The beginning of widsom

In The Beginning of Wisdom, we explore the biblical truth that wisdom does not start with information, experience, or intelligence—it starts with reverence for God. Drawing from Proverbs 9:10 and Psalm 111:10, this sermon challenges us to examine our posture before God and reminds us that true wisdom begins with humility, teachability, and submission before understanding.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

We live in a world that is absolutely swimming with information. And oftentimes that information can't be trusted. Perhaps you've heard somewhere along the way that we only use 10% of our brain. And maybe that's true for some of you out there, but no, the truth is we actually use every region of our brain nearly every day. You may have heard that milk increases mucus. So don't drink milk while you're sick. Well, that just simply is not true. How about you have you heard this? Goldfish only have a three-second memory. Well, the truth is they actually have a three-month memory. They just aren't very smart when it comes down to. You may have heard something along the lines of SOS doesn't, or SOS means, you know it, save our ship. Well, truth is it doesn't. It doesn't mean save our ship. It's just simply Morse code for a distress signal. And that's where it got its start. How about this one? Have you ever heard that you actually swallow eight spiders in your lifetime while you're sleeping? And the good news is that's really not true. So you at they the the number is actually way closer to zero. And for most of us, it is zero unless you live some kind of crazy life, I guess. Um, but spiders are not seeking you out. They're usually not on your bed because there's no prey on your bed, unless I guess you have a lot of insects crawling around at night, then it might be a different story. How about this one? Have you ever heard that Ben Franklin wanted to use the turkey as the symbol for the United States? Well, again, that's some information that isn't really true. He actually wanted to put Moses as an image of the United States whenever our country was created. And again, all of this comes from a website that's it's from the reader's digest, but it says 49 facts that you thought were true. So all of it comes from the internet. So maybe I'm it's all made up in the beginning. So maybe some of it is true. You can tell me differently afterwards if I got one of these wrong. But the truth is, in this world we have information everywhere we look. We Google everything, we research everything, we read reviews and comments and opinions for people we ever never even met in the first place. When's the last time you're looking? Where am I gonna go eat? Maybe you're in a place out of town. So you get online and you start reading Yelp reviews or some kind of review, Google reviews of the restaurants that you're thinking about going. These are people that were probably paid to put out a good uh review of the restaurant that you're going to in the first place. So now we're gonna go there because of something someone put out. So we have all this information, our world is swimming with it. So, where do we find the truth? How do we find what all of this leads up to? But here's the thing for all of this information that's in the world today, we are still deeply confused on how to live. Have you noticed that? Our world has access to more information than ever, but it seems we're more confused on how we should be living in the first place than we have for generations. The more we know, the less we have it all figured out. This morning we're talking about wisdom, the beginning of wisdom, and we're going to God's word to find the truth. Here's the strange thing. You notice the Bible never promises that more information will make you wise. That's never been the case. You can't find it anywhere in God's word. In fact, Scripture makes a far bolder claim about how we become wise, because wisdom does not begin with knowledge. In fact, wisdom begins with fear. Take a look at Proverbs 9 and verse 10, and there's the world swimming with information. Proverbs 9 and verse 10, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And the same exact thought is echoed in Psalm 111 and verse 10. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. All who practice it have a good understanding. Now, what I want you to see in this text is underlying this the phrase, the beginning, is very important here. It doesn't mean step one on the list. It's not, we begin by taking this one step, but this is the foundation. This is where it all rests. If you want wisdom in your life, it begins, it is laid out, it is set forth for you by the fear of the Lord. And we must recognize that. It's the starting point, it is the foundation, it is the entryway. You can't obtain it without the beginning. Wisdom has a starting point using your outlines this morning. So, where do we find that? Well, it begins with the fear of the Lord. And if you remove that starting point, whatever you're left with might be clever, but it will never be wise. You notice a lot of the wisdom that we find in our culture today, everyone that's trying to change the moral foundation that our country began with. It seems they're being so clever out there, but the more we pull ourselves away from God's word, what seems clever is far, far from wise. And these new initiatives, these new steps we're taking to make our world pull away from God's word, the more trouble we end up in, the more confusion that is set out before us. And the more we just look around and say, What in the world are we doing? You ever been there before? Looking at some of the things that our nation, our culture begin to believe as truth, begin to believe as wisdom, and you just look at it and you say, What are we thinking? Is this really the way we want to live? Are these really the things we want to hang our hat on and trust in? You know why they're failing? Because they're missing the starting point. They're missing what wisdom is all about. And it starts with the fear of the Lord. And that must be our foundation for everything we do in our lives, especially the truth that we build our lives upon. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Now, as we jump into this, there's something I want to clear up or or uh really explain as we jump into this thing. When many people hear that phrase, the fear of the Lord, and they picture terror. Like, what are we? It's like going to a scary movie or the the jump scares out there, whatever it may be. This isn't the kind of fear that we're talking about. We're not talking about terror. They may imagine God waiting to catch them doing something wrong. This isn't the fear that we're talking about this morning. That's not what scripture means. Instead, the fear of the Lord is not terror if you're using your outlines. Biblical fear is not panic, it's simply reverence. It's recognizing who we're standing before. It's recognizing the power that he wields. It's the deep awareness that God is holy, that he is weighty, and that he's not manageable for us. There are many things that you can stand in front of and say, I can conquer that. There are many things that you can encounter and not be afraid of, but God is not one of them. He is not manageable for us. Fear of the Lord is what happens when you realize who you are standing before. Someone bigger than you, someone smarter than you, someone that you must adjust your life to. And when we began to act with that sort of reverence, everything changes. Think about it as a parent and a child. That type of reverence. You act up, what happens? I guess what used to happen when you're growing up, and you act up, you got in trouble. Sometimes, I don't know, a spanking or timeout, whatever it may be, but there are consequences for your actions because you recognize who you were standing before, and now you must change your attitude. And I think that we must recognize who God is. We must recognize why he set out this plan for us and these rules ahead of us. And in order for us, in order for us to live wise lives and make wise decisions, we have to recognize who he is and have reverence for him. We just consider him as nothing more than just a book that was written to us, or he's nothing more than someone that set this world into motion, and now I just get to do whatever I want. That is the opposite of wisdom, and it leads to failure and hurt. So when it comes to wisdom, we have to recognize who he is, and that begins with fear. And fear is reverence for him. I want you to see it's not running from God, it's not that kind of fear where we fear him enough where we gotta get away from him, but it's standing rightly before him. Knowing who he is and knowing we can approach him only the way that he calls for us. You and me today, that's only through the blood of Jesus Christ. So we must know how we stand before him. You know, we actually assume things all the time in our culture or in this world. You may have thought that there's no K in Chick-fil-A. There is, it's always been there. Some people say, well, they added it at some point. Nope, there's a K. Think about it. There's a K in Chick-fil-A. You may assume that the closed door button on the elevator actually closes the door. No, it doesn't really do that. There may be some that do it, but it as a general rule, it's just there for us to push and hopefully it closes and it just makes you feel involved. And I think we confidently assume things without ever checking. And if we do that with chicken sandwiches and elevators, we shouldn't be surprised that we do that with life, with meaning, and with God Himself. We just assume things instead of knowing the truth. And here's the hard truth that Scripture presses upon us. Wisdom does not begin when you feel smart, it begins when you recognize that you're not smart. You see that? That's the difference between being smart and having wisdom. It's to recognize that I don't have it all together, to recognize there's someone greater than me out there. Because knowledge does not equal wisdom. Wisdom is recognizing the one who is in control and seeing that his way is better than anything that I can come up with on my own. And I preach that all the time. There's a reason that God has laid out this path for us. There's a reason that he asks you not to do this and to follow through with this. Because it leads us somewhere that brings peace, that brings joy in a way that we can't find it on our own. So we must follow his way, and that is what wisdom is all about. Recognizing who he is and who I am not, how I fall short. And there's a certain amount of wisdom in that, in everything we do. Think about it. We try to do everything ourselves, but yet there's a wisdom in saying, well, that way may be a little better than what I had figured out in the first place. Wisdom always begins where pride ends. Think about it. Wisdom always begins where our pride ends. That's why the Bible doesn't say the fear of the Lord is the result of wisdom. It says it's the beginning of wisdom. Wisdom requires humility, if you're using your outlines this morning, because wisdom requires teachability. And teachability requires humility. All you teachers out there, have you ever had a student that thought they knew more than you did? You ever had a student that thought they they knew it all? Probably couldn't get through to them very much. You try to tell them something and they have it all already figured out the way they've always done it. Guess what? Your way's probably better, but they're too proud, too arrogant in their own ways to consider what you have to teach them. And so for us, we must be humble in the way we approach God, and that's what wisdom is. Again, the same is true in our everyday lives. Think about what it means to be wise. Part of that belongs with humility. You cannot learn from God while quietly assuming that you know better than Him. And you know, we may say that, we may pretend we believe it, but how is that shaping out in your everyday choices? How is that shaping out in what you do on a daily basis? Are you making your choices rooted in what would God want me to do here? Or are you making your choices based on how do I feel or what do I want in this moment? Let's throw God's word out the window because this is gonna make me happy. Easy to say on Sunday morning, but how are we putting this into practice in our everyday lives? This is what wisdom is all about. Trusting his way is better than yours. Trusting that his plan is greater than anything you can come up with, and actually living it out on a day-to-day basis. My guess is every single person in this room at some point this past week made a choice based on what you thought was better than God's way. That's what sin is. So we find wisdom as we trust the plan. The challenge is to take this concept and apply it to every moment of our lives, everything we do on a regular basis. That is wisdom. That is how we live a wise life. And I think this is where our culture struggles. God comes before understanding. You're using your outlines, God comes before understanding. Oftentimes, when we take that next step, we want understanding before submission. But it doesn't always play out that way. Because God asked for submission for us before understanding. We want clarity before we trust Him. God asked for trust before clarity. We want explanations, but God simply asks for reverence. Trust me, he says. Again, teachers or parents, even, have you ever had the kid that continually asks, why, why, why, why, why? Tell him to do something. Well, explain it to me. Maybe there's a place for that. But at the end of the day, don't you want to just say, Because I said so? That's the reason that's a statement. And I thought I'd never say that. Guess what? I find myself saying it often. Because I said so, it's the best way. I've been there, I've done that. You gotta trust me here. Sometimes that's hard to communicate with a four-year-old. Guess what? God thinks that all the time about you. Trust me here, my way is the right way. Yet we always want to ask why. Always want to ask an explanation for that truth. And there again, there's a time and place for that, but it begins with reverence towards him, trusting him. That's what faith is, knowing who he is and what he's done, and knowing his plan for you. So we must trust him before our understanding. And the order matters. Because if we need an explanation for everything he's told us, you're probably gonna fall short on many of those things, and it's never gonna allow us to reach the understanding in the first place. From the very beginning of Scripture, wisdom always flows downward, it flows from God to humanity. It never has flowed has come upward from human reasoning. You ever notice that? There's nothing, no big discovery that human beings have ever made and said, God, let me teach you something. Look what we found out. Instead, what do we find? Any great scientific discovery, anything that seems to be groundbreaking, it all points back to God. And the genius thoughts that we have fall right in line with this plan. All these self-help books, all these great things that we should believe. You can probably find it in God's word if it's effective. Have you ever noticed that? Like these great psychology things that people come up with. This is what how you gotta think. Start thinking about others first, and your life is gonna be happier. Wow, that's that's amazing. Guess what? God said it many, many years ago, thousands of years ago. But yet we think it's some kind of groundbreaking truth. Just trust him. Follow his way because his truth comes before our understanding. And if we can fall in line with that, if we can be reverent to who he is, he's gonna lead us to wisdom. Order matters. When Adam and Eve reached for wisdom apart from God, the result was not enlightenment, the result for them was fracture, pulling away from him. Now you gotta work for a living. Thanks a lot, Adam. Trusting God. The problem wasn't curiosity, it was autonomy. Fear of the Lord's fear of the Lord means I stop treating God like a consultant and start recognizing him as an authority. Not something I go to for a general direction, but it's someone I trust for everything in my life. He's not here to help you make your decisions because he's already made them for you. He knows the best way to go. It's the difference between asking, what do I think is right, and asking, who am I standing before? Who is my trust truly in? And I think that changes everything. We can make that shift between the two lines of thoughts. My decisions change, my speech changes, my priorities change, what's important to me. And it's not because I suddenly become smarter or know more information or facts, but because I become smaller. Trust him more using your outlines. The posture that produces wisdom is all of this. Recognizing who he is. Psalm 111 says, All who practice it have a good understanding. Again, notice the order. It starts with reverence and leads to obedience. And then we get understanding. All who practice it have good understanding. So when you begin to practice his way, then you start to understand, oh, I see now why it's better. Been there before? Followed what God wants you to do, and then you get to a certain point and look back. I may not have understood at the time, but I trusted God and look at the place that it's brought me to. The peace that I have here, the joy that I'm living in, because I followed him and I've been upright in the decisions that I've made. And now I'm not dealing with all these things that my neighbors and friends are dealing with that turn their back on him. I found myself in a better place because I trusted his way. This is the posture that he's calling for. Trust him with that next step, and he's going to lead you in the right way. And you may look back at it one day and see the wisdom that was found behind it. The understanding comes after the obedience. It's not understanding and then obedience. Wisdom isn't unlocked by intelligence, it's unlocked by our posture and our. Trust in him. God is not impressed by how much we know. Because no matter how much you know, it's gonna pale in comparison to what he knows because he created you and knows everything about you in the first place, and he knows all that you know. They think you're smart. Well, God already knows everything you know, and he knows how much of it you know. It's the same for every single one of us. So instead of being impressed by how much we know, he is honored by how much we trust him. Growing in wisdom is the beginning of wisdom. So this quarter of this year, as we launch into being rooted and rising, I think being rooted begins with wisdom. Begins with being plugged in to God and trusting his way. And if you want growth to happen, which is the ultimate goal of what this is all talking about, growth among the congregation, growth among each and every one of us spiritually, and growth among between all of us. It all begins with being rooted in his word, trusting him. It begins with wisdom. So we're spending a quarter growing in wisdom, and we're trying to lay the foundation. Where does it begin? Goes back to our text. The fear of the Lord. What are we talking about? Reverence. Looking to God and recognizing who he is. So why should we start there? Because the Bible tells us to. It's very simple. Without the fear of the Lord, every topic, the decisions, the relationships, the speech, the time and direction, those may be all things that are important to cover. But if we don't set the foundation first, we're kind of missing the boat on all of these topics. So every topic, if it doesn't begin with the fear of the Lord, turns into well-organized self-confidence. But with reverence, life comes into focus. Trust him, we put him first, it leads us to something greater, leads us to truth, leads us to wisdom. So for the next few weeks, as we work through this, we're gonna talk about the fear of the Lord. We're gonna talk about trusting God over leaning on ourselves from Proverbs. We're talking about humility, honor, and peacemaking from James. We'll talk about truth that's found with gentleness, as we read about in Proverbs 15 and Ephesians 4. We're gonna talk about our time, which is numbering our days, that's found in Psalm 90. We'll even talk about direction, which is God's will and wise planning. These are all things that lead us to wisdom. These are all uh points that we're going to focus on as we make it through this quarter. And again, all of that will shape out into into what we read about Jesus, how he was growing in wisdom, growing in stature, and in favor with God and in favor with man. And those are our four quarters this year as we work our way through this idea of being rooted and rising. Again, the foundation is set by just trusting in. Foundation is set in the fear of the Lord, recognizing his power, recognizing who we're standing in front of. And in order to approach his throne, you must be blameless. You must be righteous. The truth is, every one of us in this room has fallen off that path. Every single one of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So in that state, you cannot stand before him. So trusting in him, being reverent to him, coming to Jesus Christ. That's the first step. That is the fear of the Lord. To look up and say, I am a sinner, and without you, I am nothing. I have nowhere to go. I have nothing I can do on my own. So I need Jesus to make me whole once again. That's why we come to him in the first place. Because Jesus died on that cross for you, to take your sins upon him. You could be washed free. So we come to him, we put our faith and trust in him, and we're baptized for the remission of those sins and raised up to walk a new life. If you've never taken that step, I want you to see how critical it is, how crucial it is in your life. This is the beginning of wisdom. Stand before God, and it starts by being lowered into that baptism, into that water, raised up to walk a new life. If you never made that choice before, I implore you to do that. Stand rightly before him in choice. And it basically comes down to that. Perhaps you've made that step, but your life has pulled you away one way or another in various ways. Is it time to come back to him? Maybe it's time to rededicate your life to him. To come before the church and say, I'm a sinner and I need the prayers of the church. I'm ready to rededicate my life to you. If there's anything we can do for you, if you need to be baptized, if you need to rededicate your life, if you just need the prayers of the congregation, please come. As together we stand and sing.