What Are You Doing with What God Gave You? Proverbs 6
Notes
Transcript
Subject: Stewardship
Theme: Faithful Stewardship
Thesis: Faithful stewardship requires careful attention to everything God has entrusted to us.
Principle: We walk wisely when we manage what God has given us carefully and faithfully.
Intro
Intro
We have been looking at a few ways of following God in everyday life through Proverbs.
We are just scratching the surface.
This is a life long process of growth that takes intentionality.
This morning in our proverb we come to the topic of stewardship.
Most of the things that become big problems in our lives do not start out looking very big.
A commitment is made without thinking it through.
A responsibility gets pushed off one more day.
A complaint gets repeated to one more person.
A small compromise seems manageable.
And then somewhere down the road we look around and wonder, “How did this get here?”
That is one of the wonderful things about proverbs.
It speaks to the small things we do everyday.
When we hear the word stewardship, our minds most often go first to money.
That is certainly part of stewardship but it is bigger than that.
Stewardship involves our money, time, work, relationships, words,.
Anything that has been entrusted to us.
Which in reality is our very lives themselves.
God has entrusted us with life and gives us instruction with how to steward all of life faithfully.
We unfortunately miss the mark.
In our proverb this morning, Solomon is going to talk about a person who makes a careless commitment. Then he points us to an ant and asks whether we are taking responsibility for what is ours to do. Then he shows us what happens when corrupt character begins damaging the people around us. And finally, he reminds us that all of this is lived before God.
These may seem like very different subjects.
But they all ask the same basic question:
What are you doing with what God has entrusted to you?
Because faithful stewardship requires careful attention to everything God has placed in our hands.
To be wise in our stewardship means paying attention early - before a poor decision becomes a trap and before careless influence begins hurting people around us.
1 My son, if you have put up security for your neighbor, have given your pledge for a stranger, 2 if you are snared in the words of your mouth, caught in the words of your mouth, 3 then do this, my son, and save yourself, for you have come into the hand of your neighbor: go, hasten, and plead urgently with your neighbor. 4 Give your eyes no sleep and your eyelids no slumber; 5 save yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the hand of the fowler. 6 Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. 7 Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, 8 she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest. 9 How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? 10 A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, 11 and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man. 12 A worthless person, a wicked man, goes about with crooked speech, 13 winks with his eyes, signals with his feet, points with his finger, 14 with perverted heart devises evil, continually sowing discord; 15 therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly; in a moment he will be broken beyond healing. 16 There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: 17 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, 19 a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.
1. Guard Your Commitments — vv. 1–5
1. Guard Your Commitments — vv. 1–5
Solomon begins this section again with a parental call.
My son -
He brings in a specific scenario.
If you have put up security for your neighbor.
One equivalent to this today would be co-signing for a loan.
You put your name down along with someone else’s debt.
A neighbor typically implies someone with whom you have an established relationship and presumably some knowledge of their character and circumstances.
He takes the example a step further though saying given your pledge for a stranger.
A stranger, by contrast, is someone unknown to you—someone whose financial reliability, intentions, and ability to repay is unknown to you.
The word pledge is a picture of slapping hands together in making a deal.
You have given your word and shook on it.
That means a lot to us in our culture.
The issue is not that helping someone is wrong.
But the parallelism escalates the warning: if it’s considered unwise to pledge security for someone you know, it’s exponentially more foolish to do so for someone you don’t know at all.
Scripture calls us to generosity and sacrifice.
The problem is that this person has committed himself in a way that has placed him in a vulnerable position.
New Living Translation Chapter 6
if you have trapped yourself by your agreement
and are caught by what you said
The trap isn't external. It's verbal. You did this to yourself.
Your own mouth got you into this.
This could a friend who comes to you and thinks they have a good idea, but needs an extra set of hands to get it done.
You ask them for more information and say something - Come on I just need an extra set of hands, what do you need extra info for?
Solomon is warning here specifically against making rash decisions.
Words can trap you by getting you into situations you never should have entered and binding you in commitments you never should have made.
He's teaching a principle of wisdom: be careful with your words, because your words have consequences you can't always control.
Our world today is built on impulsivity.
That’s why they put all the candy by the checkouts at grocery stores.
Marketing is all about impulse buys.
Sometimes we make promises — to people, to organizations, even to God — without counting the cost.
Jesus Himself said in Luke 14:28, "Which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost?"
The application here is simple but profound: slow down before you bind yourself.
And if you're already bound — humble yourself and get free.
Don't let pride keep you in a trap your mouth created.
God is saying in verses 1 and 2, “If you’ve done this, you’re not in danger of becoming ensnared, you’re already ensnared.”
If you are in that position, immediate action needs to be taken to remedy it.
Look at the urgent language in 3 through 5.
Picture an animal realizing it is within reach of the hunter.
It does not stop to protect its pride. It runs.
There are times when good stewardship means admitting, “I should not have agreed to this,” and taking the necessary steps to correct it.
That may involve money, but it can also involve time, work, or responsibilities we have taken on carelessly.
Wisdom does not require us to never make a poor decision.
It requires enough humility to deal with one when we recognize it.
We guard what God has entrusted to us by being careful with our commitments and quick to correct the ones that put us in a compromised position.
There is another reality that I want to draw out for us here as well though -
That is the truth that in relation to God, we are all a bad risk.
But here is the good news for every one of us.
In the book of Job, Job says to God,
3 “Lay down a pledge for me with you; who is there who will put up security for me?
In other words, “God, I’m a bad risk. I need you to do for me what I wouldn’t do for someone like me. I need you to cover all my debts, past, present and future.”
At the cross Jesus not only wrote “Paid in full” across the record of our debts, he also tore up the ledger in which our debts could be written thereafter: “This he set aside, nailing it to the cross” (Colossians 2:14).
If you are in Christ, you are free and clear with God forever.
Now you can make something of your life.
That is the direction our passage in proverbs turns next.
2. Take Responsibility — vv. 6–11
2. Take Responsibility — vv. 6–11
The next verses shift from careless commitments to taking responsibility for what is ours to do.
To do this Solomon gives a very clear picture - the ant.
This tiny, insignificant creature.
No boss, no supervisor standing watch, and yet she acts with foresight.
Storing up what will be needed in the winter during the summer.
Gathering food in harvest.
When we look at creation, there is wisdom built into it.
The ant does what God has designed it to do.
In relation to an ant, we humans have been given far greater responsibility and are the ones who struggle with shirking responsibility.
The warning is to a sluggard.
Another translation says slacker or lazybones.
A picture of a sluggard might be when you allow honey to poor out of a container by itself.
That is the sluggard—sluggish and slow and hesitant when he should be decisive, active, forthright.
His life motto is, “Don’t rush me.” The Bible says, “As a door turns on its hinges, so does a sluggard on his bed” (Proverbs 26:14).
He is lazy, constantly making the soft choice, losing one opportunity after another after another after another, day by day, moment by moment, until he lies there helpless in his wasted life.
If we are honest to admit it—there is a sluggard deep inside each of us.
“A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest…”
That is what makes this warning so recognizable.
This is not a person taking necessary rest.
This is a person who their intent is always rest.
Just a little more. Just ten more minutes.
I'll get to it tomorrow. I'll start that discipline next week.
I'll have that conversation later. I'll deal with that sin eventually.
Verse 11 gives clear consequences for these actions (or perhaps inactions).
Verse 11 says poverty then comes “like a robber” and want “like an armed man.”
The picture is of something arriving suddenly and forcefully.
But from the outside, we can see that it was not entirely sudden.
I want to be careful here, because this isn't just about work ethic — though it certainly includes that.
This is also about spiritual diligence.
The writer of Hebrews says something similar:
1 Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.
Drifting doesn't feel dangerous in the moment. That's what makes it so deadly.
Are you drifting this morning? Have you gotten lazy in your walk with God?
It can start with being so busy one morning that you forget to pray.
Just one day, but then it becomes two, then a week.
Maybe it starts with skipping church — one Sunday became a month.
Maybe it starts with tolerating a small compromise — "just a little slumber."
The ant doesn't need someone watching her to do the right thing.
She works because it's in her nature.
If you belong to Christ, diligence in the things of God should be your nature.
Not perfection. But pursuit.
Good stewardship often looks like doing ordinary things before they become emergencies.
Taking care of what God has given you.
Preparing while there is time.
Following through without needing someone else to push you.
That may involve your work, your home, your finances, your health, or responsibilities in your family.
Are we are faithfully doing what God has actually placed in front of us.
We walk wisely when we take responsibility for what God has entrusted to us before neglect turns something manageable into a crisis.
3. Recognize That Failed Stewardship Damages Others — vv. 12–15
3. Recognize That Failed Stewardship Damages Others — vv. 12–15
Verse 12 paints another portrait for us.
It is as the verses describe, the portrait of a worthless person.
The word translated “worthless” carries the idea of being morally useless or corrupt. Solomon is not describing someone who simply made one bad choice.
This is a person whose life is marked by deceit.
Notice how much of the description has to do with communication.
He speaks crookedly.
He winks with his eyes.
He signals with his feet.
He points with his finger.
This is body language — nonverbal communication that's been weaponized.
The wink that says, "We both know what's really going on."
The subtle gesture that says, "Play along with me." It's manipulation.
It's scheming behind the scenes.
And look at the internal reality: "With perverted heart he devises evil, continually sowing discord."
Continually.
Not in a moment of weakness.
This is a lifestyle.
The problem is not only his mouth.
The problem is his heart.
Devising is not accidental.
It requires forethought.
Getting what they want no matter the outcome for everyone else.
The result is sowing discord.
They stir up trouble the way a farmer sows seed — deliberately, consistently, expecting a harvest of division.
Every church has a potential for this.
It can be someone who thrives on conflict.
Who plays people against each other.
Who always has a "concern" that's really a complaint, consistently has a "prayer request" that's really gossip.
This is where failed stewardship affects more than ourselves.
We are stewards not only of money and work, but also of our words, our influence, and the atmosphere we create around other people.
A careless comment can wound a relationship.
A repeated complaint can turn people against one another.
A private frustration can become public division if we keep feeding it.
Being created differently, I women can be affected by this differently than men.
Scripture recognizes that close relationships and frequent conversation can become an occasion for real good, but also for real harm.
Titus 2 warns women against slander, and 1 Timothy 5 warns about becoming gossips and busybodies—getting involved in matters that are not theirs and saying things that should not be said.
This is important because women often carry tremendous relational influence in a church. You know what is happening in families.
You hear about struggles.
You encourage one another, care for needs, and talk through difficult things.
Those relationships can be one of the great strengths of a healthy church.
But that same closeness has to be guarded.
Concern can quietly become gossip.
A prayer request can become a way of sharing information that was never ours to share.
A frustration with another person can turn into telling the story to three or four others until everyone knows who was wrong before anyone has actually spoken to the person involved.
Sometimes we are not intentionally trying to create division.
We simply keep talking about the hurt until other people begin carrying our offense with us.
That is sowing seed.
And once suspicion or resentment has been planted in someone else’s mind, you cannot always take it back.
Men absolutely fall into this too. We complain, exaggerate, gather people to our side, and use sarcasm or criticism to tear others down.
But however it shows up, Proverbs is asking us to consider what we are doing with the influence God has given us.
Are my conversations helping people love one another more faithfully, or am I quietly making relationships harder?
Notice the consequences
15 therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly; in a moment he will be broken beyond healing.
Beyond healing. That's terrifying language. God takes the sowing of discord seriously — seriously enough to say that the destruction it brings can be beyond repair.
Good stewardship does not use words, influence, or relationships carelessly.
We walk wisely when we recognize that what we do with our influence can either build trust or quietly tear it apart.
4. Remember Who You Answer To — vv. 16–19
4. Remember Who You Answer To — vv. 16–19
Solomon closes this section by moving from consequences to God’s own evaluation.
God evaluates not only whether our lives are efficient or successful, but whether our character and conduct reflect what He loves or what He hates.
16 There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him:
his is a Hebrew literary device — "six... yes, seven" — it's meant to grab your attention.
It's saying, "Listen carefully. This is complete. This is comprehensive."
First: "Haughty eyes." This is eyes lifted high, looking down on others.
Pride is the root sin.
It's the sin that turned an angel into the devil.
It's the sin that got Adam and Eve expelled from Eden.
God hates pride because pride says, "I don't need God. I know better."
C.S. Lewis called it "the complete anti-God state of mind."
Second: "A lying tongue." God is a God of truth.
Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life."
When we lie, we align ourselves with the father of lies — Satan himself, who Jesus said "does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him" (John 8:44).
God hates lying because truth is the fabric of reality.
Lies tear that fabric apart.
Third: "Hands that shed innocent blood."
This is violence against the vulnerable.
The word "innocent" matters.
God is not against all taking of life — He established civil justice.
But He hates the shedding of innocent blood.
The unborn. The defenseless. The oppressed.
When hands that were made to protect and provide instead destroy — God hates it.
Fourth: "A heart that devises wicked plans."
Notice — this isn't just sinful action.
It's sinful planning.
The heart is the command center.
Before the hands act, before the mouth speaks, the heart devises.
God sees the blueprint before the building goes up.
He hates the scheme before it becomes a scandal.
Fifth: "Feet that make haste to run to evil."
Not feet that stumble into sin — feet that run toward it.
This is eagerness for evil.
Enthusiasm for destruction.
There's a kind of person who doesn't just fall into trouble — they chase it.
And God hates that eagerness.
Sixth: "A false witness who breathes out lies."
This is perjury.
This is the courtroom lie that condemns the innocent.
But it's broader than that — it's any false testimony.
Gossip that misrepresents.
Rumors that destroy reputations.
Social media posts that twist the truth.
When we bear false witness, we participate in the destruction of someone made in God's image.
Seventh: "One who sows discord among brothers."
Again — the same sin from verse 14, now elevated to the final spot on God's list.
The one who tears apart relationships.
The one who divides families, churches, communities.
God hates it.
He calls it an abomination.
What do we do with this?
We read a list like this and we have two temptations.
The first temptation is to look outward.
We read "arrogant eyes" and think of that person we know who's so prideful.
We read "lying tongue" and think of that coworker who can't be trusted.
We read "sows discord" and think of that church member who's always stirring things up.
But the Holy Spirit didn't put this list in the Bible so we could identify the sins of others.
He put it here so we could examine ourselves.
The second temptation is to despair.
We read this list and think, "I've been proud. I've lied.
I've stirred up trouble. Am I the person God hates?"
But that is exactly where the gospel changes everything.
The cross of Jesus Christ is where every single one of these sins was dealt with.
Arrogant eyes? Jesus humbled Himself, even to the point of death on a cross — and His humility covers our pride.
A lying tongue? Jesus is the truth, and He bore the penalty for every lie we've ever told. Hands that shed innocent blood?
Jesus' innocent blood was shed so that we could be forgiven.
The list in Proverbs 6 is a mirror.
It shows us how far we fall short.
But the gospel is the window — it shows us a Savior who came to redeem every one of these failures.
If you're here this morning and you see yourself in this list — not as the accuser, but as the accused —
Remember this first, there is no sin on this list that the blood of Jesus cannot cover.
"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).
But forgiveness doesn't mean we go back to the list and start checking boxes again.
Grace doesn't leave us where it found us.
Our challenge for this week
1. Examine your words.
Are you making promises you can't keep? Are you speaking truth or spreading falsehood? Are your words building up or tearing down?
2. Examine your diligence.
Are you drifting spiritually? Have you gotten lazy in the disciplines that keep you close to God? What's one discipline you need to pick back up this week?
3. Examine your relationships.
Are you sowing unity or discord? Is there a conversation you need to have — not to stir up trouble, but to bring peace? Is there someone you've been talking about instead of talking to?
Conclusion
God's hatred is not the opposite of God's love.
It's the proof of it.
A good father hates what harms his children.
A holy God hates what destroys His people.
And the beautiful thing is this: the same God who hates sin loves sinners.
He loved us enough to send His Son to bear the wrath we deserved.
He loved us enough to give us His Spirit so we could turn from the things He hates and walk in the things He loves.
This morning, don't leave here condemned. Leave here convicted — and then go to the cross.
Confess what needs confessing.
Turn from what needs turning.
And walk in the freedom that only comes from a God who hates sin because He loves you.
Let's pray.
Father, we confess that we have been guilty of the things on this list. We have been proud. We have lied. We have stirred up discord. We have been lazy in the things of Your kingdom. Forgive us. Cleanse us. And by Your Spirit, make us people who love what You love and hate what You hate. We ask this not because we deserve it, but because of the blood of Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen.
