Proverbs 17:1-8

Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This is where every day we get together, we get into God's word, and we grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, 2021, we'll make it through all the wisdom literature. Today we're at Proverbs chapter 17, the first eight verses.
I need to apologize to you that I wasn't able to get on here yesterday. Sometimes with life and ministry, the Lord gives you things you don't anticipate and your schedule changes. And so yesterday was one of those days where there needed to be some people needed my time and people needed my help. And so I wasn't able to get on here with you. I'm so sorry about that.
So instead, I'm going to try to do this on Saturday as well. So we'll do Tuesday through Saturday this week. Well, why don't we have some coffee? We'll pray and we'll get into God's word. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day. We thank you for your word. We thank you for what a blessing it is to be your people, to sit at your feet. We pray that you would teach us and watch over us this day in Jesus's name. Amen. Here we go. Proverbs chapter 17, the first eight verses.
Better is a dry morsel with quietness than a house full of feasting with strife. It is you can you can Have you ever seen this before? Maybe at Christmas times or holidays or something like that where there's a huge feast and everybody is, there's all this food and yet there's tension so thick that you can cut it with a knife and you're like, I'd rather have just stayed home and had croutons on my salad instead. It would have been better just to go somewhere where there was peace. That's what this is saying here, right? Be those who are peacemakers, not just acting like everything is great and having a feast when there's strife and fighting and tension and anger.
Verse two, a wise servant will rule over a son who causes shame and will share an inheritance among his brothers. A wise servant is one who is able to kind of control. someone who's difficult to work with. I was just talking to a man, and he was talking about how difficult it was to raise a teenager. And I told this person, I told this child, and I told this child, and they just still don't get it. And the older man I was with, a much wiser man than me, said, yeah, I know. You'll tell them 500 times, and maybe the 501st will listen. A wise person knows how to raise up, and here it's the servant, right? The servant is able to raise up that unruly child. And what happens for that servant? They get a part of the inheritance at the end. Let me just say, I don't know if this is Teacher Appreciation Month. I don't know what year is Teacher Appreciation Month, but praise God for teachers who will patiently raise difficult students. Verse 3.
The refining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold. But the Lord tests the heart. How do you get silver to get out all the dross? And how do you get gold to get out all of the impurities in it? Well, you heat it up until it melts. And when it melts, the pure stuff stays, and you're able to take out the dross. You're able to take out the impurities in it.
But what does the Lord do? The Lord puts us through trials. The Lord puts us in the furnace and he purifies our hearts by it. Sometimes we think that it's an odd thing or a weird thing that we're going through trials and hardships, but the Lord is using that to refine our hearts. Don't count as strange when you encounter trials and tribulations. The Lord is refining your heart.
Verse four. A mocker in verse, sorry, verse four, an evildoer heeds false lips. Just listening to gossip, just waiting to hear, you know, tickling ears, waiting to hear something that's not true. A liar listens eagerly to a spiteful tongue. We got to keep the ninth commandment, right? We need to preserve our neighbor's good name. We need to not listen to false accusations and just gossip. rumors and lies. No, I don't need to hear that.
Verse four, he who mocks the poor reproaches his maker. He who is glad at calamity will not go unpunished. who mocks the poor reproaches his maker." God made the poor. God made those who are destitute and lowly. Jesus associated with them. Jesus came not into a, you know, into a rich palace, but Jesus came into a poor family. So to reproach the poor is to reproach the one who made them. God's made us in our several stations and places in life, and some people are poor, and they didn't have any choice about it. Just where they were born and who they were born to.
The second part here though, this is, I struggle with this one, he who is glad at calamity will not go unpunished. Have you ever met someone like that who just likes to see people fail, who just likes to push people's red buttons, who just wants to see pain and suffering I think that this is actually part of our society, and to be honest with you, I've caught myself with this. I was challenged by this by one of my good friends, Mark Brown, one time in a sermon, where we're kind of given over to this. There's entire channels about it, like Fail Army, where we watch people fall and get hurt, and we laugh at their calamity. We take pleasure in people's pain, and the Lord's saying, that's not what we're supposed to do.
Verse six, children's children are a crown of old men and the glory of children is their father. We live in a day and age where having children is like something that's against our happiness, but here the Lord says children are a blessing. Having children and having grandchildren is like having a crown upon your head. This is a sign of God's goodness to you, that you have family to love, that you have people to care for, that you get to show the love of God to others.
We need to treat our children as if they are blessings and not somehow impeding our happiness. verse 7 excellent speech is not becoming to a fool much less lying lips to a prince excellent speech is not just like a fool doesn't speak wisdom We should be shocked when rulers speak lies.
We want rulers who tell the truth. We want rulers who stand up. And I know this is kind of crazy to say in our American culture, where we just think lawyers and politicians are always liars. And a lot of politicians are former lawyers. But the reality is that we should be shocked and outraged when we find out that our politicians are lying. It should be just as shocking when we hear a fool say something wise.
Verse 8. A present is a precious stone in the eyes of its possessor. Wherever he turns, he prospers. What is this actually saying? I really actually like the paraphrase of the New Living Translation here. It says, a bribe is like a lucky charm. They think success will come at every turn. bribes kind of puff people up, make them think that they can just continue to be prosperous.
Oh, it went well with me with this, so everywhere I turn I'm going to have success, but that's not how things work. verse oh no that was it verses one through eight we're done all right well let's go ahead and pray father we thank you so much for this day we thank you for your word we thank you for letting us know the realities of life that even trials and tribulations are gifts from you to refine our hearts lord we pray that you would press these truths into our souls and let us live them in our lives in jesus's name amen well may you rejoice in your family today May you, as you're going through struggles in your life, know that the Lord is not done with you yet. And may you always hope in Jesus Christ. I'll see you tomorrow. Bye.