Worry To Wise - Wisdom
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So last week we began a new series of messages from the book of proverbs that I am calling Worry to Wise
We began the series with a point taken from about the importance of letting go our own way of doing things and instead trusting that God’s Word is truth and as such should be obeyed completely and wholly
Just before His arrest in the garden Jesus prayed for His disciples and for all of us that would follow
One of the things that He included in that prayer is this
Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.
John
Not ‘Your word contains truth’ or ‘your word is truthish’ but “Your Word IS truth!!!!”
We need to Ponder it, Practice it and make sure that we are Prepared with it
Today’s passage from Proverbs is similar to last week’s but with subtle differences
Today’s passage is
For the Lord gives wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
He holds success in store for the upright,
he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless,
for he guards the course of the just
and protects the way of his faithful ones.
Last week was all about the Truth and this week is all about Wisdom , or more specifically about the journey that we need to take in order to move from operating in our own so-called wisdom to operating in God’s wisdom
I love to use scripture when I pray, not because I am trying to manipulate God with His own promises, but rather because I know that there is power in the spoken word but that power is magnified if and when that spoken word happens to be the Words of God
One of the scriptures that I quote a lot in my prayers is from James and it speaks directly to what we are talking about here this morning
If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.
Let me put the middle part of this passage into a more modern paraphrase for you this morning, “For the one who doubts is like someone who’s convictions change with every link, article, or persuasive argument they read online.”
James said it’s like being on the sea only it’s the sea that is in control and not you
I think everyone who goes out on the water is okay with a little bit of motion but when the waves, the wind, and the water have control of your vessel, well that’s just something that no one wants to experience
To put that into context in our series, it’s like worry, anxiety, fear, we all know that they’re there and that they all play a small part in our life, but when we find ourselves taken over by these things, life becomes a crisis
A crisis that can be avoided by wisdom, God’s wisdom
When we look at I believe that we can see the answer, a progression of sorts that takes us from out of the crisis, out of the worry and into wisdom
That progression I believe is revealed to us in 3 words that are found in our text, Knowledge, Understanding, Wisdom
First Knowledge
Knowledge can be defined as the acquiring of truth or, as dictionary.com puts it, “acquaintance with facts, truths, or principles, as from study or investigation; general erudition”
The first step in calming the waters of doubt is getting acquainted with facts, truths and principles by way of studying and investigating the Word of God
Now some of you are thinking that I am being lazy and just rehashing the first point from last week in different language
Well I wouldn’t call it being lazy, but I won’t deny that this is pretty much the same as turn your ear from last week
The reason is because God’s Word is ALWAYS the first and only place to begin, no matter what the journey
But let me throw a different twist on it today
Each and every one of us is uniquely and wonderfully designed and made by God and we have to understand that we all have different ways that we learn
Some people learn best by reading, others learn best by seeing, others learn best by doing, others learn best by a combination of things
Whether it be visual, contemplative, communicative, whatever, figure out how it is that God wired you to learn and using that method, get acquainted with the facts of God’s truth
By the way, that’s why I not only preach but do powerpoints and notes and have changed the format of Sunday nights to be discussion and questions based on Sunday mornings, in order to provide as many methods as possible for people to get acquainted with the truths I’m trying to get across
Just remember one important thing, although the age that we are living in is known as the information age it could also be characterized as the age of misinformation, or to quote the catchphrase of the day “Fake news”
Truth is not subjective and even as we study the Word we need to hold it to the scrutiny of the rest of the Word to ensure that we are not heading off on some tangent
Remember the first 5 words of our text, “For the Lord gives wisdom!”
The second step in our progression is Understanding
Understanding can be described as moving from knowledge to comprehension
I absolutely love this definition from dictionary.com, “skill in dealing with or handling something”
Listen to Paul’s admonition to Timothy
Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.
2 Timothy 2:15
Understanding goes beyond being able to quote a particular scripture verse to being able to comprehend that verse and see how it works in light of the rest of the Word
When we pull one particular verse or concept or principle out of scripture and use that in ways it was obviously not intended we are stuck in knowledge, seeing how that fits in with other scriptural insights and principles is understanding
It’s like those light bulb moments where it might be something you have known but all of a sudden it makes sense
So how do you move from knowledge to understanding, well let me give you three ways, first and foremost is to continue in acquiring the truth
Keep studying God’s Word and it will begin to come together
Secondly is through the holy Spirit, pray that He will grant you to understand the things that you may not understand (even if you think you do)
The third is talk to people about the things of God
I pray that your partnership with us in the faith may be effective in deepening your understanding of every good thing we share for the sake of Christ.
Philimon
Sometimes just talking it out and explaining it to someone else helps us to understand it better ourselves
I would also take that one step farther and say that talking it out with people who are more mature in the Lord might help because they may be able to shed light on things for you
The third step in our progression is the step into wisdom
Now you may have heard the old expression that wisdom comes from experience and experience comes from bad decisions and bad decisions comes from a lack of wisdom
But that is a man-made process, the God-made process is we begin with knowledge and that knowledge becomes understanding when we pursue it and then when we take that understanding and apply it to the way we live it becomes wisdom
In other words the definition of wisdom is living out what we understand to be God’s ways
Wisdom is about relying on that truth that we talked about last week and knowing that we can trust it and so living our life accordingly
Listen to how Jesus described this process
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
Matthew
Wisdom is not a collection of insight, wisdom is a lifestyle
But not just ANY lifestyle, it is a lifestyle that is based on God’s Word
And when we are living that lifestyle, the winds and the waves can rise up, just like James and Jesus said they would but we will not lose control
The thing is we have to get to that lifestyle of wisdom BEFORE the storms move in because by time the boat is out of control we are already too late
By time that sin is committed, by the time that wrong has been done, by the time that those words have been spoken, the consequences are already set in motion and while we may be able to be forgiven, there is still the aftermath to us and others that are in our boat
We can’t delay it we always need to be in this process of knowledge, understanding and wisdom so that we can avoid being tossed, so that we can be secure upon the rock
And when we do, we can be guaranteed that the rest of our text will be true in our lives as well
For the Lord gives wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
He holds success in store for the upright,
he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless,
for he guards the course of the just
and protects the way of his faithful ones.
He holds success in store for the upright,
he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless,
for he guards the course of the just
and protects the way of his faithful ones.
Let’s pray