Summer in Proverbs | An Open Door

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 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.

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All right. Um, man, it's so good to be with you. I want to tell you, uh, I was supposed to be gone next Sunday, and uh we're in this study of Proverbs, and I'm gonna take some time off. Um, and all of my siblings are coming to the area, and we're gonna spend some time in Chicago. And as I was thinking this week, and I hadn't asked anybody to speak, um, I thought of my brother. My my brother uh is um he has a he has a PhD in um emotion, he has a PhD in leadership, but his dissertation was in wisdom and emotional intelligence and how how emotional intelligence and wisdom come together, and a lot of his thesis came out of the book of Proverbs and uh as well as Ecclesiastes. And so with Scott being in the area, um I I decided to uh ask him if he would come and I'm gonna interview him next Sunday. So it's not gonna be a sermon, um, but I'm gonna interview him on the subject of wisdom and um emotional intelligence. It it is what it you don't want to miss it. Um I don't want to say too many good things about my brother because you know, he's my brother. Uh my older brother, and I don't, you know, yeah, you know, I think he's annoying most of the time. But next Sunday, next Sunday, you don't want to miss it. Um, my brother, he's Scott knows his stuff when it comes to emotional intelligence and wisdom and how those are spiritual things and how they fit together. So we'll we'll talk about all kinds of things next Sunday that come out of wisdom um uh the more you gain. Today we're in Proverbs chapter two, and uh Proverbs chapter two gives us this open door um of uh an offering that if you want, if you want to grow in wisdom, if you want to grow in Christ, Proverbs two tells us how to move forward. If you want to grow closer to God, how do you do that? Proverbs two tells us how. Um, but you have to do what it says. You there's an open door for us to have all this life that God wants to have for us, but you gotta go through the door. You gotta walk through the door. It just doesn't automatically happen. So if I were if I were to tell you uh today that um I am giving you your dream house, at the end of the service, I'm gonna give you the keys to your dream house. And what whatever that would be, maybe uh for Lisa, for Lisa and me, our dream house is not much different than maybe your dream house. Maybe your dream house has a pool or uh a hot tub, or maybe your dream house is out in the country somewhere where you have no neighbors. Maybe your dream house has uh is on a lake and and you have a pontoon boat with on a with a deck. How many bedrooms would your dream house have? It's it's up to you. Whatever you want your dream house to be, I'm going to give that to you. The only thing you have to do is you have to you have to come inside. You have to you have to come inside your dream house. And when you come inside your dream house, you get the keys. You know, that's the offering of God to us this morning when it talks about a dream life. You want a dream life, this is what you have to do. But yet some of us will walk out and say, you know, I'm not, I don't want to do that. And God is saying, but I have this, I have this wonderful life for you. This this life for you that I I mean, I have there's so much richness in this life, and I don't want you to miss it, but here's what you have to do. And some of us will be like, I really don't want to do that. That kind of sounds legalistic, Eric. I mean, it it's not really it's not, you're not really giving me my dream house if you're saying I have to come inside. That sounds legalistic. It sounds like works to me, and I just really would prefer that that I don't live a legalistic lifestyle. You you you say this this house that you want to give me, it's mine, but you're making me do something for it. And that doesn't sound like it's free. You're you're just kind of a legalistic, mean man. Let's look at Proverbs chapter two, verses one. We're just gonna walk through the text for the message, the whole message. So if you have your Bibles with you, just keep your Bibles open. Verse one, my son. Note that word, circles the word son. My son. If you accept my words, you might want to circle the word if too. Every time the word if in scripture, you just circle that. That's a that is a great study. If you if you find the word if in scripture, just circle it because that's a great study waiting to be had. My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you. And if you turn your ear to wisdom and you apply your heart to understand, indeed, my son, if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as silver and search for it as for hidden treasure. Let me just pause there. Solomon is saying to his to his son, son, listen, listen, if you do these things, this is what you're gonna get. But you have to do these things. You you can't, these things are just not gonna happen for you. You have to do these things. That's not legalism. Solomon saying, here's this gift, and all you have to do is pay attention. Notice the affection that he starts chapter two with. He says, My son. My son. This is a father talking to his son. And he and what father doesn't want for his son or for his daughter the best life? What father doesn't want for his son or daughter to have success and good relationships and happiness and fulfillment and purpose? Every father wants that for their children. I want my children to suffer less than I suffered. And the balance is that is letting them learn their lessons of life and rescuing. It's because I want so much for my kids and I want so much for my grandkids, I I'm willing to do anything I can. There's affection there that a father has for a son or a daughter. And Solomon is saying, My son, here's this here's this gift for you. And all you have to do is pay attention. This is not gonna happen by chance. You just don't automatically end up with a great life. You just don't do that. That's life isn't like that. Life is too hard. You you've got to pay attention to this. And then he says, I want you to accept my words, and I want you to store up what I am telling you. I want you to listen closely, son, and I want you to apply what I'm telling you. I want I want you to hear what I'm saying to you, son, because I love you. If you ask for understanding and for clarity, and if you search for this gift that that I want to give you, this life that I want you to have, this this thing that has such tremendous value, it's like having silver and gold in your hands. If you search for this, if you do these things, oh my son, my daughter, you you are in for such a life. Let's look at verse five. If you do these things, then that's the other word, so it's an if-then statement. If you do these things, here's what you're gonna get. Then you will understand the fear of the Lord. We talked about the fear of the Lord last week when when it we we unpacked this idea, the fear of the Lord is this posture that we have before God. This this feeling of oh. Then you will understand the fear of the Lord, and you'll find knowledge of God. For the Lord, when you seek it, the Lord gives wisdom. From his mouth comes knowledge and understanding. God holds success in store for the upright. He God is is a shield to those who to those who walk is in blameless, is is blameless. Your walk is blameless. He he holds you, he protects you. He guards the course, your path. He he guards the pathway of the just and protects the way of his faithful one. If if you do these things, this is what you receive. You you receive wisdom and you receive knowledge because God speaks it. He he will hold the He will hold your life, suc, He will hold your life, the success of your life, He'll hold that in your hand, His hand. He will protect you, He will, He will be around you when you walk in holiness and righteousness. Why? Because God's gonna be with you. If if you do these things, if you listen to His ways, if you if you seek His wisdom, why are things gonna go well for you? Because God's gonna be with you, He's gonna protect you, just like a father would a son, just like a father would a daughter. Notice that God is not saying here, if you do this, I will love you more. God loves you. No matter what, God loves you. If if you walk out of here and do these things, he loves you. If you walk out of here and do your own thing, he loves you. Just like when my daughters obeyed me, I love them, but when they disobeyed me, I love them too. It didn't turn my love off. I made of I may not have liked them all the time, right? But I we never stop loving. Always. God is saying, if you seek me, then you will find me because I'm not hiding from you. My uncle, who he's gone to be with the Lord now, I uh um he was talking to me about uh a family member, and I had recently talked to this family member, it was a cousin, and I said to my uncle, I said, ma'am, I just think we just have to keep praying for him because he's far from God. And uh my uncle, my uncle, who he was not a preacher, he'd sold insurance, walked with the Lord for 60, 70 years. He looked at me, the preacher, and he says, He's not far from God. I said, Yeah, yeah, Uncle Russ, he's he's he's living pretty far from God. He goes, Oh no, he's not. God's right there. God, God is he's not far from God. Well, well, we just need to pray that he finds God. No, no, God's not lost. I was like, I was like, Yeah, I'm gonna kick you in the shins if you know something. I'm ordained. If you seek him, you will find him. Because he's not hiding from you. You ever felt like God was far away? I have. I mean, I've prayed and I've wondered, man, if I shouted the prayer, would it get to him? He's right there. He's not far away, he's not hiding. You see, actually, the Bible, the Bible is God's mouthpiece to us today. Oh, he speaks to us in in different ways through through beauty and creation. And and to me, when I woke up and I saw the weather today, like it's supposed to rain. It's supposed to rain in about an hour. And it's supposed to rain all afternoon. Now, some of you may be, but that is my gift on Father's Day. Do you know what it's like to take a nap on Sunday afternoon when it's raining? Man, God spoke to me. He said, I love you, Eric. I love you, Eric. You're gonna take a good nap today. You know, um, this is God's mouthpiece to us. And and this is why what many of us have committed to reading it through this year. We're we're reading the Bible through. So some of you are on different uh journeys in that, and maybe you're just studying one particular book this year. It it does. This is God's word, and I want you to know as a church, as your pastor, I believe it is the authoritative word of God. I believe it is inspired. I believe it is God breathed. Yes, I know it was written by man, but it was inspired by God. That's why I'm doing a podcast. Julie and I are sharing it, and we're gonna share it a little bit more this summer as I take some time off. But uh, we do a podcast every single Friday. A podcast starts. And by the end of this year, we will have 52 podcasts, Lord willing, that we will have walked through the entire Bible together. I know. Yeah. I I I just don't want to, I don't want you to come to church and we talk about the Bible. I want us to be in the Bible. Very few times, very few times will I will I do a series or preach a sermon that is not centered around a text. There are a lot of there's a lot of ways to preach, but my bias is we preach a text, and out of that text comes the sermon. I don't go get an idea and find a text to match my idea. To me, that's lazy preaching. You start with a text and then you build the message up. I want you to know this, I want you to confidently come in here on a Sunday morning and know that whoever is standing behind this pulpit is has spent time in the text. You sometimes say, well, your sermons are long. You should see how long it is on Wednesday. Because I want to pour into this text, I want to get so much out of this text. We work hard at being a Bible church. This is God's word, and in it are the keys to everything we need to know about life. Is there understanding? Yes. Yes, there's deep understanding. Let's go on, verse nine. Again, those first, those first few verses. If you do these things, verse nine, then you will understand what is right and just and fair. You'll understand every good path. For wisdom will enter your heart, knowledge will be pleasant to your soul, discretion will protect you, understanding will guard you. Solomon is saying, I you're gonna gain understanding. If you want to be a better father, if you want to be a better husband, if you want a better marriage, if you want to get out of debt, it's all here. You just just have to you just have to listen. If you want to know how much time to spend on your phone, it's here. So it doesn't say how much time. But if a phone becomes your God, that's not good. If you're spending more time, if your if your three-year-old granddaughter named Kellen sits across from you at Denny's when you take her to breakfast, and she says, Papa, put your phone down. You know you've been on the phone too much. Who said amen? Did you? Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's in there. You don't have to come to church and have me beat you down to a pulp with all this guilt and pressure. You you don't need me, you you don't need me to give you the rules of life. We just need to study it together. And just just accept that as God's word. If it goes against culture, it goes against culture. If it if it convicts me of spending too much time on the phone, on my phone, or emails, or or I mean, there's nothing, there's nothing to say that I have to answer every email within 30 seconds. My age group answers emails. Uh now there's an age group that doesn't even check their emails, they do texting. And I don't know what the next age group's gonna do. But I'm trying to keep up with all the culture, and I uh Lisa and I I I I uh uh I recently uh traded cars and uh I I got this car, and it was actually it's a smaller car. We were tired of the big car, and um uh I'm not I'm putting less miles on them, and so I'm in my car a little bit less than I was before I started here, and and uh this car uh it was I mean it's actually a down, it's actually a downgrade, and uh but it drives by itself. I isn't that something it's a Hyundai Tucson, and and it if I hit cruise and I tell it where it goes, it it goes that fast, but if there's a car that's coming up, it slows down, it steers by itself. Like if I if it gets a little bit uncomfortable by itself, it says, please grab the steering wheel. So I just touch it and then I let go of it again. I drove to Peoria. I I mean we're like one car away or two cars away from saying, go to Peoria, and it takes you to Peoria. Right? I mean, that that's the technology is just this this car is this car is amazing. We were driving, we were driving to Anderson a few weeks ago, and on the way to Anderson, it told me to stop and get a coffee. I couldn't believe it. Your car does that too. It's like it's like you've been driving for two and a half hours. Please stop and get a cup of coffee. And I was like, how did it even know I like coffee? I mean, why didn't it say tea? I don't know. It's it's America, I guess. I don't know. But you know, it's just, and I said I say all that to say we can be so captivated by the culture and by the ways of the world that we can get drawn into it and we can lose the simplicity of just honesty, and we can lose the simplicity of paying our bills, and we can lose the simplicity of just loving my wife. We can we can lose the keys that God's word gives us, and we can chase after more. And this is going to get into that in just a minute. Um, so we understand all these all these great things. What do you need for all these things to happen in your life? Solomon says three things he says, a new heart, new character, an awakening of all that God wants to do in your life. I don't, it doesn't matter how old you here are today or how experienced you are in life, God wants to To do things in your life. We need a new heart, we need new character, and we need an awakening of everything that God wants to do in your life. God is saying, if you seek me, wisdom will come to your heart and knowledge will be in your soul. Wise people, wise people do not say, Well, I don't want to do that. I don't want to spend time in God's word. I don't want to read it. Wise people don't say that. Wise people say, wise people say, you mean, you mean if I pour myself into God's word, I'm gonna I'm gonna receive some of these things? Yes. Wise people say, then tell me more. Tell me more. Wise people say, if I don't, if you know, if I'm not understanding God's word very much, I'm gonna get in a small group so I can understand it more. Or I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna talk to my pastor and see if he can if if he can help me understand some things more. Jesus said, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. What do you have to do for satisfaction? Hunger and thirst after righteousness. I wasn't the best college student. I had no idea what I was actually experiencing when I went to college. It's just a thing to do when you graduated from high school back in 1982. I was just trying to check it off my list. Graduate from high school, you go to college, you get a girlfriend, you graduate, get a job. Hope someday I could afford to drive a black BMW. That's my dream. And I look back at that, and it's pretty shallow. Pretty shallow for a 19-year-old. Two years ago, or two weeks ago, I was on the campus of Anderson University, where Lisa and I both attended college and met. As I was walking around the campus that week, I thought of all the teachers that that I had, the professors that I had, the even the administrators that I was around, and how fortunate I was to be around these great minds and leaders of the church, and I missed it. As I was walking through the campus, I just I couldn't believe all the opportunities I missed to hang around and get to know some of these professors better. I was more, I was more taken by intramural sports. While I was there and during that week, I had a message to write for Sunday. And so I spent time in the library writing a message. And I sat there at one of the library tables. I I just looked around and I couldn't believe that I spent four years on this campus. Today, at 62, I can't have enough books. I'm ordering books almost every week from Amazon. Forty years ago, I went into the library to look something up and to get out of that place as fast as I could. I had a joke my senior year because I had a class that I had to spend a lot of time in the library, and I walked in my senior year and I said to one of my friends, so this is the library. I thought as I was writing the sermon, why didn't I spend more time here? Why didn't I realize the opportunities that I had? I was even paying a lot of money to have those opportunities. I was a fool. I didn't hunger and thirst after anything but a passing grade and get out of there. It wasn't until years later I'd graduated, gotten married, we'd moved to Mount Carmel, and then we moved here. Years later that I began to seek wisdom. It was years later when I realized that there's something more to this. It mostly happened in this room. It didn't look like this. It was paneling back then. Big red curtain back here. There was no wooden pews, wooden floor, red carpet. But it was happening in this room when I realized I want more. I mean, I was I was standing up in front of people every week, and I was teaching them everything I knew. And at the end of that day, I would go back and say, I don't know what I'm gonna talk about next Sunday because I just told them everything I know. And I'd have to go back and I'd have to learn something again, all fresh and new, and I'd come back on that next Sunday and I'd tell them everything I knew, and then I'd go back the next week and do the exact same thing. Finally, I just realized I got to have more. There was a man, I think the only people who would know him today were Stu and Gloria and Lisa. Name was Art Anderson. Art Anderson was a pastor in the community, huge influence in my life. He took me under his wings and he discipled me, and we prayed together every Friday morning, and we studied together, and he listened to me as a young pastor. He was experienced and much older than I was. He he most of the time, if he if he wasn't, if he didn't meet in my office on a Friday morning, he would call me over to his house and he would make breakfast for me. And we'd sit at his dining room table with his wife, Camilla. And it was while I spent more time with art, I realized I gotta have more. I'm not where I need to be. So I started I started seminary. And then I finished seminary and I went on to get an MBA. Because once I realized this thirst and hunger for more, I started, I started understanding all that was out there. With God's wisdom and soaking down into our hearts, I felt like I felt like I was I was gaining something, not just for the people that I was serving, but but more for me and understanding. Solomon is Solomon is the teacher. Solomon is taking uh this, and he's saying, wisdom will not only give you all of these things for a life that is that's that's better for you, the the God's purpose for your life, but this these things will also help you stand against temptation. It shifts there. Look at verse 12. I'm almost done. Wisdom will also, see, wisdom will help you, all those things we just talked about, but wisdom will also save you from the ways of wicked men. I love the words here. Wisdom will save you from wicked men, from men whose words are perverse, who have left the straight path to walk in dark ways. Wisdom will save you from these men who delight in doing wrong and rejoice in the perverseness of evil, whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways. What does wisdom protect us from? The ways of wicked men. What does that mean? It means that wisdom will protect you from, and I want you to listen close, manipulative and enticing voices of men and women that are not godly. I've man, I've seen this happen so many times, but let me tell you how how I experienced it just real quickly. When I first started getting into the Bible and realizing it was it was God's word, it's probably when I was more like in a as a high school. And I was I was living in this tension of of being a Christian and then going and living uh in in uh just just in just the world. And it would the insecure, I would be okay on Sunday, and I'd be like, and I'm gonna really live by God's word, I'm gonna really do what's right. And then I would go to school and and and the what I would say, the cool kids would wear me down, and my insecurities would pull me in to that to that gravitational pull because I was being received into the cool circle. That's what this is saying. Don't don't be pulled into that. Don't be pulled into that. I I recently heard a grown woman recently say that she goes to a neighborhood pool and she s uh and lays out in the sun and swims. And she said, when when I go, there is this cool section of where the women lay. It's it's it's it it's it's where I would say not the cool section, I would say it's the the mean girl section. These are grown women, by the way. These are these are not high school girls, these are grown women. And this lady's telling me that there's a there's a mean girl section. And she says, and I sit over here, and I was like, good for you. Good for you. Don't be drawn into the mean section. Don't be drawn into that. And I know now some of you are sitting there saying, Well, I don't, this doesn't really bother me. Yes, it does. We're it's all human nature. We we want to be loved and we want to be accepted by that in crowd. But my friends, don't be lured into that section or the perverted reasonings of men who look like they have it all together, but they're pulling you away from God. Don't sign up for the lure of man when it contradicts the word of God. I know most of us, no matter what age we are, we desire acceptance and love and to be known. But make sure it's people that will draw you closer to Christ. Make sure the lure of your intention, attention, doesn't pull you away from what God's word teaches. It's a horrible road to walk a path that God is not leading you on. It's a horrible road. It always disappoints. And finally, we see God's word will protect you from a second temptation, verse 16. Wisdom will save you from the adulterous woman, from the wayward woman with her seductive words, who has left the partner of her youth, she left her husband, and ignored the covenant that she made before God. Verse 18 Surely her house will lead you down to death and her path to the spirits of the dead. None who go to her return or attain the paths of life. Men who had perverse words and women who have seductive words, watch the lure of things in life that are not of God. These verses are warnings to us. This particularly is a warning to us against a one-night stand, which Solomon is specifically saying, there is no such thing as a one-night stand. It gets real complicated, real fast. The only thing to do if a woman speaks with seductive words to you, run. Run. I know every time a woman has spoken seductively to me. Well, wait a minute, that's never happened. These are words of wisdom that go very deep, protecting you. Don't mess around with this. This is a father speaking to a son, and he's saying, Don't mess around with this. Don't be lured into manipulative men's words or seductive women's words. He's saying, son, run from those things. Wisdom is more than just avoiding sin, though. Wisdom leads you to a beautiful life. Last verse, last words, verse 20. Thus you will walk in the ways of good and keep to the paths of righteousness. For the upright will live in the land. That's the focus, too. We're kind of circle that, live in the land. For the upright, that's what he's calling for. The upright will live in the land, and the blameless will remain in it, but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the unfaithful will be torn from it. The clue in Proverbs chapter 2 is we're looking for the land. The land is the place of God's blessing. Who wants to be in the land of God's blessings? I do. Who wants to be in the place of the good and the righteous and the upright? I do. I do. We want to abide in that land. Jesus said, If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. Here's my final words. Proverbs 2, God is saying, Come to me. Come to me, deal with me. I'm able to restore you from wherever you find your life today. I can restore past failures. I can defend your future. I will pour wisdom into your heart in ways that you've never known before. But you gotta come to me. I will give myself to you in all of my grace. My wisdom will enter your hearts. It will change your life in ways that you could ever imagine, never imagine. But you just, you gotta come to me. You gotta come to me. Let's pray. Jesus, there are people in in this room today that so deeply desire more of you in their life. It's such a simple invitation. Just go spend more time with Jesus. As I said to the kids today before we dismissed them, the the thing that their father wants more than anything is just to spend time with them. To know that they enjoy spending time with you. I notice as as my grandkids are getting older, they their friends are are pulling, are pulling them, and and the things of that interest them begin to pull them away as as they become more adult and they be they become spreading their own wings. The greatest joys in my life are when they curl up next to me or or or come up and stand next to me, or just want to ride with me. Just this idea of I'd I'd still like to spend some time with grandpa. Or that's that has to be somewhat how you feel when we just come before you and just want to hang out with you. Just be with you. God, just to just to know you more. There may be some in the room today, Lord, that that need to come to you for the first time. This is a This is a chapter in Proverbs that deals with the relationship between a father and a son. It could be a father and a daughter. I pray, Father, that if there's someone here today that hasn't started a relationship like that with you, that this would be the day. That they would seek you with all of their heart and they would know that you're their father. That they would turn from their life and of trying to figure things out on their own and and powering through life on their own. And they would turn to you and realize how much they could depend on a Heavenly Father who will never leave them or disappoint them, who will be there for them in their darkest days and in their brightest moments. Even in times, Father, that life disappointment disappoints us, we turn, we turn to you and we find we find the reason. We find the reason of hope and we find the things that cause us true joy. We thank you for your faithfulness to us. In Christ's name we pray.

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