Summer in Proverbs | The Fear of the Lord`

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey, I'm Kevin. Thanks for listening to our message. We strive each week to bring you relevant, practical, biblical teaching that meets you where you are. Hope you enjoy the message.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

And uh I remember as a child watching my parents worship. Uh my dad get choked up on certain songs, my grandparents in worship. And it makes a big difference for your children to watch you worship. And uh so that's a powerful thing to see. Uh children, you are dismissed. We're we're shifting the schedule around a little bit today in the order. Um, but don't get nervous, you're not gonna have them for an hour and a half. Uh, leaders, leaders as you go, Laura. I promise. Uh Laura's an elder, so I have to watch my uh the sermon, the sermon's a little, the sermon's a little shorter. And uh, oh, I thought he was just coming to give me a hug. That's all right. Uh we're gonna talk. Elliot, Elliot and I want to talk, uh, we're gonna do an interview uh pretty soon about not today, not today, but he saw a movie that impacted his life and he wants to tell you about it. And I'd like to question him and talk to him a little bit about it. Um today we I don't know if I finished my last sentence. They're gone. I'm not gonna be very long. Just a warning out back there. Um and then at the end of the service, we're gonna spend a little bit of time in uh in worship as well. I am really excited about this sermon uh series. I have never done a series in Proverbs. Proverbs is 31 chapters. So if you wanted to take uh one day a month, as a matter of fact, I had a friend of mine that read a chapter of Proverbs uh on the first day, like on if it was it was February 15th, he would read the 15th Proverb. And uh and he did that for years and years. Is that my phone? Oh, Siri is talking to me. Stop listening, Siri. Yeah, bless, bless her heart. She needs to get saved. She needs to get saved, she doesn't know she don't talk in church. Um but I'm excited about this uh series of Proverbs. I just uh there's so much. Um in uh, and obviously we're not gonna be able to uh I mean it would take forever to uh to walk to walk through, and we're not gonna take every little statement um like Proverbs chapter one is filled with stuff, but we're gonna really zero in on uh one verse in uh in Proverbs one. But there is there is something in Proverbs for everybody, and it is so, so relevant. Um, so I'm excited about uh doing that. And I'm glad you're here today. This was a Sunday that I thought, ooh, this is gonna be a really this is gonna be really scary because we have uh a wedding in the church today, how the Haug family. Uh Aunt Catherine's getting married, and that takes out like a lot of that section over there. And um, and so they have an outdoor wedding uh today at five o'clock. It's supposed to be absolutely beautiful. Um, and uh we're excited about uh being a part of that and um for Catherine and for Chad and Carolina and all of their family. Um and it's good to have the it's good to see so many of uh of the students too. Uh you guys have been uh out and about and I know busy with school stuff, and so it's good to see you guys. Uh I I shot a picture of you earlier and texted to Kayla, who's doing makeup right now uh and hair for the wedding, and said, Hey, the gang's all here today, so it's good to see you. Um the uh um more people, more people are drawn to the beauty of Christ than rules or religion. Not too many people these days want to follow just a bunch of rules and regulations. But when people see the beauty of Christ, the majesty of God, the power of God, people are drawn to that. And I think one of the reasons is rules are never enough. We will never have enough legislation in our country for everything to be fair, it'll never happen. We'll never have enough laws in our country for everything to be moral. There will never be enough laws to finally make everyone happy. No one will ever be satisfied and fulfilled by rules and regulations. Like, I am sure at one time HOAs were a good idea. But I don't know of anybody who loves HOAs, anybody who loves HOAs anymore. Even people who serve on the boards of HOAs are like frustrated, right? What are the what are the keys to fulfillment and being satisfied in life? I mean, if we can't write enough laws for us to be happy, what are we supposed to do? If if we if it's impossible to earn enough money to make us happy, what do we what do we really need? Elon Musk became the last or the first trillionaire on Friday. A human being, a trillionaire. But I've read his biography and he's not happy. If it's impossible to find this fulfillment, if if we're not able to select only perfect people to be in our family, if we're not able to select only perfect friends, what's the use of having any kind of relationship? I mean, if it's not the responsibility of your spouse to make you happy and fulfilled, whose responsibility is it? It reminds me of the song, What the World Needs Now is no wisdom, wisdom. The world, it has love, but what we are lacking in our world is wisdom. Wisdom. And for for uh our text today, it's Proverbs chapter one, one through seven. But I'm gonna read it from the message, uh, Eugene Peterson's trans translation. And um uh and we're gonna come back to the NIV translation in verse seven after this. But here's, and is it is this on the screen, guys? I didn't even ask you. Okay, let's go ahead and look at this. This is uh from the message. These are the wise sayings of Solomon, David's son, Israel's king. These are written down so we'll know how to live well and right, and to understand what life means and where it's going. These are a manual for living, for learning what's right and just and fair, to teach the inexperienced the ropes and give our young people a grasp on reality. There's something here also for seasoned men and women, still a thing or two for the experienced to learn. There's fresh wisdom to probe and penetrate the rhymes and reasons of wise men and women. This is actually verse seven. Start with God. The first step in learning is bowing down to God. Only fools thumb their noses at such wisdom and learning. I love that. Start with God. Um uh two weeks ago, I guess, was our the National Convention of the Church of God. And uh one of the things that during the National Convention of the Church of God, or we call it camp meeting, um, the General Assembly meets. And in the Church of God, the General Assembly is made up of uh credentialed ministers, and there's you know several thousand of us in the church of God. And if you were here last week for my 40th anniversary, you heard how um I serve in leadership in in the General Assembly. Right now I'm co-leading a uh pretty pretty big committee on rewriting structure and stuff. And uh so I was on the stage at the General Assembly meeting, and um along with six or seven other uh men and women, and uh we have women in leadership. That's another hot topic right now, isn't it? After this week, uh, but we have women uh pastors, uh praise God for that, women ministers. And um, so uh after after I did my presentation and my committee, they had a presentation and we voted on something and it passed, and we were all happy. And I had walked off the stage, and two younger ministers from Illinois came up to me and they said, they said, So, how do you get to be in leadership at the national level? Like I want to be in leadership, and I said, Well, you don't pursue it, first of all. That's one that's one of the first things, don't pursue it. And he said, Well, it looks to me like if to be in leadership in the church of God, you have to either be bald or losing your hair. And I chuckled under my breath. Um, and while part of that is true, part of it is is there's a there's a there's experience brings wisdom. And and part of part of this whole how do you how do you accomplish certain things in life? What what we really need to pursue is is wisdom. And where does that start? How do you how do you get wisdom? Well, according to Proverbs 1, Solomon writing says this start with God. That's where wisdom starts. You start with God. You see, knowing knowing the rules that are in the Bible, knowing the Ten Commandments of God, knowing what you should do and what you shouldn't do, that only will get you so far. The real change in life comes when we learn to, as Solomon says in verse 7, fear the Lord. Fear the Lord. Um the verse seven says this. Go ahead and put that up on the screen. Line A, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And then line B, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. I want you to leave that on the screen for a little bit. What is the fear of the Lord? What does that mean? What does it mean? Are we supposed to like tremble when we think of God? This is written in Hebrew poetry. Let me look turn around, look at that. The fear of the Lord is beginning away. Yes. Um, this is written in Hebrew poetry. And in Hebrew poetry, they you you state line A, and then line B clarifies line A. So the key to understanding the fear of the Lord is the beginning of the wisdom. The key to understanding that is letting line B define line A. That's how that's Hebrew poetry uh and how that's how uh that's how it was written. Fools, it says, fools despise wisdom and instruction. The word despise jumped out at me this week as I was looking at it. It's an emotional word. It's not a word that we use often, at least, at least in my vocabulary, I don't. The word despise is filled with disgust and contempt. It's the uh despise has this idea of arrogance with it, of being associated with such nonsense. It's being too smart or or too good for you. Um if if you were if you were to say to me, when we go on vacation, we love staying at Motel Six. I, in my arrogance, might say, I despise Motel Six. I stay at the Hilton. You know, it's that kind of Lisa and I love Denny's for breakfast. Now, I know some of you are like, if I'm going to breakfast, I am not going to Denny's. I there is no way I'm going to Denny's. Now, we go for a couple of reasons. We we we love the waitress. Um, her name is Consuela. If you ever go, ask for Consuela. We love the prices, and we get AARP discounts. Right? And Lisa likes that. Lisa, Lisa likes Denny's. And so, happy wife, happy life, and so we like, we like to go to Denny's. But some of you might despise going to Denny's. Like if you were gonna, if you were gonna go to breakfast, you you would not go, you would go to first watch. How many, how many, anybody ever been to first watch? Oh, I love first watch. I love their their juices, their all that. Oh my gosh, I love it. But but for those of us who are snobs who like first watch, we might look at somebody, we might look at somebody who goes to Denny's and with that we despise that. So, what then is the fear of the Lord? The fear of the Lord is not, oh no, I'm in so much trouble. Here it comes, God's coming, I need to be afraid. It's not how Adam and Eve responded to God coming back into the garden and saying, Adam, where are you? And they were hiding from God. That was an unhealthy fear of God. The fear of the Lord is your posture towards God. It's your openness to God, it's your eagerness to please God, it's it's your humility to receive from God, and it's how you can love and obey Him more. It's it's when you take a walk by yourself and and you just talk with Jesus. It's it's when maybe you can't sleep at night and you don't feel like watching TV, and you're maybe laying in bed or you're sitting in your favorite chair, and you've got a fireplace on, and it's just you and Jesus. And you just talk. It's your posture towards him. It's uh some of you will remember that old song, have a little talk with Jesus. You can have a little talk with Jesus, you can tell him all about your troubles, he will hear your faintest cry, and he will answer by and by. So when you feel a little fire is burning, you can get a little prayer wheel turning. Just have a little talk with Jesus, it'll make it right. Yeah. That's the fear of the Lord. It's it's knowing that you can turn to God. It's it's when you are alone and you're worshiping Him and you don't care how loud or how bad you sing. It's when you come to church and you don't worry about if someone spoke to you or smiled at you or if they happen to sing your favorite song that day. It's when you join with others and you just celebrate and love Jesus with all your heart and your soul and your mind. That's the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord as the beginning of wisdom is not being afraid of God, it's realizing that He's the creator and you are not. That He is God and you don't have to be. Not better or more mature or more experienced or not good enough. The flip side of that. The fear of the Lord is just seeing yourself as a child of God, not not better, not it, it kind of pastors, pastors can some kind have sometimes have an arrogance about them, um, not over breakfast or Hilton hotels. Well, I guess they could, but they they can also have a an arrogance of them because they've been to seminary or they've been to school, or they they feel like because they can you know pronounce a Greek word or or give a Hebrew word a guttural sound, and we know more than other people and stuff. And that's not the fear of the Lord, that's filled with arrogance and pride. The fear of the Lord is a pastor or an elder of the church or a teacher of the word or whatever. We're we're just one family. There are some of you in areas of your life that are so much more mature than I am. We're just a family, we're a child of God. You you probably, I mean, I don't handle traffic very well. And I've been a crit I've been a Christian for 50 years, and I still have bad words come into my mind. Does he too? Oh, we got wives pointing to their husbands, him too, him too. See, there's some of you, but some of you can drive, you don't even you don't even think about that. You just you just pray for the people. You see, it the fear of the Lord is recognizing who we all are in God. I mean, okay, I followed Christ for 50 years. Do you think that's really gonna get me closer to Jesus in heaven?

unknown 20:02

No.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

If if nothing else, I would be the one appropriately would be the one in the back saying, saying, you go first so you can gaze upon his beauty. So that that would be maturity. The idea that, the idea that that I'm more mature than they are, and uh it's it's really the fear of the Lord, it's the seeing each other as children of God. We begin our journey with Christ with this wonderful fear of God. That's where we start. A new Christian might say, Well, what should I do as a new Christian? What should I what should I be doing? And and I sometimes I would immediately say, Well, you should get a Bible and you should start reading the Gospel of John. That's not bad advice. But I think after this week, I would I would change that a little bit, and I would say, let's just get to know God. Let's let's start with just knowing God, knowing who you are in Christ. Now you might say, Well, that's pretty simple. This is a short sermon, let's let's go. That makes sense. Well, we're talking about wisdom, and at this point in the sermon, I thought, who could I quote about wisdom? And and uh I decided to quote Yoda. Finished, we are not, more remains. Because this idea of the gaining wisdom is not what our world teaches us. So I don't want you to come in and just receive the words and say, hey, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, the beginning of wisdom. It's that's that's where it all begins. Just start with God. Okay, thank you, Pastor. Uh, that was really nice. Well, you're gonna walk out of here and You're going to live under another message. And that other message is if you want to succeed, you better work hard. But Solomon says if you want knowledge and success and healthy relationships and a good marriage, and if you want strong finances, if you want good health, it begins with your posture towards God. The whole book of Proverbs is going to be focusing on this. This verse seven is the key verse in understanding all of Proverbs because we're going to get all of these statements, these little sometimes they're a little bit longer, but like train up a child in the way he should go, and when they are old, they will not depart. Period. And we're going to look at that. Well, where does that begin? It begins back here with understanding our posture towards God. It's the beginning. Knowledge, wisdom, the keys to life begins with how we approach the creator of life. It's the beginning. No one would be able to do algebra if you don't learn two plus two equals four. No one would be able to read Shakespeare if you don't begin with see, spot, run. You see, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. So before we grow in our faith, before we grow in our knowledge, before we grow in our understanding, where does it all begin? It begins with having Christ in the proper place. Before you obtain the best in life that God has for you, you have to recognize that He is great, that He is creator, that He holds our future. I was talking to my grandson who is over there, and he was telling me that when astronauts go up into space, when they come back, they're different. And he saw it on YouTube, so it's true. Why is it? Because I think when you leave this world in a spaceship and you go up in space and you look back onto this celestial ball of beautiful color and understand how does this all take place? You come back with an awe. You come back with an idea that there is a creator in life. There's someone that holds our future. There's someone that holds tomorrow. There is an old kid song. I don't know if you guys sing this song. I was asking Lisa about it earlier this week. There used to be a song that our kids sang when they were little. There's nothing my God cannot do. That's teaching the kids the fear of the Lord. My God is so great, so strong and so mighty, there's nothing my God cannot do. Or for us, maybe it would be because he lives, I can face tomorrow. Because he lives, all my fear is gone. Because I know he holds the future and life is worth the living just because he lives. You see, in order to get there, we have to reject the fool within us. In order to gain the wisdom of God, we have to reject the fool that lives within us. Self. A transformed life is not brought about by following all the rules or recognizing that success comes from what we make of it, or straining and straining to live like Jesus. A transformed life is when you find fulfillment in Christ. And it's not about how hard you try, it's the process of surrendering your will, your king will to King Jesus. Because all of us are born with a king will. Please me. I mean, a child's first words usually are mine. We live to please ourselves. It's something that's inside of us. But in order to gain the wisdom of God, it's when we surrender to King Jesus. We surrender our will to King Jesus. Wise people are humble and revere God and lovingly please Him. So how do you get there? In this journey through Proverbs, how do we how do we focus in on wisdom and get there? I want to do an exercise with you, and the worship team can come on up. If you're comfortable with this, I want you to close your eyes. And uh I uh I want you to I want you to think of the cross. I because I think looking at Jesus and looking to him on the cross is one of the ways that we can find wisdom. So I want you just to close your eyes. And I I want you to see a wise man hanging on the cross. And I want you to see Jesus dying in the place. I'm gonna use this word, and it may make some of you uncomfortable. You may despise this word. He's dying in the place of fools like us because he loves us so much. You may not understand that. You may not you may not you may not grasp it. I tell you, I have trouble grasping why Jesus would go to the cross for me. You may even despise the message. But I want you to know he doesn't despise you. He willingly is on the cross for me and you. And he does it by humbling himself. The King of Kings and the Lord of Lords humbles himself and becomes a servant. He humbles himself for us. How do we find wisdom? We look at the cross. Don't look at others. Don't even look at yourself. I just want you to look at the cross. Wonderful cross. I want you to look at what Jesus did for me and you. And the more you look at the cross, your pride begins to melt away. You know, they used to ask a question years ago a lot in the church. They'd say, if you died tonight and you were to stand before Jesus, and he would say, Why should I let you into my heaven? What would you say? I want you to I want you to hear me really good. Your eyes closed, you're focused on Jesus on the cross. And if God said, What would you say? Here's your answer. You just point to the cross. You just point to the cross and you say, He's the reason. He's the reason. Now why should I let you into heaven? See, our first reaction is to start giving you a list of all the good things we did. We paid our taxes, we raised our children. We took care of our health, we paid our bills. We came to church. We supported the church, we loved missions. Whatever your answer would be, it that's not that's not the answer. Why should I let you into heaven? Let your pride melt away of anything and everything you think that you have done, and just point to Jesus and say, He's the reason. He's the reason. The fear of the Lord, the posture we have towards God, that's where wisdom starts. As we continue through this sermon series, we're gonna see a lot of other steps, but it it all begins right here. What's my posture towards God? That's why I wanted to spend some time just worshiping him. In just a minute, I'll have you stand and there'll be a worship, there'll be a prayer team at the back of the sanctuary if you want someone to pray with you. There's communion in the back of the sanctuary as well, if you'd like to take communion. Maybe you just want to sit in silence and just think about who Jesus is. Maybe you want to stand and lift your hands higher than they've ever been lifted before. Just posturing yourself before God. Maybe some of you will kneel. Just want to worship him and put him in the place of King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He's there. I want to just recognize that today. Oh God, I thank you for our time of worship today, our hour that we've spent together. But as we posture ourselves as your children, no one greater than the other, no one less than the other, just humble children of God, coming before you with everything that we have, with our lives, with our voices, with our riches, everything that we have. God, we lay them before you. Oh Lord, we do seek wisdom. We seek wisdom because we know it leads to healthy things, healthy relationships, healthy marriages, healthy finances. It helps us smooth out rough spots in life. But in order to get there, we want to just start with God, with our position, with our posture towards you. As your humble servants, we worship you, Almighty God. There is no one like you. In Jesus' name, we pray.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

Thanks for joining us at church this week. And a special thanks to all those who continue to support our mission through your generosity. You too can support our mission to reach, grow, and serve our community by giving on the website or through the app. To make sure you never miss out on a message, be sure to subscribe and don't forget to hit that share button to spread the word. Have a great week.