Proverbs - Wisdom For Troubled Times

Turn in your bible to Proverbs chapter 3, Proverbs chapter 3, and verses 1 to 12. Prorows chapter 3 verse 1, my son, do not forget my teaching, but keep my commands in your heart. For they will prolong your life many years and bring you peace and prosperity. Let love and faithfulness never leave you. Bind them around your neck.

Write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will win favor and a good name. In the sight of God and man. Trust in the lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, submit to him and he will make your paths straight.

Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and shun evil. This will bring health to your body, nourishment to your bones. Honor the Lord with your wealth, With first fruits of all your crops, then your barns will be filled to overflowing. And your vats will brim over with new wine.

My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline. And do not resent his rebuke because the lord disciplines those he loves as a father, the son he delights in. Okay. Good morning. If you'd like to turn back to Proverbs chapter 3, this is the series that we've been working through in this wonderful book of wisdom, the book of Proverbs.

And let's bow our heads, and let's pray together and let's ask for God's help, that the Holy Spirit would bring these words to life, apply them to our hearts, challenge us, and change us. Let's pray together. Father, we do thank you for this amazing book, and we thank you that it gives us wisdom. We thank you that it explains what wisdom is to us. We thank you that it teaches us how to live in a right relationship with you, our creator.

Our father and our saviour. And lord, we pray that you'd help us as we've been learning in this series to turn our ears to the voice of wisdom this morning. We pray that you would help us to cry aloud for understanding, to search for knowledge and insight, as we might, for the finest of treasures. Help us not to consider these words, just to be something that we do to fill the time, some helpful religious thoughts, which might make us think, But to genuinely see this as the wisdom of the living God, which we need, not only in order to survive, but in order to thrive in this world. Help us all of us to make the most of this opportunity this morning because we know that eternity depends on it.

And our lives depend on it. So give us ears to hear we pray in Jesus' name. Our men. Our men. Loads of big companies today, whether it be companies like Amazon or Netflix or Spotify or even coffee shops like Pratt offer some kind of pay monthly service.

It often begins with a free trial, which is very attractive, and then it will go up to 6 99 a month or 9 99 a month or 20 pounds a month, or whatever it is. And in my experience, joining these things is very easy. And leaving is harder. You can sign up with just a few swipes and thumb thumb taps, and you can be part of the club in a matter of seconds. But with some of them, in order to leave, you have to ring up between 10 and 10 15 in the morning, On the second Thursday of every month, join a queue and then explain yourself to the company as to why you want to leave.

And if you've ever done that, 1 of the things that they try to do is to remind you of the benefits of being a member of the club. And so let's say remember mister Sweetman or mister Sweatman as they would normally pronounce it. With this membership, you can enjoy 10 percent off at these restaurants. Have you capitalized on that yet, mister Sweetman? You can enjoy money off the cinema, you can get money off this particular thing, that particular thing.

And they try to remind you of the benefits, and then they say, why don't you give it just 1 more month for free? And then you can ring us up next month if it doesn't work out. And of course, if you've ever had a conversation like that, you'll know that the more serious you are about leaving The more benefits there could be, if only you would stay. The longer the conversation goes on, you discover that there's more in the arsenal than you realize that they could offer you in order to in order to keep you. And as we know, that's just, you know, that's just marketing, isn't it?

But When we're in those conversations, we basically pick up quite quickly, that their interest in us, at that point, is commercial. Isn't it? It's about marketing. And so even though they might ask us how our day is going, furthering the relationship is not the priority. They don't really want to get to know us in any meaningful way.

They want to do what they can with the resources that they have to to keep our cash. And as I say, that's just, you know, partly just good marketing, isn't it? But it really is very, very different to what we have here in Proverbs chapter 3. These verses do give us the benefits of belonging to the wisdom club. And there's a lot of them.

There's a lot of benefits to belonging to the Wisdom Club, and we're gonna have a look at them later on. But at the heart of Wisdom, is relationship. So the CEO of this company isn't just in it for the money, He actually delights in all of his members. He loves his members. He loves those who belong to the Wisdom Club.

His interest in us is not commercial, it's relational. He's like a dad who's sitting down with his children and he loves them. And he wants the best for them. And as we're gonna see, his incentives to be part of the wisdom club are not just commercial He really does love us and he wants us to thrive and he wants the very best for us, because he's invested in us relationally. It's not just about money or what he can get out of it.

And so this morning, we're going to see 3 things. Firstly, continuing with that thought, we're going to think about the heart of wisdom. Secondly, we're going to look at the opposite of wisdom, as it's defined here. And thirdly, we're going to look at the benefits of wisdom. The heart of wisdom, the opposite and the and the benefits.

And the first point that I want us to look at this morning, and perhaps it will come up behind me, the true prosperity gospel. That's what I call it. The heart of wisdom is a relationship with the father. Just look at some of the words we have here in Proverbs 3. Trust in the lord, verse 5.

Fear the lord, verse 7. Honor the lord. Verse 9, do not despise the Lord verse 11. These are words of relationship. And then you think about the context of this book.

Chapter 3 verse 1, my son. Do not forget my teaching. My son, my son, do not forget my teaching. You see, what we're supposed to imagine here is not a marketing conversation on the phone, but a mom and a dad sitting down with their children or eating with them at the dinner table, or tucking them in at night, and saying to them, my son, my daughter, I love you. And I want the best for you.

And I'm in your corner every day. And I want you to thrive. So listen to me, my son. Listen to me. I love you.

I want the best for you. That's the context of this book. And you can see how it works in all of these different verses. In each of these 6 verses or 12 verses, there's like a pairing. So if you look at chapter 3 verse 1 again, My son do not forget my teaching but keep my commands in your heart.

Now why is he telling us that? And why should we keep the commands? 4, they will prolong your life many years. See saying, if I didn't love you, I wouldn't bother to give you these commands. I wouldn't bother if I wasn't interested in you, but I do love you and I want you to keep them because I want you to enjoy a rich full life with me, your father.

Or chapter 3 verse 12, and this is picked up in in Hebrews 12 as well. My son do not despise the Lord's discipline and do not resent his rebuke. Now why shouldn't we do that? Why shouldn't we despise it when the Lord rebukes us or correct us? Because the Lord disciplines those that he loves as a father, the son that he delights in.

My son, if I didn't delight in you, I wouldn't give us stuff when you go wrong. I really wouldn't. I wouldn't care. But I do, and I'm invested in you, and I love you, and I'm delighted in you. And I want the very best for you.

And so we shouldn't despise his correction and his discipline because it is for our flourishing. And it's evidence that he delights in his children. If he didn't, you'd just leave us. So this is the heart of wisdom. It is warm, it is relational, it is knowing the father.

And as we know, when the whole bible story unfolds, This is the relationship that we can all enjoy through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. If you have a look at how John puts it, in John 1. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world And though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.

And yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. And that is the beautiful wisdom at the heart of the gospel, that all who will sincerely turn away from their sins And believe in the Lord Jesus Christ who was crucified for their sins and risen again on the third day, to all who will believe in his name. He gives us the right to become children of God. The beginning of wisdom is to fear the lord, but the heart of wisdom is this relationship with the father. A father and a mother sitting down with their children, I love you.

You're in relationship with me. I've forgiven you through my son. I want the best for you. Now listen to me. Listen to me.

And although we all need this reminder from time to time about what it is to know the Lord, it might be that there's just 1 or 2 people or a handful of people here who who just really especially need to remember that this morning, that the Lord loves us, and to know Him is to know a Father who is in our corner all of the time. This is not just a conversation with the marketing team. Who don't really know you, but want to persuade you to stay in the God club for another week. These are words from a father who loves you on your best days, and he loves you on your absolute worst days. And he wants the best for you all the time.

He wants us to listen so that we might flourish in this world. You can memorize this entire book and all your favorite proverbs. But if you miss this warm, relational setting, then we'll be missing we'll be missing everything. So the heart of wisdom is a relationship with the father. The opposite of wisdom is to lean on our own understanding.

And you can see that's how it's put in verse 5. Trust in the lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways submit to him, and he will make your path straight. At the end of the book of judges, which you may know a book in testament and is probably 1 of the lowest points in Israel's history. We read this about God's people.

This is the last sentence. The book closes with this sentence. In those days, there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. It's interesting, isn't it?

It doesn't say they did what was wrong. They did what was right, which was wrong. Because they did what was right in their own eyes. Proverbs makes a similar point in chapter 14 verse 12, There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. There is a way that seems right to a man.

But its end is the way to death. It feels good and it looks wise and it seems sensible to us, but to choose our own way is death. Trust in the lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. Now, it's worth saying with this, and we were we were talking about it a bit in our home group on Wednesday. That this sentence here is not a call to reject general life experience.

And so we were using the example of Abby Dryden who's in who's in our home group, and we were saying that if Abby If Abi is still a midwife in 20 or 30 or even 40 years time, it would be worth trusting the wisdom she's accumulated over those years. There will be a type of life experience that she's gained. And so it's not as if to say, that with every new mother and child, she has to lean not on her own understanding and forget all the wisdom that she's accumulated and and and go back and search the bible for how to help this particular particular mother. That's not that's not how things work, because God in his wisdom has given us rational minds and he set the world up so that we learn as we go. That's right, isn't it?

That's how we set the world up, that we build up experience and wisdom as we go. But a wise person takes it further. A wise person knows the world they live in, and they know their own heart, and they know that their own heart is something that is prone to wonder and prone to leave the God that it loves. And therefore, they use their experience and they use their rational mind to trust the Lord. They actually use the very mind that God has given them to turn away from their own understanding and to trust in the Lord who made them.

That's what a wise person does. There's an old way of describing human sin, which apparently was first was first articulated by Augustus, 1 of the church fathers. And he describes sin as a curving in on ourselves. As a curving in on ourselves. So if you think about a leaf in autumn that has fallen off the tree and is in the floor, There are there are a number of things that happen to it.

It begins to lose all of its color and its nourishment. It begins to lose its strength and it curves in on itself. It curls in on itself. And in fact, the more dead it is, The more curled in on itself it is. It curls in on itself as evidence of its own death.

And that is what sin is and that is what sin does. We turn in on ourselves. We trust ourselves. We really believe in our own judgments. We think that we have got all the information that we need to know to make the right decisions.

There is a way that seems right to us and we walk down it. As a quote I read this week attributed to Einstein, but I don't know. It's 1 of those ones where no 1 really knows if he actually said it. But He said he said this apparently. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results. And sin is exactly like that Over and over again, we curve in on ourselves, and we trust ourselves. And we lean on our own understanding. And we tell ourselves that even if it didn't work out last time, even if it went badly last time, This time things will be different. This time, when I lean on my own understanding, this time when I curl in on myself, this time when I reject wisdom, it'll go well for me.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results, and they never come. They never come. Because when we lean in on our own understanding, we begin to die. And so if wisdom is knowing God in relationship, then foolishness is leaning on our own understanding verse 5. It's being wise in our own eyes verse 7.

And so the challenge for us to consider here is what what sort of what sort of leaf are you. Think about that in your own life at the moment. What sort of leaf are you? Are you curling in on yourself? Losing strength, color, or are you still connected to the tree?

And what are what are leaves that are connected to the tree do? They don't curl in, they bow outward. They stretch away from themselves, and they look up to the sources of life and they find them. So what sort of leaf are you? Or if that is too abstract of a question, when things are tough in your life, Who's assessment do you really trust?

Whose assessment do you really trust? Do you really believe that you know yourself inside out? Seems that that would be a foolish thing, wouldn't it? To believe that we really know ourselves inside out. Do you believe that you're above being influenced by this culture?

Do you believe that you can walk through this world and not be deceived by the voices that are around you? Do you trust that you have all the information that you need to make the right choices? Are you always right in your own eyes? Are you right in your own eyes? Because the wise person does not think they're wise in their own eyes.

They fear the Lord. They turn away from themselves because wisdom is a relationship of trust. And that means looking out to the God who delights in you and listening to him and not curving in to death. So the heart of wisdom is a relationship with the father. The opposite is to lean on our own understanding.

And then thirdly, the benefits of wisdom are a long and happy life. Have a look at how this is described in the passage. A long life and prosperity verse 1. A good name verse 4. Straight paths verse 6.

Health to your body, verse 8, overflowing barns, verse 10. And just to get it out of the way, because I'm sure it could cause some confusion. It's worth it is worth sometimes looking at what a passage isn't saying. Before we look at what it is saying. And this is not here to tell us that if we trust in Jesus, Our bank balances are gonna be bursting at the seams, and that we will never ever have our lives cut short.

Because the reality is, the exact opposite may be true. Proverbs is not the only book that belongs in the wisdom literature. Joe is there as well. And Job tells us that disaster can and does strike at the heart of the Godly. More than that, when you look at some of the Psalms, not just not just the righteous suffer, but the wicked seem to be the 1 who's prospering.

If you have a look at Psalm 73 verse 4 and 5, This is talking about the wicked. It says they have no struggles, their bodies are healthy and strong. So it's the wicked who've got healthy strong bodies here. They're the ones with nourished bones and healthy bodies. They are free from common human burdens.

They are not plagued by human ills. And so Proverbs 3 is not saying, look, honor the lords, and your bank account is gonna roll on like mighty rivers. You are never gonna enjoy any ill health. Your life will never be cut short. That is not true, and it's not promised It's not the gospel.

In fact, it's an abomination and an anti and an anti gospel. And so what is the father actually getting at here in chapter 3? Well, and this is something we touched on a bit last week. There there is a general sense in which the wise life does bring a form of prosperity, doesn't it? It does.

If I know that my father loves me and I listen to his words in relationship, I'm just less likely to exploit my neighbours all the time and to get into hot water with them. If I love the father and listen to his words, I'm a lot less likely to take the best of my wages each month and gamble it away. When I could be putting it towards better things. Or when I'm working or in the playground or whatever it is and I try to say things by the grace of God, that are true and edifying, that is going to bring a type of good name verse 4, isn't it? I will win favor and a good name.

Now, the truth is they might hate my name because I'm a Christian, but when it comes to integrity and character and honesty, there will be a good name. That will sort of follow the wise life. And so, what this is not is a prosperity gospel, trust in Jesus and he's gonna make you rich. But what it is is a generally true observation that God's children who live God's way are gonna be saved from loads of things, saved from loads of bad traps, and will enjoy a form of prosperity and health in the world. That is 1 level of application in the benefits of wisdom.

But this is about so much more than a good life in this world. This is about in the end, the joy of knowing God. It is about the spiritual benefits of walking with the heavenly father. Jesus said in John chapter 10, I have come that they may have life and have it to the full. I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.

To know Jesus Christ is to know the fullness of life. So that outwardly, we may be wasting away but inwardly in our bones we are being renewed day by day all the time. There is nourishment with knowing Jesus. Or outwardly, we might be very poor But in another sense, our bonds are overflowing, aren't they? They really are overflowing.

We are rich beyond compare because we've come to know that in Jesus Christ are hidden all the riches of wisdom and knowledge, and we know him. A Christian has found the pearl of great price and they wouldn't trade him for anything. They are rich beyond compare. Matthew Henry, an old commentator heads this passage by saying, A life of communion with God will be of unspeakable advantage. A life of communion with God will be of unspeakable advantage, and I just love that phrase.

Whatever life looks like in this world, If we know communion with God, if we walk with him, and if we talk with him, and if we involve him, And if we live our lives before him, then our lives will be of unspeakable benefit, unspeakable advantage. Just look at how that's put in this passage. Take verse 7 as an example. Have a look down at verse 7. Do not be wise in your own eyes Fear the lord and shun evil.

This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones. When we turn away from evil, there is a kind of spiritual nourishment. And even physically, we feel stronger when we're not living in evil. Now look at the opposite here. Proverbs 14 verse 30.

A heart at peace gives life to the body But envy rots the bones. Envy rots the bones. Have you ever experienced something like that with sin? When we resist the Lord, and when we choose evil roads, we are like that fallen leaf We curl in on ourselves. We lose inward strength.

And actually, there is a sense that evil even physically robs us of strength. We can't sleep, we can't eat, we can't think straight, we begin to get weary. It rots the bones in every way. But wisdom gives life to the bones. I was reminded of a of a book this week called called Is God Antigay.

And it's written by a chap called Sam Sam Albrey, if you know that book. And he's written the book for people who experience same sex attraction, or for people who battle with it, or they want to understand it a bit better, or they want to get some clear biblical teaching on the subject of human, human sexuality. And at the end of the book, he says this, and he is a man who has this battle and this experience in his own life. He says this at the end of the book. Jesus being the bread of life is a concept I have been familiar with as a Christian for many years.

I can't remember when I first came across it, or first consciously thought about it. For as long as I've been a Christian, I've always sort of known it But it's a truth that has become especially dear to me as I've fought through the issue of same sex attraction. Before, I'd always read it as just 1 of the things Jesus is. But more recently, it has began to hit home not so much that Jesus is the bread of life, but that Jesus is the bread of life. He and he alone is the 1 who satisfies.

Now, that may or may not be your own personal battle. And if it is, then I hope you've got trusted friends or home group leaders that you can talk to and pray with about that. But even if it's something altogether different, he is describing very accurately there. 1 of the benefits of wisdom. There is a battle involved, and there is a culture which lies to us.

But to walk with the father is not only the true way. It is the very best and most satisfying way that we can live. And I think sometimes as Christians, that is where we can begin to lose confidence in the Word of God. Not that it's not true. It is harder to stand back and say this is no longer true, but we begin to lose confidence that this really is the very best way for people to live, that it really is the path that will lead to most nourishment, most health, and most satisfaction.

Yes, there are battles and there are difficulties, but to walk the way of the lord is to know the paths of everlasting life and everlasting joy. Not only is it true, it is the best way, the best way for us to live no matter what our battle is. That's 1 of the benefits of wisdom, the wise person knows that. Well, how about this in verse 5? Trust in the lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.

In all your ways submit to him, which is interesting because other translations describe it in all your and we sang it, in all your ways acknowledge him. But the word is literally know him. In all your ways know him, and it's the same intimate knowing word that is used of Adam and Eve in the garden. That's the same knowing word. So in all your ways to know him.

Involve him intimately in all of your ways. Know him in all of your life. Know him in all of your decisions. And he will make your paths straight. What a blessing.

What a blessing. You see, sometimes we feel like we're at a huge roundabout, don't we? We're at huge crossroads, and we're confused about where to go. And sometimes fundamental questions like who I am And what is my life about are just not obvious to us. And although there is a whole heap of bad advice in the world, there is something right about the questions that people ask.

We are all trying to make sense of our lives in this world. None of us wants to live without a true and proper identity. We want to walk the paths of most satisfaction There's something good in the questions, but verse 5 is saying to us when we trust in the Lord When we know that he loves us, we won't have to go down hundreds of different roads, which just make us angry and confused. Because we will see that the reason we are here is to intimately know the father in all of our ways. If we reject that wisdom, what is gonna happen is this.

We are gonna take hundreds of different roads and we are gonna end up either further back or back in the place that we started, more confused, more upset, and more angry than we were before. But if we walk with Jesus, the way and the truth and the life, there will be this general sense of progress in life. That's what happens when you've got directed paths, isn't it? You make progress there will be a general sense of progress in your life. Now, sometimes it feels like 2 steps forward and 1 step back, and it's not to say that we might never go wrong, But when we know that wisdom is to know the father in relationship, there will be a sense of progress in our lives because they're directed We will grow in wisdom.

We will basically know where we're going. That is 1 of the blessings of walking with him. As Matthew Henry says, a life of communion with God will be of unspeakable advantage. So this is not just a marketing device to keep us in the God club for another week. These are real true benefits of a father who knows you and loves you and is in your corner and has given his son for you and wants the very best for each and every 1 of his children.

This is the way that is gonna save us from a lot of danger and bring us great joy. This is the 1 who gave his life for us and when we trust in him we find spiritual health we find direction. And in the end, for every 1 of God's children, they find a very long and happy life in Jesus. And so if you're a Christian, can I encourage you to keep looking to him? To keep looking to him.

He loves you, and not 1 of his promises will ever fail you, you can trust him. Even when you feel like you're under discipline, the discipline is only designed to open your heart more deeply to the love that he has for you as a father. And he wants you to walk with him. And if you're not a Christian, The wisest thing to do this morning for the very first time would be to say, I'm not gonna lean on my own understanding anymore. I'm not gonna lean on my own understanding anymore.

I'm sorry for that, Lord Jesus. Thank you that you died for proud, self sufficient people like me. Please give me a new life. Please bring me into your family. Please adopt me.

I want you to sit with me like this father sits with his son. Please direct me I wanna live the best life I can with you. What a wonderful prayer that would be. Let's bow our heads and pray together. Father, we thank you that the beginning of wisdom is to fear you.

But to fear you means to trust you and to know that you are our father. And Lord, we thank you that as your children, we come to a God who knows us upside down and inside out. You know what our weeks have been like. You know all that we have done. You know every thought that has passed through our minds and every word that has crossed our lips, and yet you love us still.

We thank you that even the hardships and the disciplines and the correction are evidence that you delight in us. We thank you that you love us enough to show us when we go wrong. We thank you that you care for us enough to correct us and lead us back on the right way. Father, forgive us for when we reduce Christianity to thinking of you as some sort of marketing team. Who is just dropping benefits out of the sky without a care or interest in who we actually are.

We thank you that you love us, and you give us wisdom. So that we might flourish, so that health might come surging into our bodies, and nourishment might fill our bones that you want to make us rich in Jesus forever. We thank you that you are for us, and you want our best. And we say we pray that you would really forgive us. For when like those autumn leaves, we curl in upon ourselves.

For when we curve in, for when we think that our own understanding is best. For when we think that we know all that we need to know to live in this life. For when basically we think that we are always right in our own eyes. And we do not have the ears to hear what wisdom might be saying to us. Forgive us, for how self interested we can be.

Help us instead to look out to you, to find life in looking up to our father, and to enjoy all the wonderful benefits of communion with you through your son, the Lord Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. And we ask it in his name. Armeid.