Wisdom Calls Us To Live

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0:00We're in a sermon series on wisdom, and I was thinking this week about when I was, maybe because Bree is really on us to get a car. She really wants us to help her get a car. And when I was a teenager dreaming about the car that I wanted, two things came to mind. One was a great stereo. It had to be something loud. And I wanted it to have a rear wing. Now, go ahead and show this picture here, Gavin, like that. And why is everybody laughing? I don't understand.

0:53So the stereo was for everyone to hear that I was cool. And the rear wing was so that when they looked up, they could see that I was cool. And then my mom got me this car. And a 1990 Honda Civic hatchback. The guys at the aftermarket parts shop told me that adding a rear wing to the hatchback was actually going to make me less cool, not more cool. And they were right about that. So I settled for the stereo. And it's just as well because I had it all wrong.

1:37I thought of that rear wing as an accessory, something that was for looks, something that would make my car look like a performance car. But those of you who know anything about cars, you know that rear wings are for cars that actually are performance cars. They don't make your car a performance car. They just make them look silly, especially if that car is a 1990 gold Civic hatchback.

2:04But for the cars that actually are performance cars, the rear wing actually serves a purpose. At high speeds, the airflow over that rear wing, it creates downforce so that the rear wheels stay in good contact with the road when you're going really fast.

2:24They help the car reach its potential because without that, you're going to wreck it going fast and you'd have to drive it slow. And who wants to drive a performance car slow? But if you're going to drive fast, you need to have that on there. It's not for looks. It's actually for a purpose. They help a high performance car reach its potential. They don't do anything for the Civic hatchback. Now listen, here's what I'm going to compare this to. You and I were made with great capabilities.

2:56Astounding capabilities because we're made in God's image. And wisdom is like that rear wing on the back of the car. It's not an accessory. It's not something that you add on to your life to make yourself look impressive. It's essential so that you can do all that you were made to do. No one here in this church, to my knowledge, has a car that requires a rear wing. To some of you, maybe to a few of you, that's a disappointment to hear. Nobody here owns a car that requires a rear wing, but everyone here has a life that needs wisdom.

3:30Because your life, you are made in God's image. You are a high performance vehicle. You've got to have that on there so that when you are reaching top speed, you stay in control. You've got to have that on your car. So we're in a series on Proverbs called Wisdom Calls. Proverbs 1-9. And God is offering us wisdom so that we have the life that we've been designed for. A full life of meaning and purpose with power, with self-control. A life that's fulfilling because it's connected to Him.

4:09So we're going to dive into Proverbs 4 today. And I made this silly illustration to cars and how I wanted something that was not suited for this rinky-dink 160 horsepower car that I had. To make the point that you are not like that. Your life absolutely needs wisdom. So that you can do everything that God calls you to do. Step into every challenge that He has for you. And do it in control. Do it abiding in Him. And fulfill what He has planned for you.

4:47Your life is not a Honda hatchback. It's a high performance vehicle. And you need this wisdom. You need this wisdom that God is trying to give you. So open up your hands and take it. Turn with me to Proverbs 4. To God's Word. Let's hear and let's receive the wisdom that God has for us today.

5:12This is the Word of the Lord. Let's attend to it carefully, joyfully, eagerly, and receive it. Hear, O sons, a father's instruction. And be attentive that you may gain insight. For I give you good precepts. Do not forsake my teaching. When I was a son with my father, tender, the only one in the sight of my mother, he taught me and said to me, Let your heart hold fast to my words. Keep my commandments and live. Get wisdom. Get insight. Do not forget.

5:44Do not turn away from the words of my mouth. Do not forsake her. And she will keep you. Love her. And she will guard you. The beginning of wisdom is this. Get wisdom. And whatever you get, get insight. Prize her highly. And she will exalt you. She will honor you if you embrace her. She will place on your head a graceful garland. She will bestow on you a beautiful crown. Hear, my son, and accept my words, that the years of your life may be many. I have taught you the way of wisdom.

6:17I have led you in the paths of uprightness. When you walk, your step will not be hampered. And if you run, you will not stumble. Keep hold of instruction. Do not let go. Guard her, for she is your life. Do not enter the path of the wicked. Do not walk in the way of the evil. Avoid it. Do not go on it. Turn away from it and pass on. For they cannot sleep until they have done wrong. They are robbed of sleep unless they have made someone stumble. For they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence.

6:51But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day. The way of the wicked is like deep darkness. They do not know over what they stumble. My son, be attentive to my words. Incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight. Keep them within your heart. For they are life to those who find them and healing to all their flesh. Keep your heart with all vigilance. For from it flow the springs of life.

7:28Put away from you crooked speech. Put devious talk far from you. Let your eyes look directly forward and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet. Then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left. Turn away your foot from evil. Pray with me. Father, thank you for speaking to us as a loving father to give us the wisdom that we need to point us in the direction of life. Lord, you have this for us. Your hands are open.

8:06Give generously. Please, Lord, help us to receive eagerly, humbly, and joyfully what you have to give us. Speak to us, each one of us individually. Meet us with this word. Lord, help us to rest in you, Jesus. To learn and to grow at your feet. In Jesus' name we pray.

8:31Wisdom calls us to live. Calls us to live. As a pastor, one of my most important jobs is to remind people, as I remind myself, but remind people earnestly and sincerely and often that if you are united to Christ through faith, God is for you, not against you.

9:00It's one of my most important jobs. It's to remind you earnestly and sincerely and often that if you are united to Christ by faith, God is for you, not against you. He is not holding you down. He is not holding you back. He is lifting you up and He is moving you forward. See, our flesh tries to tell us God is getting in the way of life. No. He is leading you towards life. He desires your good. He works for your good more than you work for your own good.

9:40He wants more life for us than we even realize. And that is what this chapter is telling us. That by applying His wisdom, we truly live. We live a further and fuller life than we have by ourselves. There's three dimensions of this life that I think deep down for each one of us we want. So this is good news for us today. Hear and receive the Word of God. Hear about the life that He wants for you. He wants us to live, first of all, a life of passion.

10:19A life of passion. The Christian life is not boring. And yet people think that it is. People think that being a Christian means being quiet and pensive, probably sad most of the time. They think it's more about what you can't do than what you get to do. Sometimes that's because of what we who believe communicate about the Christian life. If we show more passion for other things and people than we do for Him, it's no wonder that Billy Joel sings things like, I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints.

10:58The sinners are much more fun, he says. I'd like to meet Billy Joel and tell him, look, first of all, I'm a sinner. Second of all, I've laughed a lot with people that love the Lord. I've had a lot of fun with people who love the Lord. I don't know who you've been talking to, but let me tell you about how I've experienced the Christian life. And I hope you're ready to have that same testimony to people when they're confused. This first section tells us that this is what God intends for us.

11:32Keep my commandments and live. Live. Based on the context, this is not just about avoiding the bad. This is about enjoying the good. This is not about surviving, but about thriving. Lady Wisdom turns out to be a lot like Mary Papa. You know, when she first arrives at the Banks home, Jane and Michael think she's another strict nanny. She does have rules and expectations for the children, right? But she turns out to be the one that leads the whole family into a fuller life.

12:12Right? When we understand that God's wisdom is life-giving, we will develop a passion for it. That's what the parent is calling for here. Get wisdom. Get insight.

12:29Sometimes in school, during a lecture, someone asks the question, is this going to be on the test? Sometimes the question was asked by me. That question, you know, reveals a lot. It basically shows there's no desire for knowledge in here. There's just a desire to pass. And those two things are different. Right? I imagine that question breaks a teacher's heart. We've got some teachers in here. Retired teachers, current teachers. It doesn't feel good to hear a student say, is this going to be on the test?

13:07You want them to love learning. To desire knowledge. We're called to desire wisdom because without wisdom, nothing else matters. Whatever you get, get insight. We could get everything else.

13:25Friends, you could get everything that your heart desires. You could get trophies, success, friends, promotions, money. But if we don't get wisdom, you haven't gained anything.

13:39If Nikki sends me to the grocery store for ground beef for dinner, I'd better come back with ground beef for dinner. It doesn't matter if I say, but look, soda was on sale.

13:53If I don't have the ground beef, she's like, nope, go back. Even if Bluebell ice cream is buy one, get one free, it doesn't matter because I didn't get what was most important.

14:10Jesus said a lot of controversial things. A lot of things that turned people's heads. That set people's teeth on edge. And one time he did it and a bunch of people left. They just walked away from him. Including people that were called his disciples. People that were among his group that had been following him. They turned around and left.

14:35So Jesus turns to the twelve apostles and asks them if they're going to leave too. And Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.

14:49Peter's like, I don't understand everything you're saying. Some of the things you're saying are hard. I still don't know what this is going to mean for me in my life. But where else am I going to go to get these words of eternal life? Nobody else has them.

15:07Peter knew. Peter was already on the road to wisdom. And that's why this passage says something weird. It sounds like a circular thing. The beginning of wisdom is this. Get wisdom. What is that? Here's what that means. Seeking wisdom shows that you already have some.

15:33right direction because only the foolish person doesn't want any wisdom. And the wise person who's even grown a little bit in wisdom wants more. Because you see, this is life. So give me more. Give me more, God. And the more we get, the more we want. And on and on it goes. And we are pushed into, led into a life of passion.

16:05He wants to redirect them. His goal is to stoke our passion, not to quench it. He wants to get that fire burning hotter and then point it in the right direction. The passage says love her, prize her highly, embrace her, her being lady wisdom, the personification of God's wisdom. The passage is called in this first section is calling for an all consuming drive and obsession a love affair with God's wisdom and God's words and God's way.

16:46He wants us to be so single-minded about it that other people outside the kingdom of God wonder if we're okay. Should we talk to him, her? They're obsessed with knowing more about God and what God teaches and what His ways are.

17:08Most of us have things that we're passionate about. I do. People are passionate about their health, their hobbies, their favorite musician. People obsess over current events, over politics, over conspiracy theories. They fixate on sports teams, on girlfriends and boyfriends, on kids and grandkids. Now all of these things have something in common. When it comes, when those things become your greatest passion, you will be depleted. You will walk away with less life, not more, when those things are your greatest, your number one passion.

17:52Because none of those things can give you life. A lot of the things I named are good things. Or they're neutral things. None of those things deserve or should be your greatest passion because they will just deplete you. They can't give you life. But a passion for wisdom is rewarded. She will exalt you. She will honor you. Seeking the ways and the words of God gives back far more life than you put in. She gives a graceful garland, a beautiful crown.

18:31The more zealously you love wisdom, the more regal and the more dignified you become. Sometimes we're way more passionate about things and people than they are for us and we don't even realize it. When I was in college, I tried really hard to date a girl that did not want to date me and I was determined. This is not Nikki, by the way. That's another story. You've heard me tell a little bit about that. I asked her out and I was not picking up on. I was willfully ignoring the cues of like she was not interested.

19:14Right? I even managed to go out on a couple of dates with her. But I'm like not hitting my head against a brick wall. And my friends are like, Joel, give it up. She's not into you. It's not going to happen. And I'm like, nope, it's going to happen.

19:36Sometimes we need the hard truth that the thing that we are going towards, the person that we're going towards, just doesn't love us the way we love it. It's not giving back everything that we give to it. And listen, there's relationships where that's fine. Being a parent means loving your kid more than they love you for a long time, right? But being a parent does not mean making that your greatest passion in your life. That is life depleting. It was life depleting for me to be going after this girl.

20:13And my friends were right to say something to me. Give it up. The call here is to redirect our passion, our greatest passion towards someone who is more passionate about us. And that is the Lord. He is already more passionate for you than you are for Him.

20:40You can hang on His every word. And that passion will be rewarded. It will nourish you. It will lead you into further life. Lady wisdom here is just a personification of God's way and God's words. Pursuing wisdom is pursuing Him. And He loves us more passionately than we do Him. Jesus said the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. Get those thieves out of your life. Knock them down on the pecking order of loves in your life. Put them in their place.

21:18The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. Your sports team will never say that to you. Taylor Swift will never say that to you. Your favorite political pundit will never say that to you. Only the Lord Jesus says that to you. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

21:46Lean into the Lord and let the passion for Him and for what He says and how He says to live get stoked to a white hot flame. Here's the second part of living. Wisdom calls us to live a life of freedom.

22:07That Honda Civic hatchback was not the sports car of my dreams. But beggars can't be choosers and I did have a car. The problem was that I didn't, the biggest problem was not that the car didn't have a rear wing on it. The problem was that the car came with rules.

22:29Rules that I believed to be a great injustice. If I couldn't go where I wanted, when I wanted, with whom I wanted, as fast as I wanted, as late as I wanted, then I had no freedom. I was Oliver Twist. I was a Hebrew in Egypt. God, don't you hear my groaning?

22:55My mom was Pharaoh, making me make bricks with no straw. Sometimes we think of the Christian life as restrictive. We hear God's prohibitions more loudly than anything else. Young people, are you trapped here? All you can hear is the do-nots of the Lord. Believe it or not, your parents feel that way sometimes, too. Ask them about it. Maybe you can speak truth to each other.

23:31When we hear God's prohibitions and His do-nots more loudly than anything else, we're kind of like Adam and Eve in that way. They were told, you may surely eat of every tree in the garden, except one. And all those trees, all those yeses, what did they focus on? The one no. Which one did they think was good for food and a delight to the eyes and to be desired to make one wise? Just the one. Just the one thing they couldn't have.

24:12Likewise, this chapter tells us to avoid the path of the wicked. Do not enter. Do not enter, we say. Why not? Sounds intriguing. What are you keeping from me, God? I demand to know what's behind that door. Well, in verse 16 and 17, the author cracks open that door. And he says, well, I'll tell you what's down that road, what's at the end of that road. And the end of that road is slavery. They cannot sleep until they have done wrong. The middle section here tells us that what we call freedom is actually the opposite.

24:56It starts out small, a little deception, an insult, a glance at something inappropriate. It's a cheap thrill in breaking the rules and getting what you crave, especially when you get away with it. But then we want a little more. We go a little further. Deception becomes more brazen. Insults become more frequent. Glances turn into long, lingering encounters. And the cycle continues. And it's not long until doing wrong becomes something compulsive, something you just have to do.

25:40Sin is inherently addictive. This is a piece of wisdom that we all need to remember. All sin is inherently addictive. It should come with a warning label.

25:58It scars our conscience and it makes us want more. The compulsiveness of sin makes it a prison. And that's what the author is telling us. They are robbed of sleep unless they have made someone stumble. They can't even get to bed at night until they have done wrong.

26:20That's the end of that long road that he's saying don't go down that road. Avoid it. Do not enter it. We think freedom is doing what we want, but the truth is that doing what we want leads us into slavery.

26:36Those who are walking that way eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence. Evil doing becomes a sort of sustenance. It's a daily bread. They literally can't survive without it.

26:52This food and drink is as poisonous as it is addictive. Now listen, you might be standing on one side of the door right now hearing something that entices you, thinking about taking some steps. Maybe you're halfway down that road this morning. Maybe you feel like you're nearly at the end of that road. Wherever you are, you need to hear this. God can break you free of that prison. It does not have to be the road that you end up on. God can break you free.

27:32God has come to set us free in Him. Jesus says, truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. But if the Son sets you free, you'll be free indeed. Trusting in Him and having our sins covered gives us the freedom of a purified conscience. First of all, He gives us a freedom to love others unconditionally because we've been loved unconditionally and we are free from sin because now the Spirit is operative in our life. We see sin for what it is and we have tasted and seen that He is good.

28:15And He can lead us into true freedom and out of the prison of slavery. No matter what that sin is. But it calls for listening to the Lord and going His way. And sometimes asking for help. Maybe some of you here are so far down that road, you need to turn to someone that you know loves the Lord and loves you and say to them, I need your help. I'm not even thinking clearly anymore. I'm not listening clearly. I need you to speak truth to me, hold me accountable, and help me come onto the right path.

28:55Help me get out of this prison. If you don't know who to talk to, talk to me. Because God wants you to live a life of freedom. God's ways, they seem at first to us like restrictions, but they are actually the truest form of freedom. Keep hold of instruction, do not let go, guard her, for she is your life. I ask you, who is truly free, a blind man, alone on a mountainside, going who's taking him to the best views and the best campsites? Who is really free?

29:47When you follow him, your step will not be hampered. You will not stumble. Whatever comes in this life, you will reach your home, because God is your guide. The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn. The further you go, the brighter it gets until the light of day.

30:06That's the path that God wants to lead you on. And that full day is when we finally and fully are with God. The one who is light. The darkness of whatever prison you're in does not have to be the end of your story. Listen to forever and ever. This is the future that God wants for you. This is the life that he wants for you right now. Step into a life of freedom and stop believing the lies that your own way is freedom. It's not God's way is freedom.

31:06I'm going to close with this last section a little shorter. He calls us to live a life of passion a life of freedom and also a life of harmony. I think many of us live very scattered lives and I count myself among that. It feels like sometimes every part of us is tugged in a different direction. Our minds think one way and our hearts feel another way. Our ears hear things that are confusing. Sometimes our mouths say something surprising. Something that we don't think is true but maybe it's actually what we really believe in our hearts.

31:51Our eyes wander onto things that our minds know aren't right. Our feet can't seem to move in the direction that our heart wants it to God comes with this promise his words are life to those who find them and healing to all their flesh. This last section of Hebrew of Proverbs 4 gives us a picture of wholeness and congruity and harmony between all the parts of us and it says that God's wisdom is the unifying power God's wisdom is the thing that can bring all the parts of us in conformity and orient us in the same direction being aligned with his word and his ways leads us into a life of harmony verse 21 our ears hear and receive his word of truth verse 20 says our hearts secure it and store it up verse 23 says our mouths are the first place of application because if we can control our tongue we can control our whole selves verse 25 says that our eyes use his wisdom as a lens through which we see our situations and ourselves and verses 26 and 27 say that our feet travel forward sure and confident moving straight along his path wisdom God's wisdom is what gives us a life of harmony all the parts of us pointed in the same direction and my friends the person unified in the Lord is a powerful person a person ready for the challenges and the callings that he gives us that he knows that we're ready for that he knows that we're capable of but we must be unified to meet those challenges this is the full life that God intends for us keep your heart with all vigilance for from it flow springs

34:23of life when your whole self is dedicated to the Lord life wells up from within you and Jesus said this would happen whoever believes in me as the scripture has said out of his heart will flow rivers of living water when we are united to him by faith he is in us and the life wells up from within us and overflows abide in him seek wisdom and truly live abide in him seek wisdom and truly live with passion with freedom and with harmony you were met for far more than what this world can deliver or even offer you were meant for life and it's found in God