God Sure Works in Funny Ways Sometimes!--Christmas message

(This sermon is a first-person sermon that I preached for Christmas. A first-person sermon is a sermon in which the preacher speaks from the viewpoint of one of the characters in the story. In this sermon, I was speaking as one of the shepherds in Luke 2:1-20).

Good morning to all of you! I’m so excited to be here with you at Christmastime to have the opportunity to tell you about what I experienced back on that first Christmas day. I know that many of you have probably heard about my story before from reading it in the Bible, but hopefully I can help you understand what took place just a little better.

I always enjoy every opportunity that I get to think back on the events of that day. The whole story is so extraordinary, I’m not sure I would have believed it if I hadn’t been part of it. God sure works in funny ways sometimes!

Let me get right down to the events of that Christmas night. My relatives and I were pasturing our flocks out in the fields surrounding Bethlehem. I did a little research on your area before I came today and I discovered that Bethlehem at that time was about the size of a town east of here called Pratt. Its claim to fame was that it was the hometown of King David, and that connection certainly played into the events of that first Christmas.

The whole area was chaotic on that day because of all the people who had travelled to Bethlehem to register for the Roman census. Most of my people resented Rome and its census, and especially the taxes that went along with all of it. We had a rather uneasy peace with Rome at that time. They had controlled our land for several decades, but they did keep things peaceful in our area, and they let us practice our own religion. Their puppet-king, Herod, even made some beautiful renovations to our Temple in Jerusalem. That was all better treatment than my people had received under the Greeks, but we still longed for our freedom.

Anyway, on that first Christmas there were probably three times as many people as normal in Bethlehem, and we had heard from some travelers that all of the inns in town were full. People were getting shelter anywhere they could find it. It was quite a scene, but for us shepherds, it was a fairly ordinary day. We were settling down for the night, and we certainly didn’t expect any excitement. Shepherding was usually a fairly boring job. Just imagine if you never built fences for your cattle, and instead you had to sit in the field all day and make sure none of them wandered off! The hours passed by pretty slowly at times, so many of us played music to pass the time. Many of us had a flute, or even a lyre, which was a small, stringed instrument. I like to think that I could have played the flute for any king west of the Euphrates—not that a shepherd like me would ever get to meet a king!

That night we were taking turns on watch through the night hours, and during my watch, there was a moment all of a sudden where I was surrounded by a brilliant light. It was like the sun had risen in the middle of the night, and in the same instant I saw a being in front of me. I had never seen an angel before, but I had heard the descriptions of them from the holy men in the Scriptures, so I knew this had to be one of the Lord’s messengers. My relatives had woken up from the light, and we were all terrified! What did this angel want with us?

But quickly after he appeared, the angel spoke to us and said, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people.” He had come in peace, and he had come to speak to us with a message of great joy for our people! But why hadn’t God sent him to the Pharisees or the Sanhedrin? Why was this angel here to talk to a bunch of shepherds?

You see, people didn’t have a very high opinion of us at that time. We took great pride in our work, but honestly it didn’t take extraordinary skill. You didn’t need much education or training to be a shepherd, so people weren’t exactly impressed with us. Oftentimes, people would give their children the job of watching the sheep. You might remember that King David was the youngest of all his brothers, and what job did they tell him to do? Watch the sheep! It was a job given to those who weren’t thought to be capable of much else.

Not only that, but the religious leaders like the Pharisees really didn’t think much of us because we couldn’t follow all of the traditions that they said were necessary for obeying the Law of Moses. How could we carefully wash our hands before eating while we were out in the field? How could we avoid diseased things when we had to care for our sick animals? We couldn’t follow their traditions, so they declared us “unclean” and wouldn’t let us participate in worship at the Temple.

I guess they had forgotten that some of the greatest heroes of our nation were shepherds! I already mentioned King David, and there was Moses, too! He was a shepherd when God called him to return to Egypt. The prophet Amos was a shepherd, too. Not only that, but the Lord in the Scriptures called Himself a shepherd for His people!

But none of that mattered—people still didn’t think very highly of us, but that was okay. Still though, I can’t figure out why God would send His angel to announce this news to us! We were pretty insignificant in society. God sure works in funny ways sometimes! I guess it all reminds me of what our brother Paul wrote in his letter to our brothers and sisters in Corinth: “For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God (1 Corinthians 1:26-29 ESV).”

The fact that the angel came to talk to us was pretty amazing, but what he said next was even more incredible! After he greeted us, he said, “today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Messiah the Lord.” The Messiah had been born! God had promised for so long to send Him to us, and now He was here! God had spoken of Him so many times through the holy men of old. Many years before, our father Jacob had said to his son Judah, “The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs; the nations will obey him (Genesis 49:10 NET).” And then God spoke to King David through the prophet Nathan and said, “When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever (2 Samuel 7:12–13 NASB).” And then Isaiah the prophet said, “a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, On the throne of David and over his kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness From then on and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this (Isaiah 9:6-7 NASB).” And then the prophet Zechariah spoke of a time of trouble for Jerusalem, but he said “In that day [the Lord’s] feet will stand on the Mount of Olives…and the Lord, my God, will come, and all the holy ones with Him…and the Lord will be king over all the earth; in that day that Lord will be the only one, and His name the only one (Zechariah 14:4a, 5b, 9 NASB).”

We had been waiting so long for God’s chosen One, the Messiah, to come, and now, the angel said, he had been born! And then the angel said, “This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a feeding trough.” Yes, yes, okay—so first we find this baby in a feeding trough, and then where do we find the Messiah? But then it dawned on me—the baby in the feeding trough IS the Messiah!!! Wow! God sure works in funny ways sometimes!

What is the Messiah doing lying in a feeding trough? He is to be the king over all nations, and is this how He is born into the world? I’ll bet King Herod was wrapped in Egyptian cotton when he was born, but a manger, for the MESSIAH!? And what kind of family was he born into? They didn’t even have enough money to pay someone to open their home to a pregnant woman!? I know there were a lot of travelers in town, but a little bit of money will open some space pretty quickly! I guess what our brother Paul wrote to the Corinthians really was true: “you know the grace of our Lord Jesus the Messiah, that though he was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9 NASB).”

And how is it that we should see the Messiah as a little baby? We knew from the Scriptures that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), but none of us expected to see Him as a little baby! Our rabbis told us that no one would know who He was until He burst onto the scene as a victorious conqueror. We were told that He would live in hiding until He was ready to reveal Himself, and then on one glorious day, He would reveal Himself with miracles and defeat all of our enemies with one fell swoop, and then set up His kingdom. How was it, then, that we could see Him as a little baby and meet His family? This really confused some of my people later on, after Jesus began to preach. They said of Him, “we know where this man is from; but whenever the Messiah may come, no one knows where He is from (John 7:27 NASB).” At least, that’s the way that people expected it to happen.

Well, it didn’t take us long to decide to go and see this Child. We made our way quickly to Bethlehem and checked the stables until we found this young couple with their baby swaddled and lying in a feeding trough. What a surprise that was! There was certainly nothing royal about this family, nothing stately or majestic. They were just a travel-weary young couple trying to make do with a new baby in a barn! God sure works in funny ways sometimes!

And the Child! There was nothing different about Him. I don’t know what I expected, but I guess I just thought He might be different somehow. But we knew all that the angel had told us, and we believed it. There was a small crowd that had gathered there, and we told them everything that the angels had told us. They were all very excited, but the boy’s mother just remained kind of quiet. She seemed to be glad that we had come, but you could tell she was just thinking about all of this. What a thing to wrap your mind around—that your child was the Messiah!

We stayed as long as we could, but we did have to get back to our sheep, so after a little while we went back to the field, but as you can imagine we didn’t get much sleep that night. We kept talking about all of these things and praising God for everything that He had allowed us to see and hear. I think the feelings of everyone involved with that first Christmas were summed up well by the Child’s relative, Zacharias, when he said through the Holy Spirit: “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, For He has visited us and accomplished redemption for His people, And has raised up a horn of salvation for us In the house of David His servant--As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old--Salvation FROM OUR ENEMIES, And FROM THE HAND OF ALL WHO HATE US; To show mercy toward our fathers, And to remember His holy covenant, The oath which He swore to Abraham our father, To grant us that we, being rescued from the hand of our enemies, Might serve Him without fear, In holiness and righteousness before Him all our days. [He will] give to His people the knowledge of salvation By the forgiveness of their sins, Because of the tender mercy of our God, With which the Sunrise from on high will visit us, TO SHINE UPON THOSE WHO SIT IN DARKNESS AND THE SHADOW OF DEATH, To guide our feet into the way of peace (Luke 1:68-79 NASB).”

Every time I think about that first Christmas, the thought that comes to my mind is this—God kept His promise! He sure worked in some funny ways, but He did what He said He would do. That’s the lesson that I will always take away from Christmas.

No Man is An Island--Proverbs series

There is an old saying which states, “No man is an island.” This statement reminds us that we do not live in isolation—we were not created to do so, nor can we ever really disconnect from other people. Our lives are much more like the ocean that surrounds an island. Underneath the waves and the surf of the ocean is a world that humans are just beginning to understand. Numerous plant and animal species live together in a shared habitat that unites them all, and through a complex web of relationships they are interdependent on each other.

Ocean life is a much more accurate picture of our existence than an island. We are all connected to other people through a vast number of relationships. But unlike ocean life, we are not just connected to others through biological bonds; our relationships are also characterized by moral bonds. The moral choices that we make have a ripple effect into the lives of people around us.

One of the biggest lies floating around our culture right now is that individuals somehow have a “private” life that is disconnected from that person’s “public” life. The idea is that the moral choices I make in my “private” life only affect me and maybe my immediate family, but somehow those choices do not have an impact beyond that.

But the reality is that our moral choices affect a far greater number of people than we will probably ever realize. This reality means that our moral choices are extremely important—not only for us, but for others as well. Last Sunday, we started to take a look at what the book of Proverbs had to say about the upright person. Today we’re going to look at the upright person again, but we’re going to focus specifically upon how an upright person’s behavior affects other people. So the question we’re going to deal with is this:

What characterizes the upright person’s relationships with other people?

I. He will see others rejoice in his well-being

Let’s read Prov. 11:10 [READ 11:10]. Notice that the same reaction is mentioned here in both circumstances, but for very different reasons. When I read the last half of this verse, it makes me think of the scene from the musical “Scrooge” when Ebenezer sees the day of his own death and the whole city turns out to celebrate, and Tom Jenkins starts to dance on his casket while he’s singing that song: “Thank you very much, thank you very much, that’s the nicest thing that anyone’s ever done for me!”

Now what goes unsaid in this verse is that both the righteous person and the wicked person have an effect on the people around them—one positive and one negative. People are relieved when the negative effect of the wicked person is gone, and likewise they rejoice when things go well for the righteous person because the thought is that the righteous person will then continue to have a positive effect on others.

It is certainly true that jealousy and envy can creep in, but by and large people are glad when things go well for good people. So what kind of response do you want people to have toward you? Do you want them to celebrate your good fortune, or to celebrate your death? Then take your pick between righteousness and wickedness!

II. His children do not have to suffer negative consequences because of his actions

Look with me at Prov. 11:21 [READ 11:21]. There’s an interesting contrast here because in the first part of the verse, the evil man face the consequences of his own actions, but in the second part of the verse, it is the children of the righteous who receive benefits from their parents’ actions.

I think the thought behind this verse is based on verses like Exodus 34:6–7—why don’t you turn there with me? These verses come from the passage where Moses has asked to see God’s glory and God has allowed Moses to see a vision of Him. Let’s read these verses [READ Ex. 34:6–7]. Now that last statement doesn’t mean that God considers children to be guilty of their parents’ sins; it means that God may enact consequences that will effect several generations of a family.

For example, this principle is unfortunately very easy to see in the families of people who are in prison. When people make choices that land them in prison, their children often pay a terrible price. They lose the day-to-day influence of one of their parents, the family loses the income of one parent, and there is often a lot of shame and embarrassment for the children. That’s hard enough on the children, and unfortunately a number of these kids also choose a destructive way of life, which can be a detriment to their children, and before you know it you’ve got several generations who have been hurt by the consequences of one person’s actions.

It is so important for us to realize that our children are almost always affected by our choices. So if we choose an upright way of life, we can avoid bringing consequences into our own lives that will hurt our children as well.

III. He enjoys peace with those around him

Let’s take a look at Prov. 16:7 [READ 16:7]. There is a saying that states that when there is tension in a relationship, all it takes to relieve the tension is for one person to stop pulling. I think that’s very similar to the basic idea we have here. If a person’s ways are pleasing to the Lord, then that person won’t be engaging in behaviors like revenge, gossip, and slander. In other words, he won’t be retaliating against any enemies that he might have.

When you make that choice, your enemies will usually cease their hostilities against you. It is unusual for a person to keep harassing you when you don’t respond by taking revenge against them. Normally anyone who is hostile toward you will knock it off, and you can live in peace with them, even if they never exactly become your best friend.

It is said that Abraham Lincoln sought to get rid of his enemies by making them his friends. That is no doubt a good summary of the Christian approach toward personal relationships. When we choose ways of living that are pleasing to God, even those who might strongly disagree with us will be inclined to live peacefully with us.

IV. He has nothing to fear when justice is carried out

Let’s read Prov. 21:15 [READ 21:15]. The first part of this verse might refer to the righteous person acting in a just way or to the righteous person observing others carrying out justice. Either way, the righteous person delights in justice—he seeks to act in a way that is just and fair, and consequently he has nothing to fear when others are carrying out justice.

Justice is truly at the very heart of God’s character. In Genesis 18:25, Abraham asked this rhetorical question: “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” The answer of course is yes, He will because that is part of God’s nature—to deal with others in a way that is fair. This is one of the main things that He wants from us as well. Turn with me to Micah 6:6–8 [READ Micah 6:6–8].

As we saw last week, the upright person understands that God wants a proper heart attitude from us. The upright person seeks to live in a manner that is just and fair, and thus he has nothing to fear from those who are entrusted with carrying out justice. But for the wicked on the other hand, they have every reason to fear when justice is carried out because they deserve punishment for their actions.

So if you want to live without fear of the authorities, then do what is just and right. If you want to avoid a knot in your stomach when you hear about the IRS conducting audits, then do your taxes honestly. If you want your paranoia to decrease while you’re driving, then obey the speed limit. If you want to avoid sweaty palms when you hand in your expense log at work, then don’t run up false charges on it. We can face justice confidently when we live in a way that is just.

V. He escapes harm because the evil person is taken in his place

Turn with me to Prov. 11:8 [READ 11:8]. When Solomon wrote this proverb, he may have been thinking particularly of situations where the wicked plan to do evil against the righteous. In such cases, the wicked often fall prey to their own schemes, and they end up falling into the trouble that they intended for the righteous person.

There is a great example of this in Scripture with the story of Haman and Mordecai from the book of Esther. Haman was a government official for the king of Persia, and he was enraged at Mordecai the Jew because Mordecai would not bow down before him or pay him homage. Haman became so mad that he decided that he wanted to kill not just Mordecai, but all of the Jews, and he hatched a plot to do just that. He then built a gallows at his home where he could personally hang Mordecai. But after Queen Esther revealed to the king the danger that she was in from this plot, the king ordered that Haman be hung on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. So in the end, he became the victim of his own evil plot.

We also see examples of this in our own day and age. Sometimes people who file frivolous lawsuits against others watch their plot backfire on them. The judge may dismiss the lawsuit and order that the person who filed the suit pay for the court costs of the defendant.

The old saying says, “What goes around, comes around.” The upright person has a defender in the Lord who just might turn the wicked person’s intentions back on his own head.

VI. He will be well-liked by those in authority over him

Turn with me to Prov. 22:11 [READ 22:11]. What a person to have as a friend! And of course, King Solomon would know what kind of a person the king approves of! A person who was pure in heart with gracious speech is the kind of person that a king would want around. The king always had to be careful about what kind of people made it into his inner circle because any one of them might be trying to take his throne.

But the king knew he could trust someone who was pure in heart, so he would approve of that person. It’s the same with the people in authority over you today. They like people they can trust, people who aren’t going to cause problems for them, and so they will approve of you if you display that kind of behavior. And let’s be honest—sometimes it is good to have friends in high places!

Now its no mistake that a pure heart is tied together here with gracious speech. Jesus said in Matthew 12:34 that the mouth simply proclaims whatever is in your heart. Your mouth is a lot like our projector that we have here. This projector doesn’t make up its own information to display on the screen—it simply displays whatever the computer tells it to display. Your mouth is the same way—your tongue and your teeth don’t get together and decide what you’re going to say! Your words come from within, from the heart, so your words are a window into your heart. Gracious speech reveals a pure heart, so those two ideas are very deliberately tied together in this verse.

So the upright person is well-liked by those in authority over him, and that’s a good benefit to have in those relationships because the people in authority over you make decisions that affect you. If they are inclined to think well of you, then their decisions will most likely reflect that as well.

Let’s never forget that the choices we make affect other people as well. I don’t care how private a moral decision might feel—it will either directly or indirectly have a significant impact on others. So we can show true love and concern for other people by pursuing the upright lifestyle that comes on the way of wisdom. It would be very thoughtless and careless of us to reject a lifestyle that lines up with God’s standards because we would be unwittingly dragging other people into our own mess. But the upright person can be a blessing to others and consequently will be blessed by others for living in accordance with God’s commands.

A Life that Stands Tall--Proverbs series

I’m sure you’ve all noticed the Christmas decorations that we have around here this morning. I really appreciate the work of the people who were involved in putting up these decorations; they really add a nice touch to our Christmas celebrations this month.

I know that as these decorations were going up this last week, we had a little trouble getting one of our Christmas trees to stand upright. It’s kind of funny how that happens with stuff—you put something away in storage in perfectly good condition, and somehow when you pull it back out again, something doesn’t work right. You haven’t even touched it in the meantime, but somehow something got out of whack—a piece is bent or missing; something that used to light up doesn’t light up anymore; something that used to move is now locked in place; something that’s supposed to be upright isn’t upright anymore.

In some ways, we are a lot like our stuff—we have a hard time staying upright, too, and I’m not talking about getting a hunchback as you grow older! We have a hard time behaving in a way that is upright. Upright behavior is a word picture that the Bible uses to describe actions that are correct in God’s sight, actions that meet His standards. Think about the contrast between a board that is straight and upright versus one that is warped and crooked. That’s the picture that the Bible paints when it talks about upright behavior versus behavior that is wicked or crooked.

Proverbs says a lot about the person who is upright, so this morning we’re going to take a look at what it says. Some of the points we’ll look at are benefits that the upright person enjoys, and some of them are behaviors that the upright person embraces. We’re also going to look at verses that talk about the “righteous” person or the “blameless” person, because those are very similar ideas. So let’s answer this question together:

What characterizes the upright person?

I. He has a close relationship with the Lord
Let’s see what Prov. 3:32 has to say [READ 3:32]. The idea in this verse is that God accepts the upright person into His inner circle. We all have several different categories of friends in our lives. Many people today have their Facebook friends online. This group might include your playground buddy from Kindergarten that you haven’t spoken to in 30 years! Then you have your social friends—these are the people that you socialize with. You generally share a common interest with these people, and when you get together to share a few laughs and just have a good time. Then you have your close friends, the people who know everything about you. These are the friends that you seek advice from and share your secrets with.

Well the picture in this verse is that God brings the upright person into the kind of relationship that is enjoyed by close friends. He allows the upright to get to know Him and helps them understand the way that He looks at the world. This reminds me of what Jesus said to His disciple shortly before He died. In John 15:15 He said, “No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.”

So the upright person enjoys an intimate relationship with God. Prov. 11:20 says, “The perverse in heart are an abomination to the LORD, but the blameless in their walk are His delight.” The Lord is also inclined to respond to the prayers of the upright person. Prov. 15:29 says, “The LORD is far from the wicked, but He hears the prayer of the righteous.” This isn’t hard to understand, because friends are always inclined to help each other. This is an awesome benefit of living an upright life!

II. He pleases the Lord by worshipping with the right attitude

Let’s read Prov. 15:8 [READ 15:8]. Let’s not miss the real difference here. Both men in this verse are performing religious acts—the wicked man is offering a sacrifice, and the upright man is offering a prayer. The difference is in their heart attitude—the wicked man has not been concerned about obeying God, whereas the upright man has.

The upright person knows that God values obedience rather than empty religious acts. Prov. 21:3 says, “To do righteousness and justice is desired by the LORD more than sacrifice.” How foolish we are to think that we can somehow pull the wool over God’s eyes with religious acts that aren’t performed from the heart! God is not impressed with our perfect church attendance if we live like the devil the rest of the week.

We don’t even think the people around us are pleased when we just go through the motions, so why would we think that God is pleased? Do you think your coach is truly happy if you just show up to practice and walk through the drills? Do you think your spouse is truly pleased if you just go through the motions of a relationship? “Okay—relationship checklist. Buy a present on his or her birthday; check! Don’t say what you really think of his or her parents; check…”

The upright person pleases the Lord because he doesn’t allow this kind of divorce between his attitude and his actions. He worships the Lord from the heart, and thus offers worship that truly pleases God.

III. He is protected from an untimely death

I’m not going to spend much time on this point because we’ve already seen this in our discussions of wisdom and the fear of the Lord. I just feel compelled to mention it again because Proverbs mentions it so often. Almost every time you turn the page you find this lesson coming up again. Let’s read a few verses [READ 10:2, 10:16, 11:19, 12:28, 19:16]

Perhaps one reason that Proverbs mentions this point so often is that in that time, the death penalty was assigned to many more criminal activities than it is today—even to actions like cursing your parents or working on the Sabbath day, which was supposed to be a day of rest. In that setting you can see how one foolish choice really could leave you facing death. But upright behavior protects a person from an untimely death, and that is no less true for us today, even though we live in a different setting.

IV. He has a firm foundation for life, even through difficult times

Turn with me to Prov. 10:25, and let’s read this verse [READ 10:25]. I wonder if Jesus was thinking of verses like this when he told his parable contrasting the wise man who built his house on the rock and the foolish man who built his house on the sand. The foolish man’s house was destroyed after the storms came, but the wise man’s house remained. When the foolish or the wicked person faces adversity, he has nothing on which to stand, no anchor to keep him mentally, emotionally, or spiritually stable.

Let’s look at a few more verses. Turn to Prov. 12:3 [READ 12:3]. I’m sure we’ve all seen old, established trees with a deep root system. Trees like that can withstand some fierce storms because of the stability that their roots provide. They may lose some branches, but the tree will almost always stand strong. Likewise, the righteous person will face periods of loss in life, but with roots that are sunk deep into the soil of the Savior, he can still stay on his feet.

These verses have not specifically stated the source of strength for the upright person, but Prov. 18:10 does [READ 18:10]. The “name” of the Lord in this verse represents His character—all that He is and all that He is capable of. So it is the Lord to whom the righteous man looks for emotional, spiritual, and when need be even physical strength.

Now none of this is meant to say that the upright person will somehow go through life unmoved and unshaken by times of hurt and pain. The upright man is not the person who never sheds a tear, but the person who remembers that he cries on the Lord’s shoulder, and once the tears are past he will see the smile of the Savior and know that there is still reason to live.

V. He receives rewards from his behavior that will last

Let’s read Prov. 11:18 [READ 11:18]. Whatever the wicked may gain from an evil lifestyle, his gains are deceptive because they don’t provide a lasting foundation on which to build a life. The rug could be pulled out from under him at any moment. Prov. 28:18 says, “He who walks blamelessly will be delivered, but he who is crooked will fall all at once.” Someone might suddenly take revenge against him, or the authorities might catch up with him if he has broken the law.

But the upright person receives rewards that will last. Prov. 11:18 uses the picture of planting and harvesting. The person who “sows” or plants righteousness will yield a harvest that he really can build his life upon. His blessings have been obtained in the right way, and so he has every reason to be confident as he moves forward in life.

We should be very careful to learn this lesson, and if we won’t take the Bible’s word for it, we should at least gain wisdom from the downfall of people like Bernie Madoff. He was living the good life for awhile as he was falsifying investments, but his whole life suddenly came crashing in on him after his crimes were discovered.

It simply isn’t worth it to try and get ahead in life through sinful choices. Whatever we might gain will never be stable, and it will never give the true satisfaction that comes from gaining blessings through a godly way of life.
VI. He receives blessings rather than trouble from his conduct

Look with me at Prov. 13:21 [READ 13:21] This is quite the word picture here. Adversity is described as “pursuing” sinners. The idea is that sinners don’t just experience hardship—hardship actually seeks them out! They might not be looking for adversity, but adversity is looking for them!

The righteous on the other hand receive not hardship, but prosperity as a reward. Commentator Tremper Longman had a good observation on this. He wrote, “Evil pursues sinners. On the other hand, the righteous…do not have to pursue a good reward; it comes naturally to them as a result of their righteousness.”*

Now the Hebrew word that is translated “prosperity” in this verse is not necessarily focused on money. It can include money, but it’s a more general term for blessings or pleasant things. We seem to be culturally conditioned to think about money whenever we hear the word prosperity, and that would have been on the Hebrew speaker’s mind as well, but the Jews would have thought of a prosperous life more in terms of the Old Testament concept of shalom, which refers to a wholeness in life that leads to peace and satisfaction.

And of course, the idea of a reward assumes that there is a rewarder; there is someone who grants the reward, and in this verse that of course would be the Lord. So God looks to give good things to the righteous, and adversity looks to give trouble to sinners.

VII. His character makes life easier for himself

Let’s read Prov. 15:19 [READ 15:19]. Have you ever encountered a patch of thorns while you were out on a hike? If you have to walk through something like that, that’s some tough stuff to go through. You have to move carefully, and there’s almost no way to escape without getting pricked.

Well I’m sure we’ve all been in situations where we’ve given in to laziness, and we’ve put something off until we absolutely had to do it. But then when you start, you encounter all kinds of problems, and the problems are much worse because you didn’t give yourself enough time to deal with them.

That’s the point that’s being made about laziness here—it puts you on a path that is beset with trouble. But the upright person is on the highway of life. He has open road ahead of him, and its smooth sailing because He has followed God’s way of doing things. The upright person has chosen a way that has been cleared of obstacles, and thus he has made life easier for himself.

These are just a few of the traits that characterize an upright person, but I think we can already see how desirable it is to live an upright life. The upright person makes choices that line up with God’s standards, so that must be our focus. We must know His standards for living and believe that they truly are the best, and then we must make our choices accordingly. As we have seen, some wonderful blessings and desirable traits await us if we will make that choice, so let’s do so today!

*Tremper Longman, Proverbs (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), 290.

Nothing to Fear but God Himself--Proverbs series

Imagine the following scenario with me as I describe it for you, okay? Imagine that you live on a plot of land that has some land for sale beside it. One day, you see a realtor pull up and remove the “for sale” sign from beside the road, and so you think, “Oh, someone bought that property. I wonder if they’re going to build a house over there.” Sure enough, just a couple of weeks later, you see excavating equipment over there digging out a hole where a house will be built. You can tell from the size of the hole that your new neighbor is planning to build a big house.

Then one day, you see someone pull onto the lot hauling a big load of two-by-fours, and they pull up right beside the hole for the house. You think to yourself, “I wonder if that’s my neighbor,” and so, being the friendly neighbor that you are, you walk over and introduce yourself to your new neighbor, Bob. You hang out for a little while and talk to Bob while he’s doing some work, and soon you notice that he’s going around in the hole sinking the two-by-fours in the ground like fence posts—he digs out a little hole, puts the board in it, and then fills in the dirt back around it. You’re a little curious at this point and so you say, “Hey, Bob, what’re you doing?”
“I’m building my house.”
“Oh, okay. But aren’t you going to pour a foundation first?”
“A foundation? Ha! That’s a good one. I don’t think the Earth is going anywhere!”
“Well, no; maybe not the planet, but the dirt that you’re building on might move. Have you ever built a house before?”
“Yeah, plenty of times. I’ve had some bad luck with my houses caving in, but I’m going to use more two-by-fours this time!

Now at that point, you’d be thinking that you had a pretty strange new neighbor. He’s over there trying to build a house without really knowing the right way to go about it. Well, friends, that’s what its like when we try to live our lives without really understanding how life works. When we do that we’re piecing together a life that is bound to have problems because its built on a poor foundation.

We’ve seen already in our study of Proverbs that wisdom shows us how life works; it reveals the moral laws that govern how life generally plays out. Today we’re going to study the foundation of wisdom according to the book of Proverbs. That foundation is an attitude called “the fear of the Lord.” We’re going to discover what this attitude is, what its benefits are, and what characterizes the person who has it.

I. What is the fear of the Lord?

The fear of the Lord is perhaps the most important concept in the entire book of Proverbs. Now it may sound a little strange to hear that we are supposed to fear God, because the good news of the gospel is that after we accept Jesus, we are at peace with God. So why would Proverbs describe something called “the fear of the Lord” as a positive thing?

Let me first offer a definition of this attitude, and then we’ll unpack this concept a little bit. The fear of the Lord can be defined as an attitude of reverence toward God which captivates your entire being and moves you to worship Him and serve Him. Or to simplify our definition a bit, we could say that the fear of the Lord is the proper recognition of who you are in light of who God is.

I think the best illustration of this attitude is the attitude that a child has toward loving parents. This is not a perfect illustration because none of us have perfect parents, but it does give us a helpful point of comparison for understanding the fear of the Lord. As a child responds to a loving parent, there is a beautiful balance in his attitude between love, respect, and even an appropriate degree of fear. The child responds in love toward the compassion and kindness of the parents as they tuck him in bed at night or tell him how much they love him. He responds with respect toward the strength and power of his parents, like his dad’s ability to chase away things that go bump in the night or his ability to throw a football, or mom’s ability to make any scrape or cut or bruise feel better or to see things through the back of her head. The child also responds with an appropriate fear as he thinks of enduring punishment from his parents for doing something wrong—not because he thinks his parents are trying to hurt him, but because he knows their discipline will not be pleasant.

The fear of the Lord is much like that—there are elements of love, respect, and fear all mingled together in our relationship with God. We love Him because of all that He has done for us, for the compassion, grace, and mercy that He has shown us. We respect Him because of His amazing power and greatness, because He is the Creator of all things, and we seem to be so insignificant in the shadow of His glory. We also have an appropriate fear when we think about doing something that would incur His discipline.

So there is a beautiful balance in this attitude that puts us in the proper frame of mind to receive instruction from God and to respond properly. This attitude in itself compels us to serve the Lord, but we receive even more motivation when we realize the benefits that this attitude can bring into our lives.

II. What are the benefits of the fear of the Lord?

A. It serves as the starting point for acquiring wisdom (9:10, 1:7)

Embracing this attitude toward God puts us on the right path to acquire wisdom. Notice what Prov. 9:10 has to say [READ 9:10]. Notice how this ties the fear of the Lord together with the knowledge of the Holy One. Here is that recognition of who God is—when we come to know who He is, the proper response is the fear of the Lord, which puts us on the path toward knowledge. And we saw last week what Prov. 1:7 says—“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and correction.”

I’ve found it helpful for myself to compare the fear of the Lord to the picture on the front of a puzzle box. When you’re trying to put together a puzzle, the place to start is by looking at the picture on the front of the box. The picture shows you how all of the pieces are supposed to fit together; it allows you to see when you’ve got something out of place.

Well, the fear of the Lord fulfills that role for your life; it points you toward God and moves your heart to serve Him, so then you can put your life together the right way. It helps you see when something is out of place and allows you to see what it should really look like.

So the fear of the Lord points us in the right direction to gain wisdom, which means that if we don’t adopt this attitude, we can try as hard as we want but we’ll never gain true wisdom because we’re not headed in the right direction. That would be like trying to get to Copeland by heading east on 56—you’ll never make it because you started by going the wrong way. The fear of the Lord points us in the right direction to gain wisdom.

B. It lengthens your life (10:27, 14:27)

Throughout all of history, human beings have been trying to fend off death as long as we can. In our society, we have an almost universal desire to live as long as we can and to look as young as we can while we’re doing it. If we want to have a long life, Proverbs would tell us to fear the Lord. Let’s look at Prov. 10:27 together [READ 10:27]. Now over to 14:27 [READ 14:27].

According to Proverbs, there are several ways that a person might die prematurely from a foolish lifestyle. One might encounter a jealous spouse in the case of adultery, or one might have a violent plan backfire on him, or he might fall on the wrong side of the law. A foolish person might also naively wander into the wrong kind of places or situations and find himself there at the wrong time. But a wise path, on the other hand, will keep us safe from those dangers.

Now we need to remind ourselves again that proverbs like this express principles, not promises. God does at times allow godly people to die young and wicked people to live a long life, but in general we can prolong our days by embracing the fear of the Lord.

And not only can we increase the quantity of our life—we can increase its quality as well.

C. It leads to confidence and safety in life (14:26, 19:23)

Let’s read 14:26 [READ 14:26]. I think the New King James translation is correct to capitalize the word “him” in this verse to make that word a reference to God. It is true that our children receive a measure of protection when we fear the Lord and thus live in a wise manner, but I think this verse focuses on God’s protection for His spiritual children. God is like any good father—He takes care of and protects His own. Prov. 19:23 says, “The fear of the Lord leads to life, so that one may sleep satisfied, untouched by evil.”

Personal safety was a big concern back in that time. They obviously didn’t have home security systems or telephones to call the police. Well-traveled roads were the favorite places of thieves, and when people traveled they often had to rely on the hospitality of total strangers. We may feel more secure today because of the technology that we have, but we all realize how quickly and easily our safety can evaporate.

But the fear of the Lord reminds us of the awesome power of our God and of His place as Lord over everything. He is aware of every danger and every threat that surrounds us. We know what He can do and we know that He loves us, so we can be confident as we let ourselves relax in the mighty arms of our Heavenly Father.

I believe we have seen now that the fear of the Lord is a very desirable attitude to have. But what does it look when a person has adopted this attitude? What characterizes the person who fears the Lord?

III. What characterizes the person who fears the Lord?

A. He is not envious of sinful people (23:17–18)

Look at Prov. 23:17–18 [READ 23:17–18]. The person who fears the Lord does not fall into the trap of embracing a sinful lifestyle because he keeps a “big picture” perspective on life. The one who fears the Lord knows that God is gracious even to those who reject His way of life. As Jesus said, God causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and He sends rain upon the righteous and the unrighteous. God may allow a sinful person to live a long and comfortable life, but the eternal picture for that man is not good, and the one who fears the Lord remembers the eternal picture. He does not allow himself to be deceived into thinking that a sinful lifestyle is the way to go, because he remembers the big picture.

B. He is humble (15:33, 22:4)

I think above all else, humility is the primary characteristic of the person who fears the Lord. Let’s read a couple of verses—first of all Prov. 15:33 [READ 15:33]. Notice how this verse connects the fear of the Lord and humility by exalting both of them as positive traits. I think this connection is even more explicit in Prov. 22:4 [READ 22:4]. Now, in the Hebrew text that lies behind our English translation, the word “and” does not appear, nor does the word “are” –they were inserted to make for better English. So the Hebrew simply says, “The reward of humility the fear of the Lord riches honor and life.” Grammatically, there is nothing that tells us that humility and the fear of the Lord are actually two different attitudes. In fact, I think its more likely that Solomon is using the fear of the Lord to define what humility is. In other words, its like he’s saying, “The reward of humility (which is also known as the fear of the Lord) is riches, honor, and life.”

This would mean that humility and the fear of the Lord are synonymous attitudes. They are virtually identical, and I think that is really true when you think about it. When you fear God—when you understand who you are in light of who He is—there is no longer any room for pride. The fear of the Lord keeps before our minds the incomprehensible greatness of God, and it reminds us that everything we have has been given to us by God. He chose where you were going to be born, and what family you would be born into; he has chosen to give you every day that you have lived, every breath that you have taken, and every meal that you have ever enjoyed. He has given you everything that you possess and every penny that was used to purchase those things. If we are thus completely at God’s mercy, where is there room for pride? There is room for nothing but to humbly acknowledge who God is and who we are in the light of His being.

The fear of the Lord is the first and foundational attitude that we must have to gain true wisdom in life. But you can probably see that we cannot have this attitude if we do not have a proper relationship with God. Unfortunately, we do not naturally have a proper relationship with God. You see, God created us to enjoy a relationship with Him and to serve as His representatives in this world. But our sinfulness has broken our relationship with God so that we are now estranged from Him. We cannot fulfill our true purpose in life because we are separated from God, and unless something changes in our condition we will remain separated from Him forever. But the problem is that we can’t fix the problem; our sin has so deeply offended God that we cannot repair our relationship with Him.

But because of God’s great love for us, He did not want our relationship to stay this way, so He decided to take it upon Himself to restore our broken relationship. He took care of our sin problem by sending His own Son, Jesus, into this world—God in human flesh—to die in our place on the cross to pay the penalty that God required for our sin. And on the third day after His death, Jesus rose from the dead as a testimony to everyone that we could now have the hope of forgiveness and a restored relationship with God. God now offers us His forgiveness as a free gift, and if you will place your faith in Jesus and trust that He paid the price for your sins, your relationship with God will be restored, and you can enjoy a relationship with God forever—both now and in heaven with Him after you pass away. Will you place your faith in Him today?

Everybody Plays the Fool--Proverbs series

When I was a kid, my family had a wood-paneled station wagon, and as we rode around in that car we often listened to oldies on the radio. I remember my dad asking one time why they never played any new oldies—just think about that one for a moment! I became familiar with many of the songs that my parents listened to growing up, and one that I still remember today is a song called “Everybody Plays the Fool.” This song describes how everyone has their heart broken at some point, and the chorus goes like this:

Everybody plays the fool, sometime
There’s no exception to the rule
It may be factual, it may be cruel
Everybody plays the fool

I think that’s fairly true in the realm of romance, don’t you? At some point, most people have feelings for someone else that aren’t returned, or we try to initiate a relationship with someone and get turned down, or we have a relationship that falls apart. In those moments we can sure feel pretty foolish.

Well, I think that same idea is definitely true for all of us in the realm of life. At some point, everybody plays the fool—everyone has moments where they do something foolish or say something foolish, and apart from Jesus Christ there really is no exception to that rule! Every mere mortal who has ever lived has made foolish decisions at some time.

The book of Proverbs has a lot to say about the fool. It describes his attitudes and the kind of decisions that he makes. So if we can become familiar with the picture of the fool in Proverbs, then hopefully we can avoid making foolish decisions in our own lives. So today we’re going to tackle this question:

What are the characteristics of a foolish person?

I. A foolish person does not value wisdom and instruction (1:7)

Let’s look at Prov. 1:7 together [READ 1:7]. To “despise” something means that you don’t treat it as being very valuable or important. Sometimes you even have feelings of disgust or hatred toward something that you despise. According to this verse, the fool does not consider wisdom and instruction to be very valuable things. Perhaps the foolish person does not realize the potential benefits of wisdom—like those described here in Proverbs—or he just chooses not to believe that wise choices can actually deliver those benefits.

Apparently the same attitude applies to instruction as well. The foolish person just doesn’t think that instruction from others is very important. There could be a variety of reasons for that, but whatever they are the fool does not value the things that he could learn from others.

Notice that the fool’s attitude is contrasted with the attitude that puts us on the path toward true knowledge—it is contrasted with the fear of the Lord, which is a healthy attitude of awe and respect toward God. So ultimately the foolish man’s problems come from an improper attitude toward God. His thinking about God and toward God is not correct, and ultimately I think we can say that that is the root cause of all of our moral struggles and failings. A. W. Tozer gave a lot of thought to this subject, and he said, “The most [important] fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like. We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God.”*

And so the fool’s attitude toward wisdom is but a reflection of his attitude toward God. Remember—wisdom is based on the fear of the Lord which leads to the understanding and application of God’s moral laws. So the fool’s attitude toward wisdom and instruction is very serious indeed.

II. A foolish person is overconfident rather than cautious in the face of evil (14:16)

Let’s look at Prov. 14:16 [READ 14:16]. We see in this verse that the wise man takes precautions to avoid evil, but the fool chooses to do things differently. It says he is “arrogant and careless.” This could mean that he is overconfident about his ability to say “no” to temptation, or it could mean that he goes ahead and commits evil thinking that he will escape the consequences. Either way, what we find is that the foolish person does not take the proper precautions to guard himself from doing evil; he doesn’t treat it like a serious threat. He is like the man who might see a sign on a fence that says “Beware of Dog,” but he chooses to ignore the sign and go behind the fence anyway.

If we want to avoid the path of foolishness, we must treat evil as a serious threat whenever we see it on the horizon. We are foolish if we allow ourselves to go into a tempting situation because we think we are too strong to give in. As Paul warned us in 1 Cor. 10:12, “Let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall.”

As we discuss this point, this is a great time to remind ourselves that we can gain wisdom by learning from the experiences of others. Sometimes we see other people bring trouble into their lives through foolish choices, but for whatever reason we tell ourselves that we can make the same choices yet avoid the negative consequences. We may think that we’re smarter than others, or we may simply believe that those bad things won’t happen to us. But friends, that is a foolish way of thinking. We should learn a lesson from others and then take precautions so that we don’t end up in the same situation.

III. A foolish person does not highly value his parents (15:20)

Let’s read Prov. 15:20 [READ 15:20]. Here again we see this word “despise,” which means that you consider something to have very little value or importance. That is the attitude that the foolish person has toward his parents—he treats them as though they have very little value or importance. The verse specifically says that he despises his “mother,” but like the word “father” in the first part of the verse, Solomon is probably just using a poetic way of referring to both parents in each part of the verse.

What a sad commentary on someone’s heart, that they would treat their parents as though they had little value or importance! I remember hearing a preacher talk about how he almost lost it one time when he heard his son talk back to his mother. He said he walked over to his son, lifted up his shirt and said, “Do you see your belly button? You have that because you were attached to your mom for 9 months and she did everything for you. Even after you were born she did everything for you!”

You know, that’s true, isn’t it? Our parents have made sacrifices to give us life and to take care of us, and if we don’t value them for what they’ve done for us, we really need to change our attitudes! Now, as our parent’s children, we know better than anyone that our parents aren’t perfect. But despite their flaws, they have been such a huge source of blessing to us through their sacrifices that we should treat them with the utmost respect.

We’ve also seen in our study of Proverbs that your parents can be a great source of wisdom for you, but if you don’t think of them as being valuable or important, you’ll shut yourself off from a potential source of wisdom and from all of the benefits that wisdom can bring. So let’s not adopt the attitude of a fool toward our parents. We should prize them, not despise them.

IV. A foolish person blames the Lord for the bad results of his own foolishness (19:3)

There was a comedian years ago who had a routine that popularized the phrase, “the devil made me do it.” The humor in his routine was that it was so true to life—whenever we do something sinful or something foolish, we want to pass the blame along to someone or something else, don’t we? Well, according to Proverbs, this is a foolish way of dealing with things. Let’s look at Prov. 19:3 [READ 19:3].

Now notice what’s going on here. The man in this verse has ruined his way through his own foolishness, but he’s mad at God over his situation. The point of this verse is that that’s a foolish way to respond when we suffer the consequences of our own choices. How can we rightfully blame God when we bring trouble into our own lives by being foolish? Now no matter what a person might think about questions surrounding God’s control over life and our ability to make choices, we have to realize that God treats us as being responsible for our choices, so we can’t blame Him when we do foolish things.

Perhaps the worst thing about this response of anger from the fool is that it just serves to drive him further away from God. When we make a foolish choice, we’ve already stepped aside from God’s way, but if we rage at him over the consequences, we just move further away from where we really need to be. We are like the injured animal who runs from us when we’re trying to help it. The last thing we should do is get angry at God and move further away from him.

V. A foolish person is not well-suited to receive honor (26:1, 26:8, 26:3)

It is a rewarding and pleasing experience to receive honor from other people, but the fool has not put himself in a position to receive honor. Honor does not fit with his way of life. Notice what Prov. 26:1 says [READ 26:1].

Those are pretty stark contrasts in the first part of that verse! Snow does not fit with summer; if we were to get snow in summer, something would be seriously wrong! Likewise, rain does not fit with harvest. Harvest time is a period where we don’t want rain because we need to be able to get out into the fields to bring in the crop. Not only that, but a significant rainfall could damage the crop that is ready for harvest. So rain does not fit with harvest, and likewise, honor is not fitting for a fool.

In fact, the one who would give honor to a fool doesn’t know the purpose behind honor or how its supposed to work. Look at Prov. 26:8 [READ 26:8]. The picture in the first part of the verse is of someone tying a stone into a slingshot. Well, everyone knows that’s not how you use a slingshot. You don’t tie the stone into the pocket; the stone has to be free to fly out of the slingshot. The point is that someone who would do this doesn’t know how a slingshot should work. Likewise, the person who would honor a fool doesn’t know how honor is supposed to work. You don’t want to honor a fool because that would encourage him in his foolishness.

A fool is not fit to receive honor; in fact, he is much more fit to receive discipline. Prov. 26:3 says, [READ 26:3]. Just as the whip and the bridle are appropriate for keeping the horse and the donkey in line, discipline is appropriate to try and keep the fool in line. I’m sure we can all agree that we don’t want to be in the place of the fool!

VI. A foolish person will not give up his foolishness (27:22, 26:11)

There’s a saying I’ve heard that says insanity is doing the same thing 100 times and expecting a different result. That saying seems to describe the fool fairly well. Look at Prov. 27:22 [READ 27:22]. A mortar and pestle were used to grind grain into flour, and the point of this proverb seems to be that even if you applied severe physical punishment to a fool, he still would not give up his foolishness. According to Proverbs, a wise person or even a naïve person would learn his lesson after receiving punishment, but the fool goes right on back to the way of life that brought on the punishment in the first place. This is an encouragement to us to learn our lesson when we’re punished for something. Proverbs uses a disgusting picture to describe someone who returns to folly. Proverbs 26:11 says, “Like a dog that returns to its vomit is a fool who repeats his folly.”

None of us are immune to making foolish choices; none of us are exempt from this danger. Even after we’ve put together a string of wise choices, our next one could be foolish. Even after King David had lived with such faith in God, it only took one choice to start down a foolish path with Bathsheba.

So none of us should think that we are safe from folly, but if we can remember what foolish behavior looks like we can guard ourselves from it and continue walking on the path of wisdom. As we saw earlier, one of the fool’s biggest problems lies in his attitude toward God, and having a proper attitude toward God starts with having a proper relationship with Him. Unfortunately, we do not naturally have a proper relationship with God. You see, God created us to enjoy a relationship with Him and to serve as His representatives in this world. But our sinfulness has broken our relationship with God so that we are now estranged from Him. We cannot fulfill our true purpose in life because we are separated from God, and unless something changes in our condition we will remain separated from Him forever. But the problem is that we can’t fix the problem; our sin has so deeply offended God that we cannot repair our relationship with Him.

But because of God’s great love for us, He did not want our relationship to stay this way, so He decided to take it upon Himself to restore our broken relationship. He took care of our sin problem by sending His own Son, Jesus, into this world—God in human flesh—to die in our place on the cross to pay the penalty that God required for our sin. And on the third day after His death, Jesus rose from the dead as a testimony to everyone that we could now have the hope of forgiveness and a restored relationship with God. God now offers us His forgiveness as a free gift, and if you will place your faith in Jesus and trust that He paid the price for your sins, your relationship with God will be restored, and you can enjoy a relationship with God forever—both now and in heaven with Him after you pass away. Will you place your faith in Him today?


*A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1961), p. 1.

Characterizing Wisdom--Proverbs series

It's funny at times to see how far people are willing to go to imitate the characteristics of people that they admire. Young athletes can be particularly interesting to watch. Young baseball players have always tried to hold their bat the same way as their favorite Major League players, or wear their pant legs up or down depending on the style in the majors at that time. Some businessman noticed this many years ago and created Big League Chew--bubble gum that is shredded up like chewing tobacco. So even though Little League players couldn't chew tobacco, they could still have a bulge in their lip just like their favorite baseball player!

I saw a particularly ridiculous example of imitating someone else's characteristics when I was in junior high. For a few months one year, there was a trend going around among junior high students to carry around pacifiers and suck on them. Unfortunately I think it had some kind of tie-in to the drug culture, but some of my classmates thought it was cool so they walked around sucking on pacifiers!

Yes, people will go a long way to imitate others that they admire. I hope over the last few weeks that you have started to admire the idea of having biblical wisdom, but perhaps you've been thinking, "What do wise people look like?" What kind of habits do they have in their lives? What are the characteristics of a wise person? That's the question that we're going to address today.

What are the characteristics of a wise person?

I. A wise person will accept advice from others (1:5, 9:9)

Let’s look at a couple of verses together [READ 1:5, 9:9]. We learned last week that wise counselors are one of the sources of wisdom that Proverbs describes. The wise person realizes this and is therefore willing to seek out and accept advice from other people—and not just advice but correction and criticism as well. Proverbs 15:31–32 says, “He whose ear listens to the life-giving reproof will dwell among the wise. He who neglects discipline despises himself, but he who listens to reproof acquires understanding.”

So we need to seek advice from other people, and we need to be willing to honestly consider the correction and criticism that we receive from others—even if that criticism is not offered in a very kind way. The fact that someone is rude does not necessarily mean that they are wrong. We can call this the Simon Cowell principle, for those of you who’ve seen “American Idol.” If you’re not familiar with that show, Simon is one of the judges and he’s extremely rude when he criticizes the singers, but he’s usually right.

Now we all understand that other people are not always correct when they criticize us, but a wise person will honestly consider what others have to say without simply rejecting it out of hand.

II. A wise person will trust the Lord’s point-of-view rather than his own (3:5–8)

Let’s read Proverbs 3:5–8 [READ 3:5–8]. This trait is so important for us to embrace because God frequently commands us to do things that seem counterintuitive to us. For example, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. Now normally we’re tempted to think, “Yeah, I’ll pray for them alright! I’ll pray that God will rain fire and brimstone down on their heads!” But obviously that is not what Jesus meant. He goes on to say that we should love our enemies because that’s the way that God acts—He is kind even to those who do not worship Him.

So when we encounter commands like that, we have to trust God’s point-of-view, because those commands cut against the grain; they are usually the opposite of the way that we tend to look at the world. Think about the command against seeking to get revenge against other people. We’re often tempted to think, “Yeah that sounds good, but if I don’t show this person that I’m not going to take this stuff, they may do the same thing again.” Or, we kind of give these commands a trial run—we follow them at first, but if they don’t seem to be working 5 minutes after we followed them, then we feel like we can go on to our own plan!

But the wise person realizes that we must adopt God’s way of looking at things rather than a merely human way of looking at things. God knows all things, He is in control of all things, and remember—He knows how life works because He created it and He established the moral laws that govern it.

III. A wise person associates with wise people (13:20)

The principle behind this trait seems fairly obvious. Let’s see what Prov. 13:20 has to say [READ 13:20]. I’m sure you’ve all heard the old statement “you are what you eat.” That describes us physically, but it seems that morally we would not be far off if we said “you are who you hang out with.” The people that we befriend have a significant impact on us. They can help us draw closer to God, or they can drag us away from Him.

Sometimes we try to get around this principle with an argument that sounds very godly. We say, “I know these people have a sinful lifestyle, but how will I win them to Christ if I don’t befriend them?” There is a legitimate question there if we ask it with the right motives, but we need to understand the difference between being friendly to someone and befriending someone. We should be friendly to everyone—we should show them kindness and respect, and we should even seek to do good for them if we are able.

But befriending someone is different. When you become friends with someone, you give them special access to your heart. You share thoughts with them that you wouldn’t share with just anyone. You also tend to gradually adopt their point-of-view because your friends are special to you and you want their acceptance and praise. You don’t want to lose their companionship and so you often start to act like they do.

So because of the access that your friends have to your heart, this principle from Prov. 13:20 is so very important. So if you want to be wise, become friends with wise people. They will pull you in the direction of wisdom, and they will also serve as a great source of advice and correction.

IV. A wise person is thoughtful about his way of life (14:8)

Let’s look at Proverbs 14:8 together [READ 14:8]. Now let’s unpack this Proverb a little bit. The book of Proverbs often uses the metaphor of a person’s “way” or a person’s “path,” and that metaphor basically refers to a person’s way of life or lifestyle. So the first part of this verse tells us that the sensible person exercises wisdom by understanding his lifestyle. This implies that the sensible person has been thoughtful about his way of life. He has carefully considered his choices and where they are most likely to take him. He hasn’t just stumbled through life without reflecting on where he is headed.

The fool, however, has been deceived by his own foolish choices. Perhaps he thought his way of life would take him in one direction when in fact it was taking him in another direction because he was living in a foolish way.

So this Proverb drives home for us the importance of being thoughtful about the way that we live, which means that we must make time to reflect upon our lives—to consider the decisions that we’ve made and the decisions that we still have to make and to seek to apply wisdom to our situations.

I think today we often face two enemies that keep us from living a reflective life. First is the temptation to simply entertain our minds rather than engage them in serious thought. We have a dizzying number of entertainment options available to us today, and most of them are pumped directly into our homes. Without even realizing it, we can spend untold hours subtly shaping our way of thinking through entertainment, and all the while we are crowding out some of the time that we could use for giving serious thought to our lives. This is a very serious matter because when the Bible describes spiritual growth, it describes it as a process that begins in the mind. Romans 12:2 says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” So if we want to grow spiritually, we must cultivate a healthy habit of reflecting on our lives.

The second enemy that keeps us from a reflective life is the temptation to give our emotions and our feelings the primary place in our decision making process. Much of our culture is based on the motto, “if it feels good, do it.” Obviously, the danger here comes when we make choices based on our feelings without truly thinking through our choices and their potential consequences.

The wisdom of the sensible is to understand his way, and so a wise person gives serious thought to the way he lives.

V. A wise person is not eager to blurt out what he knows (10:14)

How many of you like a “know-it-all?” Oh come on, we all like those kinds of people don’t we—people who always have the right answer and always share advice whether we ask for it or not? Well, a wise person may have tremendous knowledge, but he is not a know-it-all. Look with me at Prov. 10:14 [READ 10:14]. The point of this proverb seems to be that the wise person acquires knowledge and hangs on to it—presumably to share it at the right time. But the foolish person has no control over his mouth and gets himself in trouble for it—presumably in this verse by speaking out of turn or simply by speaking without thinking. In Proverbs it is considered a very foolish thing to have a mouth that constantly talks. The wise person is thoughtful and selective when speaking, and he knows that there is a proper place and time to say certain things.

We all understand that when you’re trying to share wisdom or knowledge with someone else, there is a right place and a right time to do it—especially if you’re correcting someone else. Another person may genuinely need to hear what you have to say, but you can turn them off to your message if you speak to them in the wrong way or at the wrong time.

I think this is a lesson that we need to keep in the front of our minds when we’re speaking to our children. As parents, our children certainly do need our correction and our discipline, but we can correct them in very hurtful ways if we use the wrong tone of voice or the wrong words or if we lose our patience or our temper. Yes, they do need our discipline, but that doesn’t give us a license to disrespect them or to belittle them. A wise person stores up knowledge to share it at appropriate times and in appropriate ways—NOT in the way that foolish people speak.

VI. A wise person is not lead astray by the apparent joy of foolishness (15:21)

Let’s read Prov. 15:21 [READ 15:21]. The word “understanding” here is a very close synonym to wisdom. The idea is that the man of understanding continues to follow the right path even when a temptation comes up from the momentary pleasure that sin brings. Let’s be honest—sin does have momentary pleasure, doesn’t it? Sinful behavior feels good while you’re doing it; otherwise, it wouldn’t be tempting. But sin only brings momentary pleasure, and ultimately it is deceitful because it doesn’t bring the fulfillment that it promises. The man of understanding recognizes this and thus chooses to follow the godly way rather than chase after momentary, sinful pleasures.

So I believe this verse teaches us to look at the reality behind the temptations that we face. Yes, the path of sin may be fun for a moment, but where does it ultimately lead? Let’s take one temptation as an example—think about the beer commercials that you see on TV. They never show alcoholics on those commercials, do they? They don’t show children going hungry because mom and dad have spent their last dollar on booze. They don’t show grieving parents who have just lost a child to drunk driving. No—what do they show? They show beautiful women and handsome men, and they’re always having a party, right? So what’s the message? Life is a constant party when you drink beer!

But the man of understanding looks past momentary pleasure and considers the consequences. Thus, he chooses to stay on the path of wisdom, which will ultimately bring about much more desirable results.

These are just a few of the characteristics that a wise person will have in his life. We could talk about others, but I want to take a moment to hopefully leave you with a note of encouragement today. When we study a list of character traits like this, it can be very easy to feel overwhelmed and discouraged. I’m sure we can all look in the mirror and see room for growth in every one of these areas, and when we realize that it can be easy to think, “Wow! I’ll never qualify as a wise person.” But remember one thing, friends—a wise person is willing to accept correction. A wise person understands that he has room for improvement; it is the fool he thinks he’s got it all together. So if you’re willing to acknowledge your need for growth, you’ve taken the first step on the path of wisdom! You’re headed in the right direction, now just keep going! Look for wisdom in the places we discussed last week—pray to God for it and study His Word, talk to wise counselors, learn from nature and from the experiences of other people, and do this with urgency and passion and determination. You’re headed the right way, just keep going and you’ll find yourself getting wiser every day!

The Hunt for Wisdom--Proverbs series

I’m sure I don’t have to tell most of you that we’re getting into a great time of year for hunting. Pheasant and quail season is about to open, turkeys will be in season most of the winter, deer are in season right now, as well as ducks. I’ll bet some of you have already been thinking about cleaning your gun or getting some new arrows or fletchings.

You all know that in order to be a successful hunter, there are certain things you have to know. First, you have to know where to look. When you’re hunting for a particular animal, you have to know what kind of habitat that animal lives in. You’re not going to be a very good duck hunter if you set up a duck blind in an area where there’s no water. Likewise, you’re going to be pretty disappointed if you try to hunt for moose in Kansas. And even when you’re in the right habitat, you still have to look for the right features—like sources of food and sources of shelter.

Second, you also have to know how to hunt the animal that you’re trying to track down. You’re not going to have much success deer hunting if you walk out into the woods and say, “Heeeeeyyyy deer! Hey deer! Hey! Hey!” Nor will you have much success if you sit in a field and somewhere and wait for a pheasant to come to you.

So those are some of the basic principles that you have to know in order to be a successful hunter—you have to know where to look for your prey, and how to hunt it. This morning we’re going to talk about acquiring wisdom, and what we’re going to discover is that those same principles apply to the hunt for wisdom. If you want to acquire wisdom in your life, you have to know where to look for it and how to get it. You have to make sure you’re looking in the right places and make sure that you’re carrying out the process in the right manner.

So those are the two questions that we’re going to deal with today—1) Where do we look for wisdom; and 2) How should we seek wisdom?

I. Where do we look for wisdom?

There are all sorts of people around us today who claim that they can offer us wisdom to live by. We can turn on Oprah or Dr. Phil, and they’ll have some advice for us. Or we can read Dear Abby in the newspaper, or even an editorial column in the newspaper. Or we can go to the library or the bookstore and find self-help books for anything that you want to become or overcome, and of course we can go online and find opinions from anyone who knows how to type.

But where does the Bible tells us to look for wisdom? This should really be our starting point, and we should look for wisdom in the places where it tells us to look. Let’s consider five sources of wisdom that are described in the book of Proverbs

A. To the Lord (2:1–6)

First of all, we should look to the Lord for wisdom. This comes as no surprise I’m sure. We will see in a few moments that we can look to certain other people to find wisdom, but ultimately all true wisdom comes from the Lord. Let’s read 2:1–6 [READ 2:1–6].

So the Lord is ultimate source of all true wisdom, and this makes perfect sense when we remember what wisdom is—wisdom is based on the moral laws that God built into the world, and if we want to find out how the world works in terms of morality, it makes sense that we would consult the builder.

But how do we acquire wisdom from the Lord? The same way that we would acquire wisdom from anyone else—by communicating with that person. Communication, of course, is a process where we speak to someone and then listen to what they have to say, and when we think about communicating with God, we get to speak to Him through prayer and hear from Him through Bible study. We can speak to God in prayer and make requests of Him, and one of the things that we can ask for is wisdom. James 1:5 says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” We can talk to God about the things that are troubling us or confusing us, and then we can search the Bible to find out what He has said about handling the situation that we’re in, and according to 2 Timothy 3:17, the Bible contains everything that we need to know about living in a manner that pleases God.

B. To our parents (4:1–4)

Now some of you are thinking, “Ah, man! I knew he was going to mention this one.” Well, I mention it because Proverbs mentions it. Let’s read 4:1–4 [READ 4:1–4] As I said last week, much of the book of Proverbs is explicitly written from the perspective of a parent instructing his or her children. There is just no way to read Proverbs and avoid the conclusion that your parents are a major source of wisdom. That’s why God tells us repeatedly in the Bible to respect them and obey them.

Young people—please don’t miss this! I’m talking to you teenagers, and to you middle schoolers, and to you kids in elementary school, and to all of you who still live under the authority of your parents. God tells us to obey our parents because they really do have wisdom—especially if you have Christian parents who are seeking wisdom themselves. God has made our parents a source of wisdom and protection in our lives. Don’t be naïve about this! The reason that you may face so many temptations to fight with your parents is because Satan wants to drive you away from a major source of guidance and protection! Don’t be fooled!

Mark Twain had a humorous way of looking at just about everything in life, and this area is no exception. Mark Twain once wrote, “When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” I realize that your parents might barely know how to use their cell phone, but they know a lot more about life than you think, so listen to them and obey them.

C. To nature (6:6–11)

Let’s take a look at 6:6–11. In this passage, Solomon is telling a lazy person to get a move on things, and he tells the lazy person to learn a lesson from ants [READ 6:6–11].

There really are some important lessons that we can learn simply from observing the world around us. Not long ago I was talking to Shirley Buller about gardening. She was telling me that there really is no such thing as a green thumb. Anyone can be successful at gardening—it is simply a matter of doing the right things in the right way at the right time whether you feel like it or not. She pointed out that there are some spiritual lessons we can learn from that idea as well, and I would have to agree. A lesson like that can come simply from observing the way that God’s creation functions.

D. To wise counselors (24:5–6)

Proverbs 26:12 says, “Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.” Two of the most important lessons that we need to learn are: 1) I don’t know everything; and 2) I can, in fact, be wrong. Notice what Proverbs 24:5–6 have to say [READ 24:5–6]. We all need to realize how desperately we need the advice of other people around us who are wise—not advice from just anyone, but from people who have acquired wisdom. When you need wisdom, that is not the time to go to the friend who always tells you what you want to hear. If you need wisdom for a decision, you need to talk to a wise person who has faced that decision before. Or if you’re facing a crisis, talk to a wise person who has been down that road already. Talk to people who can also give you insights from Scripture.

We really put ourselves in a dangerous situation if we think that we don’t need advice and correction from other people. Most of the time we can only see an issue from our own point of view, and outside of that its like we have blinders on—we can’t imagine that another point of view even exists! But we need to be careful about making decisions based solely upon our own base of knowledge. Proverbs 14:12 says, “There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” We can avoid dangers like that by consulting wise counselors.

E. To the experiences of others (7:6–9)

In Proverbs 7:6–9, Solomon describes how he observed a young man get caught up in adultery [READ 7:6–9]. Solomon is obviously warning his son from getting caught in a similar temptation, but he also communicates the principle that we can learn from the experiences of others. This is certainly true for you kids out there who have older siblings. Boy, can you learn a lot from them—particularly from their mistakes. If you see that one of their choices sent your parents through the roof, you can make a mental note to avoid that choice.

But we can all learn simply by observing the people around us—not by snooping in their lives, but simply by observing the choices they make and then taking note of the outcome. We can learn how to succeed at something by watching people who have already had success. And, of course, we can avoid trouble by avoiding the choices that were made by people who have brought some trouble upon themselves.

So we’ve seen now several places to look in order to find wisdom, and if we would take advantage of all of them, we would really be on the right track. But knowing where to look is only part of the equation. How should we seek it? That is the question that we need to deal with next. Let me make two points about this question and then we’ll be done.

II. How should we seek wisdom?

A. With urgency—before its too late! (1:24–33)

While it is certainly true that we can learn from our mistakes, it is highly preferable to avoid mistakes in the first place by acquiring the wisdom we need to avoid making foolish choices, because after we’ve made a foolish choice, it will be too late to find the wisdom that we need get us out of the mess we’ve created. Look at Proverbs 1:24–33. Here Solomon has again described wisdom as a woman who is calling out, and in these verses she says [READ 1:24–33].

Quite a warning from Lady Wisdom! If we reject wisdom and make foolish choices, we may have to deal with some very severe consequences. And yes, we may learn some lessons that will help us down the road, but it will be too late to undo the foolish choices we’ve already made, and depending on our choices we may have to deal with life-long consequences.

So the moral of the story is this—get wisdom now! Start today! Every day that goes by in which we are not seeking more wisdom is a day that we leave ourselves vulnerable to foolish decisions that may alter our lives forever. So we must start now! It is too risky even to put it off one more day—start hunting for wisdom today! It is open season for wisdom!

B. With passion and determination (2:1–5)

Look with me at Proverbs 2:1–5, and notice the passion that is described here in the hunt for wisdom [READ 2:1–5]. Now I guarantee that if you somehow discovered that there was buried treasure in your backyard, you would be out there this afternoon with a shovel! And you would dig up your whole yard until you found it! Well friends, as we hunt for wisdom we are hunting for something that is more valuable than silver and gold, so we should have an even greater passion in our pursuit of it.

Think about the passion that explorers have shown in the past as they’ve looked for hidden treasure. Think about a man who came near Montezuma looking for hidden treasure—Francisco de Coronado. Coronado was a governor in Mexico when he heard about cities of gold up north in the present-day United States. He invested a large sum of his own money and set out with an expeditionary force of 1,600 people. As you probably know, he never found any cities made of gold, and he was forced to return to Mexico injured and bankrupt, yet he had spent 14 years looking for treasure that he never found because he knew how valuable it would be if he did find it.

The Bible tells us to hunt for wisdom as if we were hunting for hidden treasure. That means that we must have passion and determination. We cannot pick up our Bibles once a week on Sundays and expect to gain much wisdom—we must passionately study the Scriptures. We cannot consult wise counselors on only a few decisions and expect to make consistently wise choices—we must consistently seek advice. The stakes are too high to do otherwise; the profit of wisdom is too great to pursue it with a half-hearted effort.

So as we hunt for wisdom, we must look in the right places and do so in the right manner. But the best part about hunting for wisdom is that wisdom wants to be found! Wisdom will not escape from you if you look in the right places in the right manner. If you pray to God for wisdom and then look for it in the way that we’ve just learned from Proverbs, you will find it, and with it you will receive all the benefits that flow from it. So my friends, TODAY IS OPENING DAY! Let the hunt for wisdom begin!

The Fabulous Benefits of Wisdom (No Foolin'!)--Proverbs series

During my college days at Calvary Bible College, the music department put on a production of the musical “The Music Man.” I decided to try out for the show, and I managed to land the role of Harold Hill—the Music Man himself. If you’re not familiar with this musical, its set back in the early 1900’s, and Harold Hill is a rather dishonest travelling salesman who travels around small Midwestern towns trying to make a buck. His pitch is to sell the townspeople on the benefits of starting a boys marching band, but his real plan is to collect the money for instruments, uniforms, and instruction books and then keep it all himself and get out of town before anyone can catch him.

One of the most famous songs from that musical is the song “Trouble.” In this song, Harold Hill begins to set the townspeople up for his sales pitch by telling them about all the trouble that they can avoid with their children if they can find a way to keep them busy after school. They can keep their kids from fritterin’ away time at the pool hall or from gambling on horse-track races. They can keep them from dancing to rag-time music and from hiding dirty books in the corn crib. And best of all, they can keep them from using words like “swell” or phrases like “so’s your old man!” And of course, Harold Hill then offers to form a boys’ band as the perfect way of providing all of these benefits.

Now the reason that I mention all of this to you is because this morning I am going to try and sell you on the benefits of wisdom, and the benefits that I am about to describe to you will sound fabulous and so amazing that you may think I’m some kind of con artist. The benefits that we are going to discover will sound too good to be true—and they would be, if they weren’t all listed right here for us to read in the Bible.

This morning we are going to start a study in the book of Proverbs, and we’re going to begin by studying the concept of biblical wisdom. We’re going to answer two questions today: first of all, what is wisdom, and second, what are the benefits of wisdom. Let’s waste no time here in addressing these questions.

I. What is wisdom?

Many different ideas may come to your mind when you hear the word “wisdom.” You may think of a guru sitting on a far-away mountain top, pondering the complexities of life. Or perhaps you think of a college professor sitting an office filled with books. Or maybe you think of one of your parents or a grandparent or some mentor who has shared some valuable life-lessons with you.

Well the book of Proverbs has an awful lot to say about the subject of wisdom, so as we begin this study it will be very helpful for us to define what wisdom is according to the Bible. Now Proverbs doesn’t exactly offer a dictionary definition of wisdom; rather, it tells us the kind of person in whom wisdom is found, and to sum up this description of wisdom we could say this:

Wisdom is found in the person who fears God and thus recognizes and lives by the moral laws that God has established in our world.

Notice a couple of things about this description of wisdom. First, wisdom is not primarily an intellectual trait—it is first and foremost a moral trait. You do not have to be Albert Einstein in order to have wisdom. In fact the mental aspect of wisdom comes into play only after a moral choice has been made to fear God and thus to honor Him with your life. It is only after you have made that choice that you can truly understand the moral laws that God has established in our world.

Second, notice this concept of moral laws. Just as there are physical laws in our world—like the law of gravity—there are also moral laws that God has built into our world. These moral laws tell us what the normal outcome of our choices will be unless some other factor intervenes. In this respect they are exactly like the physical laws of nature. Think for a moment about how these physical laws work. For example, the law of gravity tells us that if we see a large metal object in the sky, it is going to fall to the ground. However, if that large metal object is an airplane, then the laws of aerodynamics intervene so that the airplane does not fall to the ground. This doesn’t mean that the law of gravity is false—it simply means that something else intervened in this particular case.

Now the moral laws that we encounter in Proverbs function exactly the same way, and what this tells us is that we are not to regard the Proverbs as promises, but rather as principles. The Proverbs don’t tell us what will always happen; they tell us what will normally happen unless something else intervenes. Let’s take a very familiar proverb as an example of this so you can see what I’m talking about. Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it.” This Proverb tells us what normally happens when you train and instruct your children—normally that training will stick with them and they will continue to live the way that we have trained them. But we all know that at times other things intervene, like the child’s own will. Sometimes they choose to reject the training that they’ve received. But this doesn’t make the proverb false because it was never intended to be a promise, but a principle.

So that is how these moral laws work, and according to Proverbs the wise person will come to recognize and live by these moral laws because he or she has chosen to fear the Lord. That moral choice to fear the Lord puts us in the proper frame of mind to acquire wisdom and thus to reap the abundant benefits that come from living in a wise manner.

And just what are the benefits of wisdom? Why is wisdom such a desirable thing to possess?

II. What are the benefits of wisdom?

The book of Proverbs was written mostly by King Solomon, and Solomon described the benefits of wisdom in several lengthy passages within the first nine chapters of the book. We’re going to make a quick run through these passages this morning to discover the benefits of wisdom. Let’s start with a look at Proverbs 2:1–22.

Proverbs 2:1–22
[READ 2:1–5]

I. Allows us to discover the knowledge of God—2:5
Here we find the first benefit of wisdom—it allows us to discover the knowledge of God. Not long ago we studied Philippians 3, and in that chapter the apostle Paul goes on and on about the all-surpassing value of knowing Jesus Christ—getting to know His mindset and the way He thinks. Some of the fathers of modern science used to say that they were simply trying to think God’s thoughts after Him, and that’s what wisdom allows us to do in the moral realm. It allows us to understand God’s moral point of view and thus adopt His mindset toward the world.

Let’s continue reading [READ 2:6–8]

II. Gives us protection from injustice and evil—2:6–8, 11–15
Wisdom does this in a variety of ways. In these verses we are told that God Himself provides protection for those who live in a wise manner. We will also see that wisdom helps us avoid getting involved with evil people, and one of the lessons of Proverbs is that evil people often get trapped by their own schemes. So wisdom helps us avoid bringing evil upon ourselves by teaching us how to avoid evil choices.

Continuing on [READ 2:9]

III. Allows us to make decisions that are right and just—2:9
One of the most common questions that Christians wrestle with is “How do I know God’s will?” or “How do I know what choice God wants me to make in this situation?” According to this verse, wisdom helps us answer those questions; it helps us understand which choice to make. It says that wisdom allows us to discern righteousness, which means that we will understand which choices actually line up with God’s standards. It says that wisdom will help us make decisions with justice and equity. This is very important for anyone in a position of leadership. That would include parents, bosses, or administrators of any kind. Wisdom will help you make decisions that are fair.

Let’s keep reading [READ 2:10–19]

IV. Delivers us from sexual sin—2:16–19
In our country today, sexual sins are more acceptable than they have ever been in our nation’s history, and so we find ourselves living in a culture that is highly sexualized. Sexual images and suggestions are almost everywhere around us, and so we encounter almost constant temptation in this area.

But the reality is that sexual sin is no less harmful than it has ever been, so the stakes are very high for us as we battle sexual temptation. According to Proverbs, wisdom will help us avoid sexual sin by helping us cut through the lies that we are told about stepping outside of God’s designated boundaries in this area. Wisdom will help us hold on to the truth so that we are not lead astray by misplaced desires or by the temptations of other people.

Then the final verses of this chapter say [READ 2:20–22]. Now go with me into chapter 3, beginning with v. 13 [READ 3:13–15].

Proverbs 3:13–26

I. Yields a profit for life that is better than silver and gold—3:14–15
I’m sure many people can’t imagine that anything can yield a better profit for life than money can, but wisdom does according to the book of Proverbs. It’s really not hard to see why when we stop and think about it. Money can buy us some nice things in life, but it can’t even begin to meet the spiritual and emotional needs that we have. But wisdom will give us spiritual peace, emotional peace, and even financial peace as well. Money can only touch on one of those areas, whereas wisdom gives us all three. And we all know how quickly money can disappear—just ask anyone who had invested funds with Bernie Madoff! But wisdom will always be with you. Remember—wisdom is based on the moral laws that God has built into our world. They are not subject to the whims of the stock market or anything else.

Let’s keep reading [READ 3:16]

II. Results in long life—3:16
Now it may surprise you that wisdom will help you have a long life, but according to the Bible, its true! It seems that wisdom primarily accomplishes this by helping us avoid foolish choices that may cause us to die prematurely. In Proverbs, it seems that the most likely foolish choice in this area would be the choice to get involved with violent people who scheme and plot to do violence to others. According to Proverbs, these people often end up falling into their own traps. Proverbs also exalts the benefits of diligent labor over laziness, and we all know the harmful effects that laziness can have on our overall health. So wisdom can help us lead a long life.

III. Results in honor—3:16
Also here in this verse we find that wisdom can lead to honor. It also mentions riches here, but we’ll talk more about that in a moment. We all know that no one really respects a foolish person. A fool usually brings nothing but embarrassment upon himself. But according to Proverbs, one of the direct results of wisdom is a life of integrity, and everyone can respect a person who has integrity. A person with integrity finds a good reputation with other people and is thus highly respected and honored. So wisdom will result in honor for us as well.

Let’s keep reading in v. 17 [READ 3:17]

IV. Leads to a pleasant and peaceful life—3:17
This benefit almost sounds good enough on its own! Wisdom helps us avoid bringing unnecessary trouble into our lives. Many of the problems that we face in life are problems of our own making, but wisdom will help us avoid these things so that life can be more pleasant and peaceful.

Then the rest of this passage describes some benefits that we have already seen [READ 3:18–26]. Now finally, let’s go over to chapter 8 and discover a few more of the benefits of wisdom. In the book of Proverbs, Solomon is writing first and foremost to his own sons, and so in several passages he describes wisdom as a desirable woman whom his sons should pursue. And that’s what we find in chapter 8 [READ 8:1–18]

Proverbs 8:1–36

I. Shows us how to live a righteous life—8:18, 20
When we assess our lifestyles, we’re often tempted to measure ourselves against other people, and we can all find someone who seems to be worse than us so we can pat ourselves on the back and say that we’re doing okay. But righteousness is the idea of meeting God’s standards, and wisdom will help us lead a life that does that. Remember, wisdom helps us understand God’s moral point of view, and with that understanding in mind, we can focus on meeting His standards instead of measuring ourselves by different standards.

Let’s continue here [READ 8:19–21]

II. Results in wealth—8:21
We’ve already read several times that wisdom results in riches and wealth. Now this is not a prosperity gospel or anything like that that would teach us that we’re all supposed to be like Bill Gates. These verses just express a very simple principle—if you handle your money in a wise manner, the normal result is that you will hang on to more of it. You won’t be wasting your money by spending it on foolish things and pursuits. You will use it in a wise way that will lead to financial strength and prosperity.

Now remember what we said earlier—proverbs express principles, not promises. This lesson does not mean that every rich person is wise or that every poor person is foolish. Nor do these verses teach that God is promising us a fat bank account. They are simply telling us that the normal result of wise financial management is that you will prosper.

Let’s read the rest of this passage [READ 8:22–36]

III. Leads to blessing from God—8:35
When we live in a wise manner, we will have a lifestyle that God supports rather than one that God opposes, so rather than receiving a lot of discipline from God, we will receive encouragement from Him. Verse 35 says that we will obtain favor from the Lord. He will bless us, and those blessings will probably take the form of the benefits that we’ve just described from wisdom.

These are the benefits that can be yours if you will pursue biblical wisdom in your life. And after hearing all of these different benefits, if you can honestly say that you’re not interested in gaining more wisdom, I don’t know what more it will take to convince you. If you don’t want to play the part of a wise person, Proverbs does offer another role for you to play in life. It is called “the fool.” So as Solomon set before his son a choice between wisdom and foolishness, I set the same choice before you today. And shouldn’t have to tell you—choose wisely!