Eating Vomit and Seeking Wisdom

Amen. Amen. Go ahead and be seated. And also go ahead and grab your Bibles. We're going to be jumping into Proverbs this week. So, we're in between series.

We just finished out a series that we called Treasure where we spend about six weeks walking through John chapter 15. Uh today u we're going to again take a pause from that and then jump into just sort of I just call these standalone messages uh where we're in between a series. Next week, we will jump into our Advent series where we're going to spend four weeks leading up to Christmas, uh, walking through Isaiah 96, um, where to unto us a child is born and to him is given the name. And we're going to be walking through each of the four names or titles that are given to the child that is born. And so, uh, but today, this one is an interesting one because I I don't usually give out my titles for whatever reason. I just don't.

But, uh, this one I did give out the title and and my wife who does not like this title told me not to and I just doubled down on it. And so, um, anyways, we're going to be looking at this idea of eating vomit and the treasure hunt for wisdom. Uh, because obviously eating vomit is not wise and uh, we want to be wise. And so, we're going to be looking at this from the Proverbs and this idea of of this balance between being foolish and being uh, being wise. uh fools versus wisdom and really the type of people that God has designed us to be, but also because sin has made us foolish. How do we then become wise?

How do we grow in wisdom? What does it look like to gain wisdom? And that's what we're going to be tackling today. Because here's something that is unique in our world is often times we don't know when or how to apply wisdom. For example, look at Proverbs 26 4-5. It gives us backtoback commands that seem like they're contradicting each other.

And I'll show you the first one is answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself. So that proverb is saying answer not a fool according to his folly lest you become like him yourself. The next proverb in verse 5 is answer a fool according to his folly lest he be wise in his own eyes. And so as I was even studying this John Piper asked the question does the Bible contradict itself when you see both of these these realities? And because we know the answer is no. The point is this.

Wisdom is knowing when to respond and when not to respond. That's the difference between those two proverbs. It's knowing when to respond and when not to respond. On June 4th, 1944, right before D-Day occurred, General Eisenhower was faced with just one of the biggest military decisions probably of our century at the time. There was this massive storm that blew into the English Channel. Wind was strong, the waves were crashing, the ships were ready.

Uh they were loaded. The troops were ready to be deployed. The world was waiting. And Eisenhower had to make a decision. Do we go or do we wait? What's it going to be?

And all the military experience and strategy in the world could not make that decision for him. In other in other ways, he wasn't trained to make that decision. Just like oftentimes pastors will say, "We didn't learn this in seminary," which is easy for me because I didn't go to seminary, so I didn't learn it anyways. But what he needed wasn't tactical force, but wisdom. And so what he did was he turned to a quiet, almost unknown figure in history, a young meteorologist named James Stag. Stag analyzed the situation and he discerned that there would be a small break in the storm.

Literally a period of about 36 hours where the sea would calm, the tide would roll back and it would give access for the ships to actually run around the beach of Normandy and even expose the German obstacles placed on the beach because the tide rolled back. And so Eisenhower could have went with his gut on June 4th when everyone was ready. But instead, what he did was he waited two days and on June 6, 1944, we delivered a victory that changed the course of the war and our history. When it comes to Proverbs 26 4-5, the difference between responding and remaining silent is wisdom. is wisdom. And discernment is the application of wisdom that determines whether or not one is wise or foolish.

Wise or foolish. And so listen, because we would rather be wise instead of foolish, you need to understand something. You don't drift into wisdom. It doesn't happen casually. You don't drift into wisdom. If you're actively growing in wisdom or I'm sorry, if you're not actively growing in wisdom, by default, you are drifting toward or just revealing foolishness.

I'd actually say by nature you are foolish and you need wisdom to invade your soul like D-Day for example in order to destroy the foolishness that is within you. But we need wisdom because naturally we are foolish. As my dad used to say, you don't have to teach stupid. We just naturally are. And that's why Proverbs 26:11 puts it more eloquently. Like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool who repeats his folly.

That's what we naturally are. We're like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool who repeats his folly. Now, that's vivid on purpose. Scripture is ultimately saying, don't be that guy. Don't be that gal. We must become wise and then live wisely.

So, the fool would be someone who thinks that they've become wise and does not live it out, does not affect their lives. But we need to become wise and then use that wisdom and infiltrate it into our world. Listen to Proverbs 25:11. It says, "A word that is fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver. When you grow in wisdom, your words gain weight. They gain weight.

You become the kind of person who brings logos into the chaos. You become the type of person that brings truth into confusion. You become the type of people who discern and diffuse the situations that you are experiencing around you. Whether it's a small matter like whether or not you eat in or out tonight or larger matters like whether or not you public school, private school, or homeschool your kids, a wise person discerns the situation and then speaks into the chaos with calmness and clarity. during the Apollo 12 mission in 1969, which was one of the moon landings. I'll put that in uh right now there's, you know, there's all those conspiracy theories on whether or not we ever actually went there, but Apollo 12 was one of the moon landing missions that were again pretty sure took place, but it almost never happened because immediately after the launch of Apollo 12, 36 seconds into the launch, the spacecraft got struck by lightning, which is which is crazy.

It got struck by lightning and as soon as that happened the crew, you can actually go and see all the recordings of their communications back with uh with both like Cape Canaveral and then also uh mission control in Houston. You can see them interact with one another. What was that? And then all of a sudden, I mean, the instruments light up, all the buttons are going on, all the alarms are sounding. I mean, they are starting to panic. They're unsure what to do as they are continuing to climb.

And right at the moment when the spacecraft is reaching its its essential climax in speed where all of the systems and the strain of the spacecraft are coming to a head where they need to flip the switch and actually regain control. Right at that moment in the middle of the chaos, you hear this guy come onto the communication. a young man by the name of John Aaron who says try to ox and literally this the the crew on board have no idea what's going on. They don't even know who said that and you can see them say huh who said that? what is S? And they actually thought he said FCE.

What is FCE? We don't even know what that is. And once again, he calmly speaks into the mic and says try SCE to Ox. And so where everyone else was panicking, where the crew is panicking on board, where mission control, everyone else looking around saying, "We don't know what to do. We don't know how to fix this." This one man in the moment knew what to do and with calmness and clarity spoke into the chaos.

And in that moment, they figured out there's a switch that's to ox. And all they did was flip it. And as soon as they flipped it, they regained control and it rebooted the system. And it continued on the mission. And they actually went and landed on the moon for I believe at that time it was a third time. But wisdom spoke into the moment.

someone, even though there was chaos going on around them, was able to remain calm and with clarity have an answer for what was going on. And here's my question. Can you imagine what our world would be like if we as Christians operated that way? What would our world be like if we all grew in that type of wisdom to be able to speak into our situations, our relationships, our communities, our family members this week around the tables? I mean, I'm already expecting some hard questions cuz I got some last year. Do we respond like the fool by entering into their foolishness and arguing and debating?

Or do we answer it with calmness and clarity? Because we know where our hope is. We know what we're secure in. And we're just telling a message. We're sharing a message. It's not our job to change somebody.

It's God's job to change them. That allows us to remain calm. So today from Proverbs 2 1-6, I want to hand you four tools. Four tools God gives us to grow in wisdom. This is literally I usually I don't usually Christianity isn't as much of an equation as it is just the spirit of God working. But I look at this and I'm like, thank you God for giving us an equation on how to become wise because this is exactly he he doesn't hide wisdom for you to try to figure it out.

He wants to give it to you and this is the way in which he gives you wisdom to become wise. This is the path. This is how we do it. And so Proverbs chapter 2, I'm going to read verses 1-6. Then I'll come back and unpack each of these verses for us. But he says this, "My son," which also if you never knew Proverbs written by Solomon was written to his son, just a father telling his son, "Here's how you grow in wisdom.

Here's how you not be foolish like the world, and here's how you be wise like God." He's wanting to pass that down from one generation to the next. My son, if you receive my words and you 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 hidden 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.

So let's unpack this. The first thing I want you to see here, number one, is that it begins with scripture. Fill your minds with God's words. Look what he says there in verse one. If you receive my words and treasure my commandments, that's that's not, hey, find the smartest person around you and see what their opinions are and fill your mind with them. It's not find the gurus around you and just do whatever they do.

That's not wisdom. It doesn't mean that there aren't people who are experts on whatever the subject matter is of the day and that they're speaking into culture or that they're speaking into whatever your career is or that they're speaking into your parenting or whatever it might look like and you're able to learn some tr some tools of the trade and tricks here and there. Sure. But none of those things are ultimately going to establish wisdom for you. It has to come from the scriptures, the word of God itself. If you receive my words and treasure my commandments, in other words, when you get into God's word, God's word gets into you.

That's the goal. And wisdom begins by getting God's word into you. Not just scrolling scripture, but receiving it, treasuring it, being guided by it. Listen, my kids right now are um they're all in on Legos right now. So, which just means our house is like landmines everywhere. But they're all into Legos.

And and Legos nowadays, like back when I was a kid, Legos were just a bucket of Legos and you just created from your imagination whatever you could figure out. Today, it's like they're all themed. And so there's there's Harry Potter Legos or Star Wars Legos, but our kids are all into Ninjago Legos, which are basically just Ninja Legos. Ninjago. Here's the thing. They come with these sets and and all the sets are in a box.

And when you open the box, there's different bags that they at least have labeled like 1, two, three, four, which kind of helps you know which one to open up first. But what my kids do is they take all the bags out and they open them up and they dump them all out on the table. And if you're just looking at it, my thought is there's no way that they're ever going to build these. There's no way what the picture on the box is going to come from that pile, especially if they just start picking them up and putting them together. And that's why LEGO did something that's pretty genius. They included in the box an instruction manual.

Step one, find this piece. Attach it to this piece. Step two, grab this piece, put it there with that piece, and you just walk through it one after another. Our life often feels like a bunch of days, hours, meetings, events, birthdays, money, relationships, all just poured out on the table. And we have no idea how to put it all together. We have no idea how to put it all together.

God's word not only leads us to know, love, and treasure Jesus as our Lord and Savior, but it also helps us put together, manage, and steward our lives so that whatever you eat or drink or whatever you are doing, you're able to do it for the glory of God. Which is why the Bible is filled with wisdom. a way to live wise versus a way to live that is foolish. That is foolish. And so if you're looking at your life thinking it feels like a bunch of Legos on a on a table and I have no idea how to put it together, then you got to get God's word into you. You got to get God's word into you.

That's where you got to begin. You got to start there. You cannot be wise if your Bible stays closed. Period. God's wisdom is not hidden. It's written.

It's written. We need to receive it. We need to treasure it. And so, if you want your words to reflect the mind of Christ, you must saturate your mind with the words of Christ. It's got to happen. It's got to happen.

Which leads me to the second thing, meditation. We need to aim our hearts toward truth. Look at the next thing he says here. Verse two. making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding. We need to redeem the practice of meditation.

We need to redeem it because meditation is not emptying your mind. That's what our world believes. It's actually aiming your heart to feel what God's word declares to be true. It's getting your affections to catch up with knowledge, with truth, with what God's word actually says. Again, yoga and Hindu meditation, they aim to empty the mind, to to detach from desires, to dissolve the ego and merge one's awareness into an impersonal divine or universal energy. Essentially, the goal of worldly meditation is escape.

escape suffering, escape self, escape the material world. Biblical meditation moves in the opposite direction of that. And you need to see this. It calls you to fill your mind, not empty it. To engage your thoughts, to engage your emotions, and will with the living God through his word. So, it's engaging your heart and your mind to commune with the Lord in what he has taught you.

So that what has perverted your life, you're able to bring it to the Lord. And as you learn the truth, say, "Give me affections for that, not this. Help aim my heart towards you, not the world." Instead of dissolving the self, it shapes the self into Christlikkeness. And instead of escaping the world, biblical meditation equips you to enter the world with again courage rooted in the truth and presence of a personal covenant keeping God. It's communion.

It's saying, "Lord, you have taught me this because I'm filling my mind with your words. Now help shape my affections to treasure that more than what I have been treasuring over here because I'm now starting to see that this is not good. But you are you are it's it's infusing God's word into your soul like those um in in our house right now. I'm not the only one that doesn't necessarily do this, but uh they have all those like propel packets that you like pour into water. That's what we're doing with meditation. We're getting the truth into our minds and then we want as we meditate on it for our souls to be shaken up to become what that thing is that we've just poured into us.

And so again, meditation is not just I read it. Meditation is I want it to read me. I want it to restore me. I want the truth to renew me. I want the truth of God to revive me. I want to show you an example of what this looks like.

This is not going to be on the TVs, but on the road to to Emmas, this is after Jesus rose from the grave. This is in Luke 24. Two of the disciples were walking and Jesus teleport to him. I just always like to believe he teleports because I hope that one day we get to teleport when we get to heaven. That's like my my my big superpower hope for glory. Uh, but I believe Jesus teleported next to them, but he kept his identity hidden from them.

He asked them a few questions. And here's the thing, they answered the questions correctly. They they they've actually filled their minds to an extent with true events that were occurring. As Jesus is asking them these questions, what's going on? What's happening right now? They respond with things like, um, well, we've heard that Jesus is alive.

We or Jesus was alive. We hope that he was the Messiah. He died by crucifixion. Several of our women went to the empty tomb. They didn't see anything there. Then Peter and John went to the tomb and confirmed what the women said.

They had all the right facts, but these two guys are walking on this road and it says they're still sad. They're still sad even though they've got the right events going on in their mind. They've heard the right word. And Jesus responds to them and says this, "Oh foolish ones," again, what are we comparing here in the scriptures in Proverbs? Foolish and wise. He says, "Oh foolish ones, slow of heart to believe."

So one of the things about being foolish is that you might know the right things, but you're slow of heart to believe them. It still keeps you in the category of foolish. old slow or slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? And then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he then interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself, which I would just I mean that's probably the best Bible study that's ever happened in this entire history. But here's what I believe happened at that moment.

At that moment, I believe they took to heart Jesus saying that they were slow of heart to believe. And I believe they began meditating on Jesus's words as he's unpacking the scriptures and began inclining their heart towards the truth. Because then we see in Luke 24:32, they said to each other, "Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road? While he opened to us the scriptures, that's the goal of biblical meditation. That's the goal to get your hearts to burn for what the scriptures are teaching you." And here's the thing, you're always going to need God's help to do that, which is where the Proverbs goes next.

Number three, prayer. Ask God to open what you cannot. And look what he says next. If you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, this is prayer. This is prayer. You can read your Bible.

You can even incline your heart to understand it and still be blind to its truth if the spirit doesn't open your eyes. The way God works Christianity out is it's always going to be dependent upon God doing something for you. Period. It's always going to be the truth. He who began a good work in you is going to completion. He who saved you is going to keep you saved.

He who is teaching truth is going to reveal the truth to you. And so there's always going to be a level of dependence. Again, this is going back to the series we just preached, John chapter 15. It's abiding. It's staying connected to the vine. As John 15:4 puts it, abide in me and I in you.

says, "The branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine. Neither can you unless you abide in me." John 15:7, "If you abide in me and my words abide in you," what were the first two points? Getting his words in us and us being in his words. If my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. That leads to the third point, prayer.

asking for insight, asking for understanding, asking for wisdom, realizing that, hey, we have the truth and we're trying to meditate on that truth as much as possible. We're inclining our hearts to it. We want to treasure it more than we're treasuring the lies of the world. But Lord, we can't do that if we're not connected to you. We can't do that if you're not connected to us. We can't do that unless you're opening our hearts and our minds and our eyes to be able to see your truth greater than everything else that we know over here.

And so what that looks like is asking questions of God. God, help me see what I would never see on my own. God, give me insight that I cannot produce myself. God, make me wise in ways that only you can. Prayer is not just what wise people do. Prayer is how people become wise.

Often times I think people just think, well, the more mature I get, the better I'll be with my spiritual disciplines. And it's the opposite. It's it's it's the more spiritually disciplined I get, the more mature I become. Prayer is how people become wise. So there needs to be a level of seeking the Lord for wisdom, hunting for it like treasure, which comes to our fourth point. Pursuit.

Pursuit. Seek wisdom like treasure. One of uh one of my favorite movies back in the day was Oh, brother. There's this funny quote in there where he's like, "Seek not the treasure or do not seek the treasure." This is saying the opposite. It's screaming, "Seek it out.

Go find it. Get after it. invest all of your resources in trying to find this one thing. This one thing. There's this show um that I watch that is just it's completely off the rails at this point. I I've probably mentioned it several [snorts] years ago, but it's called The Curse of Oak Island.

And the curse of Oak Island is is a couple of brothers who read an article when they were I mean kids about this hidden treasure on this island called Oak Island up in Nova Scotia. And their whole goal and their whole life was let's position ourselves so that we can go to this island and find this treasure that's hidden. Now, they found some all kinds of of crazy things where there's this it's called the money pit where they literally uh this was probably hundred years ago. Someone showed up on the island and just started for whatever reason started digging in this pit and every 10 ft they found this layer of oaks and then another 10 ft another layer of oaks and then another 10 ft and they dug down 100 feet with the idea of finding the money pit. What they ended up finding was this stone tablet about 100 ft dug. And again, this this dates back over 200 years.

It's a wild story. And this stone tablet had these strange symbols on it. And that eventually had someone crack the code on it. And it said 40 ft below 2 million resids or something along those lines, which today is like billions of dollars. And so the whole goal was they're trying to find whatever that thing is. And at this point, the island looks like Swiss cheese because they're just digging holes everywhere.

Um, because they actually have no idea where the money pit is. They're in their 13th season of seeking out this treasure. I see you looking at me. She thinks I'm crazy for watching this. And I'm like, they're close. And I've been saying for 13 years now, they're close.

I mean, like, you know, this new tunnel is going to be it. But here's what I admire. Because I know they're never going to find anything. I admire that they're seeking it out like they're going to find something. Like they are persistent. They're persevering.

I mean, they are going to do whatever they can. They'll probably die. And there's been actually lots of other teams that have come before them trying to seek out this treasure. Even one of our presidents, uh, I think it was, um, FDR, FDR even came at one point with a team trying to find this treasure that was hidden. But you cannot rival this type of pursuit. What these guys are looking for, I mean, they're they've spent millions.

Now, because it's a show on History Channel, they're also making tons of money as well. Um, but they are doing everything they can to find what they just maybe hope is there. What baffles me about Christians, and this is a Jesus joke, if I've ever had had one, is we know the gold that's at the end of the rainbow, and yet we casually seek it out. We barely seek it out. We don't invest hardly any of our resources to get as much of it as we possibly can. If you seek wisdom casually, you will miss it completely.

You will miss it completely. There's this there's an account on Instagram. So, um you're welcome for giving you this account. It's called Find the Cash Indie. Find the Cash Indie. And here's what they do is they literally post, it's about once a week.

They post wads of cash at different places around Indianapolis and then they post it on their channel and then it's just a treasure hunt. literally the first people who see the post and then kind of see the the clues. They'll basically hide it somewhere and then they'll do like a quick little like look around. Like sometimes it's been on Butler campus, sometimes it's been on the canal. I mean it's just they go all over the place. And here's the thing, every time I see it, I always think, man, I'd love to find it one day.

I'd love to be the one to go get that cash because you can see about how much I mean they're putting out hundreds of dollars, sometimes about a thousand bucks that they're just hiding around Indie. I'd love to find But here's the thing. I know I'm never going to be the one to find it because I casually follow this account. I'm not opening up Instagram every single day waiting for them to make the post and then quickly study to see can I get there within 5 minutes because usually I've now figured out that whoever finds it usually finds it within about 5 minutes of when they post it. So you got to be there. You got to be in the right place at the right time position in order for you to find it.

But because I'm not studying it in that way, because I'm not being persistent in that way, I just know I'm never going to be the guy. I'm never going to find the wad of cash. Wisdom is not found by the lazy. It's found by the longing. The longing. Those who seek the treasure find the treasure.

Those who study the scriptures, who meditate on them day and night, who ask the Lord to grant them understanding, and who seek and search for the treasure of wisdom, they are the ones who best position themselves for something miraculous to happen for God to turn a fool into a wise person. Which actually brings me to number five. I told you there were four and I set it up that way. There were actually number five. This is where wisdom comes. God is the one that turns fools wise.

You can do the first four and you ought to do the first four because he tells us to do the first four, but just doing the first four is not what actually makes you wise. It's what best positions you for God to fill you with wisdom. Look at what he says. Then you will understand the fear of the Lord. For the Lord gives wisdom. You see that?

For the Lord gives wisdom. Here's the miracle of Proverbs 2. You search for wisdom and then God gives you what you could never find. That's what he's doing with us. You do the seeking, he does the supplying. You move your feet, he opens your eyes.

You pursue wisdom, he pours it out. That's the way he's designed it. It's it's it's a process of abiding. This is not seek it so that you show me you earned it. That's not Christianity. The seeking is part of the joy found in receiving wisdom.

Picture two things here with me. Picture the slave who works day and night in hopes that one day they will earn their freedom. Sure, they may there may be some hope involved in that, but there's no assurance that they will ever be free. Again, that's not Christianity. That's not what he is showing us in this proverb. Christianity is more like the Easter egg hunts we put on for our kids.

Think about it. Eggs are hidden all over the yard with treasures that we filled inside of them. And then we command the kids to seek and find. And when you do receive whatever treasure is inside it. If they don't and they say over to the side and they're whining and complaining, well then they're going to miss out. That's foolish.

That's a foolish kid. Wise is the kid who counts it joy to run and search and find and open and enjoy all that has been provided for them. From a biblical example, think about Ruth. Think about Ruth specifically in her story in chapter 2. She walks into these fields of harvest and she has nothing. She has nothing.

What they have, she has no status. She has no savings. She has no plan B. All she's got is just desperation in a tiny seed of faith that maybe, just maybe, God would meet her there. And what she does, or what does she do? She gleans.

She gleans. And so she enters into these fields just hoping that there will be something there. But she has to search it out. She goes finding provision. And what ultimately happens is she bends down stalk by stalk gathering whatever she can. It's slow.

It's ordinary. It's humble, but it's faithful. And then Boaz shows up. Boaz shows up. And Boaz doesn't just allow her to glean. He commands his men to pull out bundles on purpose and drop them right in her path.

And what Boaz is saying is, "Ruth, you do the gleaning, but I'm doing the providing." She's bending and picking, but the whole time he's stacking the deck with grace in her favor. That is a picture of biblical wisdom. You and I are Ruth showing up to the field of God's word. Not with brilliance, but with hunger. We glean in scripture.

We read it. We meditate. We pray. We pick up the truth one stalk at a time. And Jesus, our greater Boaz, is behind the scenes saying to the Holy Spirit, "Hey, drop some extra for them. Give them what they wouldn't have found on their own.

Make sure that they leave full. Full." And so, yes, seeking wisdom takes work. It does take work. It takes showing up. It takes bending down every day in the field of God's word.

But the good news is you're not earning anything. You're not earning anything. You're just gathering what Jesus has already placed in front of you. He's not a stingy God who rations truth. He's a generous redeemer who fills your basket until it overflows. That's what he wants to do for you.

And so the command for us is to walk into the field tomorrow morning, glean and trust that your redeemer is already ahead of you, dropping grace in your path. That's what he wants us to do every single day. Every single day. And so here's the exhortation for us as we close out. Church, this is how you become wise. Scripture fills your mind.

Meditation shapes your heart. Prayer opens your soul and pursuit best positions you for God himself to give you wisdom. To give you wisdom. And so if you're looking out at your life and you're thinking, "Man, I just keep doing foolish things." Run that play every single day. run that play every single day.

If you want to know how to navigate fools or conflict or culture or temptation or relationships or work or suffering, again, you don't just need a new opinion. You need God's wisdom. And this is how we get it. This is how we get it. And so, structure your lives around what he's already given us as an equation. Are you in his word?

Are you meditating on it? Are you praying that God grants you understanding in it? Are you continuing to pursue it like treasure that is hidden? Relentless putting all of your resources into making sure that God that you are best positioned for God to pour out his wisdom on you. Wisdom is not an accident. It's a pursuit.

Wisdom is not a product. It's a gift. It's a gift. And we just need to know that he's ready. He's willing. He's generous because the Lord gives wisdom.

He gives wisdom this morning. If there's if there's anyone in here who just feels like they've been running constantly just day after day trying to figure it out, trying to figure it out. What I want to tell you right now is there's something beautiful in this. When it says the Lord, there's a reason why those four letters of Lord are capitalized. every single time it's pointing to the one, the true Messiah. It's not like a lowercase L lord of just someone who's ruling and reigning over us like the lords of the earth or the kings or the presidents or anything along those lines.

This is the Lord of lords. This is the Messiah. This is the Christ of eternity, past, present, and future. This is Jesus Christ in the moment who is granting to you a life that is wise and not foolish. But there's only one way that we actually get there and it's got to come through him. Through him.

So it's not only the Lord gives wisdom, but it's through the Lord that you actually grant access to wisdom. And the only way that we are able to get there is coming through the way, truth, and life, Jesus Christ himself. No man comes to the father except through him. And the invitation for us today, the reason why we close out our services with communion every single week is because it's through a relationship with Jesus Christ that all of this is actually illuminated for us. We cannot gain wisdom without Jesus. He's the embodiment of it.

It flows from him. When I said that we wise people are ones who bring logos into chaos, you know who logos is. It's a it's a fancy Greek term that just means the word. In the beginning, John 1 says, "In the beginning was the word and the word was with us and the or the word was with God and the word was God and the word everything was created through him." That's Jesus. That's logos that brings order into chaos.

And so it's only through Jesus that we actually embody wisdom. And so if you don't have a relationship with Jesus or you've just not been pursuing relationship with Jesus, every single Sunday is an opportunity to come back and see what he as the greater Boaz was willing to do for us. the desperate roots and he comes in and provides for us what we cannot provide for ourselves. He lived the life that we could not live. He was perfect. We are not.

He then died the death that we deserved because we do not live perfect lives. The wages of sin is death. It's plain and simple in the scriptures. When you lie, you deserve death. When you cheat, you deserve death. when you and it's both both bad things and things that we just don't do.

So the things that we commit that are wrong, sins of omission or sins of commission don't do this and we do it death. Sins of omission do this but we don't do it still sin. So just because we're not like those who we always categorize as the sinners of the world, the liars, the cheaters, the murderers, we're like we're not as bad as those guys. So, at least we're on the right side. No, no, no. Even if you're not doing those things, but you're also not doing the things that you're supposed to be doing, still equally sinful.

Even those who think they're doing good things, doing the right things, Isaiah tells us that those are like filthy rags. What I'm trying to say is absolutely nothing you can do to earn this. absolutely nothing. Jesus has to come and provide for you everything. So he provides the life of righteousness that you need to be in relationship with Jesus, he then comes and takes the death of your punishment in your place. Because in order for God to remain just, in order for him to rem remain just, he cannot lie.

And so if he says the wages of sin is death, there has to be a death for your sins. And that's why Jesus goes to the cross and says, "I will take their punishment for them. I will die on the cross so that they don't have to." And then because that satisfied the wrath of God, he resurrects Jesus 3 days later. And Jesus becomes the first fruit of the age of the church where those who are dead in sin can now be raised to walk in the newness of life as receiving the righteousness of God. Because everything that Christ earned, he then we just call this imputation.

He imputes it to you. He gives it to you. He uploads it to your account and he just says, "This is yours freely as a gift. Receive it. Receive it." If we're not starting there, you will never become wise.

But we start there. And we also remind ourselves every single week that this was the greatest act of wisdom that was ever accomplished for us. God sending his son Jesus to the world to do what we could not and to fix what we could not fix and then brings us into his family because not only does he just forgive us of of sins and pardon us from the courtroom but in that room it's also an adoption process in which he then takes us home and says you are now my sons and daughters and I am pleased with you just as I am pleased with my son Jesus grow in what I have accomplished and you will gain wisdom. You will gain wisdom. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you so much for this morning.

We thank you for your word, your truth. We thank you that we get the opportunity every single week to just open up your word and just glean from it what it is that you want to teach us, what it is that you want us to meditate on, what it is that you want us to pray for and receive, what it is that you want us to seek after and pursue relentlessly. And when we pray, as we learn these things, as we incline our hearts to understand them, as we open our souls to receive them, as we best position ourselves under your faucet, at the end of the day, you have to be the one to turn it on and drench us with your grace. And so, would you do that, Father? I know personally that I am I I make foolish decisions all the time and I need to grow in your wisdom. Father, we're praying that you give it to us.

We're praying that you give it to us. Solomon asked for wisdom and you granted it to him. I pray we ask for it and you grant it to us as well. Not just so that we can become smart and write books on it, but so that we again bring Logos into the chaos. so that we're able to answer the fool not according to his folly, but we're answering a fool so that he might actually become wise. Not in his own eyes, but according to your ways.

Father, help us. We need it. Grant us this grace. Help us be effective in reaching the world for Christ. Help us be effective in reaching this community around us who they think we are the foolish ones as they see themselves wise in their own eyes. Father, may you fill us with wisdom so that we can go and expose the foolishness of our world around us, but bring them to the one who is wise, Jesus Christ himself.

and may he change and transform their lives [music] to become wise and no longer fools. Father, give us favor here. Open up the door of salvation for this community as we go and speak [music] a fitly word into our context and our conversations. We love you Lord and we thank you. It's in Jesus name we pray. [music] Amen.

Would you go and stand with me? As I already explained, Jesus offered himself on the cross, dying for our sins by breaking his body and shedding his blood. And if you believe that, that's the reason why you follow Jesus is because you understand his sacrifice for you. You understand that you were a sinner deserving of death [music] and he stepped in your place and said, "I'll take it for you. Follow me. Treasure [music] me."

And you do that. If you believe he's done that for you, I invite you to come down. Grab the elements. Bring them back to your seats. Let's meditate on his word as we as we go through this next song. As we worship together, [music] meditate on the word.

Incline your heart to it. Pray. Use this as a time to pray for God to grant you what you cannot understand in your own mind and opinions and whatnot. Best position yourself for God to grant you wisdom. And then at the end of the song, we will partake together. Come [music] on down.