The Beginning of Wisdom | Joe Prosepio

Sunday, June 28th, 2026

This week, we kicked off our summer series in Proverbs by looking at where wisdom begins. In Proverbs 1, we saw that wisdom is more than good advice or helpful sayings—it is a way of life that starts with God.

We were reminded that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” That kind of fear isn’t about running from God, but living with reverence, awe, gratitude, and surrender toward Him. Proverbs teaches us that wisdom is not just information we collect, but formation that shapes how we live, love, work, speak, and make decisions.

The invitation is simple: start with God. Because wisdom doesn’t begin with knowing more—it begins with submitting our lives to the One who knows how life works.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Good morning. Scientifically, no. Chemists and physicists define wetness as a liquid's ability to adhere to and spread across solid. Linguistically, yes, the dictionary defines wet as simplified. Well, I guess it's a matter of perspective, isn't it? Which kind of is a really great segue into what we're talking about today, which by the way, I realized if you're speaking, rule number one, put your notes back in order at the break. So good morning. I am definitely not Pastor Jake, and it couldn't have been more obvious to me than when I put this headset on. I was like, wow, Pastor Jake's head is so big. And then I'm like, wait, I think it's just the flowing locks of hair he has, right? So I'm a little jealous of the flowing locks, but we'll we'll get into the hair loss later. So I'm Joe. Um, we're giving the pastors some much-needed family time, some downtime, some bonding time with the baby, but we are kicking off a brand new summer series, How Life Works. Learning to live well through the book of Proverbs. And I realized when they called me, and pastors like, Joe, you know, you you said you wanted to talk, so we let you host and do the ready, set, create. So, how about you open up our summer series on how life works? And I'm like, great, I know how. Like everyone will listen to me. And then I'm like, but what if I stink? You know, you're all gonna leave and be like, he was supposed to show us how life works, and we really didn't learn nothing. So then I thought about it for a little bit and I was like, you know, Jake's pretty wonderful, but I know he just turned 30, and there's a little bit of wisdom in a 30-year-old, but doesn't wisdom come from a little more gristle, a little more gray, right? Like, so I'm like, okay, okay, maybe I could do this. Um, when I first met Pastor, believe it or not, I started coming to Create with my bride Susan, who's sitting right there. And so, of course, everything I say will be true today because otherwise I will face the wrath later. But um, you know, we we saw uh we started coming in like December, and after the first time, we were like, Create seems like a great place. The vibe and energy was so good. So we sat down to meet with Pastor uh Jake, like I think it was honestly like the next week. And we sit down, we're excited to meet this new pastor, and we sit down. This is a true story, I swear. And he goes, Man, I'm just so excited. He's like, We have been praying for like old folks around here. And so I like look behind me and I'm like, Who is he talking about, right? And he's like, Yeah, no, we just, you know, we need some wisdom and some experience here. And then he grabs a book off the shelf. He said, Hey, I saw you looking at this book. I'm I'm so excited that you you were looking at it here. I really want you to read it. And it says, How to get the best out of the second half of your life. I'm like, man, come on, right? Like, what are you doing? But but when you spend a little time here at Create, what you realize there's a lot of young folks in here. And and what Pastor understands is that great organizations need both. Great teams need young people that have this energy and drive, enthusiasm, and passion, and they're just all wound up and they bring a little confusion and a little crazy, right? And then you need a little bit of folks over here that are like, whoa, that's some great passion, but maybe we want a little bit of plan. Maybe we want to that there's no better picture of this than if you know anything about churches. What's the busiest day for a church? Easter. Easter is without like hands down, Christmas kind of comes in second, but it's Easter. Hands down, the busiest, biggest thing for churches. About 5 p.m. Friday before Easter, we have this little thread for different people around the church, and up pops a message. Is Christian here somewhere? I don't think he's here, so we can talk about him. That's great. So, so up pops a little message that says, Hey, we could use a couple people to set up a few things tomorrow, Saturday before Easter, for the Easter service. So I'm like, Oh, I I could set up a few things. Yeah, sure, I'll be there. I show up at 10 a.m. Saturday morning. Now, how many of you have seen the beautiful courtyard right out here? Anybody? All right. The Saturday before Easter at 10 a.m. None of that was there. None. Not the tables, not the benches, not the umbrellas, not the green stuff on the things. I walked in and they're pushing out boxes of furniture here. We got to build this IKEA tables and we got to do that. I think, Susan, what we left about 11 p.m. that night. Yeah, we stopped working at 2 p.m. to have a little lunch, and I'm like, set up a few things? I I thought you meant like set up some chairs. Like I've been building furniture for six hours, right? And so what is my old brain doing all day long? This is ridiculous, right? Like, why didn't they start this on Thursday? Like, I would have planned this out, I would have had a schedule, I would have met, right? So wisdom kind of comes with hey, we're just gonna set up some stuff for Easter, we're all excited, and you're like, you didn't realize this was gonna take 20 people, like 10 hours of time to do it. So again, Pastor understands that. Pastor is saying we need a little balance of both. So I was actually a little honored to say, hey, maybe we want someone with a little bit more gray in the beard to talk and kick off this thing about wisdom. So I am not a pastor. I certainly decided to play one today. Um, but uh I'm just kind of that normal person. And I don't know if you've ever heard this phrase, um, but it certainly applies here. Uh, God doesn't call the prepared, but he prepares who he calls. Raise your hand. You ever heard that? Okay, excellent. So that certainly applies, you know, say some prayers, get up there. I got a little passion for speaking, so sit down and do that. But that reminds me of several other sayings, so it kind of transitions into our talk on Proverbs. But one thing to know about me, I just completed 30 years as an educator. So I oh God, don't clap. So sorry, it's summer, but we're gonna do a reading activity today. This is going to be interactive, and just like educators, you all left the first rows empty. I like that because every single teacher meeting I walk into, everybody's in the back. How many teachers know that that's exactly how it goes, right? So we're gonna do an activity called close reading. What close reading is is some sort of sentence that has a blank, and your brain has to fill in the word that's missing. It's actually a reading activity. So can we give it a try? Yeah? Okay, you guys are way more awake than nine. Who? Because they were like, whoa, wake up. I need the energy. So, how about this? What goes in the blank? And just like a class, you all yell and nobody even raised their hand. I said I've been an educator for 30 years. Never mind, never mind. All right, we don't have time for the hand raising. We don't have time for the hand. Very good. Actions speak louder than words. Okay, how about this one? Early. The early bird catches the worm. How about the next one? Don't judge a book by a cover, especially relevant today. Right? All right, very good. How about a double? Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Excellent, great job. Very good. You guys are very good at reading. You pass, you get an A. But now maybe we'll have a little bit of a tougher one. How about this? I'm backing up as if I'm blocking the screen. I don't know. I think it's just a natural teacher thing. I'm like, all right. I heard maybe someone say, no, that's a little tough one. This is your first message fill in. No cheating if you were here the first service, either. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. That is Proverbs 1:7. So let's read that again. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. Now, Pastor is famous for saying, like, if you only get one thing before you doze off, like this is the one thing. This is where we're spending kind of that time of saying, it literally says this is the beginning of knowledge. So if you want not, we have to look at this a little bit. And and fear can kind of mean a lot to many of us. And if you could just leave that slide on, that would be great. So, fear is one of these phrases, the fear of the Lord. I actually had to Google a little bit, but I was thinking to myself, this is one of the trickiest phrases in the Bible. Again, thank you, Pastor, for leaving it to me and then running out of town. But fear is, we're not discussing like human fear. We all have experiences. I grew up in a household where we did things out of fear of what will happen to me if I don't. Okay, it's a little different than that. Okay, it's not, oh man, I better do my chores because if I don't, mom's coming home and that sorority paddle's coming out. We're not talking about fear of punishment. Okay, so if you can go ahead and switch to that definition. So I did, you know, go to Google and say exactly what are we talking about? Extreme reverence. That's not what it's supposed to say, but they couldn't. Reverence. Extreme reverence and awe. First service, I turned around and read it with reverence. So again, your brain will do stuff. Extreme reverence and awe, having such high respect that it motivates you to live a better and moral life. See, again, we're not talking fear. We're not talking about, oh my gosh, I better listen to God, or else this is going to happen. That's not the God we follow. We submit to God out of our ultimate gratitude and respect for the sheer glory of God, from that glory. His total and complete love of us would make us want to fear not following that. Are we following? Can I get a nod? Are we kind of okay? And when God says that is the beginning of knowledge, it's something we really need to take note of. See, wisdom can only be trusted if we know where it comes from. Anyone having trouble finding real facts and wisdom in today's society? Just me and my wife. Okay, awesome. Okay, it's so hard to find trusted wisdom right now. Because everybody has their own opinion of wisdom right now. But we can trust Proverbs because of who the wisdom comes from. So I wanted to start today with your second fill-in. This is gonna kind of be the key of where we come from. Oh, I did I skip that part? I think we missed one. Could we go backwards? There we go. All right. The fear, so again, we're kind of rewriting this: the fear or the respect of the Lord, or the extreme gratitude towards the Lord, the complete awe of the Lord, or or the extreme reverence we have of the Lord is the pathway to gain and understand God's wisdom. So if we're gonna understand the wisdom that He's offering, we have to start with wow, this God is awesome and knows me and knows my heart and knows my fears and knows everything. I can trust that wisdom. We can trust it because we know where it comes from. So about a month ago, I'm gonna try to try to wrap this into a story a little bit. So about a month or so ago, I got the opportunity to accept a new job. And um after 30 years in education, those opportunities don't just pop up like, hey, we want you to maybe do this. And so I was stuck in this place as you could imagine. Did anyone ever have something where they're kind of stuck and they're going back and forth about? Fantastic. So I was in that pe people call me what's called a hopeless optimist. So I tend to only be thinking about like, well, it's good if I stay here and it's good if I do that, but it's good if I do this, and it's good if I do that. So it makes it kind of hard to make a decision. Because if I stay here, I'm doing this and this and this, and I'm good at this and this and this. But if I come over here, like, oh, but this could be good for this, and this could be good for this. So I got really stuck in that place of trying to make that decision. So what I did was I decided to go talk to a mentor that I trust. And this mentor, I've had two in 30 years that I really, really trusted. I'm gonna kind of describe this mentor to you. She uh worked in education for 37 years. Uh every single role that you could imagine she had, starting with a teacher to teacher coach to a resource to a reading specialist to a director to an assistant to everything. Just one of those people with a super deep, rich knowledge of everything education. More importantly than that, or as importantly as that, she knows me. She's known me for four years. She's she's coached me, she's been respectful and talked to me and she's been kind. She's also held my feet to the fire sometimes, right? Like, hey, you better, you need to kind of but never criticized or condemned me. She expects me to grow. She cares about me and my family. Anyone, just a few. Believe it or not, it's kind of rare. And I would highly suggest you be looking for those people out there. Because I sat with her and I said, you know, I'm struggling with this decision. I I'm I want to listen to you. And so we're talking, and I'm kind of nodding my head, and you know, I take a page. Hey, can I take some notes? Yeah, okay. So I'm taking notes, I'm nodding my head, and I'm listening. She's a real heart to heart, like really honest heart to heart. If this is this and this is this, and I'm writing it down. And then we got finished, and I was like, you know what? Ah, you're such an idiot. Get out of here. You're so dumb. Why did I even waste my time with you? Now, how many of you think that's what I did? Okay, wake up, come on. How many of you think that's what I did? No, because now we can have that next slide. Only fools despise wisdom and instruction. Okay, I played that was a real conversation, but no, of course I didn't laugh and crumple up my notes. But I would be a fool not to listen to her. I seeked her out to speak to her. I trusted her. I believe in what she cares about for me. I'm the one that initiated asking her for wisdom. So why when she gives it to me, would I say, ha ha, you have no idea what you're talking about. You're nuts, you're crazy. And yet I do that with God all the time. Oh, God, please. Oh, I just I don't know what to do here. Give me a sign. And then you're like, that can't be the sign. Give me another sign. I can tell by the uncomfortable laughter that maybe there's a few of us. So we know that God loves us, we know that God wants the best for us. We have awe of his extreme grace and love and power, and then we say we'd be fools for not following it. So this is where Proverbs begins. This is the heart of this entire series about how to live well. God doesn't say stuff that clearly very often. That's why there's Bible scholars, that's why there's pastors like Jake that have studied this. Because there's stuff that seems confusing about scripture, but if we could put the whole Proverbs up there for me. These are the wise sayings of Solomon, David's son, Israel's king, written down so we'll know how to live well and right. Let me see, how do I interpret that? Uh so I could ignore it when I don't think it's right, so I could forget about it from time to time. It's not hard to understand. Pastor and I decided to use the message version for this because it kind of has that more real life language. To understand what life means and where it's going, a manual for living. It does not get that much clearer. Hi, everybody. I love you so much. I'm gonna write all these things down and give it to you so you can have a good life. Is there any other interpretation I'm missing? I don't think so. For learning what's right and just and fair, to teach the inexperienced the ropes and give our young people a grasp on reality. Oh my god, if we could teach young people a grasp of reality. Woo! Okay, but yes, there's stuff for the young folks. Hey, young folks, read this. You have to understand this about life, about me, about my life, about this, about that. But there's something here also for seasoned men and women. Still a thing or two for the experience to learn. Okay, at 55, I'm not there yet. Pastor didn't pick me because I'm like, here, I'm gonna teach you how to live well. I've done the whole thing, I'm good, I know. But we're talking, hey, even at 75, there's still a few things. Fresh wisdom to probe and penetrate. The rhymes and reasons of wise men and women start with God. And then we get to one step. Start with God. The first step in learning, and again, this is a slight different translation, is bowing down to God because only fools thumb their noses at such wisdom. I'm probably three pages behind here. So stuff for the young, stuff for the old, stuff for people that need to learn. And and and also notice these are really short, clear, concise directions. And like I said, it it's there's a lot of confusing stuff. Oh, I wonder what God meant by this in the Bible or that parable. But I imagined when I was kind of writing this down, I'm like, this is really clear. Maybe that's another reason Jake picked me to teach it, because he's like, he can't mess this up. It's it's really, really clear. Like, just read it, don't say anything. Just tell people to follow it and it'll be good. But but I started wondering, like, they're really short, clear statements. And so I have this wonderful imagination where I start thinking, like, I wonder what this conversation in heaven would be like between like God as father, as dad, and Jesus, the kid, while they're preparing life in the Bible. Yes, I have a very active imagination, but also a dad trying to get work done, and I know what it's like to hear, but dad, but dad, but dad, but dad. You know, and I can imagine God's like writing the proverbs, getting all the Bible right, and Jesus like, Dad, Dad, I got this great idea. I'm gonna have this great big long sermon. It'll be on a mountain and it'll have all this wisdom in it, and we're gonna teach people over the course of hours, and they're gonna eat and got dad, you know, Jesus, got dad's like a great son, that's fine. But you know what? I'm writing short, sweet Proverbs because 2026 is gonna come, and them folks have really short attention. Especially them kids with the TikToks and the Snapchats and the 30-year educator. There's starting to be something a little wrong with our attention spans. But that's also the great thing about Proverbs. They're just kind of short little things that we can pick up on. Short little wise things. Because our world's a little crazy out there, isn't it? It's tough. I think all over the place we have anxiety, fear, bitterness, anger, depression. Sure, call it out. And God knows this and also knows we're not created for this. This is not the world we were created for. But He gives us the wisdom in the Proverbs to help us navigate through it. Can I have that next slide, please? Do not conform to the pattern of this world. That's a pretty famous verse. But be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is. His good and pleasing perfect will, which leads us to our next fill-in. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. I am not an English teacher, but maybe this will drive the point home. Last week I exercised E D, and as you can tell, I am now in perfect shape. Correct? No, no, no, no, no. The process is exercising, right? Please don't correct me if you're an English specialist, right? Present tense. It's ongoing. It's a ing. It's happening. It's continually happening. It doesn't say, hey, you. Yeah, I accepted Christ in 1996. It was a beautiful, wonderful June day. And I renewed my mind. And the rest of my life was amazing. It says, renewing of God knew we would mess up. God knew that I would be upset with my wife. God knew that I would mess up at work. God knew that I would mess up with my children. God knows I would do this. I would do that. I'd have these thoughts. So he says, don't just fall into that pattern that the world would do. Renew your mind when that happens. Keep renewing your mind. It's present tense. Be renewing of your mind. The short little pockets we need of Proverbs are the wise things. It focuses us on what we can do when we do life with God. And we can use Proverbs to renew our mind. Gonna bring the band back up, if that's okay. And they're gonna play in the background this time so I don't look silly standing here in the. We had a little, we had a little glitch first service. I was like, can you all play something? I feel so silly. Okay. But our lives are busy, correct? It is way too easy to conform to the patterns and routines of our world. It is too easy to conform to the patterns of our world, especially in our decisions and we get into those challenging moments. It's it's just too easy to go, oh well, I'll just do this, and not pause and not take the wisdom. But only fools would do it like that. I keep always wanting to say idiots, but it's like, can I say that in church? Like, only idiots wouldn't do that. But I've been an idiot. I've been a fool, I've done those things. So I want you to think, what's the decision you have right now? Anyone have any kind of decision they're struggling with? You don't have to tell me, I'm not gonna make you shout it out. So four of us, okay. So four of us have a really big thing going on in our head. So for you four, is that thing big? Is it small? Does it have to do with your family? Does it have to do with your work? Relationships? I don't know what it is. But you're getting wisdom from a father who loves you. It's right there. It's right there. So have that last one up there. This is so much better with the music in the back, isn't it, everybody? Now I promised I wouldn't use a Jake phrase. So this is all Jake. I'm sure he's not watching. Because when he said it, I was like, no, Jake, I can't. Like, I can't do a proverb. A day keeps the devil away. Thank you. Completely unrehearsed. Thank you very much. But the more I thought about it, there really wasn't a better way to say it. But you know what? This doesn't have a fill-in. That's for you to fill in. So for the four of you that have a really decision that you're struggling with out there, do you need to keep the fear away? Do you need to keep the anxiety away? Do you need to keep the dumb away? Do you need to keep the evil away? Do you need to keep Satan away? What is it for you? I don't know. Okay, I don't have it all figured out. Not here to say this is how you follow. Hold on, I got this step-by-step pattern for how to live well. I'm here to point you to the one that knows. So fill that in with whatever you need to fill it in. We have a challenge for you for this series. You can take a picture of this slide, if you will. Maybe there's a wisdom thing you're struggling with, or maybe there's a relationship thing you're struggling with. I encourage you, look up that proverb. There's just a couple that I chose or picked. Maybe print it out, put it on your mirror and read it every day. Maybe switch it after a week. Maybe be brave and say, I'm gonna read all through Proverbs over the course of the series. I don't I don't know what your capacity is, but I do know when I put something right in front of myself, when I put something in front of myself, that sounds terrible. But when I put it right in front of me, I see it more often. Alright. So I don't know what area you're looking for, but this is a time to start renewing. This is a step. This is to I got hair on my mouth. This is a place where we can start fresh, where we can say, today I'm gonna start filtering things through the wise Proverbs, through from a God that I know loves me, because I don't want to be a fool. But we're also gonna invite you to take communion today. It's really a great way to symbolize the renewing of our minds. I have more notes on here. I'm not checking my my pre my stuff. And as we prepare to receive communion together, it's important to remember why we do this. On the night before his crucifixion, Jesus was with his disciples. He took bread, broke it, passed it around, took the cup, took a drink, passed it around. Told the disciples, do this and remember, do this and remember me. Communion reminds us of Christ's body that was broken for us and the blood that was shed for us. So today, communion is both a reflection on Christ's sacrifice and a celebration of his grace and a new life we have through him. It's a symbol of a new promise and commitment we have today to renew our minds. It can start every day, it can start every minute. It's an ongoing process. As we participate together, let's take a moment, examine our hearts, give thanks, and remember the incredible love of Christ demonstrators for us all. So we'll invite you up at your own pace as you listen to the song. You can take it back with you. Uh, if you do need a gluten option, there's a gluten free option in the envelopes. But let's go ahead and listen to this song. Participate in communion if you wish.