Episode Transcript
Alright, we'll be in Proverbs chapter 15 tonight.
Proverbs chapter 15.
God willing will be expounding verse 16, Proverbs chapter 15, verse 16.
Tyler's message tonight is just a little, just a little.
Believe it or not, here we are again.
Finding another one of my favorite words in the Old Testament, and that's the word tob.
We learned about that again the other night.
We usually think of the word tob meaning good.
Because the Bible says God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very tove, it was very good.
Since God made everything good, then that which is good is made by God.
That means Tob means that something is the way God designed it to be.
And that's the way I want to be one day.
I want to be Tob, just the way God designed me to be.
So, Tob is God's design for man.
Tob is how God created things in the beginning.
And because of that, Tob is better than any plan or any design or any idea for life that man could come up with.
By this we learn that sometimes Tob is great, but sometimes Tob, that which is better, look back in your text, is little.
It's little.
By God's wise and loving design, He sometimes gives a great amount.
To some and a little amount to others.
Just the way God does things.
Or using the translation we have for Tob in our English translation, God sometimes gives A great amount to some and a better amount to others.
You hear that?
That's marvelous, isn't it?
Because as people, we tend to think that more is always better.
I remember when Gabriel was little.
He's about to be 13.
I remember when Gabriel was little, and I would bring them little, y'all see my little grandkids come up here, I'd give them snacks Sunday morning or some kind of treat Sunday morning.
And I remember when he was little.
I would, I had a, I don't know what I had in that bag, but I have a bag of something, and I would shake it out in the kids, huh?
Goldfish.
I'd shake out the goldfish in their hands. on Sunday mornings and before church or after church.
But anyway, I'd shake it out in their hands.
And I remember I I got a kick out of doing Gabriel this way.
I'd always shake a little in his hand.
And I'd say, is that enough or do you want more?
Do you know what his answer was 100% of the time?
More.
I always wanted more.
And, you know, he assumed, like most people, like most of us, that you can't get too much of a good thing.
He assumed that it's always better to have more.
It's always tob to have more.
But sometimes it's far better to have less.
My wife made some of the best homemade pizza I'd ever eaten the other day, and I I probably can't eat as much as Brother Doug.
I tell you that man can put away the groceries.
But I do like to eat.
And I was enjoying so much that homemade pizza she made me when my body gave me the God-given sensation that I was full and it was time for me to stop eating.
The problem was, it was still some of that pizza on my plate, and just because I was full, it didn't make it taste any worse.
It still tasted just as good.
So I made the mistake.
Of eating what remained on my plate.
I was raised up to eat what's on your plate.
But I should have stopped when I was full.
And because I ate more, I went from having a God-giving feeling of being full and satisfied and happy as God designed.
To having a feeling of being achy, bloated, and frustrated with myself because I knew better than to do that.
So that natural feeling I had of being full and needing to stop eating was because God put a limit on how much of a good thing I should have.
And God designed me to have less than I wanted.
Less was not bad for me in that situation.
Less was tobe for me.
Less was better for me.
But, you know, we hope we won't, but because of our flesh, we often make that same mistake again, don't we?
Whether it's food or something else.
And when it comes to our life's choices, The question that we should be asking ourselves when we're having to choose between two things of this category is not which is more for us, but which is better for us.
Which is better for us?
Which is taube for us.
The devil wants us to think, metaphorically speaking, that we can have to choose between a little pizza and a lot of pizza.
When the real choice is the choice between that which is better for me and that which is worse for me.
The real choice is between helping my body or hurting my body.
That's the truth.
And when you're faced with this kind of choice, remember the truth that we learned in this proverb tonight: that sometimes Look at your first three words.
Sometimes what?
Better is little.
Sometimes it's much better to have a little.
And comparatively speaking, Solomon says, better is little.
Look back in your text.
With the fear of the Lord.
With the fear of the Lord.
The fear of the Lord, remember, is speaking about our reverence for the Lord.
And to help you understand what the fear of the Lord is, the most basic element of the fear of the Lord is faith.
It's believing God's word.
Because Hebrews 11, chapter 11, verse 6a says, but without faith It is impossible to please him that is to please God, for he that cometh to God must believe that he is.
So the fear of the Lord begins with us believing the truth of God.
The fear of the Lord at its very essence is us trusting in his word.
And if we believe what God says, then we will love and reverence who God is.
We will have the Lord in His proper place in our hearts according to what His Word tells us about Him.
We will acknowledge God for who He says He is and what He says He's done.
And Solomon says that it's better for us to have just a little of this world substance with the fear of the Lord.
Better is little with the fear of the Lord.
So, whatever you have of this world's substance, this world's goods, Whatever you have, if you have the fear of the Lord with it, it's far better to have a little with the fear of God than to have a lot without it.
Far better.
Better is little with the fear of the Lord, Solomon says, look back in your text, than great treasure.
Now notice that a little substance With the fear of the Lord is better than great treasure without the fear of the Lord.
And by that, here's what we can conclude: we can conclude that the fear of the Lord Gives value to the wealth we possess.
Isn't that great?
I mean, if you have a little of something and you have the fear of the Lord, that's better.
The little is better than having a whole lot of something without the fear of the Lord.
That means that little is more valuable than the lot.
The fear of the Lord makes what we have Value.
It gives it value.
Suppose I wanted to set aside and I didn't bring my water up here.
Let me get my water here.
Suppose I wanted to sit outside on my back porch.
You know what?
I had to drink my water because I'd have a little bit of voice left Sunday.
That falls right in with the illustration.
Suppose I wanted to sit on my back porch on Saturday nights, as my neighbors used to.
They hadn't done it in a while.
Thank God they hadn't done it in a while.
But suppose I want to sit on my back porch on Saturday nights and sing karaoke.
I'd invite the Jeremini kids over.
Y'all could even listen to me.
And let's say I want to do that, so I scraped and I saved to get the finest karaoke machine, the loudest karaoke machine money could buy.
And that next Saturday night, after I got my machine, me and my wife and all the Jerry Minnie kids, we gather in my backyard.
I got my nice lawn chair that rocks.
I got some iced tea.
My friends and family and all my favorite soundtracks for the machine to put on my first Richard Live concert.
I mean, I had everything that I needed for a fantastic night.
Just imagine that.
Everything I needed except one thing.
You know what it is?
My voice.
My voice.
In 2007, my voice was damaged and I can't sing anymore.
I never sang karaoke, by the way, but I can barely even speak sometimes.
So music-wise, my voice gives value to all that that I just described.
Without my voice, the karaoke machine, the company coming over for the concert, the soundtracks that I bought, Would have no value at all if I had no voice, right?
Music-wise, none of those things. have any value to me.
My voice is what makes them valuable.
And in the same way you can have all the wealth in this world that it offers, but if you don't have God It's like having all the sheet music, but no piano to play it with.
Could you imagine having all this sheet music?
And no piano or no instrument, no guitar, whatever, no instrument to play it with.
What value is that music?
The fear of the Lord is what gives the wealth of the world its value.
What good is a gift without a giver?
What good is love if you don't know who loves you?
What good is love if you don't have someone to love back?
What good are the possessions of this world if you have no purpose in this world?
What good is treasure if you have no ability to enjoy it or ability to keep it?
It is better to have little with the fear of the Lord than to have great treasure.
You see, if you have the fear of the Lord, then you have the Lord that you fear.
And now you have value to what you have.
You have a way to keep it.
You have a way to enjoy it.
You have someone who loves you and you know who loves you.
You have a God to love back because that's the greatest gift God's given us is the ability to love.
To be loved and to love back, right?
So it's better to have little with the fear of the Lord than to have great treasure, look back in your text, and trouble therewith.
Man, I don't want any trouble.
I don't like trouble.
You ever had trouble?
You try to go to sleep and you can't sleep because your head's troubled?
I don't like that.
People pay money to get rid of trouble.
So what would you rather have?
Would you rather have money in trouble or spend your money to get rid of your trouble?
I think everyone would spend their money to get rid of their trouble.
We pay exterminators to get rid of pests, you know.
We pay doctors to get rid of diseases.
We don't want trouble.
And we especially don't want trouble in our hearts, our minds.
We want peace.
If we're at peace, if a person's at peace in their heart, They're a very wealthy person.
I'm absolutely convinced of that.
If a person is at peace in their heart in life, they're a very wealthy person.
We don't want trouble in our hearts.
We don't want trouble in our families.
Man, when you've got family trouble, you got trouble.
And the closer that family is to you, the worse the trouble is.
A troubled heart can enjoy a treasured home.
Repeat that again.
A troubled heart can't enjoy a treasured home.
Home.
Trouble steals treasure because trouble robs it of its value.
What good is money in your bank account if there's trouble in your home?
Trouble has the idea, when you're thinking of trouble, it has the idea of troubled waters.
You ever heard that song about bridge over troubled waters?
It has the idea of stirring stuff up.
We don't want our heart stirred up.
We don't want anything like that.
We want still waters.
Psalm 23 says, God leads us beside the troubled waters.
No, He didn't take us to troubled waters.
He leads us beside the still waters.
So when our hearts are not still and our hearts are not peaceful, then wealth is of very little value to us.
My favorite spot in the home is my sunroom.
A sunroom has no carpet, no hardwood flooring.
You know what kind of flooring it has?
Concrete slab.
No stain on it, just concrete.
It's a very boring floor.
I can't even open my windows on my sonroom right now.
Do you know why?
Because the frames on the screens.
Were made the year I was born.
They were.
It was made back in the 60s.
And if I were to open my windows, I'd have flies and all kinds of stuff in there.
Mosquitoes coming to get me.
Now I plan on fixing that when I retire.
I plan on having some time then, God willing.
But right now, that's just the way it is.
But it's still my favorite room in the house.
It's my wife's favorite room in the house.
Do you know why?
It's peaceful.
Very peaceful in there.
You can see the hummingbirds.
The wild birds from the bird feeder, the dove were coming and eating off the ground, stray cats.
One lays on my trailer, the other lays on my little patio table.
And the wind blows through the trees, you hear the wind chimes.
My wife and I can just sit out there and just enjoy each other's company.
Don't even have to talk to each other.
Just sit out there and enjoy each other's company.
And while we're doing that, we enjoy God's creative beauty.
We enjoy the still of the day.
And we can enjoy all of that for one reason.
That room has become the wealthiest place My weight room, second, brother.
But that room has become the wealthiest room in my house for one reason: the fear of the Lord.
That's all.
The fear of the Lord allows us to see the beauty of His creation.
If I didn't know God, remember the core essence of the fear of the Lord is faith, faith in the Word of God.
And if I didn't have faith in the word of God, I would not be able to enjoy the beauty of God's creation.
I would not be able to look at those hummingbirds.
And just think, wow.
I don't know if y'all ever do this.
I do.
And I bet y'all do sometimes.
But sometimes I'll watch those humming verses, and I'll just say to myself, or say to God, I'll say, God, you are so smart.
You are just so smart.
The engineering of those birds.
And then all the different kinds of birds, the variety, God's creativity.
He didn't just make one bird and say, oh, look, there's a bird.
There's a quadruped.
There's this, now all kinds of variety.
And they're still discovering new species.
I discovered a new species.
I sees a cat the other day, and some other new species I saw this week.
They still don't know what all God's made.
And so it gives me someone to be thankful for when I see it, someone to give credit to when I see it, someone for me to marvel at when I see it.
The fear of the Lord allows my wife and I to sit out there, enjoy each other's company.
Why?
Because of the beauty of God's marriage design.
That's why.
I tell people all the time, it's marvelous when you have two people, a husband and a wife, they both believe God's word.
I mean, they really believe it.
They really believe this is woman's role in the home.
This is man's role in the home.
And they're eager to go about fulfilling their roles.
It works like.
Like two gears, just it just works.
God's designs are marvelous, whether it's in the wings of a hummingbird or the roles of marriage or the roles in a church or whatever it is.
It's the fear of the Lord that allows us to sit there and enjoy it without tenseness, without tension in between our hearts.
The fear of the Lord allows us to enjoy the stillness of the day.
Because of the stillness God has put in our heart through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
If it wasn't for that, the stillness of the day, there's a passage of scripture I can't think of it right now, but.
The Bible talks about when someone has such a troubled heart that they would say, Oh, if it was night, and then in the night time they say, Oh, if it was only day, I have been there.
I've been there.
I've been so miserable before, my heart's so troubled.
I think, well, when it's nighttime, I'll be able to dwell on it and problem solve.
And maybe think through it.
Then, when it's night time, I can't sleep, and I think, oh, I've only had a good n rest.
In the morning, I'll maybe I can go through this.
And and and that's before I ever saw that scripture.
And later I saw that scripture and thought, boy, I've been there.
But now I have the stillness of Christ in my heart.
And I know whatever I face, whatever trouble this world brings me.
Jesus has conquered that trouble in the gospel.
The fear of the Lord allows us to be thankful for all that we have.
You can't be thankful if you don't have the fear of the Lord.
Who are you going to thank?
There's nobody to thank without God.
Say, well, I'll thank myself.
Who are you going to thank for yourself?
How did you get here?
The fear of the Lord allows us to be thankful for all we have and to know that we have it because God.
Provided it to us because he loves us.
That's what makes it special.
I fear the Lord gives us great value.
To whatever little it is that we have.
And without the fear of God, it would all lose its meaning, its significance, and thus it would lose its value to us.
Without the fear of God, the little.
Would become inadequate, and no amount of treasure could steal our troubled hearts.
So, with that, we'll go ahead and close tonight.
And go home and let the little bit you have be of great value to you.
See it, thank God for it, enjoy it.
Find your little sunroom in your home.
Father, thank you so much for your precious word.
Thank you, Father God.
There is not a Christian in this world that can say they have nothing.
We all have at least a little bit of this world's treasure.
Jesus said, With food and raiment, be content.
And even with that little bit, Lord, if we have the fear of the Lord, it would be better than to have great treasure without it.
For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, Jesus said, and lose his own soul?
Thank you, Father, for all you've done.
Thank you for giving value to everything we have.
In Jesus' precious name, amen.
