Learn From Proverbs!

Sermon Transcript

“Life isn’t easy.” Those are the opening words to a book about how to read Proverbs by a renowned Old Testament scholar. “Life isn’t easy.” Then I read this quote from the early pages of a commentary on Proverbs written by another well-respected Old Testament scholar named Ray Ortlund, “Sometimes life is too complex for a simple rule.” What are these Bible scholars telling us? Life in our world isn’t easy, but it certainly is complicated. Consider all the complex and difficult decisions you have to make, relationships you have to navigate and circumstances you have to manage. Your life isn’t easy, but it certainly is complicated. Therefore, God gave us Proverbs to instill in us the wisdom necessary to navigate the complexities of life well. I need that. You need that. We need Proverbs. Proverbs is written from the perspective of a father to his son. And in the first seven verses of Proverbs, the father’s goal is simple: to convince his son to read and learn from Proverbs. The first seven verses almost read like a father’s sales pitch to his son about why he should read Proverbs. And that reveals the universal big idea of the opening portion of Proverbs: Learn From Proverbs! Life isn’t easy, but it sure is complicated. To navigate the complexity of it, learn from Proverbs. Give Proverbs your next few months. Learn from Proverbs by gathering here each Sunday – let learning from Proverbs be your excuse to miss everything else on Sunday morning. Learn from Proverbs by joining a Citygroup so that you can study and apply Proverbs together each week. You matter so much. Your life is so significant. Navigating it well is so worth learning from Proverbs. Ok – to help motivate us to learn from Proverbs these next several months, Proverbs 1:1-7 provides three reasons to learn from Proverbs: 1. The author (vv. 1) 2. The goal (vv. 2-6) 3. The key (vv. 7). Learn from Proverbs because of its origin, who the author is, because of its goal, to make you wise, and because of the key to it all, the Lord himself.

THE AUTHOR

The first reason why it’s worth every effort to learn from Proverbs is because of who the principal human author of Proverbs was. Proverbs 1:1: “The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel.” Who was Solomon? After the God of the Bible brought his Old Testament people Israel out of slavery in Egypt and into the land He promised them, he gave them a great king named David. And God promised David that David’s offspring would sit on his throne forever. After David died, his son Solomon assumed his throne. Solomon is the principal author of Proverbs. That in and of itself should motivate us to learn from Proverbs because Solomon was the wisest mortal to ever live. So, of course we want to learn from Proverbs, its principal author is the wisest human to ever live. How did Solomon become wise? After the Lord established Solomon on his father David’s throne, the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream and said to Solomon, “ask what I should give to you” (1 Kings 3:5). Solomon asked for wisdom and his request pleased the Lord. In 1 Kings 3:11-12, we read, “And God said to him, “Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches or the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right, [12] behold, I now do according to your word. Behold, I give you a wise and discerning mind, so that none like you has been before you and none like you shall arise after you.” Learn from Proverbs because the Lord made the author of this book the wisest human to ever live. Who do you like to learn from? Whose articles, books, and podcasts do you read or listen to regularly to get ideas or to improve your relationships, your career, your fitness, your finances, your marriage, your parenting, your mental health, and so forth? Who do you learn from? Whoever it is, Solomon is wiser because God made Solomon wise. There has never been nor will there ever be a coach, podcaster, YouTuber, influencer, philosopher, scientist, parent, or professor in his league. Why wouldn’t we love to learn to navigate life from the wisest human to ever live, from the person whose wisdom is from God himself?! This is so worth our time! Now, if you’re familiar with the Bible you know that later in life Solomon turned away from the Lord to serve other gods, revealing that there is a wiser Son of David, Jesus Christ, to come. However, Solomon wrote Proverbs in his prime and we want to learn from his wisdom, which was given by God himself. Of course, since Proverbs is Holy Scripture, we also know that the Proverbs didn’t merely arise from Solomon’s God-given wisdom, but Solomon was actually carried along by God himself as he authored Proverbs such that Proverbs is truly the wisdom of God himself, truth without mixture of error. So, the first reason to learn from Proverbs, the first reason it’s worth it to listen every Sunday, study every week in your Citygroup, and even read it on your own over these next several months is that the author is Solmon, the wisest person to ever live, and, even more fundamentally, the author is God himself. The second reason to learn from Proverbs is…

THE PURPOSE

The first reason to learn from Proverbs is Proverbs’ author, but the second is Proverbs’ purpose. What is the purpose of Proverbs? What was Solomon’s goal in writing it? Proverbs 1:2a – “To know wisdom…” The second reason to learn from Proverbs is because the purpose of Proverbs is to make us wise and increase our wisdom. And we all need that. Have you ever wondered why Solomon, when he could ask God for anything, asked for wisdom? He had God’s law. Why did he need wisdom? Because God’s law isn’t enough to give us the skill to navigate the complexities of life in God’s world. We need God’s wisdom to fill in the blanks. For example, God’s law tells you to work hard at your job to the glory of God, but God’s law doesn’t tell you whether it’s a better fit for you to work hard as a professor or a plumber. You need wisdom for that decision, and many others, and the purpose of Proverbs is to teach us wisdom. That’s why we want to learn from it.

What is wisdom? The Hebrew word “hokma,” which is rightly translated “wisdom,” is not the same as raw intelligence or knowledge of facts. Most basically, it means skill in living. Hokma is knowing how to act, speak, decide and solve problems in various situations. It’s the art of understanding how life really works and the skill to achieve beautiful results. My best shot at a definition of wisdom is this: Wisdom is the art and skill of navigating the complexities of life in the real world to the glory of God. Who of us doesn’t want more of that? Who of us doesn’t want more skill in navigating the complexities of life in the real world to the glory of God? Who of us doesn’t want to grow in the practical knowledge that helps us act and speak in situations in which God’s law doesn’t tell us exactly what to do?

Now, If wisdom is so wonderful and Proverbs’ purpose is to make us wise, why aren’t more of us sprinting to learn it from Proverbs? Because learning wisdom can be humiliating. Proverbs 1:2a, 3 – To know wisdom and instruction, to receive instruction in wise dealing, in righteousness, justice, and equity. That word instruction helps us understand why, despite being so desirable, so few are eager to learn it. Some Bible translations translate the word “instruction,” as “discipline” or “correction.” Here is the point: no one is born wise. We learn wisdom through the Lord’s correction, even his discipline. And who of us likes to be corrected? It takes humility to admit that we aren’t as wise, moral, ethical, or informed as we ought to be. It takes humility to admit that we need to receive wisdom from the Lord by being teachable and correctible. That’s why we don’t quickly flock to learn from Proverbs.

However, Proverbs 1:4-6 helps us see why learning wisdom from Proverbs, though at times humiliating, is so worth it. Proverbs 1:4-6 helps color in the picture of what wisdom is like. If wisdom is a diamond, then Proverbs 1:4-6 helps you behold the different dazzling facets of wisdom so that you can see that it’s worth learning it, no matter how humbling. Proverbs 1:4-6 – 5 To give prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth – 5 Let the wise hear and increase in learning and the one who understands obtain guidance. 6 To understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles. I want you to notice three things you get when you learn wisdom from Proverbs. First, the simple or youth get prudence, knowledge, and discretion. The simple, young, or inexperienced are not wicked, but they haven’t yet become wise. Proverbs is a gift to the simple, as one author has pointed out, the world tells the inexperienced to live and learn. However, Proverbs says, “learn and then live, it will save you a lot of pain.” When the simple learn wisdom from Proverbs they get prudence, knowledge, and discretion. Prudence is similar to shrewdness. Ray Ortlund writes, “Shrewdness is a good kind of cunning. In this world we need that. Shrewdness is tactics that succeed when so much is on the line.” Knowledge is very similar to wisdom, except knowledge may refer a little more to understanding the facts of life as God has created it. Discretion is similar to being discerning, being able to see through temptations and situations that come at you so that you know what’s really going on. In short, when the inexperienced give themselves to Proverbs they get to learn and then live, which saves us so much pain. It’s worth it to learn wisdom from Proverbs. The second thing we get when we learn wisdom from Proverbs is, well, more wisdom. Notice verse five again: Let the wise hear and increase in learning and the one who understands obtain guidance. If you’ve been around the block (40 or older), then you know that a common temptation we face as we age is to coast spiritually and prioritize comfort. Proverbs is the antidote. It will help you stay fresh spiritually and help you grow wiser, more godly, more sold out for the cause of Christ as you age, rather than coasting into irrelevance. Proverbs makes the wise wiser. It’s so worth it to learn wisdom from Proverbs. The final thing we get when we learn wisdom from Proverbs is an increasing ability to learn wisdom from Proverbs. We read Proverbs to grow in wisdom and increasing wisdom helps us read Proverbs better, and so become even wiser. Proverbs isn’t easy to learn from because if we read Proverbs simplistically, then we’ll read Proverbs like promises rather than what they are, generally true principles. For example, Proverbs 25:5 says, “Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.” Now, if you take that as a promise, you’re going to begin to distrust God because it’s not always the case when you answer a fool according to their folly that they stop being wise in their own eyes. You need wisdom to receive the principle. Also, should you always answer a fool according to their folly? Apparently not! Proverbs 25:4 says, “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself.” Wait, so which one is it? It depends. You need wisdom to know when and how to apply which Proverb. Proverbs will help you become wise in your reading Proverbs, which will make you wiser. It’s so worth it to learn from Proverbs, even if it costs you your Sunday mornings for the next several months and one night a week to learn together in Citygroups. Proverbs’ purpose is to make us wise. That brings us to the final reason to learn from Proverbs…

THE KEY

The final reason why we want to learn from Proverbs is that the key to Proverbs is not mastering a technique or two, nor is it pulling yourself up by the bootstraps of wisdom. The key to learning from Proverbs is a living, vital relationship with the God of the Bible, the Lord himself. Proverbs 1:7 – The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction. What exactly is the fear of the Lord? We get a vivid illustration of the fear of the Lord in the New Testament account of the Lord Jesus Christ stilling the sea. Mark 4 records the Lord Jesus Christ sleeping in the stern of a boat while his disciples, some of whom were professional fishermen, sailed out onto the Sea of Galilee. As was known to happen on that particularly massive lake, a huge storm fell on them such that even the professionals were afraid they were going to drown. Terrified, they wake Jesus up, accuse him of not caring that they’re at the brink of death, and then after mildly rebuking his disciples, Jesus calmed the wind and the waves with a word. He says, “be still” and the churning, deadly sea becomes placid. At that moment, Mark records that the disciples who were previously afraid of the storm, were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him.” In that moment, the disciples weren’t terrified that Jesus was going to obliterate them. Rather, in the face of Jesus’ power and his mercy, they revered him, they were in awe of him, they wanted to please him and it put every other fear in its place. That’s what it means to fear the Lord. Ray Ortlund expands further and nails the fear of the Lord, “The fear of the Lord is openness to him, eagerness to please him, humility to be instructed by him (Proverbs 15:33). The fear of the Lord is a willingness to turn from evil and change (Job 28:28)…It takes us to that place of maturity where no one has to follow us around with a tedious list of do’s and don’t’s, constantly telling us what to do. We are motivated from deep within.” And the fear of the Lord is both the doorway into learning from Proverbs and it’s the path that we walk to keep learning from Proverbs.

How do we get the fear of the Lord? As we pan out from Proverbs and take in the entire scope of the Bible, we learn that the fear of the Lord is really the fear of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the Lord come in the flesh. According to Colossians 2:3, all the treasures of God’s wisdom and knowledge dwelt in Jesus the Christ, the Son of David and Son of God. It’s fear of the Lord Jesus Christ that is both the door into and the path for learning from Proverbs. He is the beginning and the path of learning wisdom from Proverbs. Here is how the New Testament puts it: Colossians 2:6 – Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him… We get the fear of the Lord by receiving Jesus Christ. We get the fear of the Lord by admitting that who we are before the holy creator God of the Bible is who we really are, nothing more and nothing less. We get the fear of the Lord by admitting that we are spiritually bankrupt before God and deserving of his judgment because of all our foolish rebellion against Him. And we get the fear of the Lord by believing that God so loved a fool like you that he gave His only Son to live wisely where we have failed, then die in our place to absorb the judgment we deserve, and then rise to secure eternal life for all who believe in Him. We get the fear of the Lord by receiving Jesus Christ with the empty hands of faith, nothing to offer but our spiritual bankruptcy, trusting in Him to rescue us from the path of folly and judgment. Looking away from ourselves and to Jesus as our only hope is the door and the path. That’s why we want to learn from Proverbs because the key to learning wisdom from Proverbs is not mastering a technique, but knowing, loving and fearing the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s so worth it. So, come back next week and we’ll begin to learn wisdom from the Lord Jesus Christ.