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A worthless person, a wicked man,
goes about with crooked speech,
13 winks with his eyes, signals with his feet,
points with his finger,
14 with perverted heart devises evil,
continually sowing discord;
15 therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly;
in a moment he will be broken beyond healing (Prov. 6:12-15).
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We need to begin with the obvious, which is that Scripture teaches that our words affect how we are doing, not to mention those all around us. But this “obvious” truth can, if unattended, deteriorate into the vagaries of generic uplift. When we speak the good word, it must be a word that is truly wise and good.
“A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance: but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken” (Prov. 15:13).
“Heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop: but a good word maketh it glad” (Prov. 12:25).
We begin by juxtaposing two proverbs, asking each of them to illumine the other one. The first tells us that there is a link between the condition of the heart and the condition of the countenance. A merry heart results in a cheerful countenance, just as a man speaks out of the abundance of his heart (Matt. 12:34). The heart is a thermostat, setting the temperature of the rest of your activities. If the heart is sorrowful, the spirit is broken, and if the heart is merry, then the countenance shows it.
So, then, how do we adjust the thermostat? When a man’s heart is heavy, then his heart stoops. He becomes discouraged. He cannot carry the weight that providence is asking him to carry. When someone wants to help, what they need to do is come in order to speak a good word. A good word makes his heart glad.
But this is a good word, not just any word, and not any old word that somebody thinks is good. “He that blesseth his friend with a loud voice, rising early in the morning, it shall be counted a curse to him” (Prov. 27:14).
Suppose your roommate, or your spouse, or somebody in your house, comes staggering out to breakfast, and pours himself a bowl of Grumpy Nuggets, with no sugar. Is that the time to wave your spoon in the air in time with the old gospel song you start to sing in a raucous manner? “Cheer up, ye saints of God, there’s nothing to worry about/Nothing to make you feel afraid, nothing to make you doubt./Remember Jesus loves you so why not stand up and shout?/You’ll be sorry you worried at all tomorrow morning.”
And the word of Scripture is fulfilled; you are reckoned as one who curses.
The words you speak should be true, of course, but they need to be more than true. They must also be relevant, and in addition to being relevant, they must also be timely. As it has been well said, the only difference between salad and garbage is timing.
“A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver. As an earring of gold, and an ornament of fine gold, so is a wise reprover upon an obedient ear” (Prov. 25:11-12). So don’t be like Mary Bennett in Pride and Prejudice, saying true things all day long, in wildly inappropriate ways.
And your words should also be kind. The lock on the door of your mouth should have three keys—is it true? is it kind? is it necessary?
There is more involved in this than just heeding an exhortation to “be nice,” or to “say nice things.” If we need to do this kind of thing in wisdom, and we do, we need to do it in imitation. What we do, we are to do as children, as imitators or followers of God (Eph. 5:1). We worship God through the Word, and so it is not surprising that we are logocentric, that we are people of words. We serve and worship the God who is love, and so we are to walk in love (Eph. 4:15). And, in the same way, we worship the God who spoke the perfect word, the fitting word, into our hearts, and so we are to do the same to others, by imitation and by analogy. Our words are to be gospel, and our words are to be gospel-like.
We want to take it apart in order to find out how it works. But we need to begin with the reality that it works. The Bible calls the preaching of the cross “folly” to the worldly-wise. Why should we be surprised when they come up to us and say that what we are doing doesn’t seem relevant to them. Of course it doesn’t. That is a design feature. God defines what a word fitly spoken looks like. God defines what a perfect setting of silver should be.
God defines truth. God defines necessity. God defines kindness.
We learn how to speak to others, speaking the good word, by observing closely how God speaks to us. And when the gospel comes to us, what is it? We have human need on the one hand and divine grace on the other.
The good word spoken is therefore the intersection between need and grace. The good word that preaching brings is this—it is the declaration of the grace of God, addressed to human need, and the declaration is backed up with the authority of God’s throne.
So when you come to encourage someone, what is it that you are imitating? It is not a hollow appeal that glibly says, “don’t worry, be happy.”
Christ, then, is to be preached. By that we mean Christ incarnate, Christ crucified, Christ buried, Christ risen, and Christ ascended. When He is declared in this way, the pattern of death, resurrection, and ascension is not put out there to complete an argument in your intellect, although it may do that. Neither is Christ over all to be preached in such a way as to soothe or excite your emotions, although it may do that as well. We are to love God with all our minds, and we cannot do that without the preaching of Christ crucified. We are to love God with all our hearts, and we cannot do that without the preaching of Christ risen and ascended. But something more is necessary.
No, the faithful declaration of this gospel is always aimed at the citadel of the human will. You are not here as spectators, or observers, but rather as worshipers, and this means that you are on the mountain of decision. And when you go down again, into your day-to-day activities, you will be in the valley of decision.
Here you are, and here is the Word declared. What are you going to do?
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In this famous section of Proverbs, the father exhorts his son, “forget not mylaw; but let thine heart keep mycommandments” (Prov. 3:1), with the promise of length of days, long life, and peace (Prov. 3:2). How can a human father, a fallen, fallible father say such a thing? We see something perhaps equally puzzling in Paul’s repeated use of the phrase “mygospel” (Rom. 2:16, 16:25, 2 Tim. 2:8). Couldn’t this be confusing? Doesn’t this seem a little arrogant?
“My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments:2 For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee.3 Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart:4 So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man.5 Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.7 Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil.8 It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones.9 Honour the Lord with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase:10 So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.11 My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction:12 For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth” (Proverbs 3:1-12).
The exhortations in our text are to rather abstract virtues (law, mercy, truth, trust, fear, honor), but they are saddled to intensely concrete bodilyitems: days, heart, neck, eyes, bones, barns, and wine (Prov. 3:2-10). This sets up the equation between virtue and practical actions and decisions. Virtue is embodied. We also see that there are five admonitions, and each exhortation is followed by a concrete promise of blessing: do not forget=length of days (Prov. 3:1-2), keep mercy and truth=finding favor (3:3-4), trust in the Lord=straight paths (3:5-6), fear the Lord=good health (3:7-8), honor the Lord=full barn (3:9-10). So without reducing virtue to a mechanical lever, it is still true to say that virtue is embodied and the blessing that follows virtue is also embodied, either now or in the resurrection (Mk. 10:30). And the father reappears at the end of our text, claiming that his discipline is the embodiment of the Lord’s loving discipline (Prov. 3:11-12).
While the idea that virtue is embodied is easier to understand, the question is how the father can claim that his discipline is the Lord’s discipline, that his son should keep his law. Shouldn’t the father make it clearer that it isn’t really his law, rather it’s the Lord’s, and his discipline is only as good as it agrees with God’s discipline? Related is also the fact that the father is promising “long life and peace,” which the father may be able to influence but cannot infallibly deliver. Is it really wise for Solomon (or any father) to speak this way? Surely part of the answer is found in the words of Moses: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart… and these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children…You shall bind them as a sign on your hand…” (Dt. 6:5-9) A faithful father was commanded by God to embrace the law of God and bind it to himself and so teach it diligently to his children. A faithful father believes God’s promise for long life and peace and prosperity for fidelity to His law, and in so far as the father is representing God’s law, the father may relay this as his own possession and sure promise to his children.
But the second admonition suggests that there is even more going on: “Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart” (Prov. 3:3). If the first exhortation reminds us of God’s law, this combination seems to be a short hand for the essentials of covenant blessing. In Genesis 24:27, the servant of Abraham blessed God for not forsaking his “mercy and truth” to Abraham by leading him to Rebecca’s family. “All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth, to such as keep His covenant and His testimonies” (Ps. 25:10, cf. 2 Sam. 15:20, Ps. 57:3, 10, 85:10, 89:14, 100:5). But in Prov. 16:6, Solomon says that by “mercy and truth” atonement is provided for sin. The word atonement reminds us of the Most Holy Place where the Ark of the Covenant was. The golden lid was called the “mercy seat” and the Ten Commandments were inside it (Ex. 25:21, Heb. 9:3-4). All of this pointed to Jesus and specifically His cross, where the mercy and truth of God have come together even more clearly and emphatically: Jesus is both God’s truth about our sin and His merciful sacrifice for it (Jn. 1:14-17). He is our ark, our mercy seat, our “throne of grace” in a time of need (Heb. 4:16, 10:19ff). And Jesus is the embodiment of mercy and truth. When the father says bind mercy and truth around your neck and write them on the tablet of your heart, he is actually saying bind Jesus around your neck and write Jesus on the tablet of your heart.
But it still seems somewhat puzzling: why does the father point to himself in the first instance and not immediately away to God? Part of the answer is that the father does point to the Lord (3:5, 3:7, 3:9) – so every father should do the same. But the father still feels very comfortable calling the law “my law” and likening his instruction/discipline with the correction/chastening of the Lord (3:1-2, 11-12). The answer is found in God’s determination that discipleship be intensely personal and therefore embodied. Discipleship is teaching virtues such as truth and mercy and obedience and honor, but those virtues must be embodied and imitated. Christian discipleship does look to the Lord, but Jesus sent mento disciple the nations. Therefore, discipleship also simultaneously includes immediate human relationships, like father-son. Jesus embodies this in the first instance as the perfect Son of the perfect Father. The scribes and Pharisees were scandalized by His insistence that He is the embodiment of the Father (Jn. 10:29-30), but we often merely chalk this up to the deity of Christ: Jesus is God, so He can say things like that (which is true).
But Jesus also indicates that what He came to do, as an ambassador of His Father, He intends to pass on to His disciples. He calls the disciples away from their earthly fathers and their fishing boats and nets and says He will likewise make them fishers of men, or we might say fathers of men (Lk. 5:10). And we see this in Paul’s own ministry: “I do not write these things to shame you, but as my beloved children I warn you. For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel. Therefore I urge you, imitate me. For this reason I have sent Timothy to you, who is my beloved and faithful son in the Lord, who will remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach everywhere in every church” (1 Cor. 4:14-17, cf. Phil. 2:22, 1 Thess. 2:11). As Jesus called the first disciples to “follow me,” Paul imitates and says, “follow me,” and presumably he taught Timothy to say the same thing. This is why Paul frequently refers to the gospel as “my gospel” or “our gospel” (Rom. 2:16, 16:25, 2 Cor. 4:3, 1 Thess. 1:5, 2 Thess. 2:14, 2 Tim. 2:8).
Because we have been given the Spirit of the Father and the Son, we have access to the Father and therefore we have the boldness to represent Him to others. In the gift of salvation, the living and eternal God has taken up residence in you. His law has become your law. His mercy and truth are bound around your neck, written on the tablet of your heart. His gospel is now your gospel. If we understand this, we must learn to say with Jesus: Come, follow me, keep my law and commandments. This is my gospel: Jesus Christ was crucified for sinners and raised from the dead for our justification. My son, my daughter, my friend, do not forget my law. This is all a gift, all of grace, but grace gives this authority. “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me” (1 Cor. 15:10).
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I would like to spend this week and next addressing honesty with God, and what it means to grow in grace. In brief, there are two elements to growth in grace. The first is the removal of impediments to that growth, which we will address this week, and the second is the presence of that which feeds grace. The first is negative, dealing with sin, and the second is positive, which has to do with the reception of means of grace.
Think of a house plant that has been knocked over, and the pot has been shattered. If the plant is to grow and flourish, it is necessary to repot it . . . but repotting a plant is not the same thing as watching it grow. Repotting is what is happening when sins are confessed. Growth is what happens when the soil is rich, the sunlight plentiful, and water is abundant.
“He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: But whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy” (Proverbs 28:13).
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
I have entitled this short series Honesty With God, and such honesty is essential to all true confession. Let us start with the passage from Proverbs. A man who covers his own sins will not prosper. It is striking that this action of covering is positive or negative depending on how it is happening. The word for cover here (ksh) also means to forgive. “Hatred stirreth up strifes: But love covereth [same word] all sins” (Prov. 10:12). Covering is what love does, and covering is what a self-absorbed sinner does on his hell-bent way to “not prospering.” A man does not have the authority to cover (forgive) his own sins. The offense was against God (Ps. 51:4), and so God must forgive. What is God’s way in this? The man who confesses (honesty), the man who forsakes (true repentance) is the man who finds mercy from God.
We find the same element of honesty in the passage from 1 John. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. The word for confess here is homo (meaning the same) and logeo (which means to speak). To confess is to “speak the same thing” that God is saying. We do not engage in any spin control. Note that God is the one who does the forgiving, and God is the one who does the cleansing. We do the acknowledging. So what do we contribute to this process of confession? We contribute the sin, which creates the need for forgiveness, and we contribute the honesty about the sin, which engages the promises of God—promises that ride on the fact that He is faithful, and that He is just.
What are some of the shifts and evasions we employ to keep from doing what God summons us to do? Here are just a few. We justify what we did. What we did was really right, we say. We excuse what we did. It was wrong, but it all happened so fast, and besides, she started it. We hide what we did. Nobody knows about it and nobody is going to know about it. We confess what we did in vague terms. Lord, please forgive me for anything I might have done today. We rename what we did. Everybody makes mistakes. We shrug over what we did. Nobody’s perfect. We give up over what we did. I am going to do it again, so why bother? We barter over what we did. Restitution would be too costly. We pass the buck over what we did. The woman you gave me. We postpone dealing with what we did. I’ll confess it next Sunday. We are overwhelmed by what we did. Nobody could forgive that.
Now the problem for us is that we live in a world that is simultaneously corrupt and, more importantly, dishonest about the depth of that corruption. All we have to do is be honest about our sin, the man says. But how? We can no more do that than we can achieve perfection in any other area. And here is the gospel of grace.
Jesus did not just die for you so that the penalty might be paid for the sins you committed. He did do that on the cross, but Scripture teaches us that all of the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us who believe. So you are afraid because you are such an imperfect repenter? Are you discouraged because it is so hard to be honest about things like this? Christ didn’t just die for you, He also repented for you (Rom. 5:10; 2 Cor. 5:21). From the very beginning of His ministry, He identified with sinners, and He—the sinless one—went through the humiliation of receiving a baptism of repentance. Why would He do that? The man who administered it to Him wondered the same thing.
“And John tried to prevent Him, saying, “I need to be baptized by You, and are You coming to me?” But Jesus answered and said to him, “Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he allowed Him” (Matt. 3:14–15, NKJV).
Now He did not repent so that you wouldn’t have to repent. Rather, He repented so that you could learn how to repent, following in His footsteps, freed from all condemnation (Rom. 8:1). Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord. Let the one who repents, repent in the Lord. Let the one who is learning to walk honestly with God, walk honestly with Him in the honesty of Christ. This is what it means to walk in the light.
“But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).
Walking in Christ means walking in the light. Walking in the light means walking honestly. And that means you will always be dealing with your sins in a well-lit area. Christ is that light.
Christ Church