The Way of Wisdom 1: Proverbs

I'm not going to go into the Sermon on the Mount today, though. It's always present.

We did that for, I think, three months last year.

But these follow that moment where Jesus is just finished unveiling the upside-down

way of the kingdom, where he has just released this stream of wisdom.

This is what it looks like to be human. This is what the kingdom looks like.

And the kingdom is where heaven and earth meet. The kingdom is where you and

me can truly be human. This is what it looks like. True image bearers of God.

And then he concludes with a picture.

Two builders, two foundations, one storm.

Those who hear these words of mine, those who receive from me and live them, pursue them.

Only two ways to build, my friends. I feel like Lionel Richie when I say that.

Ever watch American Idol? My friend?

Anyways, I just thought of that when I said it.

There's only two ways to build. Jesus' way or man's way.

The way of wisdom or the way of folly.

Jesus doesn't say, hey, here is this just one possibility and a myriad of philosophies

and ideologies to build upon.

No, Jesus, and it's up to you whether or not you receive the words of Jesus

or not as the words of God.

It's up to you whether or not you think what he said is true or if he even said them.

I promise you it is trustworthy what we have delivered to us in the Holy Scriptures.

Don't listen to people who try to lead you in these weird acrobatics of whatever.

It is trustworthy. It's up to you whether you believe it. But if you believe

them, if you're here today because something in you says this is the truth,

then you must hear what he says.

There are not multiple ways to build your life. There are not multiple foundations to build upon.

There is a storm that we all must endure. We all must go through this life, this side of eternity.

But there is only two ways to build, Jesus' way. It's just going to be that kind of day.

Jesus' way or my way, the way of wisdom or the way of folly.

What does it mean to be a Christian? And of course, we spent two years really

unpacking this, but just briefly, does it mean merely being rescued from hell?

It means I get to go to heaven.

Does it mean I'm learning how not to sin?

There's truth in those statements for sure, but they are grossly incomplete

as far as the story, the narrative, the wisdom that is unpacked in the scriptures.

We've reduced faith at times in our Western way of thinking.

I'm not vilifying the West. I'm a Westerner, but we've got to understand we've

at times in the way, post-Enlightenment, post-Industrial Revolution,

we've at times reduced faith.

We've reduced Christianity to utilitarianism.

It's a big word.

Pastor's back he's using big words you've reduced

it to i'll make a smaller utility utilitarianism is

simply viewing things for their use not for their beauty and at times we have

reduced christianity to just simply i'm saved i'm going to heaven i try not

to sin and at times i can go to the scriptures to apply an instrument to this

particular part of my life but it is not the way it works.

Christianity, faith is not a Swiss army knife.

It's not a hammer. It's not a drill. It's not a feature in your house like a

shelf that we can make beautiful, but really it's just utilitarian.

It's there to hold things.

It's not just a way to incorporate God into our overpacked, compartmentalized lives.

Just give me the tool to fit in this particular space.

It's compartmentalized. I got this, this, this, and this. Today,

I just want to figure out how do I use the right tools for this part of my life?

And often, at the same time, keeping those compartments separated into secular and spiritual.

But Jesus calls us into something. The scriptures call us into something.

And Jesus, the revelation in flesh, calls us into something so much more beautiful.

Life in the intersection of heaven and earth.

Not heaven to go to someday, but heaven came to us in Jesus.

And through the Holy Spirit gave us a way to live here in the dirt,

and it's still a broken world, but a life intersecting with the beauty and the

truth and the wisdom of the heavens.

It's a way of being Christianity, not just a way of going with Christianity.

It's a way of being and a way of making, of creating, because we were called

to be creators, as we were always intended.

To be Christian, to be a follower of Jesus, is to be truly human,

the way we were designed to be.

But to be truly human requires something that I want to talk about for the next

few weeks that the scriptures call wisdom, or wisdom and understanding.

I really feel with all my heart to be the church That the world that we live

in in this timeline Needs us to be In this present age In the years that are

here And in the years to come It will require more than a good theology,

More than stellar church meetings,

It will require a community of true Jesus humans Jesus-shaped humans.

Living the reality of heaven in such a way that it shines, as Jesus said earlier

in the Sermon on the Mount, as a city on a hill.

I love theology. I love debating theology. I love stimulating my mind,

but the world doesn't need my mind.

They need the kingdom to shine through my humanity.

But how do I create with the beauty of heaven in my marriage?

I need wisdom. How do I create with the beauty of heaven in my relationships

with my children and now my grandchildren.

How do I do that? How do I live that there?

How do I create something, make something with the beauty of heaven in my work?

Because it's not just spiritual and secular.

My life is supposed to be lived in such a way that I am literally extending

the beauty of the kingdom into every facet of my human experience.

How do I do that in my workplace? I need wisdom.

How do I create with the beauty of wisdom and move with the rhythm of creation?

In a secularized, divisive culture, I need wisdom.

Jesus' death and resurrection, they brought me into proximity.

I brought God's proximity to me.

It didn't just happen so that I can someday go to heaven.

It brought God near. Jesus said, the kingdom is coming near.

Brought me close to the love of God so that I can live in that reality.

But his life and his words and his deeds were the living embodiment of wisdom.

And it showed us what it looks like to be truly human, to move with the rhythm

of creation in the world.

And I think sometimes we forget that. And I've talked a lot about it,

so I won't let you forget.

We get so captivated in the very important, the most important event in human

history, the death and resurrection and ascension of Jesus, that we just reduce

everything about the gospels to that.

When those were the act in history

that canceled the powers in my life and brought me closer to Jesus.

But Jesus didn't say, I'm going to come, I'm going to do this and then just wait.

He invited us to follow him in his way of living because he was the embodiment of true humanity.

The way he lived, what he said, his deeds, they showed us what it looks like

to be truly human and to move with the heavens and the creation and the world.

To have a fuller picture. I'm sorry, I'm just really happy to be here today

I'm taking way longer on my introduction than I planned But to have a fuller

picture of Jesus We cannot separate him from the scriptures,

That have already established the narrative that he lived in Jesus didn't come into a vacuum.

He came into a story already being taught. He came into ideas and concepts already

being developed. It's like a novel.

It's not one story and another story. It's a novel. It's a narrative.

And Jesus comes onto the scene already bursting into a story being told,

and we cannot separate him from the Hebrew Scriptures.

And for the next three weeks, God willing, I want to go to the section of the

Hebrew Scriptures known as wisdom literature.

Now, they didn't label it as such, but biblical scholars over the years,

over the centuries, have placed these particular books in a category called wisdom literature.

Because if we're going to understand what Jesus was embodying,

I think it's important for us to understand the full picture.

And so today, we're going to go to the Proverbs.

Today, we're invited not into utilitarian pragmatism.

I just love saying big words just to make y'all wonder. but we are being invited

through these messages into wrestling with wisdom, into a deeper contemplation

of reality, into wisdom.

Proverbs, are you ready? We live in an age of endless information.

We can Google anything, scroll through everything, and still know nothing,

or at least know nothing that matters when it comes to how to live.

Now you can find a great influencer. My wife loves influencers.

Nothing wrong with that.

Give you good tips on how to decorate your house, how to build something.

But true wisdom, true reality and what it means to live, you're not going to find it there.

In the wisdom books of scripture, they speak into that ache. What is real?

What is wisdom? How do I live in the world as a follower of Christ?

And the wisdom books in the scripture, they speak into that ache.

They say there's a deeper kind of knowing, not the kind that fills your head,

but the kind that forms your heart.

Here's the thing, a Proverbs, I didn't always like them growing up.

I mean, I loved them at times because they're so easy to read.

You can read one chapter in Proverbs and you've read just a myriad of amazing statements.

But I always read them, another big word, didactively.

Like, I'm just supposed to read these. And okay, this one means this.

This one means that. I need to do this. I've got to do that.

But wisdom literature is not like that. It's not written that way. It's actually poetry.

The Proverbs that you're reading as just a how-to manual, they're actually less

a manual and they're more poetry.

And the Hebrew word for wisdom, which Proverbs is all about, is chakma.

Sounds like Klingon. And it means simply skillful living.

It's the art of living well in God's world. It doesn't just mean you know things.

It means you know how to handle things skillfully.

That's why it always says wisdom and understanding. I need understanding and

I need wisdom to know how to skillfully take what I've now understood and use

it to live in creation, live in the world. the art of living well in God's world.

Eugene Peterson, one of my favorite writers, and I'll quote from him a few times

today, a few of my favorites.

He once wrote, wisdom is the art of living skillfully in whatever actual conditions we find ourselves.

That's what Proverbs invites us into. Not formulas for success,

because we often read them that way, utilitarian.

These are formulas. These are equations. These are promises.

You just got to do this and you get that.

They're not formulas for success, but they are formation for the soul,

for finding God's rhythm in our actual life.

Proverbs opens like this. I'm only going to read a few parts of Proverbs,

all from the first nine books of Proverbs, because Proverbs starts out with

these nine books, these nine chapters, I should say.

Bunch of speeches from the father to his son.

Lady Wisdom speaks. And all these speeches and the opening of Proverbs,

it is unleashing or it is unveiling, it is laying out what the rest of the book

is supposed to be about, what you were supposed to do with this book,

how this book is supposed to work.

And Proverbs 1 starts out like this, the Proverbs of Solomon,

son of David, king of Israel.

Now just full disclosure, Samuel, or Samuel, sorry, Solomon,

probably did not write all of these proverbs. In fact, some of them are attributed to other people.

But Solomon in wisdom literature in the Hebrew tradition was the archetype of

wisdom because we know in his story, or maybe you don't, that he was David's

son. He was the second king of Israel.

And God came to him in a dream one time and said, because you've honored me,

I want to give you whatever you asked for.

And all Solomon said is give me wisdom, give me discernment,

give me the ability to rule wisely the people that you've entrusted to me.

And it says that he was the wisest man in the world.

The story talks about people coming from all over the world because of his wisdom.

And it says he wrote many Proverbs and songs and poems. And so he's kind of

the archetype of wisdom.

He wrote a lot of these. Doesn't matter, though.

Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel. For gaining wisdom and instruction.

For understanding words of insight.

For receiving instruction in prudent behavior. Doing what is right and just and fair.

For giving prudence to those who are simple. knowing and discretion to the young.

If you're young here today, I plead with you, read the Proverbs,

but read them in the way we're gonna learn today.

Let the wise listen and add to their learning. If you're wise here today,

which means old, I plead with you, learn to read the Proverbs,

learn to read the scriptures.

Wisdom literature is all over the scriptures. It's in the New Testament as well.

It's not just a small section in the Old Testament.

The wise listen and add to their learning and let the discerning get guidance

for understanding proverbs and parables, the sayings and riddles of the wise.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

First, before we can try to understand what wisdom is, because that's kind of

what I want to do today, because it's kind of what the opening of Proverbs is

trying to get us to get a grasp of. But before we can learn what it is,

first, we've got to understand where it is.

All wisdom begins in the fear of the Lord.

How do I get a boyfriend? Wisdom for how to live your life begins in the fear

of the Lord. How do I get a good job?

Wisdom, insight in the way to move in God's world begins in the fear of the Lord.

Now, fear of the Lord is kind of a complicated phrase and you hear it and we've

always tried to explain it in this, but it does not mean terror.

It means reverence. To simply put it means worship.

It's a deep realization that God is God and we are not.

Wisdom must begin. with the revelation, the realization, the understanding that God is God.

There are some things I will never understand about him, but he is God. He created all of this.

He designed me. He designed the world.

He sits on his throne and he is God. And I am not.

And T. Wright, my all-time favorite writer, puts it this way.

He says, the beginning of wisdom is worship, not because God needs it, but because we do.

Because worship reorders the world. Augustine said worship is reordered love.

Worshiping God says you are God. And so all of the things that I have in me,

all of the humanity, all of the desires, they were given by you and they must

be ordered the way you said they are to be ordered.

And the fear of the Lord where wisdom begins says you are God and I am not.

All that I am, I bring to you in humility.

Because when you live in reverence, you live awake. When you live in the fear

of the Lord, you live with this kind of eyes wide open, awake.

You see holiness in the ordinary, grace in the mundane, and you realize that

every decision, every word, every moment belongs to God.

Third author of the day, Ronald Rollheiser. He says this, maturity is learning

to live in gratitude and trust, even when we don't yet understand.

That's the fear of the Lord. That's wisdom, humility that leads to peace. You are God and I am not.

We're going to learn next week about Ecclesiastes, and then after that about Job.

And all of them begin and end in some way with Fear the lord Worship the lord

And all that you do What is wisdom though?

Some ways to define it are the ability to discern My father always defined it

as insight into the true nature of things The hebrew as we have already learned

means skillful All of them really saying the same thing And that's all true

Those are all good decent definitions,

Good decent utilitarian definitions perhaps.

But Proverbs gives us a deeper understanding.

Those things are true. Those definitions are true. But Proverbs,

which is wisdom literature, which is literature designed to make you stop and

think about what was just said,

it gives us this deeper and fuller understanding of what wisdom means.

In Proverbs 3, the writer says, Blessed are those who find wisdom,

those who gain understanding, for she is more profitable than silver and yields

better returns than gold.

She's more precious than rubies.

Nothing you desire can compare with her. Now, these things are kind of abstract

to us. We don't really desire rubies.

We don't think much about gold, but we think about other things that we desire.

Wealth, fame, whatever it may be, relationships, status.

She's more precious than all of them. Long life is in her right hand.

In her left hand are riches and honor.

Her ways are pleasant ways. I'm here to tell you that studying Proverbs and wisdom, it's pleasant.

Some of you have read some of you said, well, this is not pleasant because it's

telling me things I don't want to do. It's pleasant when you yield to wisdom. Sorry.

And all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her.

Those who hold her fast will be blessed by wisdom. This is the part I want to get to right now.

By wisdom, the Lord laid the earth's foundations.

By understanding, he set the heavens in place.

By his knowledge, the watery depths were divided in the clouds.

Let drop the dew, bringing us back to creation, to Genesis 1, which is also a poem.

Doesn't make it not true. Poetry is actually sometimes the most true.

Writer of Genesis poetically unleashes and unpacks the beauty of how God created

and brought order, comes to chaos, comes to watery wilderness,

and by his word, by, as it says right here, his wisdom,

brings order to chaos.

Earlier in Proverbs in chapter 2, we're introduced to lady wisdom.

I love the wisdom literature because it always introduces these characters,

this father figure, maybe Solomon, maybe a figure that he's writing as because

it's poetry, then Lady Wisdom.

And earlier in Proverbs 2, it talks about her calling and beckoning on the street

corners, calling out to anyone who will listen and those who don't listen.

You're heading to death. If you listen to me, I'm leading you to life.

But then also in chapter 8, she speaks and she says this, the Lord brought me

forth as the first fruit of his works.

Before his deeds of old, I was formed long ages ago at the very beginning when the world came to be.

When there were no watery depths, I was given birth.

When there were no springs overflowing with water, before the mountains were

settled in place, before the hills, I was given birth.

Before he made the world or its fields or any of the dust of the earth, I was given birth.

I was there when he set the heavens in place,

when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep, when

he established the clouds above the fixed and fixed

securely the fountains of the deep when he gave the

sea its boundary so the waters would not overlap his command and when he marked

out the foundations of the earth then i was constantly at his side i was filled

with delight day after day rejoicing always in his presence rejoicing in his

whole world and delighting in mankind now then my children listen to me,

blessed are those who keep my ways now again this is poetry.

We believe God breathed poetry. And here wisdom we see is woven into creation,

but not just woven into it.

Here it is actually described as the instrument that God uses to create,

to bring order out of chaos.

If we approach wisdom from our often utilitarian way of seeing, we miss the beauty of it.

And like I said before, it becomes more like a hammer.

Wisdom is more than a hammer driving a nail Here it's described more like The

paintbrush in the hand of the artist.

Wisdom doesn't just get stuff done Wisdom creates,

More like the chisel in the hand of a sculptor A chisel by itself could just

be utilitarian to break up some rocks But in the hand of an artist It is an

instrument of beauty to create As a musician,

I can truly connect to this reality as the instrument bringing forth the melody

and the words constructing the song of a beautiful melody, of a beautiful song.

The instrument by itself, it's utilitarian if it's just there to get a job done,

but in the hands of a creator.

Come on. And to see wisdom. Let me just give you a second As we talk about wisdom

If you want to see wisdom You need only take a moment This season,

my favorite season For a little while.

Fall, and watch how the trees this season, how they shed their leaves,

and it looks like a way of dying, but a way of dying that brings life.

That, my friends, is the wisdom of the Creator. Or watch how the sun rises and

sets on the earth as the earth spins at just the right tilt on its axis to warm

and cool and bring light and night.

That, my friends, is God's wisdom.

Whatever it is that brings you joy. Watch how the deer run in front of your car. That's not wisdom.

Obviously part of the broken world when they run in front of your car.

But just look at creation. Take a moment, step outside, and you'll see that is wisdom.

And when we take that imagery forward and we apply it to our own pursuit of

wisdom and understanding, it becomes more than good advice, more than better judgment,

and it becomes the instrument of creation in our own lives.

The way of being, the only way to bring orders to the chaos that sin has wrought in our lives.

The only way that we work with God to move in peace, beauty, and life.

Look at the trees and then go to wisdom and realize that wisdom isn't just there

to make you smarter. It is there as God's instrument of transformation and creation in your life.

The work of Jesus did not just fix my leaky pipes.

I have a torrid relationship, torrid relationship with leaky pipes.

Just yesterday as we were laying the floor in the trailer, getting ready for.

Even the kids to move back, and somebody had put trim, you know,

molding around the floor. You know what I'm talking about?

Where your baseboard, I mean, you pull it out often, the nail stays in the wall.

And so we're getting ready for that section.

Making so much progress for the first time all week.

And I pull out a nail that was still in the wall that somebody put into a pipe,

but didn't know because the nail kept the pipe from leaking.

And when I pulled that nail out, there was a fountain, but not of life,

of just dirty sulfur water.

Fixed it, but I'm not a plumber. And there's definitely a better way to fix it.

But the work of Jesus, again, sometimes we make it very utilitarian or very pragmatic.

He came, he died so that I'm not going to be killed because God has to punish

somebody. He came and now I can go to heaven.

He fixed my leaky pipes.

And there's truth in that, but it is so, so, so far from the story.

Jesus did not just fix my leaky pipes.

The work of Jesus did not just fix me. It gave me access to wisdom and understanding,

not just to fix my pipes, but to understand why they're there to begin with, how the pipes work.

Here's another picture that I found beautiful as I'm reading a book right now

called, if you're interested, it's called Faith in Art, The Theology of Making.

The author talks about an ancient Japanese tradition of kintsuji The art of

taking broken porcelain Which is characteristically items used in serving tea

And by using this golden material used to repair it And with that,

make something completely different and more beautiful out of these pieces Jesus

didn't just come to fix my pipes He came to give me access to wisdom He came

to remake me into something beautiful,

He came to lead me into life, and to walk in life requires wisdom.

The end of Lady Wisdom's speech says, Listen to my instruction and be wise. Do not disregard it.

Blessed are those who listen to me, watching daily at my doors, waiting at my doorway.

For those who find me find life and receive favor from the Lord.

But those who fail to find me harm themselves. All who hate me love death.

And this is poetry. We know you're somebody may be saying, oh,

but I have favor in Christ. Absolutely.

This is poetry. It's painting a picture. And it is pre-Christ.

But the wisdom in it is, if we pursue wisdom, the instrument of creation, we find life.

But if we choose our own way, whatever it may be, excess, drunkenness.

Relationships, workaholic, whatever it may be, fame, chasing your dreams,

whatever it may be that is not wisdom it is folly and she says here in her words

those who hate me love death.

Ruler said reality is what you can count on

to be there whether you believe it or not

and wisdom my friends is that reality it is the grain of the universe and to

live wisely is to live with the grain and to live foolishly is to go against

it but the only way to live with it is to get it,

if you ever run your hand across a piece of wood you can feel the direction of the grain,

And when you cut with the grain, the surface that is produced is smooth and

you have a board that can be used to create something.

But if you cut against the grain, the board splinters.

And that's what sin and pride do. They splinter our souls.

But wisdom through the Holy Spirit, through the work of Christ,

leads us to formation, to beauty, to life.

Wisdom invites us back into alignment with how God actually made things to be.

Proverbs also, in these opening verses, gives us a picture a few different times

of what I'll call anti-wisdom, anti-creation, de-creation.

What it looks like when we follow after that which is not wisdom,

when we choose to follow after, as the Hebrew Bible says from day one or book

one in Genesis, they followed after what was right in their own eyes. Right?

Somebody say, I think it was Sharon Hody Miller, the worst thing that has ever

happened to the word truth is when we put the word my in front of it.

And Proverbs gives us a picture as well as what it looks like to live pursuing

wisdom, the life that it leads you into.

It also shows us what it looks like when you don't. How long,

it says in Proverbs 122, will you who are simple love your simple ways?

And simple here is not talking about the stupid, what an idiot.

It's talking about simple, devoid of wisdom, devoid of God's way and full of your own way.

How long will you who are simple love your simple ways?

How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge?

Repent at my rebuke, then I will pour out my thoughts to you.

I will make known to you my teachings. But since you refuse to listen when I

call and no one pays attention when I stretch out my hand,

since you disregard all my advice and do not accept my rebuke,

I turn and turn will laugh when disaster strikes you.

I will mock when calamity overtakes you, when calamity overtakes you like a

storm, when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelm you.

Then you will call to me, but I will not answer.

Then you will look for me, but not find me, since you hated knowledge and did

not choose to fear the Lord. Now that's a little rough.

Since they would not accept my advice and spurn my rebuke, they will eat the

fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes.

For the waywardness of the simple will kill them and the complacency of fools

will destroy them but whoever listens to me will live in safety without fear

of harm now this is poetry do not forget because i can see you i didn't want

to look you in the eye when i was reading that.

Couldn't anyways because I was reading it, but I didn't want to think of your eyes.

This is poetry. It's using imagery. This is not literal language.

Be careful when reading Proverbs. There are some literal, very practical truths, but it is poetry.

This is not saying God is laughing at you when calamity strikes because you didn't listen. Ha ha!

I told you so! Isn't that what this is talking about.

This is bringing the stark realization that time on earth is finite.

And when it is gone, it is gone.

Because this is not God saying, I will mock you. It is saying wisdom mocks you.

It is saying it is going to be a time when it is too late.

You have chosen your way.

We only have today to choose wisdom over our own way.

What we sow, we will reap. What we build on will be revealed after it is built.

You will either stand or fall, as Jesus said with a loud crash.

It's not God laughing at you. It's God saying, take wisdom when you can.

The farther you get in your own way, the farther away you get from me.

And I'm here calling to you, saying, choose wisdom, choose life.

And there will come a time, no matter how young you are, and you think I've

got plenty of time to change my ways.

You never know when what you built will be finished and what you have is what you built.

And you only have two choices, wisdom or folly, life or death.

Alive today, whatever age you are, there's still time to say, I choose life.

I choose God's way. I choose to live in the love that was paid.

Such a price was paid for me to live in.

Not to just love it and have it, but to live in it and from it,

to allow that love to bring me to a place of wisdom where God's active instrument

of creation is remaking me into somebody

that reveals the goodness and the faithfulness and the love of God.

But we only have two choices, and they do not mingle.

They do not mingle. They're not co-laborers in your field.

Weeds and flowers perhaps coexist, but they don't co-labor.

And weeds are working to conquer your flowers.

You only have two ways. They don't work together. Choose wisdom,

or choose folly, choose life or death.

As we bring this to a close, how do we get wisdom? Well,

if you came today hoping I'd land on a very simple, easy three-point exit part

of the message where now I know exactly how to get wisdom.

How wisdom literature works. First and foremost, though, for us,

this side of the cross, we get wisdom by following Jesus,

by following Jesus into what he purchased for us, by choosing to receive the

gift that was given by his actions and by his resurrection and his ascension.

Jesus made a way to love, and that is a finished work.

And now that love is inviting us into the way of flourishing,

the way of healing, the way of creating, the way of our human purpose,

inviting us into wisdom.

Paul calls Jesus the wisdom of God in 1 Corinthians 1 and Colossians 1.

In a beautiful poem, Poetic Prayer, he talks about Jesus being the wisdom of God.

In the opening of John's gospel, we read, In the beginning was the word of God,

and by him all things that are made were made, making him the wisdom that is

spoken about in Proverbs.

And by him, all things that were made were made. And the word,

it says, became flesh and dwelt among us.

And that word, logos, the word, the logos, means not just a spoken word,

because we often say God spoke, he did.

But that word logos doesn't mean spoken word alone.

It means the creative power of something or someone.

So more than just God said it, but more like God breathed it like a poem.

He created something beautiful in Jesus the scriptures tell us is that wisdom

and Jesus that says wisdom puts on flesh and dwells among us he shows us in

flesh what it means to live fully aligned with the father to love to listen

to serve to surrender this is what it means to be human in God's good creation.

We have the Holy Spirit, the helper, the other part of the Trinity.

If you like that language or Trinitarian understanding, it's a man-made term,

Godhead, whatever you want to call it.

The scriptures give us this really complex mystery.

But with that comes the Holy Spirit. And Jesus said, I will send to you.

When I go to the Father, I will send to you another helper.

And it's this word another means another piece of me, another like me.

I will send a part of me and he will come and he will live in you at the moment

that you choose to follow me.

And he came onto the scene, into the earth in Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

And all of those who put their faith in Jesus, who choose Jesus.

Choose to step into the work that was finished and into the journey of wisdom,

the Holy Spirit is part of that.

And the readers of the Proverbs before, they could learn from the Proverbs.

And they did learn and they wrestled with them. But now we have not just the

ability to read something and learn, but we actually have the author of them living inside of us,

taking the words that we read and making them alive in us to remake us and move through us.

That, my friends, is something that we must never forget.

The same spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in my mortal body.

It quickens my mortal body. It means it's making my humanity into something

new in something beautiful.

And we must learn if we are going to be the Christians that the world needs

to practice the awareness of the spirit in us,

to learn how to slow down and to let the artist speak to and through us, to experience wisdom,

not just learn about it. And that, my friends, is a work of the Holy Spirit.

The theologian, Carl Rayner, he once said, the Christian of the future will

be a mystic or he will not exist.

Now that sounds weird. Mystic, does that mean we're practicing witchcraft and

that we're getting into it?

That's just a big term that covers a whole lot of things. And what he meant

simply by it meant that Christianity must be a lived experience beyond church

walls and theological debates.

It must be something that we experience.

Wisdom is not something we know, is something we experience.

Eugene Peterson said, wisdom is not about knowing more. It's about living deeper.

So we need Jesus if we want wisdom. We need the Holy Spirit.

And third, we've got to seek it.

Proverbs 4, 7 says, the beginning of wisdom is this, get wisdom.

It costs you all you have, get understanding.

Jesus invited those who follow him to leave everything, though it costs you everything, follow me.

He said, pick up your cross, die with me, die to yourself. But he also said, it's the path of life.

Come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Wisdom is not something, Christianity is not just a one and done thing.

Yes, if you just want to die right, fine, and make it one and done.

But if you want to live into the fullness of what it means to be human,

to what it means to be you, then you must pursue, seek wisdom.

That's something that's one and done. It's a perpetual, lifelong journey of transformation.

It must be sought after, no matter the cost.

But what if getting wisdom means I have to lose something that I really like?

What we've already learned Is we've unpacked what wisdom is That wisdom is the

thing that leads you to life Everything else Leads you somewhere else,

So get wisdom Whatever the cost It's a lifelong journey of transformation Not

just your spiritual life Because scripture does not give us That kind of dualistic

framework That I got my work life,

my family life My relaxing out life And then I got my church life Yeah.

3, 5, and 6 says this, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on

your own understanding in all your ways.

Submit to him. Some translations say acknowledge him and he will make your path straight.

How do you get wisdom? You follow Jesus. You live in the reality and the realization

that you have the Holy Spirit in you, peace of God living in you.

And then with that, you make yourself available for it to change you by seeking

after wisdom in every area of your life.

You learn how to read the scriptures, the written revelation of God.

Oh, a man wrote it. It was written all these translations, all these things got wrong.

That's ridiculous, and that's not true. It's reliable. You don't have to believe it, but it's reliable.

It's time-tested, centuries-tested, closely

guarded as it's been transcribed and communicated learn how to read the scriptures

but don't just learn how to read them to get it done learn how to read them

slowly learn how to pray learn how to ask god in every moment in any given time

in your life for wisdom james.

Which very much reads like the proverbs in the sermon on the mount james if

you're going to read a book in the old new testament read the gospels read any

of them they're all great but if you're looking for wisdom, just literally just,

I want to take a moment to just settle into wisdom.

Some people don't like James. Some reformers think that was written after Paul,

before Paul, and Paul came and cleared everything up.

That's ridiculous. That's not true.

James literally is riffing on Jesus' words, the only one in the New Testament

that actually takes his words that are recorded, that we have recorded after he said them.

And his wisdom reads very much like Proverbs. And he says this,

if any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God who gives generously to all without

finding fault, and it will be given to you.

How do you get wisdom? You seek it.

You pursue it. You chase after it. You ask for it.

Is found as we wrestle with it, but wrestle with it primarily in community.

One of my favorite verses, I've read it a million times, Hebrews 10,

23, let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess.

For he who promised is faithful and let us consider how we may spur one another

on towards love and good deeds.

Let us wrestle together, not giving up, meeting together as some are in the

habit of doing, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day approaching.

It's about being here when we gather and so much more.

Wisdom grows in conversation. The scripture tells us this as they give the Torah

and Deuteronomy and talks about, tell these to your children,

talk about them as you go, discuss them.

This is wisdom for life.

Wisdom grows in conversation, grows in confession. We learned about that confession and community.

It grows in confession and it grows in community.

Because here's the thing. This is the only way we can truly wrestle with wisdom

because the Proverbs, I hate to tell you, they're not equations,

but I did this and this was supposed to happen.

They're invitations to wrestle. They do tell us what true, living truly the

way God called us to live is what it looks like, but we also live in a fallen world.

And so at times we've got to wrestle. We've got to talk about the things that

God is doing in our lives, the things that we're going through.

We've got to hold on together in worship.

When we pray not just for our own wisdom, but learning to pray for others' wisdom.

How do I have wisdom for this person's situation, God? Give me wisdom, Father.

Help me speak into what they're going through. Help me bring,

create something beautiful from the heavens in this situation that they're going through.

It's where we choose not to live in secrecy, in isolation, but together in secrecy.

You can go ahead and stand up. This message for you this morning and next week

as we go to Ecclesiastes, here in Proverbs, we get Lady Wisdom and we get,

this is the way to the good life.

And then Ecclesiastes, we get the cynic.

He says, even when I did everything right, life is hard and doesn't make sense.

How do you have wisdom then? But this message and these messages to come, they're not TED Talks.

This is an invitation.

And I would ask you this week, I would just encourage you,

take time this week to slow down and maybe slowly read, maybe just the first

nine chapters in Proverbs.

Read whatever you want. Any scripture is good.

But just read the first nine chapters of Proverbs slowly.

Don't just look for information, but ask the Holy Spirit to give you understanding

and wisdom. Think about them. Pray through them.

Talk about it with your family or a member of this church. Talk about it. Wrestle with it.

Bring any issue that's going on in your life this week.

Wisdom bring it to God this week in prayer not just

asking God for a solution but asking him for wisdom because

wisdom doesn't always bring a quick solution sometimes

it just brings understanding as we go through things this

is what I'm trying to do in you as you go through this so ask God of whatever

it is you may be going through so your Lord give me wisdom your word tells me

but if I need wisdom I can ask choose the pursuit of wisdom partner with God

as his image bearers, as his creators.

Can we just pray this morning?

Lord, teach us the way of wisdom, the skill of living well in your world.

Lead us into the journey of healing and life.

Align our hearts with your rhythm. Show us where we're out of rhythm, Lord.

Sometimes we don't know and your grace just moves with us kindly and gently.

But we don't just want to move with a hitch to our giddy-up, Father.

We yield to your hand and to your wisdom to show us the areas that are out of rhythm.

Through your love and your grace, align our hearts with that rhythm,

with our choices, with your truth, our minds, with your peace.

Through Jesus, the wisdom of God, we pray.

Amen. Come on, somebody say amen this morning.