Proverbs 4:1-19 – Wise Up

Today's reading is uh from Proverbs four, uh verse nineteen.

And uh a question for um those uh wanting to pay attention, um what do we get when we get wisdom?

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 side of my mother, he taught me and said to me, Let your heart hold fast my words, keep my commandments and live.

Get wisdom, get insight.

Do not forget and do 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 inside.

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, I 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, and 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 unless 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.

But 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.

So reads God's word.

Welcome to you.

My name is Mark.

I'm one of the leaders here at City Church.

It's great to have you uh with us uh this morning.

If you ever um uh sell a kidney and uh can afford to go, therefore, to Center Parks um out in uh in Longford, uh, can I recommend that you do so?

Uh it is uh it's good crack.

One of the things that is uh uh included in your payment.

I mean, you you pay for lots of other additional activities and all of your food, but one of the things that's included free with your with your accommodation is as much time as you like in uh the subtropical paradise, which is basically a big dome that's uh maintained at about 30 degrees centigrade, uh, which is which is just about the melting temperature of an Irishman.

Um uh that so there's lots of uh pasty white people turning into puddles on the floor.

Uh but it's quite a nice place to go, particularly in the middle of uh of winter.

And we're all uh we're all there, the uh the great and the good of all humanity.

Uh there's no need for any body shaming, I have to say, when you uh when you're walking around center parks.

But one of the things that the kids really love is that uh just off the side of the main swimming pool is a is a lazy river.

Uh, you probably have been at a lazy river in somewhere else, a water park or a hotel that's had one, which you know what it is.

So there's there's a current that's moving around uh in a circle.

And so you're able to kind of go into this thing and lift up your legs and float away with the current.

And it's rather lovely.

In fact, if you're if you're kind of a large manatee of a man like me, uh what's quite fun to do is to kind of dive under the water and pretend like you're a speedboat or torpedo going faster under the water than you would normally be able to go.

Um and the kids love kind of chasing you as you're being carried along uh by the current.

I'm sorry if you're getting mental images right now, and I hope that they don't put you off your lunch.

Um one of the things that it's uh very hard to do is if you kind of if you miss the exit, uh, it's hard to actually go against the current to get out.

Um, you have to kind of go round again because there's uh there's such a kind of force of water propelling you in one direction that you really have to strain to to move against the flow.

It takes quite a lot of uh quite a lot of determination and strength.

And the father in in Proverbs is saying and encouraging his son to see that when you just kind of lift your legs in life, there is a there is a current and there is a drift, and it's not towards wisdom and it's not towards holiness.

Have you ever noticed that?

That if you just kind of lift your legs, spiritually speaking, you think, oh, I haven't actually become more like Jesus lately.

Uh, I've actually become uh more consumed with my own heart's desires.

I've I've gone ways that I didn't think that I would uh want to go because of there's a current, there's a flow, there's things kind of beckoning you on.

And the father said, yeah, there's there's two paths that are uh that are like that.

There's a there's one that has a uh kind of current at your back, the winds at your back to kind of start mixing metaphors, and you're gonna find yourself going very quickly in a particular direction.

And there's a there's another path that actually takes a uh it's a takes a good bit of effort.

It takes a bit of determination, it takes a bit of striving to pursue it.

And that's exactly what it's like, actually, to be a follower of Jesus, to be a Christian.

Lots of people maybe mistakenly think that, well, you know, Jesus will save me eventually, or I'll get around to it eventually.

But there's a current in life, there's a flow that doesn't lead towards him.

Many others don't really see the point of pursuing him at all.

Or in the Christian life, we wonder why we aren't growing.

You can say, Oh, let go and let God.

Uh well, actually, one of the things that we need to hold kind of in intention, you were we're good kind of biblical Christians here at City Church.

And so we we rejoice in in truths like, well, you're saved, you're not saved by your works, you're saved by the grace of God through faith alone.

Yes and amen.

We just did a year nearly in the in the book of Romans, where we were looking at salvation through faith alone, grace alone in Christ alone.

You're thinking, oh, that's that's that's all I need.

And that is that is true and ought to be celebrated.

But you gotta also remember that Paul talks about striving and straining on towards the goal with every fiber of his being, wanting to become more like Jesus, or even of Jesus' own words himself.

He talks about, well, you gotta count the cost of following me.

You gotta take up your cross, that symbol of shame and marginalization to identify with Jesus in that sort of way.

Jesus is saying, that's not that's not an easy thing to do.

That's a that's an against the current, that's an against the flow sort of thing.

And the Father is saying, you need to determine in your mind now which path you want to walk down.

The one where you can lift your legs and you drift in a certain direction, or are you going to strive with every fiber of your being that is empowered by God's Holy Spirit to grow in wisdom, to grow in Christ-likeness?

There's a path where the wind's at your back that blows you down towards whatever you want, whatever would entice you until you finally stumble and fall.

But there's another path that takes uh resolve, effort, a determination that only God can give through grace by faith in Christ.

That is harder to walk down, but the treasures that are fine there are infinite.

You're gonna lift your legs and go where the current takes you.

He starts by saying, Son, daughter, look behind you.

There's a path of wisdom, it starts back there.

Look at it with me.

Proverbs chapter 4.

Proverbs 4 · chapter mention

Hear, O sons, the father's instruction, be attentive that you may gain insight.

I have good precepts, and do not forsake my teaching.

Just pause there, actually, before we get to the point.

I have good precepts, good guidance, good wisdom, good counsel.

Do not forsake my my teaching, the ways that I am uh I am guiding and instructing you.

What he's not saying is wisdom's just about adhering to a big bunch of don'ts.

Don't do this, don't do that, don't drink, don't smoke, don't chew, don't go with girls who do you.

Um it's not like that.

It's not a list of do's and don'ts.

It's here's guidance, here's counsel, it's good.

Listen.

Where did that get it from?

Verse three.

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, do not turn away from the words of my mouth.

Here, for the first time in the book of Proverbs, we're introduced to a third generation.

In these speeches between the father and the son, between the father and his child.

Uh, he it has just been the dynamic of the two.

But now he's looking back and he's essentially, do you remember?

Do you remember Granda?

Here's what Grandad told me.

I'm gonna tell it to you.

This is Solomon speaking, who is writing the book of Proverbs, he's saying, David, my dad, the one after God's own heart, he he told me this, and and I'm I'm telling you, son, he's passing it on.

There's a passing on of wisdom down through the generations that that it's happening here.

The path to wisdom starts behind you.

What happens, this happens in in lots of cultures, you know, where um elders preserve and pass on the the stories, the warnings, the wisdom of the ages of people who have gone before.

But a lot of the time now we kind of tend to dismiss it.

I mean you want to do a show of hands?

And uh have you ever rolled your eyes at an old relative who has started telling you a piece of advice?

Right?

Okay, I know it's fine.

Yeah, but this me and Jasper are prepared to admit for the rest of you your sin.

We have confessed on your behalf.

Uh I remember uh when I was uh doing my first ever church job, I was uh I was an apprentice uh at a church in Northern Ireland, and there was a uh there was a long since retired pastor, clergyman, um, who was attending the church, and he decided that he would take it upon himself to school me.

And so he would have me round to his house every Friday morning.

In fact, before that, he used to call me up back when you had kind of house phones.

I don't know if you remember those ones that are kind of attached to the wall.

So he would never call my mobile, he would call the house phone because he knew that the house phone was downstairs and he would call it at 8 a.m.

Not every morning, but he would try and kind of because then I get used to the routine, he would try and catch me out.

And I'm, you know, I'm 21 years old, and so I'm not up at 8 a.m.

Uh, especially if you're an apprentice, if you've ever been a church apprentice, they are the the hardest people to get up out of bed, and so I'd be running down the station either way, you've got that sleepy voice.

I'd be doing my la la la la la la la la la to try to kind of warm up my voice.

Morning, Clive.

And he would just uh say back to me, and the you know, if it take it took a few rings more than usual, he would just say, Are the saints rejoicing in their beds, Mark?

Psalm 149, verse 5.

Psalms 149:5

And he'd have me around on a on a Friday morning, and he would have set me tasks.

He would set me tasks of of memorizing scriptures.

He would give me uh little flashcards, and I had to memorize them.

Or, because we he was training me to be a good Anglican, uh, he would uh give me flashcards of what are called the 39 articles.

That's the doctrinal basis of the Anglican church.

And he would say to me, he had big kind of sprocket-esque, bushy eyebrows, and he'd kind of peer at me over them and he'd purse his lips and he'd say, What's Article 20?

Uh and I'd say, Oh, the the church is the congregation of faithful men where the pure word of God is preached in the sacraments duly administered according to Christ's ordinance.

Good, good.

And then he'd ask me another one, and I'd get it wrong, and he'd say, more work needed.

And I would come away from those, from those times thinking, this old coot is just on my backside all the time.

And then I went to theological college and I was set essays on church history or the doctrine of the Lord's Supper, and I would remember, oh, Clive actually, Clive actually made me read a book on that and write a little 500-word summary for him.

Oh, he tested me on that.

And and even the fact that he's long since gone to glory.

And I was an apprentice back in 2008, and I still remember what Article 20 of the 39 articles are.

You know, maybe there are voices in our family that we shouldn't be so quick to roll our eyes at.

But maybe our family isn't the best place to look all the time.

Maybe you think, well, I don't I don't have that in my family.

Well, maybe there's a clive.

We can get wisdom from saints who are not part of our family, wisdom from saints who have gone before us.

Ben touched on it uh just as we were about to say the creed, and I wanted to kind of bring it up again.

He kind of stole my thunder.

Thanks, Ben.

Um it's part of the reason.

Why do we why do we do liturgy on Sunday?

You kind of come in and go, oh, this is we we say a prayer together, we recite a creed together?

Why do we do that?

That that seems weird.

Is that are we just kind of are we superstitious?

Are we ritualistic?

No, the path of wisdom starts behind us.

And there's a uh there's a there's a great cloud of saints of the uh the 60 or so generations between us and uh and the first disciples who we get to learn from.

There are people who have who have laid down their uh their thinking, their writing, who have now finished the race, who have gone to glory, and who stand cheering us on.

It would be foolish to think that we have nothing to learn from them.

It would be, of course, be foolish to think that that's the only thing there is.

But to dismiss it altogether and to think that the path of wisdom begins where you have been zapped down on your at your point in time?

Well, there's actually there's an arrogance, there's a pridefulness there that uh that isn't given to wisdom.

Wisdom begins by looking behind you.

My father taught me, the dad says, and now I'm passing it on to you.

And so we do well to think, okay, how can I be encouraged by the saints of the past?

How can I be encouraged by those who are a little bit further down the track than I am to learn from them before they go on to glory?

How can I pick up the wisdom of the ages?

Just think of the history of the church and how and how people have come to these deeper and richer realizations.

Think of uh Augustine, who who lived some twelve or so generations uh after uh after Jesus.

He wrote many things, but one thing that comes to mind that he says, he says that our hearts are restless until they find rest in you, O Lord.

I think, oh, yeah, that's a good way to put it.

Our hearts are restless until they find rest in you.

I think of the work of the of the Protestant reformers of Martin Luther realize that actually the righteous will live by faith alone.

It's not about ritual or performance.

We do well to look back and see that the path of wisdom starts behind us.

So I'd encourage you, I don't quite know how you want to do that.

I throw some things uh out there for your own uh deliberation.

You might want to pick up uh you might want to pick up a book called The Valley of Vision.

It's a book of Puritan prayers.

Puritans?

Yeah.

You read those prayers and they'll do something to your soul.

Or maybe you're an audible kind of maybe you need to stick something in your ears while you're on a run around the gym or or on a commute.

Can I encourage you to download Holiness by J.C.

Ryle?

Or Knowing God by J.I.

Packer.

And listen to the wisdom of saints who have gone before us.

Pick up the prayer book, believe it or not.

Sing.

Sing old songs.

Sing old songs with difficult words and go home and work out what the difficult words mean.

Why are we raising an Ebenezer?

I thought that he was from a Christmas carol.

You realize, oh no, hold on.

It's a rock.

It's a rock of remembrance.

It helps me to remember every time I sing it that you have brought me to this point, oh Lord, and you will continue with me.

Oh, that's an Ebenezer.

Okay.

The path of wisdom starts behind you.

But there's also, I think, something more inspiring here, Torah, if that wasn't enough.

It's pointing out that wisdom is a multi-generational project.

I want my wiz I want my children to be more wise than I am.

I'm sure that William and Gabby want that.

Or Hector.

We want our children to love Jesus more than we did.

Than we do.

I long for that wisdom to be passed down the generations and to begin the legacy of faith.

It's hard for me to look back at my family line and think, okay, wisdom starts back there.

There's some ways in which it does, because you know, God is gracious to uh to everyone.

But actually, I'm looking forward and thinking, well, I want to create a legacy where where my sons and daughter and my grandsons and granddaughters grow in wisdom and call upon the name of the Lord.

Do you aspire to that?

If not, why not?

We ought to want to have those conversations on down the generations.

To have them look back at us and see us as a saint from whom they have learned, from whom they can carry forward wisdom.

The path of wisdom starts behind you.

Secondly, the path of wisdom will cost you everything.

The path of wisdom, excuse me, will cost you everything.

Verse 5, get wisdom, get insight.

Do not forget, do not turn away from my words of my mouth.

Do not forsake her.

She will keep you.

Love her, and she will guard you.

The beginning of wisdom is this get wisdom.

Whatever you get, get insight.

Don't know whether you saw that when Abby was reading it and thinking, well, that's hardly profound.

Whatever you get, get wisdom.

You can imagine the son kind of looking at his dad going, Great.

The beginning of wisdom is this.

Get wisdom.

Top tip, dad.

Appreciate it.

Thanks.

That's super wise.

But it's also not quite what the dad is saying.

He's saying a couple of things at the same time.

At the first, at the first instance, what the dad is saying is it's a plea to urgency.

It's a kind of get it now.

Start now.

Don't delay.

Don't think, well, I'm quite enjoying the current right now.

I'm just going to keep on drifting.

The dad say, no, it's going to be harder to come back.

Start now.

Don't start dumb in the path of folly with the wind in your back because when you try to turn back, it's going to be harder for you.

Don't delay.

Whatever you do, get wisdom.

Choose it now.

Choose to grow in faith now.

Determine to trust Jesus now.

Choose to make him the center of your life.

Now don't delay.

Do it now.

Zad is also saying, whatever you, whatever else you do, whatever else you get, get wisdom.

The NIV renders it really powerfully, that verse seven, and says, whatever else it costs you, get wisdom.

However much it costs, get it.

Sometimes it can be deeply difficult to follow the path of wisdom.

It will cost you your sleep as you wrestle with the Lord and the best decision to make.

It will cost you your reputation because you'll be seen as different, or because you'll decide not to answer back in order to vindicate yourself.

It will cost you every single one of your preconceived ideas as you seek to bring them into conformity with God's mind.

Every preconceived idea of how the world works.

It will cost you what it means making different choices in terms of what you do and who you love.

Wisdom will cost you, but no matter what it costs, get it.

Don't delay, cling to it.

Clinging to Jesus will cost you.

That you will be exalted, that you will be honored.

Maybe not in this life.

But certainly eternally.

You will be given a life that works, a life that flourishes.

Not a life that's easy, but a life that is secure through every trial.

A life of surpassing worth that continues forever.

The path of wisdom will cost you everything.

But it's entirely worth it.

The Father says to prize wisdom highly, or say, prize her highly, and she will exalt you.

To prize something highly is to see it, to regard it, to desire it as valuable, to see life with Jesus as desirable, as something that your heart wants.

The way down the path of folly, I think, begins by looking at that godly path and thinking, I don't want that.

I don't want loss.

I don't want shame.

I don't want ridicule.

I don't want any of that stuff.

There's a current here.

I'm gonna move way quicker.

Why would I do that?

Your heart's not desiring the right thing.

Your heart's desiring ease rather than meaning, rather than eternal significance, infinite eternal value.

Our hearts are captivated, aren't they, by so many things.

Our desires run here and there, and the Father is saying, Desire wisdom in all this.

And she will keep you forever.

She will keep you on the path, and you will not stumble.

I love that he uses this path language because I'm so glad that wisdom's pursuit is a journey.

If you notice this, we're not, we don't become a Christian, then get immediately zapped with loads of wisdom.

It's something you have to grow in.

It's a process.

One step at a time, one moment at a time, one prayer of perseverance at a time, one weekly recommitment to Christ around his table at a time.

The path of wisdom will cost you everything.

Thirdly, finally, but the path of wickedness will cost you your soul.

The path of wisdom will cost you everything, but the path of wickedness will cost you your soul.

Verses 14 to 18.

Do not enter the path of the wicked, do not walk in the way of evil, avoid it, do not go on it, turn away from it and pass on.

They cannot sleep unless they've done wrong.

They're robbed of sleep until they have made someone stumble, for they eat the bread of wickedness, they drink the wine of violence.

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.

His father knows that the easiest thing sometimes is to lift our feet and to go with the current, to go with the drift.

It's easy, isn't it?

When we're feeling like we want to kind of scream our own vindications and show everybody how right we were.

To envy the wicked their freedom to do whatever they want.

The father says, Don't do it.

Don't do it.

It'll cost you more.

It'll do something.

It'll do something to your soul.

That's what's going on with the sleep and the diet.

Imagine it.

They cannot sleep until they do evil.

Think about it.

I'm sure you like me, if you're a normal person, you have a you have a nighttime routine.

You have a particular pillow arrangement.

There are certain people pillows that you kind of lie on when you're scrolling through Instagram.

And then when it's time to go to sleep, you you rearrange them.

Maybe you're a hugger, right?

You're maybe a two-pillow sort of person, weird.

Maybe you're a one-person, one pillow sort of person.

That's the right answer.

Maybe you flip the pillow over because the cooler side is the better side, right?

There are ways that you wind down.

I imagine if your nighttime routine was like, oh, I didn't do violence to somebody today.

Oh, just can't just can't get to sleep.

Like I know that it doesn't matter how cool the pillow is.

I haven't actually cheated somebody.

I haven't defamed someone.

I haven't done evil to someone.

You laugh, but it's perverse, isn't it?

It's not just that they're doing wrong things, it's that something's happened to them internally that their whole psychology has twisted.

That's saying you go down the path of wickedness.

You gotta be careful, it's gonna do something to your soul.

It's gonna do something inside you.

We lie awake thinking about our anxieties and concerns.

We replay the conversations of our day thinking, oh, I shouldn't have said that.

Oh, I wonder what they think of me now.

Oh, I hope that meeting goes well tomorrow.

They're lying awake thinking, wonder how I can get one over on that person in work tomorrow.

It's awful, isn't it?

For the wicked evil has become so normal, it's like their bedtime routine.

Instead of feeling anxious, they lie awake thinking, how can I do evil to someone?

They don't sleep until their resentment and their corruption is nurtured and fed.

They eat the bread of wickedness, they drink the wine of violence.

It is, it's their stable diet.

It's the thing that they go to every day.

The only thing that gives them peace, that gives them enjoyment, is to win at somebody else's expense.

Father's saying, don't do it.

Wickedness like that becomes compulsive.

It enslaves us.

And we're all open to it.

We know that dark things get nurtured in the darkness, don't they?

And those brooding thoughts and resentments.

Our Lord Jesus knows those dark things that gnaw at us, those sins that seek to ensnare.

And he lovingly, graciously, compassionately says, follow me.

Don't just lift your feet and let that carry you.

Because the place that it's gonna carry you to, it'll destroy you.

Follow me.

Take up your cross, move against the flow.

I know it's gonna be hard, but I'm here, I've got you.

So the father stirs hope in us.

In verse 18, he says, But the righteous, the path of the righteous is like the light of the dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day.

You know, by our own strength we end up in a path of deep darkness, lost, bitter, ashamed, alienated, and alone.

But the Father says there's hope.

The life of the righteous shines brighter than the noonday sun.

This is the promise of Jesus to everyone who would follow him, everyone who would take up their cross and seek to walk after him.

Because he's taken all of the darkness, he's taken your darkness, he's taken the darkness that seeks to consume and gnaw ye.

He's plunged it down into the hell that it deserves.

And so he invites you to walk in a light in a on a path of ever-increasing brightness, of ever-increasing brilliance.

Yeah, we may get lost along the way, but there'll be detours where we think that the easiest thing is just to go with the flow.

But remember the words of Paul.

You began a good work and you will bring it to completion on the day of Christ Jesus.

You weary burdened follower of Jesus are being transformed from one degree of brilliance to another.

And that process will not stop until it shines like the brilliance of the noonday sun and its radiance lights up for everyone to see that though the path was hard and it was against the flow, that it was all behind Savior who beckoned you on and held you through every trial.

Whatever you get, get wisdom.

Do not drift.

Do it now.

Come ye sinner, poor and weary lost and ruined by the fall.

If you tarry till you're better, you will never come at all.

Don't wait to fix yourself up.

Begin the path of wisdom today.

For those of you who are trusting in Jesus, perhaps as we move into a time of reflection and taking the Lord's Supper, you might ask yourself, well, what's one change that I can make this week to pursue wisdom and to learn from Jesus more?

What's one area of my life that I've been reluctant to let Him speak into?

Where can I walk in the path of uprightness?

Is there some ancient wisdom that I can learn from?

What desires are crowding out my desire for wisdom?

In the silence, ask God to help you.

See wisdom in its true value and to cling to it by his grace.

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