Proverbs - Wisdom Really Works

Well, if it is your first time, let me sort of catch you up on what we're doing this year.

It's something really cool, kind of different.

We are going through the entire story of the Bible in less than a year.

About 11 and a half months is the total time it's going to take us.

And so we're calling this the whole story.

We've divided the story of Scripture into 14 different series.

And today we are starting series number seven.

And so if you haven't been here, don't worry.

You're not behind.

Every single week is designed to stand on its own.

But obviously, if you want to catch up, you can, because this is a story you are part of.

You are part of the story of Scripture.

You are one of the main characters.

Because the story of Scripture is the story of God and humanity and his relationship with us and the lengths that he is willing to go in order to rescue us from ourselves very often, from the power of sin, from the power of death.

It's a story that you're part of, even if you've never realized it.

And the more we understand the story, the better we get the story, the more clear Jesus becomes to us, and the deeper our relationship with God can be.

It's a really powerful thing.

Now, today we are jumping into, like I said, series seven, which is called Better Than Gold.

Better than gold.

And I'm not talking about Bitcoin.

For those of you who are like crypto fanatics, that's a really small inside joke for a few of my friends that really like cryptocurrency.

No, better than gold.

It's wisdom.

There is a section of scripture right in the middle of your Bible that is typically referred to as wisdom literature.

And it's Psalms and Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job, Song of Solomon.

We're not going to cover every single one.

We're going to take the next three weeks and go over the gist of the wisdom literature.

Today, covering Proverbs, which is actually the inspiration for the title of this series Better Than Gold.

Proverbs chapter 3, verses 13 through 18 says this: Joyful is the person who finds wisdom.

Proverbs 3:13–18

The one who gains understanding, for wisdom is more profitable than silver, and her wages better than gold.

Wisdom is more precious than rubies.

Nothing you desire can compare with her.

She offers you long life in her right hand and riches in honor in her left.

She will guide you down delightful paths.

All her ways are satisfying.

Wisdom is a tree of life to those who embrace her.

Happy are those who hold her tightly.

Wisdom is better than gold.

And that's actually super practical, because if you were to hand someone who wasn't wise a significant sum of money, chances are they would waste it and probably really fast.

But on the flip side, if you were to take that same investment and give it to someone who's really wise, it would grow.

There's this phrase that we have in our culture, too much of a good thing, and that applies to many things, right?

Like you can have you can have too much of a lot of good things, but you can never have too much wisdom.

There will never be a day where you're like, I'm done, I'm full, I don't need any more wisdom.

I'm good.

You can never have too much wisdom.

It is more valuable than anything this world can offer us.

It is more valuable even than gold itself.

And the book of Proverbs specifically is a collection of wise teachings, wise sayings from a person that Scripture describes as the wisest person who ever walked the earth, not named Jesus.

He was a king named Solomon.

We talked about him a few weeks ago in our King's series, Messy Majesty.

Solomon was granted wisdom by God because he asked for it.

He asked God for wisdom, and God said, I'll give you more wisdom than anyone has ever had before.

Now, unfortunately, Solomon didn't always choose to use that wisdom well.

That's a common story in the world.

Sometimes people have massive amounts of talent and they misuse their talent.

They have amazing resources and they squander their resources.

They waste all the goodwill and love and support they have of people around them.

Sometimes we can have something amazing and not use it well.

Solomon had more wisdom than we could dream of and did some of the dumbest things you can imagine.

That's possible, but that doesn't negate the power of the wisdom that God gave him.

It was wisdom that led his whole nation into an era of prosperity that they had never experienced before.

The wisdom that God gave Solomon is incredible, and he collected it, and it's been preserved in this book that we have called Proverbs.

And this is what the point of Proverbs is.

Proverbs 1, 1 through 4 puts it this way: These are the Proverbs of Solomon, David's son, king of Israel.

Their purpose is to teach people wisdom and discipline, to help them understand the insights of the wise.

Their purpose is to teach people to live disciplined and successful lives, to help them do what is right, just, and fair.

These proverbs will give insight to the simple, knowledge and discernment to the young.

That sounds awesome.

And it shows us the heart of God.

God is not some God that just likes to tell us what to do for arbitrary reasons because he wants us to just be obedient sheep.

We are sheep who need a shepherd, no doubt, but but that's not a dynamic that God just says, do what I say, just don't ask why.

No, no, he wants us to have successful lives.

He wants you personally to have a successful life.

He wants your relationships to go well, he wants your career to go well, he wants you to experience the maximum amount of whatever you're capable of experiencing, he wants you to have success.

And he wants you to learn to do what is right and good.

And the Proverbs will help you do it.

I don't know what your familiarity level with Proverbs is.

Um, how many of us, just out of curiosity, it's not like a, this isn't saying who's good and who's not, but like how many of you have read Proverbs extensively to some degree in your life?

Okay.

All right, anyone brave enough to be like, it's kind of new to me.

Like Proverbs is kind of new, a couple of us, okay, there you go.

Cool thing about Proverbs, it's 31 chapters, but they're super short.

Super short.

You can read a chapter of Proverbs less than five minutes.

Easy.

Easy.

And there's actually this kind of cool thing that a lot of people do, because it's 31 chapters, they will just read a chapter of Proverbs a day, whatever chapter lines up with whatever day of the month that it is.

I've done that many times in my life.

It's amazing how effective that is because it's just like five minutes of wisdom every single day.

So today's July 16th.

If you would have read Proverbs 16 this morning, I did it early this morning, you would have read a couple really awesome things.

Really, everything in there is awesome.

A few stuck out to me.

Um, one of my favorite scriptures, Proverbs 16, 3, says, commit your actions to the Lord and your plans will succeed.

And that word commit in that context doesn't mean like dig in and do more and work harder.

It actually means like give it over.

Like if you got committed to a hospital, commit your plans to the Lord, commit your actions to the Lord, and you'll find success.

Give it to God and trust Him.

I need to be reminded of that all the time.

You would have also read Proverbs 16, 31, gray hair is a crown of glory.

It is gained by living a godly life.

Look at how many godly people we have in the room this morning.

You know, you guys are amazing.

I'm look, I turn 40 in two weeks and I'm I'm getting there.

I've got lots of gray on the sides, and I'm never gonna cover it up.

I want it.

I want it to come in faster.

I want gray hair.

Crown of glory.

Oh, there's so many Proverbs that are just gems.

And if you've read Proverbs, if you're one of those people that says, Man, I'm I'm pretty familiar with it, you know.

So many of these Proverbs are just gems.

And so what I did this last week was kind of interesting.

Um, I read the entirety of Proverbs, and it's again, it's a book I'm very familiar with, but I wanted to read it fresh.

And I really prayed, like, Lord, show me the categories, like the key categories, the key themes that show up in the book of Proverbs.

Because the Proverbs are filled with all kinds of sayings, and there's lots of them that sort of stand on their own, but if you read through it, you notice, man, there's a lot of buckets you could start putting different sayings and proverbs in, and you really start to develop this kind of blueprint for living a successful life according to God.

And so what I want to do is go through that.

And so, uh, James, would you mind bringing out the large pad if you're back there?

Let's hear it for James.

Yeah, James.

It looked this is a lot harder than it looks.

He could trip at any moment.

It could just be, you're not going to, you know.

I love you, James.

All right.

So, I've got this little flip chart, and we are going to go through the ten key ideas in the book of Proverbs.

Ten.

And I'm gonna go through it one at a time really fast.

Just boom, boom, boom.

If you do these ten things, generally speaking, in life, things will go really well for you.

I wanna say a few things on the front end, though.

Number one, I know what time it is, and I recognize my brain can go ten.

How many minutes per each can we really devote to this?

We'll be okay.

Number two, this is big.

It would be very easy for us to see this as a list of things that you have to do in order to be pleasing to God.

That this could be a list of things that you have to do well in order for God to accept you and be happy with you.

That is a lie.

You are a child of God.

If you've given your life to Jesus, you've been adopted into the family of God, I have four children.

They do not do most of the things on this list.

Okay?

They're learning.

Legalism is when we begin to see things through this lens of I must perform well and I must follow the rules and toe the line for God to accept me.

Do not in any way allow this to become that for you.

That will be the enemy trying to discourage you and make you feel like you're unsuccessful.

That is not the point of this.

This is not a list of things you have to do to be pleased, uh, to be pleasing to God.

This is a list of things that God would like you to do so that your life goes well.

Also, I'm just gonna say it on the front end.

We're gonna have fun with it, because that's just how we are as a church, but there's things on this list that are serious.

And there's going to be something on this list out of ten.

There's going to be something on this list that you're going to be like, ooh, I really struggle with that.

There might be two, there might be three.

Hopefully not ten, but maybe.

And if there are ten, just be like, man, I have the most upside in the room.

I have the most potential.

The difference between where I'm at and my ceiling is the highest.

That should make you excited.

Some of these you're gonna be like, I'm good with that.

But I promise that for all of us, there will be one, two, or three that really hit us today.

And if that conviction happens, you are not a failure?

No, not at all.

God just loves you enough that He brought you here today so that you can say, Hey, I want to make strides in this area of life.

Sound good?

All right, so let's go through it.

Here are the ten.

Do these ten things, life tends to go well for you.

Number one, fear the Lord.

This doesn't mean what you might think that it means.

This phrase shows up a lot in Proverbs, and we'll go through that here in a second.

Number two, seek more wisdom.

Get as much of it as you can.

Number three, value discipline.

Value discipline.

Number four, welcome correction.

Welcome correction.

Number five, use money wisely.

Super easy.

No one struggles with that.

All right, number six, work really hard.

Work, work really, really hard.

Number seven, this one has an asterisk.

I'll explain.

Uh keep your mouth shut.

This asterisk uh asterisk, I always say asterisk, but asterisk means uh in most situations.

So in most situations, there are lots of situations where you're gonna need to talk.

But in most situations, you want to keep your mouth shut.

Anyone struggle with that at all?

Yeah, all right.

Number eight, keep your pants on.

In most situations.

That is.

There's no way around it.

There are a lot of proverbs about this, and if I didn't mention it, I would not be teaching Proverbs.

Well, it just is the way that it is.

All right.

Number nine, keep good company.

Keep good company.

And finally, number 10, be nice to your boss.

That's I I heard I just heard someone go, pfft.

I heard that, like audibly.

All right, here we go.

We do these things, it's better than gold.

Let's start going through them one by one.

Here we go.

Fear the Lord.

Proverbs 1:7 says that fear of the Lord is the foundation of true knowledge.

Proverbs 1:7

Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true knowledge.

Proverbs 14, 26 and 27 says, Those who fear the Lord are secure, he will be a refuge for their children.

Fear of the Lord is a life-giving fountain.

It offers escape from the snares of death.

This does not mean to tremble in fear of God.

It's interesting, we sang a song this morning titled Tremble, but that was about the darkness, trembling before God.

That is not the kind of fear that we're talking about.

It's a fear, the word itself actually translates awe, reverence.

It's a recognition that God is God, that He is above everything, that He's the one who has the final say, and how can I argue with that?

How can I look at God and be like, you're wrong?

Like when my own children look at me and tell me that I'm wrong, and sometimes I am and they're right, but even still, I'm like, who are you to tell me that I am wrong?

Even when I am.

But most of the time, they're wrong.

That's just the truth.

Most of you who have children, you know that.

Most of the time, when your kids are arguing with you, you're right.

It drives you crazy as a parent.

That you're trying to justify yourself to a four-year-old.

But you gotta do it sometimes, right?

God is always right.

And he is above everything, and he has ultimate authority.

And to deny that is to live a foolish life.

This is kind of harsh language, but it is what it is.

Psalm 14.1 says, only fools say in their hearts, there is no God.

If you want to live a successful life, a life that is defined by wisdom, it has to begin with the acknowledgement that there is a God who is real, and there is a God who should be listened to and taken seriously.

He is a loving God, he is a good God, but he is God.

And our lives have to be oriented around who God is and what God says.

Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

That's important.

Number two, seek more wisdom.

Can't have too much of this good thing.

Proverbs 4, 5 through 8 says, Get wisdom.

Develop good judgment.

Don't forget my words or turn away from them.

Don't turn your back on wisdom, for she will protect you, love her, and she will guard you.

Getting wisdom is the wisest thing you can do, and whatever else you do, develop good judgment.

If you prize wisdom, she will make you great.

Embrace her and she will honor you.

I have this Google document.

I've got lots of Google documents.

That's how I keep my thoughts in order.

It's like my little journal, but it's on my phone.

And so every message that I have begins as a Google Doc, and every message idea, there's a whole list of them in Google Docs.

That's just what works for me.

I have this one called wisdom bombs.

Wisdom bombs.

It's just a little phrase that I use when someone says something, and I'm like, oh man, that was that was amazing.

Just wisdom bomb.

I open up my phone, I put it in.

And every once in a while I'll pull it out and I'll look at those because I've just learned over the years that I need a lot of wisdom.

I need so much more wisdom than I have.

And I should seek it.

I should be hungry for it.

It's almost like I'll use this, this is maybe TMI, but um, I'm doing this thing, I'm trying to lose weight.

And uh just I'm turning 40 in a couple weeks, I want to hit 40 strong.

And so I'm doing this thing that requires that I drink a gallon of water a day.

Has anyone ever drank a gallon of water a day?

Then you know my pain.

Whatever the average number of times you pee a day is, um, drink a gallon of water and exponentially increase that.

I cannot make it home from work without stopping at a gas station.

I can't do it.

Like, I physically can't do it.

I am more aware of where there are gas stations with nice restrooms than I have ever been in my entire life.

Like I know.

I'm like, ooh, I'm going this way, well, that I'm gonna stop at that racetrack, I'm gonna go there.

Because I have to, right?

There's this thing about life that when you really have to do something, when you're desperate, you become more aware of what's available.

Right?

If if if you want a job, you see job hiring signs, and other people don't.

Right?

When you're when you're rec when you recognize that you need something, when you're aware that you're in need of something you don't have, you are, man, you are hungry for it.

And we should be like that for wisdom.

The book of James says that if any of us lacks wisdom, we should ask our God.

He is generous and he will not fault us for asking.

So even if you consider yourself wise, then you would know this more than anyone.

Get more wisdom.

Look for it.

Who around you is wise?

Who do you know that is wise in your life?

Spend time with them.

Listen to what they say, write it down when something comes in.

Search the scriptures.

It is chock full of God's wisdom.

And then live it out.

Apply it to your life.

Get more wisdom.

There we go.

That's number two.

Number three, value discipline.

I am not a classically disciplined person.

I have friends that are just naturally like they operate like clockwork.

This is how you know if you're disciplined or not.

How many of you wake up when your alarm goes off?

Just show of hands.

Alarm goes off, boom, you're up.

How many of you take the alarm as like, eh, that's a suggestion, and I'm gonna begin the process of waking up, but it is a long, complicated process, right?

That's why God created the snooze button.

Um right?

Like, there's just some of us that are more naturally disciplined than others.

We're we have an easier time with things being in order, and some of us not so much.

I've actually never been super disciplined naturally.

I've always been very driven.

That's not the same thing.

I like to go hard, I like to work hard, but ah, I don't like doing things on a schedule.

I like to be a little bit more loose.

But there comes a point where that just falls apart and fails.

And what I need is discipline.

I need things that work.

I need some order in my life.

We should value discipline.

Proverbs 25-28 says that a person without self-control, right, which is just discipline, is like a city with broken down walls.

In ancient times, if your city had broken down walls, you were susceptible to attack.

And without discipline in our lives, we're like that.

Proverbs 19, 18 says, discipline your children while there is hope.

I love it.

This was written 3,000 years ago.

How relevant is it?

Otherwise, you will ruin their lives.

Ooh.

I know people who will say that they've raised their children too strict, and you can definitely do that.

And if you tend to raise your children super strict, they will rebel.

That is normal.

If you're too strict, they rebel.

But if you don't raise them with enough discipline, studies show that they they don't rebel, they actually grow to resent you.

And it's like that kid who uh is in middle school, and all the middle school kids wish they had that kid's parents because and I man, if this is you, again, not meant for shame, guilt, take it or leave it.

But there's like, oh, my parents let me do whatever I want.

I don't have a bedtime, I stay up as lazy as I want, I don't have any restrictions, I can do whatever, whenever, I do it all.

All the middle school kids are like, your parents are amazing.

Studies show that children who grow up that way do not have close relationships with their parents when they're older.

Because it's like this fine line where is that a parent just being awesome or is that just a parent being lazy?

Because it's really easy to tell your kids yes all the time.

We're supposed to value discipline in our own lives and in the lives of those that we lead, whether that's our children or people that work for us.

Discipline works.

There's ways around it sometimes, sure, but if you find someone who's hyper-successful in any area of life, what you will find is a person who has discipline in that area of life.

Value discipline.

Now, no matter how much you value discipline, it is bound to fail.

You're a human being.

You're not perfect, none of us are perfect, so you're going to mess up.

And when that happens, you need to be someone who can welcome correction.

Who loves being corrected?

Anyone?

It's like, ooh, somebody does?

Awesome.

Let's talk afterward.

I want to find out all the things that I can.

Now I'm just teasing.

No, it's it's good.

You should.

You should actually, Proverbs would speak well to you.

27.6 says that wounds from a sincere friend are better than many kisses from an enemy.

If you have a friend that loves you enough to tell you the truth, even when it hurts, that's better than having enemies who just butter you up.

Proverbs 10.8 says, the wise are glad to be corrected.

It's like, oh, thank you so much for bringing that to my attention.

And if you can say that without sarcasm, that's wisdom.

Proverbs 10.17 says, people who accept discipline are on the pathway to life, but those who ignore correction will go astray.

Now, parents, I'll throw you a bone here.

If you're a child in the room, you have parents that are over you, you live in their house.

By the way, even if you're like 20, if you don't pay rent, you live in their house, so that's just how it works.

Half joking.

Sorry, that came off really cynical and dark.

My bad.

Um correct me, correct me.

I need this.

So there's so many scriptures about how foolish it is to ignore the correction of your parents.

That if if you ignore the correction of your father or the teachings of your mother, that's that's foolishness.

But for all of us, whether we're children or Or not, most of us in this room are adults.

We have a lot of kids in other places, but we're supposed to be people who welcome it.

Who welcome it.

One of the one of the most direct moments of correction I've ever had, Steve, who started his hands, who mentored me for many, many years, and still does.

I still consider Steve a mentor.

We I love spending time with him.

He had a meeting with me two or three years into me working here.

And he said, Justin, I thought this was going great.

He was like, Justin, I can tell that you really want to be a strong leader.

And I'm like, Yeah, I do.

He says, You know, I've never known a leader, and I thought what was about to come was a compliment.

I've never known a leader with as much potential.

That's what I was like, this seems like it's going in a good direction.

And he said, You know, I've never known a leader who talks as much as you.

And this was on the tail end of a meeting that I was in, and I was the youngest guy in the room, I was the youngest guy at the table, and I talked the most.

Which, by the way, a little bit of wisdom.

Like if you're the youngest in the room, talk the talk the least.

Pick your spots.

We'll get to that later.

But oh man, it's that stung a little bit.

That's happened many times in my life.

When I was in college, I interned at a church and really loved it, and Roy was my pastor, and Roy did the same thing.

I don't know if he and Steve exchanged phone numbers and know each other, and like, hey, this is how this goes.

Do this with Justin.

But he met with me, he said, Man, Justin, you're doing a great job.

I was in charge of their middle school stuff in college and I loved it.

He said, You know what?

You're like a speedboat.

That's what he compared me to.

A speedboat.

That's pretty awesome.

Right?

Like a speedboat.

Who wouldn't want to be a speedboat?

And he said, But you know what, man?

You go so fast and so focused, but if you would turn around and look behind you, you would see how many people are drowning in your wake.

I was like, that took a turn.

You know?

I don't like the speedboat anymore.

But as much in those moments, as much as that stuff hurt, I had people in my life, I had men in my life who cared enough to correct me.

Their purpose wasn't to discourage me, their purpose was to help me change, to help me get better.

Value that.

Welcome correction.

And here's the simple question: do you have anyone in your life who has permission to correct you?

Like someone that may you may need to go to someone and say, hey, listen, I love you and I respect you.

You have my permission.

And if you ever see anything in me that's off track, tell me.

Let me know.

And man, to do that would just be an immense benefit for your life.

So welcome correction.

Use money wisely.

Ooh, this is so hard.

Because he didn't have Amazon.

Like when he wrote this, life was so it was so much easier.

Money was harder to come by, it was harder to spend in our world today.

Like it's a so I just I feel like we might, we should have put an asterisk there because it's not really the same, but let's see what scripture has to say about it.

Proverbs 10, 16, the earnings of the godly enhance their lives, but evil people squander their money on sin.

Proverbs 11, 25, the generous will prosper, those who refresh others will be refreshed.

So generosity is an aspect of using money wisely.

There are many proverbs that will tell you to be very careful about getting into debt because you're a slave to the lender.

That's the language.

There's Proverbs that will tell you not to depend on your money, not to look at your money as your source of hope and security, because one of the Proverbs says that money has the ability to sprout wings and fly away like a bird.

And how many of us have experienced that?

It's true.

And so there's this interesting dynamic with money, and basically the gist of it in Proverbs is to avoid debt as much as possible, to spend your money wisely, saving money for a time when you will need it.

Don't spend everything that you have, don't spend frivolously, invest and be generous.

And if you do those things, typically speaking, you'll be in good shape.

And the funny thing about it is we actually live in the most financially prosperous society in history.

Like no culture that has ever existed has ever had as much money to spend as us.

And yet, if you pull people, they are like, ooh, financially, just feeling it.

And again, that's not meant for any guilt correction.

I've got four kids, and it blows me away how fast we can spend money as a family.

I'm not saying if you don't have four kids, I'm not saying you shouldn't.

I'm just saying, think about what a trip to Chick-fil-A costs with four children.

And when they get old enough that they stop ordering off the kids' menu, ooh, it's like you almost want to turn around and be like, look, I know you're 13, but order off the kids' menu, okay?

You're not a man yet.

But it's it's tough.

It's it life is expensive.

In fact, there was this really interesting study that came out, not talking about politics, it's just things that are happening in the world, but there was this promise of student loan forgiveness of up to like$10,000 for a lot of people, and then that that got struck down.

And so this poll came out of what percentage of people had already spent the money that they thought was going to be forgiven, and it would blow you away.

The vast majority of young people who were like, oh, I'm gonna get this forgiven, had already spent, in some cases, the entire amount on just stuff.

And there were all kinds of questions about what did you spend it on?

But so many are like, oh no, and now it's not forgiven, and now I have this extra debt on top.

It's like, what am I gonna do?

Use money wisely.

And scripture, by the way, offers so much wisdom in this area.

If you just want to Google what the Bible says about money, how should I operate with money?

God knows what he's doing.

All right, let's keep going.

Work really hard.

Work really hard.

Proverbs 12, 24 says that we should work hard and become a leader, be lazy and become a slave.

Now, this seems strange at first glance.

We have to understand what slavery was in their culture.

This is not the kind of slavery that we think of.

Most slavery that happened in this culture in this time was what we would call indentured servitude.

And basically it was like this: if you, if you were lazy or maybe you just had bad luck and you were really in a tough spot financially, you would sell yourself to someone as a slave.

And in selling yourself to that person, they would take on all your debt, so you would be absolved of that, and they would work it out with you, okay, well, if you're in this much debt, you've got to work for me for 10 years.

And after 10 years of working for that person for no wages, just working there and living off whatever they gave you, you would then be free.

And it's amazing how many people.

The Roman Empire, that was probably the height of that.

Um, some estimates say that almost half of the Roman Empire live that way.

People would sell themselves into slavery because that's what you had to do if you were in debt.

And Proverbs says that if we work really hard, we have the capacity to become a leader, but if we're lazy, we become a slave.

And it's possible to become a slave to, like we said earlier, to like your debt.

And all of a sudden you're not free to make certain decisions and choices because this controls your life.

Hard work is the number one way out of that kind of stuff.

Hard work is a very well-known quote that hard work is the great equalizer.

Someone might have talent, but if they don't have a hard work ethic, someone who has less talent but a harder work ethic can outpace that person most of the time.

I look at something like Canvas that we just had on Friday night.

It was amazing.

It was incredible.

Oh my goodness, the amount of work that went into it.

And it's not just work that happened recently, the amount of work that it's taken in the last 10 years to go from 40 people to nearly 600 people at this event.

It's been a God thing.

It's been a total blessing from the Lord, but He's blessed us as we've worked with Him.

And it takes a lot.

And the team that did everything for K, oh my goodness, the amount of work.

I got to see so much hard work from so many amazing people this week and look at the results.

So work really hard.

It's always tempting to just stop, to quit.

Especially in our culture where you can kind of act like you're working harder than you are.

It's easy to do that.

Work really hard.

And if that's something you struggle with, pray and ask the Lord to give you a motivation and a desire to work hard so that you have the ability to see what you're actually capable of.

Hard work is the great equalizer.

Here we go.

The first one with an asterisk.

Keep your mouth shut in most situations.

There are so many proverbs about this.

I'll give you a few of the classics.

Proverbs 17, 28.

Even fools are thought wise when they keep silent.

With their mouth shut, they seem intelligent.

The easiest way for people to think you're smart is just to not talk.

Right?

Just nod a lot.

Hmm.

Right?

Proverbs 13, 3, those who control their tongue will have a long life.

Opening your mouth can ruin everything.

The greatest regrets that I have in many cases are things that I've said.

Moments where I've I've said something I shouldn't have said, I've been angry, and it's come out.

It's really hard to not say things sometimes when you have a zinger.

Like, you know that feeling?

Like you've got a zinger, like this is a it's this one's good.

Like it's it's legitimately good.

It has merit, it's funny, and it's gonna hit this person right where it hurts.

And that that's it takes a lot of self-control to keep that in.

Some of you may know this if your your history buffs.

Um, Abraham Lincoln, when he was assassinated, they went through his desk.

And one of the things they found in his desk was a series of scathing letters, just rebukes.

Like he was a super intelligent guy, and so he had a way with words.

I'm talking about just dressing someone down, and he wrote them and he never sent them.

Put them in his desk.

It's like he would get so angry with people, and he would sit down and just, you know, dip that feather in some ink and just go, and just be like, and you.

And their handwriting back then was like impeccable.

I don't know how that's even possible.

They're just like, boom, boom, and then he would fold it up and put it in his desk.

And it's interesting because early in his life, he he nearly died because he didn't do that when he was young.

He was very loose with his words, and he was very sharp-tongued, and he offended someone who challenged him to a duel.

And it's it's very well known that that person back then, you're like, I challenge you to a duel.

We're gonna stand in front of each other with guns and shoot at each other unless someone stops us.

And the guy that challenged him to the duel was known to be a much better shot than Abraham Lincoln.

And if that had happened, it's very likely Abraham Lincoln never would have become president, never would have lived long enough to do that.

There's a power in just not saying something.

You know, we we often, when we say someone has a way with words, you have a gift with words, what we usually mean is you're good at talking.

We should actually apply that to people who have a way with words and that they keep them inside of them.

Now, the asterisk is here for a reason.

There are certain moments when we are compelled to speak.

In fact, Proverbs has a lot of sayings about how we should encourage people with our speech.

When we we decide to speak, we should speak encouragement, we should speak life.

We're supposed to speak truth.

If we're gonna speak, we gotta speak the truth.

There are times where you have to stand up and say, no, this is true, this is right, and it's okay to speak that out.

We're actually compelled many times in Proverbs to speak wisdom, to offer words of wisdom.

Now, if you don't think you have words of wisdom to share, then just don't say anything.

But but if God has brought you through something and you have experience and you've been where someone else is, and God showed you things and you learned things, you are free to say, hey, if this helps you, I learned this.

So speak encouragement, speak truth, speak wisdom.

But in most other situations, just don't.

And gosh, guys, like me saying this, ooh.

This is like uh my life in a nutshell.

I had a teacher in sixth grade that called my mother in tears asking her how to get me to stop talking.

This was like a honestly, like a compulsion in my life.

Just talk, talk.

I'm a verbal processor, I think as I talk, it's really hard to be married to me.

It's tough.

But I'm better than I used to be.

I actually had someone that that uh got upset with me a few years ago, and we had a conversation, and they emailed me and they said, you know, that conversation really frustrated me because you talked for 60%.

And I remember thinking, that's actually pretty good for me.

Um because there were only two of us, so 50% would have been just great.

I was half the conversation.

I only went 10% over.

That's progress.

I didn't say that.

Right?

Keep your mouth shut.

But there's a there was a version of me 10 years ago that would have dominated 75.

It's it's bad.

So I'm constantly working on this one.

Here we go.

Keep your pants on in most situations.

Now, I didn't just put this in here for humor.

Hmm.

This is tough.

Proverbs 5, 15 through 17 says, drink water from your own well.

Share your love only with your wife.

And just so we know as we read these, um, the book of Proverbs personifies wisdom as a woman, and it personifies a foolish youth as a young man.

And there's many Proverbs about this young man kind of out on the prowl, and there's promiscuous women that he has the ability to sleep with, and so um that's sort of the dynamic, that's sort of the visual that's given.

So that's the language you have here, right?

So share your love only with your wife.

Why spill the water of your springs in the streets, having sex with just anyone?

You should reserve it for yourselves, never share it with strangers.

Proverbs 6, 30 through 35 says, excuses might be found for a thief who steals because he is starving, but if he's caught, he must pay back seven times what he stole, even if he has to sell everything in his house.

But the man who commits adultery is an utter fool, for he destroys himself.

He will be wounded and disgraced, his shame will never be erased, for the woman's jealous husband will be furious, and he will show no mercy.

When he takes revenge, he will accept no compensation, nor be satisfied with a payoff of any size.

There are lots of proverbs about the utter danger of sexual sin.

Now, I actually, with our prayer team this morning, prayed about this very moment of the conversation.

Because I recognize that this specific area is one of the most likely areas to feel shame and guilt.

We did a whole series last year called the Biblical Sexual Ethic.

It was a three-week series.

If you weren't coming to his hands at the time, feel free to look it up.

We we covered a lot of interesting territory.

Virtually every single person, myself included, has found themselves on the outside of what God would call healthy human sexuality.

Virtually every single one of us, in some way, shape, or form.

We tend to have a tremendous amount of shame attached to failures in this area, and our enemy, Satan, knows that.

That's why we feel so much shame.

Because when we mess up in that area, it's serious, and the enemy makes sure that we feel that.

But know this if you're someone and you're sitting here, you're like, oh, this just why?

Why?

Why are we talking about this?

Why am I here today?

Well, Jesus encountered many people who had struggled with or were embroiled in sexual sin, either in the past or the present.

There's a famous conversation he has with a woman who he meets at a well, and she's living with someone she's not married to.

She's had multiple husbands before, she's living that life, and Jesus does not look at her and shame her.

In fact, she's the very first person he ever says the words, I am the Messiah to.

He reveals who he is to her, of all people.

There's a woman who's caught in the act of adultery, and she's brought before Jesus, and in their law, they are allowed to stone her for this sin.

And so these men are testing Jesus to see what he does, and he says, Hey, yeah, I know the law.

Um, whichever one of you has never sinned, go ahead and throw the first stone.

And before he does that, scripture says he writes in the sand, and we don't know what he wrote.

Many people have thought maybe he's writing some of the struggles of the men that are that are talking to him.

He knows those things.

We don't know.

But when the men hear that, they drop their stones, they walk away, and this woman looks at him and he says to her, Woman, where are your accusers?

And she says, They've left.

There are none.

And he says, I don't accuse you either, now go and sin no more.

He saves her life.

He tells her, I do not accuse you.

But change.

If you feel shame, just know that that shame doesn't come from God.

He is not the accuser.

That is actually who Satan is.

It's funny, there's a lot of courtroom illustrations in the Bible, and we tend to think of the prosecutor as like the good one and the defense attorney, the sort of uh standard stereotype of a defense attorney is like a slimy person in a pinstripe suit.

Not if you own a pinstripe suit, you're a slimy person.

Okay?

Perfectly fine to own pinstripe suits.

It's just, you know what I'm talking about.

There's like this stereotype, and it's interesting because in the Bible, that language of courtroom is always used talking about us, and Satan is the prosecutor.

He's the attorney who's bringing charges against us, and the Holy Spirit is our defender, our advocate.

So if you feel accused, that is not from God.

It's definitely not from me.

It is not from God.

But just know that this kind of sin affects us more than most.

It just does.

That's why Paul wrote that we should flee, flee, like run away from sexual immorality, because no other kind of sin so greatly affects our body.

It's just so intimate.

And so, if that's something that you struggle with, you are definitely not alone.

Whether that be adultery or or addiction to pornography or something like that, but you can absolutely stop and change.

Even if you don't feel like you can.

If you've given your life to Jesus, you have been freed from the slavery of sin.

That is the language that we have in Scripture.

We are no longer slaves to our sin nature.

We are no longer bound to do whatever it desires.

That doesn't mean we don't feel strong impulses, it doesn't mean we don't feel the same desires, it doesn't mean we don't have the same uh uh ideas in our mind, the same thoughts, the temptations, whatever, but it means we don't have to.

You've been set free by Jesus.

You can say no.

You can say no.

And I just want you to know that if that's an area of struggle, God desires you to change in that area because he loves you and he wants your life to go well and it affects you deeply.

And know that you have the ability to change, and if you need help, there's a lot of help available to you here.

Let us know, reach out, and we can help you connect with someone who's been through that and can help you out with that.

I just, it's really important.

There's so many scriptures about this, there's so many proverbs about this because when you step into it in this part of life, ooh, it hurts.

So, in most situations, keep your pants up.

This would be marriage.

Okay, let's move on.

Keep good company.

Keep good company, choose good friends.

Proverbs 13 20 probably has the classic walk with the wise and become wise, associate with fools and get into trouble.

We've all had stupid friends.

Sometimes stupid friends are awesome because you laugh at them and they do stupid things.

But then eventually, you do stupid things, right?

And I'm being silly, but the truth is there is tremendous value in the people that we decide to be friends with.

Tremendous value.

We need to wisely choose our friends.

Walk with the wise and become wise.

Find people to surround yourself with.

And this also applies to romantic partners.

Find people to surround yourself with that will sharpen you.

Scripture says iron sharpens iron.

Find people that will help you follow God.

I have friends in my life that when I hang out with them, I am more excited about Jesus, I am more excited about my life, I love my family more, I'm more grateful because being around them, it fills me up in a different way.

On the other side, there's people that you've probably been around and it drains you.

And you maybe have people that try to, if you have friends that are constantly giving you terrible advice, like trying to goad you into making terrible decisions, you know, like, you know what you ought to do?

You ought to quit your job today.

Like if you if you hear someone say that to you, and maybe that's that's wise advice, it could be in certain situations.

Most of the time, rash decisions are not.

But surround yourself with people who will add wisdom to your life.

And if you're like, I don't have those people, you do.

Around you right now.

I'm not saying everyone here is wise, but everyone here is wise enough to get up early on a Sunday morning and be in a place where the truth of God is spoken, and that matters.

And we have all kinds of ways to get you connected with each other here at his hands.

But choose good friends.

The last one, and this is the one that I literally got an audible pff from, which I get.

Be nice to your boss.

Some of us are like, You don't know my boss.

Proverbs 16 14 through 15 says, The anger of the king is a deadly threat.

The wise will try to appease it.

When the king smiles, there's life.

His favor refreshes like.

A spring rain.

Now, we don't have a king, we don't really interact with our president, but we do have authority in our lives.

All of us have someone.

If you're a child, it's your parents at home.

If you have a job, it's your boss, and not all bosses are created equal.

But things tend to go well for those who have a healthy respect for authority.

And there are a lot of proverbs about it.

Most of the proverbs have to do with kings.

But in our world, in our culture, it's so easy.

It is so easy to justify being insubordinate because the person who's above you is just they're an idiot.

You know?

I've never thought that about anyone I've ever worked for.

Like I've only worked for really great people that always make the right decisions.

But I will say honestly, I I had kind of a unique experience here at his hands.

I got hired when I was 23, and I was the young guy.

I think it was one other person a little bit younger than me, but I was young.

And I got to watch lots of people just not make smart choices in terms of how they would address the people in charge.

And Steve and Susan were as approachable and loving as you could imagine as far as having a boss goes, but also very confident in their leadership ability.

And so, you know, I just watched people in moments of passion and frustration, you know, go, I'm gonna speak my mind, I'm gonna give them a piece of my mind, and those people tended not to work here very long.

Um, and not in some harsh way, because you have to have unity on a team, you have to have people who are bought in.

And so there is a there is a healthy respect for authority that we are taught in scripture over and over again.

It is hard.

It is very hard.

People often, people in leadership make mistakes all the time, myself included.

In fact, whenever I stepped into this role, uh my mentor told me, like, hey, if you want to be a leader with that many people, just know this.

People are gonna say a lot of bad things about you, and some of it's gonna be true.

It's true.

I make mistakes, plenty.

But if we if we have this desire to say, you know what, I'm gonna make it my point to be kind, to be respectful to the people.

I'm not talking about being a brown noser, right?

I'm just talking about being nice and respectful to your boss, it will go well for you in life.

Nehemiah would be a great example for you in scripture.

Nehemiah was a servant to a horrible king because the kings of those empires were horrible people.

They just did horrible things.

And it's interesting, Nehemiah heard about something happening in his homeland a long way away, and it says that he was sad in the presence of the king, and the king noticed and said, What's wrong with Nehemiah?

And Nehemiah told him what he had heard about what was happening in his homeland, and the king sent Nehemiah with all kinds of money and resources and people to go fix it.

And that means that that king had probably never seen Nehemiah sad, frustrated, at work before.

Think about that.

Nehemiah just being kind of down really bothered the king.

He's like, What's wrong with him?

How easy would it be for you know Nehemiah to be this person that's like, oh, Nehemiah's in a bad mood again?

He's always like that.

He's always in a mood, he's always having a bad attitude, and the king would just be like, ignore him.

But apparently Nehemiah was so focused that when he was in the presence of the king, when he was with his boss, he was he was on task, he was he was like, he said, yes, sir, whatever it was, he had a good attitude, a good spirit, so that when the king saw that he wasn't like that, the king thought, man, it must be serious.

What would it be like for all of us that if we had such a relationship with our boss that if we were having a bad day, it would bother our boss and they would be like, whoa, let's talk.

You you need a day off?

Are you okay?

Maybe you have that, but a lot of people don't.

So there you go.

Those are the ten things.

And I'm looking, I the clock, it's two minutes past when I thought I would be done.

That's not that bad, okay?

So let's wrap this up.

Are you good at all of these?

Anyone good at all ten?

Anyone at all?

Anyone have like one or two that you walked in here this morning, this was not even on the top of your mind at all, and now you're like, oh, actually, I I'm gonna work on some of these areas of life?

Some of us are like, nah, I'm just I'm yes, I'm aware, but I'm not ready.

That's okay.

That's okay.

But just understand, wisdom is better than gold.

And if you do these things, scripture, it does, God loves you enough that he desires you to be successful.

If you do these things, it will go well for you.

How amazing that we have a God who wants things to go well for us.

He cares.

So if any of this speaks to you, if any of these ten speak to you at all, give it to God this week.

Say, Lord, I need help in this area of life.

Thank you for making me aware of it.

Start reading the Proverbs, start, start there, just start going.

What do the proverbs say about this part of life?

And soak it in and apply what you learn.

And it will go well for you because wisdom is better than gold.

Now, we're gonna wrap up with Lord's Supper, and had I been a wise person, I would have remembered to bring a cup of uh bread and juice with me, but I did not.

And so I got I got Doug here.

Someone now, Mike, you came to help me.

Why don't you give it to Doug?

And then Mike, you can go get more.

Someone in the back row, give yours to Mike, and then you can go get it, and we'll just have an assembly line.

You know, that's how we run things.

Okay.

So, I know that was a lot of information.

That was a lot.

That was the book of Proverbs, the entire book of Proverbs summed up for the most part, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't read it.

There's lots of other good stuff in there.

But I do want to finish with this and worship team, you can make your way out.

Ultimately, this comes down to Jesus.

And I'm not just, I'm not just saying that because you know we we gotta get it to Jesus, because we're a Jesus church.

No.

Jesus is the source of wisdom itself.

Isaiah was a prophet who lived at a time when the kings of Israel were failing.

And he foresaw when that failure would be complete.

But he wrote this prophecy, Isaiah chapter 11.

Isaiah 11 · chapter mention

He says, Out of the stump of David's family will grow a shoot.

Yes, a new branch bearing fruit from the old root.

And the spirit of the Lord will rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

He was speaking about Jesus.

Jesus had the audacity to say in Matthew chapter 7 that anyone who listens to his teachings is wise.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

He said, Anyone who listens to my teachings and does what I say is wise, like a man who builds his house on bedrock.

And when storms come, nothing can tear that house down.

If you know Jesus, if you put your faith in Jesus, you have put your faith in the very source of wisdom itself.

He is full of it.

He has more of it than you can handle.

He always knows what to do.

You know, just like we sing out on Sundays, right?

The battle belongs to him.

He can defeat any enemy.

There's no situation that's too dark for him to expel the darkness.

He is who we need.

And how amazing is it that wisdom isn't just something out there that we've got to go find.

No, wisdom, wisdom came to us, and now wisdom lives inside of us through the Holy Spirit.

So you have access to the wisdom of God.

And I'm grateful to be reminded of that this morning as we take this piece of bread and this cup of juice, reminding us of Jesus and his sacrifice on the cross.

Understand that all the wisdom you need, if there was one of these areas that kind of hit a little today, no, don't worry.

You have Jesus, and he knows what to do, and he will give you the wisdom for that.

So let's thank him.

Let's take the bread.

Father, we thank you for this piece of bread, and we thank you, Lord, for what it represents.

Your body broken on the cross.

Lord, you are good.

You had the wisdom to recognize that we have no hope apart from you.

And we needed you to die for us.

We needed you to pay the price for our sin.

And Lord, we need you every day to show us the way.

You are the way, you are the truth, you are the life.

If there's any wisdom that we need, you have it, and I pray that we come to you for it.

And as we take this bread in, Lord, remind us that just like this bread becomes part of us, your spirit is part of us.

And it's a spirit of wisdom.

Let's take the bread.

Lord, thank you for this juice.

Thank you, Lord, for what it what it means to us.

Your blood poured out.

In your goodness and in your wisdom, you saw fit to sacrifice everything for us.

Lord, I pray that just like this juice quenches our thirst, that we would we would hunger and thirst for wisdom.

And specifically your wisdom, not the wisdom of this world, but your timeless, tested wisdom and truth.

Let it fill us, Lord, completely and wholly until we're satisfied.

Let's take the juice.