Wisdom Calls Us To Action

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0:00So we are in our new sermon series on Proverbs 1-9 called Wisdom Calls. Another aspect of wisdom is that it's not automatic. You don't gain wisdom by osmosis. I've been to a lot of basketball games lately because Bree's basketball season just wrapped up. She's on the varsity team. There is no JV team, but anyway, she's on the varsity team. And I was at nearly every game. I watched most every play. I watched them pass and shoot. Saw them grab rebounds, run plays, schemes.

0:46Saw them score points, get scored on. I'm here to tell you I've spent a lot of time in gyms lately focusing on basketball. But it probably doesn't surprise you for me to hear me say that for some reason I'm not any better at basketball now than when the season started. Funny how that is. I've spent all the time in a gym and I'm not any better. Because you don't get better at basketball by watching basketball. You might learn a few things, but that means basically nothing when it comes to actual skill on the court.

1:30I could watch her team play for another two seasons, and I hope that I do. But if I got out there, I would still be the same lanky, uncoordinated guy with poor fundamentals and a lousy shot who can be counted on to get rebounds, and that's basically it. Watching ball doesn't make you a baller.

1:56To get better, you've got to practice. You've got to play. You've got to be active. And so it is with wisdom. So it is with wisdom. We can only really learn it when we are active in pursuing it and applying it. You've got to pursue it and you've got to apply it. Diligently. Just like Brie practicing her shot or running her plays with her team. That's what today's passage is all about. Today's passage is, unfortunately, because we are not reading it in Hebrew, I'm terrible at reading Hebrew.

2:36Very terrible. But if we could read it in Hebrew, we would see it as beautiful poetry. The poetry is going to be lost on us here, but the power of it is still going to have an impact, even translated to English. This chapter is a beautiful, poetic invitation to us to be active, to really go for it, to go after wisdom. And it's a promise of a blessing that comes to us when we do. It's an invitation and it's a promise. That's all that today's chapter is.

3:08It invites us to be active and it says what God does for us in our hearts, in our lives when we do it. So let's go to Proverbs 2. Let's hear this invitation and let's read the promise of a blessing to us. This is God's word for us out of Proverbs. It's inerrant. It's infallible. Come to it on your knees with your heart bowed. Come to it with open hands. Come to it as coming to the Lord because He is speaking and He has promised for His word to go forth in power and changed lives.

3:49Even yours and mine. Proverbs 2. My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding. Yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding. If you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures. Then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom. From His mouth comes knowledge and understanding.

4:32He stores up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity. Guarding the paths of justice and watching over the way of His saints. Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity. Every good path. For wisdom will come into your heart and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. Discretion will watch over you. Understanding will guard you. Delivering you from the way of evil. From men of perverted speech who forsake the paths of uprightness and walk in the ways of darkness.

5:11Who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil. Men whose paths are crooked, who are devious in their ways. So you will be delivered from the forbidden woman. From the adulteress with her smooth words. Who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God. For her house sinks down to death and her paths to the departed. None who go to her come back. Nor do they regain the paths of life. So you will walk in the way of the good and keep to the paths of the righteous.

5:51For the upright will inhabit the land and those with integrity will remain in it. But the wicked will be cut off from the land. And the treacherous will be rooted out of it.

6:04Pray with me. Lord, as your word goes forth today, unstop our ears. Jar our hearts free of whatever is making them stuck. Help us to come to you eagerly, Lord. For the song we just sang, that our peace is to be known and loved by you. And I, that message is here in Proverbs 2 for us. In Christ Jesus. We're known and we're loved and we are fed and walked, led down the paths of wisdom. For your namesake and for our good. Lord, that's what we want. Help us to want it even more and to go after it.

6:53And for those here who, they're not convinced yet, if they even want it, will you please convince them? Show them the good that you're holding out in your hand to them. Jesus, we pray this in your name.

7:08Wisdom calls us to action. So, way back a long time ago, completely out of the blue, a pretty girl told me she had feelings for me. This came as a surprise to me because I saw her as a friend. And I told her that. I tried to be kind about it. That girl sitting in this room, twist in the story is that several weeks after she told me that, I started to look at her differently. Eventually, I asked her out. And she said, to my surprise, I think I'm pretty much over you.

8:05And so the pursuit began. You know where the story ended. But the pursuit was me finding ways to spend time with her, excuses to see her, putting out signals that I was interested, that I wanted our friendship to go further. And it was good for me. You can ask Nikki later if this was her plan all along. But it was good for me to have to take the initiative to pursue her.

8:43Young women who are unmarried, are you listening to this? It's good for young men when they have to pursue you. It was good for me to have to pursue her. Right? To direct my heart towards her. Last week in chapter 1, the wise parent said, hear wisdom. Hear it. But hearing can be construed kind of passively, right? Well, the parent speaks again now in chapter 2 and shifts it into active language. The first four verses are four couplets. It is a poem.

9:22Each one is building on the last and it's talking about actively pursuing wisdom. Actively pursuing wisdom. Just like I was actively pursuing the woman that I wanted to date and then marry. I wasn't actively pursuing her when she first told me, but then I was like, you know what? And I wasn't going to take no for an answer. So the first four verses tell us about actively pursuing wisdom. These are four couplets. They're four progressive steps for pursuing wisdom.

9:58The first step is this. Find a place for it. Find a place for it in your heart, in your life. Receive my words and treasure up my commandments, the author says. To receive someone's words is more than just listening. It's more even than just agreeing with them. It's actively taking them in, turning them over, finding the place where they need to land in your life. The place where they need to work in your heart. You can fill a prescription and you can bring it home, but it won't do you any good on the bathroom counter.

10:38It doesn't help you sitting on the kitchen counter. It's still in the bag. For it to work, you've got to take it in or you've got to apply it or whatever the instructions are for that medicine, you've got to follow them and apply it. Find a place for it. Treasure it up can also be translated store up as in hold and reserve for later for when you're going to need it. When you come home from the grocery store, you store up the food you've bought for later.

11:13But you have to make room in your pantry, right, to store it up. You've got to make some space for it. This is where that goes. The next verse goes further. Move yourself to embrace it. Move yourself to embrace it. Making your ear attentive to wisdom. My favorite part of school was cutting up with my friends.

11:42I still remember that feeling of leaning over my desk, my pals nearby, laughing, joking around, thinking we were getting away with it. And then I didn't even realize it, but the teacher was standing right beside me. Joel, what do you think the answer is? And that jolt of electricity through you and I realized, like, oh, I've been caught. Everybody's looking at me. Total silence and I have no idea what class are we even in.

12:17I wasn't paying attention and the teacher knew it before I did. This was the way to get it. And teachers know how to keep a student's attention because the dreaded next step was, Joel, why don't you come up front and take a seat right in the front row? Now, that was the worst because that would mean for the rest of that period there was going to be no cutting up. I was being forced to pay attention. This passage tells us, everyone, listen, your ears are often the students not paying attention and you are the teacher.

12:55That's what our ears are saying, no. But we have to say, come up front to the front of the classroom. Do what you need to do to get your ears to listen. Learning wisdom requires self-control. But self-control is not only keeping away from doing wrong, it's also moving towards the good.

13:20Wrap on the desk and get your ear to pay attention. The same verse says, inclining your heart to understanding. Now, that's a Hebrew idiom and it means something like taming an animal, which is really, really helpful to understand what he's getting at. There are places you can go in Virginia and see wild horses. They're beautiful to watch, but there's something you can't do. Can't ride them. It'll never happen. They would resist. They would fight.

13:58And even if you somehow managed to not get hurt in the process of trying to get on their back, they would run away. And if you followed them, you're going to end up lost.

14:11The world says, follow your heart. But that is really bad advice. Because your heart is a wild horse. It's a wild horse. You are unwise to follow it until it has been tamed and trained. It's got to be tamed and trained. Then maybe you can listen to it. Our hearts, first of all, they must be made new. This happens by a work of God when we come to Him in repentance and faith. He makes our hearts new, but that is only the beginning. From that point forward, these new hearts of ours need to be trained.

14:55All horses must be trained to accept a rider. It used to be called breaking a horse. I looked it up and now there's new terms for it. I guess breaking was politically incorrect. I don't know. Now the term is starting a horse or backing a horse. Look, whatever you call it, it's necessary to get that horse to submit to you so that a rider can safely get on the back of it and direct it where it should go and have control. Otherwise, that rider's going to get hurt and you'll never go where you want to go.

15:36Our hearts need to be tamed by God and trained by God. But this couplet in verse 2 is calling for us to be a part of that process. To become self-controlled people submitted to the Lord with ears that are attentive to wisdom and hearts that are directed towards wisdom. don't just sit around on your couch waiting for that to happen. Get involved in the process. Make your see how active the language is? Make your ear attentive. Incline your heart to understanding.

16:10Take part in the self-control growth process and direct your heart. Move yourself to embrace it. The next couplet teaches us to ask for it persistently. Call out for insight. Raise your voice for understanding. In a restaurant you expect to be served. You expect a waiter or a waitress to attend to you, to check in on you, to take your order, to refill your drink, to bring your check, to do it all promptly. If they don't do those things you might leave a bad review on Yelp or Google or whatever.

16:55The food was fine, the service was terrible, you might write. But I think the places and maybe you have too where the food is so good you forget all that. You're not even thinking about that. The word has spread, the demand is so high, the place is packed. You don't expect to be waited on in those places. You're not even thinking about it. All you want is the food that you've heard so much about. If you want some of this delicious in-demand food, you've got to call out for what you want.

17:31You've got to muscle your way up to the counter. This is my order. You place it and then you wait carefully and listen attentively for your name to be called to go up and get your package. There are places like that. You're not thinking about the service, you're thinking about the food. And you do what it takes to go get that food, including speaking up and making your voice heard. I'm here to tell you that the wisdom that God has is good. It's really good.

18:02It is really, it's so good the word has spread and people are lining up and asking for it. Do not expect to be walked down to a table and sat down and have God come by and say, may I tell you today's specials? God is not your waiter. But, He will give it to you if you call out for it. So raise your voice. Go into the kitchen. Push your way into the kitchen and talk to the chef and say, this is what I want. I've heard about this. Give me that. I want it.

18:43Lord, please give me your wisdom. Give me your words. Give me the insight that you have. I need it for my life. I need it for my family. I need it for my marriage. I need it for my work. I need it for my life. The choices of what I'm going to do with the next chapter of my life. I need it, Lord. Give it to me.

19:07He likes that. He likes it when you do that. He loves it when you do that. Because you know why? It shows you have good taste. I'm serious. It shows you have good taste. You have taste for Him. That you've tasted and seen that He's good. And you're like, Lord, I want more of it. He loves it when you are insistent and you ask and ask and ask.

19:41The final step of the process, the final couple, is this. He tells us to value it highly. Seek it like silver. And the word there for silver, it does not mean an item of finished silver, of polished silver. silver in its raw state is what it's talking about. That has to be mined, has to be smelted, has to be refined. We have some metallurgists in the room. You know how much work it takes to fashion metal. He's saying, seek it like that. Go talk to Douglas about this.

20:20how much work it takes to turn raw ore, raw metal stuff into a nice looking knife that works and is shiny and cuts. It takes work. Seek it like that. Seek it like someone who's mining for precious metal who's willing to get grimy and take risks to put their hands on it and search for it as hidden treasures.

20:52Search for it like James Howells. He's a guy that lives in Wales. In 2013, he accidentally threw away a hard drive. And that hard drive contained the encrypted keys to about 8,000 Bitcoin.

21:14Right now, that's worth over a half a billion dollars. And it's sitting in a landfill. He knows which landfill. He even thinks he knows what spot of the landfill. And ever since he realized what happened, he has been trying to get that hard drive back. He's planned multi-million dollar digs that have been turned down by local authorities. He's consulted engineers, data recovery experts. He's explored buying the landfill. He's lawyered up and tried to sue his way to recover that hard drive.

21:56He's even offered the city a share, a large share, if they'll just cooperate with him to get that. Nothing has worked. But he's tried and he has tried and he has tried because of the great treasure that's in that landfill. Half a billion dollars. That's crazy. He's like the man in the parable that we heard earlier who found treasure in a field and then sold all he had because he saw that the field had a for sale sign on it. I'm going to get that field.

22:29Why? Because he could get the treasure. God's wisdom and his insight are a treasure and friends, they were worth way more than 8,000 bitcoin. All the bitcoin that will ever be produced won't match the value of God's wisdom and God's word and God's ways and God's righteousness. It's worth far more. So shouldn't we go after it even more than James Howells is going after that hard drive in a landfill? Shouldn't we commit all of our lives to it? Give it everything we've got to go after him.

23:09What he gives is more valuable than anything else by far. And he will give it to us. He will give it to us. The truth is it takes it takes far less banging our heads against the wall than James Howells has experienced to receive the wisdom of the Lord. These four couplets tell us that wisdom must be pursued actively. And so here's the question that this leads us to before we turn to look at the promises. Here's the question. If someone watched your life for a week, what would they say your greatest desire is?

24:02Follow-up question. What would need to change in your day-to-day life in order for that person to say what he desires, what she desires more than anything else is God's wisdom and God's ways and God's righteousness and God's insight? What would need to change? I ask that question as a way for us all to be refined together, friends. All of us. All of us fall short, but all of us are called right now to take a step further, to actively pursue it more than we did yesterday, than we did last week and last year.

24:43Don't be afraid of that question. Yes, you're going to fall short. There's grace for you. Hear the question. What would need to change and consider it for yourself? For someone to look at your life and say, you know what? I'm going to put God and His wisdom in the top three of things that they really want. Hey, that's improvement. If it used to not even crack the top 20, but now it's in the top three, for your work in my life. Don't be afraid of that question, friends.

25:15Increase your active pursuit of wisdom. But now get ready for the good news. That's the whole rest of the passage. Because when you go hard after God's wisdom, you get more in return. You get more than you put in. You can't out-give God. Anybody ever heard that? You can't out-give God. It's true. When you seek, you will find way more than you expected, way more than you put in. The rest of this passage describes all of the blessings that come as we seek wisdom.

25:51And I'm going to go through them somewhat quickly, but not so much that we lose it. There's four things here. First, it leads to a closer relationship with God.

26:08The fear of the Lord is where wisdom begins, remember? But remember, the invitation to wisdom is an invitation to relationship with God. You cannot have wisdom apart from abiding in Him, relating to Him. So if you pursue wisdom, of course, the more of it you gain, the more of Him you're going to know. So if you want a closer relationship with God, go after the wisdom of Proverbs. Try to put it into practice and soon enough you'll be cast back upon the Lord to say, Lord, that didn't go like I thought.

26:48That was harder than I thought to practice that. Teach me. Give me more insight. Help me. Strengthen me. And your relationship with God will grow. Second, it produces comprehensive maturity. In all parts of you, in your mind, verse 6 says, the Lord gives wisdom God is not stingy or withholding. You do not have to wonder if you'll get it. You will get it. But not only will you get wisdom, you will delight in wisdom. Knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.

27:27When you're a kid, food is either nutritious or it's delicious. That's it. They are one or the other. It's never both. But as you grow, your tastes change. Right? Adults, you know this.

27:45Here's a little thing that Nikki and I learned. We had some picky eaters, but the Lord helped us to grow them out of picky eating. Whenever they were like, we would serve them something and they would say, I don't like that. I had it last time I didn't like it. We would say, well, maybe your taste buds have changed. And we weren't lying to them. Taste buds do change. Right? So we were constantly like, hey, maybe your taste buds have changed. Let's try it again.

28:13Anyway, that's the food you have tonight to eat. Eat it. But also, maybe your taste buds have changed, kids. So parents, feel free to use that one. But spiritually, spiritually, as you go after wisdom, your taste buds will change. When you grow in wisdom, what he gives you will both nourish you and delight you. You'll find them to join up and be one in the same. How good is that? Right? That's wonderful. His food is nutritious and delicious. It's so good.

28:52That's the reason why the word says taste and see that the Lord is good, not bitter. Taste and see that the Lord is good. And your knowledge will be practical and useful for your life. You will understand righteousness and justice and equity every good path. Wisdom equips you to make peace and speak truth and avoid temptation and bless other people. It gives you greater ability in all the parts of your life to walk in paths of righteousness. It prepares you for that.

29:25Third, it brings deliverance from wickedness. This chapter speaks of two types of people. Wicked men who represent people who are intent on injustice and the wicked woman who symbolizes the pursuit of sinful pleasure and idolatry. Both of these are going to get more attention as we go through Proverbs 1-9 but for now I just want to point out how the two are similar. Both of them misused words. Men of perverted speech. That's not sex talk or cursing.

29:59It means words that distort reality. People who deceive, who gaslight, who say something and then later say oh no no you took it the wrong way that's not what I meant. And the adulteress uses smooth words. Words that fire and entice. Those types of people they don't try to hide the evil they just try to make it appealing, desirable, irresistible to you. Both of them misuse words and both of them forsake commitments. The men forsake the path of uprightness.

30:39Paths of morality, justice, the same paths that they were undoubtedly taught by their parents. At least in this context. They say no. No to what I was taught. The woman forsakes the companion of her youth. The man she married whom she took covenant vows to. These are fundamental aspects of community established by God. Both have no regard for them. They cast them off. Wisdom from parents. Marital commitment. Cast off. Forsaking. And both are walking crooked paths.

31:16The way of evil whose end is death. These patterns and these red flags are instructive but the point the author is making here is that wisdom helps you see those patterns for what they are. Wisdom exposes what's really in front of you. This is what the wise person is delivered from. When you learn to fear the Lord discretion will watch over you. Understanding will guard you. You will learn and be alert to deceptive words. You'll recognize when they've forsaken something that they shouldn't have.

31:50You can trace the path they're on and you can say no. I don't want that. And you can face the same temptations in yourself. Temptations to misuse words. Temptations to forsake basic commitments. And you can say no. I won't go down that path. This looks like wickedness. Here's the last one. We're going to end with this. When you actively pursue wisdom you are guarded to eternal life. In this dangerous world you can move forward with confidence and courage knowing that God is a shield to those who walk in integrity.

32:29He is watching over the way of His saints. When you put your faith in Jesus you're a saint. When you put your faith in Jesus you're a saint. Yes you still sin but you are clothed in Christ's righteousness. He is interceding for you. The way to God is always open. His grace is always available. All you need to do is return to Him with repentance and resume your pursuit of wisdom.

33:02This is not a promise for smart people or educated people. This is a promise for all of us. Ordinary people. Ordinary sinners. Like you and me who pursue wisdom and go after what God has to offer. Jesus Christ is the wisdom of God. He was delivered over to wicked men so that you could be delivered from sin and death. As we abide in Him we walk in integrity. In Him we are upright. And verse 21 says the upright will inhabit the land. Those with integrity will remain in it.

33:40The land is the new heavens and the new earth. The dwelling place of God with His people. This is where He will bring us safe and sound guarded and watched over shielded in His care.