I would invite you with just that much enthusiasm to turn
with me to the book of Proverbs, Proverbs chapter 1.
I want to talk to a few different groups of people
today, kids who didn't go to children's church.
Look at me. Kids, I want to talk to you for
a second today. Kids, there are a lot of really
good things in this world, right?
Play sets and ice cream and campfires and Sunday school and
summer camp and swimming pools. There's a lot of good things in
this world, right? There's also a lot of bad things
in this world, aren't they? There's a lot of what the Bible
calls wicked things in this world.
So how do we do what's right in a world that's gone so wrong?
Kids, how do we know who should be our friend?
How do we talk to each other? How should we treat our parents,
mom and dad? What are good words that build
other people up? What are bad words that tear
people down? Kids, listen to me.
Proverbs is for you. I want to speak to the average
Joe or average Jane here this morning.
You've grown up in church, your Sunday regular.
You're not a criminal, but you really aren't a devoted follower
of Jesus either. The term nominal or cultural
Christian would best describe you.
You've never made a commitment to following God wholeheartedly.
You have one foot in and 1 foot out, and your life shows it.
Your relationships are strained, You're a regular rider on the
struggle bus, and you want help. Proverbs is for you.
I also want to speak to what I would call the teachable person.
You are done trying to get life advice from social media.
There aren't enough Tik Toks or YouTube Shorts for you to figure
out your life. Maybe you're a young adult and
you're wanting to get married. You're ready to get married and
you need to know who to marry, when to marry, and what that
should look like. You're teachable.
You want to learn social skills. You want to learn to have skills
in your relationship with God, but also in your relationship
with other people. Proverbs is for you.
See, Proverbs is a book for all of us.
And I realized I don't have my clicker, Travis.
It's on the other pulpit. Thank you, Sir.
And so for the next 11 weeks, this summer, we are going to
study the book of Proverbs together.
Proverbs is a book unlike any other book in your Bible.
It contains so much wisdom in so many different areas and speaks
to so many groups of people all at the same time.
So today we're only going to really study the 1st 7 verses of
Proverbs, but we're going to look at a lot of other Proverbs
throughout this series as well. And even today, if you're one of
those people, I'm just going to, I'm just going to soften the
conscience. If you are somebody that needs
to take notes or look up absolutely every reference
that's on the screen, you're going to find yourself pretty
frustrated this summer. OK, Proverbs has hundreds of
proverbs, hundreds of sayings and they go together.
And unlike most books where you start at chapter 1, verse one
and go all the way through to the end, we're going to be
jumping around a lot, a lot, but we're going to learn together.
First, let's start with the background of Proverbs or the
we'd call this the basics of Proverbs.
Look at chapter 1, verse one of Proverbs.
It says the Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel.
So first we're going to stop and look what kind of book is
Proverbs. The fancy term for that is what
genre? You know what genre is.
It's like different categories. My wife and I are notorious for
having different tastes in movies.
She likes movies that you don't have to pay careful attention to
a ton of plot twists, especially at 10 O clock at night when
she's tired. I like the whodunits and they
got to watch closely. We I like dumb sitcoms from the
90s. We actually found one we like
together. Home improvement.
That's what we're watching right now, but we rarely like the same
what we'd call genres of movies. Well, the Bible has different
genres of different categories too.
You have the law. That's pretty straightforward,
right? First five books.
It's the history of the world in the early generations of the
church. You have the law, thou shalt,
thou shalt not. You have the Gospels, the story
of Jesus in his ministry, and it reads like a story.
Once Upon a time Jesus went to Galilee and he healed somebody
and he said this. You have letters in the New
Testament. Paul writes to a specific church
or to a person. You have Peter writing to
dispersed Christians. You have prophecies that says
thus says the Lord, and it's a prophecy about something that's
going to happen in the future to the nation of Israel.
But Proverbs is different than all that.
It's what we'd call wisdom literature.
Wisdom literature would be the following books of the Bible,
Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and there's some wisdom sprinkled
throughout the Psalms. If you notice in the Proverbs,
it doesn't have a lot of names and dates.
It's not historical. It was written in history, but
it doesn't mention Abraham, it doesn't mention Israel's
history, and it doesn't mention Israel's covenants.
It these are proverbs, They were written because somebody under
the inspiration of the Holy Spirit observed creation,
observed the world through the lens of God and his people.
And so the form would be just that, a proverb.
You guys know what a proverb is, right?
It's been so funny this last week when I'm studying proverbs
and trying to think of what are some common proverbs we use
today. I hear them everywhere, all the
time. Here are some I just heard this
week. Not everything that glitters is
gold. Have you heard that one?
How about this one? This is needed for me because
I'm not very handy. Measure twice, cut once, right?
For me, it should be measured 3 or 4 times.
How about this? Loose lips sink ships, also
known as snitches, get stitches, but we don't do that one as much
either. How about this one?
It's not what you know, it's who you know, right?
He's not here, so I can tell. Pastor Jake said there was one
in his family. We were having coffee yesterday,
talking. I was mentioning my sermon.
He goes, I got 1 in his family. There's this proverb, if you're
going to be dumb, you at least got to be tough.
Or here's another one. People don't care what you know
until they know what you that you care.
So proverbs are helpful because they're usually short, you know,
to memorize. It's not like the preamble to
the Constitution. They're short, they're catchy,
they roll off the tongue, and they're easily quotable.
So here's the definition of a proverb, A biblical proverb,
like what we're going to be studying this summer.
This is a proverb. It's a poetic, pithy saying that
instructs those who fear God. So it's a poetic pithy saying.
It's something short, sweet, memorable that instructs those
who fear God. And we're going to unpack what
it means to fear God. Well, who's the author?
Well, it says right there, chapter one, verse 1, the
proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel.
So Solomon composed directly probably 95% of the proverbs in
the book of Proverbs, Solomon is the son of David.
Remember, King Saul was the first king of Israel, but he
turned his heart from the Lord and then God chose David to be
King. David sin in some big ways, but
generally speaking, he feared God, He followed God.
He had Solomon, Solomon's the third king of Israel.
When given the chance to ask God for anything in the world, he
said give me wisdom, give me a heart of wisdom.
And So what we have here are Solomon's wisdom put down in
Proverbs. But he's not the only author of
the book of Proverbs. Look at what it says in Proverbs
25. One.
This is how a different section of Proverbs is introduced.
These also are Proverbs of Solomon, which the men of
Hezekiah, king of Judah copied. So these are the next section
going from chapters 25 to 29 of Proverbs are still Solomon, but
they were written by the men of Hezekiah.
Hezekiah was a king. Israel had some bad kings, but
Hezekiah was a king. That said, you know what?
I think we should go back and read God's word and you should
go back and study the kings that actually, you know, followed God
and worshiped God the way that he wanted them to.
So the men of Hezekiah, 300 years after Solomon, collected
more Proverbs and recorded those for us in Scripture.
We also have an author called Ager.
You see that in Proverbs 30, verse one, the words of Edgar,
son of Jake the Oracle. So we don't know much about this
Edgar. He's probably somebody that
served in the King's court and he wrote down.
If you read Proverbs 30, they're really interesting.
It says stuff like 3 things I say to you, yes, 4 things are
true and says that over and over again.
Just a fun, you know, unique way to capture wisdom.
And then Proverbs 31 says this, the words of King Lemuel, an
Oracle that his mother taught him.
So we don't know who this King Lemuel was.
He was not an Israelite king as perhaps an Egyptian or a
Babylonian. He recorded more proverbs that
his mother taught him. Isn't that cool?
A mother's wisdom recorded for us in Scripture.
And then you had somebody who collected all of these proverbs
together and recorded them and preserved for them in Scripture.
So all of them are God's word, but they have different authors.
Well, who are the proverbs primarily written to you?
Another way to say this is who's the audience?
We'll look at Proverbs 8, Proverbs 1/8 with me.
What are the first 3 words? My Bible.
My Bible says this. Hear my son, your Father's
instruction. You see this over and over
again. Flip over with me real quick.
Chapter 2, verse one. How does it start?
My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments
with you, look at chapter 3, verse one, My son, do not forget
my teaching. Chapter 4, verse 10.
Hear my son and accept my words. So a proverbs primarily written
like a father to a son. Raise your hand if you are a son
today. Good.
How many of you? It's been a while since you were
a boy in your mom or dad's house?
How many of you needed fatherly? Wisdom said short, sweet and to
the point. How some of we could say this
way. How many of you need a tough
love? Where are my sons who are
currently living in the house with their parents?
I'm primarily looking at like, this row right here.
The speeds, you guys, Raymond, Mav Morgan, you need the wisdom
that your dad gives you because your dad was once a boy and your
dad did dumb things, foolish things.
You might even know some of those stories.
My girls know some of my dumb Jared stories.
Well, it's like chapter 1 of about 6.
We need the wisdom as sons, but it's not just sons, it's
daughters too. For example, Proverbs 31 written
about the virtuous woman said King Lemuel learned from his
mother and she had to learn that, right?
She wasn't just born with that wisdom.
So when you read Proverbs through the lens that this is a
father writing to his son, a lot of those proverbs make sense.
This is a father wanting to instill wisdom and instruction
in his children, in his sons. So then chapter 1, verses 2
through 6 there in Proverbs give us the basics, the basics
through the background and then the basics.
The basics are this. First, Proverbs are written to
develop moral skill. We're going to use that word a
ton this summer, the word skill, because I think that captures
the idea of wisdom so well. Proverbs 1/2 says to know wisdom
and instruction, to know wisdom and instruction.
When the Bible talks about knowing, this is deep personal
knowledge. He's saying this is I don't want
you just to know about wisdom. I want you to know wisdom, for
example, I am a sports geek, not as much as my brother, but I'm a
sports geek. And you could say this, hey, do
you know Charles Barkley? Like, yeah, you know, went to
Auburn, hates Alabama, drafted by the 76ers, played one season
with Doctor J, has stint with the 76ers, the Round Mound of
Rebound. Yeah.
And now he's like in all those Capital One commercials that
just get in your brain like an ear worm and can never get out.
They talks like those are terrible.
That's my Charles Barkley impression.
That's all we're going to do today.
I could say I know Charles Barkley.
Do I actually know Charles Barkley?
No. My home church up in Waterloo,
there's missionaries who ministered in Philadelphia.
Generally they had Charles Barkley in their house.
He would sit on their floor and play board games with them and
their kids. I know Charles Barkley.
They know Charles Barkley. That's what progress is written.
Not just you know about wisdom. It's not don't think like game
show and knowing the answers to trivia questions.
We're talking about knowing wisdom personally.
Wisdom speaks to masterful understanding or skill.
Wisdom is used in Exodus 28. Moses was to call all the
skilled men to whom I've given wisdom to build the Tabernacle.
Do you know that wisdom was actually used of sorcerers in
Egypt in the time of Moses? They were called Egyptian
magicians, and it says they had wisdom to conjure up all of
these things. It's a reminder that you can
have skill, but it's bad. There's the wisdom to governor,
to administrate First. Kings 328 says Solomon saw all
that. He has, saw that he has wisdom
from God to administer justice. So when Solomon said God, I want
to have wisdom, he wanted to have that skill in
administrating and leading the nation of Israel.
Sometimes wisdom's talked about encyclopedic knowledge.
You know, some of those people are just a walking, talking
encyclopedia. Kids will tell, tell you later
what an encyclopedia is. They just have all the facts.
This is what First Kings 433 and 34 says.
He, Solomon spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon to
the hyssop that grows out of the wall.
He spoke also of beasts and of birds and of reptiles and of
fish. And people of all nations came
to hear the wisdom of Solomon and from all the kings of the
earth who had heard of his wisdom.
That's one way the Bible uses wisdom.
It's the another way it's to use the ability to answer questions.
A queen of Sheba comes and travels a long way because she's
hearing this man Solomon is wise, and she asks him some of
the most difficult questions, philosophy, and he answers
those. But what we understand
throughout the Bible and the book of Proverbs is that wisdom
is based on knowledge. Wisdom is based on knowledge.
You have to know what is true and what is real and how it
corresponds, and you have to get that wisdom from somewhere.
And you have the wisdom, the knowledge, the skills to take
what you hear and apply it to your life.
A lot of proverbs is the knowledge of cause and effect.
If you do this, then this will happen.
How many times have you known somebody that didn't think
through the consequences of their actions?
In other terms, have you ever talked to a junior high boy
before? One of my favorite stories as a
counselor is I had a boy in my cabin At our camp.
They have homemade chocolate chip cookie ice cream
sandwiches. They're called chippers.
I don't want to know how many calories are in one.
A boy bought one of these camps in the middle of July.
He buys one of these at 3:00 in the afternoon and comes in a zip
lock bag. I didn't know this until
bedtime. Bedtime rolls around, it's time
for lights out and he opens that ice cream cookie sandwich like 6
hours later and it spills everywhere.
I'm like, shouldn't use his name Roy, what were you thinking?
He goes well I wanted milk and cookies at bedtime.
I'm like, dude, it's everywhere. If you grab an Ice Cream
Sandwich in the middle of the afternoon, then it's going to be
a melted mess at bedtime and it's going to make it harder for
your counselors, right? That knowledge of cause and
effect and what we need to understand is we can't know
something absolutely without comprehensive or
all-encompassing knowledge. There's a seminary that cranks
out guys that love Jesus and love the Scriptures out in
Philadelphia. It was started a little over 100
years ago in the 1980s. They built a library on that
property and they picked the most beautiful spot on campus.
They built a majestic, amazing library.
If you've ever been to our state capitol and gone into that
library, that's that's what I visioned some of the pictures,
man, it's beautiful and amazing. There's a guy who is called in
the ministry out of. You know, just working and his
job was, he was a radon tester and he took his equipment to
school with him to the library to study because he had a job
right there afterwards. And he decided just for fun, I'm
going to plug in my equipment and test the radon in this
library. Now they recommend that you
start radon mitigation. You start to deal with the issue
when it's at 4 PCL 4. If you work in a uranium mine,
you're exposed to 200. OK, they discovered 1500 PSL in
this library, the highest concentration of radon they've
ever discovered in North America in the middle of this library.
But when you built, when they built that library, they didn't
know what they didn't know, right?
And so they had to, you bet they had to do a lot of radon
mitigation. But all that to say is if you're
truly going to be wise, you need to know and you need to know
all-encompassing comprehensively.
But we don't know everything. So we're going to have to get
our knowledge from somewhere else.
And the only way we get that absolute certain knowledge is if
God reveals it to us. Another way to say that is
there's no wisdom, true wisdom, true skill for life outside of
God's Word. So that's our definition of
wisdom. If you want a short, helpful
definition of wisdom, it's skill that produces righteousness.
Notice it's not knowing how to spell all 66 books of the Bible.
It's not knowing off the top of your head the 12 tribes of
Israel or the 12 disciples. It's more than just knowing
about the Bible. Now wisdom is skill that
produces righteousness. In Proverbs was written, it says
to know wisdom. Look at verse 2.
It says to know wisdom and something else.
Instruction. Instruction.
Here's the definition of instruction.
It's a painful lesson to correct a moral fault.
How many of you have ever had to learn a painful lesson before
you have been instructed? It's a painful lesson to correct
a moral fault. Sometimes this instruction is
personal, and it's to present or prevent foolishness.
Again, read verse 8 of chapter one with me here.
My son, your father's instruction and forsake not your
mother's teaching. Proverbs 1925 says this.
Strike a scoffer and the simple will learn prudence.
Reprove a man of understanding and he will gain knowledge.
So sometimes you can learn a lesson because of somebody's
else's painful consequences. Maybe you're a younger sibling
or an older sibling, I suppose. Have you ever watched your
sibling get in trouble for something and think, I'm glad he
had to learn that lesson and not me?
I'm going to learn from him. I am not going to repeat that
poor decision. This is the idea of instruction.
It's to prevent foolishness. Well, what happens if you're
right in the middle of foolish behavior?
If you're just walking the path to destruction?
Well, there's also instruction that takes the form of corporal
correction. Proverbs 1324.
My parents are here today. I swear this was my parents
favorite Bible verse. Whoever spares the rod hates his
son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.
I remember, we'll just say it this way.
I remember receiving the Board of Education at the seed of
Learning growing up. Have you been there?
And afterwards my mom and dad would say, I'm doing this
because I love you. I'm like, no, you're not.
That hurts. But you know what?
A parent who loves their children will discipline them.
Discipline them properly and with restraint and with a
corrective purpose. But it's the parents who let
their kids run Willy nilly and do whatever they want.
That's not love. That's just put them on the fast
track to pain and destruction. He who loves him is diligent to
discipline him. And the goal then, when you
receive that instruction is to listen to it.
Proverbs 1920 says listen to advice and accept instruction.
Why? That you may gain wisdom in the
future. We receive this instruction.
We receive this discipline so that we will learn from it.
And it's not just learning to live with it.
You actually get to the point where you love the Lord's
discipline. Proverbs 12/1 says whoever loves
discipline loves knowledge. I like how Proverbs states it.
Remember they're short and pithy.
But he who hates for proof is stupid.
I got all the kids attention because we're not supposed to
say stupid, but this is what God's word says.
It is stupid when you hate being corrected for doing the wrong
thing. You are stupid if you want to
continue doing the wrong thing and not be corrected by somebody
who knows better. Whoever loves discipline loves
knowledge, and so all of these together help develop moral
skill, but they also develop mental skill.
Look at the end of verse 2. It says to understand words of
insight. So the goal of Proverbs is
actually to help you become smarter, more intelligent to
understand words. These words could be given
verbally like in Proverbs 1/8 here my son.
So listen to these words. It could also be written words.
Proverbs 321 says do not lose sight of these.
As in you're looking at this wisdom.
What do we know about words? Words, Simply put, communicate.
Words communicate. God is a commutative or a wordy
guy. He chose to reveal himself
through his word, through imperfect people writing down
His perfect word so that 2000 plus years later we have it.
But it says in the book of Hebrews God and in former times
spoke through the prophets. He now speaks through his Son.
Remember John one starts out and says in the beginning was the
word and the word was with God and the word was God.
And in most copies of the Bible the word is capitalized capital
WY because in John 114 it says the word became flesh and dwelt
among us. Jesus Christ communicates who
God is because he is God. He's the Son of God.
And so the goal of Proverbs is for us to understand words of
insight. Down in verse 6, you look, it
says to understand a proverb. Again, those short witty sayings
and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles.
That saying it says proverb and a saying is like a parable.
It's like a little story or a little illustration is to help
you make a quick critical judgement of your own behavior
in light of what the proverb says.
And then it says, and they're riddles.
My girls are really into riddles right now.
Half the time they don't make sense.
And I'm very confused. There's this one going around,
the kids at church, something about 1 + 1, but it doesn't
equal 2. Sometimes it equals 2.
And it's kind of a Riddle, but it's really just annoying.
See riddles. What's the, what's the purpose
of a Riddle? It doesn't say anything, just
straight out. It's not just prose.
It's not just, you know, sqrt 4 is 2.
The difference, this is the difference between poetry and
prose. And the purpose is for you to
engage your brain and figure it out and remember it so that you
can live it out. So the basics of proverbs, it
wants you, you to develop moral skill and mental skill.
Well, what's the benefit? Why read the Proverbs?
Why spend time in a sermon series on the book of Proverbs?
Well, there's benefit for the student.
Look at verse 3 of Proverbs, one on the student's side.
It says this to receive instruction in wise dealing in
righteousness, justice, and equity.
So when you read the Proverbs and study the Proverbs and
ingest the proverbs and memorize the proverbs and do the
proverbs, you're going to do this.
You're going to receive, was it say wise dealings, receive
instruction and wise dealing. This is the this is the
situation. We are put in difficult spots as
people living in a fallen world, right?
We are putting in threatening situations.
We are so close. On any given day, a couple bad
decisions could ruin your life. You've been there.
Some of you who've had your life turned completely off track by 1
foolish word you said. One bad conversation, one dumb
decision you made in one moment. So how do we respond wisely?
Respond with understanding in those threatening situations 2
that come to the mind that Proverbs talks about all the
time. There's always going to be the
temptation for easy money without work.
Just the latest thing that 32nd YouTube video says.
Why are you putting your money in a bank account?
Why don't you do this instead? Why are you working hard 40
hours a week? Just do this and get rich
quickly instead. Or take your love for your
favorite sports team and turn that into a profit.
Easy money without work. Another one that Proverbs talks
about over and over again is easy sex without commitment in
marriage. The Lady Folly, Dame Folly
allures guys to easy sex without the commitment.
We see that in our day and age with the hook up culture and
pornography and all of that. Easy sex without marriage
without commitment. But Proverbs offers for the
student of the word wise dealing to say no to sin in those
situations. This is also to develop
righteousness. Righteousness is right social
order according to God's word. There's a right way to live this
life. There's a right way to order
your family, to order your church, to order your society
according to God's Word. I appreciated this definition of
righteousness, said this this week when I was studying.
And it entails disadvantaging yourself to advantage others.
The opposite of righteousness is wickedness, where you advantage
yourself. You put yourself, you stack the
deck for yourself by making it difficult for other people.
But righteousness says I'm going to disadvantage myself to
advantage others. There's also a chance to receive
justice. Justice, Simply put, as this,
it's punishing an oppressor and relieving those who are
oppressed. Equity is that liberty within
the law. It's that freedom within
structure. I find it so fascinating, like
with building a fence in your yard.
When you have a fence built, it actually causes you to enjoy
your yard more. When there's no fence and you
technically have until the property line, but you don't
know where the property line is, you'd never actually use your
yard that much because you're always worried about encroaching
on your neighbor's property. God gives clear boundaries for
His people to enjoy their life, to enjoy His creation, to enjoy
His good gifts. But that's freedom within
structure, and that's what Proverbs offers to the student.
What about for the teacher? What about if you're the person
needing to instill wisdom in others?
What if you're the parent or the grandparent or the school
teacher or the aunt or the uncle, the Sunday school
teacher, the VBS helper? What is the benefit for you?
Verse four goes from receiving to giving.
It says to give prudence to the simple.
That term simple we're going to visit here in a few weeks.
Proverbs describes essentially 3 different types of fools.
The simple, the fool in the mocker or the scorner, the
scornful. But for the teacher it gives you
the chance to give prudence to the simple.
The simple means someone that is open to everything and committed
to nothing. Open to everything and committed
to nothing. It gives you a chance to give
wisdom, to give prudence, to give guidance to simple people.
It also says there knowledge and discretion to the youth, to the
youth. I like how it's not to young
people or young kids. It says to the youth, we could
say it this way. It gives you a chance to pass
something on to the next generation.
There's wisdom from those who've preceded us, right?
I think of my grandparents going through the Depression era, how
they viewed money, their priority of saving because they
had to is something that needs to get passed on, right?
We live in such an affluent society, we forget about that.
But it says here to give something to youth knowledge and
discretion. Discretion is the ability to
problem solve. Have you ever noticed that's a
struggle for the younger generations to solve problems,
to see a situation and if they put it on Google and it doesn't
instantly give them back the answer, they don't know what to
do. They don't know how to dissect
the situation and address the problems and not just get jobs
done, but respond to situations with biblical wisdom.
That's what the Proverbs often offers.
But it gives them a chance also to grow themselves.
It says to sorry to let the wise hear an increase in learning and
the one who understands obtain guidance.
Even if we're in a position as a parent that we still have a lot
to learn, right? Even if we're grandparents, we
still have a lot to learn. Amen.
We're never done being a student in need of the wisdom that's
found in God's Word. It says let the wise hear and
increase in learning. We want to be people that are
teachable. Nobody likes somebody who thinks
they have it all together. Instead, we are wise and we
continue to get wiser. So that is the benefit of the
Proverbs, benefit for the student, benefit for the
teacher. And finally, let's look at the
backbone of Proverbs. Probably the key text in
Proverbs is Proverbs 17. If you'd like to underline or
highlight verses in your Bible, I'd encourage you to highlight.
Proverbs 17 says this. The fear of the Lord is the
beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and
instruction. That phrase fear of the Lord is
so important and it's so misunderstood.
Fear of the Lord. First there's a connection.
You have to study that phrase together.
Fear and the Lord. If you separate fear out and
only try to study fear, you're going to get the wrong idea.
You're going to read a meaning in that it was never intended.
It'd be like this if you had to do a school project on
butterflies and you spend half your time studying butter and
half your time studying flies. You're going to have a messed up
report on butterflies, right? You have to study them together.
There's a connection there. There's also the importance of
revelation. When we talk about the fear of
the Lord, there is an emotional aspect to it, but there's a
mental aspect to it. Psalm 19 is one of my favorite
Psalms and talks about the wisdom of God's Word and it
describes God's word in these ways.
The law of the Lord is perfect reviving the soul.
The testimony of the Lord is sure making.
Why is this simple? The precepts of the Lord or
right rejoice in the heart. The commandment of the Lord is
pure enlightening. The eyes listens to how David
describes the word of God. He says the fear of the Lord is
clean, enduring forever. There's a connection between the
fear of the Lord and the Word of the Lord.
You don't untruely fear and Revere God the way that you
ought to unless you have God's Word instructing you.
Proverbs 2 one through 5 starts out this.
If you accept my words, then let's have remember cause and
effect. If you accept my words, then you
will understand the fear of the Lord.
Notice there's a mental there's in revelation part of the fear
of the Lord. I don't know about you, but the
people I know that have the closest walk with God live in
their Bibles. Sean and I got to ride down to a
wedding together with our kids yesterday and he shared the
story of a lady from his hometown who just loved God's
word. And you could tell she was just
everybody who trusted Jesus is a St.
But Sean described it this way. She was a St.
And at her funeral, at the end of the funeral, they had 7
tattered and worn Bibles spread out on the front, marked up,
barely holding together, duct tape together.
Seven of those Bibles from her time walking with God over the
years. And they said, if any of you
don't have a copy of God's word or any of you want to follow
God, please take one of her Bibles home with her.
That's somebody who fears the Lord because they've spent time
dwelling on the word of the Lord.
And there's not just taking it in or receiving it.
It's actually having the humility to have, we call that
reception. You don't not just listen to the
word, but you actually receive it and internalize it.
It's the humility to accept instruction.
Proverbs 1533 says this. The fear of the Lord is
instruction in wisdom, and humility comes before honor.
Somebody who fears the Lord puts themselves under God's
authority. They don't decide I like to
think of God like this. They don't say things like that.
Instead, they respond to who God is as revealed to His Word, and
they humble themselves. You cannot be simultaneously
arrogant and proud and also somebody who fears God.
It's a humility. It's receiving what God has
revealed to you, and what it results in is adoration.
It's that wedding together of love and fear.
See, there is an emotional aspect to the fear of the Lord.
It's an emotional response to what's been revealed about God.
Places like Deuteronomy chapter 6 actually equate love of the
Lord and fear of the Lord. Proverbs Exodus 1431 talking
about the Israelites freshly released from captivity crossing
the Red Sea. It says this and when the
Israelites saw the mighty hand of the Lord displayed against
the Egyptians, remember God shut the sea upon the Egyptians and
they were wiped out. When they saw that the people
feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses the
servant. So seeing the mighty hand of God
in display and pretty gruesome judgement, it didn't cause them
to run away from God. They actually leaned into and
trusted God. Book of Hebrews says our God is
a consuming fire. There's that reverential awe.
You don't treat God flippantly or casually.
You respect Him for who He is. How many of you have ever read
the Chronicles of Narnia? We love those books in our
house. CS Lewis wrote those to
communicate actually, a lot of biblical truth.
And in the first book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the
four children stumble into this world of Narnia, and they're
getting a crash course from Mr. Beaver on the who's and the
what's of Narnia. And he comes to discussing
Aslan, who's the Christ figure in Narnia.
This is what the book says. Aslan is a lion, the lion, the
great lion. Oh, said Susan.
I thought he was a man. Is he quite safe?
I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.
Safe, said Mr. Beaver. Who said anything about safe?
Of course he isn't safe, but he's good.
God is not safe. God is not just like you and me.
God cannot be manipulated or coerced to do anything.
He is the sovereign, Almighty God of the universe.
He alone executes justice and judgement perfectly.
He is not safe, but he is good and He's kind.
He cares for us. He's not safe, but he is good.
And you see that tension, that even as I'm saying it, just that
emotional response to who God is.
That's the fear of the Lord. Here's what an author named
Seabridges describes the fear of the Lord.
This is a little wordy, but I think it's helpful.
This is the fear of the Lord, that affectionate reverence by
which the child of God bends himself humbly and carefully to
His Father's law. Do you see that?
There you have the child of God. You have that affectionate
reverence bending Himself humbly, that humility, putting
yourself under the authority of God and carefully to His
Father's law. That revelation aspect, that
connection between the fear of the Lord and the Word of the
Lord. See what Proverbs tries to say
is this. You might be a respected leader.
You might be ACEO of a company. You might be a mover, a shaker.
You might be a savvy businessman.
You might be able to turn a few dollars into a lot through
persuasive trading and starting of new things.
You could be a great communicator.
You could be somebody who wants to listen.
You could be, in our modern day language, an influencer.
But Proverbs makes it very clear there is no true wisdom outside
of the fear of the Lord. See, wisdom starting point is
the fear of the Lord. When you have a big glorious
view of God, it leaves you feeling really, really small.
And that's precisely where God's word wants you to be at.
Because when you are small and God is big, you have those
proportions. Understand correctly.
That's where you get that skill to navigate life.
So our big idea is this, we become skilled for life.
That's the title of this sermon series through Proverbs.
We become skilled for life when we fear God and follow His Word.
My prayer for my own life is that I would become more skilled
in fearing God and following His Word.
I am a dad, I'm a husband, I'm a pastor, I'm a citizen, and that
all of those positions of responsibility require skill to
do it well. I don't want to just run out the
clock. I want to do things well for the
Lord, but that starts with fearing God and following His
word. So we're going to go all and
we're going to push all of our chips in the middle of the table
with the book of Proverbs this summer.
I want to encourage you as a church family to go all in on
Proverbs. One thing you can do, I don't
have it up here, but there are 31 chapters in the book of
Proverbs. If you are struggling with
family worship, maybe you're struggling reading the Bible for
yourself. Today is the 24th day of the
month. Tomorrow is May 25th.
Get up and read Psalm or Proverbs 25.
The day after that, read Proverbs 26, Proverbs 27.
In over three months together, you would read through the book
of Proverbs 3 times. That'd be a great way for you to
spend time in God's Word this summer gaining that wisdom
that's found in God's Word. But we also have a couple other
things we want to offer to us. First, we have a family
scripture guide. This was a great idea that came
my way this week from some of our church members.
And they said this, Hey, we'd like to memorize some Proverbs
with our family. And so each week during this
summer, each week of the sermon series, there's one proverb to
memorize either personally or with a friend or as a family
Each week this summer, 11 Proverbs.
Guess what the first one for this week is Proverbs 17, The
fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, the week on
discipline and family. Guess what the proverb is Spare
their odds, spoil the child. There's there's lots of those
though God's word is replete. The Proverbs is replete with so
much practical wisdom you can just grab on to.
Those are printed for you front and back on half sheets of
paper. I would ask if you're one of our
greeters here at Carlisle, if you could grab that stack and
have those out ready to pass out to people.
We'd love to be a church that memorizes God's word together
and together gleans the wisdom from Proverbs.
But another thing we're going to be doing this summer are summer
studies. Summer is a time of rest from
our normal Wednesday night and Sunday night rhythms.
But we want to encourage men meeting with men, women meeting
with women, growing in the wisdom of the province.
We're going to be using a Bible study book by Warren Weirsby
that walks through the Proverbs. If you're guys, we're going to
just going to be super sacrificial and manly.
We're meeting at 6:00 AM on Wednesdays starting June 17th.
Ladies, we're going to let you meet at 6:30 in the evening and
we're going to put the kids to bed for you or at least occupy
them during the tough hours before bedtime.
So guys, we're going to be meeting there.
You can grab one of those books this week.
We'd love to connect to you with those summer studies.
We just want to be people that grow in God's Word together and
glean from Proverbs and develop that skill for life.
I invite you in the Pew in front of you.
If you're a guest with us today, we're so glad you came.
What a great Sunday, worshipping God together.
I'd invite you to grab a Connect card.
That's a little card in the Pew rack in front of you.
I'd invite you to write your name.
Write some information about you.
If you're a regular church attender, remember, just write
your first name on that card and then on the back there's a spot
for you to put prayer requests. If there's a need in your life
that you'd like myself and Pastor Jake to pray for, we'd
love to know that. We'll make sure to pray for you.
But I want you to answer this question as we look ahead to
this summer in the book of Proverbs.
Answer this question for me. What's 1 area of your life where
you need God to grow your skill? Think of your life.
You say I need skill from God's Word in this area.
Then my follow up question and what step will you take to
pursue wisdom there? Where's the need and how are you
going to pursue God's Word to meet that need?
I'm going to give you just a moment to write that out.
I want you to take a moment after you're done writing just
to spend time in silent prayer and say, God help me to grow in
wisdom here. Or what God might do is say,
hey, I know you're thinking in this spot, but I'm actually
going to reveal this area of your life to you.
Just take a moment to commit that to the Lord.
And I'm going to pray and our worshi team is going to come U
and we're going to close roclaiming how great God is.