Bill Johnson - God Designed You for Joy
Every one of us was designed to have hearts that are happy and filled with life, overflowing with joy. That’s the design of the Lord for us. Part of that is staying away from anxiety and learning to deal with fear effectively. You deal with fear by coming into the Word of God to find out what He says, and then the good Word makes the heart glad. Well, hello there! Welcome back! Glad that you could join us. Chapter 12 is a rich chapter; they all are, let’s be honest. But it’s a rich chapter in that it always stands out to me because of how often it talks about the fruit of our words and the impact of our speech. We’ve been tampering with this subject a little bit in the last few chapters, but we hit pretty strongly with a couple of rich verses here. Let’s start with verse 2 of chapter 12. It says, «A good man obtains favor from the Lord, but a man of wicked intentions He will condemn.»
A good man obtains favor from the Lord. Why is this significant? I think many people fail to reach their destiny, their purpose in life, because they do not realize they need to increase in their favor with God. Now listen, it says of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 2, I think it is, that He increased in favor with God and man. If Jesus, who is perfect, needed to increase in favor with God and man, then we certainly do. So many people never reach their potential or their assignment in life because they don’t realize their need for favor.
Now, let’s make it clear: God loves us all the same, but not all of us have the same measure of favor. That’s not punishment; that’s the mercy of God because His favor creates opportunity, and He only wants to create opportunity in the measure that we can handle responsibly. But here’s the inviting thing: every person’s favor can increase by using what they have well. So here’s what this says: a good man obtains favor, and it’s contrasted with a man with evil motives and evil intentions. So what’s the point? A good person is defined in this verse as someone with pure motives who wants to do the right things; that person actually attracts the favor of God. It might be worthwhile to just highlight the word «favor» in your computer or iPad or whatever and look at every time the word «favor» is mentioned in Proverbs—it’s a rich, rich lesson.
All right, let’s move on to verse 14. It says, «A man will be satisfied with good by the fruit of his mouth, and the recompense of a man’s hands will be rendered to him.» A man will be satisfied with good by the fruit of his mouth. I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about that, but I have pondered and meditated on that verse before: that a person can be satisfied with good, like eating a meal. It describes the end of a wonderful meal where you feel so thankful, satisfied, and appreciative of what you’ve just had. Here, it’s saying that satisfaction can come by the words that come out of your mouth; that your speech determines what you’re going to be «eating.» Your speech—what you and I say to one another, what we say to that person who looks like they’re not doing well in life—we have that moment to speak to them. Those words determine our meal; they determine what we’re going to be feeding on. Often, we miss the opportunity, or we speak incorrectly towards a person just to vent instead of really saying what the Lord is saying to them. When we do that, we end up with a dissatisfied soul because we have to eat in life from the table we just spread. So there’s an encouragement for you: look for the people that need words of strength and encouragement and speak that to them.
Moving on down to verse 17, it says, «He who speaks truth declares righteousness, but a false witness deceit.» There is one who speaks like the piercings of a sword, but the tongue of the wise promotes health. There’s an interesting phrase: the tongue of the wise promotes health. Now, I don’t get this yet; all I know is that month after month, I go through the Book of Proverbs, and it always stands out to me how often speech affects health. Speech affects health. It says life and death are in the power of the tongue. How often do we say, «Oh, I’m so dumb, why did I do that?» Our body doesn’t recognize when we’re joking; our body doesn’t recognize when we are just trying to be light and random. There is life and death in the power of the tongue, and the tongue promotes health. That’s the Word of God, and elsewhere it talks about life actually flowing from our speech. So, I want to encourage you: the tongue of the wise—words of wisdom—promotes health. My goodness, every family member of a family determined to speak words of wisdom in that household actually increases the level of health experienced in that family, in that business, in that church.
Moving on down to verse 24, I like whenever I see the word diligence because there’s that extra effort involved. It says, «The hand of the diligent will rule.» That’s true. Those who put in the extra effort are always the ones that are promoted. Now we’re going to get down to verse 25, a scary verse to me. It says, «Anxiety in the heart of a man causes depression.» So many people, so many believers, are just struggling painfully with depression and discouragement constantly. I used to have a big battle with that all the time. I’d always compare myself and never came up good. Anxiety is what weighs a heart down and gives way to depression. So here it is: anxiety in the heart causes depression, but a good word makes it glad.
Sometimes that good word is spoken by us to ourselves. You know the Bible says, «Let the weak say, 'I am strong.'» So, what does that mean? In the moment where I feel weak, I’m declaring over myself, «I am strong.» Sometimes that good word that we need to hear actually needs to come out of our own mouth. I want to encourage you: anxiety in the heart causes depression; a good word makes it glad. Every one of us was designed to have hearts that are happy and filled with life, overflowing with joy. That’s the design of the Lord for us. Part of that is staying away from anxiety and learning to deal with fear effectively. You deal with fear by coming into the Word of God to find out what He says, and then the good word makes the heart glad. I bless you with that. I pray that would be your portion, your experience in this coming week. We’re going to keep talking about the mouth in chapter 13.