Wisdom Starts Here

I would invite you with just that much enthusiasm to turn

with me to the book of Proverbs, Proverbs chapter 1.

Proverbs 1 · chapter mention

I want to talk to a few different groups of people

today, kids who didn't go to children's church.

Look at me. Kids, I want to talk to you for

a second today. Kids, there are a lot of really

good things in this world, right?

Play sets and ice cream and campfires and Sunday school and

summer camp and swimming pools. There's a lot of good things in

this world, right? There's also a lot of bad things

in this world, aren't they? There's a lot of what the Bible

calls wicked things in this world.

So how do we do what's right in a world that's gone so wrong?

Kids, how do we know who should be our friend?

How do we talk to each other? How should we treat our parents,

mom and dad? What are good words that build

other people up? What are bad words that tear

people down? Kids, listen to me.

Proverbs is for you. I want to speak to the average

Joe or average Jane here this morning.

You've grown up in church, your Sunday regular.

You're not a criminal, but you really aren't a devoted follower

of Jesus either. The term nominal or cultural

Christian would best describe you.

You've never made a commitment to following God wholeheartedly.

You have one foot in and 1 foot out, and your life shows it.

Your relationships are strained, You're a regular rider on the

struggle bus, and you want help. Proverbs is for you.

I also want to speak to what I would call the teachable person.

You are done trying to get life advice from social media.

There aren't enough Tik Toks or YouTube Shorts for you to figure

out your life. Maybe you're a young adult and

you're wanting to get married. You're ready to get married and

you need to know who to marry, when to marry, and what that

should look like. You're teachable.

You want to learn social skills. You want to learn to have skills

in your relationship with God, but also in your relationship

with other people. Proverbs is for you.

See, Proverbs is a book for all of us.

And I realized I don't have my clicker, Travis.

It's on the other pulpit. Thank you, Sir.

And so for the next 11 weeks, this summer, we are going to

study the book of Proverbs together.

Proverbs is a book unlike any other book in your Bible.

It contains so much wisdom in so many different areas and speaks

to so many groups of people all at the same time.

So today we're only going to really study the 1st 7 verses of

Proverbs, but we're going to look at a lot of other Proverbs

throughout this series as well. And even today, if you're one of

those people, I'm just going to, I'm just going to soften the

conscience. If you are somebody that needs

to take notes or look up absolutely every reference

that's on the screen, you're going to find yourself pretty

frustrated this summer. OK, Proverbs has hundreds of

proverbs, hundreds of sayings and they go together.

And unlike most books where you start at chapter 1, verse one

and go all the way through to the end, we're going to be

jumping around a lot, a lot, but we're going to learn together.

First, let's start with the background of Proverbs or the

we'd call this the basics of Proverbs.

Look at chapter 1, verse one of Proverbs.

It says the Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel.

So first we're going to stop and look what kind of book is

Proverbs. The fancy term for that is what

genre? You know what genre is.

It's like different categories. My wife and I are notorious for

having different tastes in movies.

She likes movies that you don't have to pay careful attention to

a ton of plot twists, especially at 10 O clock at night when

she's tired. I like the whodunits and they

got to watch closely. We I like dumb sitcoms from the

90s. We actually found one we like

together. Home improvement.

That's what we're watching right now, but we rarely like the same

what we'd call genres of movies. Well, the Bible has different

genres of different categories too.

You have the law. That's pretty straightforward,

right? First five books.

It's the history of the world in the early generations of the

church. You have the law, thou shalt,

thou shalt not. You have the Gospels, the story

of Jesus in his ministry, and it reads like a story.

Once Upon a time Jesus went to Galilee and he healed somebody

and he said this. You have letters in the New

Testament. Paul writes to a specific church

or to a person. You have Peter writing to

dispersed Christians. You have prophecies that says

thus says the Lord, and it's a prophecy about something that's

going to happen in the future to the nation of Israel.

But Proverbs is different than all that.

It's what we'd call wisdom literature.

Wisdom literature would be the following books of the Bible,

Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and there's some wisdom sprinkled

throughout the Psalms. If you notice in the Proverbs,

it doesn't have a lot of names and dates.

It's not historical. It was written in history, but

it doesn't mention Abraham, it doesn't mention Israel's

history, and it doesn't mention Israel's covenants.

It these are proverbs, They were written because somebody under

the inspiration of the Holy Spirit observed creation,

observed the world through the lens of God and his people.

And so the form would be just that, a proverb.

You guys know what a proverb is, right?

It's been so funny this last week when I'm studying proverbs

and trying to think of what are some common proverbs we use

today. I hear them everywhere, all the

time. Here are some I just heard this

week. Not everything that glitters is

gold. Have you heard that one?

How about this one? This is needed for me because

I'm not very handy. Measure twice, cut once, right?

For me, it should be measured 3 or 4 times.

How about this? Loose lips sink ships, also

known as snitches, get stitches, but we don't do that one as much

either. How about this one?

It's not what you know, it's who you know, right?

He's not here, so I can tell. Pastor Jake said there was one

in his family. We were having coffee yesterday,

talking. I was mentioning my sermon.

He goes, I got 1 in his family. There's this proverb, if you're

going to be dumb, you at least got to be tough.

Or here's another one. People don't care what you know

until they know what you that you care.

So proverbs are helpful because they're usually short, you know,

to memorize. It's not like the preamble to

the Constitution. They're short, they're catchy,

they roll off the tongue, and they're easily quotable.

So here's the definition of a proverb, A biblical proverb,

like what we're going to be studying this summer.

This is a proverb. It's a poetic, pithy saying that

instructs those who fear God. So it's a poetic pithy saying.

It's something short, sweet, memorable that instructs those

who fear God. And we're going to unpack what

it means to fear God. Well, who's the author?

Well, it says right there, chapter one, verse 1, the

proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel.

So Solomon composed directly probably 95% of the proverbs in

the book of Proverbs, Solomon is the son of David.

Remember, King Saul was the first king of Israel, but he

turned his heart from the Lord and then God chose David to be

King. David sin in some big ways, but

generally speaking, he feared God, He followed God.

He had Solomon, Solomon's the third king of Israel.

When given the chance to ask God for anything in the world, he

said give me wisdom, give me a heart of wisdom.

And So what we have here are Solomon's wisdom put down in

Proverbs. But he's not the only author of

the book of Proverbs. Look at what it says in Proverbs

25. One.

This is how a different section of Proverbs is introduced.

These also are Proverbs of Solomon, which the men of

Hezekiah, king of Judah copied. So these are the next section

going from chapters 25 to 29 of Proverbs are still Solomon, but

they were written by the men of Hezekiah.

Hezekiah was a king. Israel had some bad kings, but

Hezekiah was a king. That said, you know what?

I think we should go back and read God's word and you should

go back and study the kings that actually, you know, followed God

and worshiped God the way that he wanted them to.

So the men of Hezekiah, 300 years after Solomon, collected

more Proverbs and recorded those for us in Scripture.

We also have an author called Ager.

You see that in Proverbs 30, verse one, the words of Edgar,

son of Jake the Oracle. So we don't know much about this

Edgar. He's probably somebody that

served in the King's court and he wrote down.

If you read Proverbs 30, they're really interesting.

It says stuff like 3 things I say to you, yes, 4 things are

true and says that over and over again.

Just a fun, you know, unique way to capture wisdom.

And then Proverbs 31 says this, the words of King Lemuel, an

Oracle that his mother taught him.

So we don't know who this King Lemuel was.

He was not an Israelite king as perhaps an Egyptian or a

Babylonian. He recorded more proverbs that

his mother taught him. Isn't that cool?

A mother's wisdom recorded for us in Scripture.

And then you had somebody who collected all of these proverbs

together and recorded them and preserved for them in Scripture.

So all of them are God's word, but they have different authors.

Well, who are the proverbs primarily written to you?

Another way to say this is who's the audience?

We'll look at Proverbs 8, Proverbs 1/8 with me.

What are the first 3 words? My Bible.

My Bible says this. Hear my son, your Father's

instruction. You see this over and over

again. Flip over with me real quick.

Chapter 2, verse one. How does it start?

My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments

with you, look at chapter 3, verse one, My son, do not forget

my teaching. Chapter 4, verse 10.

Hear my son and accept my words. So a proverbs primarily written

like a father to a son. Raise your hand if you are a son

today. Good.

How many of you? It's been a while since you were

a boy in your mom or dad's house?

How many of you needed fatherly? Wisdom said short, sweet and to

the point. How some of we could say this

way. How many of you need a tough

love? Where are my sons who are

currently living in the house with their parents?

I'm primarily looking at like, this row right here.

The speeds, you guys, Raymond, Mav Morgan, you need the wisdom

that your dad gives you because your dad was once a boy and your

dad did dumb things, foolish things.

You might even know some of those stories.

My girls know some of my dumb Jared stories.

Well, it's like chapter 1 of about 6.

We need the wisdom as sons, but it's not just sons, it's

daughters too. For example, Proverbs 31 written

about the virtuous woman said King Lemuel learned from his

mother and she had to learn that, right?

She wasn't just born with that wisdom.

So when you read Proverbs through the lens that this is a

father writing to his son, a lot of those proverbs make sense.

This is a father wanting to instill wisdom and instruction

in his children, in his sons. So then chapter 1, verses 2

through 6 there in Proverbs give us the basics, the basics

through the background and then the basics.

The basics are this. First, Proverbs are written to

develop moral skill. We're going to use that word a

ton this summer, the word skill, because I think that captures

the idea of wisdom so well. Proverbs 1/2 says to know wisdom

and instruction, to know wisdom and instruction.

When the Bible talks about knowing, this is deep personal

knowledge. He's saying this is I don't want

you just to know about wisdom. I want you to know wisdom, for

example, I am a sports geek, not as much as my brother, but I'm a

sports geek. And you could say this, hey, do

you know Charles Barkley? Like, yeah, you know, went to

Auburn, hates Alabama, drafted by the 76ers, played one season

with Doctor J, has stint with the 76ers, the Round Mound of

Rebound. Yeah.

And now he's like in all those Capital One commercials that

just get in your brain like an ear worm and can never get out.

They talks like those are terrible.

That's my Charles Barkley impression.

That's all we're going to do today.

I could say I know Charles Barkley.

Do I actually know Charles Barkley?

No. My home church up in Waterloo,

there's missionaries who ministered in Philadelphia.

Generally they had Charles Barkley in their house.

He would sit on their floor and play board games with them and

their kids. I know Charles Barkley.

They know Charles Barkley. That's what progress is written.

Not just you know about wisdom. It's not don't think like game

show and knowing the answers to trivia questions.

We're talking about knowing wisdom personally.

Wisdom speaks to masterful understanding or skill.

Wisdom is used in Exodus 28. Moses was to call all the

skilled men to whom I've given wisdom to build the Tabernacle.

Do you know that wisdom was actually used of sorcerers in

Egypt in the time of Moses? They were called Egyptian

magicians, and it says they had wisdom to conjure up all of

these things. It's a reminder that you can

have skill, but it's bad. There's the wisdom to governor,

to administrate First. Kings 328 says Solomon saw all

that. He has, saw that he has wisdom

from God to administer justice. So when Solomon said God, I want

to have wisdom, he wanted to have that skill in

administrating and leading the nation of Israel.

Sometimes wisdom's talked about encyclopedic knowledge.

You know, some of those people are just a walking, talking

encyclopedia. Kids will tell, tell you later

what an encyclopedia is. They just have all the facts.

This is what First Kings 433 and 34 says.

He, Solomon spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon to

the hyssop that grows out of the wall.

He spoke also of beasts and of birds and of reptiles and of

fish. And people of all nations came

to hear the wisdom of Solomon and from all the kings of the

earth who had heard of his wisdom.

That's one way the Bible uses wisdom.

It's the another way it's to use the ability to answer questions.

A queen of Sheba comes and travels a long way because she's

hearing this man Solomon is wise, and she asks him some of

the most difficult questions, philosophy, and he answers

those. But what we understand

throughout the Bible and the book of Proverbs is that wisdom

is based on knowledge. Wisdom is based on knowledge.

You have to know what is true and what is real and how it

corresponds, and you have to get that wisdom from somewhere.

And you have the wisdom, the knowledge, the skills to take

what you hear and apply it to your life.

A lot of proverbs is the knowledge of cause and effect.

If you do this, then this will happen.

How many times have you known somebody that didn't think

through the consequences of their actions?

In other terms, have you ever talked to a junior high boy

before? One of my favorite stories as a

counselor is I had a boy in my cabin At our camp.

They have homemade chocolate chip cookie ice cream

sandwiches. They're called chippers.

I don't want to know how many calories are in one.

A boy bought one of these camps in the middle of July.

He buys one of these at 3:00 in the afternoon and comes in a zip

lock bag. I didn't know this until

bedtime. Bedtime rolls around, it's time

for lights out and he opens that ice cream cookie sandwich like 6

hours later and it spills everywhere.

I'm like, shouldn't use his name Roy, what were you thinking?

He goes well I wanted milk and cookies at bedtime.

I'm like, dude, it's everywhere. If you grab an Ice Cream

Sandwich in the middle of the afternoon, then it's going to be

a melted mess at bedtime and it's going to make it harder for

your counselors, right? That knowledge of cause and

effect and what we need to understand is we can't know

something absolutely without comprehensive or

all-encompassing knowledge. There's a seminary that cranks

out guys that love Jesus and love the Scriptures out in

Philadelphia. It was started a little over 100

years ago in the 1980s. They built a library on that

property and they picked the most beautiful spot on campus.

They built a majestic, amazing library.

If you've ever been to our state capitol and gone into that

library, that's that's what I visioned some of the pictures,

man, it's beautiful and amazing. There's a guy who is called in

the ministry out of. You know, just working and his

job was, he was a radon tester and he took his equipment to

school with him to the library to study because he had a job

right there afterwards. And he decided just for fun, I'm

going to plug in my equipment and test the radon in this

library. Now they recommend that you

start radon mitigation. You start to deal with the issue

when it's at 4 PCL 4. If you work in a uranium mine,

you're exposed to 200. OK, they discovered 1500 PSL in

this library, the highest concentration of radon they've

ever discovered in North America in the middle of this library.

But when you built, when they built that library, they didn't

know what they didn't know, right?

And so they had to, you bet they had to do a lot of radon

mitigation. But all that to say is if you're

truly going to be wise, you need to know and you need to know

all-encompassing comprehensively.

But we don't know everything. So we're going to have to get

our knowledge from somewhere else.

And the only way we get that absolute certain knowledge is if

God reveals it to us. Another way to say that is

there's no wisdom, true wisdom, true skill for life outside of

God's Word. So that's our definition of

wisdom. If you want a short, helpful

definition of wisdom, it's skill that produces righteousness.

Notice it's not knowing how to spell all 66 books of the Bible.

It's not knowing off the top of your head the 12 tribes of

Israel or the 12 disciples. It's more than just knowing

about the Bible. Now wisdom is skill that

produces righteousness. In Proverbs was written, it says

to know wisdom. Look at verse 2.

It says to know wisdom and something else.

Instruction. Instruction.

Here's the definition of instruction.

It's a painful lesson to correct a moral fault.

How many of you have ever had to learn a painful lesson before

you have been instructed? It's a painful lesson to correct

a moral fault. Sometimes this instruction is

personal, and it's to present or prevent foolishness.

Again, read verse 8 of chapter one with me here.

My son, your father's instruction and forsake not your

mother's teaching. Proverbs 1925 says this.

Strike a scoffer and the simple will learn prudence.

Reprove a man of understanding and he will gain knowledge.

So sometimes you can learn a lesson because of somebody's

else's painful consequences. Maybe you're a younger sibling

or an older sibling, I suppose. Have you ever watched your

sibling get in trouble for something and think, I'm glad he

had to learn that lesson and not me?

I'm going to learn from him. I am not going to repeat that

poor decision. This is the idea of instruction.

It's to prevent foolishness. Well, what happens if you're

right in the middle of foolish behavior?

If you're just walking the path to destruction?

Well, there's also instruction that takes the form of corporal

correction. Proverbs 1324.

My parents are here today. I swear this was my parents

favorite Bible verse. Whoever spares the rod hates his

son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.

I remember, we'll just say it this way.

I remember receiving the Board of Education at the seed of

Learning growing up. Have you been there?

And afterwards my mom and dad would say, I'm doing this

because I love you. I'm like, no, you're not.

That hurts. But you know what?

A parent who loves their children will discipline them.

Discipline them properly and with restraint and with a

corrective purpose. But it's the parents who let

their kids run Willy nilly and do whatever they want.

That's not love. That's just put them on the fast

track to pain and destruction. He who loves him is diligent to

discipline him. And the goal then, when you

receive that instruction is to listen to it.

Proverbs 1920 says listen to advice and accept instruction.

Why? That you may gain wisdom in the

future. We receive this instruction.

We receive this discipline so that we will learn from it.

And it's not just learning to live with it.

You actually get to the point where you love the Lord's

discipline. Proverbs 12/1 says whoever loves

discipline loves knowledge. I like how Proverbs states it.

Remember they're short and pithy.

But he who hates for proof is stupid.

I got all the kids attention because we're not supposed to

say stupid, but this is what God's word says.

It is stupid when you hate being corrected for doing the wrong

thing. You are stupid if you want to

continue doing the wrong thing and not be corrected by somebody

who knows better. Whoever loves discipline loves

knowledge, and so all of these together help develop moral

skill, but they also develop mental skill.

Look at the end of verse 2. It says to understand words of

insight. So the goal of Proverbs is

actually to help you become smarter, more intelligent to

understand words. These words could be given

verbally like in Proverbs 1/8 here my son.

So listen to these words. It could also be written words.

Proverbs 321 says do not lose sight of these.

As in you're looking at this wisdom.

What do we know about words? Words, Simply put, communicate.

Words communicate. God is a commutative or a wordy

guy. He chose to reveal himself

through his word, through imperfect people writing down

His perfect word so that 2000 plus years later we have it.

But it says in the book of Hebrews God and in former times

spoke through the prophets. He now speaks through his Son.

Remember John one starts out and says in the beginning was the

word and the word was with God and the word was God.

And in most copies of the Bible the word is capitalized capital

WY because in John 114 it says the word became flesh and dwelt

among us. Jesus Christ communicates who

God is because he is God. He's the Son of God.

And so the goal of Proverbs is for us to understand words of

insight. Down in verse 6, you look, it

says to understand a proverb. Again, those short witty sayings

and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles.

That saying it says proverb and a saying is like a parable.

It's like a little story or a little illustration is to help

you make a quick critical judgement of your own behavior

in light of what the proverb says.

And then it says, and they're riddles.

My girls are really into riddles right now.

Half the time they don't make sense.

And I'm very confused. There's this one going around,

the kids at church, something about 1 + 1, but it doesn't

equal 2. Sometimes it equals 2.

And it's kind of a Riddle, but it's really just annoying.

See riddles. What's the, what's the purpose

of a Riddle? It doesn't say anything, just

straight out. It's not just prose.

It's not just, you know, sqrt 4 is 2.

The difference, this is the difference between poetry and

prose. And the purpose is for you to

engage your brain and figure it out and remember it so that you

can live it out. So the basics of proverbs, it

wants you, you to develop moral skill and mental skill.

Well, what's the benefit? Why read the Proverbs?

Why spend time in a sermon series on the book of Proverbs?

Well, there's benefit for the student.

Look at verse 3 of Proverbs, one on the student's side.

It says this to receive instruction in wise dealing in

righteousness, justice, and equity.

So when you read the Proverbs and study the Proverbs and

ingest the proverbs and memorize the proverbs and do the

proverbs, you're going to do this.

You're going to receive, was it say wise dealings, receive

instruction and wise dealing. This is the this is the

situation. We are put in difficult spots as

people living in a fallen world, right?

We are putting in threatening situations.

We are so close. On any given day, a couple bad

decisions could ruin your life. You've been there.

Some of you who've had your life turned completely off track by 1

foolish word you said. One bad conversation, one dumb

decision you made in one moment. So how do we respond wisely?

Respond with understanding in those threatening situations 2

that come to the mind that Proverbs talks about all the

time. There's always going to be the

temptation for easy money without work.

Just the latest thing that 32nd YouTube video says.

Why are you putting your money in a bank account?

Why don't you do this instead? Why are you working hard 40

hours a week? Just do this and get rich

quickly instead. Or take your love for your

favorite sports team and turn that into a profit.

Easy money without work. Another one that Proverbs talks

about over and over again is easy sex without commitment in

marriage. The Lady Folly, Dame Folly

allures guys to easy sex without the commitment.

We see that in our day and age with the hook up culture and

pornography and all of that. Easy sex without marriage

without commitment. But Proverbs offers for the

student of the word wise dealing to say no to sin in those

situations. This is also to develop

righteousness. Righteousness is right social

order according to God's word. There's a right way to live this

life. There's a right way to order

your family, to order your church, to order your society

according to God's Word. I appreciated this definition of

righteousness, said this this week when I was studying.

And it entails disadvantaging yourself to advantage others.

The opposite of righteousness is wickedness, where you advantage

yourself. You put yourself, you stack the

deck for yourself by making it difficult for other people.

But righteousness says I'm going to disadvantage myself to

advantage others. There's also a chance to receive

justice. Justice, Simply put, as this,

it's punishing an oppressor and relieving those who are

oppressed. Equity is that liberty within

the law. It's that freedom within

structure. I find it so fascinating, like

with building a fence in your yard.

When you have a fence built, it actually causes you to enjoy

your yard more. When there's no fence and you

technically have until the property line, but you don't

know where the property line is, you'd never actually use your

yard that much because you're always worried about encroaching

on your neighbor's property. God gives clear boundaries for

His people to enjoy their life, to enjoy His creation, to enjoy

His good gifts. But that's freedom within

structure, and that's what Proverbs offers to the student.

What about for the teacher? What about if you're the person

needing to instill wisdom in others?

What if you're the parent or the grandparent or the school

teacher or the aunt or the uncle, the Sunday school

teacher, the VBS helper? What is the benefit for you?

Verse four goes from receiving to giving.

It says to give prudence to the simple.

That term simple we're going to visit here in a few weeks.

Proverbs describes essentially 3 different types of fools.

The simple, the fool in the mocker or the scorner, the

scornful. But for the teacher it gives you

the chance to give prudence to the simple.

The simple means someone that is open to everything and committed

to nothing. Open to everything and committed

to nothing. It gives you a chance to give

wisdom, to give prudence, to give guidance to simple people.

It also says there knowledge and discretion to the youth, to the

youth. I like how it's not to young

people or young kids. It says to the youth, we could

say it this way. It gives you a chance to pass

something on to the next generation.

There's wisdom from those who've preceded us, right?

I think of my grandparents going through the Depression era, how

they viewed money, their priority of saving because they

had to is something that needs to get passed on, right?

We live in such an affluent society, we forget about that.

But it says here to give something to youth knowledge and

discretion. Discretion is the ability to

problem solve. Have you ever noticed that's a

struggle for the younger generations to solve problems,

to see a situation and if they put it on Google and it doesn't

instantly give them back the answer, they don't know what to

do. They don't know how to dissect

the situation and address the problems and not just get jobs

done, but respond to situations with biblical wisdom.

That's what the Proverbs often offers.

But it gives them a chance also to grow themselves.

It says to sorry to let the wise hear an increase in learning and

the one who understands obtain guidance.

Even if we're in a position as a parent that we still have a lot

to learn, right? Even if we're grandparents, we

still have a lot to learn. Amen.

We're never done being a student in need of the wisdom that's

found in God's Word. It says let the wise hear and

increase in learning. We want to be people that are

teachable. Nobody likes somebody who thinks

they have it all together. Instead, we are wise and we

continue to get wiser. So that is the benefit of the

Proverbs, benefit for the student, benefit for the

teacher. And finally, let's look at the

backbone of Proverbs. Probably the key text in

Proverbs is Proverbs 17. If you'd like to underline or

highlight verses in your Bible, I'd encourage you to highlight.

Proverbs 17 says this. The fear of the Lord is the

beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and

instruction. That phrase fear of the Lord is

so important and it's so misunderstood.

Fear of the Lord. First there's a connection.

You have to study that phrase together.

Fear and the Lord. If you separate fear out and

only try to study fear, you're going to get the wrong idea.

You're going to read a meaning in that it was never intended.

It'd be like this if you had to do a school project on

butterflies and you spend half your time studying butter and

half your time studying flies. You're going to have a messed up

report on butterflies, right? You have to study them together.

There's a connection there. There's also the importance of

revelation. When we talk about the fear of

the Lord, there is an emotional aspect to it, but there's a

mental aspect to it. Psalm 19 is one of my favorite

Psalms and talks about the wisdom of God's Word and it

describes God's word in these ways.

The law of the Lord is perfect reviving the soul.

The testimony of the Lord is sure making.

Why is this simple? The precepts of the Lord or

right rejoice in the heart. The commandment of the Lord is

pure enlightening. The eyes listens to how David

describes the word of God. He says the fear of the Lord is

clean, enduring forever. There's a connection between the

fear of the Lord and the Word of the Lord.

You don't untruely fear and Revere God the way that you

ought to unless you have God's Word instructing you.

Proverbs 2 one through 5 starts out this.

If you accept my words, then let's have remember cause and

effect. If you accept my words, then you

will understand the fear of the Lord.

Notice there's a mental there's in revelation part of the fear

of the Lord. I don't know about you, but the

people I know that have the closest walk with God live in

their Bibles. Sean and I got to ride down to a

wedding together with our kids yesterday and he shared the

story of a lady from his hometown who just loved God's

word. And you could tell she was just

everybody who trusted Jesus is a St.

But Sean described it this way. She was a St.

And at her funeral, at the end of the funeral, they had 7

tattered and worn Bibles spread out on the front, marked up,

barely holding together, duct tape together.

Seven of those Bibles from her time walking with God over the

years. And they said, if any of you

don't have a copy of God's word or any of you want to follow

God, please take one of her Bibles home with her.

That's somebody who fears the Lord because they've spent time

dwelling on the word of the Lord.

And there's not just taking it in or receiving it.

It's actually having the humility to have, we call that

reception. You don't not just listen to the

word, but you actually receive it and internalize it.

It's the humility to accept instruction.

Proverbs 1533 says this. The fear of the Lord is

instruction in wisdom, and humility comes before honor.

Somebody who fears the Lord puts themselves under God's

authority. They don't decide I like to

think of God like this. They don't say things like that.

Instead, they respond to who God is as revealed to His Word, and

they humble themselves. You cannot be simultaneously

arrogant and proud and also somebody who fears God.

It's a humility. It's receiving what God has

revealed to you, and what it results in is adoration.

It's that wedding together of love and fear.

See, there is an emotional aspect to the fear of the Lord.

It's an emotional response to what's been revealed about God.

Places like Deuteronomy chapter 6 actually equate love of the

Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention

Lord and fear of the Lord. Proverbs Exodus 1431 talking

about the Israelites freshly released from captivity crossing

the Red Sea. It says this and when the

Israelites saw the mighty hand of the Lord displayed against

the Egyptians, remember God shut the sea upon the Egyptians and

they were wiped out. When they saw that the people

feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses the

servant. So seeing the mighty hand of God

in display and pretty gruesome judgement, it didn't cause them

to run away from God. They actually leaned into and

trusted God. Book of Hebrews says our God is

a consuming fire. There's that reverential awe.

You don't treat God flippantly or casually.

You respect Him for who He is. How many of you have ever read

the Chronicles of Narnia? We love those books in our

house. CS Lewis wrote those to

communicate actually, a lot of biblical truth.

And in the first book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the

four children stumble into this world of Narnia, and they're

getting a crash course from Mr. Beaver on the who's and the

what's of Narnia. And he comes to discussing

Aslan, who's the Christ figure in Narnia.

This is what the book says. Aslan is a lion, the lion, the

great lion. Oh, said Susan.

I thought he was a man. Is he quite safe?

I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.

Safe, said Mr. Beaver. Who said anything about safe?

Of course he isn't safe, but he's good.

God is not safe. God is not just like you and me.

God cannot be manipulated or coerced to do anything.

He is the sovereign, Almighty God of the universe.

He alone executes justice and judgement perfectly.

He is not safe, but he is good and He's kind.

He cares for us. He's not safe, but he is good.

And you see that tension, that even as I'm saying it, just that

emotional response to who God is.

That's the fear of the Lord. Here's what an author named

Seabridges describes the fear of the Lord.

This is a little wordy, but I think it's helpful.

This is the fear of the Lord, that affectionate reverence by

which the child of God bends himself humbly and carefully to

His Father's law. Do you see that?

There you have the child of God. You have that affectionate

reverence bending Himself humbly, that humility, putting

yourself under the authority of God and carefully to His

Father's law. That revelation aspect, that

connection between the fear of the Lord and the Word of the

Lord. See what Proverbs tries to say

is this. You might be a respected leader.

You might be ACEO of a company. You might be a mover, a shaker.

You might be a savvy businessman.

You might be able to turn a few dollars into a lot through

persuasive trading and starting of new things.

You could be a great communicator.

You could be somebody who wants to listen.

You could be, in our modern day language, an influencer.

But Proverbs makes it very clear there is no true wisdom outside

of the fear of the Lord. See, wisdom starting point is

the fear of the Lord. When you have a big glorious

view of God, it leaves you feeling really, really small.

And that's precisely where God's word wants you to be at.

Because when you are small and God is big, you have those

proportions. Understand correctly.

That's where you get that skill to navigate life.

So our big idea is this, we become skilled for life.

That's the title of this sermon series through Proverbs.

We become skilled for life when we fear God and follow His Word.

My prayer for my own life is that I would become more skilled

in fearing God and following His Word.

I am a dad, I'm a husband, I'm a pastor, I'm a citizen, and that

all of those positions of responsibility require skill to

do it well. I don't want to just run out the

clock. I want to do things well for the

Lord, but that starts with fearing God and following His

word. So we're going to go all and

we're going to push all of our chips in the middle of the table

with the book of Proverbs this summer.

I want to encourage you as a church family to go all in on

Proverbs. One thing you can do, I don't

have it up here, but there are 31 chapters in the book of

Proverbs. If you are struggling with

family worship, maybe you're struggling reading the Bible for

yourself. Today is the 24th day of the

month. Tomorrow is May 25th.

Get up and read Psalm or Proverbs 25.

The day after that, read Proverbs 26, Proverbs 27.

In over three months together, you would read through the book

of Proverbs 3 times. That'd be a great way for you to

spend time in God's Word this summer gaining that wisdom

that's found in God's Word. But we also have a couple other

things we want to offer to us. First, we have a family

scripture guide. This was a great idea that came

my way this week from some of our church members.

And they said this, Hey, we'd like to memorize some Proverbs

with our family. And so each week during this

summer, each week of the sermon series, there's one proverb to

memorize either personally or with a friend or as a family

Each week this summer, 11 Proverbs.

Guess what the first one for this week is Proverbs 17, The

fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, the week on

discipline and family. Guess what the proverb is Spare

their odds, spoil the child. There's there's lots of those

though God's word is replete. The Proverbs is replete with so

much practical wisdom you can just grab on to.

Those are printed for you front and back on half sheets of

paper. I would ask if you're one of our

greeters here at Carlisle, if you could grab that stack and

have those out ready to pass out to people.

We'd love to be a church that memorizes God's word together

and together gleans the wisdom from Proverbs.

But another thing we're going to be doing this summer are summer

studies. Summer is a time of rest from

our normal Wednesday night and Sunday night rhythms.

But we want to encourage men meeting with men, women meeting

with women, growing in the wisdom of the province.

We're going to be using a Bible study book by Warren Weirsby

that walks through the Proverbs. If you're guys, we're going to

just going to be super sacrificial and manly.

We're meeting at 6:00 AM on Wednesdays starting June 17th.

Ladies, we're going to let you meet at 6:30 in the evening and

we're going to put the kids to bed for you or at least occupy

them during the tough hours before bedtime.

So guys, we're going to be meeting there.

You can grab one of those books this week.

We'd love to connect to you with those summer studies.

We just want to be people that grow in God's Word together and

glean from Proverbs and develop that skill for life.

I invite you in the Pew in front of you.

If you're a guest with us today, we're so glad you came.

What a great Sunday, worshipping God together.

I'd invite you to grab a Connect card.

That's a little card in the Pew rack in front of you.

I'd invite you to write your name.

Write some information about you.

If you're a regular church attender, remember, just write

your first name on that card and then on the back there's a spot

for you to put prayer requests. If there's a need in your life

that you'd like myself and Pastor Jake to pray for, we'd

love to know that. We'll make sure to pray for you.

But I want you to answer this question as we look ahead to

this summer in the book of Proverbs.

Answer this question for me. What's 1 area of your life where

you need God to grow your skill? Think of your life.

You say I need skill from God's Word in this area.

Then my follow up question and what step will you take to

pursue wisdom there? Where's the need and how are you

going to pursue God's Word to meet that need?

I'm going to give you just a moment to write that out.

I want you to take a moment after you're done writing just

to spend time in silent prayer and say, God help me to grow in

wisdom here. Or what God might do is say,

hey, I know you're thinking in this spot, but I'm actually

going to reveal this area of your life to you.

Just take a moment to commit that to the Lord.

And I'm going to pray and our worshi team is going to come U

and we're going to close roclaiming how great God is.