Calling: Walking Worthy

Sermon preached on February 19, 2023 – Proverbs 6:12-19; Ephesians 4:1-3 – Calling: Walking Worthy

Our text from Proverbs begins with Solomon writing about, what he calls, "a worthless person." He also writes that the worthless person is a “wicked man”; a wicked man who walks with a perverse mouth. The words “wicked” and “perverse” are moral terms; they describe a person’s character. But when Solomon writes about a "worthless" person, that's not an assessment of character, rather, that's an assessment of value. He’s making a statement about the person’s “worth.” He’s saying, this person is "worthless," he has no value. Is it appropriate for Solomon (or anybody else, for that matter) to say that a person is worthless? Doesn't the Bible teach us that every person is made in the image of God? And isn't this why we believe in the sanctity of all human life? Isn't this why we defend the life of the unborn? Isn’t this why we promote orphan care? Isn’t this why we oppose euthanasia? How is it proper, then, for Solomon to write that a person is worthless?

Whenever challenging questions like this arise from a passage of Scripture, we often discover the answer by looking behind the English translation to original language. In the case of our sermon text, the original language is Hebrew. And when we look at the Hebrew word that’s translated into English as "worthless," it’s a word you may already be familiar with. It’s the word "belial." I say you might be familiar with this word because it’s used in 2 Corinthians 6:15. In writing how believers are not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers, Paul rhetorically asks, “what accord has Christ with Belial?” The word "belial" is used 27 times in the Old Testament and it always refers to somebody or something that’s acting in opposition to God’s declared will.

For example, in 1 Samuel 2:12, we read that Eli’s two sons were “belial.” How were they acting in opposition to God’s declared will? Because they were priests, and priests were commissioned by God to intercede for the people. But Eli’s sons didn’t intercede for the people; rather, they abused the people. So they were belial; they were acting in opposition to God's declared will.

Another example is in Judges 19, when the Levite and his concubine arrived in Gibeah. The people of the city are described as “belial.” How were they acting in opposition to God’s declared will? Because they were supposed to show hospitality to these travelers, but instead, they harassed the Levite and killed his concubine.

And one more example is when Jezebel plotted to steal Naboth’s vineyard. 1 Kings 21:13 says she found two "worthless men"—two “belials”—who would intentionally give false testimony about Naboth so he could be killed and his property seized.

In all three of these cases, the people described as “belial” were acting in opposition to God’s declared will. This made them “worthless people,” not in the ontological sense; not in their value as human beings made in the image of God, but they’re worthless in their contributions to building the kingdom of God. They’re worthless in their contributions to subdue the world for the glory of God, because rather than acting in accordance with God’s revealed will, they’re acting in opposition to God’s revealed will. Rather than seeking to glorify God, they seek to glorify themselves. Rather than building up the people of God, they tear down the people of God. Rather than promoting righteousness and justice in this world, they promote evil and injustice.

The word belial, therefore, broadly encompasses anything that’s in opposition to God. So when Paul was writing to the Corinthians about being unequally yoked, he chose not to try to translate “belial” into Greek. Rather, he let the word serve as the name for Satan, who’s the foremost being that’s opposed to God, “What accord has Christ with Belial?” The Hebrew-speaking Israelites Solomon was addressing in our sermon text would have understood that worthless person Solomon is describing is a person who’s acting in opposition to the declared will of God. To demonstrate just how worthless this man is as a servant of God, Solomon describes him in verses 12-14 as...

…a wicked man [who] walks with a perverse mouth; he winks with his eyes, he shuffles his feet, he points with his fingers. Perversity is in his heart. He devises evil continually. He sows discord.

The word "wicked" in verse 12 literally, this word means "to pant," as if to exert oneself to the point of fatigue. So the worthless man Solomon is describing is a person who exerts himself against the kingdom of God with such enthusiasm that he exhausts himself to the point of panting. Solomon goes to insinuate that the worthless person’s perverse mouth speaks deception and tells lies. The winking with his eyes, signaling with his feet, and pointing with his finger indicate that the worthless person is not working alone, but that he's working in conjunction with other worthless people. Like a third base coach making covert signs to the runner on base, the worthless person winks and gestures to his accomplices as they secretly scheme against their unsuspecting victims.

If you pay close attention to our sermon text, you'll notice that the worthless person’s sinful behaviors listed in verses 12-14 correspond very closely to the six things the Lord hates, yes, seven are an abomination to Him in verses 17-19.

Verse 12 says the worthless person " Walks with a perverse mouth." Verse 17 says "a lying tongue" is an abomination to the Lord.

Verse 13 says the worthless person "winks with his eyes." Verse 17 says "haughty eyes" are an abomination to the Lord.

Verse 13 says the worthless person "shuffles his feet." Verse 18 says "feet that are swift in running to evil" are an abomination to the Lord.

Verse 13 says the worthless person "points with his fingers." Verse 17 says "hands that shed innocent blood" are an abomination to the Lord.

Verse 14 says the worthless person has “Perversity is in his heart.” Verse 18 says "a heart that devises wicked plans" is an abomination to the Lord.

In addition, if you look at the order in which the abominations are listed in verses 17-18, you'll see that they start at the top of the man's body and work their way down to his feet.

Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, 18 a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil...

This is Solomon's way of saying that the worthless person is wicked from head to toe. Or to borrow the language of Romans 6, the worthless man presents all the members of his body as instruments for sin and unrighteousness. He presents his eyes, his tongue, his hands, his heart, and his feet as slaves to impurity and lawlessness, and this is heaping sin upon sin. Romans 6:19 says it’s lawlessness leading to even more lawlessness. And this is what the Bible calls “belial.” This is what the Bible calls a “worthless person.”

Becoming belial starts out as sinful desires within the heart. The sinner is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.  Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. This is when the internal sin becomes externalized. The sinner soon begins to scheme, lie, manipulate, and sow discord in the manner we read about in our sermon text. What was at first just the private matter of the person’s heart has now become a public matter that’s directly impacts the live of other people in some significantly negative ways. Sometimes the worthless person fully intends to impact other people’s lives in negative ways. For example, when he steals, he knows his victims are going to suffer loss. Or when he gives false testimony, he knows his victims are going to be harmed. But the worthless person doesn’t care. He doesn’t care because he’s more interested in his own wellbeing than he is about his victim’s wellbeing.

But there are other times when the worthless person doesn’t actually intend to harm anybody. He’s been led to believe that certain sins have no victims. For example, many people believe this about pornography. They say, “I’m just looking at pictures. How does that harm anybody?” And many people believe this about other types of sexual immorality. They say, “We’re two consenting adults. There are no victims here.” The reality is, every sin has victims. There are always unknown and unintended consequences to sin that cause other people harm and suffering.

God has created this world in such a way that every one of us are connected to other people. Through our family, we’re connected to our siblings, parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and so forth. If we’re married, we’re connected to our spouse and their entire family structure. If we have children, then we’re connected to them. Outside of our family, we have connections to our friends, our neighbors, our schoolmates, our co-workers, our employer, our clients and customers, our vendors, and so on, and so on. Each of us is part of a large, complicated network of people that provides you with no more than six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon.

So when you sin, the inevitable consequence is that you’re going to injure some of the people you're connected to. Sometimes it's very predicable how your sin will impact other people. If you commit adultery, your spouse and children are going to be deeply impacted by that. But other times it's not so predicable how your sin is going to impact other people. This is particularly true for those sins that we’ve been told have no victims.

In warfare, when a military strike on an enemy target unintentionally kills civilians, that’s called “collateral damage.” Sin always has collateral damage. Sin always has an unintended impact on other people. That's just the nature of sin. There’s always collateral damage, and those who are closest to the sinner are typically the one who get hurt the worst. For example, the sin of greed will often lead to poor financial stewardship. Where there’s poor financial stewardship, children may not be getting the food and clothing they need. Bills probably aren’t getting paid on time. And when bills go unpaid, this impacts the people who are not receiving the money they deserve... which might mean their children aren’t getting the food and clothing they need. That's the collateral effect of sin.

Or take the supposedly victimless sin of pornography. Not only does this sin harm the person who’s using pornography, but if he’s married, he’s harming his spouse. And if he’s not yet married, then he’s harming his future spouse, because in both cases, pornography will degrade and corrupt intimacy between a husband and wife. And in many cases, the use of pornography leads to inappropriate acts committed against children. And that’s just touching a few of the victims on the downstream side of pornography. On the upstream side, there are other victims. All the exploitation, trafficking, assault, human degradation, and whatever other crimes, violence, and defilement were committed in the production of the pornographic material is part of the damage. None of that would be happening if there were no consumers of pornography. The consumers, therefore, have blood on their heads. Just as the guy who hires a hitman is guilty of murder, so the consumer of pornography is guilty of all the crimes against humanity that went into producing the material.

The point I’m illustrating is that every sin has collateral damage. You may think that you can keep your sin to yourself. You might think it’s not going to go any further than what you can control, but there will always be unanticipated and unpreventable collateral damage. Sin always impacts other people. And when the bomb explodes, the people who suffer the greatest injury will typically be the ones who are standing closest to you.

What Solomon is describing in our sermon text is the same thing Paul described in Romans 6. Paul warned in Romans 6:19 not to presents your members as slaves to lawlessness." Then he said that lawlessness leads to more lawlessness. What he meant by this is that unrepented sin rapidly grows out of control. It’s like the little pine cone that starts to roll down a snowy mountain. The more it rolls, the more snow it gathers, and the more snow it gathers, the larger the snowball grows.  It doesn’t take long before a massive snow ball is breaking off tree branches and damaging everything within its path. That’s the life of the worthless person.

Take heed, my dear friends. The moment you see those little pine cones of sin beginning to roll down the hill of your life, you need to stop them immediately. The only way to stop them is by falling upon your knees. The only way to stop sin from snowballing in your life and crushing the people you love is through repentance; through to confessing your sin and forsaking it. For those who refuse to repent, they can expect their sin to continue snowballing. Not only will it be injuring other people, but it will be injuring themselves. They’ll become unprofitable in the kingdom of God. Because they’re acting in opposition to the revealed will of God, they be counted amongst those who are belial. They’ll become worthless people.

Our sermon text is not only a warning against becoming worthless people, but it’s also a warning about worthless people. In other words, Solomon wants us to understand the collateral effect worthless people will have on the people of God. Look at verse 14 of our sermon text. What is the result of all the worthless person’s scheming and lying? "Discord." The worthless man sows discord. Now look at verse 19. What stands at the end of "the six things the Lord hates, seven which are an abomination to Him?" It’s the “one who sows discord among brethren.”

Brothers and sisters, Solomon is telling us that worthless people will try to introduce division amongst us. Solomon is telling us that the little pine cones of winking eyes and pointing fingers and shuffling feet will grow into huge snowballs that come crashing into the church of Jesus Christ. And if we don’t handle these situations according to the commands and principles God has revealed in His word, our unity will be compromised. Accusations will arise, defensive postures will be taken, and before you know it, conflicts and disputes will bring division amongst the brethren.

Notice the word the Holy Spirit inspired Solomon to write in verses 14 and 19. Solomon did not write that the worthless person "creates" discord or that he "incites" people to discord, he wrote that the worthless person "sows" discord. This, of course, is an agricultural term. In fact, if we were reading this in Hebrew, we’d notice a second agricultural term in verses 14 and 18. The second term is the verb that’s translates into English as "devises." This verb literally means “to plow.” So what verse 14 is saying is that with perversity in his heart, the worthless person plows evil continually as he sows discord. He plows evil continually as he sows discord. As you probably know, a farmer plows the field before he sows the seed. By plowing, he’s preparing the soil to provide the optimal conditions for the seed to germinate and grow. So when Solomon writes that the worthless person is continually plowing evil and sowing seeds of discord, he’s saying that the worthless person is very calculated at how he introduces division within the body of Christ. By "plowing" the people of God, the worthless person tries to gain our trust. He does this through deception and lying. We don't know that he's lying to us, nor do we know that he's scheming against us, because he’s doing all of this with the wink of his eye and the shuffling of his feet so he can remain covert. Then, once he has sufficiently plowed, he’ll sow the seeds of discord. And once those seeds germinate, the weeds that start growing have the capacity to disrupt the peace and unity that exists amongst God’s people.

Brothers and sisters, we need to hear Solomon warning us that worthless people will creep in and begin plowing evil amongst us. And you won't immediately know this is happening. Why? Because the worthless person is intentionally deceptive. He’s doing all of this by winking his eyes, shuffling his feet, pointing with his fingers, and he does everything he can to hide the perversity that’s in his heart. But there’s one thing that Solomon mentions at the end of verse 12 that will give it all away. The worthless man walks with a perverse mouth. This doesn’t necessarily mean that he goes around cussing all the time. It means that if you listen to him long enough, his speech will eventually reveal the true nature of his heart. What was it that Jesus said in Luke 6:45?

…an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

The early signs by which you’ll be able to identify the worthless person is the perversity that come out of his mouth. Either he’ll be speaking heresy, or he’ll be full of boasting and pride, or he’ll be showing contempt for God-ordained authority, or he’ll be slandering people, or you’ll notice he’s finding enjoyment in things Christians are not supposed to rejoice in, or there’ll be something else in his speech along these lines. To ignore these things is to permit the worthless person to continue plowing. And then he’ll sow the seed. And once the seed is germinated, it’s going to be much more difficult to deal with the problem than if it were dealt with during the plowing stage. This is why Paul spoke such a solemn warning to the elders at Ephesus in Acts 20, beginning at verse 28…

28 Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. 29 For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. 30 Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves. 31 Therefore watch, and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears.

It should not seem strange that the worthless person would want to sow discord amongst the brothers, because the worthless person is belial; he acts in opposition to God. Contrast that with the character of genuine Christians. Jesus said in John 13:35, “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” You will detect love for the brethren in the Christian’s speech. You will not detect love for the brethren in the worthless person’s speech. Paul wrote in Ephesians 4:2-3, that genuine Christians walk...

with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Don’t miss that last part. Genuine Christians are "eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." Literally, Paul is saying that the Christian acts like a prison guard; he secures the unity of the Spirit by putting the shackle of peace around unity’s leg. Peace, therefore, is the countermeasure to the worthless person’s plowing and sowing. That's why it's important that you and I are constantly committed to maintaining peace amongst the brethren. The worthless person's plowing will be ineffective when we’re righteously committed to peace. And the worthless person's sowing will be ineffective when we’re righteously committed to peace. By constantly placing the shackle of peace upon the unity of the church, we’ll defeat the worthless person’s wicked schemes... and in many cases, we might not even know it! We might not even know that somebody was covertly trying to undermine the unity of our body, but became frustrated and went somewhere else. So the question becomes, how do we place the shackle of peace on the unity of the church? The answer is given in Ephesians 4:1. Paul writes...

I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called,

That's the answer: “to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called.” This is not referring to each person's unique calling in life, such as to be a doctor or a homemaker or a baker, but rather, Paul is writing about the effectual call of salvation that God gives to all of His elect. It's very similar to the statement Paul wrote in Thessalonians 2:12...

...we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.

So to walk worthy of your calling means you live your life in a manner that’s consistent with God’s revealed will. And that’s the exact opposite to what the worthless person does. Note the contrast that has developed here. The one who walks “worthy” of his calling is the person who walks in accordance to the revealed will of God. And the one who is "worthless" is the person who walks in opposition to the revealed will of God.

So do you want to be profitable to God's kingdom? Then walk worthy of the calling with which you were called. Do you want to be an instrument of righteousness? Then walk worthy of the calling with which you were called. Do you want to maintain unity of the church in the bond of peace? Then walk worthy of the calling with which you were called. Paul goes on in Ephesians 4 to list four characteristics of what it looks like to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, “with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love.”

Lowliness is the opposite of pride. It’s humility. Having received by the grace of God blessings so great that their true value cannot be expressed in words, it is only proper that the recipients of these blessings be filled with humility. Some people say that pride is the foundation for every sin a man can commit against God. If this be true, then how important is it that we have humility in our lives? Somebody once said that humility is the first, second, and third essential of the Christian life. I don’t think any of us can argue with that statement.

Gentleness has a lot to do with approachability. The gentle person doesn't throw a temper tantrum when somebody comes to them with a complaint. The gentle person doesn't assume a defensive posture when somebody wants to share a concern with them. If peace is going to be maintained amongst the people of God, then we need to be able to righteously work though complaints and concerns with one another. This means you need to be gentle enough that people can approach you without fearing your negative reaction.

Gentleness runs in the other direction, as well. If you have a grievance with another, then you should go to them privately and tell them. But let it be done with gentleness. Galatians 6:1 instructs us in this manner…

Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness

The third and fourth characteristics of the person who walks worthy of the calling in which he was called is longsuffering and bearing with one another in love. These two go together. The be longsuffering is the quality of being able to handle one another’s faults without the immediate need to avenge all wrongs. None of us are going to be perfect here on earth, so we need to be longsuffering with each other. Which means, we need to bear with each other in love. This emphasizes our willingness to forgive. It involves loving the other person, even when our natural tendency is be frustrated or upset.

To say that we need to be longsuffering while bearing with one another in love indicates that there will be times when loving each other is going to be a burden. That’s what the “suffering” part of longsuffering means. There will be times when loving each other is going to be a burden. You’re going to find it burdensome to love me at certain times, and I’m going to find it burdensome to love you at certain times. But if we’re both walking worthy of the calling in which we’ve been called, we’re going to be willing to suffer that burden. We’re going to endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace by expressing love and patience to each other, while being humble and gentle.

This, therefore, is the great contrast between the worthless person and the person who walks worthy of the his calling. God is describing a person’s value when He speaks of worth, but it’s not our intrinsic value as human beings that He assessing; it’s our value as His servants. It’s our value as workers in His vineyard. It’s our value as bondservants who walk in obedience to His declared will. It’s our value as vice-regents who take dominion of this world and build His kingdom. It’s our value as the called-out ones who endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. May the Lord grant us the faith to walk according to the calling to which He has called us.