"Wisdom's Discernment" Proverbs 23:1-12 Sunday Evening Worship Service

Now I want to look at Proverbs 23 verses 6 through 11 and look at what the book of Proverbs says about discernment.

Proverbs 23:6–11

Proverbs 23 verse 6.

Proverbs 23:6

Do not eat the bread of a man who is stingy.

Don't desire his delicacies.

For he is like one who's inwardly calculating.

Eat and drink, he says to you, his heart isn't with you.

You'll vomit up the morsels that you've eaten and waste your pleasant words.

Don't speak in the hearing of a fool, for he will despise the good sense of your words.

Don't move an ancient landmark or enter the fields of the fatherless, for their redeemer is strong, and he will plead their cause against you.

Apply your heart to instruction and your ear to words of knowledge.

This is the word of God.

And these are somewhat mysterious passages, but they are under the heading of discernment.

Discernment is the biblical category for growing in godliness, such as that you move from being gullible to being wise.

That's discernment.

That you go from being a sucker to being sophisticated.

There's a biblical category for that, discernment.

The Dictionary of Bible themes defines discernment as, quote, the sound judgment which makes possible the distinguishing of good from evil, the recognition of God's right ways for his people.

It's necessary for the understanding of spiritual realities, and on a practical level, for right government and the avoidance of life's pitfalls.

That's discernment.

The ability to navigate life, recognizing that some things are dangerous and some things are helpful, and knowing the difference.

Because he said it's just too hard to know that in New Mexico there's so many kinds of edible mushrooms and so many kinds of poisonous mushrooms that have morphed to look exactly like the edible ones, and unless you grew them in your own little plant or your own little pot in your own little greenhouse, good luck out there.

The serma is the ability to distinguish what is poisonous and what is life-giving.

It's often been said that bank tellers, when they get hired, spend the first several days of their training only counting real money so that when they are introduced to, you know, behind the counter in the actual bank and a counterfeit bill comes across their purview, they have seen the real thing so often they might not even be able to identify why it's fake or why it's fraudulent, but they can just tell something's off.

And then I've had other people say, oh, that's just an old wives tale with all due respect to old wives.

It's not an urban legend.

Bank tellers don't really do that kind of thing.

But I track down in a book uh on discernment by Tim Chalys, and he tracked down an actual teller training school in Canada that teaches their people how to count money doing exactly that.

So there's at least one school somewhere in the world that teaches people how to recognize the counterfeit by just constant exposure to the real thing.

That's discernment.

Where you're so familiar with what is true, you recognize what is false, even if you can't articulate it.

You recognize what is false because it doesn't feel right, it doesn't smell right, it doesn't look right.

Part of discernment is just simple gullibility.

Immature people fall for scams.

I was an interim pastor at a church in uh actually outside 29 Palms Marine Base.

There's probably very few places in the uh United States that would know where that is, but this church, I'm sure a lot of people have probably lived there.

And that church, when I was interim pastor, I was not an elder.

I had no role in this process at all, but while I was there, the elders disciplined a person out of the church because she kept getting swindled by these scams.

And you think, oh, but that's not loving to her.

She's an innocent victim.

Well, yes, she's an innocent victim, but she would be hitting up people in the church all the time for money.

She only needs a hundred, she has a million dollars waiting for her.

She only needs a hundred dollars for you so that it can clear customs and get to her.

That's all she needs.

And so you give her the hundred dollars because she's a precious old lady who lives in the middle of the desert, and you feel sorry for her.

And then next week she's back at church and she's like, you wouldn't believe this, but it actually, the the package actually got stopped by federal marshals, and they have a tax embargo on it, and I need a hundred dollars to get it out of the hands of the federal marshals.

And this kept going on, and her family was pleading with her, and the the elders of the church are pleading with her.

It's not true.

There's not a million dollars in a warehouse in Bakersfield.

There might be a million dollars in a warehouse in Bakersfield, but it's not yours.

And she wouldn't believe it.

You know, she wanted to know what evidence did the elders have to show her that money wasn't hers?

What evidence did they have?

What was the proof of the text messages?

And we're like, well, the text, every word is misspelled.

You know, I am a federal marshal, I have money, send me a Walmart gift card.

You're like, I don't think so.

Like, why not?

That's part of discernment, is your and that's a that's a very extreme example.

That is at play in normal life, and that is at play in spiritual life.

There's an art to telling true from false, helpful from harmful.

The Germans have a word for everything, and they have a word for this finger spitzingful.

I practice that.

Finger spitzingerful.

It literally means fingertip feelings, but that's how you would translate it literally.

But in in practice, like the connotation of the word in German means you can tell if something is true or false, good or bad, helpful or harmful, just by your sense.

You can't articulate it.

You can't say, well, this dollar bill is counterfeit because it is one and a half grams more than no.

That's not it at all.

That's not finger spitzing full.

Finger spitzing full is the idea that you just you have the sense of it.

It's wrong.

That's discernment.

The Bible has a word for that.

Discernment.

Paul prays for this in Philippians 1, verse 9.

Philippians 1:9

He prays that a healthy church would be marked by discernment.

He, in fact, he prays for you.

He says he's praying for all those who hear his words, that they would grow in love for one another and in discernment.

And then he says, I want you to grow in discernment so that you can approve of what is excellent.

Hebrews 5, verse 14 describes a church going from immature to mature.

Hebrews 5:14

Remember, Paul says, by this time you should be mature, you should be eating solid food, but instead you need milk.

And then he says, the discerning person, the mature person, has had his taste trained by constant practice in discernment to distinguish good from evil.

And that word taste is a really cool word.

It's this idea that discernment is seen in what is appealing to you.

In what's appealing to you.

You know, little kids will eat, you know, jello and stuff, you know, that and they might be able to tell different flavors, but there's not really degrees of the quality of jello.

It's all jello.

And as you get older, you learn to delight in more refined foods.

Things that little kids would be grossed out by, but you've developed the taste for it.

And um, you know, that that's just the normal process of you could call it growing snobby, but some people would call it developing a taste, a palate.

Discernment is like that, where you're an immature believer and you kind of fall for all kinds of things.

In fact, at the beginning of the service, uh Ron read Ephesians 4 about the unity of the body, and the very next verse from where we left off, that you have elders that are working together for the unity of the body, the very next verse is that a disunified or immature is the word he uses, body, is tossed every which way by every wind of doctrine.

There was once a big church in our area, it can remain nameless, but I heard their pastor on a uh on a leadership conference talking about how they form their their philosophy of ministry, and he said they just look at what is working in the world.

Like what churches that are growing, what kind of methodology are they doing, and then they imitate that because that's you know, it's methodology is the waterfall of the Lord's blessing, and you see where it's falling, you get underneath it, and that strengthens your church.

But the flip side of saying it is that we're chasing every wind of doctrine, every passing fad.

That's the mark of immaturity.

Immaturity.

Satan is, after all, a great deceiver.

And he doesn't deceive by lying about random things, he deceives by imitating the truth.

So a strong and healthy church has people who are known for discernment, recognizing true and false.

That helps the weak, it protects the flock, and it helps keep false teaching at bay, it develops mature followers of Jesus Christ who seek, serve, and share.

That's what discernment does.

And it is such a massive focus in the book of Proverbs.

I've said this before, but we're going through Proverbs basically 11 through 29 right now.

I've categorized all of the Proverbs from chapters 11 through 29 into different headings.

And discernment was a heading that kind of popped out at me.

I wasn't expecting to see it as I was reading through the book of Proverbs, but once I saw it, I realized that my list for verses under discernment grew almost twice as long as any other category, other than speech.

You had speech and discernment are everywhere in the book of Proverbs.

And so I have a lot of verses to move through tonight.

I'm going to do most of them.

I left some on the cutting room floor, but I did break this up into a few headings for you.

Discerning discernment.

Discerning discernment, and the first step here is distinguishing right from wrong.

This is the most basic element of discernment.

Discerning right from wrong.

Distinguishing right, right from wrong.

Being able to tell what is good, what is bad, what is helpful, and what is harmful.

And in the book of Proverbs, this is often seen morally.

People with discernment are morally able to tell what is morally good and what is more morally bad.

The most obvious verse that talks about this is Proverbs 14, 12.

There's a way that seems right to man, but in the end, it's the way to death.

Oh man, I thought this was the right road, and I ended up in hell.

That's discernment.

Of course, everybody thinks they're on the right road.

That is the lowest possible bar for ethics or morality in the world, is somebody who does what is right in their own eyes.

And in our American culture, people say that all the time: that God, if he or she exists, will let me into heaven because God knows that I have always tried to do what is right.

Well, that's just an appalling approach to living your life.

Being the standard in your own eyes.

When the Bible uses that kind of language, it's always bad.

In the days of the Judges, Israel had no king.

Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.

That's not meant as a compliment when you read the book of Judges.

It's not in there because, oh, everybody's trying to do their best, and they always knew that there's a wrong thing and a right thing, and they're always trying to choose the right thing.

I mean, they were, but they had no king, they had rejected God, and they didn't have a fat clue what was right and wrong.

They did not have discernment.

Living your life that way leads you to spiritual death, oftentimes physical death.

But the book of Proverbs is talking specifically here about spiritual death.

And you know that because of the very next chapter in Proverbs 15, 24, the path of life leads upward for the prudent, that he may turn away from Sheol beneath.

The way that seems right in the eyes of man leads to eternal death.

The wise and discerning person turns away from it, recognizes, I mean, the problem with sin is that it clouds your judgment, it clouds your desires, it clouds your affections, it blocks your decision-making process, it messes you up.

And so when you think I'm gonna do what's right in my own eyes, I'm gonna do what I think is right, you're failing to see the problem.

The problem is not the things external to you, it's internal to you.

So that's where discernment starts, is recognizing there's morally good things in the world, morally bad things in the world, and if I am operating as the arbiter of those two things, I'm gonna tend towards the bad every time.

You know, it's turning your eight-year-old loose in the pantry and say, eat whatever you want.

And you come home and you're like, they had Pop-Tarts and jelly beans.

That's those are not good choices.

And you ask, why did you think Pop-Tarts and jelly beans were a good call for dinner?

And you're like, that's that's what I was hungry for.

Like, that's this kind of discernment.

They're doing what is right in their own eyes without recognizing the things they want aren't good for them.

And so Proverbs pushes you to want something better.

By truth, Proverbs 23, 23 says, and don't sell it.

By wisdom, instruction, and understanding.

There's this imperative to you that you can pursue discernment with your life.

It doesn't come easy.

You have to go after it.

You have to pursue that which is good.

How do you get discernment?

By pursuing wisdom.

By reading, by praying, by meditating, by training is the word used in Ephesians 5.

Training, I mean in Hebrews 5, training your tastes to know good from evil.

This doesn't happen overnight.

It takes work to read about to read books on theology.

It takes work to have your own daily devotionals.

Of course, that's the best way to learn discernment, is to read the Bible such as that it becomes internalized to you.

And there's other helps.

You're reading other books about theology, other books about discernment.

You're praying, you're having a rich relationship with God.

You're talking to the Lord, you're reading the word, that's gonna form your discernment.

You're aware of dangers that are out there.

That takes work and discipline.

And that's the point of Proverbs 23.

You're going after truth.

It's not something you're gonna stumble into.

You're being instructed as you're seeking understanding.

That's how you pursue discernment.

You buy low and you sell high.

And so when you're a fool, how do you buy wisdom and discernment low?

Well, when you're a fool, everything's right above you, you know?

When you're a fool, it's it's everywhere.

So you're you're wanting to reach up.

You're wanting to reach up.

Think of what people do to get gold.

I don't know if you've been following the news about the just the riots, the massive government turmoil in South Africa right now.

It is uh crazy.

I used to live in South Africa, so I have I know where these places are outside of Bloompentown, which is the center of South Africa.

Massive riots because people have been sneaking in from Mozambique and these other countries to go into the old abandoned mines.

And they're trying to scrape whatever gold they can off of the side of the mines and smuggle it out, trying to find old diamonds there, but most of it is gold mining.

And the government can't keep these people out.

I mean, they're not they're not building a wall in South Africa.

They thought the lions were on immigration patrol, and they are in some respect.

But what do you do when you just have thousands of people willing to risk the lions, go through the game park and go into mines and get the gold out of the mines, it's been left there.

It's so so the gold is so thin that it wasn't worth the mining companies getting.

So if you're following the story, what the government did to keep people were dying in the mines, and so the government just blocked the mines off.

Just put soldiers outside of them.

That's easier to do than the whole border, just guard the mines.

The problem is that there's hundreds, if not thousands, of people down in the mines.

And they don't want to come out.

They're starving to death in the mines.

The group that just came out recently was were cannibalizing each other in the mines.

Why would they do that?

They've got gold dust in their pockets and they're starving to death rather than coming out, and the people in South Africa are rioting, like they feel the government is like trapping people in the mines until they die, and the government's like, we're trying to save them by not letting food into them to make them come out.

They would rather die of starvation than give up the gold dust they have in their pockets.

That's what Job is talking about in Job 28.

Think of what people do for wisdom, they'll dangle from the ceilings of mines, they'll go into the center of the earth to get wisdom.

I mean, to get gold.

How much more would you do for wisdom?

We sell out so quickly.

We're like, oh, I was thinking about pursuing discernment and understanding and reading the word and praying.

But then I saw this TikTok video.

I was gonna have a quiet time this morning, but then I got sucked into my text messages and what was on Twitter and what you know.

Buy wisdom, not entertainment.

Well, first, no right from wrong.

Second, evaluate yourself.

Second component of discernment is evaluating yourself.

Not all discernment is externally focused.

In order to grow in maturity and grow in discernment, you have to be able to evanize yourself.

Proverbs 14, verse 8 says it this way: The wisdom of the prudent is to discern his way.

Proverbs 14:8

But the folly of fools is deceiving.

In other words, here, wisdom in Proverbs 14, verse 8, it's linking wisdom with discernment.

Proverbs 14:8

And here it's talking about how you're gonna live your life.

A fool thinks he's gonna do good things tomorrow, but he doesn't actually plan them out.

He's not actually thinking about it.

The wise person is discerning his own way.

And I want you to compare this to Proverbs 20, verse 4.

Proverbs 20:4

I'll put them, or verse 24, I'll put them both on the screen next to each other.

A man's steps are from Yahweh, how can he understand his way?

There's a bit of a paradox here.

God is sovereign over your life, man chooses the path of his heart, Yahweh directs his steps.

And you think God has all of his.

This is the hyper-Calvinist argument.

If God has everything ordained, why even bother making a plan?

Okay, that's the lazy fool's argument.

Cloaked in some kind of superficial theology.

But there is indeed a paradox.

How can you discern yourself if only God knows the heart?

And the answer is in light of God's revelation.

If God knows your heart and he's written a book to you, in light of God's word you can know yourself.

The only true knowledge of yourself comes when you're comparing yourself to God's word.

Proverbs 1724 says this way the discerning sets his face towards wisdom.

But the eyes of the fool, they're on the ends of the earth.

This is the ADHD person.

Their eyes are like You're like, I'm trying to talk to you.

And their eyes are over the, their eyes are at the ends of the earth, over the horizon.

They're not listening, their eyes are every which way.

And it's not long-term planning.

And you know the difference between long-term planning and always having a new idea tomorrow.

You know the difference?

The person with a long-term plan has a strategy and agenda.

The person with his eyes on the ends of the earth is always bouncing from one fad and one idea to the next.

Meanwhile, the discerning person isn't like that.

The discerning person locks in, puts his heels down, his face in the book, his eyes towards heaven, and is going to get wisdom.

You have to evaluate yourself by devoting yourself to wisdom.

And we talked about this this morning.

A basic element, even a child is known by his conduct, whether his ways are right and pure.

A basic element of wisdom and discernment is evaluating yourself honestly in light of God's word.

Are you wise or are you a fool?

And the person who says, I'm a fool, there's hope for that person.

There's no hope for the fool who says he's wise.

There is hope for the fool who says he's a fool.

Because then he can devote himself to pursuing wisdom.

Third, understanding your situation.

So you understand yourself, and then you understand your situation.

So notice there's a progression with all five points, by the way, and there's a progression to all five of them.

You're aware that there's good and bad, helpful and harmful in the world, morally speaking.

Now you look at yourself.

Where am I?

Do I want what is good?

Do I want wisdom?

Third step, now you're starting to look around you and your little sphere around you, your bubble around you.

Where am I with the people next to me?

Once you understand yourself in relationship to wisdom, you turn outwards.

And you can't skip that second point if you just turn outwards and start trying to assess where you are without a knowledge of yourself and without a knowledge of God and his word.

You're going to be lost.

But once you know God and his word, Then you know yourself, you can start to make assessments of the things around you.

Proverbs 19, verse 2.

Proverbs 19:2

Desire without knowledge is not good.

Whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way.

So the person who says, I want this and runs off to it is doing very bad discernment-wise.

Like the cat who's chasing the reflection on the wall.

He's never going to catch it.

It's not really there.

That's the fool.

He's after whatever he wants to be after.

The discerning person says, I'm going to, before I head out in life, I'm going to take a minute here and figure out what do I think about God and his word?

How do I relate to it?

How can I go to grow in wisdom?

And now I'm going to set out.

Now I'm going to set out.

Proverbs 14, verse 16.

Proverbs 14:16

Whoever is wise and cautious and turns away from evil, but a fool is reckless and careless.

The wise and cautious person turns away from evil.

Not the reckless person.

The reckless person doesn't care about what's around the corner.

Now, there's a little, you know, like a kid's analogy of this.

My family, we were up in Colorado and we went sledding recently, and there was this, you know, it was a it was a pretty big hill.

Not the kind of hill that you're looking back in, like when you were kids, like, oh, I sledded down a mountain, and then you went and go look at it as a dog.

You're like, yikes, that's a parking lot.

No, this is like an actual legit like rock face kind of thing.

And one of my one of my well, all my kids hiked up of it and sledded down and landed in creeks at the bottom.

It was out of control.

And one of the kids shouts, I'm going not knowing, and runs and jumps off the side of the cliff.

So that's kind of fun.

Like when you're dealing with sledding and up in the snow and you're in snowsuits and everything, that's fun.

That's fun.

That attitude extrapolated out to life is not fun.

Like it's fun in the snow.

It's not fun when there's real life choices at stake.

You see the difference?

And the fool takes that knowledge and lives their life that way.

Daniel went into a lion's den, but he had courage and calculated and was willing to take the risk.

That's not foolish.

The fool goes in the lion's den because he's chasing his ball.

And the point is, a courageous person gives thought to what's going to happen and plans his way.

Proverbs 18, verse 16 makes it even more personal here.

Proverbs 18:16

A man's gift makes room for him and brings him before the great.

This is part of discernment.

I think we're getting, see how we're getting a little bit more concrete, growing from abstract to a little bit more concrete here?

A man's gift makes a way for him.

Jacob gave gifts to Esau.

That softened his heart.

Jacob had enough discernment to realize what he was walking into.

He had all the all the goats of them, he had all the flocks of them, he had his big family with him.

He's going into Esau, who's pretty mad at him.

And rightfully so, if you're being honest, you're reading this and you're like, I know I'm supposed to not like Esau.

I'm kind of viewing him as the victim right now.

And Jacob understood this and so softened Esau by giving him a gift.

Jacob had enough discernment to realize what was going on around him, gave a gift to soften things out.

To soften things out.

That's the reality.

It softens you.

Giving a gift makes room for you with people.

Now, this isn't this isn't talking about bribes.

We'll talk about bribes in a second.

This is talking about discernment, where you are able to recognize your situation in life and know how to navigate it in a way that wins you favor.

I have very silly example from my soccer career.

As I was trying to get into Major League Soccer as a referee, I went to a referee camp, and there's like 30 prospective referees there.

We're all refereeing these games, and only like two of us were gonna get selected into Major League Soccer.

And a friend of mine gave me the suggestion.

I brought uh pins and little mini soccer balls and stuff to give out to the guys that were making the selections that were from our referee association in California.

So I'm giving the gifts to all the guys that are making selections.

I'm not bribing them.

Like nobody's gonna be like, oh, I don't like that referee, but he gave me a little squishy soccer ball.

So maybe I'll trust him.

No, it's just a way that you're you're like, now he'll remember me.

That's all it is.

And then when I got into the league, my very first time refereeing DC United, the coach comes into the locker room and presents me a soccer ball, signed by everybody on the team.

He's like, hey, we just want you to remember your first game here.

We're so thankful you're here.

Here's a soccer ball.

And he left.

And the kind of the liaison is like, you know, they're not actually thankful for you, right?

Like, yeah, but it's a nice soccer ball.

That's all this Proverbs is saying.

A little bit of discernment.

Now, it's obviously this truth can go beyond gifts, can't it?

It's not just talking about gifts.

You know, there's some people that don't know how to get along with other people.

No matter what room they're in, they're making enemies.

And they're not even trying to.

They just figure out how to provoke everybody accidentally.

That's not discerning.

A discerning person can, quote, read the room and figure out how to interact with people in such a way that he gets along with them.

That's part of wisdom.

That's what's meant by discernment.

You have to know a few things to get there, though, don't you?

You have to know morality, you have to know yourself, you have to know what you want, and now you have to read the room.

Here's an example of this on the negative side, Proverbs 20, verse 14.

Proverbs 20:14

Bad, bad, says the buyer.

But when he goes away, he boasts.

Now, this doesn't work in our world, right?

If you're looking at the grapes at giant, you're like, these are terrible.

I'm buying them anyway.

You're the fool.

But in the place where you're, you know, negotiating prices in the street, of course, this is how it is.

You're gonna buy the grapes, the guy knows you're gonna buy the grapes.

You hold up the grapes, and you're like, these are terrible, look how soft they are, and the guy's like, no, they're ripe, and you're like, these are horrible, and the seller's like, they're amazing, oh, they're so terrible, I'll give you them this much.

You reach a price finally and you walk away and you're like, these are the best grapes I've ever had.

That's all of human existence.

All of human existence is that way.

You know, living overseas when I was, as I mentioned, in South Africa.

I used to take people that visited me to the marketplaces and we would try to negotiate and haggle over prices of stuff.

And I just then I came across this proverb one day, and I just felt so convicted.

Like I'm spending 10 minutes trying to save this person one dollar.

It's so dumb.

I bought a lion head.

I have it in my office at this very moment to remind me of how stupid this is.

I had a lion head that I spent like 20 minutes negotiating with this guy over the stone lion bookend.

And we finally agreed on a price, and I'm like, and I walk away going, This is amazing.

I got an awesome lion head, and he wrapped it up so we'd be safe on the airplane.

Wrapped it up so it'd be safe on the airplane.

I can't believe I fought for that.

I open it up when I get back to Los Angeles, and like half of the lion is missing.

I that guy taught me a lesson right there.

I'm gonna spend 30 minutes negotiating over$2, and he's gonna give me half of a lion.

And I walk away going, This is amazing.

You know what I you know what's amazing is how little discernment I had.

Should have given that guy a stalker ball, it would have gone so much better for me.

The sermon is understanding how to relate to people that way.

Proverbs 21, verse 14.

Proverbs 21:14

A gift in secret averts anger.

A concealed bribe averts strong wrath.

And this is a hard proverb to understand morally.

I don't think Solomon is promoting bribery here, but he's recognizing the reality of it.

The words secret here and concealed are negative words.

So generally, if you're doing something in secret, it's bad.

So Solomon isn't promoting this.

He's not saying the discerning person knows how to give gifts, but he is saying the discernment knows how to give bribes, but he is saying the discerning person knows how they work.

Proverbs 22, verse 3.

Proverbs 22:3

The prudent sees danger and hides himself.

The simple go on and suffer for it.

That same exact proverb is repeated in Proverbs 27, verse 12.

Proverbs 27:12

So Solomon wants you to hear it twice.

The discerning person thinks, oh, that's dangerous.

Let me get away from it.

The foolish person just runs right into it.

Noah had the common sense to get on the ark.

Lot had the sense to get out of Sodom.

Jesus had the sense to go in the wilderness, avoid the Pharisees.

Remember?

The Pharisees decide they're gonna kill Jesus, and Jesus says, It's not my time.

I'm gonna go get out of town for a while.

Let things cool down.

That's discernment.

A discerning person understands the situation in life and how to navigate it.

Proverbs 22, 28, don't move the ancient landmark your fathers have set.

Well, look, again, that verse is repeated in the passage we read earlier, so we'll look at it again.

But there's the old adage we have in English, the saying we have in English, don't tear down a fence until you figure out why it was built.

We moved into our house, we had a drain cover in our front yard that looked weird.

It was kind of in the middle of our grass.

And I thought, why don't I just dig that up and get rid of it?

And then this proverb came to mind.

I thought, let me wait a minute.

See what happens when it rains.

And sure enough, when it rains, the water flows down my front yard and goes in a little drain cover.

So glad I didn't dig that thing up.

Now, this is talking about more than drain covers and more than like actual landmarks.

It's talking about the principle that don't tear down things.

You don't understand their function.

Don't bring change to church for the sake of changing things at church.

Understand why things are the way they are.

That's discernment.

That's the practical nature of Proverbs.

More can be said about that, but like I said, I'm leaving some of these verses on the floor.

We'll keep going.

Number four.

Discernment is seen in assessing others.

Assessing others.

So notice the progression.

Now, you first look at it right and wrong, then you're looking at yourself in relationship to it.

Now you're starting to look at what's right around me.

How do I navigate my immediate situation?

Now the next layer that you're encountering with discernment is those that are outside of your bubble that you're interacting with.

They're coming into your bubble now.

How do you discern those?

Here's a very basic example.

Proverbs 16, 22.

Good sense is a fountain of life to him who has it, but the instruction of fools is folly.

All kinds of metaphors, a very profound verse.

This is the kind of verse that deserves its own, its whole sermon, really.

God is a fountain of life.

God is constantly giving life and knowledge and light and revelation to us.

When you come to faith and you have the Spirit and you have the Word, that knowledge is bubbling up in your heart all the time.

God's knowledge never goes stagnant.

You never run out of things in the Word to learn.

It's always bubbling up.

He doesn't hit you with all of truth at once.

You don't become a Christian and know the secrets of God.

Of course not.

You drink from the fire hose kind of thing.

No.

It's bubbling up your whole life just enough to nourish you.

And the discerning person can always go to God's word for knowledge.

Always.

But there are people outside of you that are helping you, that are trying to talk to you and give you advice.

How do you know who to listen to and who not to listen to?

Well, you can't rise above your knowledge of the Lord.

The stream can't go above the fountain.

The fountain is the level that produces the stream, right?

So you can't grow godlier than you know God.

If you have people outside of you telling things that go against the fountain and against God, they're fools.

Don't listen to them.

So you have to be discerning to first of all know right and wrong, the first point, to know yourself, the second point, to assess your situation, the third point, to get to the level where you can have somebody telling you what to do and listen to them and go, that person's not speaking truth.

He's running his mouth and he acts confident.

He doesn't know what he's talking about.

He's telling me something foolish.

You can't start with this proverb, though.

You have to get to this proverb through those other three steps.

But once you've gone through those steps, you can get to the point in your spiritual life where you have somebody saying, you know, telling you what to do in the Lord, telling you this or that, the other thing, and you can say, that's not right.

That's the instruction of fools, and it's silly.

You don't want to be taught by people who don't know how to teach.

And a lot of people who don't know how to teach devote themselves to teaching others.

It's just the epiphany you have.

You realize that at some point in your life.

And when you realize it, you can't go back.

You can't get the genie back in the bottle at that point.

Jesus has an idiom for that.

It's the blind leading the blind.

There are a lot of blind people that decide, you know, a good profession for them would be a guide for the blind.

Because they're blind.

And he Jesus gives a funny word picture about it, doesn't he?

If the blind leads the blind, they all fall in the pit.

You just got this picture of a bunch of like, you know, seeing eye dogs and the walking sticks just all in a pile in a pit.

Like, what happened to that?

Oh, the blind were leading the blind, I guess.

The mystery of the fountain, though, is that you have to find it.

Good sense is a fountain of life.

To him who has it.

Notice that phrase in the middle of the Proverbs, to him who has it.

Not everybody has the fountain of life.

Not everybody has God's revelation in their heart.

Oh, it's so few.

So few know the Word of God.

So few pursue knowledge.

So few pursue discernment.

So few.

But to those who do, they have a constant source of wisdom.

Proverbs 14-15.

The simple believes everything.

But the prudent gives thought to his steps.

The simple believes everything.

They hear something and they they believe it.

I remember somebody coming to me and saying they got sucked into this what we call in California the Korean Mother God cult.

There's probably a technical name for it.

We called it a Korean Mother God cult.

This is a growing cult on college universities where they teach that Jesus came back as a Korean woman.

You know, the mother god came back, she was reincarnated as a Korean woman, she's a religious leader.

It's kind of a big cult.

And we had a college student that asked us in our college ministry, how do I know it's not true?

Well, because Jesus didn't come back as a Korean woman.

That's how you know it's true.

Yeah, but why?

How can you disprove it?

Like they wanted like six steps for how you know it's not true.

And some things don't require six steps.

Some things just require Proverbs 14, 15.

The simple person believes anything they hear.

But the prudent person gives some thought to it.

Ephesians 4.14, we mentioned that verse earlier.

An immature person is carried about with strange doctrines.

He's immature.

In contrast to Nehemiah, remember Nehemiah?

Nehemiah hears about danger, straps up.

Everybody guard their house.

Work on the wall, guard your house.

That's wisdom.

Proverbs 18, 17.

The most important verse in giving advice, counsel, marriage advice, biblical counseling.

This verse, Proverbs 18, 17.

On Matthew Place, we have the sign that says Matthew Place, Biblical Counseling.

We should write this verse on that sign, I think.

The one who states his case first seems right, until the other cross comes and examines him.

This is like the most basic principle in biblical counseling.

Every seminary student who does any kind of counseling learns this like day one, you know, your first marriage counseling situation as a new pastor, you know, the spouse comes in and you know, after the meeting they leave and you're like, oh, they are married to the most evil person ever.

I don't even need the other side of this case, like let's discipline them out.

And then you meet the other half and you're like, oh wow.

There's another side to that story.

Sometimes you hear from one spouse and you're like, I can't imagine what the other side of that story would be.

I just can't imagine.

This person has been so wronged.

And then you meet the other side of the story and you're like, oh, it all makes sense.

And sports says there's the adage that the referee always catches the retaliation.

In counseling, there's the adage that the first person gets away with everything.

That's the most basic principle.

In conflict resolution, whoever you hear from first you think is right.

But you have to push through and hear the other side.

Proverbs 20, verse.

I have examples of that in the notes, but because I have discernment, I'm skipping them.

Proverbs 20, verse 5.

Proverbs 20:5

The purpose in a man's heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.

This is a hard proverb to understand because as you read this, commentators are split.

Does the deep water here mean that people are very profound or that they're simple?

Like there's no movement to the water, or there's just like so much going on under the underneath it that you can't know about it.

I think you can take those two together and come away with purposes in a man's heart, is murky at best.

That's how I would resolve that interpretive issue right there.

It's murky.

You can't see very far in murky water.

It is deep and it is murky.

It is still on the top.

If it was moving, it would be clear.

No, it's still, but it is deep.

There's layers of complexity and it is murky.

You can't see in it.

It's so hard to know why people do what they do.

It's so hard to know what their motivations are.

Like at some level, you recognize everybody's motivated by their own self-interest, but you move beyond that and you're trying to think, how is this person's actions connected to their own self-interest?

That is discernment.

Part of you is like, don't judge other people.

I get that, but when you're in helping people and giving advice and in friendships and in just your normal life, you have to be discerning by understanding why people are making the choices they're making.

And it's not easy.

They don't say that.

You have to draw it out from them.

A discerning person can elicit from somebody enough information to start to put together their motives.

It's hard though, because motives are murky.

Proverbs 25, 19.

Trusting in a treacherous man in a time of trouble is like a bad tooth or a foot that slips.

I'm sure you've many of you have had that experience with a bad tooth.

You forget it's bad.

You just got so accustomed to chewing on the other side of your mouth.

You just like the last like three months of your life, you're just chewing on the left side of your mouth.

And then one day, for whatever reason, you forget that and you take one bite on the other side of your mouth, and it's like a jolt of lightning.

I forgot about that.

That's what it's like to trust, that's what it's like to lack discernment and make friends with somebody who's a punk.

You just mind your own business, chewing your food, and then I was betrayed.

Or the ESV here says a foot that slips.

The Hebrew is a foot that's out of joint.

You know, so you're walking along just minding your own business, you forgot that you had sprained your knee, you're minding your own business.

That's what it's like to trust somebody who's not trustworthy.

And so you need discernment, otherwise, you will be friends with the wrong people.

You need discernment, or you're gonna find yourself being loyal to people who don't deserve loyalty.

And it's gonna hurt you at the worst time.

Discernment protects you from Paul.

Trusted Demas.

I'm not saying he should have known better.

I'm just saying that's a pretty good example of finding a tooth that aches.

Paul trusted Demas and was left cold and shivering.

Mephibosheth, you remember him in 2 Samuel?

He trusted Zeba, his nurse.

He was supposed to take care of him.

What does Zeba do?

Left him in the burning house.

Lame and left him to die.

Discernment protects you from that.

Moving on, finally.

Now, number five, you're using your speech.

This is the final stop in discernment in the book of Proverbs.

So again, these are all connected.

Discernment starts with you being able to tell right from wrong.

It goes to you evaluating yourself from there to understanding your situation, what's around you.

Now you're evaluating people you're interacting with, and you can say, that guy's a fool, that guy's wise, this person's telling the truth, these people are both to blame.

You're starting to figure out the situation, how people interact with it.

Now finally, you are using your speech to move the situation forward.

Manipulate is a word that has negative connotations, but it's kind of the an appropriate word that some commentators use for this.

You're using your speech to manipulate the situation, but manipulate's a negative word, so I would say almost advance the situation.

The discerning person has figured out how to use their speech to move things forward, to advance their cause.

And if you're godly and discerning, your cause is the Lord's cause, of course.

Proverbs 16, 14.

A king's wrath is a messenger of death, and a wise man will appease it.

We don't have a king with his wrath in our country, but we have the police officer that pulls you over.

And he's armed and he can use lethal force.

And a wise person doesn't provoke him.

Like a and a wise person even goes beyond that to figure out what I can say to him to navigate this situation in a way that I only get a warning.

That's discernment.

You have to work to appease a judge.

Kings in Solomon's life have the power of death.

Solomon understands that.

The messenger comes to David.

And says, I took out Saul, and David says, Kill him.

It's in the power of the king.

A discerning person knows how to navigate this.

This is why Ecclesiastes 8, by the way, says, if you're in the presence of a king, shut your mouth.

Just be quiet.

Let him think you're wise, and maybe your life will be spared.

Proverbs 15.23 goes further than that and says, To make an apt answer is a joy to a man.

A word in season, how good it is.

Think of all you have to have already in the tank before you can get to Proverbs 15.23.

You have to know what is right and wrong.

You have to know how you relate to the situation.

You have to know how the people are.

And then you can finally give wisdom and insight and a proper answer that is encouraging to both you and the hearer.

At our elder training this weekend, we had a counseling pastor come in and train all of our elders.

And he had a line that is stuck in my mind.

In order to give kid counsel, he said, you need three things.

You need knowledge of the Bible, knowledge of the situation, and knowledge of the person you're talking to.

You need those three things, otherwise, your counsel is going to be wobbly.

That's what this verse has in mind.

You have to know those things in order to give a sweet answer.

And discerning people can do that.

Proverbs 15, 28, the heart of a righteous person ponders how to answer.

It's not easy.

You're in a situation and they need an answer, and the righteous person stops for a second and thinks through it.

Thinks through it.

Somebody counseled me once.

Somebody comes to you with a complex situation asking for advice on parenting or marriage or what job to take or whether or not to do this or that.

Ask yourself, how much time did you spend trying to figure out what you were going to have for lunch that day?

Spend more time figuring out how to answer their question than that.

And that has always stayed in my head because it's so easy to forget this proverb and just somebody comes with a question and you give an answer.

The wise person closes his mouth and thinks.

Closes his mouth and thinks about how to answer.

That's Proverbs 15, 28.

Proverbs 16, 21, something similar.

The wise of heart is called discerning, and sweetness of speech increases persuasiveness.

There's a certain kind of person that is able to talk in a way that encourages people, that brings people together.

And there's another kind of person that talks in a way that divides people and doesn't find unity.

That second kind of person lacks discernment.

The first kind of person has both wisdom and discernment.

His speech unites, he's persuasive.

It's sweet.

He wins people over.

Jesus says, I'm sending you out like serpents.

Do you remember that?

You think, how are we like serpents?

And when we studied Matthew 10 together, I said, serpents are so good at knowing how to get out of trouble.

Snakes always have a way out.

They always have an escape hatch.

And everybody tries to kill them all the time, and yet they're everywhere.

The wise person is like that.

They know how to use their speech to bring people together and to be persuasive.

Proverbs 25, 20.

Whoever sings songs to a heavy heart is like one who takes off a garment on a cold day and like vinegar on soda.

All right.

Somebody comes up all sad at a funeral.

And you're like, oh, it's so good to see you today, man.

Well, probably not.

Probably not.

Not discerning, not sweetness of speech.

You find a guy in a snowstorm, you don't say, Can I take your jacket for you real quick?

Can I borrow your jacket?

You have a cut, can I pour some lemon juice on it just to help you out?

The discerning person knows enough to avoid that.

So, in light of that now, Proverbs 23 is in front of you.

That was all introduction.

Don't eat the bread, verse 6, of a man who is stingy.

Don't desire his delicacies.

Otherwise, he doesn't mean it.

This is the gospel invitation to you.

The gospel invitation says, come, eat, drink, and live.

The Lord is not stingy.

He desires a relationship with his people.

He invites them to come to him in faith.

God gives a sincere invitation to people to come and believe in him.

He's not holding out on you.

The discerning person understands that and wants to be drawn to the Lord.

That kind of invitation is repeated in verse 12.

Apply your heart to instruction and your words of knowledge.

That's the invitation to come and feast with the Lord.

Come to Him.

In the middle of this little section is verse 9.

Have discernment.

Know if you're talking to a fool.

If you're talking to a fool, close your mouth.

Jesus says the same thing.

Don't cast your pearls before swine.

Understand.

Are you talking to a hurting person who needs help?

Are you talking to a stingy person?

Are you talking to a fool?

Close your mouth and get away.

Have enough discernment to navigate every situation.

These things do not come easy, but they come with training.

Lord, I do pray for our church.

Pray that we would be marked by discernment.

This is what Paul prayed for the Philippians, and we receive it as a prayer for us as well.

We want to be marked by discernment, knowing right from wrong, and loving right and eschewing the wrong.

There's all kinds of complicated situations in our church.

Our church is a church that's alive, filled with people and faith.

And we know where there's no oxen, the manger is clean.

We have a lot going on in our church.

And so there's a lot of problems and conflict and difficult situations.

And so we ultimately pray for discernment so that you would be glorified in every situation.

Help us be people that rightly understand ourselves so that we can understand our situations and make good decisions.

So we understand other people.

We can evaluate them well.

Not in partiality, but in prudence and discernment.

And finally, help us be the kind of people that use our speech to bring people together for truth.

So there's a true sense of unity as our hearts are in together.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, iBc.church.

If you want more information about the Master Seminary or our location here in Washington, D.C., please go to TMS.edu.

Now, if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, D.C.

area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel.

I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.

But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.

Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.