SPEAKER_01: This morning's reading is from Proverbs chapter six.
SPEAKER_01: My son, keep your father's commandment and forsake not your mother's teaching.
SPEAKER_01: Bind them on your heart always, tie them around your neck.
SPEAKER_01: When you walk, they will lead you.
SPEAKER_01: When you lie down, they will watch over you, and when you awake, they will talk with you.
SPEAKER_01: For the commandment is a lamp, and the teaching a light, and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life.
SPEAKER_01: To preserve you from the evil woman, from the smooth tongue of adulteress.
SPEAKER_01: Do not desire her beauty in your heart, and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes.
SPEAKER_01: For the price of a prostitute is only a loaf of bread, but a married woman hunts down a precious life.
SPEAKER_01: Can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burnt?
SPEAKER_01: Or can one walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched?
SPEAKER_01: So is he who goes into his neighbour's wife, none who touches her will go unpunished.
SPEAKER_01: People do not despise a thief, if he steals to satisfy his appetite when he is hungry, but if he is caught, he will pay sevenfold.
SPEAKER_01: He will give all the goods of his house.
SPEAKER_01: He who commits adultery lacks sense, he who does it destroys himself.
SPEAKER_01: He will get wounds and dishonour, and his disgrace will not be wiped away.
SPEAKER_01: For jealousy makes a man furious, and he will not spare when he takes revenge.
SPEAKER_01: He will accept no compensation, he will refuse, though you multiply gifts.
SPEAKER_01: So reads God's word.
SPEAKER_02: And it's great to have you here with us this morning.
SPEAKER_02: Let me ask you a question as you as you get settled in.
SPEAKER_02: If you were walking in and you noticed that uh that somebody had their fly undone, uh, would you tell them?
SPEAKER_02: If they had their their zipper down.
SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, people are like flies?
SPEAKER_02: No, no.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: Didn't realize that that didn't translate.
SPEAKER_02: Fine.
SPEAKER_02: Their fly or their zipper, if it was, if it was down, you know, this happens in work or in class, you can say, oh, that's a bit awkward.
SPEAKER_02: Would you tell them?
SPEAKER_02: You would.
SPEAKER_02: If you don't tell them, why not?
SPEAKER_02: Is it because, well, you don't really know them all that well, it's a bit, it's a bit awkward, you don't want them to feel embarrassed.
SPEAKER_02: If you do, why do you?
SPEAKER_02: Is it because even though it's a little bit awkward, there's a moment of embarrassment, it it saves them fuller embarrassment.
SPEAKER_02: It's the it's the right and kind thing to do.
SPEAKER_02: That, yeah, okay, there's a there's a kind of awkwardness threshold to kind of to overcome there.
SPEAKER_02: And you're saying something that they might not want to hear, but it saves them in the in the long run.
SPEAKER_02: What about if it's something that's not just embarrassing, uh, but it's uh harmful?
SPEAKER_02: Would you would you say to to someone then, would you say to someone that you loved then, if they were doing something, making decisions and choices that you knew on down the line was going to lead to difficulty or harm for them, would you seek to at least express your concern?
SPEAKER_02: It's hard, isn't it, when you see someone who we who you care about making decisions about their life that you know are going to lead to difficult consequences, harmful consequences.
SPEAKER_02: Would you say something?
SPEAKER_02: People are particularly resistant these days uh to having their choices um critiqued or challenged, aren't they?
SPEAKER_02: They interpret anything that kind of smells of that as uh as judgment.
SPEAKER_02: And there's a kind of a uh there's a cultural assumption that you don't want to come across as a judgmental person.
SPEAKER_02: And so what that leads us sometimes to do is say, well, I'm actually just not going to say anything.
SPEAKER_02: I might have private opinions, um, but I'm not going to express them because I don't want to be seen as being judgmental.
SPEAKER_02: But is that always the wise course of action?
SPEAKER_02: And is that always going to be true?
SPEAKER_02: Is there a scenario in which you can give a warning to someone or express disagreement with someone's choices, not because you are judging them, but because you care about them.
SPEAKER_02: Because you actually want to see them flourish as a human being.
SPEAKER_02: Foolish choices in the book of Proverbs are always harmful choices.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe not immediately, but certainly inevitably.
SPEAKER_02: Biblical wisdom wants us to steer away from foolishness, to steer away from folly, not just because it's quote unquote wrong, but because it's harmful.
SPEAKER_02: The flip side of that is that wisdom, following the path of wisdom, is not just good and morally right, it leads to our flourishing as human beings.
SPEAKER_02: You see, we see the same dynamics going on in parenting.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm low, we just we just seem to be um multiplying buggies down the front.
SPEAKER_02: Um but we see the same dynamic.
SPEAKER_02: If we if we give our children the freedom, we give our children freedom within boundaries, right?
SPEAKER_02: Uh we create a safe environment in which they thrive.
SPEAKER_02: Now, imagine if your child uh comes to you and says that their, in their opinion, maximal flourishing for them takes place at a playtime on the M50.
SPEAKER_02: That that is the uh the most free they could possibly be, that that is how they realize their all of their childhood dreams and aspirations is to play on the M50.
SPEAKER_02: Would you step in and stop them?
SPEAKER_02: Why would you step in and stop them?
SPEAKER_02: Would you would you think to yourself, well, I'm stepping in and I'm stopping my child because it's against the law.
SPEAKER_02: It's just wrong.
SPEAKER_02: That's part of it.
SPEAKER_02: But your first motivation for stopping your child, who you care about, is because you love them.
SPEAKER_02: Because you care about them, you guard them, you steer them away from danger that they might otherwise get themselves into through the foolish choices that they make.
SPEAKER_02: It's important to bear this mind in mind as we come to this passage.
SPEAKER_02: It's important to bear this in mind as we think about what the Bible calls sin.
SPEAKER_02: Because, yes, sin is wrong.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, sin is a rejection of God and his perfect holiness.
SPEAKER_02: It is a grasping at our own autonomy, it is a grasping at our own position, it's a de-goding of God.
SPEAKER_02: But in addition to all of these things, sin is always harmful.
SPEAKER_02: It harms us.
SPEAKER_02: And that's not just true of the sexual sin that we're going to get into in this passage.
SPEAKER_02: It's true of all sin.
SPEAKER_02: Greed's harmful.
SPEAKER_02: Greed's harmful because, well, if it's uh if it's kind of greed in the kind of the food sense, well, it's harmful because it robs us of our health.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe not immediately, but certainly inevitably.
SPEAKER_02: Financial greed is harmful because it isolates us from others, it robs us of our contentment, it does something to our hearts, it makes us uh quite obsessive about what we have and don't have.
SPEAKER_02: Lying, well, lying is harmful because it undermines our own ability to trust others.
SPEAKER_02: Because we're thinking, well, if I'm able to perpetuate these lies, well, are other people responding to me in kind?
SPEAKER_02: And so it undermines our ability to trust.
SPEAKER_02: It cuts us off from others for fear of exposure, of being found out.
SPEAKER_02: It makes us kind of paranoid that, well, what if somebody actually discovers what's going on?
SPEAKER_02: Addiction, whether it's to substances or to pornography, they all leave us feeling trapped and enslaved.
SPEAKER_02: It uh it affects, it ruins our relationships with those who we love, those around us.
SPEAKER_02: Sin is not just wrong in the ethical sense, it's harmful.
SPEAKER_02: The same is true when we use our sexuality in foolish ways, whether it's through the use of pornography, fornication, adultery, entering into a relationship that doesn't share the same faith commitments as you, all of these things, wisdom signs an alarm and urges caution.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: For our own well-being.
SPEAKER_02: And that is the motivation behind this passage.
SPEAKER_02: The wisdom comes and says, I want to counsel you in certain ways, not because I'm judging you, not because I hate you, not because I'm trying to ruin your fun, but because I care for you and I want to see you flourish.
SPEAKER_02: Let's ask some questions of this passage as we as we get in.
SPEAKER_02: So, first of all, where does wisdom come from?
SPEAKER_02: Where does wisdom come from?
SPEAKER_02: We're just in the very first verse, which is verse 20, if you pull it up on your Bible uh app, or if you've got a Bible with you, uh Proverbs chapter 6, verse 20.
SPEAKER_02: My son, keep your father's commandment and do not forsake your mother's teaching.
SPEAKER_02: As we've noticed, noted in these uh first nine chapters of uh the book of Proverbs, they are essentially there's ten different discussions uh between a between a father and a son.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and that can be uh transfer, it doesn't always have to be something be a parent and a and a daughter or another child, but it's worth noting that the uh that this is the first time that the mother is mentioned.
SPEAKER_02: So this is mom and dad coming together, saying, we want to offer you some parental instruction.
SPEAKER_02: It's a sign of their care.
SPEAKER_02: But I think that it's more than that.
SPEAKER_02: I think there's more than that going on because this is the first time, because given the context, you're the context is specifically around adultery.
SPEAKER_02: Okay?
SPEAKER_02: The breaking of a marriage covenant through uh intimate activity with somebody outside of that marriage covenant.
SPEAKER_02: And so it makes sense, therefore, that actually you have both parents who themselves have formed a marriage covenant coming along and saying, here's some wisdom that we want to give you.
SPEAKER_02: Having walked this road ourselves, having entered into marriage years ago, here's the wisdom that we want to give you.
SPEAKER_02: Both parties of a marriage coming together and saying, We want to encourage you, son, daughter, to steward your sexuality well.
SPEAKER_02: In the context of the deadly nature of adultery, what comes as the voice of wisdom is essentially the institution of marriage.
SPEAKER_02: The institution of a lifelong monogamous union speaks in a sense and sounds a warning.
SPEAKER_02: What we've seen before in the book of Proverbs is that God has God has so designed the world that it has a kind of it has a moral framework, it has a moral shape to it that we are encouraged to discover and live in line with.
SPEAKER_02: We'll be talking about kind of uh living with the grain of the universe.
SPEAKER_02: God has built in certain structures, certain institutions that help to maximize human success and flourishing.
SPEAKER_02: And marriage is one of those institutions.
SPEAKER_02: It is not a state-created, human-created, designed thing.
SPEAKER_02: It's something that is instituted and made holy by God.
SPEAKER_02: And in a sense, when mom and dad come together in Proverbs chapter 6, verse 20, it's as though, archetypally, don't worry if you don't know what that word means, but it's as though the whole institution is speaking and offering wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: And what I'm encouraging you with here in this first point this morning is to not just dismiss the institutions and the systems that God has made in his world, that these things offer a kind of wisdom that is worth paying attention to.
SPEAKER_02: Now, I fully look, I I come from, and if my mama is listening to this, this is no judgment.
SPEAKER_02: My mom and dad split up when I was three years old.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, my mom and my stepdad are getting married in two weeks' time.
SPEAKER_02: They've been together for 30 years.
SPEAKER_02: God bless them.
SPEAKER_02: Um, and so I understand that parents' marriages uh are complicated, right?
SPEAKER_02: And so I would encourage you not just to look immediately up and go, well, there's a little wisdom to be garnered there.
SPEAKER_02: Because, first of all, that's probably not true.
SPEAKER_02: And second of all, it's bigger than that.
SPEAKER_02: There's a there's a system, there's an institutional thing that God is doing, He is speaking to us, and we do well to pay attention to that fabric that God has woven in creation.
SPEAKER_02: Marriage is designed by God to promote human flourishing, it guards families, it forms the foundational unit of society.
SPEAKER_02: But more than that, it's a picture of the gospel.
SPEAKER_02: It illustrates it illustrates many things, but one of the things in this context that it illustrates is Christ's own resolute faithfulness to his bride.
SPEAKER_02: He loves her and no other.
SPEAKER_02: He is utterly faithful to you, he is utterly faithful to his church.
SPEAKER_02: And marriage, faithful marriage, represents that to the world.
SPEAKER_02: It is therefore foolishness to ignore what this institution can teach us or to seek to undermine it.
SPEAKER_02: The father and the mother speak to us.
SPEAKER_02: We must have the humility to listen and to learn for our own good.
SPEAKER_02: Second question What is What is the purpose of this wisdom?
SPEAKER_02: So where does it come from?
SPEAKER_02: What is its purpose?
SPEAKER_02: Verse 21 to 23.
SPEAKER_02: Bind them on your heart always, tie them around your neck.
SPEAKER_02: When you walk, they will lead you.
SPEAKER_02: When you lie down, they will watch over you.
SPEAKER_02: When you awake, they will talk to you.
SPEAKER_02: For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light, and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life.
SPEAKER_02: The father and the mother, this this institution speaks to their child and encourages him or her to bind their words closely to them in order that they will do three things lead, watch over, and talk with.
SPEAKER_02: Lead, watch over, talk with.
SPEAKER_02: Wisdom leads us with much more than a set of do's and don'ts.
SPEAKER_02: It leads us instinctively.
SPEAKER_02: It's as these things are imbibed and learned over years that it begins to become an instinctive reflex that we begin to make wise decisions, like training a particular muscle, or think about it this way, learning to drive, right?
SPEAKER_02: You learn to drive.
SPEAKER_02: Uh if you have gone through that kind of bewildering experience, the uh the first few times, everything is so cognitive.
SPEAKER_02: You're constantly thinking about, okay, where, okay, clutch if you're driving, so we're in stick right now, so Americans, forgive me or translate.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so you've got your you've got your clutch, you're moving it, you're gonna crunch some gears here.
SPEAKER_02: You've got to find the by point with the accelerator, and it's all so cognitive.
SPEAKER_02: You're doing your mirrors, your mirrors, your indicator.
SPEAKER_02: And then after time, what happens?
SPEAKER_02: It becomes instinctive.
SPEAKER_02: You get into bad habits, you start feeding through.
SPEAKER_02: You drop the chair back, you start wiping, right?
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: Because it's become instinctive.
SPEAKER_02: Wisdom leads, wisdom desires to lead us in that same sort of way, that there's a there's a point right now where we've got to pay attention to the voice of wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: We think, okay, well, what is wisdom trying to tell us?
SPEAKER_02: We take it to our hearts, but they the idea of binding them close to us is in the hope that it will begin to lead us instinctively, that we'll start to make wise decisions without constantly having to come back and go, okay, uh wise decision on the okay, here, here, verse three.
SPEAKER_02: Here's the wise decision.
SPEAKER_02: It becomes instinctive.
SPEAKER_02: This again, if I speak to the parents, this is what we're trying to do in our parenting.
SPEAKER_02: You know, many of us are parents of small children, hence the buggies.
SPEAKER_02: And and so what do we do?
SPEAKER_02: Well, we we we we hold their we hold their hands.
SPEAKER_02: We hold our hands in order to guide them so that they know what's safe and what isn't.
SPEAKER_02: And then after a little while, we let go of their hand, they walk alongside us, and we're still kind of there, but they're expressing a little bit more independence because they're they're working out more instinctively what's safe and what isn't.
SPEAKER_02: They know to stay on uh on the footpath and not to walk on the on the road.
SPEAKER_02: And there will come a time in our parenting of them when they will never hold our hands again.
SPEAKER_02: And in that moment, we will, sorry, but all the moms have just all the mums of babies have just crumbled.
SPEAKER_02: Um there's a uh just parenthetically, there's a uh there's a uh an album called Hymns for the Christian Life.
SPEAKER_02: And uh in that album, I'll maybe share it in the in the group, there's a there's a song called A Mother's Prayer.
SPEAKER_02: If you can get through that without just falling to pieces, you're dead inside.
SPEAKER_02: Um, one of the things actually it actually comes up in the song, the very last verse, so the the the chorus refrain is take my hand, take my hand.
SPEAKER_02: And then the last verse is uh one day you will uh go where my arms don't reach.
SPEAKER_02: And the chorus starts, take his hand.
SPEAKER_02: And that's actually what parenting is.
SPEAKER_02: Parenting is holding our child's hand so that they begin to learn instinctively, and this is not just physically, this is morally, right?
SPEAKER_02: This is spiritually.
SPEAKER_02: Spiritually, we're we're taking our children's hand now.
SPEAKER_02: We're doing the Jesus Storybook Bible, we're building in rhythms and routines, and we're instilling something of not just values, but a spiritual foundation where we're taking their hand, and and what would give us maximal joy as parents is to see them begin to own that for themselves, to begin to, in a sense, not just be holding our hands spiritually speaking, but holding wisdom's hand.
SPEAKER_02: And whose wisdom?
SPEAKER_02: Well, it's Jesus, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02: That's what we want.
SPEAKER_02: We want him to be, we want our children to be instinctively led by wisdom and counted a privilege to place their hand in Christ's and have them lead him in their way.
SPEAKER_02: It watches over, that is to say, that wisdom, when bound to us, when taken to heart, it's a guardian day and night when you lie down and when you awake.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Well, because the command to avoid sexual immorality guards us from the harm that sexual foolishness can bring.
SPEAKER_02: That it will talk with us.
SPEAKER_02: Wisdom, when ingrained, becomes a counselor.
SPEAKER_02: Each one of us, we have those we have those little voices in our head.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes those little voices are helpful.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes those little voices tell us lies, don't they?
SPEAKER_02: Tell us lies about who we are, tell us lies about uh what's right and what's wrong, tell us lie, they tell us lies about other people.
SPEAKER_02: Those are the little voices that keep us up at night.
SPEAKER_02: But where they're where they're good, there's there's little voices that guide us in ways of wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: The Bible calls it conscience.
SPEAKER_02: You think about the angel and the and the and the devil on the shoulder and the cartoons.
SPEAKER_02: Well, that angel needs to be educated.
SPEAKER_02: That angel needs to be strengthened, needs to be built up with wisdom so that his voice, her voice, is louder than all of the other little voices, right?
SPEAKER_02: Wisdom longs to do that.
SPEAKER_02: That actually, even though you're you're not talking to your to your parents about a particular issue, that, uh, or to whoever it is, that actually you have you've established a foundation where you're able to almost instinctively be talking to yourself, be using those counseling little voices to know how to make wise decisions, decisions that promote our own flourishing and which honor God.
SPEAKER_02: And the result, mom and dad say, is light and life.
SPEAKER_02: The commandment is a lamp, the teaching are light, and the reproofs and discipline are the way of life.
SPEAKER_02: You people think that God's commands, maybe you're here and you wouldn't describe yourself as a Christian.
SPEAKER_02: This is perhaps what you've come up thinking about kind of Ten Commandments or the law, that God's commands are arbitrary, that they're kind of a cosmic desire to ruin our fun.
SPEAKER_02: But look at verse 23.
SPEAKER_02: They're not just ethical barriers, they're ways of promoting life.
SPEAKER_02: They're designed to maximize your good in the world.
SPEAKER_02: Why should any of us consider giving our lives to Jesus?
SPEAKER_02: Why should any of us consider submitting ourselves to his wisdom and what he says?
SPEAKER_02: Well, because he wants to give us life.
SPEAKER_02: He wants to see us thrive.
SPEAKER_02: Remember what he says in John 10?
SPEAKER_02: I've come to give you life and life abundantly.
SPEAKER_02: How do you grow in this wisdom?
SPEAKER_02: Well, it begins by acknowledging your need of it.
SPEAKER_02: That you have to learn that there's ways in which you have been foolish.
SPEAKER_02: And then by faith to come and to sit at his feet and hear his voice.
SPEAKER_02: Thirdly, so where does it come from?
SPEAKER_02: What is its purpose?
SPEAKER_02: Why is it necessary?
SPEAKER_02: Why do we need this wisdom to begin with?
SPEAKER_02: Well, Mum and Dad in Proverbs 6 talk about it in verse 25.
SPEAKER_02: Do not let her beauty pause there.
SPEAKER_02: Or his beauty, right?
SPEAKER_02: So this is again, we said this at the in chapter five.
SPEAKER_02: This isn't just Proverbs uh picking on women, saying women are strange.
SPEAKER_02: Uh just flip it.
SPEAKER_02: Strange men, foreign men.
SPEAKER_02: Do not let his beauty or his handsomeness in your heart.
SPEAKER_02: Do not let her or him capture you with her eyelashes.
SPEAKER_02: But look at that first phrase.
SPEAKER_02: Do not desire her beauty.
SPEAKER_02: Where?
SPEAKER_02: In your heart.
SPEAKER_02: Where does where do foolish actions begin?
SPEAKER_02: They begin in your heart.
SPEAKER_02: They begin with what we desire.
SPEAKER_02: You think about that in contrast to well, what do people so often say?
SPEAKER_02: If people were to counsel you towards uh towards a decision, maybe it's your career, maybe it's a romantic decision, one of the things that people say, well, meaning uh wrong people say something like, well, listen to your heart.
SPEAKER_02: No, stop! Don't do that.
SPEAKER_02: That's terrible advice.
SPEAKER_02: Stop doing that.
SPEAKER_02: Does anybody know who Matt Hancock is?
SPEAKER_02: Matt Hancock, uh, so the Englishman halfway up was nodding.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, because Matt Hancock was the um he was the minister for health during COVID.
SPEAKER_02: Do you remember that?
SPEAKER_02: There was a there was a whole time when uh the whole world stopped.
SPEAKER_02: Uh he was the minister of the health uh for health in the UK during COVID.
SPEAKER_02: And so he was the the face essentially of uh of Britain's kind of lockdown um policies and guidelines.
SPEAKER_02: Uh and he was the one who was putting them all forward and saying, you know, we need to we need to do this and locking people in their homes and all of all of all of that.
SPEAKER_02: And then what happened?
SPEAKER_02: Well, footage emerged uh of Matt Hancock uh kissing a colleague up against a wall, uh, despite him being married.
SPEAKER_02: And uh a couple of years later, it might have just been kind of 18 months ago, he was on uh Stephen Bartlett's podcast.
SPEAKER_02: Uh um is it Confessions of a CEO or Diary of a CEO?
SPEAKER_02: Uh anyway, Stephen Bartlett's podcast.
SPEAKER_02: And he was asked by Stephen Bartlett to kind of give an account uh for for why he did that in light of all of the lockdown procedures.
SPEAKER_02: Do you remember?
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what his response was?
SPEAKER_02: His response was, well, I just I can't help who I fell in love with.
SPEAKER_02: I fell in love.
SPEAKER_02: That's Matt Halco saying, Well, my my heart went there and I had to I had to follow it.
SPEAKER_02: Folks, our hearts are not wise guides.
SPEAKER_02: Proverbs elsewhere says that the heart is deceitful above all things.
SPEAKER_02: Your heart lies to you.
SPEAKER_02: Your heart takes you places that wisdom wouldn't.
SPEAKER_02: You might have seen the uh the the cartoon strips online of uh of the heart and the brain, and the heart is like chasing butterflies.
SPEAKER_02: Uh I probably shouldn't skip.
SPEAKER_02: And the brain's there and he's got glasses on and he's reading, he's very cerebral, and he's constantly being like, Where are you going?
SPEAKER_02: That's our heart.
SPEAKER_02: Our heart isn't, they're not wise guys.
SPEAKER_02: We do not by nature make wise decisions.
SPEAKER_02: By nature, our heart often leads us towards foolishness.
SPEAKER_02: You know, maybe you've wanted something so badly, maybe we wanted even a relationship so badly that it's caused you to make choices that have been wrong or unwise.
SPEAKER_02: And do you know what happens?
SPEAKER_02: Once our hearts make a decision, once our hearts get attached to something, the next step is that we build an intellectual framework around that decision in order to justify it.
SPEAKER_02: That's when our brain gets involved and we go, okay, well, here's why here's X, Y, and Z reason why what I really want is okay, and why God would be okay with it.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: We create the ethical framework.
SPEAKER_02: And then we go about our actions.
SPEAKER_02: See, what the heart desires, the mind justifies, and the will carries out.
SPEAKER_02: Wisdom comes and says, Do not let your heart steer you.
SPEAKER_02: Because it will steer you places that are unwise.
SPEAKER_02: What needs to happen with our hearts is that our hearts need to be transformed by wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: That is to say, that our hearts need to be transformed by Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Our hearts by nature are hard and immovable.
SPEAKER_02: We don't want to listen to others, we kind of want to go our own way.
SPEAKER_02: It's only when we acknowledge our need of forgiveness, when we come to Jesus, that actually we get a heart that's not hard, but soft.
SPEAKER_02: And a heart that's been softened by the grace of Jesus is open to learning from Him.
SPEAKER_02: It's open to being guided by His wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: Not always perfectly.
SPEAKER_02: That's what sanctification's for, right?
SPEAKER_02: Our heart will continue to uh to want to pull us in ways that aren't wise until the day we die.
SPEAKER_02: But by faith in Jesus, we begin a process of growing, maturing, educating, imbuing wisdom in our hearts.
SPEAKER_02: We need his wisdom because our hearts are not always wise guides.
SPEAKER_02: And then fourth question, finally.
SPEAKER_02: So, what is wisdom's warning?
SPEAKER_02: What does wisdom come and say you've got to be careful of?
SPEAKER_02: Well, three things here.
SPEAKER_02: First, that sin is self-destructive.
SPEAKER_02: Sin is self-destructive.
SPEAKER_02: Now, on a spiritual level, all sin is a kind of self-harm.
SPEAKER_02: You were created to flourish in relationship with God.
SPEAKER_02: And so when we turn away from that relationship that's supposed to maximize our being human, we end up decreating ourselves.
SPEAKER_02: We end up becoming less human, less what God intended.
SPEAKER_02: It's why I one of the one of the most beautiful ways I can think of of describing what it is to become a follower of Jesus, to put your to put your faith in him is to say that when somebody trusts Christ for the forgiveness of their sins, when somebody comes back into relationship with God, do you know what happens?
SPEAKER_02: They become more truly human.
SPEAKER_02: Because we were made for that vertical relationship.
SPEAKER_02: And so to turn aside from that has a decreative quality to it.
SPEAKER_02: But here, wisdom points out that if you play with fire, sooner or later you will get burned.
SPEAKER_02: So as he who goes into his neighbor's wife, none who touches her will go unpunished.
SPEAKER_02: Don't sit and look at 28 and go, Well, I say you can't walk on hot coals, because uh I did it over in when I was on in holiday in India.
SPEAKER_02: Um the point is the same.
SPEAKER_02: You cannot carry a fire close to your chest and not get burned.
SPEAKER_02: If you have an affair, sooner or later the truth will come out.
SPEAKER_02: That's what these verses are saying.
SPEAKER_02: Eventually, your marriage will suffer.
SPEAKER_02: Your family will be placed into jeopardy.
SPEAKER_02: Or if you're addicted to pornography, it's affecting you now.
SPEAKER_02: You know that it's changing your neurochemistry.
SPEAKER_02: Even non-Christians have picked up on this that porn is a bad thing because it affects the way you think, it affects the way you think about yourself, it affects the way you think about the opposite sex or the same sex.
SPEAKER_02: It affects your ability to give yourself to your spouse.
SPEAKER_02: Being burned is an inevitable consequence of playing with fire.
SPEAKER_02: In the same way, harm is an inevitable consequence of sexual foolishness.
SPEAKER_02: So sin is self-destruction.
SPEAKER_02: Secondly, sin is irrational.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 30 to 30 uh 32.
SPEAKER_02: People do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy his appetite when he is hungry.
SPEAKER_02: But if he's caught, he will pay sevenfold.
SPEAKER_02: He will give all the goods of his household.
SPEAKER_02: He who commits adultery lacks sense.
SPEAKER_02: He who does it destroys himself.
SPEAKER_02: The illustration, I think, makes sense instinctively, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_02: It's uh Proverbs is saying, wisdom is saying to us, well, somebody could steal a loaf of bread because they're starving.
SPEAKER_02: And you could look at that and go, well, actually, it's wrong to steal.
SPEAKER_02: And if they get caught, they'll have to pay for it.
SPEAKER_02: But you can at least understand why they did it.
SPEAKER_02: It at least makes sense.
SPEAKER_02: My family's starving, so I stole some bread.
SPEAKER_02: A la Jean Valjean, right?
SPEAKER_02: Uh that makes sense instinctively.
SPEAKER_02: We understand why.
SPEAKER_02: But then Proverbs turns and said, well, but adultery is not like that.
SPEAKER_02: Sexual folly isn't like that.
SPEAKER_02: It makes no sense.
SPEAKER_02: It's utterly irrational.
SPEAKER_02: It's weighing in the balance your spouse, your life, your kids, your life as you know it on one side, and a brief illicit accounter on the other side of the scales and going, worth it.
SPEAKER_02: It's madness.
SPEAKER_02: It's irrational.
SPEAKER_02: Or we justify our porn use by saying, well, it's just private.
SPEAKER_02: At least it's not having an affair.
SPEAKER_02: I need it.
SPEAKER_02: It's a helpful release.
SPEAKER_02: We rationalize.
SPEAKER_02: We rationalize the irrational.
SPEAKER_02: This is not just true for sexual folly.
SPEAKER_02: This is true for all idolatry.
SPEAKER_02: The idols of our hearts, whether it's money, sex, or power, they're finite.
SPEAKER_02: They're created things.
SPEAKER_02: And yet we expect them to give us permanent, infinite, eternal security.
SPEAKER_02: But how can something that's finite and be taken away ever give you that?
SPEAKER_02: You see, it's all idolatry is irrational.
SPEAKER_02: So one of the very first steps here this morning, if you're thinking, well, I've been a bit of a fool.
SPEAKER_02: How do I begin to grow in wisdom?
SPEAKER_02: Well, the first step is to stop rationalizing.
SPEAKER_02: Enough with the excuses.
SPEAKER_02: Enough with the yeah, but no.
SPEAKER_02: It begins when we stop rationalizing, and we come to Jesus acknowledging our need of forgiveness and repentance.
SPEAKER_02: Third, sin is unappeasable.
SPEAKER_02: It's self-harm, it's irrational.
SPEAKER_02: It's unappeasable.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 33 to 35.
SPEAKER_02: He will get wounds and dishonor, and his disgrace will not be wiped away.
SPEAKER_02: But jealousy makes a man furious.
SPEAKER_02: He will not spare when he takes revenge.
SPEAKER_02: He will accept no compensation.
SPEAKER_02: He will refuse, though you multiply gifts.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes our foolish decisions, particularly our foolish sexual decisions, can follow us the rest of our lives.
SPEAKER_02: Whether justifiably or no, they hang like a cloud over us.
SPEAKER_02: Humanly speaking, there are many things that a person might be willing to look over.
SPEAKER_02: But there is a particular shame attached here.
SPEAKER_02: That's what wisdom is saying.
SPEAKER_02: You could try and bribe the wounded party.
SPEAKER_02: You should offer them tens of thousands of euro.
SPEAKER_02: And it wouldn't matter because it's not about financial recompense.
SPEAKER_02: Something spiritual has happened.
SPEAKER_02: Something profound at a heart level has taken place.
SPEAKER_02: She's saying that there's a real politique to our sexual sin.
SPEAKER_02: There are some things that a person will always struggle to overlook.
SPEAKER_02: Some things a person will always struggle to forgive.
SPEAKER_02: And no mind of pleading or recompense will cover it.
SPEAKER_02: In the face of such stark warnings, I want to encourage us as we conclude to look to and marvel at the grace of God.
SPEAKER_02: We can read these verses and wonder, well, who can be spared?
SPEAKER_02: Who can be spared from such shame?
SPEAKER_02: Because we have all sinned in this way.
SPEAKER_02: We are all sexual fools.
SPEAKER_02: But there is grace.
SPEAKER_02: There is grace in Jesus for sinners ruined by the fall.
SPEAKER_02: There is grace in Jesus to bind up the wounds that we have inflicted not just on others, but on ourselves.
SPEAKER_02: Down from crucified agony and regard us with love and with mercy.
SPEAKER_02: We hear these words as an invitation to come and to acknowledge how we have been fully and to receive his mercy, mercy which transforms our hearts and sets our feet on a wise path again.
SPEAKER_02: The journey of sexual wisdom begins at the foot of the cross of Christ, where our debt was paid, and all of our sin atoned for.
SPEAKER_02: By his stripes we are healed.
SPEAKER_02: By his resurrection life, we are able, each of us, child or not, to place our hand in his and have us have him lead us in the paths of wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: If you found this helpful or want to know more about City Church Dublin, visit our website found in the links below.