Wisdom Calls Us To Begin

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors. Select a time to jump to that point in the recording.

0:00Good morning, new creation. Boy, it is great to see you. I'm glad you remembered how to get here. Thank you, Lord, for opening up this. I've got to say, when the snow started to fall Friday afternoon, I got a little pit in my stomach, like, oh no, Lord, what are you doing? Bring the snow on Monday and make it melt by Saturday. That's what I say.

0:26It's great to be with you. It really is. Thanks for coming to worship today. So the snow, the ice, the weather that came, it presented us with another set of circumstances, another set of, another environment where decisions have to be made. And life is full of all kinds of little decisions.

0:51The day after the snow and the ice came, you know, it snowed on Saturday and then it was sleeting on Sunday and then Monday came and the girls were out of school and I went out with them. And I was walking around in the yard and it was crunch, crunch, crunch. You know, your feet were still, my feet were still going through the ice a little bit. Right? It was not just a sheet of, it wasn't like, it wasn't a skating rink yet. And I was like, you know, now would be a good time to shovel, but I don't really feel like it.

1:26So I didn't. I don't know if anyone here made the same choice, but I was like, ah, you know, I know what happens in Richmond. It warms up. This will be easier to handle tomorrow. Big mistake, right? I went out the next day and it was like concrete, as you know. It was way harder. If I had done it the day before, I would have been, I would have saved myself a lot of time. Because Tuesday it was solid. Wednesday I decided I need to give more time to this than I thought.

1:57Every day I swore that's all I'm going to do. And the next day I was like, no, I have to do more. But Thursday came and I'm like behind now. Because it's gotten worse and worse and worse. And I'm way behind. My arms are getting really sore. I'm risking falling. All because I thought, well, I'll just do it later.

2:21There was another decision I faced. And that was sometime in the middle of the week. Nighttime came. Bedtime came. And I felt like I had not gotten enough done that day. Probably because I was chiseling through three inches of ice. And Nikki was like, come on. Let's come to bed. And I was like, I just don't feel like I got enough done today. I need to do some more stuff. And she said, well, but if you go to bed now, you'll wake up and you'll be more refreshed tomorrow to actually do that stuff.

2:54You know, the early bird gets the worm and all that stuff. I don't really like worms. I don't know about you guys. But I decided, all right. All right. I'll stop. I'll turn it off. Turn off the computer and I'll come to bed. And it turned out she was right. I felt better the next day. I felt like I had more energy. I wasn't spending the morning groggy. So two little decisions that had a big impact on my week that week. And life is full of moments like these.

3:25Moments where there are no rules. There are no hard and fast rules for situations like these. You're going to face dozens of them today. And tomorrow. And the next day. Sometimes the decisions we make that there aren't any rules for are big decisions. Like, should I marry this person? Should I apply for another job? But far more often, they're the small decisions. Like, what should I eat today? How should I spend my time? How should I spend my money?

4:07How much should I be on my phone? When I'm on my phone, what should I be doing with it? What should I say to my sibling when they're in a bad mood? And they're getting on my nerves.

4:22When should I go to bed? Should I shovel my driveway? And if so, when? Should I jump my bike off this ledge? Decisions all the time. And no rules. No rules for those decisions. No clarity. No definite, this is right and this is wrong. You hear the phrase, should I, in all of those questions, and it's a tip-off. Should I and not can I? These are not choices between right and wrong.

5:01They're choices between this or that. But the outcome can still be really significant, right? It wasn't my week. The choices can be the difference between ease and difficulty, between harmony and discord, between health or harm. It wasn't wrong for me to put off shoveling. It wasn't a sin, right? But boy, it really impacted the rest of my week. It multiplied the amount of time I had to spend on that task. It wouldn't have been a sin for me to stay up another hour or two working that one night.

5:43But I'm really glad that I went to bed. For many situations, many, many situations that you and I face all the time, the help that we need is wisdom. Wisdom. And here's the good news. God wants to give you that help. He wants to give you wisdom. He wants to. He's waiting there before you got there, waiting to hand it to you. There's a whole genre of His Word dedicated to wisdom. The wisdom genre in the Bible. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job. The wisdom literature is often underutilized.

6:26Maybe it's unappreciated. Maybe you don't know what to do with it. We're going to address that with this sermon series. We're going to spend about 13, 14 weeks, mainly in Proverbs. The new sermon series is called Wisdom Calls. Wisdom Calls. Are you going to pick up?

6:53We're going to go through Proverbs 1-9. 1-9 of Proverbs is like an extended introduction to Proverbs. The most helpful definition of biblical wisdom is this. And if you're a person that likes to write things down in your bulletin, when you take notes, I want you to write this down. Biblical wisdom is the skill of godly living. That is by far the most helpful definition of wisdom I've ever heard. And I come back to it a lot. The skill of godly living.

7:26In the book of Proverbs, God comes to help us develop that skill. In the midst of our complex life, He speaks to us as our loving Father. He says, come, son, daughter, I want to have a talk with you. I want to tell you about life. I want to give you wisdom. He wants to guide us and bless us. So let's go to Proverbs together and let's receive from our Father the wisdom that He has to give. We're going to start with just seven verses. We're going to pick up the pace as we go.

7:58Proverbs is after Psalms in your Bible if you've lost the place. We're going to do the first seven verses of Proverbs 1 today. So let's pick up our ears and listen as wisdom calls to us. This is God's Word. It's fully reliable. My pages are stuck together. And it's fully reliable and we should build our life on it because God doesn't lie. He's good and He wants to help us. Hear now the Word of the Lord. The Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel.

8:37To know wisdom and instruction. To understand words of insight. To receive instruction in wise dealing. In righteousness, justice, and equity. To give prudence to the simple. Knowledge and discretion to the youth. Let the wise hear and increase in learning. And the one who understands obtain guidance. To understand a proverb and a saying. The words of the wise and their riddles. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction.

9:12Pray with me. Lord, we come to you as your people and we ask you for help. Help to know things and help to live wisely. But help to see you as the one with whom we need to walk. So that we grow in wisdom. So that our life would be one of godliness. That you would help us, Lord. Stay away from temptation. That you would bless us. Lord, teach us the things we need to know. But also, Lord, show us yourself. Your grace, your mercy, your power, and your love today.

9:54Lord, bear fruit in our hearts through your word. In Jesus' name we pray. Wisdom calls. Wisdom calls us to begin. Let's begin. It's not easy to be a beginner, is it? No one wants to be a freshman. We all would rather be upperclassmen. It's always the rookie firefighter that gets hazed, right? And yet, that's the call for today. These first seven verses of chapter one invite us to slow down. To listen. To ask questions. To begin examining wisdom. There's three ways that we're going to begin.

10:38Here's the first one. Begin to consider new insight. Begin to consider new insight. The first thing you need to know about the wisdom genre is that wisdom is different than law and prophecy. There's lots of laws in the Bible. Lots of commandments from the Lord. The law gives commands. Thou shalt. Thou shalt not.

11:02Prophecies give promises. Thus says the Lord. The Lord is going to do this. Wisdom is different. Wisdom gives an invitation. It's just an invitation. Verse five says, let the wise hear. But what are we listening to? If it's different than law and prophecy, what are we listening to? To get value from Proverbs, we need to know what a proverb is. Proverbs, it's usually a brief two-line saying, a little couplet that conveys some truth. And it's truth about life.

11:43A proverb is a little model of reality, says Ray Ortlund Jr. I think that's really helpful. A proverb is a little model of reality. They tell us how life usually works. When I was 10, about 10, I got a book for my birthday that I loved. And I read this thing over and over and over. It was called The Way Things Work. Anybody here have this book? Anybody? My wife did. Look at that. Aren't we well matched? I saw a few other hands. So this book explained how machines operated with fun pictures.

12:25There were words, but I was more interested in the pictures. Pictures and descriptions. Simple things like a can opener. It showed you these vivid pictures. And as I stared at the pictures, I could begin to imagine these parts moving. How this part moved that part. And how it did this thing. And how it did the function that you wanted it to do, like open your can. I was fascinated page after page of looking at zooming in on these things, these ordinary things in my life and understanding, oh, that's how that works.

13:00That's what the Proverbs are. This is the Proverbs. They zoom in on something in this world, in this life, and explain to us what is really happening. How it works. In ways that might not be obvious at first to us. Proverbs 18.14 says, A man's spirit will endure sickness, but a crushed spirit, who can bear? This tells us that emotional distress can be more crippling than physical suffering is.

13:42You have to live a lot of life to kind of realize that, but you can realize it earlier when you receive this picture of reality. What God is giving you. This is why a doctor's bedside manner is so important, right?

13:59Here's another one. Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise. When he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent. Oh, how often. Oh, how often. I have been in a group of people, and I've thought, I don't know what they're talking about. But I want to look smart right now. And I've opened my mouth, and I've proven that I'm not.

14:33Oh, this proverb comes to rescue people like me. Comes to help people like me. The opposite is true. My gut told me I've got to say something or else I'm going to look dumb. But my gut was wrong.

14:48My gut was wrong. God knows what's really going on. And he's giving us a little picture here saying, hold on, hold on. You want to go left, and I'm saying go right. Okay? This is the new insight that we need. We need God's perspective on life. We need to lay aside our own assumptions for ourselves, for our relationships, and everything in our life, and receive what God wants to tell us. Let's look at the picture that he is giving us of how life works.

15:22This is why the wisdom literature is so important. When we study the Proverbs, we begin to know wisdom and instruction, to understand words of insight. And that's the key word, insight. The Proverbs are God's insight into all facets of life. He can give us this because he is the designer. The architect is giving us a window into how he has designed things to work. Relationships, words, family, emotions, work, sex, money. He's giving us the reality for how these things work.

16:08He has designed this world. He's designed you and me, and he's designed communities. He knows how they work. And not just how he designed them to work, but he knows how they've been impacted by sin. He knows how they work now in this fallen world that we live in. A good doctor knows not just how the body is supposed to work. That's not so much a doctor. A doctor needs to know how it's designed to work and why it's working in a certain way because it's broken.

16:42Right? A doctor needs to be able to see, I know what's going on here. I know where it was broken, and I know why it's causing this and causing this. God knows both of those things. How he designed it to work and what is happening now that it's broken. The Proverbs have both of those things.

17:04God has all this kind of knowledge all about life, and he is offering it to us. Am I whetting your appetite yet? Don't you want to come closer to the table? Yes, Lord, give me this wisdom. I need it. I need it. I don't know what I'm doing.

17:23We need his insight. If we try to do life without it, we're going to be disappointed at best and hurt at worst because we'll all be trying to use something, money, relationships, words, we'll be trying to use it without any understanding of how it's supposed to work. When I was a kid, I got a boomerang for Christmas. You probably know how a boomerang works, right? You've seen videos. You've seen people throw them, and it's amazing. They whip through the air.

17:55They take this weird, beautiful-looking ark, and they come right back to where you're standing. You can catch it. Well, I got a boomerang for Christmas, but I was a kid. It had instructions. You needed to read them, and you needed to practice throwing that boomerang to get it to do what it's supposed to do, but I couldn't be bothered with any of that, and the first warm day, because my birthday's in January, the first warm day, I went out to a field, and I just started chucking that thing.

18:37I was so excited about my boomerang. I'm chucking it. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. It's just hitting the ground. It goes about 10 feet. And I am getting so frustrated with this boomerang. Eventually, I throw it so hard that it chunks into the ground and it breaks.

18:59Now, that's us, without wisdom, doing life. The boomerang could be any part of your life. It could be your job. It could be your marriage. It could be your friendships. It could be a paycheck. It could be free time. For any of those things to fly right, for you to truly enjoy it, you've got to take the time to learn how it was designed to work. Otherwise, thunk, thunk, thunk, snap, break. But if we will listen, as wisdom calls, as God instructs us, those things will fly out of our hands.

19:42They will soar through the air and they'll come back to us just like they're designed to work. What a difference. Now, as we learn, we should expect some things about us to change. Wisdom has an influence on us. Our thinking will change. Maybe that one's obvious. We're going to look at things differently. But it's not just that. Our character will change. Verse 4 says, wisdom calls to give prudence to the simple. Prudence, another word for that is shrewdness.

20:21Prudence to the simple. Knowledge and discretion to the youth. This is someone who takes their time, who is patient, who's careful. That's character. This is a person who measures twice and cuts once, even when they're in a time crunch.

20:40But our relationships will also change. Verse 3 says, we receive instruction in wise dealing. This is not about bargaining when you buy something on a Facebook marketplace. This is about righteousness, justice, and equity. It's about treating people differently.

21:00Wisdom among few is a blessing to many. Just imagine what happens if there's wisdom among many. So we begin to consider new insight. But no matter how much we learn, we must begin again. And again. And again.

21:24One time, many years ago, Nikki and I were at the end of our rope. Our daughters were about 9 and 11, as I recall. And we just were in one of those seasons. Parents out there, you know what I'm talking about. Now, they were, we felt like we just were constantly correcting them. They were constantly misbehaving. Being irresponsible. Acting up. And it was the same things over and over. The same conversations we've been having for a long time. Over and over and over.

21:59The same conversations. The same lessons. The same apologies. Word for word sometimes. And so we, you know, we called a time out as a family and we sat down and we had, we had a talk with them and we told them this. We said, these things you're doing by now, you ought to know better. You're older now. But we weren't calling them to be perfect. I want to underscore that. Our message to them was not, you need to stop making mistakes. You need to be perfect now.

22:30We told them, it's time for you to learn some new lessons. Make some new mistakes. Really. We're calling you to make some different mistakes. Stop making the same mistakes that you've been making. You've learned those lessons. Make some new mistakes.

22:50Now, act like it and let's move on to gaining wisdom that suits your age. Do you know what? As Nikki and I were having that conversation with them, we didn't think about this at the time, but we look back and realize God was teaching us new wisdom in that moment. Right? We were also stepping into new wisdom just as we were calling them to step into new wisdom. You see how that works? We had never had that conversation before. It took us months of banging our head against the wall before we realized, oh, that's the conversation we need to have.

23:28Wisdom. As we begin in Proverbs, these are not just sermons for youth. This is not going to be 15 weeks of youth sermons. Because the call to grow in wisdom is not just for the young. Those of you who are seasoned, who have been adulting for a long time, even those of you who have retired or who have more salt than pepper up here, you are being addressed too. Look at verse 5. Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance.

24:04Why would someone who understands already need to obtain guidance? I understand. What are you talking to me for? Go talk to this other person. Let the wise hear. Why are you talking to me? I'm wise. You just said so, God.

24:20Why do the wise need to increase in learning? Why does someone who understands need guidance? Well, there's two reasons. One sign of wisdom is being a continual learner. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. Know-it-alls are never considered wise. Never. Scoffing is arrogance, and this is antithetical to wisdom.

24:44This is true of every stage of life. My foolishness is not having a teachable spirit, no matter how much you already know. And the only thing worse than a young fool is an old fool.

24:59Second, wisdom is highly contextual. The Proverbs are general principles. This is important too. The Proverbs are general principles that need to be applied in the right context. They're not promises. They're not guarantees. They're principles for you to unpack and learn to apply. Look at this. Proverbs 26.4 says, Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself. But the very next Proverbs says, Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.

25:33Which one is true? They both are. It depends on the context that you're in. Knowing which one to follow depends on the situation within, and that calls for discernment. And discernment must be constantly trained because we're constantly in new contexts. New situations, new seasons, new people, new chapters, new challenges, new changes in us. Right? So yes, we constantly need new wisdom. Fresh insight. So no matter your age or your stage or your knowledge, listen to wisdom calling.

26:17Being wise means applying what you've already learned and admitting you still have more to learn. God is sitting us down, just like we did with our girls a long time ago, and just like he was doing with us that we didn't know in the moment. But he's saying it's time to learn some new lessons. It's time to begin again. And this takes time. Remember, wisdom is a skill. Wisdom is not like learning a new vocabulary word. If you learn a new vocabulary word, you memorize the word, how to pronounce it, the definition, you can start working it into your speech, and wouldn't you know it, you look smarter.

26:59Right away. Wisdom is not learning new vocabulary. Wisdom is more like learning how to split wood. And if you've ever split wood, you know it takes practice. Skill. Things that you can't always explain. You have to adjust your body, your stance. You have to build up muscle. Learning wisdom is like splitting wood. It's not like learning just some new information.

27:29Take the time to understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles. Like a riddle, God's wisdom is only unlocked as you turn it over and consider it. There's no shortcut to the process. There's no button to press like on the button on your podcast or your favorite audio book where you can change it to 1.5 speed or 2.0 speed. There's no button like that on wisdom. Will you keep the riddle in front of you until you unlock the answer?

28:08Okay, but here's the last part. Here's the good news. We're not puzzling over wisdom by ourselves. We're also called to begin with the Lord. Begin with the Lord. The topic of wisdom is so big it can feel overwhelming. Where do we start? Well, we don't have to guess. Verse 7 tells us, it's the theme verse of the whole book of Proverbs. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. This is the most important part.

28:39The true and living God is completely holy, completely righteous, completely just. Because we're not, you might think that the fear of the Lord means fear of his punishment. But that's actually not what it's talking about. It means reverence at his character. It means awe at his being. It means surrender to his will. It means worship and devotion and love, not running and hiding. Worship and devotion and love, not running and hiding.

29:13Why is this the beginning of wisdom? Because we are so strongly influenced by what we love. If I go shopping for Nikki on Valentine's Day, or I should say when I go shopping for Nikki on Valentine's Day, I need to walk through every store with her on my mind. What would she like? What would she enjoy? What would express to her love and appreciation? If I don't shop like that, do you know who I'm going to end up buying for? Me. Have you ever been there?

29:53Have you ever done that? I know some of you have. You've gone out for somebody else, and you're at the register, and you're like, wait a minute, I'm holding something from me. It's amazing how much we enter our own mind again. And next thing you know, we're looking and we're like, I would like that. Pick it up. Right? Growth and wisdom is possible only when we put God first in our hearts and our minds.

30:22When we draw near to him and consider, God, what are you like? What's great about you? What would honor you in this situation? What would you have me do here? This guides us into wisdom because we're willfully directing our whole lives as an offering to him. I'm not picking out what I want, God. I'm picking out what you want.

30:47Pursuing wisdom is not acquiring facts. It's pursuing a person. The personal God. When wisdom calls, it's not the library calling. It's not the classroom calling. It's God calling. Wisdom is mainly about relationship, not about information. This is really good news. And you know why? Because it means wisdom is for everyone. It's for everyone. Being wise doesn't depend on your upbringing. It doesn't depend on your resources. It doesn't depend on your IQ.

31:20It doesn't depend on whether or not you have a degree or whether you even have a library card. But wisdom, the crucial component of wisdom is who you worship. That's the difference making.

31:35Make God the love of your life. Submit yourself to him. Make him the person that you most want to know. The one whose ways captivate you. And you will grow in wisdom. That's a promise. Because God is the doorway and the pathway to wisdom. We begin with him and we continue with him. Not coincidentally, Jesus said, I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and go in and go out and find pasture. The fear of the Lord leads us to Christ.

32:13The only means of reconciliation we have with our creator. Through faith in God, through faith in Jesus, we're adopted and God calls us his son, his daughter. Now we can sit down at the table with him and learn wisdom from our father. And Jesus also said, I am the way. As we abide in him, we see that he is truly the wisdom of God. He's reliable in every day, in every situation. He will never lead us astray. He will never fail. That's why at the baptism of Jesus, the father said, listen to him.

32:51Listen to him. He's the wisdom that we need. He's the beginning of knowledge, the instruction in righteousness and justice. Wisdom is calling, church. Calling us to begin with the Lord, the Lord Jesus, who gave himself for us.