Proverbs 2:1-8 | Winter Wisdom

Living God , help us to hear your word with open hearts so that we may truly understand and believe , and believing that we may follow in faithfulness and obedience . Through Christ , our Lord , amen . Today's scripture reading comes from Proverbs 2 , verses 1 through 8 .

My son , if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you , making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding , yes , if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding , if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures , then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge

of God . For the Lord gives wisdom . From his mouth come knowledge and understanding . He stores up sound wisdom for the upright . He's a shield to those who walk in integrity , guarding the paths of justice and watching over the way of his saints . This is God's word .

However , in college he lost his way after his mother died of cancer . The loss led him to date aimlessly , party excessively and neglect his studies , nearly jeopardizing his academic career and standing . And so he was lost , without direction and he struggled to envision a fulfilling life . One night he dreamt of building a successful business .

It was a vivid dream , envisioning a family and a community that would also benefit from that success . So upon waking he was excited . But he took a moment to glance at his Bible and he felt a different voice urging him to follow me . But he dismissed it , so captivated was he by his dream .

The next day he immersed himself in self-help books , wealth building strategies he saw on social media , and he kept up that trend throughout the rest of his college career , which meant sacrificing , at times , deeper connections , spiritual growth and ultimately looking at a worldly vision of wisdom and ambition .

After graduating he actually launched that booming business , and it did . It greatly benefited the community . He was generous with his money and widely acknowledged as a wise and business savvy man . However , he began questioning his faith and his relationship with God . Memories of his mother's early death haunted him , bringing a fear of mortality .

He realized that for all his net worth and business savvy , he didn't have the spiritual wisdom he needed to find the hope and security he was looking for . When he heard then about an influential preacher who was going to be discussing the path to heaven , he drove an hour to attend After the sermon .

He was still desperate for assurance , and so he went up to the preacher explaining his hard work and how , his faith background and what he'd been questioning . And he said what more do I need to do to know that I'm in the kingdom of God ? And the preacher looked at him with understanding and said you lack one thing .

Go , sell all that you have and give to the poor , and you will have treasure in heaven and come follow me . Conflicted , he was silent . The preacher started talking to other people .

He left , kind of hardening his heart against the preacher's invitation , and that same day as he was driving home , there was a lightning storm and he received news , alarming news , that his business had actually burnt down when it was struck by lightning . And as he was processing this and the wind was blowing , the rain was coming down in his car .

Then he received a text from his bank alerting him to major fraud . And he was just overwhelmed with despair as he drove home and shaken , and then , all of a sudden , he heard that preacher's voice echoing in his mind , but with new words that said fool , this night , your soul is required of you and the things you have prepared whose will they be ?

Suddenly he awoke , realizing it had all been a dream , and then , determined , he rushed to that church early , desperate to see the preacher . There was already a crowd , but before he knew it , the preacher had stood up and locked eyes with him .

He approached , he laid his hand on the man's shoulder and then he actually invited himself to dinner at the man's home . The preacher's eyes were filled with warmth and understanding and tears welled in the man's home .

The preacher's eyes were filled with warmth and understanding and tears welled in the man's eyes as he surrendered , saying my home is yours , my business is yours , my family is yours , and wept into the preacher's shoulder the man in our story .

He seeks out worldly wisdom for worldly success , but he finds that he must choose between worldly wisdom and godly wisdom , the latter ultimately offered by the preacher , who , in our story , is Jesus Christ . Mahatma Gandhi , a devout Hindu activist , said Jesus was one of the greatest teachers humanity has ever known .

Many others , across the religious and philosophical and thought spectrum , of course , would agree with Gandhi . However , jesus's invitation and the invitation in Proverbs today , is to seek wisdom with everything in all of life . On the other hand , you might not be feeling the urgency to become wise .

If the cost is so great , why not just go to Google , chat , gpt , tiktok teachers and just kind of fake it until you make it right ? There's a lot of people who live that way . I've done that at times , but for one you might do some crazy things like ingest Tide Pods or bake chicken in NyQuil . Those were both trends on social media for a while .

Don't look them up , though . But in all seriousness , what do you do when life happens when you're not happy with your job but then you get a job offer and you're not really sure what awaits you and you know it means a move for your family ?

What do you do when your spouse , a good friend or a family member is struggling with something and there's no clear way to comfort them , there's no clear way to solve their problem ? What do you do when your kids are no longer listening to you and discipline isn't working ? I think about that one every day .

What do you do when you need to pick a major in college or take a year off , or when you can't find a job ? What do you do when you receive an uncertain medical diagnosis and you're just trying to figure out ? How do you move forward ? Well , if you've become wise , you can begin to answer some of those questions .

The book of Proverbs tells us that wisdom is a voice that calls out to us , but there is another voice , the voice of foolishness and worldly wisdom , which leads us to ruin . And so do you know which one you're listening to ?

They both call out to us , but if we don't fully give ourselves to God's wisdom , then the inertia of our flesh pulls us towards foolishness . However , god in his goodness freely offers us wisdom . So the more we know God , the more we become wise . I'll say that again God in his goodness freely offers us wisdom .

So the more we know God , the more we become wise . The question then is how ? How do we know God and receive wisdom from him ? And the good news is , our passage tells us exactly that . If you go ahead and open your Bible or your Bible app within the verses we'll look at verses 1 through 8 , there's actually a very clear-cut structure .

It starts in verse 1 . It says my son , if you receive my words , and so that , if there's several verbs that cascade after that , so it's if you receive words , treasure them up , make your ear attentive , incline your heart , call out for insight , raise your voice , seek it like silver , search for it like hidden treasures . Right , so you have that .

If you do these things , then you will understand the fear of the Lord , find the knowledge of God . And then in verse 6 , for the Lord gives wisdom you have . If you do these things , then you will receive understanding , the fear of the Lord and wisdom , for this is who God is . Right . I mean , it doesn't really get better than this .

Oftentimes we go to the Bible for answers and you know it's hard to know where God is leading us . But we have if , then for , for , right here . And the great thing about these verbs is that you really see this emphasis in all of life . Do all of these things and you will find what you're looking for .

So we'll go ahead and walk through several of those verbs in verses one through four . But some context

. Old Testament scholar Lewis Goldberg says , reflected in Old Testament , wisdom is the teaching of a personal God who is holy and just and who expects those who know him to exhibit his character in the many practical affairs of life . So wisdom is not only God's teaching , it's living it out in all of life and exhibiting his character .

It's God's teaching lived out in all of life . However , in the ancient Near East , as opposed to Israel , wisdom was often in schools of thought . It was for academics , it was for professionals . They would pass this wisdom down over generations and a millennia , holding a whole culture's wisdom in their hands . However , in Israel it was in the home .

In Deuteronomy 4 and 6 , we see that Moses commands people in their homes to teach the law to their children , to live it out in all of life . And so there's a familial and a collective nature to the wisdom of God , which is caught and not just taught through life in the community . There's relational formation in discipleship and this is versus head knowledge .

A lot of us here are really good at , you know , reading books . I'm not as good at this one , but you know a lot of people will try to read a hundred books in a year , which is just insane to me . But I know people who do it .

And others of us , you know , we scroll through TikTok and we find people who seem to know what they're talking about , right , and we take some of what they say hopefully not the things like the Tide Pod Challenge , but really those people who write those books , those TikTok teachers , right , we don't really know who they are when they turn off their screen .

We don't really know who the author is behind the books . We can't disciple ourselves to them . See their families , know their children , know their communities , right , we can't be in that familial , relational context with them .

However , god , we see , calls us into wisdom that is lived in communion , community and commission , right , it's when wisdom is taught in the family , it's lived in community , as we're in communion with God and living it out together , that that wisdom seeps in and fills all of our life . So what does this look like ?

Well , firstly , we hit receive in verse 1 , which says my son , if you receive my words and notice it says my son right . So that is very intimate language . A father inviting his son to receive his words and receive is really a posture , and so this word receive really sets up the following verbs in verses one through four .

Now , if you receive something right , if someone's talking to you , if someone's giving you a gift , if you're standing , you know , like this , it really doesn't seem like you're paying attention at all , right or if you're ready to receive anything , in fact , it looks like you're distracted .

However , if you're giving someone your full attention , if you're posturing yourself towards them , they know there's an intimacy , there's a connection , there's a full engagement in what's going on . So this father is inviting his son to receive these words as a children with his father . Likewise , god is inviting us to receive these words .

A practical application of this is the All of Life Guide . It's a resource that we have . You can find it in the app and it takes a while to do . But the All of Life Guide basically , what it does is you're looking at the pattern of your life , you're assessing . What does it look like ?

What am I doing day in and day out , in my families , in my relationship , in my work . And then you're inviting God to speak into that and then inviting him to help you make a rule of life , to pattern your life , to receive what God has for you in all of life . And that's what we want to do .

We want to be people who receive God's words and , secondly , we want to treasure them up . Now , what does that look like to treasure something ? Well , you might ask yourself , what you really enjoy and what you really want , right ? And so something I really enjoy is coffee . So what do I do ?

I go to the lineage and I sit there with my coffee and I sip and I enjoy it , right . And then I enjoy every sip . I enjoy all the tasting notes . I ask the baristas what they're doing and how they do it . I go home and I do it myself and I watch YouTube videos and I dream of coffee and I do my latte art Lots of things .

A little fanatical , but I'm treasuring it , right , I really enjoy it . It's in my mind , it's in my heart , I'm experiencing it . I'm doing it with others , right ? This is what it is to treasure something .

When you love someone , you treasure them , you listen to them , you spend time with them , you do things that please them and you really posture yourself to get the fullness of who they are right . So my question is are we doing that with the Lord ?

Does our time in the scriptures , our time in prayer , our time in community , does that look like a full posturing , a full engagement , a full treasuring of who God is ?

Are we spending time thinking about and pursuing him and valuing what God has to offer us like it truly is worth more than lineage coffee , which it is , although they complement each other , you know . However , we tend to treasure ourself and our autonomy . Disney tells us to listen to our heart . Someone might say you do you ?

And our Declaration of Independence says that we're entitled to the pursuit of happiness . The problem is that can leave us kind of like a colander . Right , we can receive wisdom from multiple sources , but only take what we want . It's our prerogative . We think to not have to commit , but to treasure something means you're truly committing to it .

Right , you're valuing this above all else , and that's what God is inviting us into . Thirdly , he says to incline your ear . He says in verse two , jesus would often say Well , when you hear someone talking , there's a difference between hearing and listening . You can see this in your children .

Maybe , if you have children , kids they might hear what you're saying , but they really want something else . They want the candy on the counter . So you might be telling them about what they need to do to earn the candy , and it just goes through one in here and out the other .

And so , likewise , when we are in the scriptures , when we're listening to the Lord , are we truly posturing ourselves to want what he wants , to want God ? Are we willing to put aside the things that we value , even if they're good things work , responsibility , food and family for the sake of pursuing what Jesus has for us ?

In the Gospels , at one point , jesus visits the home of Mary and Martha and he comes in , and in that culture , hospitality was really important , and so Martha is being a good host , she's living up to the expectations , she's preparing the meal , she's preparing the table , she's doing all the things that are required , and her sister , mary , is just sitting on the

floor listening to Jesus . And so you might have been in this position before . Right , you're working hard , other people in the family are doing who knows what , and you're just getting everything ready and you're just like where the heck is . Everybody else . I've done all the dishes , I've done all the food prep and I'm starting to get frustrated .

And so that's what happens with Martha . She goes up to Jesus and she says , hey , tell her to do her job , like this is her responsibility , like my way of loving you is to fulfill this . And Jesus looks at her and he says Martha , you're anxious about many things , but only one thing is necessary , and Mary has chosen the better portion .

Do we choose the better portion ? Are we willing to put aside things that are good to make room for Jesus to speak into our life , so we can submit all of those things to Jesus ? One way to do this is just three times prayer .

You can set an alarm on your phone and it just invites you for a moment , for a few minutes , to be with Jesus , to remember that Jesus is with you in whatever you're doing and he has a desire for you in it . If we would just but stop and listen . Fourthly , he says in verse 3 , if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding .

I love this because there's this audacity to this right , there's this calling out for , there's a raising your voice Again , like children are such good illustrations , because children do this all the time . Right , they're good at asking for what they want , of raising their voice and asking like , hey , dad , can I have another cookie ?

I'm like , you've had three today , you don't need another one . And then , five minutes later , hey , but what if I had a chocolate , which is not a cookie ? And you're like , uh , no , you can't have another one .

And so he keeps raising his voice and again going back to verse one my son , if you receive my words where God invites us to raise our voice to him because he's a good father that desires us to ask right , desires us to ask for understanding so that he can respond . So one way to practice this is petitionary and intercessory prayer to pray God's promises .

What does God promise us in Scripture ? To pray God's character , who is God ? And to ask him for specific things . Right , we're children and we have a good father who loves to give us good gifts . He says in Matthew 7 and Luke 11 , to those who ask him Practice being a child to him and asking for what you need .

Next , he says if you will seek it like silver and search for it as hidden treasures . This reminds me of Jesus's parable of the treasure hidden in a field in Matthew 13 . The one who finds it sells all that he has to purchase the field . So I know a guy who , you know , while he was driving around Orlando , saw a dumpster behind a school .

They were getting rid of a lot of things and he wondered to himself what is in that dumpster . So , of course , what did he do ? He went and checked the dumpster . Now , if you know anything about this person , you'll know that he loves to do jujitsu and he loves to teach people jujitsu .

I hear some chuckles in the back , and this person loves to go to the park and invite people to do jujitsu with him , and it's a blessing to those who get to participate . He builds community , he teaches them about what he's doing . So he goes up to this dumpster and lo and behold what does he find ?

He finds wrestling mats , professional wrestling mats , probably at one point used by the wrestling team , and they're huge , right . And so he thinks to himself well , I really want these wrestling mats . And so what does he have to do ?

He has to jump into the dumpster , he has to invite someone to help him pick up these mats because they are huge , and he has to use all of his strength to get them out , find a way to put it on top of his car and bring it home .

So much did he treasure these mats , he was willing to get his hands dirty and jump into a dumpster , regardless of what people would think , and then bring it home , using all of his strength and ability to do that and even inviting others into it . So the question is , do we want god's wisdom ?

We want relationship with the lord , enough to seek it like silver , to search for it like hidden treasures . And so one application of this is communities and circles . It , communities and circles have real costs . To attend community , if you're a parent , you have to find a babysitter . Then you have to pay the babysitter .

Then , in a time when you're already exhausted and you just want to be at home just watching Netflix or checking out , you're going to a community meeting new people that you may or may not see a week from then , and it can at first not feel life-giving . It comes at a cost . Circles also they're weekly .

It's a place where you can be known , where you can know in relationship and follow Jesus , but it also comes at a cost . And yet these are places where we can seek the wisdom of the Lord like silver and like a hidden treasure . Amen .

So my second point , then , is that if you do all of these things , if we pursue God and his wisdom in all of these ways , then we will understand . He says Then in verse 5 , you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God and wisdom it talks about in verse 6 .

That wisdom , that fear of the Lord and knowledge of God , it's a receiving and responding to God and experienced relationship . So receiving and responding to God in the way that he's laid out , experienced in relationship with him , that is what leads us to wisdom . And so I want to share a story about how I've experienced this recently .

A few weeks ago , it was cold in Orlando . Remember when it was cold here , it was exciting . We don't get that very often , and that week it had started to even snow right up north in the panhandle and it was supposed to dip into the 30s at one point .

And so right about that night , when it was dipping into the 30s here , my heater decided to die on us and we have three children . If you don't have children and your heater dies , you're like oh you know , we can get comfy and cozy together in the sheets , it'll be fun .

If you have three kids , it's not so fun , and one of them is a one-year-old and we can't put blankets on him .

And so we were in trouble and we didn't know what to do , and it was late in the day when I found this out , and so I was like , well , if I call an AC guy to come look at it , he's either not going to be able to come or he's going to charge us an arm and a leg . And so I didn't know what to do .

But earlier that week I had been in one of the circles that I'm in .

I'm in multiple circles and I can ask my wife about how she experiences that , but in this circle we were talking about the Sermon on the Mount and what it looks like to give and receive mercy , and we talked about how , in our culture today , oftentimes receiving mercy can even be harder than giving mercy .

And so as I was sitting there and thinking about that conversation and praying , I realized I just need . The first thing I need to do just needs to be to ask my community for help , which is vulnerable for me . I don't often love to do that , but I did . I said , hey , this is our situation , does anybody have any help they can offer ?

And within minutes , really , somebody offered us to stay in their apartment with them our big , messy family in their apartment with them , which was a huge blessing and which we took them up on later that night .

And then someone else offered to send somebody that they knew over to the house to check on our AC to see if he could fix it , which ultimately led to needing a new AC , but getting one at a fraction of what we would have paid otherwise .

And so it was immensely gracious of the Lord to not only give me the opportunity to live out that wisdom that I received from the scriptures and that I received from my brothers in Christ , but to then invite my community into that space as well , to invite them to be God's blessing to me as I lived out of that wisdom and then to experience God's goodness as

they did that with me . And so all of that shows how wisdom is the experience of God as we receive from him , as we respond in community , in communion and in commission right . This is lived experience of the goodness of God . And finally , my last point for the Lord is good . Verse six for the Lord gives wisdom .

So if we posture ourselves as a child to his father , seeking to live and seek his wisdom in all of life , then we will understand and receive the wisdom and knowledge of the Lord , for the Lord gives wisdom . The Westminster Shorter Catechism . It takes the Bible and gives you a Q&A , to kind of summarize much of what we believe about the Bible .

And so it asks what is God ? And answers God is a spirit infinite , eternal , unchangeable , and his being wisdom , power , holiness , justice , goodness and truth . And this is good news . And so we see this in verses six through eight . In verses six through seven we see God's being his wisdom and his knowledge . What does God do with that knowledge ?

Does he hoard it for himself ? Is he just sitting up in heaven , you know , like a professor asking you a question and waiting for your response ? No , god gives us that knowledge and understanding . He speaks it to us . God has been revealing the truth about who he is to us since the world began .

The knowledge of truth to him is available to all peoples in creation , in his people and in history . And then what does God do with his wisdom ? He gives it to his people for their benefit and the benefit of the world . God's wisdom is his self-revelation .

It includes his commands combined with our obedience in all of life and in our passage we see that it leads to protection and the guidance of his people . And to that point God even shares his own being with us . Verse 1 and the following three verses share intimate language which ultimately points us to God's intimate relationship with us .

He invites us to walk with him as he walked with Adam and Eve in the garden , as he dwelt with his people in the tabernacle and the temple , as he came to earth in Jesus Christ to teach , live , die and be raised for our sakes , so that we might be adopted and receive the Holy Spirit , that he might live with us and dwell with us forever .

And then , finally , in verses 7 through 8 , we see God's power , justice , holiness and goodness . God's goodness is who he is in ways that are beneficial to us . He desires to be a shield for his people , protecting them and providing for them , as well as guiding them into truth and rest , and his power means he's able to do it . He is a faithful creator .

To that end , holland , my daughter , is really into princesses right now , which is great but also sometimes feels like a little bit much . She's always singing the Elsa song . She calls it . She's even into Encanto and she sings all of the songs in there as well . However , she's also here in City Kids .

She reads the Bible with me every night , she prays with me every night and throughout the day we try to talk about what she's learning , about who God is . She even watches Bible programs on TV , which is a cheat code .

Parents , you know , if you don't want to watch your kids , have your kids watch too much TV , but on some Bible TV and it justifies it a little bit , but and they enjoy it too . However , it's been really encouraging to see Holland begin to internalize some of it , even in small ways .

The other day she was talking about Elsa and then she says God can make lots of things , but Elsa can only make a few things . And I know it sounds simple , but in her own simple way she's being attentive , right , she's treasuring what she's learning and she's excited to share it with her parents .

She has her own childlike wisdom and she postures herself towards her parents and what we are teaching her , and so it's important to remember the more you know God , the more you become wise and can see that in all of life .

Jesus says of himself that he is the way , the truth and the life , but he warns those who wish to follow him that they must deny themselves , take up their cross and follow him .

In his first letter to the Corinthians , paul says this is foolishness to the Greeks , who were renowned for their culture and wisdom , yet it is a worldly wisdom that , like many , could not accept the cross of Christ . Paul says the foolishness of Christ is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men .

We must be willing to be foolish in the world in order to be wise with God . To truly know God , we must embrace his life , death , resurrection and ascension , because the fulfillment of the Son seeking wisdom from the Father in our passage is experiencing him in fullness of relationship . That's the end of what he receives .

The fulfillment of our seeking the Lord is experience of fullness of God in relationship . However , sin still reigns in our hearts and in the hearts of men , and it twists our hearts away from God and against his will . Oftentimes , the inertia of our flesh pushes us towards the voice of foolishness .

However , god in Jesus Christ poured out his wrath on Jesus for our sin , meaning that we are forgiven , meaning that now we have access to God in Jesus Christ and in power and goodness . Jesus rose from the dead so we also might rise with him .

He ascended into heaven to be our advocate so we could have full access to the knowledge of God , and he sent the Holy Spirit into our hearts so we can understand the things that he gives us . God destroyed the one who was perfectly wise . That wisdom might be poured out into us unto life with him .

And so , to end , I'll leave you with the words of Jesus from Matthew 11 , when he says I thank you , father , lord of heaven and earth , that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children . Let us , as little children , posture our whole lives to Jesus Christ . Let me pray for us .

Heavenly Father , I thank you that you hear us , that you are with us , that you are a good Father , that you invite us to posture our lives to you , that you invite us to cry out , that you invite us to treasure your words , that Lord , that you are speaking to us and you're just waiting for us to listen , to receive , to respond , that you can pour your

wisdom into our hearts . Would you help us to do that ? Oh Lord , as we go throughout our week , as we seek you in all things , we pray this in Jesus' name amen .