Verse by verse teaching - Proverbs 11:27 "Diligently seeking"

Proverbs chapter 11 verse 27 Proverbs chapter 11 verse 27 The title of the message tonight is diligently seeking Diligently seeking And tonight's verse Solomon is talking about the man who diligently seeks good Look here what the Bible says he that diligently seeketh good now once again we come across that fine word that We read about in the book of Genesis the fine word that we studied about over the past week or two here in in this church And it's the word that describes What the world was like before? Sin entered into the world We've never known it. We've never seen it. We have only read about it and I can only imagine how wonderful that must have been a time when the heaven and the earth were pristine Uncontaminated by the sin of man in Genesis chapter 1 verse 31 a the first part of it The Bible says in God saw everything that he had made and behold. It was very good And literally in Hebrew and you'll remember this word. I'm sure it was very Tob Y'all remember that word us learning about the other night or the other day We are learning tonight about the man that diligently seeks Tobe That seeks things to be The way God designed them to be before sin entered in if you can think about the earth Before centered sin entered into the earth before man fell before they realized they were naked Before they were afraid of God before there was a curse that ever touched our untainted ground that's Tob You can think about the Garden of Eden that's Tob Tobes what I want Tobes what Jesus is going to bring back to this world again God created everything by his word and God said let there be this let there be that So God created everything by his word and since everything he made by his word was Tob then God's word itself is Tob God is Tob Thus we should diligently seek everything in our lives to be as God's word Says it should be we should be as Tob as we possibly can The word Shekar is Another word we want to look at tonight because the Bible says if you'll look back in your text he that diligently seeketh good That word diligently It's actually the the words diligently seeketh is actually one Hebrew word that's made into two English words But it's the word Shekar Shekar and Shekar means to Don Like the Sun to Don like the Sun I Get to see the Sun rise every morning on my way to work And that's Shekar to Don like the Sun well guess what old brother Richard does When he gets up He's Shekar He's up with the Sun up before the Sun actually, but definitely up with the Sun And so to diligently seek To Shekar is to get up early so you can eagerly complete a task Diligently seek is to get up early so you can eagerly complete a task. Here's a kingdom truth for you tonight We should do What is good as Soon as we know what is good We should do What is good as soon as we know? What is good the Bible says in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 26 be let not the Sun go down? upon your wrath So Shekar's to rise like the Sun But here in Ephesians it says don't let the Sun go down upon your wrath In other words get your angry attitude fixed before the Sun goes down Should never go to bed angry Get it get it get it's fixed get it settled don't go to bed angry Don't let the Sun go down upon your wrath to do so as a sin It's a sin against God But our verse here tonight gives us another perspective and it's it's not letting the Sun go down upon your wrath But don't let it come up upon your evil Don't let it come up upon your evil at all Put your put your life in order for God before the Sun comes up Whoever diligently seeks the will of God Whoever rises early like the Sun to make sure that that they're seeking Told that they're seeking things the way God wants them to be in their lives The Bible says look back in your text now procureth favor procureth favor Now I want you to notice the connection here between the word seek and procure seek Good and what happens you procure favor? If you seek if you diligently seek that which is Tob That which is the thing that God designed it to be you seek things to be the way God says they should be Whoever diligently seeks that they procure favor Good is Tob The way God designed things to be Favor is delight That's what God designed us to experience Repeat that again good is Tob The way God designed things to be Favor is delight and That's what God designed us to experience How many of y'all I was in my office yesterday on the ninth floor The ninth floor in a mosquito comes flying right across my face and I'm thinking how did he get up here and why? We've we we we figured out maybe the mosquito landed on somebody Maybe was getting a good drink off that person. They get on the elevator. I don't know But somehow they get up on the ninth floor But how many y'all are Delighted with mosquitoes and roaches just delighted Tammy. No How many of you get a blessing out of every customer service representative you speak to I Love it when they say I understand your concern Richard When they say Richard, I know it's not gonna go well because they're from another country and they have a name that is Americanized and I'm not gonna get the help I name it's frustrating. It's stressful How many of y'all delight yourself in every law in the books and every person in charge of government no When God created everything Tob When God created everything Tob in the book of Genesis Everything in this world everything in this world was delightful to man everything Even the mosquitoes even the snakes There wasn't a single thing in this world that was not an absolute delight to man Everything is delightful when it's the way God designed it to be and everything is harmful when it's not Everything is delightful when it's the way God designed it to be and everything is harmful when it's not That's why when when God says do this, but don't do that He's trying to give you delight and not harm You may think you're you're having a good time straying from God's Word But you'll suffer for it in the end Guaranteed you'll suffer for it in the end. I've talked to a lot of dying people as a pastor a lot of dying people and I've never met a person at the end of their life Who regretted obeying God's Word? Not one time. I've talked to a lot of old people. I've talked to a lot of middle-aged people I've talked to young people and I have yet to meet any of them Who have regretted obeying God's Word? Is there anyone here who can say in all honesty, you know? There's been a few times. I wish I wouldn't have obeyed God's Word. It would have turned out much better for me anybody. I Hadn't met anyone yet But I've met a lot of people who when they've disregarded God's Word and they've gone against that tobe against that Design that God has for us which he's communicated to us in Scripture and they've regretted it in those who? Have not regretted it will regret it He that diligently seeks tobe procures The pleasure of God that he has laid up for his people. You know what procurement is, right? The Hebrew word translated procures here not the English word but the Hebrew word It means to search for something in worship and prayer to search for something in worship and prayer In other words when you procure it you're procuring it through worship and prayer Our English word procure means to obtain something through care and effort Doesn't mean it doesn't mean you just inherited something and oh look I got a check in the mail a mailbox check is not procurement To procure means to obtain something through care and effort and The care and effort that's being exercised in our text tonight that receives delight is worship and prayer Worship and prayer We obtain what is Tobes and we delight in it When we search for it in Worship and when we search for it in prayer How do we do that? We search for it in worship. That's acknowledging God's goodness That's a knob that's us acknowledging that God is Tobes and that what he has designed Is Tobes is good and is right for us That's worship And we search for it in prayer and that's us petitioning God's grace so I acknowledge The goodness of God and I petition the grace of God that's how I search for Tobes We should seek for good with a heart that says Oh God You do all things well You spoke the world into existence by your word and you made it good Everything you do is good God and I ask that your word will dwell richly in my heart and life that I may know and Experience your good will for me in your delight in my heart I Want to be delighted in this world. I Don't like being disappointed. I like being delighted. I don't like being disgusted I like being delighted We get a lot of things in this world that disgust us And y'all ever watch any of the debate last night Did you watch it all the way through? Did you get disgusted? I? Got so disgusted. I put my thumb to work That's what I had to do Got disgusted There's a lot of things in this world that disgust us. You know why they disgust us. They're not Tobes Or if Tobes disgust us then we're not Tobes That's why but if we would search the will of God in every matter of our life Then we would procure God's pleasure in every matter of our life Whoever seeks that which is good in searching For God's Tobes is Searching for their own good Look back and look at your text and you don't have to turn in the slide But look back your text they procure favor they procure delight So whoever seeks that which is good is searching for their own good For their own delight for their own well-being Here's a kingdom truth a wise person seeks to please God and by doing so they please themselves a Wise person seeks to please God and by doing so They please themselves you seek to be a delight to God And you know what's going to happen. You'll end up being delighted. That's what's going to happen Look back in your text look back your text now, but he that seeketh mischief He that seeketh mischief. That's that's something completely opposite And absolutely loved this because what we see in the scripture tonight once again were brought back to the Garden of Eden because Tobes are good Here which is Tobes in Hebrew, but the good here is the same Hebrew word For good on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the word mischief here in the Hebrew is The same word for evil on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil So we have people seeking two different things one seeking good the other seeking evil and there's the tree of the knowledge of good and evil We just come back full circle to it and Isn't it funny you get to the book of the Revelation you come right back to it again You get to eat from the tree of life It's amazing how the Bible is so seamless The root word from which this word comes from this word translated mischief It means to break something in pieces Good or Tobes speaks of God's design God looked at everything that he made In it was Tobes So Tobes speaks of God making something God designing something and Evil or mischief speaks of us breaking God's design Anytime you break God's command in his word Those commands are put in place so we can keep God's design intact So we can keep his intent for us Our heart our actions It's too late for the world until Jesus comes back. He'll put it back intact. He'll put Tobes back intact But we're living in a cursed world, but in the meantime In our heart and in our actions We need to live as Tobes even though we're living in evil We need to live as good even though we're living and dwelling in evil And so Tobes speaks of God's design and This word mischief here it speaks of us breaking God's design the tree of the knowledge of good and evil It allowed us to know God's creation in both ways The making and The breaking and that was too bad When we break God's commandments, we're breaking his good design and whoever seeks to break God's word Whoever seeks to do evil look back in your text it that is that evil Shall come unto him Shall come unto him the word come here Is the same word that's translated as brought in the book of Genesis chapter 2 in The book of Genesis chapter 2 God brought the animals to Adam to see what he would name them remember that When we seek to damage God's design that damage Will come to us We must not forget that we are God's design That's why the damage comes to us If I seek to violate God's design to break God's design his will for my life I break that design for my life. I am God's design I was originally made in the image of God and I should keep that designed as Tobes or as good as I possibly can But when in my life and my actions and my thoughts I break that design I'm doing more damage to myself I'm harming myself every time you violate God's Word you're harming yourself Damage will come to us like the animals came to Adam Then it's going to show up Eve sought it and The evil came to her the damage came to her Satan sought it and It came to him Eve broke God's design That's evil in The evil came to her in sorrow. You'll bring forth children and you'll also die Satan sought to break God's design and doing so in breaking it he broke himself There's a place called the lake of fire prepared for him and those that followed him Adam's saw it and it came to him and it came to him every time I've gone against God's Word trouble has come to me It may come fast or slow, but it will come You may not recognize you may not put the connection together You may not realize that the trouble is the result of your disobedience You may blame it on somebody else, but it's the result of your disobedience It'll come But think about it for a moment God brought the animals to Adam and that word brought is the same word translated. It'll come the evil will come on him When God brought those animals to Adam to name them was that before or after Adam sinned Huh? Before that's right. It was before So when God brought those animals to Adam they were told They were told God was bringing his goodness to Adam So he could experience The amazing creatures he made He made those creatures for man And he put man in charge of those creatures and now he's bringing all of these animals to Adam that he made for him So he could name the animals Just like we name our children He's gonna be able to name them and say wow look at this one my wife and I were looking at This monkey there the day look the head that kind of has a nose like Jimmy Durrani You know that big long nose you got to be old enough to know Jimmy Durrani And they're the funniest looking monkeys now. I said I bet God had a good time when he made that one He I bet he thought I'm gonna make one. That's really funny looking But he brought them to Adam and he was bringing delight to Adam He was bringing good to Adam Every animal was the delight to him and God wants us to experience the delight of his will for us the delight of his creation that is the delight of his good design and He brought that good design to Adam and paraded it by him What do we learn from that When you seek evil it will come to you When you seek Tob it'll come to you as well It'll come to you as well Just as God will bring evil to you He'll bring Tob to you as well. He would rather bring Tob to you than evil John chapter 14 the gospel of John chapter 14 verse 21 through 23 He that hath my commandments and keepeth them. You know what that is Whoever has my commandments and keeps them that's someone who's seeking Tob Because his commandments is his word his word is Tob He that hath my commandments and keepeth them in other words diligently seeketh Tob He it is that loveth me and he that loveth me shall be loved of my father And I will love him and will manifest myself to him Judas saith unto him not ascariot Lord. How is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us and not into the world? Jesus answered and said unto him if a man loved me he will keep my words Tob And my father will love him. That's an active love and we will come unto him Isn't that amazing we Will come unto him and make our abode with him meaning near him will come to him If you seek Tob Tob's gonna come to you if you seek evil evil is going to come to you But if you seek the will of God Tob's coming Tob's coming if you want to be close to the Lord then all you have to do is get close to his word That's that's what he's saying here. You have my commandment. You keep them you do them. We're going to come Make our abode with you. We're going to visit with you We're gonna walk with you We're gonna be near you We're gonna remain in your presence. This is not talking about salvation here This is just like the the Jesus knocking on the door of the church in the book of the Revelation The man here, you know, I'm knocking on the door. I'll come in will I'll sup with you and to the church that is If you want to get close to the Lord then all you have to do is get close to his word when you get close To his word then he gets close to you Make your abode in God's Word in the God of the Word will make his abode with you or as the Bible puts it in another place Draw near to him and he will draw near to you That's a great Deterrent to seeking evil in a wonderful encouragement to seeking good Father we thank you so much for your precious word Lord the the big trick of the devil is to always make us think Tob is evil and To make us think evil is Tob To make us think there is some flaw in the design that we need to seek another designer But Lord faith rejects the lie of the devil and it acknowledges That you do all things well and father tonight we acknowledge your good We seek we procure through worship through acknowledgement and through petition We acknowledge that you do all things well that your word is good We want your design in our life and we petition you for it We pray father That you will help us to actively faithfully Seek Lord to make any corrections in our lives that are against your word into daily and continually Check our decisions our thoughts our heart against your written word That you father will love us Lord in the sense of coming to us and making your abode with us and Father us having drawn near to you you draw near to us and we live closely with you To walk with you as Enoch Not from a distance like Peter But father close like Enoch hand in hand in Jesus precious name we pray and Lord we pray for Tob to come soon Amen