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NewCity Orlando Sermons
Winter Wisdom | Proverbs 3:5-8
Senior Pastor Damein Schitter begins a new mini-series, Winter Wisdom, preaching from Proverbs 3:5-8. He explores what it means to be truly wise, emphasizing that wisdom is not just about intelligence or self-sufficiency but about trusting in the Lord wholeheartedly. Pastor Damein argues that in a world obsessed with knowledge for self-reliance, biblical wisdom calls for deep dependence on God. He contrasts wisdom with folly, illustrating how self-sufficiency, as exemplified in biblical figures like Jacob, leads to struggles, while true wisdom involves trusting God with all aspects of life.
Pastor Damein also emphasizes that wisdom is both a journey and a skill developed over time, much like becoming proficient in chess or cooking. It involves not just knowing the right things but living in relationship with God and aligning one's life with His guidance. The ultimate wise one, Jesus Christ, embodies wisdom, and trusting in Him leads to true flourishing. He closes with a call for believers to wholeheartedly trust in God's wisdom rather than leaning on their own understanding, urging mature Christians to be pacesetters in demonstrating God's faithfulness.
Hello everyone. This is Pastor Damien. You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, orlando. At New City, we believe all of us need all of Jesus for all of life. For more resources, visit our website at newcityorlandocom. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2:Good morning, please pray with me. Good morning, please pray with me. Give us understanding that we may keep your law and observe it with our whole hearts. Lead us in the path of your commandments, for we delight in it. Turn our eyes from looking at worthless things and give us life in your ways, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen. Our scripture reading comes from Proverbs, chapter 3, 5 through 8. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones. This is God's word. Thanks be to God.
Speaker 1:Well, good morning, it's good to be with you all. My name is Damien and I get to start something new today. If you're with us in the summertime, or if you ever have been, we every summer preach a sermon series called Summer in the Psalms, and it changes in theme, but it's always from the Psalms. And we've been thinking for a few years of doing winter wisdom, and this year we're kicking it off. So from now on you know I'm making a promise that I won't be able to keep because I won't be here in this role but from now on, in January or February we will have winter wisdom, and so this year we're just warming up. We're just doing two weeks. I'm kicking us off. Kenny will preach next week and then we'll jump into our sermon series for the spring, which is a New Testament book, and I won't tell you what it is. I'll let Ben tell you what it is.
Speaker 1:I don't want to be the spoiler, but today we're going to reflect on Proverbs 3, 5 through 8, a well-known passage. It may even be on your refrigerator or a bumper sticker. It could be somebody's life verse, and it's always both dangerous and exciting to choose a refrigerator verse to preach on. It's dangerous because I might not say something that has been, it's true, to the passage, but it's so core to who you are and you think he didn't do it justice, sorry. And then for some of you, I may blow it up and tell you the way that you thought that it applied to you was wrong. And so, either way, I'm treading into that territory.
Speaker 1:But I want to ask a question that there's no way I can comprehensively answer today, but we can, I think, sufficiently answer in the time we have, which is what is wisdom? What is wisdom? And the thing about wisdom is that everyone's looking for it. That doesn't mean that everyone's wise. It doesn't mean that everyone says they are looking for wisdom, but they are. They may name it different things, but how do we know that they are searching for it? Well, we know they are searching for it because of the types of questions that we all ask, questions like what is the way? Everyone's looking for a way. Have you noticed that? That's why there's so many guides available to you, because everyone wants to know what is the way.
Speaker 1:Another question people ask is how should I live? Another one would be what should I do? And of course, a big one will be. How will I know? Now, when I was writing this sermon, right when I got to, how will I know I could tell I was catechized, and I was particularly catechized with a song and a voice of a generation, one of the best female vocalists in history. Anybody know? Whitney Houston? Whitney Houston, how will I know? If he really loves me? How will I know? Now, here's the thing. Is you think that that's the only place this stops? You think that that's a random preacher connection? But I'm going to prove to you that Whitney had it right.
Speaker 1:Okay, so if you don't remember the song, you know there was a boy that she knew and he was the one that she dreamed of. He looked into her eyes and he took her to the clouds above. Now, when this happened, she said I lose control, I can't seem to get enough. When I wake from dreaming, tell me, is it really love, right? How will I know? Well, there's a pre-chorus after that, before the famous chorus, and that is how will I know? She says it four times. How will I know? But then there's something that I bet you might have missed, and now you'll never not hear it.
Speaker 1:The second how will I know? Has a callback. It's sort of receded to the distance, but you can hear it when you listen. So she says how will I know? And the callback says anyone know Love can be deceiving. The next question how will I know? There's silence, but then she asks it the fourth time how will I know? And there's another callback, and this time it is don't trust your feelings. So then it's the chorus and you know it. How will I know if he really loves me? And here's another part that you probably never gave enough thought to. What does she say next? I say a prayer with every heartbeat. I fall in love whenever we meet. But then she says I'm asking you because you know about these things, who's you? Well, all I'm saying is that she said a prayer with every heartbeat, and so she's asking someone and she's praying.
Speaker 1:And now, just so you know, the first, she was raised. I don't know Whitney Houston. I didn't know her, but she was raised by a family where her mother, known as Sissy Houston, was a very well-known gospel singer in her day and age, and Whitney grew up singing in the church and the first solo she had was at the age of 12, part of a hymn all about the Lord leading us in our paths. So I just find it interesting. There also was a whole album called the Preacher's Daughter. But what is she doing here? Well, I don't know ultimately, but it's the power of song and it's the power of questions. How will I know? And she talks about this prayer. Well, if Whitney was singing the way that I'm saying she was, then maybe she learned it. Or whoever wrote the song learned it from Proverbs 3, 5 through 8.
Speaker 1:That is to say, true wisdom is found in the true wise one, and the only way we can discover what is wise, how we know, is to ask the one who knows. It's to ask the one who is ultimately wise. And that's really hard to do. It always has been, but it's especially hard to do in a world obsessed with knowledge for the sake of self-reliance. You know that right. I mean, the reason that you get knowledge, if not sanctified, is self-reliance. It could be about anything. But why do you go to school? To school? Well, many of us go to school to get passports, to privilege called graduation certificates. And what does that lead us to? It leads us to a form of self-sufficiency. It doesn't have to, but it often does, and so in a world obsessed with knowledge that leads to self-reliance.
Speaker 1:What does it actually mean to be wise in proverbs? Is that proverbs goal, or the wisdom literature in general, is to teach you the right information, the right principles so that you can be self-sufficient. So that you now have memorized the playbook, and as long as you know which proverb to say at the right time or which wisdom verse to quote at the right time, that all of a sudden you're wise. Well, that's actually the opposite of what the wisdom literature is trying to do, not only for us, but to us. And so what is wisdom according to the Bible, and that's a little too broad for us today. What is wisdom according to these verses in Proverbs, chapter 3?
Speaker 1:Well, first, clearly in verse 5, my first point, wisdom is trusting the Lord, not yourself. That's the first definition, or part of the definition, of wisdom. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. So you see, wisdom is more than intelligence. It's actually trusting the right source. Trust in the Lord and we'll talk about this in a moment but not just with your mind, but with your heart, which is core to who you are. Those aren't different, but one is more comprehensive, and I'd argue that trusting in the Lord with all of your heart is trusting in the Lord with all of who you are.
Speaker 1:Ji Packer along this idea, trying to teach us that it's not only trusting the right source, that all of our knowledge and intelligence rests on this source. It also turns us into a certain type of person, and this is a quote from him. He says wisdom is the power to see and the inclination to choose the best and highest goal, together with the surest means of attaining it. Translation wise people are people who are able to see what is good, they are inclined to choose what is good and they can chart a course through the noise moving toward what is good. That is a wise person. A wise person sees what is good, is inclined to choose what is good, and then is able to chart a path through the noise to execute on what is good. This is a wise person, and so what we see here is wisdom begins with trust in the Lord. But if that's a wise person, then you know that wisdom is a journey. Wisdom is a developmental reality. You don't just become wise in one instant. You actually grow to be wise, because there's also a beginning to wisdom in the Proverbs, and that is fearing the Lord. So wisdom begins with trust in the Lord, not just knowing about Him, but depending on Him fully. We see this pattern of trust and wisdom, or distrust and folly, all throughout the scriptures.
Speaker 1:If you're with us in our Bible reading plan this year with the McShane reading plan, we just recently read of Jacob, for example, and before that Abraham. But I won't do both, I'll just do Jacob, and I'll do it briefly. Jacob is a man who is self-sufficient. Commentators will point out that he was probably jacked too, so he had brains and brawn. And how do we know that? Well, he goes to the well as he's running from his brother who wants to kill him because he's just stole his blessing which was very cunning, by the way and he's waiting and there are people coming and there's a well and apparently people are waiting until all of the shepherds come. Why Is it? Because that's what you do. Well, it's because you needed all the shepherds to lift this rock off of the well so they could drink, and then you needed all of them to put it back on. So things didn't get in the well and Jacob's just like okay, I got it, he just lifts it up, puts it down, so he's probably jacked.
Speaker 1:But when you trace his life, what you see is that he's a great example among many in the scriptures of a person who took his intellect and his ability to navigate the world and he thought the goal was self-sufficiency. He thought the goal was that he could figure it out, that he could get the blessing that wasn't his, that he could find the wife, that he could make the riches. And what you see is that God is involved in his life. He's there, he believes in God, but his functional definition of wisdom and maturity is self-sufficiency. And you know that's us so much. Isn't it Like God's going to give us just enough so that we can live life on our own? That somehow that's wise, but the reality is is that all of us will come to a place and many of us places where we will realize the folly of self-sufficiency as the goal.
Speaker 1:And that's exactly what happened in Jacob's life. You think it's going to happen with Laban. Laban almost bests him, but then he gets away and he ends up besting Laban. But then you think it's gonna catch up to him again because of course his brother, he finds out, is now heading his way. You know the one that he ran away from, if you remember the story.
Speaker 1:And so what happens? What ends up happening? Well, he wrestles with God. And what does God make him get him, rather, to say, when he's wrestling, he won't let God go? He says I won't let you go until you bless me. They wrestle all night.
Speaker 1:And what is the simple question that ends it what is your name? And Jacob says Jacob, which we know in the footnotes. That means deceiver. I'm a deceiver. I'm the one who lives life in my own strength. I'm the one who, with my cunning and all the intellect and ability you've given me, have set and charted a course to where my end is. Yes, you're with me-ish, but I'm self-sufficient. Everything in my life is being built toward that. And finally, he admitted that was folly is being built toward that. And finally, he admitted that was folly. And God says no, you're not a deceiver. And he gives him a new name. So you see, when you and I come to trust in the Lord with all of our heart, we begin to see wisdom.
Speaker 1:John Calvin said seeking wisdom apart from Christ is this is a quote utter insanity. And so, if it's true that the wise one begins our journey with wisdom and trusting in the Lord. Well then, of course, it's the fool who trusts his own understanding. That's what we see in our verse. Do not lean on your own understanding is the word, but this word lean means to support oneself like a crutch, like you're actually leaning on a crutch. This is what it means to lean on your own understanding, and that's what a fool does. You see, a fool substitutes the source that is strong, that can hold our weight, that can hold the weight of our life, that can hold the weight of our desires, that can hold the weight of our questions. We have to trust the proper source, the proper structure, but the wrong structure is one that we build, whether it's our ideas or our own false worship or anything besides the Lord. You see, why do we do this? Well, we do it because it gives us a sense of control. We do it because it gives us a sense of security.
Speaker 1:The Bible has a word for this, and it's called idolatry, and so the invitation, though, here, is to learn wisdom from the source. You don't have to go figure it out on your own and then pass a test. No, you just go straight to the answer book, you go straight to the source and then you begin to become wise. You see, really, what this teaches us is that we are constantly growing in wisdom or waywardness, one or the other. As you navigate life day by day, decision by decision, question by question, you're either growing in wisdom or you're growing in waywardness. That is to say, it's all depending on who you trust and who you're trusting. Are you trusting yourself? That's waywardness. Are you trusting the Lord and what he's revealed to you? That's his wisdom.
Speaker 1:I thought about it like this my kids this is a true story, I'm not no hyperbole. My kids are learning how to play chess, including my four-year-old, and I don't know how to play chess that well, I was never taught, and so I had my 11-year-old teach me, and then my four-year-old almost beat me. This is true because they play chess all the time. And so I was thinking about that and I thought about I thought I should be the chess grandmaster in this family, but I'm not, and that got me thinking about chess grandmasters and casual players.
Speaker 1:But a chess grandmaster, I mean, it's amazing. They give their life to the rules of the game, but it's not just that. They're working on the same rules that the casual player is working on. But what has happened? Well, they've played it so much, they had so much practice, they've grown in skill that now, when they see this board, they can see four or more moves ahead and they know the goal and they know the rules. But the way that they maneuver, if you're a player who even has the list of rules in front of you, it's hard to keep up. You don't even know what they're doing. Why? Well, because the casual player reacts impulsively right, making short-sighted moves, even if they had the rules memorized. But the grandmaster sees multiple moves ahead, follows a strategic plan, has lived in the world of chess. Chess. That's so funny, you guys.
Speaker 1:I said chess because that's what James, my four-year-old, calls it. He says, dad, will you play me in chess and we'll correct him all the time. It's chess, he. He says, dad, will you play me in chess and we'll correct him all the time. It's chess. He cares nothing about what it's really called To him, it's chess. I can't wait to tell him. He's like buddy, maybe it is chess. I said that.
Speaker 1:And so wisdom is seeing the bigger picture, trusting the right source. It's living in something. It's not simply knowing the rules. It's not simply knowing the principles, it's living in something. It's not simply knowing the rules, it's not simply knowing the principles, it's becoming skillful, it's actually playing the game so much that you are fluent in it. True wisdom is knowing, of course, how to hold multiple perspectives together.
Speaker 1:You can take the whole wisdom literature and you don't have to treat the Proverbs just as rules and principles. But you've read Ecclesiastes, you've read Job and you've grown in the skill and art of godly living. This takes time. This takes time, and so the question, of course, would be what do you do when your wisdom doesn't line up with what God's wisdom has revealed in Scripture? Right, sometimes, sometimes, we merely agree with the Bible, and when that's true, our response is not truly obedience. It's just coincidence, right? It's just that the prejudice maybe you have soaked up from your culture or your family happened to line up with the Bible.
Speaker 1:At that point, the real question of the wise person is what do you do when the Bible contradicts what you want to be true? Right, if you're looking in the Bible. At that point, the real question of the wise person is what do you do when the Bible contradicts what you want to be true? Right, if you're looking in the Bible for excuses to do what you want anyway, you've already gone wayward. But if you trust the Lord, you will let the Bible challenge your most cherished thoughts and feelings. And the wonderful thing is, the Lord cares about your questions, he cares about your problems. He wants to speak into your life in ways that will truly help you. But in order to truly hear, you first have to trust, and you can't trust half-heartedly.
Speaker 1:The call to wisdom is to trust Him wholeheartedly. Why? So that he can teach you wholly, so that he can teach you to trust him. And so, if wisdom is trusting the Lord and not ourselves, what does that actually look like in day-to-day life? Well, that's verse 6.
Speaker 1:And my second point, which is wisdom is walking in God's ways. Right? He says in all your ways, acknowledge him. That's the Lord, and he will make straight your paths.
Speaker 1:Now, this word for acknowledge, we can see it. I don't have to say the Hebrew this, that all you have to do is read English, just carefully. This word acknowledge, right? What's the word that you know and see Knowledge, right? So to acknowledge the Lord, to acknowledge him in your ways, is to know him. So if I were to say to know him. It might hopefully make you think.
Speaker 1:Relationship because that is exactly what the author is meaning is that to acknowledge him in all your ways is to be in relationship to him in all of your ways, to know him intimately. And so you know this word know in the Bible implies very deep relationship. It's used of husbands and wives. To know one another is to deeply be in relationship and we know that when we live in deep relationship with a person, over time it shapes your life, it shapes your whole way of life. When you live in deep relationship with a person, it's not simply knowing facts about that person that changes you, but it's living with them that changes you if you're in a true relationship.
Speaker 1:Old Testament scholar on this proverb in the Proverbs in general, bruce Waltke, says that this way, wisdom is a way of life, not just clear thinking, and I think sometimes we treat the wisdom literature as though I need to get the right way to think and then that will make me wise. Well, it's necessary, but it's not sufficient to make you wise. To know the right thing is necessary to be a wise person, but it's not sufficient to make you wise. Because you could, but it's not sufficient to make you wise, because you could know it and not do it. You could know it and not want it, you could know it and not love it. And if you don't want it, if you don't do it, if you don't love it, you are not wise and you are not on the path to becoming wise. You see, we can sometimes treat Proverbs as merely principles for living, truths that give us clear thinking, and that's true. But it's not like a recipe book. It's not like you follow these recipes, these instructions, and you will automatically get the beautiful photo that's right here. Right, there's a whole corner of the internet that shows what it was supposed to look like and what it ended up looking like when you did it. So you know you followed the same instructions, but it didn't turn out the same. You see, that's how wisdom is you can know all the right answers and be a fool.
Speaker 1:In our house, our kids are responsible for things way earlier than I was growing up, and I give Leah all the credit and I get all the benefit from her work. There are many examples, but one example would be I didn't really cook until I was way late in high school, and it was because I was hungry and it included mostly microwaves. But my kids Leah has them in the kitchen before. They're double digits making meaningful contributions. It's just part of the way that she disciples our kids. But of course, you know and I know, the kitchen can be a dangerous place yes, much like the world, I guess, can be a dangerous place. Yes, much like the world, I guess. So of course, when she brought them into the kitchen, it started with very clear instructions Don't do that, do this, not that, don't cut toward yourself, cut away from yourself, and so on.
Speaker 1:But over time, as the kids have been in the kitchen with Leah, I see they're becoming wise in the kitchen. They don't just know the rules, they're actually improvising. They're becoming wise. They're living along the grain of the kitchen and things in the kitchen. They're accounting for multiple true things at once. They're reading recipes but then they're looking at our ingredients and taking in preferences and looking at time and saying I have to cut this, this and this. I need to do this because this is the time we have to eat. By then I see my eight-year-old making these decisions and I think that's more than knowledge, that's wisdom. Now, of course, I'm still in the kitchen with them, or Leah's still in the kitchen with them, or Leah's still in the kitchen with them. And we're there to help, to answer questions, to give suggestions, to intervene, of course, but they're learning a way of wisdom. They're more skillful.
Speaker 1:And that brings me to the point that wisdom is a skill. You grow in it and the way you grow in it is not merely by knowing the right things, but it's by following the right people. It's by it being modeled. You know wisdom when you see it. You know a wise person when you experience it. You don't just read a list of ingredients. You watch a master chef. That's how you become a chef. And you don't just read the Proverbs or wisdom literature and become wise, or wisdom literature and become wise. You do, but you also follow a wise person. She can teach you how to be wise. He can teach you how to be wise. You apprentice yourself to wisdom in order to become wisdom, and we'll say more on that in a moment. But you know, all of our lives are this way. When we live life with God, we begin to become like him. Right, we know what he might say or do if he were us and he's always with us. Right For clarification, for discipline, for intervening, but the wise person never assumes they are wise on their own.
Speaker 1:They never assume they are beyond the source of wisdom. They are wise on their own. They never assume they are beyond the source of wisdom. They're always going back to the source of wisdom and, in this interesting thing, it makes them more wise. The wise person doesn't try to become wise on their own. The wise person apprentices the wise one and it makes them more wise. This is the way it works. The wise person is not aiming at self-reliance, but rather knowing the one who is all wise and drawing wisdom and life from them. It's the fool who tries to navigate life without God, even functionally.
Speaker 1:Think about this. I thought about Mount Everest. You know the real heroes, people. It's not that I'm not impressed with you. If you've climbed Mount Everest. I truly am. I'll never do it. I have minimal desire to do it and I certainly don't have the resources to pay to do it. But the person that I, the people that I'm most impressed by, of course, are the Sherpas.
Speaker 1:Now, the Sherpa, that's a people group, but there's a group of them, of the Sherpa people group, that are Sherpas as we think of them and know them, which is they carry all the things. They're the expert guides on these Mount Everest climbs. These climbs, they lead climbers to the summit by setting up camps, fixing ropes, carrying heavy supplies like oxygen tanks, things like that. What are they doing? They're ensuring the safety of the climbers throughout the entire ascent, leveraging their deep knowledge of the terrain and their insane high-altitude abilities. Okay, now you pay a lot of money to hire a Sherpa because you don't want to die. All right, you're already basically dying and you just want to get down as soon as you can until you fully die. All right, you're already basically dying and you just want to get down as soon as you can until you fully die. So the Sherpa is there to guide you.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you this If you're all going along this path and you have the Sherpa who's guiding you and you have one man, one woman, who decides you know what this way looks better and just starts walking away from the group, everyone would be like you're gonna die, come back. This is why we have the Sherpa. But what if the person just says no, I think this is a shortcut, I think this will be better. What would you call that person, man, that person, that person lives their own life. That person you do you, I mean, go for it, like if, deep down in your heart, you think that that way is a faster way and safer. Like you are really brave, you are really courageous. No, you say you're a fool. That's what you say. You're a fool, I'm not gonna follow you, you're gonna walk yourself to the edge of a cliff.
Speaker 1:Well, when we think about it this way, wisdom is not just knowing the right path, it's choosing to walk in it. The wise person doesn't just acknowledge the right path. The wise person becomes the type of person who wants to walk in it. And when they stray, they know the path of wisdom and they repent and they come back to the path of wisdom. The wise person makes mistakes.
Speaker 1:The wise person is not perfect. There's one perfect person, and this person is wisdom, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. And he is the one who is teaching us how to be wise. He is the one who is modeling wisdom for us. He is the one that took our folly so that he could give us his wisdom and righteousness. You see, the life of discipleship, from this perspective, is a life of wisdom. It's a life of following Jesus. It's a life of staying on course.
Speaker 1:Paul says it this way keep in step with the Spirit. You follow the Lord. He will guide you, and one of the things that we know about our heart and what we depend on is that our heart can be viewed this way. It's like a security system. It's sort of the heart of the mainframe. If it's infiltrated, bad things can happen. Of the mainframe. If it's infiltrated, bad things can happen. So think about it this way. Think about your heart as a security system.
Speaker 1:When it's not properly online or aligned, thieves are constantly trying to break in and rob you of something. They're trying to rob you of length of days. They're trying to rob you of life and peace. They're trying to steal and kill and destroy. The Bible calls these idols, the Bible calls these temptations, the Bible calls these flaming arrows.
Speaker 1:But ultimately, it is the voice of the fool, the accuser, who's trying to woo you away from wisdom. He's trying to woo you away from wisdom. He's trying to woo me away from wisdom by telling us if you were really wise, you would follow me. If you were really wise, you'd be cynical like me. If you were really wise, you would see that the true aim of life is to be independent, it's to be self-sufficient, and we all have these voices. We all have them.
Speaker 1:And so what's a litmus test? Well, for example, ask yourself this what life scenario will make me say, oh, I finally arrived. Just think about that. What life scenario right now would make you say I finally arrived? And what does arrival even look like to you? But whatever my scenario is in really prayerfully, reflectively, answering that question, when can I say I finally arrived? Whatever my answer is, if Jesus Christ is not the life-giving center of that answer, your and my heart has already been penetrated by life-robbing idols. Your security system failed, it's been breached and the thing is is it's like cyber warfare, which I know nothing about, but I'm about to pretend for the next 10, 15 seconds that I know a lot about it. Constant bombardment Defenses have to be up, always new tricks to try to get past defenses, to get into your heart, to take control.
Speaker 1:This is the Christian life. We're either trusting in the wise one, in his righteousness, in his life, in his guidance and becoming more wise yes, through sin and repentance. It's a long journey. Becoming more wise, yes, through sin and repentance. It's a long journey, or we're trusting in ourselves and even the idols that our own hearts produce and becoming more of a fool. Now listen, I just want to speak to you.
Speaker 1:Some of you are discouraged this morning and you're thinking this whole season of life. I feel like I've been infiltrated and I'm just realizing I'm angry because I've been following the path of the fool. I'm angry because I've been following the path of the fool. I'm greedy because I've been following the path of the fool. I'm anxious because I've been following the path of the fool, trying to gain control, and I want to tell you that God, the one who is all wise, is also so kind. He's so kind and he's patient, and right now he's inviting you back to him to trust in him and his wisdom. It makes me think of our one-year-old. He's going to start trying to walk soon, and you know how that goes.
Speaker 1:They're really bad at it. They're really bad at it, and so what I like to do is, when they fall, I like to stand over them like this and taunt them. What is wrong with you? Of course I don't do that. Of course I don't do that, but some of us think that's what God's doing to us, that, as we're growing on this journey of righteousness and wisdom, that he's angry at you and that he thinks that you're taking too long and that he's taunting you and he's second guessing if he should have even adopted you into his family and he's thinking about taking good things away from you and he's thinking about withholding good things from you just to teach you a lesson.
Speaker 1:And that's the vision, the view of God, the Father, that fills our minds. But that's not true. That's not true. God, the Father, gave us his one and only son to be wisdom and righteousness for us, to take our folly, to take our greed and all of our sin and unrighteousness. But why did he do that? Yes, to make us righteous, but to make us wise, to make us wise in knowing him.
Speaker 1:So how do we think about this? Are we acknowledging God in our daily decisions or just when things get tough? Do we pray with every heartbeat, as Whitney Houston said, with every email, with every work decision, with every word? Why am I saying that? Is that for me or is that for them? Who is this for right now? Why am I saying this? Lord, help me. It's not just the big things. If you want to become wise, it's moment by moment, every heartbeat, every decision, every comment, every question. And listen, that's not a burden, it's life-giving. Can you imagine having to do life on your own? You know how exhausting that is. But how do we do it? Moment by moment, with the Lord. So if wisdom means trusting God, it means walking in his ways, moment by moment. Let's close with this. What does it lead to? Well, it leads to life.
Speaker 1:Verse 7 and 8, be not wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones. Listen, there's a real cost of rejecting wisdom here. That's not the verse, but you just flip it. There's a real cost to rejecting it.
Speaker 1:Proverbs 26, 12, later on, says it this way Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes? That's what the author says. This is what he says about that man. There is more hope for a fool than for him. In other words, the one who is wise in their own eyes is in greater danger than a fool. Why? Well, because wisdom is about fitting oneself into the grain of reality, and the fool lives in a false reality.
Speaker 1:Right To be wise is actually a moral command in scripture. It's not simply a good idea, it's a call to all of God's people. So to reject wisdom is to reject life, because the aim of wisdom, the wise person, is life. And so what's the reward of wisdom? Well, it's flourishing, it's shalom, it's eternal life. Biblical wisdom brings shalom, not just avoidance of pain, but the presence of flourishing. It brings healing and it brings refreshment. True wisdom restores. It's like cool water to a weary traveler, and we all are travelers and we all are weary.
Speaker 1:If someone makes you perceive that they're not weary in some way, just know that they are. They are. They may not feel it in that moment, but we are all weary travelers and we need cool, refreshing water. And this is the picture of the one who is getting wisdom. They are getting refreshment, they are getting healing, they are getting life. You see, a wise person knows when to act, they know when to wait, they know what to do, they know when to do it, because wisdom is not just about having knowledge, it's about right timing and application. And we know that you can say the right thing to someone and be foolish in saying it because you didn't say it in the right time or in the right way. If I keep pressing on this point, you could think maybe I don't know anybody who's wise, maybe I can't be wise. I thought I was wise, maybe I'm not. Well, even in Proverbs it gets to that point.
Speaker 1:After 29 chapters of Proverbs, in chapter 30, one through four, you get to the words of Agur, and this is what he says. The man declares I am weary, o God. I am weary, o God, and worn out. This is ESV, by the way, who has gathered the wind in his fists, who has wrapped up the waters in a garment, who has established all the ends of the earth, what his his name and what is his son's name? Surely you know? Huh, this is amazing.
Speaker 1:All the proverbs are true, and yet it gets us to this point of oh, you thought you could become self-sufficient. Oh you, you thought you could just do these. You thought you could put these in AI and just, it would just tell you what to do. No, no, you see, if wisdom leads to life, where do we ultimately find wisdom? The answer is not in mastering principles. It's in relationship to a person. Jesus Christ, the one who is wise and who is wise on your behalf, the one who suffered and died was buried and raised in three days. That's what happens. I don't know what that little child just said, but amen, amen, out of the mouth of babes. That's where true wisdom comes.
Speaker 1:You see, jesus is the embodiment of Proverbs 3, 5 through 8. He is the ultimate wise one. He is the one who truly obeyed. He trusted himself fully to the Father and at the cross he bore the consequence of our self-reliance so that we might take on his righteousness and wisdom. Do we trust him fully? No, of course not. But any moment that you and I, day by day, find a place in our heart where we're not trusting him, it's an opportunity to turn to him. It's an opportunity, lord, take this place in my heart too. Take this place in my mind too. Take this place in my mind too. Take this place in my life too. I want to be wise. Why? It's not just a principle in general, wise people. No, it's because the wise person is in relationship with the wise one. That's what the Proverbs said. In all your ways, know him, know him. And so I'll end with this illustration.
Speaker 1:I read it a while ago in a commentary by Ray Orlin Jr on the Proverbs, and I was reminded of it this week. He tells the story one of his seminary professors told him about his father crossing this river in the Northeast. So it's a large river in the Northeast. I can't I don't know how to pronounce it, so I'm not going to say it. And one winter's day this seminary professor's father was trying to get some grain or something across the river well, on the other side of the river but the shortest path was to go across the river and it was icy. But he didn't know, can I actually go across this? And so he started crawling along on all fours like gingerly feeling his way. And as he gets close to the middle he starts hearing this loud sound, this loud racket, and of course at first he's probably like, ah, the ice is falling. But then he notices coming from behind him and he turns and there is a man on a wagon with four horses just whipping these horses and just flies across the ice to the other side. And here he is just feeling his way on his hands and knees right. He realized this guy was a local. He knew how thick the ice was.
Speaker 1:And what Ray Ortlund says is too many Christians, too many of us, are like the man on all fours creeping along way too cautious. Their trust in the Lord is half-hearted. Then along comes a wholehearted Christian and he changes the tone for everyone around him. Some of you sages in this room you look around and you just think what can I offer? Some of you sages in this room you look around and you just think what can I offer All these beautiful young families and of course, not all of you sages are actually sages. Not all old people are wise, but I think the percentages are higher for you than they are for us.
Speaker 1:You can be a p setter in this congregation. You can be like the Christian, wholeheartedly saying you know, let's go, come on. You can trust the Lord. Let me tell you all the ways he's provided for me. Let me tell you all the ways that he is sufficient for you. Let me tell you all the ways that if you could see things even from my perspective, you would get up and run. You wouldn't be timid, you would trust, you would risk, you would go back to the source, you wouldn't try to become self-sufficient. You would learn that maturity is becoming deeper and deeper dependent on the Lord Jesus, the wise one.
Speaker 1:So where are the pacesetters? The pacesetters are the ones who show us the faithfulness of the Lord. We need you. Let's pray, father. We're grateful for your goodness and we're grateful for your patience. We're grateful that you are not impatient with us, but we're your children and just like me, with Sammy, so proud of him learning how to walk. You're always there to teach us how to be wise in every aspect of our life. Teach us, lord. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen, amen, buddy.