Wisdom For The Crushed Spirit | Proverbs 18:14

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Amen. You may be seated. Well, good morning. Welcome to life. Glad you're here. Good to see you. If I haven't met you, my name is Andrew, and I'm one of the pastors here at Life. And it's an honor to have you with us. Before I jump into God's word, let me just say a couple of things. Super grateful for what God is doing amongst the leaders of our church and the servants of our church. And so think about the fact that Jason with his team just came back from Newfoundland and enjoyed the beauty of Canada. So great missions trip, right? The needs there are great. Beautiful for sure. Today Matt is in Prague, Europe. Chechia, I think it is, right? And uh I joke about it a little bit that he's touring Europe, and it's really not that. It's an incredible ministry opportunity that he has to serve uh Arabic-speaking pastors who are all meeting uh in there. I'm not even not even sure all the details of it because it's one of those cool opportunities that he has that we're just excited for them. So that's why he's not here. So there's just some great things that God is doing through the leaders, pastors of the church, and I just want you to know about them. Pray for Matt as he's doing that, serving there. Excited for him to be able to do that. And then some of you I know know this, but I think it's worthy of us mentioning uh that Chuck, one of our pastors, he just finished a pretty big uh training process to become kind of certified and trained in counseling through a ministry called ACBC. It's about a 14-month process, and I know it was a lot of work, it was not just read a couple of books, but there was a lot of uh sacrifice and a lot of attention that went into that. And so, as Chuck, as one of the pastors here, tries to continue to equip himself to serve you. I want you to know that Chuck has put in a lot of time and has finished that and is now officially certified on the ACBC certification list, whatever that means, and is now uh I think just using what God has already gifted him supernaturally to do with some uh resources that has now been provided to him. So if you see Chuck, let him know. Congratulations, excited for you to counsel me through my problems, okay? Let's do that. And uh, that's great. All right, well, let's grab our Bibles, let's open up to the book of Proverbs, and uh, we're gonna take uh today to look at uh several verses on this topic in Proverbs and start with me in Proverbs chapter 18. Proverbs 18 is where I want you to draw your attention. We're talking about walking in wisdom. Uh, walking in wisdom is uh the way we've entitled this. This is the wisdom literature. This is the wisdom of Solomon, led by the Spirit of God, to write these words for us. So they are uh they are beautiful, they are they are powerful, they are applicable, and they help us to walk in the life that I think God intended for us to walk, uh to walk according to his wisdom. And we're gonna talk about that a little bit today. But we're gonna begin in a second in Proverbs chapter 18 in verse 14. I'll read it here in a moment. But I was thinking about this as we were studying this out. I I really, in full honesty, I felt like we were gonna go a different direction on this Sunday, back when we planned this. And the Lord just used uh an article I read and a sermon I read and some other things that that really spoke to this topic in my life. And sometimes what I need to do is just uh kind of give you uh from what God is doing in me. And uh that's what Proverbs did to me this week. And so at the beginning of the week, as I was reading through this and understanding this truth a little bit more, uh, I came to realize, hey, I think we need to visit that and this truth in Proverbs throughout this Sunday. And so as I was thinking about this, I was wondering who you might say is the strongest person you've ever met. Now, don't point my way, I defer that, that's okay, you don't have to say that, but you certainly aren't uh aren't talking probably about somebody with physical strength. We we use that phrase and we might say, hey, that's the strongest man. Remember the strongest man competitions? Uh those are great to watch and funny to watch, and we thought I never want to do that, probably never do that. And we might not even be willing to say that person is the strongest person I've ever seen or ever met. Probably it would be somebody that survived cancer or endured endured the grief of burying a spouse or maybe somebody who has endured intense persecution. Maybe a missionary or someone in this church around you that's not flashy, that's not upfront, that just has endured, you would say, that person's the strongest person I've ever met. And what made them strong wasn't their muscles or their money or their personality or their education. Solomon would answer strength in that way, as it's none of those. He would say the strongest thing about a person isn't necessarily their body. We're gonna see that. He would say it's their spirit. So so we think about that. Why do some people survive cancer or illness? Why do some people survive persecution and not even necessarily survive, but just uh maintain faith and encouragement through there and economic downturns or unimaginable suffering. I mean, some of the things that we know that people go through and they keep on enduring and they keep the faith and they keep uh enduring through those things while others collapse around them under the same circumstances. Uh, there is an extreme amount of courage and strength involved there. And Solomon answers that throughout Proverbs, and one of the places I want to start in is Proverbs chapter 18, verse 14. Here's what he says in verse 14 of 18. A man's spirit will endure sickness, but a crushed spirit, who can bear? I'm gonna talk about that a little bit more in a moment, but this this is in essence what's going on here is he is saying that when a when a man is going through physical difficulty, when he is struggling, when his body is sick or his circumstances are severe, one of the things or the thing that helps him to endure through those circumstances is his spirit. But even a healthy body and even the optimum of circumstances cannot endure when a spirit is crushed. This is what he's getting at. This is the reality of a crushed spirit. And throughout the book of Proverbs, he has wisdom for the crushed spirit. Wisdom for those who are broken in spirit. Think of it as a flat tire. The amazing thing about a flat tire is that the car doesn't stop immediately, it still moves, and it it even maybe looks fine from a distance. You might even be able to convince yourself that you can make it a little further, but something is is fundamentally wrong, and every mile becomes harder, and the steering becomes more difficult, and the ride becomes rough, and eventually the vehicle can no longer carry the weight that it was designed to carry. And I think many people in our church and in our world are living in exactly that same way spiritually, just running on a flat tire. Maybe still going to work, maybe still showing up at home, maybe still smiling at church, maybe still serving, maybe still paying the bills from the outside. Everything appears normal, but inside there's a spirit that has been crushed. They've lost joy, they've lost hope, they've lost passion, they've lost the resilience and endurance, and they are carrying on with a crushed spirit. That's what Solomon has a lot of wisdom for. And so for the next few minutes, I just want to take some thoughts from different verses in Proverbs that deal with your spirit and the crushed and broken spirit and help us get this big idea to come to bear on our lives. Okay, so if you're taking notes, I jot this down. True wisdom offers hope for the crushed in spirit. True wisdom offers hope for the crushed in spirit. I think that's what Solomon is doing, and he's doing it in a profound way that I hope you'll be helped by this morning. And so there's a few things we've got to get. We really are trying to answer the question how can how can we find hope and wisdom for a crushed spirit? So I'm in a crushed spirit, I have one right now. I'm I'm struggling, I got that flat tire, it's losing air, I'm losing joy, I'm losing passion, I'm losing direction, I need help, or I know this is gonna happen, this is gonna come to bear on me, and I need to know how to handle that with the wisdom that God provides. How do we do that? Okay, so we're gonna take some notes here, if you would, and think through this a little bit. And there's four realities, four truths I need you to get today that we uh will help be helped by when it comes to a crushed spirit. So let's talk about our spirit. The first thing I need you to see, and I want you to get is the critical nature of my spirit. I need to understand the critical nature of my spirit. Meaning this critical in that your spirit is the most important part of you because it shapes every other part of your life. It's very important. Now, again, looking back at our text, a man's spirit will endure sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear. Now, the Hebrew word for spirit means something not the same as heart, it's a little bit different. It actually literally means wind. That's the word. It's used other places to actually refer to the spirit or a spirit or wind or force or energy. It refers to something being set in motion. Proverbs uses the word 21 times in different ways. And in Proverbs 18, 14, we get a little bit of an idea here of what it's talking about. It's a word that describes a person's energy and passion for life. The thing that moves them to take on the things of life. It could be emotional or mental. It's a picture of the substance and mood of a person, if you will. The human spirit then speaks to what's going on on the inside, and it's deeply complex and it's nuanced and it's multifaceted way. So Proverbs makes it clear that the heart is the control center of a person, and the spirit is the empowered expression of the heart. So the heart, remember, Chris talked about, guard your heart, out of it are the issues of life. The spirit is the energy, it's the it's the passion, it's the drive, it's the it's the uh uh wind, if you will, in the sails of life. So the crushed spirit in verse uh 14 of chapter 18 refers to the spirit that has uh is losing or has lost the passion, who's lost the desire and the energy to press into and deal with life. This is disheartened people. This is discouraged, depressed, overwhelmed. So, what this is teaching is basically that a broken and unhealthy or injured body can be sustained by a strong and healthy spirit, but a crushed or broken spirit cannot be sustained or carried on by the strongest or healthiest of bodies. That's what he's talking about. He's teaching us that scripture supports all over the place. We usually, in human speaking, right, believe that our happiness is connected to our circumstances externally. We think, we we convince ourselves of this so regularly, that we will be happy if our body is healthy. We will be happy if our body looks good. If our bank account is full of money, we will be happy. If people treat us right, if drivers stop cutting me off, right? If the right person is in office, then I will be happy. And in a ton of other ways that we determine whether or not things are good on the outside, and this we just say is what either makes us happy or unhappy. But the Bible teaches us that our happiness has nothing to do with our external circumstances, it actually has more to do with uh how you and I are handling our circumstances from the inside with the spirit. That's what we're talking about. This is the reason why Paul says that he prayed for the churches the way he did. Think about that. When uh Paul writes to the churches in the New Testament, he is writing to churches that were some in some of the most extremely difficult of circumstances. They were being killed and persecuted and imprisoned, they were being burned, they were being fed to lions, they were they were being scattered, and he writes to them. Paul records some prayers for them, and he never says, I am praying that the government will leave you alone. He never says, I pray that they will stop taking you to jail or feeding you to the lions. He never prays that. In fact, you want to know how he prays? Look at this verse in Ephesians chapter 3, verse 14, 15, and 16. For this reason he says, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant to you to be strengthened with power through his spirit. Where? In your inner being. In your inner being, inside, in your spirit, that you would be strengthened. He doesn't say, I hope your circumstances change, I hope the government leaves you alone, I hope your bank account gets full and you stay healthy. No, he says, I hope that the spirit of God, my prayer is that the spirit of God strengthens your spirit so that in spite of the difficult circumstances, your spirit can be strong. So he's saying that if your life is broken and all things are going badly, but your spirit is strong, then you are in the place of strength. But if your circumstances are great and your spirit is crushed, then you are in the place of weakness. Do you see the critically important element or nature of your spirit? This is important. This is important, this is a big deal. We're not the kind of people who try to avoid this reality. Your spirit and your energy and your passion inside of you is a big deal. It is a big deal because it affects your life. Now we also know that that spirit can be crushed, it can be broken. Solomon refers to that, so that gets us to the second reality we've got to understand, and that is this the crushing burdens of my spirit. Critical nature of my spirit, it's important, but what are the crushing burdens of my spirit? Listen, here's what we're gonna talk about, and I'll show you a few for a second, but your spirit bears the weight of living in a fallen world. You you bear that. So, how does our spirit get crushed or wounded? Why do we get down and our feelings seem to get out of control? Why do we lose passion for life? Why do we struggle so often like this? This is an extremely complex thing in the Bible. Proverbs shows us something about human nature that is, I think, often missed by modern counseling and psychology. They try to kind of narrow it into a simple thing. This is the simple thing, and I think there are more things at play here on purpose that Proverbs speaks to. In fact, Lee Lewis on the Biblical Counseling Coalition website said this when you place any of the psychological theories next to Proverbs' depiction and description of the human heart and spirit, they all oversimplify the profound complexities of humans. You are complex. You and I are complex. So the Bible gives a very nuanced and complex understanding of what can lead to this despondency. There's many reasons. I want you to see them. First one, I want you to see, go with me to Proverbs 14 and verse 30, and I want you to see that there could be physical reasons that play into this. So again, Proverbs 14, verse 30, it'll be on the screen as well. It says this a tranquil heart gives life to the flesh. But every uh but envy makes the bones rot. So so here's what Proverbs is doing in that verse. Proverbs and the wisdom of Solomon is recognizing the interconnectedness of body and spirit. And several times Proverbs shows us that these are connected and affected by each other. A tranquil heart gives life to the flesh. So a heart that's at peace and full of energy, and a spirit that is healthy gives life to the flesh. But envy that eats at your spirit and causes you to have a broken or crushed spirit makes the bones wrought. A glad heart makes a cheerful face. A joyful heart is a good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. These are different ways that Solomon says that. So in chapter 14, verse 30, he is trying to help us understand that emotional unhealth leads to physical unhealth. In all kinds of ways. You can disintegrate and deteriorate, and so the implication is this that since the body and the emotions are united, then bodily weakness can lead to emotional unhealth. Sometimes your problem is just your body, right? If you're weary, if you're not eating right, I mean, try to stay up for two days in a row and see how encouraged your spirit is, right? Just try to get around somebody who's hangry. I haven't eaten and I haven't slept and I'm not okay, right? We're gonna have some of that in just a few hours with our family, right? If you have chemical imbalances, there's a physical aspect that influences your spirit. Let me illustrate it through another biblical example. There's this guy in the Old Testament named Job. Throughout Job, the book of Job, he experienced physical affliction. Remember, his family died, he is, he had sores all over his body, there was there was physical affliction, his circumstances were difficult. His own wife was like, Why do you still have faith in God? Curse him and die. He said, Because of the circumstances of his life, he made the declaration, I have no peace, I have no quietness, I have no rest, but only turmoil. What was he saying? He was saying, The circumstances of my life physically have affected the spirit that is within me. So after losing his health, Job experiences profound discouragement. And he demonstrates that severe physical suffering can overwhelm even a godly believer. One more example of this is Elijah. Remember, Elijah the prophet stands on Mount Carmel, calls down the fire from God, God listens and responds to his prayer, and he consumes the prophets of Baal. He's up there and he's dirtying energy and he's tired and he's hungry and he's physically exhausted and he then runs in fear, finds himself in a land that he wasn't even called to be in, sitting under a juniper tree, and he says to God, Okay, it's enough now, O Lord, take away my life. I'm done. What does that mean? It means that his physical exertion, his circumstances affect his spirit. Then God shows up to him and ministers to him. And what does he do? God doesn't kick him and say, Get up, stop being a baby. That's what I would have done, probably. Well, it's not the right answer. What does he do? He he says, Sleep. Hey, here's some food. Here's some water. Take some more rest. And it's only afterward, after God, in his loving grace, ministers to him physically, that God then ministers to him spiritually. This teaches us that sometimes physical depletion contributes significantly to spiritual discouragement. Listen, there's a good little side note to just think about here. Uh, we I'm gonna give you an acronym. I want you to think of the word shout. Remember the old good King James word, shout, thou shalt not shout. S-H-A-L-T. So I want you to think this. Thou shalt not. In fact, let's say that. Thou shalt not. Ready? Go. Thou shall not. Thou shalt not. Here's what I want you to think about. Make decisions. Don't react when you are sick, hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. Okay? Sick, hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. Because when you make decisions or reactions or try to navigate life in big ways, when you are sick, hungry, angry, lonely, or tired, you will inevitably be making those decisions and reactions from a crushed spirit. Because physical contributors affect your spirit. You see that? Amen? Okay, we know that. There's also, I'm gonna show you quickly some relational reasons. In fact, turn with me. You're in Proverbs 14. Jump over to Proverbs 12. It'll be on the screen as well if you want to see it. But Proverbs 12, 25 says it this way anxiety in a man's heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad. Oh, what a good word. The anxiety in a man's heart that is weighing him down is the same thing as a crushed spirit. It's synonymous in the Proverbs. This is a man in despair, and his spirit is broken. And so what this is saying is you need not medicine or therapy or an answer, in this case, not reflection. It might be sometimes that you just need a loving, honest word from a friend. So what we take from this is that sometimes the reason a person is in a state of despair is because a lack of loving and honest community. Get the implication? This is true. What you need sometimes is not therapy or pills or a counseling session. Sometimes you need a friend that will just come and be your friend, which means that maybe part of the reason your despair is there is because you're living outside of that kind of a relationship and mentor and friendship that can speak loving and honest with you. Lee Lewis, again, on that counseling website that I read this week, said a spirit that goes through life alone is at the mercy of their circumstances, because when difficulties come, they are left to their own outlook, which is limited. Furthermore, God designed us for and calls us into godly community and relationships where words of truth in the context of community are missed. It creates fertile ground for a crushed spirit. Let me say that again. Where words of truth in the context of community are missing, it creates fertile ground for a crushed spirit. What that means is that if you are living apart from a community where words are spoken in love and in truth, then what your life has become is fertile ground for a spirit to get crushed and you to lose that joy and passion in serving and following the Lord. So live in community. There could be a moral reason that affects your spirit. So we got we've got a physical reason. Sometimes you just need to get some rest, get some sleep, and get some, maybe, maybe some help from a doctor. I there's reasons there. Maybe it's just a relational reason, maybe it's a moral reason. In fact, look at this verse, Proverbs 28:1. The wicked flee when no one pursues. But the righteous are bold as a lion. The wicked fleeing is the way Proverbs refers to a paranoia. Paranoia because of a guilty conscience. It's when you walk into a room and your kid's doing something that you know they shouldn't do, and you're like, hey, what are you doing? They're like, What? What? I'm not doing anything. Like, I just ask what you doing, bud? Right? Like, how's it going? That's all I want to know. You know what that's like. The guilty flea, the wicked flea when no one pursues. When someone is living in sin and hiding in the dark with their sin, they are overcome with a guilty conscience and they run even when they're not pursued. These guilty feelings manifest themselves in a variety of ways. They may feel guilty of all sorts of things they should maybe even not feel guilty for. Even a small criticism causes them to feel assaulted or attacked, so they respond in aggression. They view small failures as if they are total failures and not just a few, but most areas of their lives. All these examples speak to an unresolved guilt. Listen, sometimes your problem isn't that you need extra therapy or even some medication. It might not be that you need sleep or rest or food. It might be that you need to just confess and repent and live in the light. Because moral reasons can affect your spirit. One guy pointed out this week that I read sometimes, and I want you to see this verse, sometimes it's just the reality of existence that affects our spirit. Right? Just you're alive. So look at it in Proverbs 14, verse 13 on the screen. It says, even in laughter the heart may ache, and the end of joy may be grief. Now we might first read this verse and think that this is true of some people. They really are hurting inside, even though they put a smile on and they're laughing in the group, but they're really hurting. However, the consensus of Hebrew experts says that this verse should not be relativized, that it is an absolute statement, which means that this is a truth true of every person. That everyone knows this reality, that even in the midst of laughter, there is it, there's an ache. That even at the end of joy, there's probably going to be grief. We know that. Everyone knows that joy and laughter and parties are gonna be over eventually. All joy ultimately ends in this world in grief. Think about sitting around the table with your family. You know, at least somebody knows, that eventually one person at that table is going to see every other person at that table die. I'm trying to be depressing today. I'm just trying to help you realize that the reality of existence is that we live in a fallen world with a sense that there's an ache and a heartbreak that lives in this world with us. Another reason could be one more, is just a faith reason. Look at uh Proverbs 13, verse 12. Here's what he says Hope deferred makes the heart sick. So if you put your hope in something and that doesn't work out, that is one of the most discouraging, crushing of spiritual things you could ever experience. When you are dating somebody and you're falling for that person, you start having visions of weddings and children and white picket fences and eternal joy and happily ever after, and then they break up with you. Anyone ever been there? Admit it. Just admit it. Go ahead. I've been there. I'm the only one? Okay. All right. You guys left me on an island there, you jerks. I see what you did there. I've cried myself to sleep before over a breakup. Hope deferred makes the heart sick. Nothing, nothing you can do can encourage you from that. Why? Because your hope fell flat. And here's the point is that if my hope is placed in something that cannot ultimately satisfy, then this hope will defer every single time. That's a faith issue. In fact, Lee Lewis said it this way the heart seeks out and is set towards things that brings significance, love, security, and comfort. So our heart is set on those things. A desire or a pursuit deferred, delayed, or altogether unattainable, makes the heart and spirit of a person spiritually sick. And here's what he says: the misplaced hope produces an anemic faith that leads to a crushed spirit. Misplaced hope leads to an anemic faith that leads to a crushed spirit. The spiritual sickness ends up affecting the entire body, body, mind, and soul of a person. Listen, if your hope is placed on anything else other than what Jesus Christ did on the cross for us, you have a misplaced hope that will ultimately end in a hope being deferred and a heart being made sick or a spirit being crushed. It's a faith reason. There's other reasons. We could talk about just general grief. What I'm trying to get at is this is that your crushed spirit is important because it's the passion for life. And that is what God gave you. He gave you a passion and an emotion, and he gave you a spirit to drive and be the wind in the sails of life. But we have a very complex world in which we live, destroyed by sin and affected by the fall, so that now we live with all kinds of influencers that crush our spirits and take away the wind from our sail. And that is a real problem we face. So that's the reality of it, the contributors to this. Let me give you one thing here that I need you to see before we quickly jump to what I think is the answer. And this is number three. I want you to understand one last element to this that might just kind of discourage you even more before we get to the hope, and that's this the confidential design of my spirit. The confidential design of my spirit. I want you to see this in Proverbs 14, verse 10. In fact, I'm gonna throw that up there on the screen. The heart knows its own bitterness, and no stranger shares its joy. What is he getting at here? Here's the reality: bitterness is not primarily resentment here. Bitterness is deep sorrow, grief, anguish, or a painful experience. It's the same word. Remember that uh Naomi in Ruth experienced? If you know the Old Testament story of Ruth and Naomi, Naomi lost her husband and her sons, and now she's stuck with this woman that's not even from her same background named Ruth. And Naomi says, Call me Mara. That's the word bitter. That's the word crushed in spirit. That's the word that has the idea of, I have no passion for life. Call me bitter, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. That's the word. So just as no one completely understands that, he says, nobody understands that. Nobody truly. We may sit in church and say, hey, I understand I'm here for you, but really what he's saying is nobody really understands but you. Nobody understands better than you. Nobody knows you better than you know you. Did you know that? Nobody knows you better than you know you. Nobody knows your bitterness like you know your bitterness. Nobody goes to sleep at night with your angst or your heart and your brokenness and your crushed spirit like you do. And just as nobody understands your deepest grief, nobody experiences your deepest joys. Solomon is saying that there are experiences within every human heart that remain inaccessible to everyone else. Every person has this interior world. You preach to yourself more than anybody preaches to yourself. You counsel yourself more than anybody counsels to yourself. You speak to yourself more, hopefully not out loud, but if you do, that's okay. More than anybody else does, right? You know. Every person carries in them regrets and dreams and fears and private victories and private failures. There's an entire world inside every human being that no one else can fully enter. Even those closest to us don't know it. You might have a spouse who loves you deeply and cares for you deeply and knows you deeply, but can never know you like you know you. So here's the reality. The truth is this is that you have a spirit that is the passion for life that is influenced by so many factors in a fallen world that brings you into a place of being crushed, and nobody ultimately in this world knows that. Like you know that. There's good news in this point. Proverbs 14 10 sounds hopeless. No one can know you. You're stuffed, you got a crushed spirit, you're gonna have to deal with it all alone. But Proverbs doesn't end there because later Solomon says in Proverbs 16, 2, listen to this. All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes. Here it is, but the Lord weighs the Spirit. Meaning this, David said it this way. I think I'm gonna quote him better than I can say it. Psalm 139, verse 1. Oh Lord, you have searched me and known me. So this is the tension. No human being completely knows your heart like you do, but God does. God knows you. And the one person who knows every hidden fear and every unspoken grief and every unanswered question and every sinful motive and every forgotten wound and every secret joy is the Lord Himself. And this is not terrifying, this is deeply comforting, is it not? That he knows me and he loves me. Listen, if God is someone you believe in, if he's only someone you believe in, I mean, like I believe in God, if he's just kind of like this abstract force out there, or maybe he's somebody you don't believe in at all, you're just here because somebody made you come and invited you to come and guilted you and to come and whatever it is, if God is not a friend, if God isn't someone whom you know personally, if God isn't a sense of God really with you and and for you, and his love over you and his truth on your heart, if you don't have an intimate personal relationship with God, then you are truly alone in the world. In fact, I want you to see Tim Keller said it this way He's God, the only one who can walk with you through every dark valley. He's the only one who can understand, he's the only one. If you don't have him, it's not good enough to be good or moral or even to believe in God in some general way. If you don't have him as a personal friend, if you don't have an intimate personal relationship, a sense of real dealing with him, you are utterly alone. Listen, my point isn't to depress you, my point is to encourage you to run to the Father, and that is this nobody knows you like you know you except God, God knows you. And with a relationship and personal fellowship with the Lord, you can know that He knows you. And if He chooses to love you in spite of knowing you, you know you are truly loved. Amen. That's what we're getting at. So here's the thing you have a spirit that's that's critical to the success and power and energy of your life. There are contributors in a fallen world that crush you, they're the crushing burdens of my spirit, and there's a confidential design that you know you better than anybody knows you except for God. But now I think I think Solomon turns a corner throughout the text, and I want you to think about this fourth thing we've got to get at. And that is this the complete renewal of my spirit. And I want you to find hope. I don't, I can, I don't it could be that everybody here has some crushed spirit element of their life right now. Could be that on some of you do, maybe one or two of you do, but I want you to know this that your spirit can only can only be fully renewed through what God provides. So it brings us to the the most important question in the sermon. Probably what we really should have only dealt with is this reality, and that is can a wounded spirit be renewed? Can a crushed spirit be healed? Is there hope for the person whose inner strength is gone? And here's what's what's interesting to me, and I'm gonna try to get to get this explained because it doesn't answer the question in Proverbs in one verse. Instead, it gives a series of life-giving truths and profound thoughts. And so I want you to think about this for a second. Solomon, throughout the book of Proverbs, uses words like this: listen, life, healing, reviving, gladness, a fountain, a tree of life. These are images that in his poetic way and wisdom way teach us that God has provided means by which the crushed spirit is strengthened and nourished. So listen, there's hope. There's hope for the weeping and the bitterness and the difficulty of be being crushed in spirit. There's hope, and there's there's ways that he gives us this. There's a lot of advice here, and wisdom is all throughout this. So let's do a little dive into this, can we, just for the next few minutes? And I want you to think about this. The first thing I want you to think about is that our spirit is renewed by a relationship with God. That's the first step. Proverbs 14, 27. The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life. It's a fountain of life. Fear of the Lord does not refer to terror, it refers to a posture of reverence and submission and trust and worship. To fear the Lord is to recognize that he is God and we are not. It's to bow before his authority, it's to trust his character, it's to receive his word, it's to order our lives around his will rather than our own understanding. It's to live with him. The human spirit, by the way, was created to live in fellowship with God. Did you know that? You were created as a person, your spirit was created to live in fellowship with God. We were not designed to sustain ourselves independently of him. We were not made to carry the weight of life through our own wisdom and our own strength and our own resources. Our spirits find life. Please listen to this, it's so important. Our spirits, our passion, our joy, our excitement, our hope, our spirits find life when they are rightly related to the one who gave us life. That's why Augustine said it well when he said, Our hearts are restless until they rest in you. So listen, the first step in finding a life and a spirit that is refreshed is to find a relationship that is the fear of God. And he says the fear of the Lord is a fountain of life. I mean, just the words give you a picture of like this spring of joy and celebration and flourishing, not circumstances that are perfect, no, life in the midst of a difficult situation. Think of a spring in the middle of a desert. The desert is around it, and it is death, and it is dry, and it is hopeless, and there is no life, and there is nothing but hot dirt, cactuses, and Las Vegas. But in the middle of it is a spring of life where there's green and there's grass and there's life and there's joy. And he says, a relationship with God in the fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, teaching us that life flows from a right relationship with God. The wounded spirit is not ultimately restored by looking deeper within itself, it is restored by looking beyond itself to the Lord. Don't be a fool and trust in your own mind. Proverbs 28, 26. The wounded spirit cannot become its own healer, the thirsty cannot become their own fountain, the dying cannot become their own source of life. This happens when the person who lives in fear of the Lord comes to him with a crushed spirit and says, God, I cannot carry this by myself. I cannot carry this weight of sin. I cannot carry this weight of frustration, I cannot carry this weight of grief. I do not understand everything happening within me. I cannot control every circumstance around me. I cannot heal my own conscience. I cannot manufacture peace. I need you. And if you're a person who's never cried out to God in faith in that way, today is a day that you can do that by faith. Call out to God and say, God, I don't know how to navigate this. I can't figure out this religion stuff, I can't figure out this heaven-hell stuff. All I know is I need you. I can't do it without you. And that is when you begin to find a heart that is at rest in the Father. So our spirit is renewed by a relationship with God. That's Proverbs 14, 27. Second thing I want you to think about is that our spirit is renewed by the wisdom from God. Now, in Proverbs chapter 3, I need you to follow this with me because there's a word he uses here. Blessed is the one who finds wisdom. That's verse 13 of Proverbs 3. Blessed is the one. That word has in itself a healed spirit. Flourishing is the one who finds wisdom. And then in the verse later, in verse I think it's 18, it says, She speaking about wisdom is a tree of life. Did you get that? Wisdom is a tree of life. That's not an accident. Solomon describes wisdom as a tree of life. That expression immediately takes us back to the opening chapters of scripture, doesn't it? Genesis 2, 9. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden. The tree of life represented the life that God freely gave to humanity in his presence. It was a life, not just eternal life, it was a life of flourishing, a life of satisfied desires. The tree of life was what he offered to those who lived with him, for him, and under him. A life of satisfaction and flourishing and a crushed spirit never to come. Adam and Eve lived in fellowship with their creator in there. They enjoyed his provision, they enjoyed his goodness, they enjoyed his blessings. But in Genesis 3, guess what happened? You know the story. Humanity rejected God's wisdom. The serpent offered an alternative wisdom. He tempted Adam and Eve to determine good and evil for themselves. You get that right? You're gonna know it for yourself. You don't need God and his wisdom. You can have it for yourself. And instead of trusting what God had said, they leaned upon their own understanding, which means they rejected the fear of the Lord. They did what every one of us would do, they reached for autonomy, and the result was death. And they were driven from the garden and they were barred from the tree of life. The background helps us understand why Proverbs calls wisdom a tree of life. Wisdom is more than intelligence. Biblical wisdom is living in submission to God's order, and it is trusting God's word, it is honoring God's authority, and it is walking in God's ways. And Adam rejected God's wisdom and entered into death, which opened his life up to having a spirit that is crushed. And Proverbs calls us to receive God's wisdom and to walk in the way of life, the way of wisdom. This means that God often renews the wounded spirit by correcting the beliefs and the desires and the patterns that are deepening its wounds. He challenges the way you think. Think about anxiety. We have anxiety because we think everything depends on us. But the wisdom of Proverbs says, no, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do not lean on your own understanding. Think about envy. Envy makes the bones rot. Envy is us questioning the goodness of God and saying, God's been more good to them than he has to me. And he says, don't think that way. Wisdom teaches us not to envy what somebody else has, but live with gratitude. That's why he says in Proverbs 14, 30, a tranquil heart gives life to the flesh. You know what that means? A content heart gives life to the flesh. That's the wisdom of God. He's calling us into a life of flourishing. Think about guilt. Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper. What's human understanding say? Sin and hide it and get away with it. Wisdom of God says, confess and forsake it, and you will obtain mercy. Do you see how the wisdom of God is trying to rewire the way we think that was fallen in the fall so that we could start to live according to the flourishing that He promised us? That's the tree of life that is being offered here. So God's wisdom does not always remove the circumstances that wounded us. Sometimes it changes the way we understand it, endure it, and respond to it. So, how can you find a spirit that is refreshed? You start to live according to the wisdom that God provides in his word and through his spirit. And your spirit will find encouragement because you'll start to rethink through things rather than let them crush your spirit. Amen? Amen. Third thing I wouldn't see real quick is that our spirit can be renewed by the people of God. It's just part of it. A good word makes a person glad. We talked about it already, but just living in that community. They're like, words are like honeycomes. We preached a whole sermon on words, right? So much so that all of us are like, we're never talking again. I don't want to use my words ever again. I'm just going mute, right? But now we know that words properly used can actually bring life to the bones and encouragement to the people we speak to. So what we need so often in helping us with our spirit is to not lean away in isolation, but lean into community so that brothers and sisters can speak into my life and encourage my heart. Amen. Right? That's what small groups are all about. We're not just trying to get all up in your business in a small group. We're trying to encourage you along the way. Listen, if you want to go fast, go alone. You want to go far, go together. You know that statement? Right? That's a biblical principle. That's a truth from God. The reality is the encouragement and the life that you get in community is of God. It's a wisdom from God. Let me give you one last one and we'll wrap this up because we're out of time. But our spirit is renewed. It's renewed by a relationship with God. Our spirit can be renewed by the wisdom that comes from God, by the people that God has placed around us. Proverbs speaks to that. But let me give you one last thought, and I think this is important that our spirit is renewed by the sacrifice of Christ. Hope deferred makes the heart sick. Proverbs 13, 12. We already read it. But a desire fulfilled is a tree of life. Now don't miss this. This has to happen for us. The Proverb captures one of the most painful experiences of human life, waiting for something good that never comes. It's the worst. And the longer hope is delayed, the more the heart feels sick. But notice what he says. Solomon does something here on purpose. A desire fulfilled is a tree of life. We already talked about the tree of life, but know this the phrase tree of life is only used, or the title of this tree of life is only used in Genesis and Revelation and Proverbs. And Solomon was well taught in the Torah. He would have known all about the tree of life in the Garden of Eden. And so he says this picture here, and he's getting at a general truth. When a righteous longing is fulfilled, it brings refreshment and renewed vitality. So he's giving us this idea. But listen, even those hopes can't be ultimate. You know that, right? Like let's just say you get a uh sick, you get sick, and then you get healthy. But guess what's gonna happen? You're gonna get sick again one day. And you're you're gonna die one day. You you win the lottery, all of a sudden you got a bunch of money. Guess what? Your money's gonna get spent. It's gonna take wings and fly away. We studied that, right? Listen, I'm just saying that that one door opens, another door closes. There's always going to be hope that doesn't ultimately fulfill in this world. So he calls on this thing, this imagery of the tree of life. It's a huge point. Every fulfilled desire or a hope is like a tree of life, which means that those little hopes that we receive are a small taste of Eden in Genesis and the kingdom in Revelation. So through this wisdom, I can get a little taste of the tree of life. It represents not just eternal life, but fullness of life. Now here's the reality: when we sinned and turned from God, we lost the tree of life and total satisfaction that it provided. It reminds us that we were made for a world in which nothing good is lost and nothing righteous is frustrated and nothing beautiful is corrupted. That's what Eden was, that's what the kingdom will be. Our deepest longing is not ultimately better circumstances. Our deeper deepest longing is tasted here in Solomon's words by the tree of life, which makes us automatically think our deepest longing is the life that God created us for. And here's what we get is that that tree of life, the true tree of life, not not just the joy of fresh spirit, but the tree of life, the never-ending, enduring, flourishing life, the tree of life is something that is possible only through Jesus Christ. Think about it this way: we lose hope in this world constantly, but Jesus tells us that he is the way, the truth, and the life. He does not merely give us advice about life, he is life. And he is our way back to life. So think about this. Christ, Galatians 3, 1 Peter 2, was hung on a tree. So here's what humanity did. Humanity lost access to the tree of life because of sin. Christ bore the curse upon a tree so that sinners could be reconciled back to God. The cross is not the tree of life, but because Christ, this is the statement, because Christ obeyed God about the tree, the cross, we have access to the tree of life, which we lost because Adam disobeyed God about a tree. The second Adam, Christ, obeyed God about a tree. The first Adam disobeyed God about a tree. So through the cross, Jesus removes the guilt that barred us from life with God. At the cross, Christ carried our sin, he bore our judgment, he suffered abandonment, he entered sorrow, he endured rejection, he experienced the crushing weight of the curse so that we could experience the tree of life or the flourishing life that God intended for us to have. Maybe a small taste of it now on earth, but one day in the kingdom, the tree of life will be there according to Revelation, and we will experience the perpetual state of a spirit that finds refreshment and joy because of what Christ did on a tree. Amen. So the answers to your crushed spirit is not just having hope fulfilled here, it's having the tree of life, and the tree of life is available to you because of what Christ did on another tree for your sin, and when you place your faith and trust in Christ. There's a point to be made here. I'm out of time. I got so much good stuff to say here. We could go on for 30 more minutes, but I'm not, because you'll be mad at me. And your spirit will be crushed, and we won't want that. So but here's what I got, I gotta have you get. Let's just land this plane. Ready? Your nature, your spirit, your spirit's important. There's a critical nature to it. Your passion for life. It's not simple. Don't don't just think I just need this pill. I just need this. I just need to go see that doctor, and they're gonna help me. No, listen, find the wisdom of God, let it come to bear and and and reveal the crushing burden on your spirit. What is it? It might be physical, so thou shalt not make big decisions. But it might be it might be moral. Maybe you just need to confess. Maybe you just need to have hope placed rightly, maybe, maybe that. But but know this this is you, and God knows you better than you know you, but but none of us know you like that. It's confidential, but there's a hope, there's complete renewal. It's through the wisdom of God, a relationship with God. It's through Jesus Christ, the tree of life, referenced by Solomon, is it is a nod back to the garden and a head to the kingdom where we will experience the hope never deferred because of what Christ did for us? The penultimate kind word that lifts our spirit is the gospel. There's a renewal for your spirit. How are you doing? So, truth to life. Three quick questions. We gotta land this, we gotta finish this. Number one, the question I ask of this sermon from this text, these texts, is this where do I seek to find hope for my crushed spirit? So, so this is for you to ask you. I don't want you to ask about me, I don't want you to ask about anybody. Where do you find hope for your crushed spirit? Is it in a bottle? Is it in a hobby? Is it in control? I'm gonna control the situation. I'm gonna I'm gonna work harder and get more money. Listen, you can you can put on the smile all you want, but we know that in this world, you have a spirit that is crushed that can only be mended by Jesus Christ. And if you're seeking to mend your crushed spirit in any other thing than Jesus, then you are living in a state of delusional. So where are you seeking that? Number two, what is my plan to protect my spirit? Healthy spirit happens not by accident, it's cultivated through walking with God, receiving his wisdom, living in biblical community, guarding what influences your heart. Do you know why we say you should probably read your Bible every day? Not because we think there's a legalistic element there, but because this is the wisdom of God that instructs the heart and mind so that your spirit finds the flourishing that it so needs. Live in that. How do you protect your spirit? Not isolation, don't do that. That's foolish. But lean into what God has established. And then lastly, whose crushed spirit am I in a position to encourage? God has not only called you to receive encouragement, but to give it. He comforts you so that with the comfort you have received, you can comfort others. So maybe you are the person that somebody needs to have a kind word from so their spirit can be encouraged. Amen? Right? So ask that. This is missional living. Don't run to any other thing. Run to Jesus, brothers and sisters. Run to Him. Protect your spirit by depending on His wisdom. And then take the encouragement that He brings and the health He brings and give it out. Give it away and give it to somebody else and encourage their spirit with the wisdom that God provides you with. True wisdom offers hope for the crushed in spirit. So much more in Proverbs on this topic. Study it out, be encouraged by it. But may we find the true wisdom that gives hope for the crushed in spirit. Let's pray together. Would you with me? Father, thank you for giving us this encouragement. Speak into this reality of spirits that are crushed and wounded. I um there's a there's a lot here for truths that just are still dangling on the pages of Proverbs. And so thankful that you gave us so much on this topic because this is real. There is no doubt, I've been doing this long enough to know that this room is full of people who no matter how big their smile is or how joyful they feel, there is there's a reality of living in a fallen world. There's a spirit that is crushed. There's a weight they bear, there's a there's a difficulty, that there's a despondency, there's a disheartening that they bear with them regularly. And I pray that today they would recognize it for what it is, call out the contributor of it, but then run to the remedies that you have provided for it. And the person that's here that's never trusted Christ as Savior, they've never trusted what Christ did on the tree, so that they could have access to the tree that gives life. I pray that today they would run to the Savior, that they would trust Christ as their savior, and the answer to their sin would be met by the person who died for it. We love you. Thank you for your word. Bless us now as we finish out our service and song. We love to trust you because it is the only hope we have of finding the joy in this way. We love you in Jesus' name. Amen. Stand with me if you would. Let's sing, let's finish the song. This song of prayer. Let's sing it with the band.