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The Message of Proverbs 2
Join Pastor Dan Bidwell for the first part in our Wisdom series, exploring wisdom as presented in the Old Testament.
New Year Special
1. The Beginning of Wisdom
Proverbs 2:1-11
(1) The origin of wisdom (Proverbs 1:1-5; 2:6-8) (2) Obtaining wisdom (Proverbs 2:1-5) (3) The outcome of wisdom (Proverbs 2:9-11)
Intro – Wisdom Literature
Dan Bidwell, Senior Pastor 26 December 2021
Well it is that time of year when the New York Times list of best-selling books comes out. It just happens to coincide with the Christmas break when many of us have a little extra time to spend with a good book in front of the fireplace!!
Now there are some interesting books on the list, and quite a number of biographies and autobiographies making up the top 10 for non-fiction. Who are the biography readers? I love a good biography, and if you have any recommendations I’d be glad to take them.
My other go-to on the best-seller list is the books that teach us how we think. The self-help, psychology, philosophy type books – I love them because they help us understand how we ‘tick’ as humans.
There are a couple of old favorites on the list – Atomic Habits by James Clear – 104 weeks on the best-seller list. Atomic Habits is about creating systems that help us achieve success.
The Body Keeps the Score – by Bessel van der Kolk. 165 weeks on the list. I haven’t read this one but it sounds interesting. It’s about how trauma affects the body and mind, and how therapy can help reprogram our unconscious responses. It has great reviews.
And there’s a new book on the list, it’s only just been released and went straight onto the best- sellers. Brene Brown, Atlas of the Heart. I’m really interested in this one, because Brown identifies 87 emotions and experiences that define what it means to be human. It’s meant to give us an emotional vocabulary to help us connect with ourselves and others, to help us explain what’s going on inside our minds and hearts.
We probably all need a bit of that!
1
And I think that’s why these personal development books are so popular. Self-help, advice, practical philosophy, whatever you call them, these books help us understand ourselves, and how to live well in the world. To put it more grandly, these books are about the pursuit of wisdom.
The hard thing about the pursuit of wisdom is that there are so many voices of wisdom out there. Authors and writers. Teachers and philosophers. Media personalities. There is wisdom that is taught in film and music and pop culture. Wisdom found online. How do you pick and choose the voices that you listen to? Because they don’t all espouse the same wisdom. They don’t all agree with one another. So where can wisdom be found?
Over the next two weeks, we are going to be looking at another source of wisdom – the Bible, and what it says about wisdom.
So why don’t we pray, and then we’ll look into what God teaches us in his word.
Dear heavenly Father, in you we find all knowledge and understanding and wisdom. Help us today to be taken captive by your wisdom. Help us to become wise, no matter how old we are, so that we can live every day to the glory of your son Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen
Just so that you know where we’re going, today I’m focusing in on what the OT says about wisdom. Next week we’ll look into the NT. For today I have three big ideas:
(i) The Origin of Wisdom
(ii) The Outcome of Wisdom
(iii) Obtaining Wisdom
So let’s get into it – The Origin of Wisdom.
(i) The Origin of Wisdom
If you ever went to Sunday School you’ll know the answer to this question – where does wisdom come from?
God, Jesus, Bible. It’s pretty simple, right!
Wisdom comes from God. And principally we know this by reading the Bible.
2
In the Bible you can find pearls of wisdom all throughout. But there are a few books in the OT and maybe one or two in the NT that we specifically call Wisdom Literature. These Wisdom books mainly teach us about how to live properly in God’s world (wisely!).
In the Old Testament, the three Wisdom books are right in the middle – Job, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. In the NT perhaps James? But we find wisdom language scattered all through the NT. (and 1 Cor 1:24 tells us why – next week’s sermon!).
But if we could boil down the message of all the OT wisdom literature, if we could distil it into just one line, what would the Bible tell us about wisdom?
Here it is captured in a nutshell (on your handout from Proverbs 9:10)
"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. (Proverbs 9:10)
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
First what does it mean to fear the Lord?
I was watching a documentary a while ago, all about people who survived incredible accidents. What they had in common was that all of the accidents were filmed on smart phones.
The film in question was video footage of a zookeeper going into the lion enclosure to feed the lions. From what I understand, the keeper didn’t think the lions were in there at all. So the keeper goes in carrying a big red bucket full of food.
And all of a sudden these two massive male lions, with huge manes, they start coming towards the keeper. The video footage is from a tourist watching through the fence. And these two lions come up towards the keeper, and one lion puts out his big paw to bat the keeper over. And the keeper is going backwards trying to fend off the lions with his bucket. And then one of the lions jumps up towards the keeper and he falls over and that’s when both the lions just jump on the man. One starts to chew on the man’s shoulder and the other grabs hold of his thigh and the tourist with the video camera is screaming, and the man just lies there not moving...
3
And the video rolls for another two or three minutes with the lions just mauling this keeper until finally another zookeeper comes and throws a metal garbage bin into the enclosure. And that was enough to scare off the lions long enough for someone to go in and rescue the man. Amazingly the man wasn’t killed – in fact, apart from some deep puncture wounds and bruising he was totally unharmed.
But when he describes what it felt like to have two giant lions biting and chewing on him, it’s the stuff of nightmares. He said, “I just lay there trying not to move. I had my eyes closed because I didn’t want to see what the lions might do to me.”
What does the zookeeper have to do with the fear of the Lord? Well I think lots of people in our world go about life as if God wasn’t in the enclosure. Surprise! Or if there is a God, he’s nothing to be afraid of, like the baby animals in a petting zoo. A fluffy god who grants wishes when you need them.
But that’s not what it’s like when people encounter God in the OT.
- Think of Adam and Eve, hiding from God because they knew they had done the wrong
thing.
- Think of Moses, hiding in the rock when God passed by – because nobody can see God’s
face and live (Ex 33:20)
- And think of Isaiah 6, when Isaiah sees the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted.
And above him seraphs were calling out, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” And Isaiah cries out, “Woe is me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips...”
When we understand the holiness of God, it is like standing before a fully grown lion. Especially when we understand how far from holy each of us is.
The idea of the holy living God should fill us with terror, because we stand before him guilty of ignoring him, guilty of doing evil, and of not doing good when we had the opportunity.
There is a right fear of the Lord that comes with understanding who he is, and what we are like.
That’s why we Jesus taught us to confess our sins in the Lord’s Prayer. We can’t just front up to God full of self-confidence. “Thank you God that I’m not like the sinners!”
No we come before the living God with reverence... With godly fear. 4
But fearing God is just the beginning. Because God doesn’t reveal himself to us only as the judge to be feared. If you know the Holy One (Proverbs 9:10), you know that his Holiness is tempered with Mercy. Our God is the God who forgives his people’s wickedness, while ever they turn back to him. That side of God will be our focus for next week, as we consider wisdom in the NT.
So fearing God and knowing God mean we understand who we are in the world, and that is the basis for wise living.
(ii) Obtaining Wisdom
How do we get wisdom? (gray hair?)
In our world we often associate wisdom with age, and youth with foolishness. Plenty of times that’s true! The longer we’re around on this earth, the more we learn about different things. Some lessons we learn the hard way, from our mistakes. But some lessons we never learn, no matter how old we get.
But what we read here in the Bible, is that wisdom is not just for the old. God’s wisdom is available to anybody who listens to God!
Look at Proverbs 2, starting at v1.
My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you,
2 turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding,
3 and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding,
4 and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure,
5 then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God. 6 For the LORD gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and
understanding. (Proverbs 2:1-6) Do you hear what Solomon is saying?
We don’t become wise just by living for a long time. No we become wise when God give us wisdom (v6). We become wise when we hear from God’s mouth knowledge about himself, and how to understand this world and this life.
5
There’s an old Monty Python movie called The Meaning of Life. It’s really silly, but the whole movie is a set of comedy sketches trying to make sense of life, from birth to death. There was another 80s cult classic called The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, and the joke in that was that the meaning of life is 42.
People really don’t know what the meaning of life is! People are searching for meaning, searching for understanding. Struggling to know why the world is the way it is, struggling to know why bad things happen, why we get cancer, why people hurt one another. They’re searching for meaning because the world’s wisdom can’t explain that stuff.
But God tells us who we are. He tells us what this world is like. But mostly he tells us what he is like. If we know God we know how to live, because we are made in God’s image.
It’s easy to say we’re made in God’s image, much harder to understand what that means and to live that way.
And so -
- - - - - -
the writer of Proverbs tells us what we must do: look at v2ff again Turn your ear to wisdom;
apply your heart to understanding;
call out for insight
cry aloud for understanding
look for it
search for it
THEN you will understand the fear of the Lord...
There is nothing passive about the getting of wisdom. Wisdom doesn’t just sprout in you like gray hairs. We don’t become wise as Christians just because we have been going to church for a long time.
We need to call out to God in prayer for wisdom! We need to search the scriptures, to know God better and to discern his ways! We need to actively pursue God’s thoughts and God’s heart and God’s commands and God’s wisdom to live properly as those made in his image!
Are you doing that? What is the place of Bible reading and prayer in your life? Whether you are young or old, you can be wise in the Lord if you seek his wisdom. God will give it to you. By faith in Jesus God pours out his Holy Spirit into us who teaches us, if we’ll listen.
A word for the older ones among us: and I say this carefully, as if I were exhorting my father. The older we get, the more worldly wisdom we acquire. Worldly experience, business acumen,
6
parenting and grand-parenting achievements, financial stability... Is this the wisdom you have put your trust in? Because I know it is all too easy to find the meaning of life in these things. And it’s all too easy to communicate those things as the meaning of life, as you pass it down to your children and grandchildren.
But remember again what the wisest man that ever lived said: The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
The most important wisdom we can learn in this lifetime, is what it means to live a life where we acknowledge God, and live according to his ways. So keep working at obtaining the right kind of wisdom, and encourage your family to do the same.
(iii) The Outcome of Wisdom
Final point - the outcome of wisdom.
We’ve learnt that wisdom comes from God, and that God gives wisdom to all who seek it actively. So what will godly wisdom look like in our day to day lives? If we have wisdom through God, what will change?
Come to Proverbs 2: 7-11.
7 [God] holds victory in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless,
8 for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones.
9 Then you will understand what is right and just and fair--every good path.
10 For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. 11 Discretion will protect you, and understanding will guard you.
What are the outcomes for living wisely?
I want to focus on v9 – when we have God’s wisdom we will understand what is right and just
and fair.
Can you imagine that? In every decision of life, you think of those three words – what would be right and just and fair in this situation?
The word ‘right’ in Hebrew is the word for ‘righteous’. Now we know that righteousness comes from God, and God defines righteousness. So when we decide to act in accordance with godly
7
wisdom, we need to ask: is what I’m doing righteous? Is it in line with the character of God can do no evil?
Am I upholding justice? Am I living with integrity?
God’s wisdom changes us. It changes how we live.
Right, just and fair. BTW I haven’t just pulled these three words out of nowhere. Solomon tells us that all his Proverbs are designed for doing what is right and just and fair (Proverbs 1:3).
If we keep reading Proverbs, we see what a disciplined and prudent life looks like – in ch3 alone we learn about
- humility (v7-8)
- wealth (v9-10)
- discipline (v11-12)
- hope and assurance (v21-26)
- compassion (v27-28)
- revenge (v29-30)
- envy (v31-32)
Proverbs has a lot to tell us about doing what is right and just and fair. There are 31 chapters in Proverbs – you could read a chapter a day and get through Proverbs every month, and that might be a way of continually seeking God’s wisdom...
Conclusion
But I want to finish by way of a warning... And the warning is this. Come back to Prov 2:7-8 and look at the last word in each couplet:
7 [God] holds victory in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless,
8 for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones. Did you catch the words at the end of each couplet? Upright, blameless, just, faithful...
In a worldly sense, none of us will ever live completely upright lives. None of us will live blamelessly no matter how much wisdom we gain from God. And none of us will act with
8
justice in every situation. We’re made to live that way, but sin makes it impossible for us. These words should make us cry out like Isaiah – “Woe is me!”
But that’s where the last word comes in. Faithful.
The Wisdom of the Old Testament will point us to the one man in history who did live an
upright life, whose walk was blameless, who came to bring justice into this world. Jesus. And it’s only by faith in him that we truly know victory, as Jesus shields us and guards us and
protects us from the effects of our sinful decisions, so that we can be counted blameless in him. Let’s pray...
9
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Join Pastor Dan Bidwell for the first part in our Wisdom series, exploring wisdom as presented in the Old Testament.
New Year Special
1. The Beginning of Wisdom
Proverbs 2:1-11
(1) The origin of wisdom (Proverbs 1:1-5; 2:6-8) (2) Obtaining wisdom (Proverbs 2:1-5) (3) The outcome of wisdom (Proverbs 2:9-11)
Intro – Wisdom Literature
Dan Bidwell, Senior Pastor 26 December 2021
Well it is that time of year when the New York Times list of best-selling books comes out. It just happens to coincide with the Christmas break when many of us have a little extra time to spend with a good book in front of the fireplace!!
Now there are some interesting books on the list, and quite a number of biographies and autobiographies making up the top 10 for non-fiction. Who are the biography readers? I love a good biography, and if you have any recommendations I’d be glad to take them.
My other go-to on the best-seller list is the books that teach us how we think. The self-help, psychology, philosophy type books – I love them because they help us understand how we ‘tick’ as humans.
There are a couple of old favorites on the list – Atomic Habits by James Clear – 104 weeks on the best-seller list. Atomic Habits is about creating systems that help us achieve success.
The Body Keeps the Score – by Bessel van der Kolk. 165 weeks on the list. I haven’t read this one but it sounds interesting. It’s about how trauma affects the body and mind, and how therapy can help reprogram our unconscious responses. It has great reviews.
And there’s a new book on the list, it’s only just been released and went straight onto the best- sellers. Brene Brown, Atlas of the Heart. I’m really interested in this one, because Brown identifies 87 emotions and experiences that define what it means to be human. It’s meant to give us an emotional vocabulary to help us connect with ourselves and others, to help us explain what’s going on inside our minds and hearts.
We probably all need a bit of that!
1
And I think that’s why these personal development books are so popular. Self-help, advice, practical philosophy, whatever you call them, these books help us understand ourselves, and how to live well in the world. To put it more grandly, these books are about the pursuit of wisdom.
The hard thing about the pursuit of wisdom is that there are so many voices of wisdom out there. Authors and writers. Teachers and philosophers. Media personalities. There is wisdom that is taught in film and music and pop culture. Wisdom found online. How do you pick and choose the voices that you listen to? Because they don’t all espouse the same wisdom. They don’t all agree with one another. So where can wisdom be found?
Over the next two weeks, we are going to be looking at another source of wisdom – the Bible, and what it says about wisdom.
So why don’t we pray, and then we’ll look into what God teaches us in his word.
Dear heavenly Father, in you we find all knowledge and understanding and wisdom. Help us today to be taken captive by your wisdom. Help us to become wise, no matter how old we are, so that we can live every day to the glory of your son Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen
Just so that you know where we’re going, today I’m focusing in on what the OT says about wisdom. Next week we’ll look into the NT. For today I have three big ideas:
(i) The Origin of Wisdom
(ii) The Outcome of Wisdom
(iii) Obtaining Wisdom
So let’s get into it – The Origin of Wisdom.
(i) The Origin of Wisdom
If you ever went to Sunday School you’ll know the answer to this question – where does wisdom come from?
God, Jesus, Bible. It’s pretty simple, right!
Wisdom comes from God. And principally we know this by reading the Bible.
2
In the Bible you can find pearls of wisdom all throughout. But there are a few books in the OT and maybe one or two in the NT that we specifically call Wisdom Literature. These Wisdom books mainly teach us about how to live properly in God’s world (wisely!).
In the Old Testament, the three Wisdom books are right in the middle – Job, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. In the NT perhaps James? But we find wisdom language scattered all through the NT. (and 1 Cor 1:24 tells us why – next week’s sermon!).
But if we could boil down the message of all the OT wisdom literature, if we could distil it into just one line, what would the Bible tell us about wisdom?
Here it is captured in a nutshell (on your handout from Proverbs 9:10)
"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. (Proverbs 9:10)
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
First what does it mean to fear the Lord?
I was watching a documentary a while ago, all about people who survived incredible accidents. What they had in common was that all of the accidents were filmed on smart phones.
The film in question was video footage of a zookeeper going into the lion enclosure to feed the lions. From what I understand, the keeper didn’t think the lions were in there at all. So the keeper goes in carrying a big red bucket full of food.
And all of a sudden these two massive male lions, with huge manes, they start coming towards the keeper. The video footage is from a tourist watching through the fence. And these two lions come up towards the keeper, and one lion puts out his big paw to bat the keeper over. And the keeper is going backwards trying to fend off the lions with his bucket. And then one of the lions jumps up towards the keeper and he falls over and that’s when both the lions just jump on the man. One starts to chew on the man’s shoulder and the other grabs hold of his thigh and the tourist with the video camera is screaming, and the man just lies there not moving...
3
And the video rolls for another two or three minutes with the lions just mauling this keeper until finally another zookeeper comes and throws a metal garbage bin into the enclosure. And that was enough to scare off the lions long enough for someone to go in and rescue the man. Amazingly the man wasn’t killed – in fact, apart from some deep puncture wounds and bruising he was totally unharmed.
But when he describes what it felt like to have two giant lions biting and chewing on him, it’s the stuff of nightmares. He said, “I just lay there trying not to move. I had my eyes closed because I didn’t want to see what the lions might do to me.”
What does the zookeeper have to do with the fear of the Lord? Well I think lots of people in our world go about life as if God wasn’t in the enclosure. Surprise! Or if there is a God, he’s nothing to be afraid of, like the baby animals in a petting zoo. A fluffy god who grants wishes when you need them.
But that’s not what it’s like when people encounter God in the OT.
- Think of Adam and Eve, hiding from God because they knew they had done the wrong
thing.
- Think of Moses, hiding in the rock when God passed by – because nobody can see God’s
face and live (Ex 33:20)
- And think of Isaiah 6, when Isaiah sees the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted.
And above him seraphs were calling out, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” And Isaiah cries out, “Woe is me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips...”
When we understand the holiness of God, it is like standing before a fully grown lion. Especially when we understand how far from holy each of us is.
The idea of the holy living God should fill us with terror, because we stand before him guilty of ignoring him, guilty of doing evil, and of not doing good when we had the opportunity.
There is a right fear of the Lord that comes with understanding who he is, and what we are like.
That’s why we Jesus taught us to confess our sins in the Lord’s Prayer. We can’t just front up to God full of self-confidence. “Thank you God that I’m not like the sinners!”
No we come before the living God with reverence... With godly fear. 4
But fearing God is just the beginning. Because God doesn’t reveal himself to us only as the judge to be feared. If you know the Holy One (Proverbs 9:10), you know that his Holiness is tempered with Mercy. Our God is the God who forgives his people’s wickedness, while ever they turn back to him. That side of God will be our focus for next week, as we consider wisdom in the NT.
So fearing God and knowing God mean we understand who we are in the world, and that is the basis for wise living.
(ii) Obtaining Wisdom
How do we get wisdom? (gray hair?)
In our world we often associate wisdom with age, and youth with foolishness. Plenty of times that’s true! The longer we’re around on this earth, the more we learn about different things. Some lessons we learn the hard way, from our mistakes. But some lessons we never learn, no matter how old we get.
But what we read here in the Bible, is that wisdom is not just for the old. God’s wisdom is available to anybody who listens to God!
Look at Proverbs 2, starting at v1.
My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you,
2 turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding,
3 and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding,
4 and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure,
5 then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God. 6 For the LORD gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and
understanding. (Proverbs 2:1-6) Do you hear what Solomon is saying?
We don’t become wise just by living for a long time. No we become wise when God give us wisdom (v6). We become wise when we hear from God’s mouth knowledge about himself, and how to understand this world and this life.
5
There’s an old Monty Python movie called The Meaning of Life. It’s really silly, but the whole movie is a set of comedy sketches trying to make sense of life, from birth to death. There was another 80s cult classic called The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, and the joke in that was that the meaning of life is 42.
People really don’t know what the meaning of life is! People are searching for meaning, searching for understanding. Struggling to know why the world is the way it is, struggling to know why bad things happen, why we get cancer, why people hurt one another. They’re searching for meaning because the world’s wisdom can’t explain that stuff.
But God tells us who we are. He tells us what this world is like. But mostly he tells us what he is like. If we know God we know how to live, because we are made in God’s image.
It’s easy to say we’re made in God’s image, much harder to understand what that means and to live that way.
And so -
- - - - - -
the writer of Proverbs tells us what we must do: look at v2ff again Turn your ear to wisdom;
apply your heart to understanding;
call out for insight
cry aloud for understanding
look for it
search for it
THEN you will understand the fear of the Lord...
There is nothing passive about the getting of wisdom. Wisdom doesn’t just sprout in you like gray hairs. We don’t become wise as Christians just because we have been going to church for a long time.
We need to call out to God in prayer for wisdom! We need to search the scriptures, to know God better and to discern his ways! We need to actively pursue God’s thoughts and God’s heart and God’s commands and God’s wisdom to live properly as those made in his image!
Are you doing that? What is the place of Bible reading and prayer in your life? Whether you are young or old, you can be wise in the Lord if you seek his wisdom. God will give it to you. By faith in Jesus God pours out his Holy Spirit into us who teaches us, if we’ll listen.
A word for the older ones among us: and I say this carefully, as if I were exhorting my father. The older we get, the more worldly wisdom we acquire. Worldly experience, business acumen,
6
parenting and grand-parenting achievements, financial stability... Is this the wisdom you have put your trust in? Because I know it is all too easy to find the meaning of life in these things. And it’s all too easy to communicate those things as the meaning of life, as you pass it down to your children and grandchildren.
But remember again what the wisest man that ever lived said: The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
The most important wisdom we can learn in this lifetime, is what it means to live a life where we acknowledge God, and live according to his ways. So keep working at obtaining the right kind of wisdom, and encourage your family to do the same.
(iii) The Outcome of Wisdom
Final point - the outcome of wisdom.
We’ve learnt that wisdom comes from God, and that God gives wisdom to all who seek it actively. So what will godly wisdom look like in our day to day lives? If we have wisdom through God, what will change?
Come to Proverbs 2: 7-11.
7 [God] holds victory in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless,
8 for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones.
9 Then you will understand what is right and just and fair--every good path.
10 For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. 11 Discretion will protect you, and understanding will guard you.
What are the outcomes for living wisely?
I want to focus on v9 – when we have God’s wisdom we will understand what is right and just
and fair.
Can you imagine that? In every decision of life, you think of those three words – what would be right and just and fair in this situation?
The word ‘right’ in Hebrew is the word for ‘righteous’. Now we know that righteousness comes from God, and God defines righteousness. So when we decide to act in accordance with godly
7
wisdom, we need to ask: is what I’m doing righteous? Is it in line with the character of God can do no evil?
Am I upholding justice? Am I living with integrity?
God’s wisdom changes us. It changes how we live.
Right, just and fair. BTW I haven’t just pulled these three words out of nowhere. Solomon tells us that all his Proverbs are designed for doing what is right and just and fair (Proverbs 1:3).
If we keep reading Proverbs, we see what a disciplined and prudent life looks like – in ch3 alone we learn about
- humility (v7-8)
- wealth (v9-10)
- discipline (v11-12)
- hope and assurance (v21-26)
- compassion (v27-28)
- revenge (v29-30)
- envy (v31-32)
Proverbs has a lot to tell us about doing what is right and just and fair. There are 31 chapters in Proverbs – you could read a chapter a day and get through Proverbs every month, and that might be a way of continually seeking God’s wisdom...
Conclusion
But I want to finish by way of a warning... And the warning is this. Come back to Prov 2:7-8 and look at the last word in each couplet:
7 [God] holds victory in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless,
8 for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones. Did you catch the words at the end of each couplet? Upright, blameless, just, faithful...
In a worldly sense, none of us will ever live completely upright lives. None of us will live blamelessly no matter how much wisdom we gain from God. And none of us will act with
8
justice in every situation. We’re made to live that way, but sin makes it impossible for us. These words should make us cry out like Isaiah – “Woe is me!”
But that’s where the last word comes in. Faithful.
The Wisdom of the Old Testament will point us to the one man in history who did live an
upright life, whose walk was blameless, who came to bring justice into this world. Jesus. And it’s only by faith in him that we truly know victory, as Jesus shields us and guards us and
protects us from the effects of our sinful decisions, so that we can be counted blameless in him. Let’s pray...
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Watch at: https://youtu.be/ce8eCVil2m0 File Downloads: https://dq5pwpg1q8ru0.cloudfront.net/2022/02/16/21/31/40/689bfb93-2be7-47b3-96fa-13c2e7a0e97a/12.26.21%20Sermon%20Transcript.pdf