WEBVTT 00:00:00.560 --> 00:00:02.560 Thank you for tuning in to Newsong Churches. 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:12.240 Newsong is a gospel centered community serving Anglican Church in Port Harry, Ontario, and the parish of the Anglican Network in Canada. 00:00:12.480 --> 00:00:13.759 We'd love to connect with you. 00:00:13.919 --> 00:00:19.679 If you'd like to reach out to us, you can find our contact information at news onport Harry.ca. 00:00:20.320 --> 00:00:22.399 God bless you through the ministry of the Word. 00:00:25.600 --> 00:00:27.359 The book of Proverbs. 00:00:28.239 --> 00:00:30.239 Does not wisdom call? 00:00:30.559 --> 00:00:33.520 Does not understand raise her voice? 00:00:33.840 --> 00:00:36.479 I have counsel and sound wisdom. 00:00:36.719 --> 00:00:38.000 I have insight. 00:00:38.320 --> 00:00:39.600 I have strength. 00:00:39.920 --> 00:00:43.600 By me kings reign and rulers decree what is just. 00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:48.399 By me princes rule and nobles, all who govern justly. 00:00:48.719 --> 00:00:53.920 I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me. 00:00:54.159 --> 00:01:00.000 The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work and the first of his acts of old. 00:01:00.320 --> 00:01:05.920 Ages ago, I was set up at the first before the beginning of the earth. 00:01:06.159 --> 00:01:09.519 When there was no depth, I was brought forth. 00:01:09.760 --> 00:01:17.519 When there were no springs abounding with water, before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth. 00:01:17.760 --> 00:01:25.680 Before he had made the earth with its fields or the first of the dust of the world, when he established the heavens, I was there. 00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:45.599 When he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth. 00:01:45.920 --> 00:02:00.959 Then I was beside him like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world, and delighting in the children of man. 00:02:01.280 --> 00:02:03.920 And now, O sons, listen to me. 00:02:04.159 --> 00:02:06.879 Blessed are those who keep my ways. 00:02:07.200 --> 00:02:12.960 For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord. 00:02:13.280 --> 00:02:17.280 But he who fails to find me injures himself. 00:02:17.599 --> 00:02:20.319 All who hate me love death. 00:02:20.560 --> 00:02:27.120 The integrity of the upright guides them, but the crookedness of the treacherous destroys them. 00:02:27.520 --> 00:02:33.520 Truthful lips endure forever, but a lying tongue is but a but for a moment. 00:02:33.840 --> 00:02:36.400 And every word of God proves true. 00:02:36.719 --> 00:02:40.319 He is a shield to those who take refuge in him. 00:02:40.800 --> 00:02:42.400 This is the word of the Lord. 00:02:46.159 --> 00:02:48.560 Wisdom says, listen to me. 00:02:48.960 --> 00:02:52.240 Blessed are those who keep my ways. 00:02:52.560 --> 00:02:53.520 So let's pray. 00:02:58.319 --> 00:03:03.919 Lord, let all things their creator bless and worship you in humbleness. 00:03:06.159 --> 00:03:12.560 Lord, grant us to love wisdom and to seek it out diligently. 00:03:13.120 --> 00:03:15.199 And to find it at its source. 00:03:15.520 --> 00:03:17.199 In Jesus' name we pray. 00:03:24.879 --> 00:03:28.719 Well, we're going to get a little philosophical this morning. 00:03:28.960 --> 00:03:32.000 So, Sam, I'm going to ask you to barter the doors. 00:03:37.280 --> 00:03:38.879 Philosophy is an interesting word. 00:03:38.960 --> 00:03:40.800 It breaks down to the love of wisdom. 00:03:41.039 --> 00:03:45.280 So we can't talk about wisdom in the book of Proverbs without being a little philosophical here. 00:03:46.560 --> 00:03:50.479 Before we do, I'm going to share an interesting little fact about webinars. 00:03:51.360 --> 00:03:52.800 I was really interested to learn it. 00:03:52.960 --> 00:03:54.960 I wonder if you'll find it interesting when I did. 00:03:55.280 --> 00:03:59.680 Do you know what the most frequently requested song is for funerals? 00:04:00.240 --> 00:04:03.439 The most frequently requested song at funeral. 00:04:04.960 --> 00:04:05.520 Yes, I think. 00:04:05.759 --> 00:04:06.719 That would have been my guess. 00:04:12.960 --> 00:04:16.000 And now the end is here. 00:04:24.079 --> 00:04:25.199 I'll state it clear. 00:04:25.439 --> 00:04:26.399 I'm just gonna do this. 00:04:27.759 --> 00:04:29.920 I'll state my case of which I'm certain. 00:04:30.160 --> 00:04:36.240 I live a life that's called, I travel each and every highway, and work much more than this. 00:04:43.759 --> 00:04:46.000 Okay, so how about this? 00:04:46.879 --> 00:04:50.240 I'm gonna take a couple of punches of the song is true. 00:04:50.319 --> 00:04:54.000 But I do this as someone who admittedly loves Frank's enough for me. 00:04:54.079 --> 00:04:56.800 And I can't, when he gets going in a song, come on here. 00:04:57.120 --> 00:04:59.439 That is something he can't sort of. 00:04:59.680 --> 00:05:00.879 I shouldn't like as much. 00:05:02.639 --> 00:05:05.040 But that's an interesting little factoid, isn't it? 00:05:05.199 --> 00:05:08.319 That's the number one most requested song at a funeral. 00:05:08.480 --> 00:05:13.439 Reflecting back on the whole of someone's life, its meaning, its significance, its purpose. 00:05:13.600 --> 00:05:14.800 What is it that we want to say? 00:05:14.959 --> 00:05:16.560 What's the version we want to come to? 00:05:17.439 --> 00:05:18.879 I did it my way. 00:05:19.839 --> 00:05:23.360 I determined for myself what was true. 00:05:23.519 --> 00:05:26.800 And I determined for myself how to live that truth out. 00:05:26.959 --> 00:05:28.720 I did it my way. 00:05:29.279 --> 00:05:31.519 So then I get looking at the lyrics. 00:05:33.680 --> 00:05:37.759 And I've never really paid attention to the final verse, but here's the final verse. 00:05:38.240 --> 00:05:39.600 For what is a man? 00:05:40.160 --> 00:05:41.439 What has he got? 00:05:41.839 --> 00:05:44.720 If not himself, then he has not. 00:05:45.600 --> 00:05:52.000 To say the things he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels. 00:05:52.639 --> 00:05:56.240 The record shows I took the gloves and did it my way. 00:05:56.560 --> 00:06:02.000 To say the things he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels, the gospel according to Frank Sinatra. 00:06:02.480 --> 00:06:04.399 What are you doing when you're healing? 00:06:04.639 --> 00:06:06.639 That's a prayerful posture, isn't it? 00:06:06.800 --> 00:06:07.920 That's a humble posture. 00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:09.519 That's a penitential posture. 00:06:09.920 --> 00:06:11.439 Those aren't the words we want to say. 00:06:11.600 --> 00:06:12.800 What do we want to say? 00:06:13.040 --> 00:06:14.959 We want to say the words that we truly do. 00:06:15.680 --> 00:06:20.560 We want to determine for ourselves what's of ultimate boundary and what's of ultimate purpose, right? 00:06:21.600 --> 00:06:26.639 Now, what is it that makes this the song that is most frequently requested at funerals? 00:06:26.879 --> 00:06:27.279 I would. 00:06:28.079 --> 00:06:29.439 Now, okay. 00:06:29.600 --> 00:06:30.879 How do you really determine that? 00:06:30.959 --> 00:06:33.040 I don't know who took the survey, so to speak. 00:06:33.120 --> 00:06:43.839 But I will say, after one Google search, the very first item on the very first search was ignorative funerals.co.uk, and this was their number one most recommended song. 00:06:44.480 --> 00:06:49.600 What is it that makes this the number one most frequently requested song at a funeral? 00:06:49.839 --> 00:06:51.680 I want to suggest it's this. 00:06:52.079 --> 00:06:57.759 Because it resonates with a philosophy of truth and how truth is looked at. 00:06:57.920 --> 00:06:58.959 Wouldn't you agree with that? 00:06:59.120 --> 00:07:04.399 It has to have some resonance if it's so frequently requested, right? 00:07:04.879 --> 00:07:06.000 What's that about? 00:07:06.639 --> 00:07:08.879 Here's where I want to say a little philosophy. 00:07:10.480 --> 00:07:20.480 What Frank is giving expression to in a catchy-patchy way is a philosophy that runs pretty deeply, especially developed in the last couple of centuries. 00:07:20.720 --> 00:07:25.040 It's a philosophy of call it self-determination part. 00:07:25.839 --> 00:07:36.560 The way that Jean Paul Sartre gives expression to his particular philosophy about existentialism, though existentialism is much broader than this one thing or that. 00:07:36.800 --> 00:07:41.279 Jean Paul Sartre is a really interesting French thinker in the last century. 00:07:42.240 --> 00:07:48.399 He gives specific expression to this philosophy of self-determination in three words. 00:07:48.879 --> 00:07:51.600 Existence precedes essence. 00:07:52.319 --> 00:07:54.319 Existence precedes essence. 00:07:54.560 --> 00:07:55.199 What do you mean by that? 00:07:56.399 --> 00:07:57.279 Here's what he says. 00:07:57.680 --> 00:08:01.839 I just gotta say, we cannot underestimate the importance of this conclusion. 00:08:02.000 --> 00:08:04.319 What do you mean by essence precedes existence? 00:08:04.480 --> 00:08:06.639 Pardon me, existence precedes essence. 00:08:06.879 --> 00:08:08.319 Jean-Paul Start says this. 00:08:08.399 --> 00:08:17.199 We mean that man first exists, he materializes in the world, he encounters himself, and only afterward defines himself. 00:08:17.519 --> 00:08:22.879 If man cannot be defined, it is because to begin with, he is nothing. 00:08:23.519 --> 00:08:30.000 He will not be anything until later, and then he will be what he makes of himself. 00:08:30.480 --> 00:08:36.000 Thus there is no human nature, since there is no God to conceive of it. 00:08:36.320 --> 00:08:43.919 Man is not only that which he conceives himself to be, but that which he wills himself to be. 00:08:44.559 --> 00:08:57.600 And since he conceives of himself only after he exists, just as he wills himself to be only after being thrown into existence, man is nothing other than what he makes of himself. 00:08:58.240 --> 00:09:00.480 That's self-determination. 00:09:01.039 --> 00:09:02.799 There is no meaning to your life. 00:09:03.039 --> 00:09:05.679 You show up on the scene of the universe. 00:09:05.840 --> 00:09:13.919 Without any explanation, without any particular purpose or design, it's up to you to determine what that purpose and design is for yourself. 00:09:14.240 --> 00:09:14.879 Make sense? 00:09:15.360 --> 00:09:16.480 Sound familiar? 00:09:17.519 --> 00:09:26.399 Carl Truman, relating Sartre's philosophy to Nietzsche before him, writes that the purpose of life, in this view, is personal satisfaction. 00:09:26.639 --> 00:09:34.080 It's a matter of creating one's own satisfactions and determining one's own form of the good life. 00:09:34.320 --> 00:09:44.000 Here's why I think this simple conclusion that Jean-Paul Sartre reaches, that he's the essence, existence precedes essence. 00:09:44.159 --> 00:09:47.200 Here's why I think we cannot underestimate its importance. 00:09:47.360 --> 00:09:53.759 Because I think this is the underpinning of just about every conversation we have as a culture today. 00:09:54.159 --> 00:10:04.080 Whether it's politics or identity, sexuality, justice, technology, how it's used, what its purpose is for, then human nature itself. 00:10:05.279 --> 00:10:11.519 All of these things are pinned by a simple philosophy that existence precedes essence. 00:10:11.759 --> 00:10:13.519 Life is what we make of it. 00:10:14.000 --> 00:10:20.159 If human nature has no design or purpose, we have to determine what that is for itself. 00:10:20.320 --> 00:10:23.039 And so we can follow that through to its logical conclusion. 00:10:23.200 --> 00:10:26.000 There's nowhere we can't take human nature, right? 00:10:26.320 --> 00:10:28.240 There is no absolute truth. 00:10:28.399 --> 00:10:34.480 There is no higher power or higher accountability to which we're held. 00:10:35.120 --> 00:10:36.720 We create for ourselves. 00:10:36.879 --> 00:10:40.639 That's the purpose of life in Jean Paul Sartre's imagination. 00:10:40.799 --> 00:10:47.840 And this has ripped through academia right into popular culture, and I think, we do agree, has shaped our modern mind. 00:10:48.080 --> 00:10:49.120 Wouldn't we agree with that? 00:10:51.039 --> 00:10:53.279 And I want us to take that seriously. 00:10:53.519 --> 00:10:56.240 Because Jean Paul Sartre is not trying to be pessimistic here. 00:10:56.320 --> 00:11:00.879 He's trying to offer a positive view of life and how it's lived. 00:11:01.039 --> 00:11:05.679 In the absence of God, in the absence of any objective meaning, what's the best we can do? 00:11:05.840 --> 00:11:08.480 The best is we can create meaning for ourselves. 00:11:08.720 --> 00:11:10.399 What's the best we can do? 00:11:10.720 --> 00:11:18.480 Sartre is not trying to be pessimistic, he's trying to offer us the best he can apart from any transcendent values. 00:11:19.840 --> 00:11:21.679 But there are a few problems with this, right? 00:11:23.360 --> 00:11:24.879 Here's a couple of problems. 00:11:25.039 --> 00:11:31.279 Number one, Sartre's philosophy creates a real burden of meaning, don't you think? 00:11:31.519 --> 00:11:38.159 Because at the end of the day, the meaning of life, the purpose of your life, who's that on? 00:11:38.320 --> 00:11:39.600 That's on you, isn't it? 00:11:39.759 --> 00:11:41.360 So you better do a good job. 00:11:42.080 --> 00:11:43.679 You better really hold your weight. 00:11:43.759 --> 00:11:46.320 You better really know for sure what your life is about. 00:11:46.399 --> 00:11:49.120 That's on you, and no one else can do that for you. 00:11:49.840 --> 00:11:56.720 Surprisingly enough, it's this philosophy that's kind of given rise to what's being called the meaning crisis in our present moment. 00:11:57.039 --> 00:12:10.320 One thinker today, John Rubicki, says that the meaning crisis is the loss of spiritual vitality and the sense of disconnection we experience from other people, from ourselves, and from the world at large. 00:12:10.559 --> 00:12:16.399 It is disconnection, it is isolation, because there is nothing that connects me with the outside world. 00:12:16.480 --> 00:12:18.879 I determine what it is for myself. 00:12:19.120 --> 00:12:20.799 It creates a burden of meaning. 00:12:20.960 --> 00:12:26.240 But the second problem is this: it teeters on the verge of what we want to call nihilism. 00:12:26.879 --> 00:12:28.879 Nahilo is the Greek word for nothing. 00:12:29.039 --> 00:12:30.000 So ism, right? 00:12:30.080 --> 00:12:33.840 It's a philosophy predicated on nothingness. 00:12:34.240 --> 00:12:38.639 There are no objective truths, there are no transcendent values. 00:12:39.279 --> 00:12:43.600 What gives your life significance is what you determine it to be. 00:12:44.879 --> 00:13:01.360 So one Christian philosopher, Helmut Thielek, he writes that nihilism literally has one truth to declare, namely, that truth, the truth that ultimately nothingness prevails and the world is meaningless. 00:13:01.600 --> 00:13:03.440 So this gives way to a couple things. 00:13:03.679 --> 00:13:06.559 It can give way to sort of quasi-mysticism, right? 00:13:06.720 --> 00:13:14.879 This sort of inner knowledge and self-satisfaction, or it can give away to complete desperation, hopelessness. 00:13:16.639 --> 00:13:17.519 See, here's the thing. 00:13:17.679 --> 00:13:21.039 I don't want to pretend like this is just abstract philosophy, it's like we did, right? 00:13:21.200 --> 00:13:22.720 We took a theology degree. 00:13:23.919 --> 00:13:28.399 This is not just simply abstract philosophy interesting to think about, is it? 00:13:29.600 --> 00:13:48.080 I have sat across the table over cooling cups of coffee with folks who have shared with me, folks in our community, called me up and said, I've got to talk to someone, and said, I'm overwhelmed by the meaninglessness of it all. 00:13:49.039 --> 00:13:54.480 I'm overwhelmed by the meaninglessness of the universe in which I live in. 00:13:54.639 --> 00:13:56.480 It means my life has no meaning. 00:13:56.559 --> 00:13:59.120 And I'm starting to wonder why I get up in the morning. 00:13:59.679 --> 00:14:04.080 And I'm starting to wonder why I shouldn't get a make a phone call and get the evil tomorrow. 00:14:04.399 --> 00:14:05.279 That's what I think. 00:14:06.639 --> 00:14:08.480 What do you want to say to that person? 00:14:10.320 --> 00:14:13.519 Jean-Paul Sartre would say something like, have courage. 00:14:13.840 --> 00:14:14.399 Right? 00:14:14.639 --> 00:14:18.639 The best you can do is to make meaning for yourself, so try harder. 00:14:18.879 --> 00:14:20.960 I think that's a pretty callous answer. 00:14:21.120 --> 00:14:21.519 Yes. 00:14:23.200 --> 00:14:25.840 What I want to ask is, is there another way? 00:14:26.480 --> 00:14:30.000 Is there another way to address that meaning crisis? 00:14:30.320 --> 00:14:45.200 Is there a way we can, is there a way we can discover something and not nothing that gives the universe truth and life, and therefore truth and life for ourselves. 00:14:45.360 --> 00:14:46.320 Is there another way? 00:14:46.559 --> 00:14:47.919 Tilica says this. 00:14:48.080 --> 00:14:54.960 The question of how nihilism can be overcome cannot be answered by recommending a more optimistic interpretation of the world. 00:14:55.120 --> 00:14:56.000 That's served. 00:14:57.039 --> 00:15:01.840 He says, I cannot regain the world unless I regain myself. 00:15:02.000 --> 00:15:06.320 And I cannot regain myself unless I regain God. 00:15:08.639 --> 00:15:12.879 Here's the path that Proverbs is calling attention to. 00:15:13.360 --> 00:15:18.159 Remember, last week we talked about Proverbs' purpose with cultivating wisdom. 00:15:18.320 --> 00:15:22.000 And we discussed that fact that wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord. 00:15:22.159 --> 00:15:28.399 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, whereas schools despise wisdom ended instruction. 00:15:28.639 --> 00:15:33.279 The fear of the Lord is a right relationship to the source of all wisdom. 00:15:33.600 --> 00:15:37.360 It's a posture of awe and humility. 00:15:37.919 --> 00:15:41.919 It's enjoying the warmth and light of God's glow. 00:15:42.159 --> 00:15:44.000 Don't be careless or flippant. 00:15:44.399 --> 00:15:45.279 That's wisdom. 00:15:45.360 --> 00:15:46.559 That's the fear of the Lord. 00:15:46.639 --> 00:15:48.159 That's cultivating wisdom. 00:15:48.320 --> 00:15:51.360 So here's the thing about the book of Proverbs that I want us to catch. 00:15:51.600 --> 00:15:57.600 The book of Proverbs is not just interesting sound lights to make you a little bit more successful at work. 00:15:58.240 --> 00:16:02.080 To make you, you know, make your family life a little bit more enjoyable. 00:16:02.480 --> 00:16:05.360 To, you know, suggest some interesting things to do with your weekend. 00:16:05.600 --> 00:16:15.600 Proverbs is not just a collection of sound lights, it's inviting us into a worldview, into a way of understanding the universe in which we occupy. 00:16:15.840 --> 00:16:18.480 Proverbs goes much, much deeper than soundlights. 00:16:18.559 --> 00:16:24.320 I want to save us from a superficial reading of Proverbs that can lend itself to a pretty triumphalistic view here. 00:16:24.559 --> 00:16:33.519 The worldview of Proverbs is this: that truth can be discerned and discovered in God's world around us. 00:16:34.399 --> 00:16:42.639 That it's God's truth and wisdom that weaves creation together and that binds us together with the life of God. 00:16:43.840 --> 00:16:49.360 When we pursue wisdom, we are pursuing truth and life. 00:16:50.240 --> 00:16:52.559 Wisdom is predicated on truth. 00:16:52.720 --> 00:16:56.639 That there is something to discover and not nothing. 00:16:57.120 --> 00:17:01.600 And here's the key passage, Proverbs chapter 8. 00:17:01.919 --> 00:17:03.200 Here's what we're going to see. 00:17:03.360 --> 00:17:08.480 A wise person knows what's true and how truth is lived out. 00:17:09.440 --> 00:17:11.519 I want us to look at this briefly. 00:17:11.759 --> 00:17:16.880 We're going to see wisdom, truth's relationship with the Lord, and truth's relationship with the world. 00:17:17.039 --> 00:17:25.920 And we're going to see the invitation to a new and better relationship with God and the world that leads to the meaning and flourishing that we intuit is out there. 00:17:26.079 --> 00:17:28.079 So let's look at Proverbs D here. 00:17:29.200 --> 00:17:31.119 This is wisdom talking. 00:17:31.359 --> 00:17:37.519 And bear in mind, Proverbs is often using very poetic speech and symbolic language, right? 00:17:37.680 --> 00:17:47.519 So the right way to interpret this is understanding that this passage is pointing beyond itself to the transcendent spiritual values that it signifies, right? 00:17:47.599 --> 00:17:52.240 So the Lord possessed me, is what this personified lady wisdom has to say. 00:17:52.400 --> 00:17:56.799 The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. 00:17:56.960 --> 00:18:03.119 Ages ago, I was set up at the first, before the beginning of the world. 00:18:03.359 --> 00:18:05.119 How does wisdom relate to the world? 00:18:05.359 --> 00:18:08.480 Lord, here's the first thing Wisdom says. 00:18:13.279 --> 00:18:21.920 She was possessed at the beginning of God's work, the beginning of the beginning of it all, which is to say eternity past. 00:18:22.720 --> 00:18:27.359 Now this word possessed is a really interesting Hebrew word because it has a nuance to it. 00:18:27.519 --> 00:18:29.680 Possessed is a really good translation of it. 00:18:29.839 --> 00:18:35.279 But it also has a connotation of being fathered or begotten. 00:18:35.680 --> 00:18:41.039 The idea is, you know, we don't make tables, we don't beget tables, right? 00:18:41.359 --> 00:18:42.799 We beget children. 00:18:42.960 --> 00:18:45.519 We don't make children in the same sense that we make tables. 00:18:45.839 --> 00:18:46.720 Catch what I mean? 00:18:46.880 --> 00:18:49.920 The idea that we get is we share alike nature. 00:18:50.160 --> 00:18:51.759 And that's the idea here. 00:18:52.079 --> 00:18:56.880 Wisdom is begotten of God, it shares God's divine nature. 00:18:57.119 --> 00:18:58.799 Wisdom is with God. 00:18:59.039 --> 00:19:03.680 Wisdom is God, in some sense, in the beginning of all things. 00:19:03.920 --> 00:19:06.880 Wisdom is eternally pre-existing. 00:19:07.440 --> 00:19:14.400 It's not just something that's sprung out of the created world, it's something that infuses the world and creates. 00:19:14.720 --> 00:19:17.839 And that means that wisdom is eternally preeminent. 00:19:17.920 --> 00:19:21.759 It's unsurpassed in all of creation, which is what we see in what follows. 00:19:21.920 --> 00:19:25.519 When there were no deaths, I was brought forth, says wisdom. 00:19:25.680 --> 00:19:30.880 When there were no springs abounding with water, before the mountains had been shaped, right? 00:19:31.039 --> 00:19:32.559 The pinnacle of creation. 00:19:32.720 --> 00:19:35.119 Before the hills, I was brought forth. 00:19:35.359 --> 00:19:40.559 Before he gave me birth with its fields, the first of the dust of the world. 00:19:40.799 --> 00:19:45.519 Wisdom is unsurpassed in the creation that occupies us. 00:19:45.599 --> 00:19:53.279 It's eternally preeminent, and therefore it shares God's majesty and transcendent quality. 00:19:53.759 --> 00:19:55.519 So here's what I want us to see here. 00:19:55.839 --> 00:20:00.880 Wisdom, predicated on truth, has a transcendent value. 00:20:01.279 --> 00:20:07.599 It goes beyond the created world that we occupy and connects it with its creator. 00:20:07.920 --> 00:20:09.440 You see how that works? 00:20:09.759 --> 00:20:14.559 Wisdom weaves creation together with the life of God, its creator. 00:20:14.720 --> 00:20:16.400 That's what's going on here. 00:20:17.200 --> 00:20:22.480 That means that, well, here's how Bruce Wolfkey, the commentator, puts it. 00:20:22.640 --> 00:20:32.720 He says, this metaphor signifies that wisdom comes organically from God's essential being, not from outside of himself, unlike the rest of creation. 00:20:33.039 --> 00:20:45.519 Moreover, since this wisdom creates creation and is independent of it, it is only available to humanity by revelation, so it must be accepted by faith. 00:20:46.480 --> 00:20:48.240 So what are we saying here? 00:20:48.799 --> 00:20:53.759 We're saying that wisdom springs from God's own being, his own nature. 00:20:54.000 --> 00:20:58.400 Pursuing wisdom is ultimately a pursuit of God Himself. 00:20:58.559 --> 00:21:14.400 And if we disconnect wisdom from God, if we say there's little T little case T truths to be found out there that don't correspond to something greater, then we've cut off wisdom from its source. 00:21:18.000 --> 00:21:24.400 Proverbs is inviting us to recognize that pursuing wisdom is a pursuit upward, it's a pursuit towards God. 00:21:24.720 --> 00:21:29.680 But wisdom doesn't just hang out in kind of an ethereal, you know, superworld or something like that. 00:21:29.759 --> 00:21:34.079 It actually structures and celebrates the world that we live in here. 00:21:34.240 --> 00:21:37.759 Let's look at verses 27 to 31 here. 00:21:38.240 --> 00:21:41.759 When God established the heavens, wisdom says, I was there. 00:21:41.920 --> 00:21:59.839 When he drew a circle around the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, and I was decided. 00:22:00.480 --> 00:22:02.240 Like a master worker. 00:22:03.039 --> 00:22:06.000 See, wisdom gives structure to the world around us. 00:22:06.160 --> 00:22:08.640 That's what the author is saying. 00:22:09.279 --> 00:22:18.960 The fact that the world is comprehensible, intelligible, discoverable suggests that there is some principle that gives it organization. 00:22:19.519 --> 00:22:20.160 Right? 00:22:20.400 --> 00:22:28.160 If the universe sprung out of randomness and chaos, then we would expect to find randomness and chaos in the world around us, wouldn't we? 00:22:28.400 --> 00:22:29.279 That would track. 00:22:29.839 --> 00:22:31.680 That's not what we find, is it? 00:22:39.359 --> 00:22:42.720 suggests that there is some kind of law giver to it, isn't there? 00:22:43.119 --> 00:22:47.759 It makes the pursuit of science possible and a very noble pursuit. 00:22:47.839 --> 00:22:53.359 We're trying to understand the how of how God works in his creation. 00:22:54.960 --> 00:22:56.720 Einstein has a great quote. 00:22:56.880 --> 00:23:02.000 He says, the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility. 00:23:02.319 --> 00:23:10.319 What he means by that is we have no right to expect the universe around us to be comprehensible if it doesn't have some kind of design to it. 00:23:12.079 --> 00:23:18.960 See, Einstein, a lot of science, is catching up to where God's word has been pointing us this whole time. 00:23:20.319 --> 00:23:24.160 So wisdom, therefore, is discoverable in the created order around us. 00:23:24.240 --> 00:23:26.640 It's also discoverable in the social structure around us. 00:23:26.720 --> 00:23:32.400 That's what it's talking about, wise opinions who rule in accordance with wisdom, verses 14 to 17. 00:23:32.559 --> 00:23:36.160 Wisdom gives structure to the world, to all the creation around us. 00:23:36.319 --> 00:23:46.960 So again, Walkie says all the metaphors for creation in these verses signify that each element is so firmly fixed that none can overreach or transgress another. 00:23:47.119 --> 00:23:50.960 Otherwise, the cosmos would crumble into chaos. 00:23:51.440 --> 00:23:56.720 Human existence requires such a firmly fixed universe. 00:23:57.039 --> 00:23:58.160 See what's going on here? 00:23:59.440 --> 00:24:03.920 Wisdom is like the lattice work into which God's creation is growing. 00:24:04.240 --> 00:24:13.359 When we seek to understand wisdom, we're seeking to understand the way in which God works in his creation, the structure that he gives it. 00:24:13.759 --> 00:24:16.799 But it's not just a dry and intellectual pursuit. 00:24:17.039 --> 00:24:19.279 Wisdom engages the heart. 00:24:19.519 --> 00:24:22.640 Wisdom celebrates the world around us. 00:24:22.960 --> 00:24:25.359 Listen to wisdom's language here. 00:24:25.920 --> 00:24:40.079 When God is at work with wisdom, creating the world, giving it its structure, wisdom says, I daily was God's day, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabitant world, and delighting in the children of men. 00:24:40.640 --> 00:24:46.000 See, wisdom, the pursuit of wisdom, is a journey into wonder and awe and joy. 00:24:46.319 --> 00:24:49.119 That might not be what we expect when we find Proverbs. 00:24:49.519 --> 00:24:51.839 We expect a dry and dusty ancient book. 00:24:52.160 --> 00:24:59.759 Proverbs is inviting us into a life characterized by joy and awe and wonder. 00:25:00.160 --> 00:25:02.559 Here's the image one commentator writes. 00:25:02.640 --> 00:25:07.279 He says, this is an image of a small child in joyful play. 00:25:07.599 --> 00:25:10.799 Delight, rejoicing, bouncing up and down. 00:25:11.279 --> 00:25:14.720 Both in God's presence and in the midst of human beings and the world. 00:25:14.880 --> 00:25:20.720 And it may be an imaginative way of speaking of wisdom as the linkage between creator and the universe. 00:25:21.039 --> 00:25:26.400 Wisdom overcomes the distance between the transcendent creator and the world of human beings. 00:25:26.799 --> 00:25:40.079 Human beings can share in this celebration of life through the joy and wonder derived from seeing the real nature of the cosmos and human beings' place in it. 00:25:41.119 --> 00:25:50.240 See, wisdom makes sense of that feeling you get when on a clear, dark night you look over the stars and you are overwhelmed by wonder. 00:25:50.960 --> 00:25:57.759 Or you look down at this tiny little seashell who admire its perfect spiral insymmetry. 00:25:59.680 --> 00:26:05.519 Wisdom makes sense of that sense of awe and wonder and joy that that brings us. 00:26:05.680 --> 00:26:06.240 Why? 00:26:06.480 --> 00:26:10.480 Because we're starting to pull up the threads that structure the universe around us. 00:26:10.720 --> 00:26:16.400 We're starting to see how God is at work bringing these things together in his wisdom. 00:26:16.640 --> 00:26:19.759 And that evokes a sense of worship and delight. 00:26:20.079 --> 00:26:21.839 Doxology, doesn't it? 00:26:22.319 --> 00:26:29.680 See, the argument here, what's uh David Wilkinson writes, is that the universe exists by wisdom. 00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:33.200 And thereby wisdom, the world is rightly used. 00:26:33.440 --> 00:26:42.720 Wisdom is the key to the continuous process of fashioning creation into a world that is intelligible, orderly, and good. 00:26:44.480 --> 00:26:48.480 So we can see Proverbs has a lot more going on than some nifty soundlights, right? 00:26:50.079 --> 00:26:54.559 Proverbs is inviting us to a worldview of wisdom. 00:26:54.960 --> 00:27:03.200 A worldview where God is at work top-down, tying all things together in accordance with his order and purpose and design. 00:27:04.240 --> 00:27:06.799 It doesn't mean that everything in creation makes sense to us. 00:27:06.960 --> 00:27:12.000 A whole other sermon would be how evil and suffering can exist in this ordered universe. 00:27:12.079 --> 00:27:16.319 But what we do know is God is at work in our world, reordering the world. 00:27:16.480 --> 00:27:21.279 And one day we know he will restore all things to his intended design. 00:27:22.240 --> 00:27:30.880 See, where a philosopher like Jean-Paul Stark wants to conclude that existence precedes essence, but the burden of meaning is really on us. 00:27:31.039 --> 00:27:33.279 We determine for ourselves what's true. 00:27:33.599 --> 00:27:38.720 Proverbs wants to say that essence precedes existence. 00:27:39.200 --> 00:27:55.519 That purpose and order and design are divine characteristics that emanate from God's own person and infuse themselves into the world around us, to our great joy and delight and flourishing. 00:27:56.400 --> 00:28:02.079 Pursuing wisdom's invitation is pursuing truth and life. 00:28:03.759 --> 00:28:08.880 So where can we find this truth on which wisdom is predicated? 00:28:09.039 --> 00:28:10.000 Where do we go? 00:28:10.240 --> 00:28:17.599 If this is God's work and the creation that He's made, then we'd be foolish to think we can kind of go bottom up, can't we? 00:28:18.400 --> 00:28:21.680 Build a ladder, as it were, to ascend to God's knowledge. 00:28:21.920 --> 00:28:24.240 How do we discover true wisdom? 00:28:24.720 --> 00:28:26.400 Here's the Bible's answer. 00:28:26.799 --> 00:28:29.839 What if the essence of all things? 00:28:30.720 --> 00:28:44.400 The purpose, the word, the Hogas, the wisdom of God stepped himself into creation, eternally pre-existing wisdom, fathered and begotten by God Almighty. 00:28:44.640 --> 00:28:49.279 When we read John chapter 1, we've seen his glory. 00:28:49.599 --> 00:28:52.960 Glory is the only Son from the Father. 00:28:53.519 --> 00:28:57.039 Wisdom is eternally preeminent, unsurpassed. 00:28:57.440 --> 00:29:00.160 The word is with God, and the word was God. 00:29:00.400 --> 00:29:02.720 It doesn't get more unsurpassed than that. 00:29:04.160 --> 00:29:11.599 Or, as Paul puts it in Colossians chapter 1, he writes, Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 00:29:11.839 --> 00:29:16.720 He is in the being, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 00:29:17.680 --> 00:29:20.079 Wisdom structures the world we live in. 00:29:20.559 --> 00:29:22.480 Wisdom gives creation as order. 00:29:22.640 --> 00:29:27.279 Without the word, writes John, was not anything made that was made. 00:29:27.839 --> 00:29:32.240 Wisdom finally is cause for celebration and joy and rejoicing. 00:29:32.480 --> 00:29:35.279 Wisdom is the cause for our wonder and awe. 00:29:35.519 --> 00:29:40.160 From his fullness we have received grace upon grace. 00:29:40.400 --> 00:29:47.759 And Jesus later says in the Gospel of John that I have come, that you may have life and life abundantly. 00:29:48.799 --> 00:29:51.119 What greater cause for rejoicing is that? 00:29:52.079 --> 00:29:55.119 Wisdom is knowing what's true. 00:29:55.519 --> 00:29:59.519 Knowing truth not merely as a principle, but as a person. 00:30:00.160 --> 00:30:04.880 I am the way, the truth, and the life says Jesus. 00:30:05.279 --> 00:30:10.640 So ultimately the question that Proverbs chapter 8 prompts is: do you know this person? 00:30:11.440 --> 00:30:18.000 Do you know this person who says, I have come from God, I structure the world, and I call you to myself. 00:30:18.559 --> 00:30:20.559 This is the person of Jesus. 00:30:21.119 --> 00:30:30.000 He unites us to God through his cross and resurrection and brings to us all the wisdom of God which leads to life and flourishing. 00:30:30.400 --> 00:30:34.640 But friends, knowing Jesus is not a one and done box to check. 00:30:34.799 --> 00:30:44.640 Like a pursuit of wisdom, it is a lifelong endeavor, going ever deeper into who God reveals himself to be in Christ. 00:30:45.119 --> 00:30:50.000 A wise person knows what's true and how that truth is lived out. 00:30:50.160 --> 00:30:52.319 This is the worldview of Proverbs. 00:30:53.119 --> 00:30:57.839 The universe is infused with purpose and meaning and order. 00:30:58.240 --> 00:30:59.759 So where does wisdom lie? 00:31:00.799 --> 00:31:08.400 Determining what's true for ourselves, we're discovering God's truth and God's world. 00:31:09.119 --> 00:31:13.279 So the wise person knows what's true and how truth is looked out. 00:31:14.480 --> 00:31:18.400 So, at the end of the day, where do that? 00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:21.440 I did it my way. 00:31:25.440 --> 00:31:27.839 Speak, O Lord, and open you our minds. 00:31:28.240 --> 00:31:31.920 Help us grasp the heights of your hands for us. 00:31:32.720 --> 00:31:35.039 True the sun change from the dawn of time. 00:31:35.839 --> 00:31:38.400 That will echo down through time. 00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:42.400 Proverb says, You're the only way to worship. 00:31:53.279 --> 00:31:54.880 Thank you for listening today. 00:31:55.039 --> 00:32:00.480 We follow a generous God who calls us to give willfully, cheerfully, and sacrificially towards gospel ministry. 00:32:00.880 --> 00:32:06.960 New song is 100% funded by the generous giving of those who worship and journey with us. 00:32:07.200 --> 00:32:12.880 If you'd like to learn more about how to give towards Newsong's ministry, you can do just that at newsongperry. 00:32:14.880 --> 00:32:16.960 God bless you keep you today and every day.