Gross Negligence

Turn to the book of Proverbs, if you would please. Proverbs 24:11-12. I'm going to tell you a funny story, and you can't tell anybody because it involves me being dumb. So don't share it, and if you do share it, leave my name out. There was a plan here in these last couple of weeks that Walter would be preaching one of the evening services, but those of you who know, know that he He got kidney stones, and then now the last couple of days, not only did he have the kidney stones and all the procedure and surgery and everything related to it, but then he had some complications. So he's not doing great right now. Hopefully, they'll get some good answers and he'll be feeling better very soon.

Because of all that, typically I'm way ahead on sermons. I don't know if you know, but Pastor Heinrich taught me, and I'm usually about, on average, 3 to 7 weeks ahead in sermons. I'm never preparing the week's sermon the week that I preach it. It's usually— I'm way out ahead. Well, the evenings I wasn't. And mainly that has to do with a plan I have next, which is— I need to tell you that too— is I'm going to be preaching the London Baptist Confession of Faith. That's weird to preach, by the way, but it is prepared like sermons, not just lectures. So I did it years ago. I think it's been more than 10 years ago since I did it last. But I've been planning that, but I can't get caught up to get all my work done and prepared and ready to teach again. So I've been sort of stalling in between with these Proverbs messages.

Well, here, this happened this week where I'm a little bit behind. And so I, on Friday, I sit down to prepare this message and I'm crunch time. And usually, you know, I don't usually like preparing messages within this close to preaching. And I'm working on it and I'm working real hard and I'm typing like crazy and I'm getting it done. And right toward the end of it, I'm like, man, this sounds and feels familiar. The things I'm typing feel like I've typed them before. And I went to go look in my records, and I've already preached this exact message almost exactly 10 years ago. And the outlines, the crazy part is how similar they look, like completely from— like separately. I didn't refer from one to the other.

And so I, I could have gotten away with just preaching the old one. I could have just used it because I wanted to preach this text, and I'll tell you why in a second. But it is funny to essentially prepare the whole— it'd be like you have to write a, you know, a report for school. You go through all the work to write that report and then find out, oh, I did this 2 years ago, I could use it again. So yeah, I felt really dumb. And by the way, I even called it the same thing. Even the name of the sermon is the same thing, Gross Negligence. Like, I even didn't even have a new title. So yeah, I did the same work twice. I'm sure none of you have ever done anything like that. Right? Done the same thing twice.

The reason I wanted to preach it— because I knew I had the outline and I knew I wanted to preach it anyway, but I wanted to preach it in contrast. It's a nice contrast to the sermon I preached a couple of weeks ago about not meddling in other people's affairs. The idea of not getting involved in other people's business. The reason this is a nice contrast to that is because that message, if you look at it in Proverbs 26:17, That message there was about— it says essentially that anybody who meddles in someone else's business that's not their own, anybody else's fight, it's like somebody who grabs a dog by the ears, right? And of course, the picture there is— first of all, if you're holding a mean dog by the ears, I mean, maybe you're safe because it's not biting you, but now you can't let go of the dog, so you essentially got yourself in a world of hurt. So that's a great message. And it also tells us that gossip, slander, like the crazy stuff you see on social media and media in general, just getting involved in everybody's business out there and getting involved in fights that aren't your fights and just complaining in general. It's just not healthy for Christians to do that.

Well, the reason this is a good contrast from Proverbs 24 is this message is about making sure that you don't neglect if people are actually in trouble and not get involved. You might not get involved. So follow me here. The one message says, don't get involved in other people's business. Don't be a gossip. Don't join someone in a fight that you don't understand their fight and take sides against other people. And you might say, "Whoo, thanks for the warning, Solomon. I appreciate that. So now I'm just going to stay out of everybody's business all the time. I'm never going to get involved in anything." And then somebody's in actual trouble and in real need and you say, "No, Pastor, you told me last time don't get involved in anybody's business. So now that somebody's hungry or in need or needs the gospel or something, I'm going to keep my hands off." So this message fixes that. So if you were to use one sermon to say, I'm not going to get involved in anything outside of myself at all, and I'm going to stay in my own little bubble, this message says when people are in danger and they need help, you're not supposed to stay hands-off. You're supposed to help people. You're supposed to be involved for their benefit.

So I can ask you, typically, what is your responsibility, if any, to those who are in trouble? What— I had a— this is a crazy story. It's a long story because I went to junior high school with a friend in Sacramento. And then when I was going to seminary,— most of you know I went to seminary in Sacramento. I reconnected with him, and we started talking again after all those years, right? From junior high school, I hadn't talked to him in 20-something years, and then we picked up again and started talking again, and he was very much the same guy he was when I knew him back then. Very atheistic, very anti-religion. And so, one of the criticisms he had with me— he and I were talking, we were at Starbucks one day, talking there in Sacramento before class, my class. He was criticizing the story of Abraham and Isaac, the story where God calls Abraham to offer up Isaac, right? And I'll have to tell you that I— just so you know, before you think I think it was invalid, it's actually a good question that he has. It's not just without merit. You and I accept the story because it's in the Bible and we believe the Bible. But his question is actually a legitimate question, even though he comes at it from an antagonistic standpoint.

His question was, Why would God tell Abraham to do that and expect Abraham to follow through with that, killing his own son, right, to sacrifice his own son on the altar, if God knew he was going to fix it? Like that— it bothered my friend. Like, that doesn't make sense to me. And I'll tell you that that's legit. Like, yeah, it's hard to make sense of that. Like, why would God do that? Why would God test him that way? And you know the answer, right? You all know the answer. Because he wanted to is the answer. God can do whatever he wants. He doesn't owe us an explanation for why he does things. But I told my friend, I said, "So which part of the story bothers you? Is it the part that God expected him to do it and gave him the understanding that he had to go through with it? Was it the part that God didn't stop it earlier when there was trouble happening? What part of the story?" He couldn't explain it or articulate it, not that I can remember anyway. But I did tell him, "Are you bothered that God could have stopped a bad thing or prevented a bad thing and didn't?" Does that bother you? And he essentially said that yes, that idea that God— that there's bad things happening in the world and that God doesn't stop them is bad, right? If God is real and he's good, why is there so much suffering in the world is the way you usually hear that.

And so I asked him, I asked my friend, and I ask you, if you ever have that thought, if you ever think, well, if God is powerful and he's good, why doesn't he stop all the suffering? Why doesn't he stop war? Why doesn't he stop children being abused? Why not? And you might have had that question yourself. My question to you is, why don't you stop it? 'Cause we always throw that at God. Like, "God, why aren't you stopping everything?" But do you realize there are— how many bad things are happening in your circle of influence that you could actually have something to do with stopping? Like, I don't know, anything, name it. Abortion, cockroaches, like anything. There are things around you in your world that you absolutely could get involved in and help stop and contribute to good and don't. Now, I'm not here to criticize you for not doing it, except for whatever the text tells us in a little bit. I'm here to make sure that we're careful not to question God for a thing that we're doing ourselves. Like if God doesn't fix every problem in the world, there's something wrong with God? Well, then there's something wrong with you if you don't fix the problems that you could fix, right? So that's fair for me to say that. And I did say that to him. And I just want us to be attentive to the idea that we're quick to say God doesn't fix everything.

And then maybe we can swing the pendulum the other way. There's trouble happening in the world. We hear some bad news, school shootings, these kind of things. Even saying that hurts my feelings that I say it even flippantly because that's where we've come as a nation, right? Or church shootings or attacks like that. And then we just, what do we do? We Instagram a black square, right, for BLM or whatever, or we throw out our thoughts and prayers with the prayer emoji. And so you got one side that doesn't do anything or care about anything or is mad at God for things. And you got another side that just, well, I care and I'm a good person, so I can do a little thoughts and prayers emoji. Now I'm not actually doing anything to help anything, right? And then people, when we do that, if you actually tell somebody thoughts and prayers and mean it, then we get criticized. Like, no, I really do have thoughts and prayers for somebody and want good things for them, but we're criticized for not doing anything.

Now all that kind of boils down— I'm going to be saying two main things tonight, if I haven't already alluded to it. One of them is We're supposed to help people. Good people help people. Now, I haven't yet said Christians, but I will in a moment. But for now, in theory, human beings are supposed to help other human beings. And by help, I mean legitimate help, not posting something on Instagram, not posting a selfie in front of a war memorial and thinking that you've done something good for humanity. I'm talking about real good things. And then the other part of the message tonight is we as Christians who actually have the answer to all of life and humanity's problems in the gospel of Jesus Christ, of all people who should be helping people that are perishing, we actually have the good news that saves those who are perishing. So both things need to happen. One, we need to care that people are in trouble. So this text will tell us to care for people who are hurting, people who are in trouble. And then the other side of that is the worst trouble people are in, is they're lost. They're in danger of punishment from the Lord because they don't know him, and we have the answer to that.

In fact, it's said that, uh, something like 90% of the people who are won to Christ in the gospel and evangelism come to Christ through 5% of Christians doing the evangelizing. So in other words, it's 5% of Christians doing the work of evangelism that 90% of the Christians come to faith through. And I don't know, I don't think that's right. I don't think that— that doesn't feel right, that doesn't sound right when we're all supposed to make disciples. Man, I could ask you, there's a tough question in my notes here. What if I asked you, first, this is the hard question, I don't want to ask it, but I'm going to ask it. Have you led someone to Christ yourself? And if so or if not, when was the last time? How long has it been? These are good questions. And I actually debated whether I was going to ask them or not.

How about this tough question? It gets worse. If you're already uncomfortable, I'll make you more uncomfortable. What if everybody evangelized like you do? What would evangelism look like? What would the Great Commission look like if your habits of evangelism were everybody's? And yes, that makes us uncomfortable, but that's why a text like this is good. It can shake us a little bit, remind us of what's important. I just said— I was having a conversation with Jamie in the car the other day, and I said something along the lines of, I'm I think that a lot of people think that the employee at Home Depot is the person that gives them mulch for their garden, not a person who has a soul and is lost and dying. That we're not seeing people as lost souls. That's not how we're interacting with the world around us. And I think this text can help with it.

Let's pray. Father, uh, your word is what we want to guide us, and this is one of those kinds of sermons that is— it is expository, it is what the text says, but We're going to be making more subject, topical application of it, and I would just ask, Father, that we do that right. Guilt trips are not an end goal. That's not the goal, to make people feel bad. I think you know my heart there. I want us to feel good about evangelism, not bad about ourselves. But also, Father, that we're living in a culture that's more and more disconnected. We're less and less actually human-connected with people on a very real level. Social media and the world we live in, it's just moving so fast and we're just losing the ability to be with people and care about people and help people who are hurting. And so Father, would you, if needed, if it is needed by the people in this room and people hearing this, if we need the shake-up a little bit, just shake us up and please be merciful to us and help us because we know this is something that's dear to you, the way we think of others and the way we help others. And Father, you've helped us and we want to help others too. And so please help us see that even from this text. In Jesus' name, amen.

Well, the first thing to remember, and I said I was going to mention Christians, Proverbs is an Old Testament book. It was written before Christ, hundreds of years before Christ, in fact. It was written mainly or compiled by Solomon, whether he wrote them or whether he compiled them. Solomon is the name associated with the Proverbs. And Proverbs are not the same as like didactic teaching, like the book of Romans or a New Testament book, or even a historical narrative that tells a story from beginning to end. Proverbs are proverbs. They're lessons. They're lessons for life. They're wisdom. They're the kind of thing a grandma might say to their granddaughter when they're walking or cooking something. You know, it's helpful lessons for life.

And in particular, the proverbs in the Old Testament are for Israel, meaning God's people in the Old Testament before Jesus came, the people of Abraham. This book is for those people. Because God expected the people of Israel as a nation and as an ethnic people to interact with each other in very specific ways. So the book of Proverbs is intended for God's people, Israel the nation, to act toward other people in Israel in a certain way. Now, I'm applying that to believers. Now, that's not a direct comparison. It's not exactly accurate because not all of the Israel people, the Jewish people in the Old Testament, Not all of them were believers, right? There were people who were just born Jewish because of their blood, but they weren't actual Christians. And the believers, true believers, had faith. But I do think the principle here is that people in general, in that case Israel, in us case humans, should be looking out for each other. It's something that God expects of people. But then secondly, you get a little more narrow, and that is Christians should be caring about people, and then Christians should be caring about Christians, and then Christians should be caring about the lost. So all of these things are kind of built into the idea. Proverbs as principles that apply on multiple layers. There's a lot of applications of this text, even though the main understanding is, "Hey, Israel, don't let other Israelites fall into danger. God wants you to take care of each other." That's sort of the general simple understanding, but now we look at it in more specifics.

So look at verse 11, the first sentence and the second sentence. In verse 11, first half, second half, if you don't know this, Old Testament Hebrew has a lot of what's called parallelism. And that is that God didn't use emojis. He didn't use exclamation points. He didn't use underlines or bold letters or italics. The way God would emphasize something in the Old Testament is to repeat it. And there are different kinds of parallelisms. It wouldn't just be say the same thing twice. It would be say the same thing, but in another way so that the first way makes more sense, right? So the way we use a phrase, we do it all the time. You might do it. Maybe you do or don't. But we use a little phrase all the time that does what the Old Testament does. We say, in other words, right? When we say that, I'm saying this, but in other words, I'm saying this that's like it. Well, that's what happens here.

So verse 11 has a parallelism. The first half is deliver those who are drawn toward death. And the second half is essentially the same thing, but it's saying it in a different way, and hold back those stumbling to the slaughter. So you can see how those look similar, right? They're kind of saying the same thing in two different ways. So what is he talking about? The first thing he's talking about is, anybody that's in any kind of peril, danger, where they could die, or— and if you know God's— the way God works, sometimes there's things that are death that are not just physical death. We were talking a little bit about that in Sunday school. Sometimes someone going away from the faith or going away from the people of God or turning against God, even though they might still be alive, that's like death. The idea is to turn your back on God is to be like somebody who dies, right? So this drawn toward death is both actual physical danger, but it's also a spiritual idea of not to abandon safety and being around God and being protected.

So I actually think— this is the craziest thing— I actually think that there's a— like, if I were the devil, and I always joke and say you might already think I am, the devil is doing something very brilliant with social media right now. And you know I don't like it in general, so when I pick on you, I'm not I'm not picking on you. I don't care if you use Facebook or whatever. I do think infinite scroll is evil and TikTok is a waste of time and all that. Of course, I don't like social media in general, but that's not what I'm saying here. I'm not telling you to give up social media. I'm telling you if you're going to use it, use it in a biblical way, right? If you're going to use it, use it right. Remember that you're a human and you got to function the way humans function in the Bible. So if you're going to use it, be biblical. But I am telling you here that there has been something, and I remember a writer talking about this years ago about just good old-fashioned TV. Even before the internet. He called television the great life waster because people just sat in front of that thing for hours and hours and hours and it wasted their lives, right? Man, if that guy only knew the impact of the internet of our day.

And I bring that up to you now because I want you to watch the subtlety here. Watch the subtlety. If I were the devil, this would be a great trick to pull on people because it attaches to exactly what we're talking about here and it also pulls it away. So it gives and it takes away, right? And here's what I mean. We see on the news and on every headline and everything that we can click on the internet, we get bad news all day, every day, right? You all see it. You— we get headlines of drone bombings in Russia. There's no way in times past before the internet we would even know that was happening. We wouldn't know the war in Gaza was happening. We wouldn't know any of that. We wouldn't know about starving kids in Africa. We wouldn't know any of that, right? But because of the internet, we get to see all of those things. They're all in front of us at all times. And you might think, well, that should mean we care more. But that's the trick. We don't get the opportunity to care more because it comes in front of us like this. Voom. So this is important. This is terrible. Can you believe how many people died in that? Okay, that's gone. Next one. Oh, this person was just assassinated in front of everybody at a college. Okay, that one's gone now. Okay, this right now is going on over in Gaza. Okay, okay. They just unseated the ruler of Venezuela right now. Wait, wait. A guy in Venezuela? What are you talking about? This is the leader of North Korea right now and what he's doing to his people. So we have no ability to stop down and actually care about those things.

So when you read what it says, deliver those who are drawn toward death, what if the person drawn toward death is like this in your life? Voom. Okay, I think those people were drawn toward— I can't help them. Okay, maybe I'll help the next one that comes along. Okay, this next person's in danger. They need help. They need help. Okay, they're gone now. And maybe, just maybe, because things are moving so fast, and we are incapable of actually ingesting and caring and being involved in all those things, that the devil can show us all the things and we can care about all the things and we can do nothing about anything so that we're not actually ever able to help anybody. We're just looking on the hurts of the world and not helping anybody.

Now that is my assessment. That is Pastor Joni talking. But I am telling you, ask what you did for the people in Gaza Ask what you did for the people in Ukraine. Ask what you did for the people involved in tsunamis and floods. Ask what you did. Did you care? I hope you cared. I really do. I hope you as a Christian care about the suffering of people, about the Christians being killed in Nigeria. I hope you care about those things. I mean, do you realize how fast news is moving? This week, in the last, what, 9, 10 days, There was another assassination attempt on our president in our country. That just happened for real. And it's already out of the news cycle. No one cares. No one cares. It's gone. That's crazy that the leader of the free world had somebody try to kill him and it's already out of the news. It's wild.

I actually had a plan at some point in a sermon, and I won't do this, but I did have a plan at some point to name put in my sermon notes the names of school shooters and name them and see if the church could remember their name and what they did. Just because I know what I'm telling you. And by the way, this is not me trying to indict you who are the people I love, my church people. I'm not criticizing you. You want to care. I know you. I know that you— if my family was affected by something like that, you would be there for me and helping me. I know that. There's no question. This is not a judgment on us. This is me saying that I think our culture has been wired and we've gotten used to and desensitized to and calloused to so that when the Solomon words say, "Deliver those who are drawn toward death," we know people are in danger, we know people are in peril, and we know we're supposed to rescue them. And we live in a culture that doesn't give us an actual opportunity to rescue them. So we're sitting there scrolling or clicking and all these things that are— people are in peril and we care about it and then we can't do anything about it. Maybe even if we want to. Maybe even if we want to, we can't do anything about it. Maybe we're desensitized.

In order for us to deliver people who are in danger, we have to care. We have to be able to do something about it. We have to have the opportunity to serve them. So pay attention to that because it is important that you care. And I hope you're praying for your country. And I hope you're praying for the people that are victims of war and the Christians persecuted around the world. Be praying for those things. I'm not telling you to just turn everything off. I might be. Well, maybe I am telling you to turn everything off. But I am at least suggesting to you, am I valuable as somebody who is being called to deliver people who are drawn toward death?

It also says, "Hold back those stumbling to the slaughter." The idea has the idea that they're like— these people are like lambs just being led to the slaughter, right? They're just going. They're being pulled into danger, whatever that means, whatever the situation is. And this, I think it can be general or it can be specific. It can be any place. It could be physical. It could be spiritual. It could be school. It could be work. It could be society. It could be politics. There's people in danger everywhere out there. There's people in danger. And I think Solomon would be telling the people of Israel, we can't let our people just be in danger out there. We need to look out for each other. That's the idea, right? We can't just be okay with people being in peril. We can't be okay with people being in whatever kind of danger.

Again, the danger could be— health. Like, don't be the person who's pounding someone over the head with being a vegan, right? Don't be that person, right? Or whatever your diet or thing. But you might want to come alongside someone and say, hey, have you ever considered intermittent fasting? Because I hear that's pretty good for people, right? There's nothing wrong with wanting to help people and knowing if you have experience in your life where you can help people. But obviously I'm going to be working toward the gospel and people in sin. But I do want you to see— here's an example. I don't know if this is a good example. I am not telling you to do what I did right now. It might sound like I'm bragging, but it might have just been really stupid. So forgive me if it's bragging. I don't mean it as a brag.

We live on a street— some of you have been on our street— that is not a through street, right? It's not a court. It's not like a cul-de-sac. But our street is off of main streets. So there's not ever a lot of traffic on our street. It's short, and it's not a through street. And if you end up on our street, it's usually because you need to be on our street, right? It's not a street that goes anywhere else. You have to go out of your way to get on our street. And so because of that, the kids and the animals on our street are used to being in the street. They're not used to traffic. And I see it all the time. I'll just see the kids riding their bikes or scooters out in the middle of the street or playing ball out in the street, or there'll be animals, just maybe a cat sitting in the middle of the street, right? Well, for some reason, man, people feel the need to burn gas and drive really fast all the time. And they do it on our street and it makes me crazy. It makes me crazy because of the safety of those kids. And if I'm out there, and I have been, there was a guy that drove by in a pretty fast, loud, lowered truck. I think this was like last summer or something. He started— I could hear his truck from down the street. He started going fast, right?

So here I am, just imagine my house is behind me, the street is out there, and he's coming down the street and I hear him revving. So I ran out in the street to essentially cut him off. And he slowed down and kind of swerved over to the right. And I said, "Slow down, please." And he hit his brakes. And he gave me the dirty look.

Now, I don't know if that's smart, if I'm supposed to do that. I don't know that I'm brave. But before he got out to beat me up, which I thought maybe was his plan, I said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, listen. I'm asking you to slow down because there's kids and animals on the street that are not used to fast cars. And if your kids were on the street, I would be doing this for you." Please don't be mad at me. And he kind of gave me the look like, all right, all right. He drove off. You know, it was settled.

But I don't want to be the person who knows he's flying down there and my neighbor's kids are in the street, right? Why? Why? Why am I like that? I would like to think because I'm doing what Solomon says here. I'm trying to protect people. I care about people. I don't want people in danger. I don't want people in trouble. And if my kids were out there, I would expect people to look out for my kids. You know, we're neighbors. We look out for each other. And I think that's how we're supposed to think as humans.

We're not supposed to be the person who sees something bad happen, they pull out their phone and start filming. We're supposed to be the people that help people and want to be there for people. And so I'm telling you, I think this is biblical. I don't think it just means that Johnny's a good guy. I think God saved Johnny and made him care about his fellow humans. That's what I think happened. Maybe it's none of my business, but maybe it is. And maybe I'm— Maybe that guy might think about that the next time he drives down the street. Right? Maybe he'll just, okay, on this street, take it easy. And once you get on the open road, it's different. But I want to look out for people. I care about those things.

My neighbor and I, I already told you about him. And I told him the other day, by the way, that I mentioned his dog Franco, Metiche, the nosy dog. I told my friend Solomon, I said, I preached about your dog. Because his dog barks whenever there's anybody on the street. So he's kind of like our neighborhood watchdog, you know? And we just look out for each other. And when I was telling him about it, he was telling me in Spanish, this is what we're supposed to do, right? El vecino, you look out for each other. And I just appreciate that.

And I don't think Solomon's a believer. But just that idea that human beings in our culture are more and more disconnected. When I was a teenager, we went to Missouri because that's where my family's from. And I remember how awkward it was. I was walking down the street from my grandmother's house at the time to the gas station to go get candy. At the gas station. And I remember everybody talking to me and wondering what they wanted. Like, what's wrong with these people? Like, why are all these people, strangers, are talking to me? And it's just because in Missouri everybody's nice. In California they're not.

And I'd like to think the people in this room are different than that. I'd like to think that we know better, that we can be the change we would like to see in our culture, right? And Solomon's words here are very, very meaningful. It isn't just being nice. If you know somebody's in trouble and you actually have help for you have good words for them, advice for them. You might tell somebody, "I've been down that path."

You know, a little while ago, a friend in music— the short version of this is he's been with his girlfriend a very long time, living together a very long time. He and I have never talked about that. I knew it, but we never talked about it because we only ever talked about music. Then eventually when he said he was having trouble, I couldn't hold it anymore. You know, I'm like, "I gotta talk to you. I can't hold my peace anymore. You're making it my business now because you're talking about something that I have to do." And we talked about God's design for marriage. And I told him, "Please don't be mad at me. We can still be friends after this. I've thought the same thing the whole time, but I need to tell you what God says about these things." And he let me. He actually appreciated it. He told me, "I know that from your perspective you're trying to help me. I appreciate it."

Why? Because how long am I going to watch my friend be in danger doing the wrong thing, something that God hates, something that God doesn't approve of? God's going to judge him for that. How long can I stay quiet? Right? How long can I do nothing when my friend is in trouble? And I'd like to say that I'm doing what Solomon says here.

Now, it might be that you say, "I didn't know. I'm not sure what's going on out there because I'm so involved in my own life that I don't see that people are in danger or perishing." Well, Solomon says in the first half of verse 12, "If you say, 'Surely we did not know this,'" and then he'll go on to say, "Does he who weighs the heart consider it?" Is it possible that people will plead ignorance? When someone's in trouble, when someone's in danger, that they'll say, "I didn't know. I wasn't aware. It was none of my business," or whatever? Is it possible that we can say, "I'm too busy. I'm just one person. I don't have the capability of doing those kind of things"? Can we make excuses?

Like if I asked right now, and I am asking, I definitely don't want you to answer out loud, but I'm asking, when was the last time you shared the gospel with somebody? And if it's been a while, why? Why has it been a while? Really, I'm asking you genuinely in your seat there, because I can tell you my excuses that are excuses, right? I make excuses too. By the way, you want to know the easiest excuse is to be a pastor. It's the easiest excuse. I preach to people all the time. I'm always sharing the Bible with everybody all the time. I'm always preaching the gospel. That's not evangelism. So I don't get to use that as an excuse. I have to evangelize. I have to tell the lost world, right?

So if we were to try to claim ignorance, what if we claim ignorance? I did not know this. I asked this already a couple last week or the week before. I did— what? Whose fault was it that the fall happened in the garden? We all said it was Adam and Eve. But whose fault did Adam say it was? Eve's, right? And whose fault did Eve say it was? Satan, right? So I have a saying in my house. My poor family, they're going to be mad I'm saying this right now. But there's a saying in my house that it's never the thing. This is a Johnny Sloan saying in the Sloan household. It's never the thing.

Why didn't the garbage get taken out? Whatever's coming next is not the reason it didn't get taken out. Right? Why didn't you do the thing I asked you to do? Well, because— before you talk, we need to know that that first thing that's coming out of your mouth is probably not the reason it didn't get done. Now, sometimes it is. But I say it because I would like us as people and my family to know that if we're about to make an excuse, that we have a tendency to make an excuse, and it might not actually be the reason. So Adam— 'Why did you eat of the fruit?' What was the first thing Adam said? That wasn't the thing, was it? It wasn't the thing. What was Adam's fault? Adam was Adam's fault, right? So the first thing he thought of was her. The actual answer was me.

So I'm saying that to you, that there's some version of that right here in Proverbs 24:12. If you say, 'Surely we did not know this.' We didn't know, we weren't aware, we couldn't have known all the trouble. Like, I didn't know what was going on over there and overseas or in my neighborhood. Maybe some of you know the story when we came home one time from church and our house had been broken into and everything was stolen. All my guitars, everything. It was awful. We couldn't sleep for weeks after that because we felt violated and all that. Found out later it was a family member that did it.

But I remember coming home and seeing everything open. My side gate open, everything. Middle of the day, by the way, during church is when it happened. And so I go and ask all my neighbors. And literally one of my neighbors said, "Yeah, I saw someone over there." They watched it happen. The neighbors watched it happen. They watched people back up to my house and haul all of our stuff out that weren't us. People, by the way, who knew we went to church. So we know that the Sloans are at church, these people at their house carrying guitars out. Never asked any questions. Never checked in. Didn't call the cops, nothing.

Do you see those people? Didn't do this. And what did they do instead? Oh, we didn't know. They did, verse 12. I didn't have anything to do with it. It wasn't my problem. I didn't know. I thought you knew. I was for sure that if they were taking your stuff, you were okay with it.

You want to talk about metiche, the nosy neighbors? You can ask my neighbors all the time. I'm always texting, hey, is that car out in front of your house supposed to be there? Yeah, it's my cousin. All right. Just checking. I don't want that to happen on my watch, you know? The same guy with the dog, I called the cops on him one night. Because they were leaving for Mexico in the middle of the night. And they were literally trying to do it in the middle of the night so nobody saw them leave. And I saw strange cars out of their house in the middle of the night, so I called the cops. The cops showed up. So the opposite happened. They were trying to be stealthy so bad guys didn't see them leave. And I had sirens out there at their house.

But he loved it. Solomon loved it. Like, "Man, that's my good neighbor right there. He's not gonna—" I felt so dumb after that. I didn't know he was leaving. I said, "Next time tell me. If you tell me, I'll keep an eye on things." Well, we don't have excuses. No excuse works. Why didn't we help more people? And now I'll get a little more into the gospel. Why didn't we share the gospel more? Were we indifferent? Were we jaded? We're too busy in our own lives. Were we selfish? Were we scared? I would probably say that's probably the biggest reason we don't share the gospel more is we're scared, intimidated to have spiritual conversations. It's okay. I'm not gonna pick on you for that. I am too. I have to kind of overcome it with being obnoxious just to do it. So I want to sympathize with you in that.

Now verse 12, "Does not He who weighs the heart consider it?" Meaning, if you say, "I didn't know." I didn't know I was supposed to help somebody, or I was busy, or I couldn't help them. Do you notice it says, "He who weighs the heart and considers it"? That means it has weight and it is to be considered. If God is counting it as something that should have been done, it's a thing that should be done. Do you got that part? So just by virtue of the fact that God is saying He's counting it, we all as Christians need to say it counts.

So I am not telling you to take up every cause in the world and go try to fix the world. We are just one person, right? But you can help somebody, whether that's physical, you know, your neighbor needs something, you can maybe take their garbage cans out to the street for them or just be a good, kind neighbor and handle something. I have a friend back east and he's in real bad shape. And he has a neighbor that mows their common lawn, the lawn between the two of them. And it means so much to him. Like he says he feels bad and he told his neighbor, "I feel bad." His neighbor's like, "Don't worry about it, man. I know what you guys are going through." And he's just helping his neighbor. Like, that's what I'm talking about. There's— those are precious things when they're done right, helping people.

By the way, their neighbor might not ever count it. That guy might think I'm a jerk for trying to stop him driving too fast. That's fine. But I still care about him. He can be mad at me if he wants, but I care that he is careful, right?

Now, this last part of— or the next part of verse 12 is very interesting to me. He who keeps your soul, does he not know it? Ooh. Did you catch it? It's saying, you who are a part of your environment, your community, you Christians who are supposed to be delivering the good news of Jesus Christ to the world, you who have the help that the world needs, you who have abilities that the world needs, you who could be a helper and a positive benefit to somebody else, either physically in their lives by acts of service or being a good neighbor or a good community member or a friend or family member, Or you as a Christian bringing the good news of the gospel, you who do that. Did you notice it says, "He who keeps your soul, does he not know it?"

So you might make excuses and God says, "No, I'm weighing your excuses. I'm considering your excuses. You say you don't know, but you do know." But then now he says the most— eee, he got me pretty good here because it says, if you watch carefully, "He who keeps your soul." Do you know what that means? That means you have already gotten the help that God is expecting you to give other people. You're already safe. You're already protected. Your soul is safe in God's hands. In other words, God did for you what he's now telling you to do for others.

Now, that's not pointed like as a lesson here, like, do you see it? But it's there. It's there. He who keeps your soul. You're safe. You have the benefit. You have been protected. You have been rescued. You have been delivered. You're safe. So how can you be okay with God saving you while other people need saving? Does the Lord know it? Yeah, he knows it. He knows it. I'm going to heaven, but where you end up is none of my business. That's not okay. That's what I was saying about the person that sells mulch to you at Home Depot. Remember, It's okay for you to need mulch for your flower beds. Nothing wrong with that. But don't forget that these are people and that we're supposed to be a good witness to the world around us. Maybe even a verbal witness.

Paul talks about how can anybody call on the Lord unless they hear. And we're supposed to be the preacher, right? We're supposed to deliver the word. And people can't respond to a word that they never hear. So we're supposed to deliver that word. And then of course the last phrase there in Proverbs 24:12 is, "And will he not render to each man according to his deeds. In other words, if you are not doing the thing he says to do, in this text, that is rescue the perishing, right? And in this context, we're doing both. We're saying be a believer that represents God well on earth to show what the kindness of God looks like, to show what the rescue, the deliverance, the strength of God looks like in helping others.

I always love when— I just saw a really neat video the other day of this where an unbeliever was doing a sort of a travel vlog kind of thing, you know, where he's traveling to different places. And he's in a really bad neighborhood. And in this bad neighborhood, churches are doing things, right? And he's asking one of the guys— they were selling baked goods, right? And he's asking the guy, "So is this money— what's this money for?" And this guy, just very nonchalant, he's just talking about a trip that they're raising money for to go to South America and get medical supplies to these tribes and villages that these missionaries are there working at. And he says it so matter-of-factly, but the neat thing was the guy asking the question is not a believer. So that guy's like, "What? You guys are here in America and you have free time right now? You're taking your day and you're selling things to help people in tribes with medical supplies? What are you even talking about?"

It was like a foreign concept. But there were believers showing what it looked like, right? Like, "Our missionaries are there and we want to support our missionaries because they have this ministry there and we want to support them." And that's what they were doing. And even though we don't do fundraisers like that and those kind of things, there's just still something to the idea that it was so clean, so matter of fact. This unbeliever is like, "You're telling me that you guys are doing this right now, spending your time, your energy, your money to make the things for people in South America you'll probably never meet?" And those Christians are like, "We're Christians. Of course we are. That's what we do. We look out for each other." You know? And I love the tenderness of that. And God will reward them for that. God will reward you for that.

I would— I probably should have put it in my notes when Paul talks in Galatians about doing good to the household of faith, that idea that God is paying attention to that, that we work as unto God, not unto men. So we don't— and forgive me if you're a parent, grandparent, going-to-be parent, please don't teach your kids to do good things for people because it feels good. What a terrible reason to tell kids to do good things. Don't do things because they feel good. Because if you tell them to help people because it feels good, heroin feels good too. Don't make them seek good feelings as a principle in their life. Learn to help people because it's good for the people. Learn to serve people because it's good for the people that are served.

Now, if you get good feelings, that's all right. It's good to get good feelings. But don't make good feelings the goal. Teach service because service is good. And if you want to talk about good feelings, say, "We're going to do this because God feels good when we do it. Let's make God feel good when we do it." And I'll tell you, by the way, that's not just me trying to keep your kids from turning into selfish jerks who think they're helping people by helping them— making themselves feel good. It's also because it's the better motivation. It'll make you overcome things that are keeping you from doing it. "I really want God to feel good, so I'm going to do this thing," right? That's bigger than us. 'Cause I can be comfortable, "Eck, I don't need to feel good, so I don't need to help that person." Right? But no, God wants me to help that person, and so I'm gonna do it. And that's a higher motivation than just feeling good.

"He will render according to his deeds." And in this case, deeds are rescuing or delivering or trying to help those who are perishing. First in this life, first physically, you can think of your community. Like, does it hurt you when you see the folks out and about that are clearly struggling with mental challenges and addiction and all those things we see like in our culture? Does that bother you when you see people who are clearly strung out, clearly hurting? You know those people have families, right? When people are actually destitute, we should care. That doesn't mean we have the answer. That doesn't mean we open up the church as a homeless shelter. It might mean that in the future, But I am more trying to talk about just the idea that we're humans, those are our fellow humans, and they might not be our brothers and sisters in Christ, but they are certainly our neighbors. And what are we supposed to do for our neighbors? Love our neighbors, right?

I got theme music for the sermon, make it more dramatic at the end. I was trying to see what song it was. It's "Kazia" by Sandy. Oh, that's a little bit old school right there. I'm sorry, Sandy. I'm in it with you.

So this is the last part of verse 12, is positive and negative, right? It says, "Will he not render to each man according to his deeds?" So the bad side of that is if you're not doing what God tells you to do in rescuing the lost, he's going to reward you, and that's not happy. He's going to tell you, you didn't do what he called you to do. But on the other side of it, positively, Will he not notice that you're doing it? Will he not be attentive to your faithfulness? Will he not notice you care about those who are hurting? And by the way, those who are hurting could be in your own family. It could be caring for a neighbor. It could be caring for a grandfather. It could be caring for somebody, somebody that's in trouble. Just a Christian with a caring heart.

I don't think this is limited to only physical caring. In fact, I would challenge you that it's not and say it's— we should care about, like Charles Spurgeon says, that if people are going to go to hell, let them go to hell with us wrapped around their ankles. The idea, don't let them go easy, you know, make it hard for them by sharing the gospel and loving them and showing them Christlike kindness. But I do think we're supposed to care in general about our fellow humans, neighbors and brothers and sisters alike. We're supposed to care when people are hurting. We're supposed to want to be part of deliverance for somebody. It's supposed to motivate us. If God rescues us and we are safe and He keeps our soul, we're supposed to care about other people. Soul. I don't think God just saved us so that we can be in a happy little bubble ourselves. He saved us so that we could be useful in the rescue of others. I think we're supposed to be the old hands and feet idea of sharing the help for other people.

I think you probably— some of you have probably had me tell you some dumb medical thing I learned. If you've ever had a pulled muscle or something, I've told you the hot and cold treatment that my sports therapist friend told me, and I've told you all these things because you learn something, you see somebody in pain, yeah, I'm nosy. I'm a teacher, right? It's none of my business, but if it helps you and you use it, great. You're free to dismiss it, but I want to help if I can. What would I feel like if I said, no, that's none of my business, and then I found out you went and Googled it, and the AI told you to do what I told you to do, and you did it, and now you think AI is great instead of me loving you? I would rather you think your pastor loves you than AI loves you. So it's okay to help each other in those ways. And it's okay if you want to be a vegan. I won't hold that against you. I'll allow it. I don't know about carnivore, but vegans have to let you know they're vegans.

All right, let's pray. Father, thank you for rescuing us. Now help us be those who care about others and want to help others. And we do know, Father, that there are limits to that. There are places we can't go and people that we cannot help. Sometimes, Father, people don't want help. We know that. I just think really the lesson should go with us here today, that you care for us when we're in trouble, and we're supposed to care for people in trouble. We'll just ask, Father, that you give us wisdom to act on that just the right way when the time comes, so that we're like Christ in trying to help folks. And we'll thank you for it in Jesus' name. Amen.

Would you grab your hymnal? We'll do the last 2 verses of Holy, Holy, Holy, number 48. Let's stand.