SPEAKER_01: This morning's reading is Proverbs chapter one.
SPEAKER_01: The question is why is wisdom important?
SPEAKER_01: Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, King of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: No wisdom and instruction to understand words of insight.
SPEAKER_01: To receive instruction in wise dealing, in righteousness, justice, and equity, to give prudence to the simple knowledge and discretion to the youth.
SPEAKER_01: Let the wise hear an increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance.
SPEAKER_01: To understand a proverb and a saying, the word of the wise and their riddles.
SPEAKER_01: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: Fools despise wisdom and instruction.
SPEAKER_01: So it reads God's word.
SPEAKER_02: Happy New Year to you.
SPEAKER_02: It's great to have you here with us this morning as we start this new sermon series in the book of Proverbs.
SPEAKER_02: It's going to be uh helpful for you actually to have Proverbs open in front of you.
SPEAKER_02: So if you have a Bible or if you have it on your phone, you can look up Proverbs chapter one, just those first seven verses, really as an introduction to uh to the sermon series.
SPEAKER_02: Over the the next uh really up until around about Easter time, we're gonna do the first nine chapters uh at least.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and then in the community groups, we're gonna be looking at bits from throughout the rest of the book of Proverbs.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, so slightly different to the normal setup where we're studying the passage in community groups that was that was studied on a Sunday.
SPEAKER_02: And I'll explain as we go through uh why that is.
SPEAKER_02: But first of all, uh as we get into the book of Proverbs, I want you to imagine something uh with me.
SPEAKER_02: Now imagine uh that you go back into work tomorrow or uh back to to class tomorrow, wherever it is, and uh everybody's just in a terrible mood.
SPEAKER_02: Uh your boss uh is is doing dry January and it's not going well.
SPEAKER_02: Uh and you're you're getting the the pressure and you think I just I need to get out of here.
SPEAKER_02: So you go and you you take a break from all of these people who are just uh who are just on you all the time.
SPEAKER_02: And you go for a walk, you go and grab yourself a cup of coffee, and you think, okay, I'm going to uh I need some I need some help here from the scriptures.
SPEAKER_02: So you turn up the the Ten Commandments, and you think, okay, I'll read the Ten Commandments because that might give me some guidance for how to deal with my boss who's just being awful to me today.
SPEAKER_02: And as you read through the Ten Commandments, what you realize is that actually the commandments don't really help you very much, except perhaps for thou shalt not murder.
SPEAKER_02: So you walk back into work feeling slightly disheartened because the law, the commandments, didn't give you the wisdom that you needed for that moment when you went back into that situation, back into work, back into class.
SPEAKER_02: Why is that?
SPEAKER_02: Well, I think it's because the rules aren't quite enough for life.
SPEAKER_02: We've all known someone, haven't we, who is a is a stickler for the rules, or in Christian circles, who knows a lot of theology, who knows a lot of doctrine, who even actually is is quite a kind of morally uh upright person.
SPEAKER_02: We've all known that type of person, or some of us have been that type of person, and you haven't really liked them all that much.
SPEAKER_02: Have you noticed that?
SPEAKER_02: That actually somebody can know a lot of stuff about God, somebody can be very moral, know a lot of theology, a lot of rules, and actually not be very nice.
SPEAKER_02: Have you ever thought about why that is?
SPEAKER_02: Well, one of the reasons might be because while they have all of this knowledge, what they lack is wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: One of the things that wisdom says in the book of Proverbs is that to gain wisdom is like a beautiful crown on your life.
SPEAKER_02: And sometimes people have a lot of knowledge, but they don't have that crown of wisdom that makes their life look attractive.
SPEAKER_02: Have you noticed that?
SPEAKER_02: See, wisdom is not law, it's not commandment, it's not more rules.
SPEAKER_02: Wisdom, rather, is a it's a it's a toolkit about when to know, sorry, when to use and how to use the law.
SPEAKER_02: Wisdom is not either the the call of the the prophets to return to to faith in God.
SPEAKER_02: Rather, it's it's guidance for the person who is in that context, who is seeking to live in relationship with God, a life that is flourishing in a whole bunch of different dimensions, whether it's how you use your money or how you uh conduct yourself in your sex life, in your romantic life, how you conduct yourself at work.
SPEAKER_02: What does it mean for you to live a life that is uh that is seeking to be faithful to God in a whole bunch of these different arenas?
SPEAKER_02: That's what we need wisdom for.
SPEAKER_02: Now, of course, God cares about our knowledge.
SPEAKER_02: He wants to teach us doctrine, and that's part of the reason why we spent 32 Sundays in the book of Romans.
SPEAKER_02: But remember how the book of Romans ends.
SPEAKER_02: The book of Romans ends by Paul saying, Well, my prayer for you now is that you actually go and get wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: Or if you read his prayers at the start of his other letters, the letter to the Colossians, for example, what's his prayer for those Colossian Christians?
SPEAKER_02: They'd heard the gospel, that heard the news about Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: So what's what's the next step?
SPEAKER_02: Well, his prayer for them is, well, I pray that you'll grow in wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: That's what we often ask for as well, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02: When we meet together in community groups, when we have our our prayer nights in uh in community groups, what's the what's the most common prayer point that we ask for?
SPEAKER_02: Because just pray for wisdom for me.
SPEAKER_02: Uh I'm just wondering uh where to go next in terms of my career.
SPEAKER_02: Or uh I just you're weighing up where I sh where God wants me long term.
SPEAKER_02: Is it in Dublin?
SPEAKER_02: Is it somewhere else in the in the world?
SPEAKER_02: Could you just ask God for wisdom for me?
SPEAKER_02: That's what we're praying for.
SPEAKER_02: And God encourages us.
SPEAKER_02: He says, You gotta ask for the wisdom that comes from above.
SPEAKER_02: What job should I take?
SPEAKER_02: Who should I marry?
SPEAKER_02: Where should I live?
SPEAKER_02: And these aren't moral questions, usually.
SPEAKER_02: So these aren't questions with a right or wrong answer.
SPEAKER_02: They're not questions that the law will help us with, usually.
SPEAKER_02: Rather, they're a decision between good options.
SPEAKER_02: Should I work for this company or should I work for this company?
SPEAKER_02: Well, assuming that one of the companies isn't Murder Incorporated, you probably have a bit of a wisdom call.
SPEAKER_02: Either would be fine.
SPEAKER_02: How do you decide between these good options?
SPEAKER_02: This does not require more law, it requires wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: And Proverbs provides us with wisdom, real wisdom for real-world situations and for real people.
SPEAKER_02: We know that it is engaged in the real world by the very first verse.
SPEAKER_02: Proverbs, the Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, the king of Israel.
SPEAKER_02: Now, some of you, if you grew up in the church at all or you remember your Sunday school, Solomon was the guy who God came to him and says, Well, I'll give you anything you want.
SPEAKER_02: You know, if you uh whatever you ask of me, I'll give it to you.
SPEAKER_02: And Solomon doesn't ask for uh wealth or prestige or fame.
SPEAKER_02: He asks for wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: And God says, Well, because you have not asked for these material things, I'm not only going to give you wisdom, but I'm gonna make you very great uh materially as well.
SPEAKER_02: And so he is the kind of uh the wisdom guru of the Bible.
SPEAKER_02: And and who is he?
SPEAKER_02: Well, he's the he's the king, he's the CEO, he's the president of this country.
SPEAKER_02: So he's offering wisdom from someone who understands what it is to administer a state, to run a court, to manage finances and inventory, to make sure that people don't starve, to negotiate peace, and to know when to preserve peace and when to go to war.
SPEAKER_02: And all of this takes wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: Another word for wisdom is that it takes skill.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, it's actually the exact same word in Hebrew.
SPEAKER_02: That wisdom is to be skilled.
SPEAKER_02: So when he talks about the craftsmen who are building the temple in the Old Testament, they are wise.
SPEAKER_02: That is, they are skillful at their craft.
SPEAKER_02: So Solomon wants us to become more skillful in how to conduct ourselves in life.
SPEAKER_02: And this wisdom isn't just for the real world, real world situations, actually for real people.
SPEAKER_02: Look at verses two and three.
SPEAKER_02: To know wisdom and instruction, to understand words of insight, to receive instruction in wise dealing, in righteousness, justice, and equity.
SPEAKER_02: Human beings are not simply robots that need to be programmed with the correct set of laws, the correct algorithm, if this, so, that.
SPEAKER_02: No, we need to actually grow in skill.
SPEAKER_02: We need instruction.
SPEAKER_02: We need more than facts, more than rules.
SPEAKER_02: We need to know when to apply the rules and how to apply the rules.
SPEAKER_02: Who was your favorite teacher at school?
SPEAKER_02: You got their name in your head?
SPEAKER_02: What subject what subject did they teach?
SPEAKER_02: You got that in your head?
SPEAKER_02: Why were they your favorite teacher at school?
SPEAKER_02: Now it might be because they actually didn't make you do any work.
SPEAKER_02: That's why some of you were when you were a teacher, they were you were the favorite of your of your students.
SPEAKER_02: But putting those teachers aside, why were they your favorite?
SPEAKER_02: Well, uh one aspect of it is because they actually knew their subject really well.
SPEAKER_02: So they did have all of the requisite knowledge to teach their subject with with competency.
SPEAKER_02: But it was more than that, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't just that your maths teacher was a really good math teacher and knew lots of maths.
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't just that your English teacher knew lots of poems.
SPEAKER_02: No, there was something else going on there, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_02: It was that they were able to draw something out of you, that they were able to inspire you.
SPEAKER_02: Their demeanor made their class more life-giving, more enjoyable.
SPEAKER_02: The subject came to life.
SPEAKER_02: But another reason why we need proverbs is because God knows that we're not just blank sheets.
SPEAKER_02: That because we're real people in the real world that is fallen, it's been corrupted by sin, that we have a we have a natural waiting, a natural bias away from God, away from righteousness, justice, equity.
SPEAKER_02: And so one of the things that the proverbs, proverbs do is Proverbs brings us back in line with how God wants us to live, that way that brings about our flourishing.
SPEAKER_02: We need to be instructed in wise dealing, justice, righteous, and equity, because we are often by nature selfish, unjust, corrupt.
SPEAKER_02: You see, the the Greeks thought that wisdom was a moral thing that you could reason your way to.
SPEAKER_02: That all you had to do in order to get people to live a moral or virtuous life is that you had to persuade them of the rational reasons why they should live that way.
SPEAKER_02: That if you give people a bunch of bullet point reasons as to why it is good for them to live that way, then they'll do it.
SPEAKER_02: But actually, maybe you realize this.
SPEAKER_02: That's not how human beings work.
SPEAKER_02: We actually like to be irrational a lot of the time.
SPEAKER_02: A lot of the time, we ourselves know the logical right reasons for doing something, and yet we still do the opposite.
SPEAKER_02: Why is that?
SPEAKER_02: Well, it's because the human heart has a natural weighting, it has a natural bias.
SPEAKER_02: We're not just blank sheets.
SPEAKER_02: And so God, through the gift of wisdom, is correcting that bias and helping to train us in righteousness, uh, justice, and equity.
SPEAKER_02: The Bible knows how human beings operate.
SPEAKER_02: So, where does this wisdom come from?
SPEAKER_02: Well, like I said, verse 1 attributes the book to Solomon, the king who had asked for wisdom, but he's not the only contributor in the book.
SPEAKER_02: You have another king called Hezekiah, you have the sayings of the wise.
SPEAKER_02: You even, believe it or not, have some Proverbs that are lifted from Egyptian, ancient Egyptian literature, and placed in the book of Proverbs.
SPEAKER_02: Now, isn't that curious?
SPEAKER_02: How is it that God, in the inspiration of the scriptures, can take pagan proverbs and say these are the word of God?
SPEAKER_02: That's odd, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02: Just lodge that in your mind.
SPEAKER_02: The first nine chapters, which we'll be looking at in these Sundays, have two main speakers.
SPEAKER_02: There's the father who's speaking to his son.
SPEAKER_02: There's ten speeches where the father is giving instruction to his son, instructing his son in the shape of wisdom, what it looks like to uh to live in the world.
SPEAKER_02: And then woven throughout these ten speeches, there are four poems.
SPEAKER_02: And these four poems are given by another character who is Lady Wisdom herself.
SPEAKER_02: There is the embodiment of wisdom in this book, and she is a lady who calls us to her.
SPEAKER_02: She is the embodiment of that eternal objective wisdom and she invites us all to come and learn from her.
SPEAKER_02: Now, what does all of that mean?
SPEAKER_02: Here's a couple of things that I think that means.
SPEAKER_02: First is that there is an objective source of wisdom in the universe.
SPEAKER_02: Put it another way, there is an objective moral shape to the universe that God has given in his world.
SPEAKER_02: This is exactly how pagan Egyptian philosophers could figure out proverbs that end up being in the Bible.
SPEAKER_02: That they are they are seeing and glimpsing something of the shape, the objective shape that God has created in his world.
SPEAKER_02: Think of it another way.
SPEAKER_02: So that there is a, you imagine that the universe kind of has a has a grain to it, like on a like on a plank of wood, that has a grain to it.
SPEAKER_02: And you can either cut with the grain of that moral-wise universe, or you can move against it.
SPEAKER_02: Now you move against the grain.
SPEAKER_02: What happens if you move against the grain?
SPEAKER_02: Well, you get splinters in your fingers.
SPEAKER_02: It is much better to cut with the grain than to cut against the grain.
SPEAKER_02: There is a grain, a shape, an objective moral character to the universe, to our world, to your life.
SPEAKER_02: That it's not just that we make up what our own wisdom is, what our own morality is.
SPEAKER_02: No, it's that we discover the objective shape that is already there.
SPEAKER_02: And that's part of the reason.
SPEAKER_02: That's what these Egyptians uh were doing and why their Proverbs make it into the book of Proverbs.
SPEAKER_02: Another thing that this means is I think that God gives wisdom in two primary ways.
SPEAKER_02: There is the natural order, there's the relationships kind of summarized by this kind of parental relationship of a parent and a child, a father and a son, that those natural things are put in place for our learning and wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: And then also that there is the need for what you would call a special revelation.
SPEAKER_02: So there's a natural revelation of what we see in the world, and then we also need God to speak.
SPEAKER_02: It's like we can see the outline and shape of Lady Wisdom, but it's when we open up the pages of the scriptures, we actually hear her call.
SPEAKER_02: We get a clearer insight into who she is and why it is that we should come and learn from her.
SPEAKER_02: And so we need those two things in tandem.
SPEAKER_02: You need the uh the natural grain and order of the world, those those good familial relationships, the father and the son, the mother and the daughter, the parent and child, uh the mentor and the mentee, that all of those things are part of God's good order to help us figure out life.
SPEAKER_02: And we need him to speak as we were singing about speak, O Lord, as we come to you to receive the food of your holy word.
SPEAKER_02: As a result, therefore, it's just by way of implication of those two things.
SPEAKER_02: As a result, I think I would say that it is a mistake to abandon the wisdom of the past, to think that we have nothing to learn from others that have gone before us, to think that we have nothing to learn from tradition.
SPEAKER_02: Uh it's not to uh to say, of course, there is a kind of calcifying, a solidifying that happens when we just go into traditionalism and the worship of what has gone before and the uh and the need to constantly and only preserve the traditions of the past.
SPEAKER_02: But it would be wrong to pendulum swing so far as to say, well, we must reject all of that in favor of what is new.
SPEAKER_02: No, no, there are things to be learned, and we abandon the wisdom of the past at our peril.
SPEAKER_02: Similarly, it means that we cut a grain, we cut against the grain of the universe kind of at our peril.
SPEAKER_02: It's a deadly thing to look at the way that God has made our world, the way God has made you, who we are, the institutions that He has given us, the moral framework that He has built into our world, into the West, and to disregard it, to tear it down, or to take it for granted.
SPEAKER_02: It is right and good that those things are preserved and learned from.
SPEAKER_02: That is not to say that that those that those institutions like we ourselves haven't been affected by sin, but simply to disregard them wholesale would be a deadly mistake.
SPEAKER_02: It is a deadly thing to cut against the grain of the moral order of the universe.
SPEAKER_02: That's where wisdom comes from.
SPEAKER_02: Secondly, who is wisdom for?
SPEAKER_02: Well, Solomon tells us.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 4, to give prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 5, let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance.
SPEAKER_02: Who's wisdom for?
SPEAKER_02: Well, it's first it's for the the simple.
SPEAKER_02: That's the word that's used in in verse 4.
SPEAKER_02: No, that's not a that's not a simple tun to use a an arcane word.
SPEAKER_02: It just means somebody who is uninitiated.
SPEAKER_02: Uneducated, unskilled.
SPEAKER_02: And that's a really gracious thing.
SPEAKER_02: God's saying, actually, you don't need a requisite level of knowledge.
SPEAKER_02: You don't need a requisite level of skill in order to come and learn from me.
SPEAKER_02: You can come and say, I'm pretty green.
SPEAKER_02: I'm pretty wet behind the ears in terms of growing in wisdom, understanding spiritual things.
SPEAKER_02: I don't really feel like I've got an awful lot to go on.
SPEAKER_02: God says, come learn.
SPEAKER_02: You think you say, I'm a bit of a spiritual youth.
SPEAKER_02: Great.
SPEAKER_02: God invites you.
SPEAKER_02: He says, this wisdom's for you.
SPEAKER_02: Come and learn from it.
SPEAKER_02: But who's wisdom also for?
SPEAKER_02: Verse 5.
SPEAKER_02: Wisdom's for the wise.
SPEAKER_02: Ah, that's super important, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02: Because one of the things that that tells us here this morning is that the school of wisdom is not something that we graduate from.
SPEAKER_02: It is a mistake to think that you have arrived in terms of the necessary level of wisdom for your life.
SPEAKER_02: It is a mistake to think that you know that they're all there is to know about God in the scriptures, that you don't need to learn anymore, that there's there's nothing new that you can learn.
SPEAKER_02: That would be that would be wrong.
SPEAKER_02: No, we we don't graduate.
SPEAKER_02: There are things that the wise can hear and increase in learning.
SPEAKER_02: And for the one who understands to obtain more guidance.
SPEAKER_02: That is who the wiz who wisdom is for, for the simple and for the wise.
SPEAKER_02: And then finally, but slightly more longly, uh, how does this wisdom work?
SPEAKER_02: You know, as we're we really are kind of just at the threshold of the door right now, uh, walking into this house of wisdom, and we're just kind of sketching out uh by way of introduction this whole sermon series.
SPEAKER_02: So, how do proverbs work?
SPEAKER_02: How does wisdom work?
SPEAKER_02: Well, and there's four things here.
SPEAKER_02: The first thing that you need to realize is that proverbs aren't promises.
SPEAKER_02: Proverbs aren't promises.
SPEAKER_02: There are many wonderful promises in the Bible.
SPEAKER_02: I will never leave you or forsake you, I'll uphold you by my gracious right hand.
SPEAKER_02: All those who come to me, uh, all those who the Father has given me will come to me, and all those who come to me I will never drive away.
SPEAKER_02: Wonderful promises that that add solid foundation to our faith.
SPEAKER_02: But Proverbs are not promises.
SPEAKER_02: You cannot come to the book of Proverbs and go, if this, so that.
SPEAKER_02: If I do this, then this will absolutely 100% happen.
SPEAKER_02: It's not quite how it works.
SPEAKER_02: They are principles, they are things that are generally true.
SPEAKER_02: So let me give you an let me give you an example.
SPEAKER_02: I remember very early on in my Christian life, I was going to uh to a church in Northern Ireland, a Presbyterian church, I was a very, very young Christian, and the the minister that Sunday was uh, I guess, teaching on the book of Proverbs, but the thing that he was emphasizing was he was emphasizing the proverb that says uh Proverbs 22, verse 6, train up a child in the way that he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
SPEAKER_02: Train up your child in the way that they should go, and when they're older, they'll not leave it.
SPEAKER_02: You think great.
SPEAKER_02: What a great promise that is.
SPEAKER_02: If I teach my child about Jesus, if I bring them up in the faith, then absolutely 100% certain cast iron promise from God here, it's in the book.
SPEAKER_02: He will not depart from it.
SPEAKER_02: She will not depart from it.
SPEAKER_02: I think that it's actually quite hard to say that that's a promise.
SPEAKER_02: That it's certainly a truism, and saying that our children pick up our values from us, and that we need to be proactive in instilling our values and beliefs and the things that we treasure in our children, but in the Lord's sovereignty, it may be that our children do not walk with the Lord Jesus, perhaps for a season, perhaps forever.
SPEAKER_02: Does that mean that God has failed?
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: Does that mean that we have failed?
SPEAKER_02: No, not necessarily.
SPEAKER_02: No, it is a principle, not a promise.
SPEAKER_02: See, in the Old Testament, there are three wisdom books.
SPEAKER_02: There's Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and there's the book of Job.
SPEAKER_02: Proverbs sketches out the moral shape of God's world.
SPEAKER_02: How things should go, how things often go, how things usually go.
SPEAKER_02: But then you turn to the book of Job.
SPEAKER_02: And what's the book of Job?
SPEAKER_02: Well, the book of Job is a wisdom book.
SPEAKER_02: For when nothing goes the way that it should, for when you you've done all of the right things and all you get is suffering.
SPEAKER_02: See, it's dangerous to come to a book like the book of Proverbs and go, This is a book of promises.
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to put them on my calendar, I'm going to make a little picture of a waterfall or lambs kind of ambling in a field, and I'm going to put up these proverbs as promises for my life.
SPEAKER_02: No, no, they're they're guiding principles.
SPEAKER_02: The way things often go, the way things should go.
SPEAKER_02: But sometimes we need to turn to the book of Job and realize actually, because we live in a fallen world, it doesn't always go the way that we had anticipated or the way that we had worked towards.
SPEAKER_02: Proverbs are principles, not promises.
SPEAKER_02: The second uh way that Proverbs work is that proverbs don't tend to give clear-cut answers.
SPEAKER_02: Rather, they invite you to consider things.
SPEAKER_02: So uh verse six of our introduction says, To understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles.
SPEAKER_02: It's kind of like having to chew over something, having to ruminate and meditate on these words that at first reading don't seem to make sense, and then you you kind of hold them up to the light and you turn them around and you and you give them a look.
SPEAKER_02: This is what we're gonna be doing in community groups.
SPEAKER_02: You're gonna basically take kind of six or so Proverbs on your study evenings, and you're gonna hold them up to the light, and you're gonna kind of look at them, ruminate on them, think about them.
SPEAKER_02: Because Proverbs doesn't give us clear-cut answers.
SPEAKER_02: It's it's like the father, or I kind of fathers have a have a particular relationship, or parents have a particular relationship with their children that tends to be, at least in the early years, more kind of law-based.
SPEAKER_02: But the and so the way I kind of tend to think about this is think about your favorite uncle or your favorite aunt.
SPEAKER_02: They've got a different relationship to you.
SPEAKER_02: Uh they're they're less about kind of laying down the law and the do this, don't do this.
SPEAKER_02: They're a little bit more like, come alongside, put the arm around, come on, I'm gonna teach you how to use a chainsaw.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, that you know, they're the ones who kind of you know, they they put a they put a glass in your hand and say, right, here's how the world actually works.
SPEAKER_02: Some of the Proverbs are a little bit like that.
SPEAKER_02: So let me give you some examples.
SPEAKER_02: So uh Proverbs 11, 24.
SPEAKER_02: The one who gives freely grows richer.
SPEAKER_02: The one who withholds what he should give only suffers want.
SPEAKER_02: It's like Proverbs is coming alongside you and saying, Have you noticed that generous people seem to have everything they need.
SPEAKER_02: But sometimes really stingy people never have enough.
SPEAKER_02: Have you noticed that?
SPEAKER_02: Have you thought about that?
SPEAKER_02: Is that something that you've considered?
SPEAKER_02: Or Proverbs 27, 7.
SPEAKER_02: The one who is full hates honey.
SPEAKER_02: But to the one who is hungry, everything that's bitter is sweet.
SPEAKER_02: Proverbs again comes and puts his arm around you and says, Have you noticed that rich people don't actually seem to be very happy?
SPEAKER_02: But the people who have very little they cherish it and they're grateful for it.
SPEAKER_02: Have you noticed?
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't give you the answer.
SPEAKER_02: It's just saying, have you considered this?
SPEAKER_02: Have you thought about have you thought about why that is?
SPEAKER_02: That's how the book of Proverbs works.
SPEAKER_02: Or in terms of not giving clear-cut answers, sometimes it gives you immediately contradictory advice.
SPEAKER_02: Because sometimes you're going to use one part of that advice and sometimes you're going to use the other.
SPEAKER_02: So the famous one in that regard is Proverbs 26, 4 and 5.
SPEAKER_02: Let me read to you those two verses.
SPEAKER_02: Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 5.
SPEAKER_02: Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.
SPEAKER_02: Oh well, which is it, Proverbs?
SPEAKER_02: I need the rule.
SPEAKER_02: Give me the commandment.
SPEAKER_02: No, that's not how Proverbs works.
SPEAKER_02: Again, you've got that uncle, you've got that aunt coming alongside you and saying, just let that guy sound off.
SPEAKER_02: Just let him run his mouth.
SPEAKER_02: If you answer him now, you're just going to be dragged into the mud and you're going to be seen as just as foolish and bad as he is.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes he comes along and says, Yeah, do you know what?
SPEAKER_02: In this situation, you actually need to correct this person because they're going to have an influence or they're going to create more damage that needs to be shut down.
SPEAKER_02: Well, which is it?
SPEAKER_02: We need wisdom, don't we?
SPEAKER_02: That's what Proverbs is for.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes you've got to answer the full.
SPEAKER_02: And sometimes you've got to keep your mouth shut.
SPEAKER_02: And I can tell you from recent experience that the time that you keep your mouth shut is when you're on a forum online.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: Don't try and win the internet.
SPEAKER_02: Apparently it doesn't work.
SPEAKER_02: Proverbs don't give clear-cut answers.
SPEAKER_02: They give us things to chew on, ruminate on.
SPEAKER_02: Third way that Proverbs works, we're nearly there, is that Proverbs is a little bit like divine virtual reality.
SPEAKER_02: Proverbs allows us to look into the future and to understand the likely consequences of our actions.
SPEAKER_02: And that's really useful because that means that actually, before we do something, Proverbs is saying, well, actually, usually what happens is if you do that, this is the consequence of it.
SPEAKER_02: So what's the really famous one there?
SPEAKER_02: Pride cometh before a fall, a haughty spirit before destruction.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: Pride comes before a fall.
SPEAKER_02: Run the game through, God says.
SPEAKER_02: You're feeling proud, arrogant, full of yourself?
SPEAKER_02: Well, you've got to be careful because it's only a matter of time before somebody comes and takes you down a peg or two.
SPEAKER_02: Run the game through.
SPEAKER_02: Put on the divine VR headset and see your own destruction coming down the track.
SPEAKER_02: And then change how you act now.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes uh the VR is wonderfully evocative.
SPEAKER_02: Have you ever seen two friends fighting and thought I can fix this?
SPEAKER_02: If only they had my degree of objectivity and insight into this quarrel, if only they understood where the other person is coming from, I can fix this.
SPEAKER_02: And so what you do is you step into the argument, and five minutes later you can't quite believe that things aren't fixed.
SPEAKER_02: But now that they're both angry at you.
SPEAKER_02: Has that ever happened?
SPEAKER_02: Right.
SPEAKER_02: Proverbs 26, 17.
SPEAKER_02: It's put on the divine VR headset.
SPEAKER_02: Proverbs 26, 17.
SPEAKER_02: Whoever meddles in an argument that is not his own is like one who grabs a passing dog by the ears.
SPEAKER_02: You think of that image, right?
SPEAKER_02: There's this mangy, stray dog that is coming towards you, and you think the best thing that I can do right now is just grab that dog by the ears.
SPEAKER_02: What's gonna happen to you?
SPEAKER_02: What's that dog gonna do?
SPEAKER_02: He's gonna bite you, gonna turn around, and you're gonna come away the worse off.
SPEAKER_02: And you're already laughing because you know that when you step into that quarrel, into that argument with your fixer-rescuer hat on, actually you come away the worst in the world.
SPEAKER_02: You come away with a bite, two bites, actually, from the two people who are angry.
SPEAKER_02: The Divine VR headset.
SPEAKER_02: Finally, we need to finish here.
SPEAKER_02: Proverbs are designed to work in relationship with God.
SPEAKER_02: They're not just generic wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: You know, there's this, I don't know how online you are, um, but in certain kind of spheres of uh of online-ness, uh, you know, if you're if you're you know listening to people like um Alex O'Connor, cosmic skeptic, or Jordan Peterson, or uh even some of the stuff from Richard Dawkins.
SPEAKER_02: Richard Dawkins recently came out and described himself as a cultural Christian.
SPEAKER_02: Douglas Murray kind of saying similar sorts of things, right?
SPEAKER_02: If you don't know who any of those names are, it doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_02: The point is that there is this rising kind of um desire to uh to take on board the kind of the cultural goodness and wisdom of uh of Christian Judeo-Christian morality, uh, but not really kind of have faith in Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And there's a sense in which that's the kind of preserving of the institutions of the West, and there's wisdom in that.
SPEAKER_02: But proverbs, proverbs that actually lead to us flourishing uh in life are designed to be used in the context with an actual vibrant relationship with God.
SPEAKER_02: So verse 7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
SPEAKER_02: Fools despise wisdom and instruction.
SPEAKER_02: Here, when Proverbs talks about the fear of the Lord, he's talking about real faith, a living relationship with God, that understands that there's a moral shape to the universe, that behind the laws and the wisdom is a lawgiver and a wise one.
SPEAKER_02: He is the author of the guiding principles of this world, and that it is foolishness to live in God's world without reference to him.
SPEAKER_02: Fear here is not terror, but a kind of rever and respect.
SPEAKER_02: You can think about it like this.
SPEAKER_02: Imagine uh some of you here like uh to go sea swimming, but all of us at various points, especially when it's sunny and warm, like to go to the seaside.
SPEAKER_02: The sea is a beautiful thing to be enjoyed, it's a gift.
SPEAKER_02: But you'd be making a mistake if you took it for granted.
SPEAKER_02: You'd be making a mistake if you thought that it was a safe thing.
SPEAKER_02: No, the sea, in order to be enjoyed, needs to be rightly feared.
SPEAKER_02: Do you understand?
SPEAKER_02: That you need to be reverent of its power.
SPEAKER_02: Because it has the power to kill you, and only then when you realize that can it be truly enjoyed.
SPEAKER_02: That's what it's kind of like to fear the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: To enjoy him is to understand that he is not safe, but that he is drawn close and invites us to learn from him.
SPEAKER_02: And you'll notice in in verse 7 that it's the fear of the Lord, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, that is his relational name.
SPEAKER_02: The God of the universe invites us into relationship with himself in order to learn from him.
SPEAKER_02: He does not stand aloof with some distant deity, simply handing down principles from on high.
SPEAKER_02: No, he comes close and says, You gotta learn from me, you gotta come into relationship with me.
SPEAKER_02: And that in relationship with me, that is where you can grow in wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus, in his ministry, ultimately identifies himself with the character of wisdom from the book of Proverbs.
SPEAKER_02: He came into a world of darkness, a world where we human beings in lots of ways were unable to make out the moral shape of the world.
SPEAKER_02: And he brought light.
SPEAKER_02: He came to simple people, like the disciples.
SPEAKER_02: You read the gospels, you realize how simple they are.
SPEAKER_02: And with patience and grace, he invited them into relationship and to learn from him to grow in wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: That relationship is established by Jesus by his death.
SPEAKER_02: That's why we say in the new song that we sang, and oh the mystery of the cross, that God would suffer for the lost.
SPEAKER_02: The wisdom that God offers is sometimes so counterintuitive.
SPEAKER_02: That the divine would die, that salvation would be via his own shame.
SPEAKER_02: But that's why we need to come and learn from it, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02: Because that wisdom, we would never reason our way to it ourselves.
SPEAKER_02: And so we begin this journey, this new year, through the book of Proverbs, first by an invitation to say, well, actually, are you in a relationship with God who offers you this wisdom?
SPEAKER_02: You're sitting here thinking, I want to grow in wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: I've made some stupid decisions in 2024, and I'm resolved to try and not, well, at least make the same ones.
SPEAKER_02: I might make a whole host of other ones in 2025.
SPEAKER_02: I'd like to grow a little.
SPEAKER_02: How do you begin that?
SPEAKER_02: The fear of the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Establish a relationship with him, and then come and learn from him.
SPEAKER_02: This is our invitation as we journey through the book of Proverbs to take all of the great rich theology, the doctrine and the facts that we have learned, and to grow in wisdom, to know how best to bring them to bear to ourselves, to our life, to our work, and to our life here as a church.
SPEAKER_00: If you found this helpful or want to know more about City Church Dublin, visit our website found in the links below.