Proverbs 27:1 Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth
There are three kinds of people listening to my voice right now. Don’t you love when people do that? They list the “three different kinds of people in this world” and have a year-long series on three groups of people. So, I am going to give you the three kinds of people in the world.
The first group is found in Proverbs 27:1 where it says, “Boast not thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.” These people brag about what they will do. It is always a risky proposition to talk about what you will do because you are spending capital that you may not have. We don’t know about tomorrow. An older preacher once told me about playing pick-up football with some friends. He had been a good athlete in high school and college, but he told me that after he started playing, he realized that he had made a bargain with his lips that his legs could not keep. Sometimes we do that. We make a bargain with our lips that our life cannot keep. So, “boast not thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a say may bring forth.” There are those who brag about what they will do.
This is somewhat of a couplet, so the second verse in Proverbs is kind of on the same lines. It says, “Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth.” Don’t brag on yourself; let someone else praise you. It continues, “A stranger, and not thine own lips.” Whenever you hear someone who talks all the time about how well they have done, you wonder what they are doing right now. It is like the old adage, “The older I get, the better I was.” Recently I was thinking about the best one-mile time I had ever run, which was back in college. I was rather impressed. Either my memory has gotten frail, I’ve just gotten really slow, or I’m just old enough to think, “That was a great time,” back when I was twenty. So, both those who brag of tomorrow and those who brag about what they have done are lacking in action.
That is perhaps the third group of people. There are those who speak of what they will do, those who speak of what they have done, and then there are those who just do. Verse 11 says it this way, “My son, be wise, and make my heart glad, that I may answer him that reproacheth me.” Regardless of what people say about me, my answer is just the kid I put out there. In Psalm 127:4 it says that children are “as arrows…in the hand of a mighty man.” They are a defense against old age. They will discuss with my enemies in the gate. The gate in those days was where civil trials and argument were held. When I have children, they are my defense, my arrows. I protect them when they are young, and they protect me when I am old.
The point is, regardless of what you may think of someone, what they are putting out in the world speaks louder than anything they actually say. For instance, I preach frequently. Which would you give greater weight, what I say in a thirty-minute sermon or what my kids say by their actions? I know there may be something always inconsistent about that. Maybe I’m doing well and my kids have a bad day. I understand that. Saying this scares me to death, but it doesn’t change the fact that you are going to put more weight on what you see my family do and what they may say of me than what I say of myself.
You say, I don’t have any children.” You may not have children, but the actions you are putting out in the world speak for you more eloquently than what you actually say. It is not that what you say is not important. It is important, but what you do is really important because that communicates.
Years ago, my neighbor of thirty-five years here on the Bill Rice Ranch told me a story from when he was growing up on a farm in Massachusetts. He was a farmer, but he loved horses and was a splendid horseman. When he was a young man, one Saturday some of the farm boys were trying to gentle a horse. They were taking turns being launched off this horse’s back because they couldn’t stay on him. They were doing this when a Mormon missionary on a bicycle rode up. He got off his bike, went to the edge of the corral, and quietly watched the goings-on. Then he said to the guys gathered, “Would you mind if I had a try.” They all looked at each other and snickered, thinking, “What is this pilgrim gonna get into?” They said he could and he replied, “Ok, I’ll be back next week.”
The next week he rode up on the same bicycle, but was wearing Wrangler jeans and cowboy boots. What the farm boys didn’t know was that he was from Montana and had grown up on a ranch. He promptly crawled over the railing and approached the horse. He got on the horse, gentled him, and rode him out. They were all shocked. Sometimes you might be surprised that some guy who is dressed up rather prim and proper may be able to do more than you suppose. That man’s actions spoke louder than any words he said.
The upshot of all this is be a person of action. There are those who boast of what they will do, those who boast of what they have done, and those who simply do. At the end of the day, whether you have children or your children are merely the actions you have taken, people will judge you not merely by the things you say, but by the things you do and the choices you make.