Proverbs 3:27-35

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Isn't it good of God that the Bible is such a good book? Isn't that not in and of itself a blessing that God has given us his word, his revelation, which spans history, and certainly we need to consider that and understand that, and it gives us prophecy, and we need to understand that, how it progressively unfolds and reveals itself in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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But isn't it good of God to give us a practical book to live by, that you and I are able not only to be wise unto salvation, which in and of itself is most glorious, but to live our lives now in wisdom, in true wisdom, and that that true wisdom, as we have been saying, and I will again say several times tonight, that true wisdom is not only to know who God is, but to know how to walk before God even now in our pilgrimage.
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Just think about it, and again, we can't lose sight of that, that we're just pilgrims.
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We are walking through this world to that place where we shall see him face to face, and isn't it great that God gives us such wisdom, and the reality is, not only does he give us wisdom in his word, but even he walks with us, even as it says, he walks with us closer than a brother.
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He sticks closer to us than a brother.
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So I think we need to come to that realization, have an expectation that God is the one who desires that we walk practical in this life, and that that living that we do, that way in which we deport ourselves, the way in which we conduct ourselves, would be a testimony to a world which is really, apart from God, not wise.
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The wisdom in this world is foolishness to God, and God turns the wisdom in this world, what? Upside down and inside out, because it really isn't true wisdom.
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The only true wisdom, again, comes from God.
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And it's interesting, as we go through these verses, and let me just ask you to consider, it's interesting how the instruction comes to us, right? In these verses, particularly, that the instruction comes to us not only in the positive, but in the negative.
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And you could see it, right? Look at it.
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It says, verse 27, do not.
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We're back to the do nots, right? Do not withhold.
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Verse 28, do not say.
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Verse 29, do not devise.
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Verse 30, do not strive.
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Verse 31, do not envy.
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You see how, when we think of instruction, we ought not to just consider it in the positives, but we need to understand from the negative also.
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Because again, that's what really wisdom is, is to know what to do and not to do, right? That you and I would be wise enough to apply ourselves in both the things that we will do, we will allow, but also the things that we won't do, and we won't allow.
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And again, that completes the, if you will, the circle of wisdom.
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And again, many people will not consider that, and they'll try to, in many ways, work out their own salvation by following some system of I do this, and I do that, and I do this, and I do that.
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Well, what about the do nots? How you doing with the do nots? Not donuts, do nots.
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But again, you and I would realize that God's instruction, and that's the way we have to view it, both positively and negatively.
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And as we consider these things, we'll see the end of doing and not doing.
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And ultimately, as we get to the last verses, he's gonna go back, Solomon's gonna go back to what he's been saying, not only in the beginning of the book of Proverbs, but in the beginning of the third chapter.
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Because in the beginning of the third chapter, he says, my son, don't forget my Lord, but let your heart keep my commands on Lenten days and long life and peace they will add to you.
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And then he's gonna end it, and he's gonna say that the wise shall inherit glory, but shame shall be the legacy of fools.
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This seems to be a pattern so far in the book of Proverbs, that Solomon will open up a chapter, and again, I'm not saying that the chapter divisions are inspired, but nevertheless, he opens up his thought, and then if you will, he puts all the meat in between it, and then he closes it at the end in the same way which he opened it.
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And again, that certainly is an application of wisdom.
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So as we take this apart and see the ingredients of it, let us always be mindful that the outcome of what he's saying is dependent on, again, not only what we will do, but what we won't do, how we will act and how we won't act, how we will respond, how we won't respond.
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Much of the book of Proverbs, much of the word of God is truly laid out that way.
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Again, not saying in any way, shape, or form that salvation is something that we earn, but it's the reality of walking in the light of that salvation, that there are many times in which, and I say it often, my biggest trouble is me.
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My soul is my biggest issue.
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And if we don't consider it that way, then I think we lose sight of the reality of truth.
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Because again, we have to be those who are wise enough to not only discern the things that are going on without, but we ought to be growing in grace and be able to discern the things that are going on within, that we ought to be able to teach ourselves, even as Paul says, to judge ourselves, that lest we be judged by God.
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And again, not in the realm of heaven and hell, not in the realm of being saved and being lost.
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That's a total different area that we're not discussing right now.
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So let's look at this a little bit further.
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And, excuse me, in the ingredients of it.
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So look what it says.
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It says, verse 27, do not withhold good from those to whom it is due.
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Now, I want to say this, and it's simple, but yet I think it's important to continue to say.
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We need to remind ourselves that in and of ourselves, we possess nothing good.
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Again, certainly us who are grounded and founded in the truth that man is depraved, that in his mind, apart from God, he's alienated, and I realize that it might seem overly simple to say that, but we must constantly remind ourselves because we're so easily fooled into thinking that there is something good in us.
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And so when he says this, when he instructs us, do not withhold good, we need to really be able to define what good is.
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And so I want to just spend a minute, and again, very basic, but yet very important.
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I want to take a minute and just define good, and especially as the word is used here.
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So just a couple of thoughts.
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The word in the Old Testament that's used to carry the thought of good is the word that means to do something that is beneficial, to do something that is profitable, to do something that will benefit not only self, but others.
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It's interesting how that's used in the Old Testament, and it is used rather consistently in the thought of something beneficial, something profitable, something that is upright.
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The word here in verse 27, when it talks about good, is the same word that's used for good in Genesis 1.
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When God created in the different days, and God saw what? It was good.
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It was pleasant.
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It was right.
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It was beneficial.
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It was profitable.
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Was it not in that God created those things? And so that's the same thought, that you and I are not to withhold.
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We're not to withhold things that are profitable, things that are upright, things that are pleasant, things that are beneficial.
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The same way God didn't do that in his creation, God created a very beneficial creation, did he not? And so when God said, and saw that it was good, what God was in essence saying, that what I have created is profitable.
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It's a benefit to all my creatures.
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And certainly we would, I hope we would agree to it.
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Again, in Deuteronomy, you don't have to turn there, but when God was moving his redeemed nation out from the bondage of Egypt, he told them that they were headed to a good land.
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It's the same word.
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What was that land that God had prepared for them? Was it not a pleasant land? Was it not a land full of milk and honey? Was it not a profitable land? Was it not a land that yielded her fruit and had everything that they could desire to allow them to live their lives in not only communion with God, but in communion in that sense with the very land that he gave to them.
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And so again, it's important for us to understand this so that when we spend a thought or two on do not withhold good, we know exactly what we're talking about.
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And in essence, what he's really saying is that we ought not to withhold anything that is profitable, beneficial, and upright.
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And then we'll deal with the second part where he says when it's in your power to do that.
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So again, we ought to think of it that way.
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When the spies went out to look at the land, remember, they went to search out the land and they came back, do you remember what they said? It's a good land.
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It's a pleasant land, it's upright, it's beneficial.
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And of course, then they gave the evil report when they said, but there's giants in the land.
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And so again, in Psalm 25, it says, good and upright is the Lord, therefore he teaches sinners in the way.
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Good and upright is the Lord.
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Again, so many people have such a wrong, misguided perception of God.
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That God is just either some angry despot or he's just some uncaring God who's created this world and then is not involved in it.
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The reality is so different, isn't it? That when God created, it's because God is good.
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Certainly we would not be right unless we follow what the Lord Jesus Christ said when he said what? Remember, he said, why do you call me good? There's no one good but God.
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And in essence, there's no one that's profitable apart from God, there's no one that's beneficial apart from God, there's no one who's upright, there's no one who can be truly called good.
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And even the good that is derived from the goodness of God is derived from him who's the fount of all goodness, of all beneficial, anything beneficial, anything profitable, anything that is of any worth.
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It's interesting in Proverbs chapter 11, and again, just if you wanted to know, it's Proverbs 11, 27, it says this.
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He who earnestly seeks good finds favor, but trouble will come to him who seeks evil.
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He who earnestly seeks good finds favor, but trouble will come to him who seeks evil.
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Now let me ask you to think something.
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If God alone is good, if God alone is beneficial, if God alone is profitable, could we not rightfully say in Proverbs 11, it says he who earnestly seeks good finds favor.
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Could we not also say he who seeks God finds favor? Because again, God is good, only good, always good.
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And so when you and I think of that, we're not just to think of good as in the earthly sense of it, not even just from the thought of something that's pleasant, but from the reality that he who seeks God.
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It's interesting how we say to each other, good morning.
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Right? Why don't we say God morning? Just a thought.
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You'll get some different reactions if you go to work tomorrow and say, God morning.
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We don't even do good morning anymore, we just say morning.
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And then we break it down, we just do the head nod or whatever.
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But isn't that the reality though? He who finds favor, he who seeks good finds favor.
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He who seeks God finds favor.
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In Proverbs 15, it says the eyes of the Lord are in every place keeping watch on the evil and the good.
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And let me say this, in the thought of what we'll present tonight, if we're not good, we're evil.
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Now, that doesn't mean we're as evil as we could be.
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We look at the scenes in today's world and the catastrophe and the ugliness and the heartbreak of the things that are going on in Ukraine and many people will say, well, glad we have that.
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Mr.
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Putin is evil.
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Certainly he is.
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But I wonder sometimes if we make determinations at what point someone becomes evil.
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And certainly there is an outworking of that, right? We almost have this gauge by which someone is really evil.
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It's the same way we might even try that as far as the thought of good.
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But here's the reality again, that because God is good, alone good, he is able to discern between evil and good, right? So it doesn't matter what we think, does it? It really doesn't matter what we determined to be good and what we determined to be evil, since God is good, only good, since God is all wise, then it depends on God's definition of good and God's definition of evil.
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Now, again, many people will disagree with that and you know what, let them disagree all they want because they're not really disagreeing with us, they're disagreeing with God's word.
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And so that should be something that we think about.
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I found this one in Proverbs 25 and I kind of laughed.
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It says, it is better to dwell in the corner of a housetop than in a house shared with a contentious woman.
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Now, where it says better, it's the same word for good.
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And I will assure you, it's good to dwell in the corner of a housetop than dwell in a house shared with a contentious woman.
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So in a sense, there's another way of understanding what good is, it's something that's better.
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Something again, better because it's beneficial, better because it's profitable, better because it's upright and true.
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And I hope you would agree that it is always better to be good because the reality is God is good.
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Again, that should be our desire, to be like Him.
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In Proverbs chapter 27, it says, open rebuke is better than secret love.
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Open rebuke is better, it's the same word.
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So we can really say open rebuke is gooder than secret love.
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Why? Because it is profitable, it is beneficial.
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It might not be received that way, but it still is better, better to have open rebuke than secret love.
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Paul says, we pay no one evil for evil, have regard for good things in the sight of all men.
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And if possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men.
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It is something we ought to have regard for good things in the sight of all men.
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So if you think about that, when it says in Proverbs chapter three, do not withhold good from those to whom it is due.
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We have to think about our responsibility and our responsibility is to be profitable, to be pleasant, to be beneficial.
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And that is that not one of the things we are the light of what? The world, why? Because we are the ones that are to benefit the world.
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We have the truth, we have the gospel, we have hope.
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We have his word, we ought to be the light of the world.
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We ought to be the salt of the earth.
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We ought to be beneficial.
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We ought to be the ones who demonstrate and show forth how great is our God.
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So when you think about that, I hope that gives us a little more understanding of what it is to be good.
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So let's go back then to Proverbs chapter three.
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I think about it.
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So the second half of the verse, and we'll definitely get through this tonight.
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We're gonna move a little faster, but I wanted to get that out when it says, do not withhold good from those to whom it is due when it is in the power of your hand to do so.
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And I want us to think about this, and I wanna ask you to consider this, that God has given every one of us a measure of grace.
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God has given to everyone a measure in this world, and we ought to use it for good, not evil.
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And that we have a responsibility to all men, and certainly to the household of faith, to take what God has given us and do good with it.
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And here's the thought, and I think about this for myself, that when it says, do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in the power of your hand, that each one of us has a realm in which God has placed us in which we can be the facilitators of doing good.
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And my realm might not be the same as this, your realm, and your realm, and we're all different.
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We all have what God has given to us, and sometimes we're so busy, and we'll get to it as we move further on, sometimes we're so busy looking over the fence at what other people possess that we lose sight of the fact that God has created us as unique creatures in a very specific, God is as sovereign in providence as He is in salvation.
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God is as sovereign in how He created you and me, and walked you and me through this world, and we ought to use what measure that God has given to us, and we ought to use it on those that God has in our way, whether He puts us in their way, or He brings them in our way.
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Because you see, as God is generous, we ought to be generous when it is in your power to do so.
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When it is, and look at verse 28, do not say to your neighbor, go and come back, and tomorrow I will give it, when you have it with you, when you have it with you.
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And again, what God has given me for good might not necessarily be the same thing that God has given you for good.
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And I'm not to look to what God has given you because God gave it to you.
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I mean, I enjoy listening to you sing, and I like to sing behind you, but I certainly don't wanna sing in front of you.
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Because when I go from bass to, you know, what's the high one? Soprano, I was thinking of the soprano, so forgive me.
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But when you, I can't do that.
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But in that sense, God has not given that to me.
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I mean, again, my whole point is, as it says, and this is what really the wisdom of this is, is that we have been given goodness from God.
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We are, each of us uniquely given a measure, some 30, some 60, some 100, some in this thing.
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Remember what it says in Galatians? Paul says, let him that's taught in the word teach him who teaches in all good things.
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So again, if my sink is leaking, I'm calling the plumber, I'm not calling the carpenter, right? Why? Because the carpenter can't do me any good under the sink.
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I know I can't do myself any good under the sink.
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So I want the plumber, why? Because that's the measure that God has given to him.
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Again, my friends, let me just read this to you there.
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And I say it often, I've quoted a couple of times, but in this is what Proverbs says, there was one who scatters and yet increases more and is one who withholds more than is right, but it leads to poverty.
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The generous soul will be made rich and he who waters will also be watered.
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Again, what is it? And that's part of the wisdom of God is to know what God has given each one of us, right? And to use it for good, use it for profit, use it to be beneficial in the situation that we're in, especially when it's in our power to do so.
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And again, God is the first cause of everything, is he not? Absolutely.
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But God uses secondary causes, does he not? Absolutely.
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So if God has given us good, then God's expectation is that we would use the good that he has given to us to do good, to be profitable, to be beneficial, to be in that sense, like he is.
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Just think about that and consider it, how it even says if the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, right? The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord.
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Well, if the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, then a good man should observe the steps that he walks.
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Make sense? Of course it does.
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If God has given something to us, we ought to make use of it, we ought to be aware of it.
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I think many times we miss some of the benefit of what God has given to us by not considering what God has given to us and being so taken over by what God has given someone else.
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And that you and I ought to truly not only meditate on the greatness of our God, but what God has given us and our responsibility in using it.
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And so just something to think about as we go through this.
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So going a little bit further, he says, so do not say to your neighbor, kind of like the parable of Lord Jesus, right? Remember, lady knocking on the door? A friend came to my house, can you give me some bread? And the man said, go away, my kids are sleeping.
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And finally, she keeps knocking and knocking and knocking and he finally gives it to her so his kids can go back to sleep.
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But nevertheless, do not say to your neighbor, go back and tomorrow I will give it when you have it with you.
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Then verse 29, it says, do not devise evil against your neighbor for he dwells by you for safety's sake.
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Now, that seems to me to be the opposite of doing good, is to do evil, right? And it's interesting to me how he brings into focus this idea of your neighbor.
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Now, we can do good to people on the other side of the world, right? We can be profitable, we can be beneficial, we can support them, we can pray for them, we can do many things for people on the other side of the world.
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I submit to you, we can do a whole lot more for the people who live next door to us, in that sense, than we can do for people who live on the other side of the world.
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The problem with us is we are not willing to do good in the situation we're in, so we write it off by doing good on the other side of the world, right? When it's in our power to do it, we neglect it.
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Do not devise evil against your neighbor for he dwells by you for safety's sake.
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I pulled these two scriptures out, and I'm just gonna read them to you.
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One's from Micah and one's from Isaiah.
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And this is one of the issues that continually showed itself in Israel.
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And one of the reasons why God sent them off into captivity, in Micah it says this, "'Woe to those who devise iniquity "'and work out evil on their beds, "'and at morning light they practice it, "'because it is in the power of their hand, "'and they covet fields, "'and they take them by violence, houses, and seize them, "'and they oppress a man in his house, "'a man in his inheritance.'" They devise evil and they work it out on their beds.
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And then in the morning, guess what? They go out and do it.
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That you and I ought not to be characterized as being those who devise evil against our neighbor, because the reality is they dwell by us for safety's sake.
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And Isaiah says this, "'Woe to the rebellious children,' says the Lord, "'who take counsel, but not of me, "'and who devise plans, but not of my spirit, "'that they may add sin to sin.'" They won't take counsel of me, but they devise plans.
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And again, you and I really have to consider ourselves in light of what God gives us in teaching us of wisdom, and certainly in this area of doing good with the proper understanding of what good is, right? To be beneficial, to be upright, to be profitable.
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You and I have to think about these things, because again, there's a great tendency for many to relinquish their responsibility and try to find other ways around it.
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We ought not to say within ourselves this or that.
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If I was in this situation, I would do good.
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Or if I was in that situation, I would do good.
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When it's in the power of our hands to do it, do it.
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Simple, right? Not simple, not simple.
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Look a little further.
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Verse 30, along the same lines.
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"'Do not strive with a man without cause, "'if he has done you no harm.'" Do not strive with a man without cause, if he has done you no harm.
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And this is where that thought came to me.
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And I don't know how else to say it, so I'll just say it this way.
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We ought not to stick our nose where it don't belong.
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How's that? We are not to meddle and stick our noses and our lives and our words and our judgments and this, that, and the other thing.
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We are not to do that.
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And we are not to strive against our neighbor.
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And we are not to strive with a man without cause if he's done us no harm.
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And in many ways, my friends, the answer really is we ought to just walk straight forward, right? That doesn't mean we don't look to the left and look to the right.
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Because again, I've been saying to you, we ought to seek to do good.
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We ought to seek to be beneficial.
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We ought to seek to be profitable.
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We ought to seek to be pleasant.
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But at the same time, my friends, don't strive with a man without cause if he's done you no harm.
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And here's another reality of this.
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Many times we get involved in something where we don't even know what we don't know.
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We get involved in things, whether it be we want to give someone advice or maybe we're just nosy.
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But my point is, many times we don't know what we don't know.
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And so we need to be careful.
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We need to have wisdom to know and to understand if we should, in that sense, get involved or not get involved.
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I think that's an important thought for us to think.
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And again, I'm not saying we ought to turn a blind eye to things and if we see things, we ought to seek to be good at it.
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But there's a line that we cross sometimes where we enter into things we ought not to enter into.
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Or as it says simply, we strive with a man who's done us no harm.
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Kind of dangerous to go pick a fight with someone many times.
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I don't want to pick a fight with this guy because he's got like 14, he's carrying 14 weapons at any one time.
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So I don't want to mess with him.
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But again, the thought is don't strive with a man who has not done you any harm.
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And then look at verse 31.
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Do not envy the oppressor and choose none of his ways for the perverse person is an abomination to the Lord.
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Now, I want us to think about that just for a moment because I wanted to mention this and I was originally gonna ask us to go back and look at Psalm 73.
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And if you want, you can read that on your own.
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We talk about it fairly often, but when it says do not envy the oppressor and choose none of his ways, the thought is we need to be careful that we don't allow our eyes to cause us to stumble even as in Psalm 73, which if you're familiar with it is basically the psalm on La Crosse barrier to wicked and how they die and their eyes bulge with abundance and they have more than they could ever want nor need and they die with smiles on their face.
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And if you remember what it says in Psalm 73, it says, the psalmist says, I almost lost it.
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That's a paraphrase, I almost slipped.
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I almost slipped and fell because I was envious.
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I was, until I went into the sanctuary of God and of course he began to understand it.
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But my point is that don't envy the oppressor and choose none of his ways for the, look at verse 32.
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The perverse person is an abomination to the Lord.
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The perverse person is a abomination to the Lord.
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So if I was to ask you what an abomination is, how would you define it? Again, do we really need to understand what we're, what the word means and the word is used here as much as I've been able to discover, it really means disgusting.
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That abomination is disgusting, disgusting to God and it's things that are and bring disgust to God.
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Just think about it for a minute.
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Do you ever smell something disgusting? If you live on 200 and you go down towards Fernandina Beach, they built right on 200 over a landfill in a certain area.
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And you can go there in the morning or at night or when it rains and it stinks because it's sewage coming up from, I don't know where it's coming up from.
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It's disgusting.
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So when you think about that, if you smell something disgusting, would you ever eat something that was disgusting? What's the first thing you wanna do? You wanna get rid of it.
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You want it gone.
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So when you think about that, you think about what is being said here.
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The perverse person is an abomination to the Lord.
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It's disgusting.
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It's disgusting to the character of God.
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It's disgusting to his holiness.
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It's a stench, he says, in his nostrils.
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Remember what he said in Isaiah? He said, stop bringing me your sacrifices.
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I can't stand them.
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There's a stench in my nostrils.
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You and I have to be mindful of this that we ought not to envy the oppressor and choose none of his ways because in reality, he disgusts God.
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And being a disgust to God is not profitable.
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Not now, nor ever.
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I wanna show you something as we begin to close this down a little bit.
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I wanna show you something from the second half of that verse, verse 32.
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Look at it.
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The perverse person is an abomination to the Lord, but his secret counsel is with the upright.
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His secret counsel is with the upright.
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And I'm gonna ask you to turn to one scripture.
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Psalm 106.
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Go to Psalm 103.
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Psalm 103.
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I wanna show you something where it says that, we just read in Proverbs, it says his secret counsel is with the upright.
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Let me show you something in Psalm 103.
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I just wanna try to find my verse again.
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Okay, here it is.
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Just read it from verse one.
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Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me.
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Bless his holy name.
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Bless the Lord, O my soul.
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Forget not all his benefits.
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Who forgives all your iniquities.
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Who heals all your diseases.
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Who redeems your life from destruction.
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Who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercy.
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Who satisfies your mouth with good things so that your youth is renewed like an eagle.
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The Lord executes righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed.
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I want you to look at verse seven.
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He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the children of Israel.
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Now, many years ago, I was looking at this verse and I considered it.
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And as I read what it said in Proverbs three, that his secret counsel is with the upright.
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To me, the psalmist is making a distinction of how God dealt with Moses and how God dealt with the children of Israel.
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He made his way known to Moses.
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God revealed himself to Moses.
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In so many ways, all the children of Israel ever saw was his acts, not his ways.
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You remember when Moses went up in the burning bush? You remember when Moses asked and saw the glory of God, the backside of the glory of God? That there was a difference, a distinction between knowing the ways of God and the acts of God.
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And I would submit to you that it is far better to know the ways of God than just merely the acts of God.
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And so I consider that Moses had a different relationship with God than Israel ever did.
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And that you and I ought to be the ones, as it says in Proverbs, who are able to see the secret counsel of God and not merely his acts.
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Because seeing his acts many times does not really reveal the way of God.
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But his secret counsel, the perverse person is abomination to the Lord, disgusting to the Lord, but his secret counsel, that which is the counsel of his ways of who he is, is far better than to just seeing what he does.
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His secret counsel is with the upright.
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Let me ask you to look just at the last two verses for a second.
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The curse of the Lord is on the house of the wicked, but he blesses the habitation of the just.
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Surely he scorns the scornful, but gives grace to the humble.
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And the wise man shall inherit glory, but shame shall be the glory of fools.
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And again, to bring it back to what I have been trying to state, the book of Proverbs truly is a display of two different kinds of people.
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Those that are wise, who possess wisdom, who are diligent in seeking after God, and they receive the blessing of God.
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And then there's the fool.
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The one who says in his heart, there is no God.
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The one who has no desire to even search out and find out if that's true or not.
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And that he is the one who ultimately comes to nothing but shame and judgment.
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The curse of the Lord is on the house of the wicked.
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And again, in the Bible, there are those that are given to us as wicked above others, but truly the wicked is the one who does not believe in the Lord our God.
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And that's why it says in the Psalms, right? God is angry with who? Psalm 7 says, God is angry with the wicked every day.
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God is angry with the wicked every day.
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Oh, God is love.
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God is love.
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God is angry with the wicked every day.
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See, we have this problem of trying to put God in the same compartments as we are.
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We feel love one minute, we feel hate another minute.
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We feel this one second, we feel that another second.
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Not so with God.
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God is, in that sense, simple.
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God is not made of component parts.
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God is, right? God is love.
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God is angry with the wicked every day.
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And so when you see that, the curse of the Lord is on the house of the wicked.
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And then there's that, if you will, the blessed side, but he blesses the habitation of the just.
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Surely he scorns the scornful, but gives grace to the humble.
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Peter brings this up, doesn't he? About God giving grace to the humble.
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The wise man shall inherit glory, but shame, shame shall be the legacy of fools.
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So, brothers and sisters, as we close out this chapter, let us remember that the book of Proverbs, the word of God is meant for our good.
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And if we will apply ourselves, God is faithful.
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God is faithful to give us what we need to not only know him, but to walk with him.
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And if not, if we find ourselves struggling, and many people who possess Christ and even profess Christ struggle with their Christianity, we all do.
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And anybody says they don't is not telling you the whole story.
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But many who say they are God's children and struggle with so much of what the Bible teaches do so, because they have not sought to seek out by wisdom the ways of God.
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So may God bless us.
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And may we, again, grow in grace, in wisdom and knowledge.
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So let's pray.
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Father, thank you for tonight, Lord.
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Thank you for your word, Lord.
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Your word is so full.
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It's so good, Lord.
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Help us to be good, not in the sense of the way the world considers good, but as you do.
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That you are good, alone good, in the name of Jesus.