Wisdom vs. Folly (July 19th, 2020) - Ian Hales

Go ahead and grab your Bibles and open up to the book of Proverbs.

The book of Proverbs.

Close to the middle of your Bible there.

Right after the book of Psalms.

And we're going to be in Proverbs 1 this morning as we kick off a new series.

Now, we've entitled our series Wisdom Required.

And we're going to be going through a number of different Proverbs over our summer together.

And really, the kind of whole title of our sermon series is Wisdom Required, Applying God's Truth to Everyday Life.

Now, I want you just to notice that the wisdom required, if you've seen the kind of the picture of our graphic for it, it actually has a question mark behind the wisdom required.

It's intended to be a little bit provocative.

It's intended to make us think a little bit, to make us consider what exactly we're doing in the book of Proverbs.

Do we believe we need wisdom?

Does this situation or that situation require wisdom?

Do I value wisdom?

Do I long for wisdom?

Do I seek wisdom?

There's a multitude of questions that we need to be considering as we consider the topic of wisdom.

These are important questions that we can't just skip over.

Not only for people in the world who aren't part of the Church of Jesus Christ, but I would say, especially for those who are followers of Jesus Christ, it is imperative that we rightly understand wisdom and that we acquire wisdom.

We're constantly bombarded in the world today with information, with ideas, with instances that require us to think and to think very carefully, to think very critically, to think deeply.

And I would suggest that that doesn't happen as often as it needs to.

I watched recently an interview, an individual interviewing a scholar, a professor who's written a number of different books and works, and just a brilliant man.

And the interviewer was asking this scholar to walk through his background a little bit, give us your story, kind of a thing.

And and so this professor, this scholar, began to talk about how he grew up in poverty.

He didn't learn to read till a little bit later on in his childhood, around eight or nine years old.

He was able to go to a good school, thankfully.

And um, and so as he kind of talked about his education and his development, the interviewer kind of paused and said, So would you say then that one of the greatest keys to success for an individual is education?

And his response was no.

He said, Some of the most disastrous ideas in the world have come from the most highly educated people with undoubtedly the highest IQs.

So the interviewer kind of rephrased the question, said, Okay, so would you say then maybe critical thinking with a little bit of education?

And his response was this: I will settle for almost any kind of thinking.

It's so rare these days.

Church, this is true.

This is the reality that we are facing.

We have become a culture that is fueled by emotion, that is fueled by outrage, that is fueled by reaction, but is not fueled by careful, critical, deep thinking.

Everything comes to us in sound bites, in tweets, in memes.

And it's trained us in many ways to simply respond in impulsive and impatient and often impenitent ways.

But wisdom requires that we become a thinking people, that we slow down and we commit to thinking God's thoughts after Him.

And while we need to slow down to think, we also need to hurry up and get wisdom, okay?

We need to pair these two things together.

Benjamin Franklin once wrote these words: the tragedy of life is that we get old too soon and wise too late.

So this book and this sermon is about getting wisdom and applying God's truth to everyday life.

And I want to look at this idea of wisdom and folly through a few different angles this morning.

You see, wisdom and folly becomes the paradigm, the filter, the grid through which we are to look at the book of Proverbs.

Everything falls into one of these two categories: wisdom or folly.

So the three angles I want to look at this morning are the purpose, the problem, and the plan.

But first I want to read from Proverbs chapter 1.

Proverbs 1 · chapter mention

We're gonna read from verse 1 to verse 7, so you can follow along with me.

The Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel, to know wisdom and instruction, to understand words of insight, to receive instruction in wise dealing, in righteousness, justice, and equity, to give prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth.

Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance, to understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and the riddles.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

Fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Let's begin by looking at the first angle, the purpose.

Wisdom must be learned.

This is the purpose of the book of Proverbs.

It's the purpose of the author and of the divine author, God.

Wisdom must be learned.

The Hebrew noun for proverb, that word, it's related to a verb that actually means to represent or to be like.

So you see, a proverb is kind of like a little model of reality.

It's a little verbal representation of some aspect of our daily lives.

And by picking up a proverb and turning it around and looking at the different angles of it, we can actually learn how to live well.

That's what the proverbs are intended to produce in us: a life well lived.

You know, the world says, live and learn.

God says, learn and live.

Just notice out the gaze that wisdom must be learned, but it still begs the question: well, what exactly is wisdom?

How do we understand this concept of biblical wisdom?

Well, the biblical authors actually explain to us a lot of how we're supposed to understand wisdom.

You see, we see this word, the same word used for wisdom in chapter two, pop up in a number of different Old Testament contexts.

For example, in Exodus chapter 35, verse 31, the word wisdom is used for the skill of an artist adorning the tabernacle.

Exodus 35:31

In Jeremiah 10, verse 9, the word is used in talking about the expertise of a goldsmith, and it is called the work of skilled men or the work of wise men.

Jeremiah 10:9

In Psalm 107, verse 27, it's used for the knowledge of sailors, listen, who use the winds and tides to navigate their way through the sea towards their final destination.

Psalms 107:27

The key word that keeps popping up in all of these instances is this idea of skill or expertise.

And so as we consider what wisdom is, just know this wisdom is skill and expertise in the living of life.

And the Proverbs are trying to develop this kind of skill of wise living in us.

The expertise we need to navigate the many complexities of life in this broken world.

And as the author of Proverbs, Solomon, it indicates here, he wrote most of the Proverbs, the son of David, king of Israel, as we work through the Proverbs, one of the things we see, especially at the beginning here, is that the Proverbs are intent on developing strong character and straight thinking.

Strong character is seen in verse 2.

Look at this.

It says, to know wisdom and instruction.

Verses 3 and 4 actually elaborate on this first half of the verse.

You see that?

To receive instruction in wise dealing.

Notice what it says here: in righteousness, justice, and equity.

It's intended to give prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth.

This idea of instruction carries with it this idea of discipline.

Specifically, listen, moral discipline.

So, in other words, this is striving to produce a moral fortitude, a character, and an integrity in the hearers or the readers.

Straight thinking is also seen in verse 2, the second half there.

To understand, he says, words of insight.

Now, this is elaborated upon in verse 6.

Look down there.

To understand, there's the connection, the word, a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles.

The understanding here carries this idea of discernment.

There again is a moral connotation to this.

It is the ability to discern and distinguish right from wrong, good from evil, truth from error.

Again, so critical from for navigating life in this world.

It is the ability to do this with excellence and expertise.

In other words, the author of Proverbs, Solomon, and God Himself is saying to us, you need to learn how to think deeply, carefully, biblically, theologically, practically, morally, ethically.

It requires great competence that understands how life really works and how to achieve successful and even beautiful results as we continue to live life in God's world.

You see, through the book of Proverbs, God is coaching us in the wisdom that we need throughout the long and complicated path of everyday life.

So we need to start first by understanding the purpose of this book, the purpose of a proverb, and the purpose of wisdom itself.

We need to learn how to be wise, to apply the principles of God's word in a way that are pleasing to him and beneficial for us and for those around us.

Secondly, we need to consider the problem.

Wisdom must be learned.

You see, verse 2 and 6 describe both the purpose and the problem of the book.

That is, that wisdom must actually be learned.

The word instruction, again, reminds us that we're not born wise.

The primary purpose of Proverbs is actually the instruction of the young, instruction of youth.

People who are young and do not yet have the wisdom they need to operate well and thrive in the world.

Look again at verse 4.

It is to give prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth.

Why?

It's because they don't have it.

They're not born with this wisdom.

They're not born with this knowledge base of how to live well.

But I want you to see it's not just for youth or for children, it's for those who are already immature and learned.

Look at verse 5.

It says, Let the wise hear and increase in learning.

And the one who understands obtain guidance.

In other words, you want to know what wise people know?

They need more wisdom.

They haven't arrived yet.

You know, so many of us, uh, when we were young, we thought we knew it all, didn't we?

Especially you get the teenage years, you definitely think you know it all, and you think your parents know nothing at all.

And it's it's ironic, isn't it?

Nobody likes a know it all.

It's usually not a good thing when someone looks at you and says, Wow, is there anything that you don't know everything about?

It's not a compliment.

I'll tell you this: the older I get, the more I hear myself saying, maybe I'm not saying it as much as I think I am, but the more I hear myself thinking it in my own mind, man, there is so much I don't know.

There's just so much I have no idea about.

I know more now than I used to know, but now I know that there's far more to know than I didn't realize I needed to know before I knew.

And there are typically two ways we learn, and this is what the Proverbs teaches us.

Two ways to learn: either education, being taught it by somebody else, or experiencing it.

Having to learn it oftentimes the hard way, the school of hard knocks.

There are many of us who seem to prefer the school of hard knocks.

We love to get wisdom the hard way.

We love to get it through the Lord's instruction, yes, but mainly through his discipline.

Through being chastened and corrected.

And that's always painful.

It hurts.

It's humiliating.

It's so hard, isn't it, to admit when we're wrong?

But listen, what the Proverbs teaches us is that we can only make progress in wisdom to the extent that we are teachable.

You will never be wise if you are not teachable.

You may be wise in your own eyes, but Proverbs actually says, then you're really just a fool.

We need to choose education over experience if we can.

At all costs, we need to choose education and experience.

So there's a lot of kids in here, which is so awesome.

I love looking around and seeing the kids in here right now.

You guys are doing so good, by the way.

But I want to say something just for you kids this morning.

I want you to pay attention.

I want you to look up here for a quick moment, and I want to speak to you just very clearly.

Um, how many of you know already that your parents don't know everything?

Show of hands.

Some of you guys got your kids duped.

You know you your parents don't know, but but do you know this?

They know a lot of things.

And they know a lot more than you know, and they know a lot more than you think they know.

Every parent, isn't this true, parents?

Every parent wants to grab their child at certain points in their child's development and growth and literally grab them and say, Don't do what I did.

Don't make the same mistakes that I did.

I mean, I don't, I don't, I can't tell you how many times I have I have cried over my kids' prayers of just God, protect them from doing what I did.

God, I tell my kid, look in the eyes through tears.

Don't don't make the same mistakes I did.

Hear me, listen to my voice when I'm speaking to you.

I'm trying to help you.

Kids, look at look at your parents, they don't know everything, but their desire, because they love you, is to protect you and help you and lead you in ways that are going to be beneficial for your life.

They're not gonna do it perfectly, but you need to trust that God has put them in your life for that very purpose.

Their primary role is to raise you up to know and love God and to live life well in God's world.

Look at verses eight and nine for a second.

Remember, this is Solomon writing, he's already referenced the youth here, but I want you to see, this is Solomon, and it's like Solomon, by the way, wisest man, we read this earlier, who ever walked the face of the earth prior to Jesus Christ.

Solomon is writing this divine wisdom.

And here's his primary target audience.

Look at verse 8.

Hear my son, your father's instruction, and forsake not your mother's teaching, for they are a graceful garland around your head and pendants for your neck.

He goes on to look at his son, it's like he's grabbing his son and saying, Son, listen up, learn, learn from me.

And we know, we know that Solomon wasn't a perfect man.

We know he made plenty of mistakes.

You can hear him not just giving divine wisdom that he followed, but also giving divine wisdom because of the experiences of his own life, his own sin, his own disobedience.

And children, you ought to want to be wise.

And parents, you ought to want to be wise as well.

This is just as much for you.

God is wanting to grab you.

As a father grabs a child, so your heavenly father is grabbing you by the face, and he's looking at you, and he's got tears probably in his eyes saying, I want what's best for you.

I want you to enjoy this life the way I've intended it for you to enjoy it.

I want you to grow and thrive.

I have in mind what's best for you.

And the good news, parents, is this I, you know, in thinking even back to I don't want my kids to make the same mistakes I did.

I want them to avoid the pitfalls that I fell into.

The good news is, as we look at Proverbs, we can be reminded that God, listen, like he took Solomon, God takes those who are sinners and he redeems the messes that they make.

He can take something that's broken and make something so beautiful.

Look at the end of verse 7.

Here's where we don't want to be as God's children.

Fools despise wisdom and instruction.

This is at the heart of what it means to be a fool.

They reject wisdom and instruction, they rebel against it, they run far from it.

The truth is that you will be surrounded, especially you children, at this stage in your lives, you're gonna be surrounded by others who are going the wrong direction.

And they're gonna want to pull you along and say, Hey, come with me, walk these paths with me.

And you need to recognize when somebody is going the way of the fool, or when somebody is going the way of the wise.

This book gives us two options: wisdom or folly.

There are only two alternatives.

And what you choose will either lead to prosperity or pain.

Why do we often choose what brings us so much pain?

Again, I think it's implied here.

The problem that we all face is the flesh.

Our sin nature, right?

Our flesh loves sin and selfishness.

Our flesh loves what is easy, what is comfortable, what is instantaneous.

Charles Spurgeon once said these words all sin is folly, all sinners are fools.

He's identifying really the sin nature and the bankruptcy of sin and foolishness.

And so I just really want to give you, really quickly, just four ways that you can be warned about folly in your life.

Listen, we need these warnings and these guardrails to keep us on the right path.

So let me warn you really quick.

Folly will first destroy your character.

Folly will destroy your character.

Proverbs 19:1 says, Better is a poor person who walks in his integrity than one who is crooked in speech and is a fool.

Proverbs 19:1

Proverbs will rip away your credibility.

It will rip away your integrity.

It will cause people to distrust you, to distance themselves from you.

It holds no honor.

And it becomes easily identifiable.

Folly does in our character.

Secondly, it will deaden your conscience.

The conscience is that kind of God-given warning signal that every human being has.

And it can be active and thriving, or it could be killed or deadened.

The conscience alerts you to what is right or wrong, what is pleasing to God or displeasing to God.

It's not a perfect tool, but it is one that is a gift of God's grace.

Proverbs 10, 23 says, doing wrong is like a joke to a fool.

Pretty soon you get to a place in continuing to sin and in doing more sin where sin just becomes something of funny for you, a game for you.

What at one point, listen, was alarming to you and shocking to you, you couldn't believe what you were capable of, all of a sudden becomes a joke.

And you continue to spiral out of control and do more and more that you didn't think you were capable of.

You know, I think of the conscience somewhat like a smoke detector in your house.

It's supposed to alert you to the fact that there is a massive problem.

And listen, only a fool disconnects his smoke detector because he doesn't want to be alerted to a fire.

How many people have you seen ruin their lives or heard of?

Because they refuse to listen to their conscience, to the conviction over sin.

Third, folly will determine your consequences.

You reap what you sow.

You choose to sin, you choose to suffer.

Proverbs 10, 10 says, A babbling fool will come to ruin.

Sin and foolishness always leads to ruin.

It never leads to blessing.

Yes, God can make something beautiful out of what is broken, but we need to avoid breaking our lives if at all possible.

Amen?

That was terrible.

Nobody agreed it.

Come on, we need to avoid it.

We need to avoid sin like it's the plague, amen.

We need to be protected and guarded.

Because here's what's at stake.

If you're a follower of Jesus Christ, know this.

This is really important.

This should be the most important thing to you.

Folly will lastly dishonor your Christ, your Savior.

The one who bled and died to set you free from sin.

Proverbs 19, 3 says, When a man's folly brings his way to ruin, his heart rages against the Lord.

Isn't it amazing in our sinfulness?

And when we see the wreckage of sin in our lives, how so often we want to turn and blame the Lord as if this is somehow his fault instead of taking ownership and responsibility for our sin.

But even at the very moments of sin, we need to see that we're dishonoring the name of our Savior Jesus Christ.

We're dragging him through the mud.

We're trampling on the cross.

You see, when you see the bankruptcy of foolishness, it helps us to heighten the value of wisdom.

We gotta get these guardrails in our lives.

You just gotta embrace the foolishness of sin and the problem that we all experience.

You need to learn wisdom.

It's not coming naturally to anybody.

Which points us to consider finally the plan.

The plan.

Wisdom must be learned.

Are you getting the point of the message?

Wisdom must be learned.

I love verse 5 there.

Let the wise hear an increase in learning.

The one who understands, obtain guidance.

Did you see what he's saying?

He's like, you gotta be the one who gets wisdom.

You gotta be the one who's strategizing in playing.

The wise strategize about how to get more wisdom.

They don't just believe they're gonna stumble into it, they're actively pursuing it and approaching it with thoughtfulness and care and intentionality.

And so I just want to give you quickly five ways that you can just kind of start this process.

Five ways as you look at the book of Proverbs, that you can begin to implement this, the plan that we need.

First, here it is: learn it.

Learn it.

Again, the wise strategize about how to get wise.

Learn these principles, grab a hold of these principles, believe these principles.

Proverbs 4, verse 5 says this get wisdom, get insight, do not forget and do not turn away from the words of my mouth.

Proverbs 4:5

Verse 7 of chapter 4.

The beginning of wisdom is this.

I love this.

Get wisdom.

It's the beginning of wisdom.

Get wisdom.

And whatever you get, get insight.

Proverbs 16, 16.

How much better to get wisdom than gold.

To get understanding is to be chosen rather than silver.

Forget about, listen, forget about pursuing the things of the world.

Forget about money as being your priority.

Forget about material possessions as being your, forget about everything else as your top priority and get more wisdom.

Spend your time, spend your effort, spend your mind's energy on getting more wisdom.

And believe me, listen, it's going to take that.

In our soundbite society, listen, where we at we are some, we have this allergic reaction to doing deep hard work, to studying, to thinking, to diving deeper.

We're gonna have to get better at this.

And that's gonna require this.

Secondly, you've got to long for it.

That's part of my prayer for you this morning.

Has been all week I'm praying, God, God, may we be a church that longs to have more wisdom.

May I be a person who longs to have more wisdom.

Like Solomon, like we read in 1 Kings 4.

Right?

He could ask for anything.

What if you ask God for?

God, make me wise and give me discernment that I may judge your people rightly.

God, I want to be a great representative on you of you on earth.

That's what he was saying.

I want to represent you well, I want to reflect you well.

You gotta long for it.

Listen, here's a great place to start right now.

If you're if you're committed, you're convinced you need to learn it.

Here's the key.

Listen, to long for it, pray right now.

God, God, give me a heart of wisdom.

God, help me to want wisdom more than anything.

Third, you gotta listen to it.

Again, you gotta be teachable, you gotta be humble.

Proverbs 19, 20 says, listen to advice and accept instruction that you may gain wisdom in the future.

23, 22 says this, listen to your father who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old.

You have to listen to it, you have to invite it.

Listen, this is this is key.

You have to invite it from other people.

You have to long for it that much where you give people permission to speak into your life, to give you wisdom.

You actually have to hear it and take it to heart.

Fourth, you need to love it.

You need to love it.

Proverbs 4 6 says, Do not forsake her and she will keep you.

Love her and she will guard you.

Proverbs 12, 1 says, Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

That's right.

We just said stupid in church.

It's in the Bible.

Don't be stupid.

Don't be the fool.

Say, how?

Love wisdom.

Treasure it.

And then finally, live it.

Do it.

Know what to do and do what you know.

As I said at the beginning, the world says, live and learn.

God is saying, learn and live.

Proverbs 7, 2 says, keep my commandments and live.

Keep my teaching as the apple of your eye.

9.6 says, leave your simple ways and live.

And walk in the way of insight.

But can I say it like this?

It is impossible to do any of these things unless we see where we need to start, and that's at verse 7.

Did you catch there's a little word there that we can't skip over?

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

John Calvin once said that men are fools till they submit to the word of God.

And I would simply add to that: the word of God calls you to submit to the God of the Word.

The wisdom of Proverbs comes from Solomon, son of David, king of Israel.

Right at the very front of the book, the book tells us that it stands in the flow of biblical history, which leads us straight to Jesus Christ.

Here's the point.

This side of the cross, listen, the fear of the Lord Jesus Christ is the beginning of wisdom.

To be truly wise, you must embrace what Paul calls the wisdom of God.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1.18, for the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

He says, For since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.

You see, all the wisdom in the world can't save you.

Human wisdom can't save you.

It can't get you to God.

The only thing that gets you to God is the wisdom of God, which is foolishness to the world.

It is the fear of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is the love of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is the bowing of the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ that makes you wiser than the wisest of men who don't have God.

You can become wise today by simply bowing the knee to Jesus and submitting to him by looking at the cross and saying, in the foolishness of God, God came to rescue us from our sin.

He died in our place and he rose victorious over sin and death.

And while the rest of the world is trying to earn their way or figure their way into the kingdom of God, God says, Come in my way.

Bow the knee.

Fear me.

Honor me.

Follow me.

You see, everyone needs a new beginning with God.

The fear of the Lord is both a doorway and a pathway.

It's a new beginning, beginning, but it never ends.

And you can walk through that doorway and get going on that pathway.

The only price you need to pay is let God be God for you.

Wisdom, folly.

I'm choosing wisdom.

And I hope you are too.

Wisdom required?

Without a doubt.

So let's begin together.

Where the writer of Proverbs, Solomon, calls us to begin with the fear of the Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ, longing to please him and bring glory and honor to his name.

Let's go through the door and let's stay on the path together.

Amen?

Let's pray.

God in heaven, we bow before you.

Thankful, Lord, for your grace and kindness to us today.

God, in speaking to us the truth of your word.

Father, we see in your word how much you love us with that fatherly love.

You care for us.

You long to see us living in a way, Lord, that brings you great glory and brings us great joy.

So, Father, we pray together, collectively, that you would make us a wise and discerning people.

That you would help us, Lord, to navigate life well with skill and expertise.

God, I pray for every person here.

I pray, Lord, for those specifically who do not know you, may they not just long to be wise in a worldly sense.

May they long to be wise before you today.

May they bow their knee to you as King and Savior.

And would they worship you today as Lord and Master.

Father, we love you.

We pray that you would receive our praise now from humble and joyful hearts.

It's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.