If You Only Had One Wish

Lord, now as we dig into your word, as we spend some time going through the Bible,

help us to believe it.

Help us to receive it.

Help us to understand it.

And Lord, help us to apply it to our lives.

That we wouldn't only learn more about you,

that we wouldn't only know more about you,

but that we would come to know you more in every part of our lives.

Lord, grow within us the fear of you, love for you, joy in you.

Grow in us wisdom, Lord.

Lord, I pray that anything I say that is not from you, you would help us to discard.

But Lord, all that is said that is from you, God, help us to live it, to embrace it,

and to savor it for your glory and our good.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Please be seated.

Now, if you could turn in your Bibles to 1 Kings chapter 3.

1 Kings 3 · chapter mention

That's what I'll be preaching from today.

And as you do, let me tell you that.

Two weeks ago, I got in a car and drove off to Stowe, Vermont.

I needed a week of introversion.

Some of you who know me find it hard to believe,

but this extrovert decided to be an introvert for a week.

So I drove off and found this lodge in Stowe, Vermont.

And I went there to just be alone.

I hadn't realized until I was driving into the town of Stowe that this is the town that

the Von Trapp family singers, after they escaped from the Nazis and the true story of the sound

of music, they crossed the ocean and came to Stowe.

And that's where they set up not just their lodge, but this massive complex.

They have this incredible microbrewery, and they have international cross-country ski slopes

where they have, or not slopes, I guess, but fields where people ski.

It's not so much slopey when it's cross-country, but they have all sorts of stuff.

It's huge.

So I was taking tours of their property, got to meet some of the grandchildren of Maria von

Trapp.

I went to a sing-along.

It was a fantabulous time.

And while I was there, I heard mention of a chapel.

The true story is that one of the sons in the movie Sound of Music, but one of the real

sons, he was fighting the Nazis in World War II, shortly after the movie part of the story

ends.

And while he was under massive machine gun fire, he committed to God, God, if you will

rescue me, I will build you a chapel at my family lodge.

And that is what he did.

He didn't die.

He survived the gunshots, and he came back to Stowe, Vermont, and made this chapel.

I wanted to find the chapel.

So I went up for a hike, and I hiked and I hiked.

I took some wrong turns.

Eventually, I got there.

And as I approached, before I even got to the chapel, I was just in awe of the beauty

of where I was.

It was magnificent.

And then I came to a chapel so much smaller than I expected.

This tiny little stone chapel.

One of those places where you can just, you're so aware that there is more to the universe

than just what we see.

You feel like the presence of God.

It's just, it's magnificently beautiful.

And it's this rustic chapel.

It looks like no one's been there for 150 years, which is surprising because the chapel

is only 50 years old, I'm told.

But it was, it looked abandoned.

And I opened the door, except I couldn't because it was locked.

It seemed like no one had been there forever.

So I went around to the side.

And it's such an old school chapel.

There's no windows.

It's just, it's stone.

And then there's these like gaping holes where the windows would be.

And so I got hoisted myself up.

And I looked in and I saw that there was this little box that looked like no one had been

there for decades.

And it said prayer requests.

And so I thought, you know what?

I'm a praying man.

Someone needs to pray for these prayer requests.

And so I opened up the box.

And while I was like still kind of like halfway through the window and read a whole bunch of

the prayer requests.

Here in this place where anyone who comes here feels so close to heaven, what do people

ask prayer for?

And as I read them, the prayer requests from some time ago were very similar to what you

would expect if you found such a box of prayer requests written today.

Without giving any names away, not breaking any confidentiality.

It was all prayer requests for things like, pray for Aunt Sue.

She needs help with her kidneys.

Pray for my cousin.

He's sick.

Pray for myself to find a job.

It was like that over and over.

It was an amazing house similar in all these different penmanships.

Sometimes they would sign what part of the world they'd come from because people come

from all over the world.

Whatever part of the world they were from, all the prayer requests were pretty much for

the health of their family, their loved ones, or for financial provision, whether through

a job or through some other means.

It was pretty much for health and for wealth.

That's what they asked for.

As a little kid, I remember discussing with my friends, if Aladdin's genie came to you

and offered you three wishes, what would you ask for?

I mean, the obvious answer is for more wishes, but that's usually against the rule.

So what would you ask for?

Well, the passage that Noah read to us from 1 Kings 3, Solomon, the king of Israel, is presented

with that question.

God, not just a genie, God says to him, ask for whatever you want.

I will give it to you.

What does Solomon say?

Well, he doesn't ask for health or wealth.

He asks something that God is so delighted in.

It seems almost as if God is surprised.

Of course, God isn't surprised because God knows all things, but God's response is one

of such delight in Solomon's request.

It's awesome.

And as I was going through these requests, because of preparing this message, I noticed

that no one had asked for wisdom.

And so as I was there in Stowe, Vermont, halfway through the chapel window, I stopped and I

started thinking, is this something that I ask God for?

Am I asking God for wisdom like Solomon did?

And I thought back to, for a year and a half, I led those Church of Messiah prayer meetings.

At these prayer meetings, we pray for so many things.

We pray for international affairs and for the brokenness in parts of the world.

And we also pray for this church that we love.

And we pray for, as we hear about various requests that people share with us, we pray

for them.

We often pray for the marriages of this church, that in a society where marriages are always

crumbling, that God would make them strong.

We pray when we hear about people in the church who need to find jobs, we pray for them.

We pray sometimes, for whatever comes to mind, we'll pray for your devotions, that as you

read the word day by day, that God would speak to you richly.

We pray all manner of things for God's blessing on this church.

We pray for courage.

We pray that God would make us a church filled of missionaries, not just overseas, but in

our neighborhoods.

We pray for so many things.

We pray for freedom from addictions, for everything.

But how many times have we stopped as a church, as a staff of the church?

We pray weekly also as a staff, George and Shirley and myself and Joey.

We pray for the church.

How often do we stop and pray, plead with God?

God, give the people of church and Messiah, give us wisdom.

It's not something we're praying for.

We see that this is something that when Solomon had the choice to ask for anything, he asked

for wisdom.

What is wisdom?

Well, to answer that question, I called up my father because throughout my life he was

always telling me and my many siblings that we need to seek wisdom.

And he always gave us a succinct definition.

So if we can get that on the screen, Andrew.

This is from Dad Gilman, my own father, Alan.

Wisdom is a life skill where truth, goodness, and holiness are fittingly and effectively applied

to specific situations.

Read that again.

Wisdom is a life skill where truth, goodness, and holiness are fittingly and effectively

applied to specific situations.

This is my dad's wise attempt to try to bring down to just one sentence, what is it that

Solomon asked for?

I mean, the word wisdom shows up in the scriptures time and time again, but what is it?

And so from a biblical perspective, my dad's trying to define that wisdom is not simply knowledge,

that you know so much about something, or that you're a very intelligent person, that you

have a great IQ, but wisdom is having that knowledge and that understanding to apply it

to specific situations in light of who God is in reality.

I mean, all of us know someone who has, or several people, and perhaps some of you in

the congregation, maybe I'm like this, where we have such knowledge about something.

We're just filled, like, we're like an entire, I don't know, Wikipedia page article

of knowledge about something, but we actually just fail to, like, live with wisdom.

Or all of us know that person, like, they're a genius in school.

They ace every test, and you watch the way they live, and you're like, what are you doing?

Wisdom is something that we so often see the need for in someone else's life, but flatter

ourselves thinking we have so much of it.

Here's an example where you may have seen someone eating wisdom.

You're going through the grocery store, and you see some kids behaving so poorly, and you

see that their parents are just, are failing being parents.

And you're just thinking, oh, if only they did this.

Like, I don't have any kids.

But, like, I, somehow, when I see that, like, all of a sudden I become this expert on parenting.

If only they could ask me for advice, I would tell them how to raise a child.

I know you've sought those thoughts.

The same is true for those of us who love sports.

You're watching TV, and you're seeing the coach make some decision, and you're just like,

what is he doing?

Like, come on.

Even though the guy that he's trained so much for this, he knows so much more about sports than

you, but you are convinced that if only they asked you for advice, you'd have what to say.

We so often see the need for wisdom in people's lives around us.

I know some of you are, like, in different times of worship, you're looking at the worship

team, and, like, you don't even, you don't, you don't know how to sing on key, but you

have so much advice for how joy should be leading, or how the sound man should be doing

it, right?

Am I the only one that thinks those thoughts sometimes?

No.

Often we see the need for wisdom in other people's lives.

Wisdom is something we need to pursue.

We've spent the entire summer here at Church of Messiah going through the book of Proverbs,

the book of wisdom written by Solomon, the man that we're looking at today, going through

the book and seeing that the book of Proverbs is all these different, all these pearls of

wisdom, and they'll deal with reoccurring issues throughout the book.

And so what George and I have done is we divide up the book of Proverbs, and we kind of strung

together through, you know, a string through the various pearls of the same theme.

So, for example, in case I'm losing you, we've done a week on what Proverbs say about

caring for the marginalized, about how the wise person cares for the broken and the poor.

We looked at what wisdom says about how to live our lives regarding listening to advice,

and how if we listen to advice, our lives will be so much more healthy and right.

Not that our health will always be good, but that we're going to make good decisions.

We've looked about what wisdom says about our perception of ourselves, and how wisdom frees

us from being people of pride who are either harming others or living in such shame as

we're broken that way.

Wisdom restores that.

We've looked at what wisdom speaks into how we can steward our finances well.

Not how we become millionaires necessarily, but how we can be faithful stewards of our finances.

We've looked at how wisdom, if we live a wise life, how it keeps us from the harm of sexual

morality and how it can lead our sexuality to be something that's life-giving and godly and not

something we're striving against.

We've looked at how wisdom will transform our words, so not just some of our words, but

all of our words will bring life.

And that if we forsake wisdom regarding our words, that's going to separate even close

friends, bring death and destruction.

Over and over, wisdom.

Proverbs 3, verses 13 through 15 say,

Proverbs 3:13–15

Blessed is the one who finds wisdom, and the one who gets understanding.

For the gain from her is better than gain from silver, and her profit better than gold.

She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her.

Nothing you desire.

These words, and we'll look at this later, these words are sometimes spoken.

Nothing you desire can compare.

They're spoken in the Psalms regarding God.

And here, this man, King Solomon, is writing, nothing you desire compares to wisdom.

What's that all about?

Well, as we unpack this, the first thing we want us to take to heart is that my family,

let's put this point up, the next point, my family, my friends, my workplace, and myself

urgently need me to grow in wisdom.

Church, we so often flatter ourselves thinking that we are so wise.

People just need to ask us for advice on how to live.

But the other people, the parents in the grocery store, the coach for the sports team, or whatever

it is, they need wisdom.

Well, you're probably right that they need more wisdom, but you and I need more wisdom.

King Solomon, as we saw in what Nora read, describes himself as only a child who doesn't

know how to go out or come in.

But that's not who King Solomon was.

King Solomon, if you read the chapters previous, was already a king of an established kingdom.

And he had already put to death the enemies of his father.

He'd already been doing the work of a king.

He was not a child.

But King Solomon, in God's goodness, was freed from that arrogance that you and I often live

with of thinking that he had the wisdom he needed.

King Solomon somehow knew, even though he had so much power.

In fact, maybe it was in light of the responsibility on his shoulders.

He realized that his friends, his family, his country needed him to grow in wisdom.

And it's not just because he was king.

You and I need wisdom.

So how do we get wisdom?

The Bible has so much to say about this, and we're not going to be able to unpack all of it.

But with the help of John Piper, I used some of his points, not all, and used some he didn't have.

But for the most part, this is impacted by some work I did reading through John Piper's teaching on wisdom.

And so we're going to go through seven points, briefly, of how the scriptures teach us to get wisdom.

We need, you and I need wisdom, so let us pay attention to this.

So the first point is that we need to begin with the fear of God.

The very first week we did on Proverbs, George, our pastor, preached about the fear of God.

This reverence for him, an orientation of life that's looking toward God for his assessment, for his judgment of us, for his approval.

That's more concerned about leaving God.

Like, our biggest fear is not that we make mistakes, but that we drift away from God.

That our biggest fear is the fear of God.

Proverbs 1, verse 7 says,

Proverbs 1:7

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

Fools despise wisdom and instruction.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

Fools despise wisdom and instruction.

So if we are to become wise, we need to be people who fear God.

I've heard, when I was a younger man in a youth group, I heard a youth pastor,

and he was only one of many who said this kind of thing.

People today in the modern world don't want to talk, or the post-modern world,

don't want to talk about fear.

Fear is a negative thing.

And so they try to cast the fear of God as just like an awe of God.

But the fear of God, the way it includes the awe of him, also has this element of fear in it.

It's not like that you're scared of God, but that you understand the power of God.

That he is big and we are small.

Of course, it's always coupled with the understanding of the kindness of God.

But it's also this thing of, you know what, like, my big fear in life isn't that I mess up.

My big fear in life isn't that I fail.

My big fear in life isn't of people.

My big fear in life is that I'd be afraid of abandoning God.

That would be a big, we are oriented toward him in all that we do.

There is an element of fear, and that is the beginning of wisdom.

The second thing we need to do if we would gain wisdom is that we would pray for wisdom in faith.

James 1 verse 5 says,

James 1:5

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.

James goes on to say, let him ask without doubting.

That if we ask but we're not really believing God's going to come through, God's not going to give us the wisdom we ask for.

James 1 verse 5 is so powerful in that it's illustrating 1 Kings 3 for us so well.

James 1:5

We see that King Solomon has this task before him of caring for his people.

And how does King Solomon get wisdom?

He simply asks for it.

He prays for it.

And God comes through for him.

And so church, as we pray, as you pray, parents, as you pray for your kids, as you pray for your loved ones,

as we pray, if you come to the Tuesday meeting and you're interceding for other people,

let us be a people who are consistently, consistently seeking God for ourselves and for those around us,

for wisdom, as you pray for the election.

We can pray that our favorite political party wins, or maybe that all our least favorite political parties lose.

Or we can also be praying, God, give the leaders of our nation wisdom.

We need it.

They need it.

The next is that we study the scriptures.

Psalm 19, it's a psalm that speaks the first half of the beauty and the wonder of nature

and how nature worships God, how nature declares God's goodness.

And you can extract from that that every human being should see from nature the majesty of God,

that we should be led to worship from nature.

But then the psalmist turns his attention to the Bible and says,

so he's saying, yes, nature's incredible and speaking of God's goodness and it's declaring it.

And then he turns to the Bible and starts to unpack how it's the Bible that actually helps people come to know God.

And he goes through a whole bunch of different elements of that.

Psalm 19, you can read the whole psalm yourself.

But verse 7 says,

The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.

The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.

Even though it should be that we should gain such wisdom from seeing nature and all that,

the way that we grow in wisdom isn't just by taking walks in the park,

but it's by reading the Bible.

And I've known people over the years who,

they start to drift away from their devotions as they tend to,

there's one gentleman, he fell in love with riding his bicycle.

Well, that's a great activity to do.

And he would tell me about how close he felt to God as he rode his bike,

and I believe him.

But he had stopped reading his Bible for riding his bicycle out in nature.

And it's true that nature declares God's goodness.

But this friend of mine would actually grow in wisdom,

which he, for his own sake, for his family's sake, for his workplace's sake,

and for the glory of God, he needs to grow in wisdom.

He needs to be studying the Bible.

And the Bible has so much to say about this.

Psalm 119, verse 9,

Psalms 119:9

How can a young man keep his way pure,

but by guarding his way according to God's word?

We need to be people who know the word.

The only way we can guard our way, live our way according to the Bible,

the only way we can, as it says in Philippians,

hold fast to the word of God,

is by people who know the word of God.

And so to grow in wisdom,

to live life as it was made to be lived,

regarding our sexuality, our friendships, our workplace,

all the stuff, let us study the Bible.

The fourth, is that we need to listen to wise instruction.

Proverbs 19, verse 20,

Proverbs 19:20

Listen to advice and accept instruction,

that you may gain wisdom in the future.

A number of us know people who study the Bible,

and they do that well,

and they're asking for wisdom,

and yet they isolate themselves from Christian community,

and they're in a place where maybe even they are in community in a sense,

but no one can speak into their life.

And they begin to believe some very bizarre things,

and begin to just act in very harmful ways.

I'm thinking of specific examples I'm not going to get into,

but I've seen this,

and some of you have seen this.

It's not enough for us just to ask for wisdom,

and just to read the Bible.

Part of living that out,

if you're reading the Bible,

you will see that multiple times throughout it,

it says that we're to listen to advice.

That ultimately, we need to take all advice in light of scripture,

and we will get advice.

You and I get advice.

Sometimes advice from our own parents.

And you're just like,

you know, parents, I know that you love me,

but the advice you're giving me is not in line with what the Bible says.

So it's not that we're supposed to just simply obey all advice you receive,

but that we need to be people who are actually able to hear advice.

For more on that,

George taught a whole sermon from Proverbs this past semester.

You can find it online,

MessiahChurch.sa,

about listening to advice,

how to discern what is good advice and is not good advice.

But a crucial part of growing in wisdom,

as you're someone who is able to,

you're not always obeying advice,

but you're listening to it.

You're someone who people can approach.

There are some people who,

when something is wrong in their life,

when they need to hear advice,

their friends and their family talk a lot amongst themselves,

because they know that to talk to that person

would be very difficult.

It's not going to go well.

There are other people who are known

for taking advice well.

They're not always going to obey it,

but they're going to be respectful of the advice they receive.

And so that person,

people give advice to.

This is one of those things

that we tend to flatter ourselves.

We tend to think of ourselves

as being so good at listening to advice.

But surely some of us actually struggle with this,

because I've been in those conversations

and you're discussing,

how do we talk to so-and-so?

Not all of us are good at this.

So let us pray before God honestly

and say, God, show me.

Show me if I'm one of those people

that people can give advice to,

or if I actually am someone

who's scary to give advice to.

We need to be people

who can have friends speak into our lives

and who can listen,

listen to the advice.

Number five.

This is from Moses in Psalm 90.

Moses wrote Psalm 90.

It's a beautiful psalm.

It's toward the end of his life.

Psalm 90 verse 12.

Psalms 90:12

So teach us to number our days

that we may get a heart of wisdom.

Moses is saying,

don't simply pray for it,

though that's part of it.

Don't just read the Bible,

though so much of what Moses wrote

is about listening to the ways of God.

But among other things,

Moses says,

if you would gain wisdom,

he's saying,

think often of your imminent death.

Think often of your imminent death.

If you and I would gain wisdom,

there isn't,

this isn't just a suggestion.

This isn't just for the reckless amongst us,

for the youth amongst us.

Every single one of us

needs to be people

and for getting to live life

the way it was meant to be lived,

who think often of the imminency of death.

And as we do that,

as we think of our death

in light of the reality of God

and of eternity,

it helps us to live in wisdom.

It's not enough on its own.

You can't do this

and think that you can bypass

asking for wisdom

or bypass fear in God.

If you just think about your death.

No, as you fear God,

as you pray for wisdom with faith,

as you study the scriptures every day,

as you listen to wise instruction,

you also need to be thinking often

of your imminent death.

Now, before you turn to the next point,

so don't turn there yet, Andrew.

We're still on number?

Yeah, we're good.

As I was sitting down with George,

we sat, as he often says,

at a Starbucks,

if you know George.

So we're sitting at a Starbucks.

Those are true stories.

We sat at a Starbucks

and we were dividing up

the various weeks of Proverbs.

And so he was going to choose five themes.

I'd choose five themes.

And I had this idea.

George, for the very last week,

let me go to 1 Kings 3

as we're going to be spending

a whole summer through

the book of wisdom Proverbs

at the moment that Solomon

gets his wisdom.

And I'm going to teach them.

I'm going to preach, George,

that I'm going to look at

Solomon asking for wisdom.

That's the one thing he asked for.

And then I'm going to look at Psalm 27

where his father, King David,

says the one thing David asked for.

The one thing David asked for in Psalm 27

is that he would dwell

in the presence of God.

Basically, that he would walk with God.

And I was going to contrast

those two asks

and say what Solomon asked for

is something good,

but what David asked for

is something that's best.

And basically to show

Solomon asked for the wrong thing.

David asked for this.

And if you know their lives,

you'll see that Solomon

ends up veering off the path of God.

But David walks with God

to the end of his life.

Then he makes mistakes along the way.

And I pitched this to George

thinking he would be

just as excited as I was.

And George was like,

nope, nope, nope.

He's like, Daniel, okay.

I'm like, no, George,

this is biblical.

He's like, Daniel,

if you can make a compelling case

for what you're going to preach,

I'll let you preach it.

But I think you're off on this.

So I'm like, George, no problem.

So I went,

and I was doing my research

and reading the Bible

and working on putting together

this whole thesis forum.

And I talked to various

older wise men,

many of whom are pastors,

probably about five people,

different cities I talked to,

friends of mine,

just saying, hey,

I got this idea.

And every single one of them,

though I expected them to be like,

Daniel, that's gold.

They're like, Daniel,

that's foolishness.

Oh, really?

I talked to them,

Daniel, that's foolishness.

And we chat about it.

And what person after person,

including George,

said to me,

and I listened to them,

is that, Daniel,

you are bringing to this equation

a modern view of wisdom,

that wisdom is simply knowledge,

that wisdom is simply

being smart about life.

But you are not looking

what the Bible says about wisdom.

If you remember the first week on wisdom

about the fear of God,

that wisdom is living life

in light of who God is,

and it's walking in his way.

It's actually walking with God.

In that respect,

when David asks to be in God's presence

and to live life with him,

and Solomon is asking God for wisdom,

if you look at what the Bible teaches

about these two things,

they're asking for the same thing.

And that's why Solomon can say

that this wisdom is to be desired

above all things,

that there's nothing that compares to her.

And then a psalmist says

that who in Psalm,

I think it's Psalm 73?

72?

Yeah, thanks, brother Jonathan.

That's my brother.

Psalm 72 says

that there's nothing in heaven or earth

that compares,

like whom have I in heaven or earth,

nothing that I have compares to you.

That's a paraphrase.

But Psalm 72 is speaking similar words

that Proverbs uses,

but Proverbs is speaking about wisdom,

and Psalm 72 is talking about knowing God,

and they're using similar language,

saying nothing compares to this stuff.

Nothing compares to those two things,

because it's really one thing.

It's really one thing.

When I talked to my dad about my thesis,

he actually said,

Daniel, I'm not surprised

that you're saying this,

because, Daniel,

you're someone that since your infancy,

you've been passionate

about living life with Jesus.

You will love him,

but you're someone

that needs to grow in wisdom.

And so the fact that you would

stand in front of a church and say,

what we should be asking for isn't wisdom,

be asking to be passionate

about following Jesus.

My dad is saying,

Daniel, no, grow in wisdom.

They actually are one and the same,

growing these things together.

And that's partly how you get these pastors,

who genuinely love the Lord,

in one sense,

yet then you see them doing horrible things,

and disgracing the name of God.

They, on the one sense,

they're very passionate about the stuff of God,

but they're not living life in wisdom,

and so they're not really walking with him.

And so many of the,

every one of these scandals would be avoided

if these men and women were living in wisdom,

walking with God in wisdom.

Not only do they need wisdom,

you and I need wisdom.

Now, Jesus actually speaks into this.

We can go there now.

Point six.

Jesus says in Matthew 12, verse 42,

Matthew 12:42

the queen of the south will rise up

at the judgment with this generation

and condemn it,

for she came from the ends of the earth

to hear the wisdom of Solomon.

And behold,

something greater than Solomon is here.

And he's speaking of himself.

And when he says something greater

than Solomon is here,

he's not saying,

so Solomon was of wisdom,

and I'm this other thing that's greater.

The word greater is often translated into English

as,

the word they're using is greater,

as more of.

In a sense,

Jesus is a greater version of Solomon.

He's not just different.

He is the Solomon Solomon

should have been born to be.

He is more of the wisdom of Solomon.

He's greater wisdom than Solomon.

So Jesus isn't saying,

you don't need wisdom.

Instead, what you need is me.

Jesus is saying,

you need wisdom,

and wisdom is found in me.

And so the sixth point

of how we gain true wisdom

is that we come to Jesus.

Just like the Queen of Sheba

traveled so far

to come to Solomon

to gain wisdom,

so you and I,

if we were to find true wisdom,

need to come to him.

You'll see that David

throughout his life,

even when he made horrible mistakes,

he murdered someone,

committed adultery

with his best friend's wife,

all this stuff,

that he kept on coming to God,

coming to God.

Psalm 51,

he wrote just about a year after that,

that sin of adultery and murder.

And it's him coming to God.

You see,

he's always coming to God.

And in that,

he proved he lived a life of wisdom.

Whereas for Solomon,

he began by asking for it,

but he didn't continue that,

that coming to God.

If you and I would be people

who live in wisdom

regarding our friendships

and our workplace

and our sexuality

and our words

and all of that we were made for,

we need to be people

who come to God.

And the only way to God

is through Jesus.

And then finally,

in point 6,

we need to not only come to Jesus,

but then we need to follow Jesus.

We don't just come to him

and ask him for wisdom.

We don't just come to him

and ask him for forgiveness

for our sins.

We then need to live lives

that are following him.

In Matthew 7,

Jesus famously speaks about

the parable of the man

who builds his house in the sand

and the man who builds his house

in the rock.

A lot of us in Sunday school

would have heard this story.

The difference between these two men

isn't that one heard wisdom

and one didn't.

Both of them heard wisdom

as both of them

heard God's teaching.

But the one who built

his house in the sand

was the one who

he heard God's wisdom.

He got the wisdom,

but then he just went off

and did his own thing.

He didn't live life

according to the wisdom.

In a sense,

he had come to God,

but didn't he follow him?

Whereas the man

who built his house

in the rock

is a man who not only

heard the truth from God,

wisdom,

but then he lived

his life upon it.

To be a Christian

isn't simply that you believe

things about God

that are true.

Because even the demons

believe the right things

about God,

the Bible says.

But it's that we're people

who are following him.

Now you and I

don't do that perfectly.

We still make mistakes,

so many mistakes

still as followers of God.

We don't get to heaven

based on how good

we've done a job

of following Jesus.

We only get to enter

into the prince of God

now and for eternity.

We only become born again

through receiving

the gift of life

from God

that Jesus accomplished

for us on the cross.

But we live that out

as we seek to live our lives,

as we try to live our lives,

as people following him,

tripping down,

falling down,

but following him.

And as we do that,

as we seek to cultivate

hearts that fear God,

as we pray for wisdom,

as we listen to good advice,

seeking wisdom,

as we implement

all the points

of how we live

a life of wisdom,

thinking of our death,

as we seek wisdom,

we seek not only wisdom,

we seek not only

the gift of wisdom,

but we're looking

to the giver,

Jesus,

looking to him

to live life with him.

And so,

would you join me right now

in praying for this?

Heavenly Father,

Lord,

wisdom isn't simply

the icing on the cake

of what it means

to walk with you.

Lord,

wisdom is the meat

of what it means

to live life with you.

Lord,

we began the service today

with Psalm 16.

In your presence,

there is fullness of joy.

Lord,

living life with you,

walking with you,

is what we need

more than anything.

An integral part of that

is living in wisdom,

and the fear of you,

and the love of you,

following you.

Lord,

every single one of us

as human beings

needs to grow in this.

Lord,

would you help us

to be like the Queen of Sheba,

who spent every expense,

used all of her energy,

all of herself.

She came to Solomon.

God,

we come to something

greater than Solomon.

We come to you,

and we ask you together

for wisdom,

for the fear of you,

for the love of you,

that you would help us

to live life with you.

In Jesus' name,

Amen.