people that we don't like necessarily, but often those are the last people who will listen to us, and it's us who might need to wise up here. Part of wising up brings us to my first point, which is, don't choose an audience who won't listen. Proverbs 9.7 says, anyone who rebukes a mocker will get an insult in return. Anyone who corrects the wicked will get hurt. You've got a cause and effect here. People are stubborn. I know that I am. Anybody else stubborn? Are you too stubborn to raise your hand? Is that what it is? Okay. You know, my dad, he has a great sense of humor, but he's also keenly aware of something that he shared with me a lot, is that oftentimes what people joke about can reveal something about themselves, right? Especially if there's a negative connotation to the joking, right? For example, I often make jokes, if somebody's talking about singing or that kind of stuff, I make jokes about that I'm not a very good singer, that kind of thing, or I might make a joke about my intelligence level, because I'm insecure about those things, right? So it reveals something about myself. As a kid, I would often make, you know, if I got in an argument or something like that, you know, I'd be like making jokes about the person I'm arguing with to sort of put them down, right? And my dad would try to correct me, and of course, I just thought I was hilarious, so I wasn't listening, I'm like, whatever, right? But if I'd unbiasedly observe myself and listened, I'd realize that at those times, I didn't really want to share a useful opinion, I just wanted to put someone down to make myself feel better, right? And that was foolish of me, and as I was being foolish, trying to correct me at that point really didn't get my dad very far, in fact, and maybe it may end up having me make jokes about him, right? And that kind of disrespect was wrong, and in that case, my dad was giving valuable advice to, let's be honest, a fool in that moment, that's what I was being. And when I did listen, I was better for that correction. Now, not everyone is going to listen to you. There are contexts where we're not in a position to correct a mocker, as it says, and we're wasting our time. But here's the difference, in the last example I used, there's a relationship between a father and a son, right? And if I'm clear-minded in that situation, then I have a motivation to hear from that person, who I know cares about me, loves me just like a heavenly father, right? And he loves us, and so we put out motivation. But the thing is, oftentimes a lot of people are trying to correct people they don't really have an established relationship with, right? Have you ever had somebody that just comes up to you and gives you some advice, and you're just kind of like, I don't know you, why are you even telling me this, right? There's that old saying that no one cares what you know until they know that you care. When I work with youth and that sort of thing, they are not going to care about anything that I have to say, and by extension, even about what the Bible has to say, unless I build a trust, unless I show them that they have something to trust, right? You've got to start there. Which brings us to my second point. We read in verse 8 that, rebuke the wise and they will love you. I've got a slightly different translation than is up there, a very different translation because there's nothing up there. So don't bother correcting mockers, they will only hate you, but correct the wise and they will love you. Here we see that as much as you invite insult when you correct those who are unwilling to hear wisdom, you invite appreciation from those wise enough to listen. My second point on that is choose an audience who will appreciate wisdom. Have you guys ever received a really good piece of advice? I'll throw one out here. I remember years ago when I worked at a newspaper, and at the time, all I was doing was, we called it stuffing, which just makes you think of Thanksgiving, but what it was is we take a flyer and you put it in the newspaper, and then you grab the next newspaper and you put a flyer in, and at the end of your day, your hands are completely black from newspaper ink and that sort of thing, and we called that stuffing. But one day, and then we get a certain amount of newspapers in stacks, and then you put them on the baler, and you get the strapping, they call it, it goes over and it seals it together, and then you get enough of those bundles up on a skid, and then you wrap it up, and then you put it on the truck, right? I was just doing the stuffing part, someone asked me, hey, you want to learn how to use a strapping machine? I said, okay, sure, and then they said, you want to learn how to wrap the things up on a skid? I said, okay, sure. And there was an older gentleman who worked there, and he said, Chris, keep that up. Anytime anybody wants to show you how to do something, just say yes. They say, do you know how to do this thing? Just say, I'd like, if you don't know, just tell them, yeah, teach me, and then I'll know. He said, because before you know it, you'll be indispensable, because you'll be the only one here who knows how to do anything, right? So I've benefited over the years from good advice. This sermon, just to be transparent here, when I did a course on preaching, this was my final project a while back, and I've updated it since then, and I've had other people, because it was a final project, I had a bunch of different pastors and people look over it, and it improved it greatly from the original draft. You can all be thankful you're not hearing the original draft. They didn't write it for me, but they gave me considerations that I could use to adapt that advice helped me. Thing to think about here is when you're correcting or offering wisdom or input to someone, are you expecting a positive word or an act of appreciation response? We shouldn't use that as the primary motivation in giving correction, but it is helpful to think about whether or not your audience is going to appreciate that. Is the person that you're giving that to going to appreciate that? Because you might think no one's going to appreciate that, but there are people who do. I saw this Instagram clip from a preacher named Michael Todd this morning, and he pointed out that pro athletes actually pay people to criticize, critique, and correct them. They're called trainers, and these are professionals. People you would think, well, this guy's amazing. He doesn't need a critique, but he's like, no, I need a critique so that I can get better. Not everyone is going to want to hear it, but like Jesus focused on the disciples and those who were following him and people who wanted to hear about the kingdom of heaven and what he was bringing about, he focused on those people rather than the people mocking him rather than the Pharisees and the different people criticizing him in a negative sense of it. He focused on those who were willing to listen, which brings me to my last point for you. Choose to share wisdom. It's worth it. In verse nine, we read, instruct the wise and they will be even wiser. Teach the righteous and they will learn even more. Being shut down when you try to offer help, when you try to offer insights from your own life and that kind of thing to someone else can be very discouraging. You might feel like there's no place to offer and share wisdom, but it's worthwhile. After assessing our own motives for why we want to share, because that's really important too. Do you want to share to prove a point? Do you want to share to help someone? So after we share our own motives and we assess the hearers, we have to think about are they going to receive this message, are we wasting our efforts, and are we the ones who should be learning here instead? That's something we have to look through, right? Get yourself in the company of those who want to listen and share with humility. But share with other people you respect that are wise, that you're also willing to learn from. Both you and they will reap the benefits. I'll give you an example of this. It'd be like an accountability partner relationship. Sometimes that's seen in the spiritual sense. It doesn't have to be. It can just be you and somebody else who are trying to achieve a certain goal. Maybe you made a New Year's resolution that you want to hit the gym more often, and you share that with someone else, and they encourage you to keep up with their goals, but then challenge you as well to see if you are. But it's got to be someone you trust, right, and you've got that agreed upon objective. That person's got to be ready to hear wisdom too. I remember one time where I started this accountability partnership kind of thing with someone else. We both were like, oh yeah, we want to challenge each other to grow, and there's this big excitement. But once we got into actually talking about things, the first time we met together, I was opening up, sharing about things in my life, struggles with things that I'd like to grow and improve in. As soon as I got to him, it's just kind of like, well, you know, let's change the subject. You know what I mean? He didn't want to talk in that way, so he wasn't ready. And you know, you've got to have grace for people in that, and leave them to God, because only God can fix them. That's a little extra nugget for you there. You can't fix anyone. If there's anybody here who thinks they can, give it up, move on, you can't. Leave them to God, pray for them. You can fix yourself. That is the one person in this world that you can actually do work on, is you, right? But for those who are willing to listen, you'll have helped them grow, and that's worth it, right? So, in summary, consider your motives in sharing wisdom. Give wisdom to those wise enough to hear it. Be wise enough to hear it from others, yourself, as well. Approach each situation with gentleness, and be willing to let go of an argument without expecting mockers to respond like wise men. Consider your audience, and give a word to the wise that's worth it. So this week, as you go about your life, and you're tempted to correct someone right away, stop. Think. You know, it's a stop, drop, and roll, right? This is going to be your version of this, stop, think, right? Consider the situation, pray about it, ask God to check your heart. Is it something that maybe you need to look at change first, before you're correcting the other person? You know, I was just talking to someone today about this, actually, as well, but that when we're going through, well, I'll explain it this way. I was talking to another pastor today who, we were talking about the excitement. When you see someone who's preaching a message, and they're excited, I was saying, I was watching this guy online, and I'm like, man, this guy is excited, like genuinely excited, not like just like putting on a show, there's a rah, rah, rah, there's this boom, bop, right? He actually seemed really, really excited for what he was saying, and what I was realizing as I watched more of his stuff, and thinking through it, and praying on it, I'm like, okay, the reason he's excited is because he is spending time with the Lord, obviously, like we should hope, right? He's spending time with the Lord, he's in prayer, he's letting God do a work in his own life, and then he's letting the message preach to him first. That's really, really important, right? Because as a preacher, if you're preaching a message and you're not excited for it, that means one of two things. You didn't preach it to yourself first, you're not living it yourself first, or whatever you're saying is really not that relevant, it's just kind of a waste of time, right? Because God's Word is exciting, so if you're speaking His Word, it's going to be exciting. But I say all that to say that as one prepares to speak something like this, and this doesn't just apply to me, this applies to everyone in this room, whether you're speaking in a setting like this, you're speaking to a coworker, you're speaking to a friend, those kind of things, as you prepare to share something, it's got to go through you first for it to be relevant to the person you're talking about. Like who in this room is going to go to somebody and say, hey, I really recommend that you go watch this movie. I haven't seen it, but you should really see it. Why would anybody follow your advice at that point? Like, well, you don't even know if it's good, why am I going to go watch this movie then? That doesn't even make sense, right? So it's got to come through you, assess yourself, see if you are practicing what you preach when you try and give people this advice. But there is a place for it. There's things that God is going to speak to you to share to someone else, and in a way that only you can do, right? And that's the really amazing thing, right? Some people have an idea that it's people who stand up front in a setting like this that are the only people that can tell people about Jesus, and that's just, I'm here to tell you that's nonsense, because what I'm here to do is encourage you. What I'm here to do is I have an opportunity to get you excited about what it says in God's Word, but I'll never replace a personal relationship that you can have, and the amazing thing is Scripture talks about how the hope—I forget the exact verse here, but it basically says that Jesus Christ in us is basically the hope, right, is the hope of glory and all this stuff, right? But I want to be very careful how I phrase this. I find it interesting that it doesn't make simply the statement that Jesus Christ is the hope of glory—He is—but it specifically talks about Jesus Christ in us, right? And I'm not saying that we are on the level of God—don't misunderstand me here. What I'm saying is that He chooses—He doesn't need us—He chooses to express Himself through us to people, right? And I think that's beautiful. It's like the kid that wants to help, you know, do something, and you just give them like the play pans or the play hammer, and they think they're doing something really amazing, right? But God brings us into this situation because—my dad always used to put it like this—your particular scent, your particular—like in a painting, like where each of the color in the painting kind of thing, right? That there—He's the artist, but the artist uses a paintbrush. The artist uses certain colors, right? And so that particular—your particular flavor, your particular scent is going to be something that connects with someone in a very special way, you know, that God is able to reach them in a way that, you know, there's a way that John can connect with someone that no one else in this room can. There's a way that God can that no one else in this room can, right? So don't discount your ability to speak some wisdom and some advice into somebody's life, but let it be real in you first. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank You that Your Word contains endless wisdom, that Your Word has wisdom for our life, has wisdom for the people You've placed in our lives, Lord. We pray that we would truly learn what You are trying to teach us through Your Word, Lord, and through the experiences in our life that You teach us things, Lord, and I pray that You would help us to take those things and use them to share with others to help improve their lives, but help us to be humble, help us to be patient with people, to assess our motives and to really want to benefit others rather than to look smart or to make a point with people, Lord God. Help us to have such a heart to want to help, Lord, that we can ultimately point people back to the wisdom of Your Word, and I pray that each person here would not discount the unique ways that You have made them to be able to speak to the unique set of people in their lives, Lord. So we just thank You for all of this, in Jesus' name, Amen. Well, thanks so much for coming out, guys, and I hope to see you next week, 5.30 for the meal and 6.30 for the music and the message, and if anybody wants to talk or pray or any of that kind of stuff, we'll be out there to chat with you, but thanks so much for coming, guys, and God bless.