In about three-and-a-half hours, the collective eyes of the world will be trained on a 94,000 seat stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa for the final match of the World Cup. The Spaniards will take on the Dutchman of the Netherlands, I'm written for the Dutchman because they gave us tulip. But, yes. But even if they lose, it'll be the sovereign hand of God. So, I, like most Americans, am totally ignorant of soccer. In fact, I don't think I've ever watched a soccer game in its entirety until this year. And I'll have to tell you, I'm pretty stoked about the whole thing. I don't know exactly why. I think it was cool that the American team was an underdog, by the way, this is part of the sermon. What is he doing? Americans were underdogs. They make it to the round of 16. That's sweet. Love that. Also, love the fact that the setting was in a very historic place, being in South Africa. I think I liked it in some ways because it was good to know that there was somewhere in the world where it was actually 50 degrees. Must be nice. But I think the reason that why I'm stoked and why a lot of other Americans are stoked about the World Cup is because it is so blessed hard to score a goal in this game. That field is huge. Now, you can hit a home run, you can shoot a jumper, you can score a touchdown, but it ain't nothing compared to scoring a goal. You got to navigate through 22 sets of legs at full speed using only your head or your foot to get it in the net. It's a miracle. It's a feat for anybody to score a goal. That's why it's so low scoring. I know it's a miracle because if you've watched any World Cup match for any length of time, you have seen about 50 errant shots for everyone that makes it in the goal. Shots that go way fire, wide of the mark. Moments where the guy's got a perfect shot and he never takes it. Another shot so it looks like it's just on target and it ends up hitting the top runger of the side post. And I'm thinking this week, all of those errant shots are a pretty good metaphor for how a lot of us do life. We don't know what we're aiming for. And so we don't take any shots at all. Some of us are aiming for a lot of stuff, but it is so far wide of the mark of what the Lord intends for us that we had no idea. And others of us are shooting for something that looks like it's straight on target, but it ends up ultimately being misguided. Mark has asked the pastors for the next several weeks to take us on a brief tour through the Proverbs. Proverbs are wonderfully stark and bracing and infuriating. They are both clear and direct and so clear and direct, you go, how can that possibly be so? What the Proverbs primary argument is is that you and I, above all things, must aim for the wisdom of God. And the text that we're going to look at this morning which happens to be the prologue of the Proverbs has a dual focus. It wants to exalt the wisdom of God as something that we ought to aim for while at the same time making a case for the Proverbs, or why we should lean in and listen to them that we might find that wisdom therein. So I want to address that issue in three ways. I want to talk about the purpose of the Proverbs. I want to talk about the necessity for the Proverbs, and I want to talk about what is the key to the benefit of the Proverbs. What is their purpose? Why are they necessary? And what is the key to their benefit? That's where we're going. We will, which is stand for reading from God's Word, the first 19 verses of chapter 1 of the Proverbs. The Proverbs is Solomon, son of David, king of Israel. To know wisdom and instruction, to understand words of insight, to receive instruction in wise dealing, in righteousness, justice and equity, to give prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth. But the wise here, an increase in learning, and the one who understands, obtains guidance, to understand the Proverbs and the saying, the words of the wise, and their riddles. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, fools despise wisdom and instruction. Hear my son, your father's instruction, and forsake not your mother's teaching, for there a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck. My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent. If they say, come with us, let us lie and wait for blood, let us ambush the innocent without reason. Like Shetel, let us swallow them alive and whole, like those who go down to the pit, we shall find all precious goods. We shall fill our houses with plunder, throwing you lot among us, we will all have one purse. My son, do not walk in the way with them, hold back your foot from their paths, for their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood. For in vain is in that spread in the sight of any bird, but these men lie and wait for their own blood. They set an ambush for their own lives, such are the ways of everyone who is greedy for unjust gain. It takes away the life of its possessors. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God, you may be seated. As you know well, the Proverbs are part of what scholars call the Wisdom Literature of the Bible. You want to look elsewhere for similar language, you look to Song of Solomon, you look to Ecclesiastes, it's distinct from narrative, it's distinct from prophetic utterances, it's distinct from gospels and epistles, it's its own bird. The Proverbs are not case law, it's not little formulas that if this happens, this will necessarily happen. I kind of think of the Proverbs kind of like the way I think of seatbelts. People can still be harmed and hurt if they wear their seatbelts, but that's no reason to stop wearing seatbelts. It's wisdom to wear your seatbelt, even though some people can still be harmed by it. These Proverbs, this prologue, is meant to set it in context, though it is spoken of by a king, King Solomon, son of David, king of Israel, the setting is more like that of a father and a mother sitting with their children, imparting in a loving way, in a relational way, what is that experience that they need for life and goodness. You listen to the first six verses of this text, and you get it pretty good handle on what their purpose is. And that's why I'm saying in my first point that what the purpose of the Proverbs is is to lead us to maturity. They're to lead us to maturity. That's why we listen to them. I get that from what it says in verse 4, where it says that the Proverbs are there to give prudence to the simple, to give understanding and knowledge and discretion to the youth. That's its summary. And therefore, we see that maturity in some ways correlates to wisdom. Now, maturity, that's kind of a thick word. It could mean a lot of things. Let me see if I can flesh it out for you according to what these six verses say of maturity. maturity when it comes to wisdom is first of all having a sense of what is wise, a perception of it, an understanding. The word therefore to know means not just sort of a peripheral knowledge. It means a deeply intimate and acquainted knowledge with that which is wise and true. It's more than just possessing a bunch of facts. You can memorize all the Proverbs and never be the wiser. It means not only knowing them, it means applying them. It means seeing how they work in practice. It's the difference between first year anatomy class in med school and residency. You know a lot about the human body after that first year of class, but you don't know nothing until you actually have to cut on one and make it work again. Having that sense of wisdom is knowing how to apply the knowledge that you've received. But that application is not a slavish formulaic application. It requires a bit of nuance and a bit of contextualization sometimes. It's not just a bare application of principles, and I know because I have a seven year old and a three year old. They, from time to time, like to become law enforcement for the other. They see the other one getting out of line and they begin to invoke principles that they have heard us enunciate from the top of the stairs or from the car. Usually having to do with whether or not they're whining or eating enough. And though we appreciate that they're beginning to remember the principles that we have enunciated. Sometimes they're not taking into consideration a whole list of other variables that might cause us to have to nuance the application of that principle. Wisdom is not only knowing what to do and knowing how to do it, but having a right sense and a right timing and a right manner of application. That's wisdom and that's the sense of wisdom that correlates with maturity. But to have that sense of wisdom, it also means you have to cultivate a certain attitude towards it. You have to have a receptivity to wisdom, a willingness to listen out for it, to submit to what it says. That's why verse 3 says that the Proverbs were collected that we might receive instruction, that we might be humble enough to know when it comes and to really try to appropriate it to our lives. The receptivity means that you're willing to listen when you're seven and it means you're willing to listen when you're 70. That's why verse 5 says that even the wise must listen, even those who have knowledge must still seek to obtain guidance. You never graduate from the schoolhouse of wisdom. Receptivity means having a humility. It means acquiring an ear for it, being able to detect what really is wise even though you hear a whole host of data points and information. My wife and I were recently camping out at Cedar Hill State Park and we're sitting on the banks of Joe Pool Lake and up walks this family about five or six and the father of them has got a really short haircut and I noticed on the back of his t-shirt it said interrogation unit in Iraq. I thought ooh nice and upon reflection I wish I'd asked him if there was a kinder gentler form of waterboarding that I could use with my children. When they get out of line but I forgot. Anyway we're talking and I notice on the front of his shirt there's these two inigmatic phrases. Never trust a source, never believe a first report. I said dude what does that mean? And he says you never trust a source means whatever you might hear from one guy you better corroborate it with somebody else before you give any attention to it. And that whole thing about never believe a first report it's usually the first report that's the most unreliable set that aside or at least factor it in and seek out some other information. What he's saying is that you're going to be mature in that context and that theater of war you better have a discerning ear that recognizes never trust a report, never trust a source. So having a receptivity to wisdom is all about discernment and understanding what ought to be heard. We sit with the proverbs then to enter into an undistracted and humble posture just like that soldier had when it came to listening to data from the front. Proverbs leads to maturity and it does so when we understand what is a sense of wisdom and what is a receptivity to wisdom. Now all of that sounds really nice and high for lune and esoteric and you might be thinking self evident right of course I'm searching for wisdom of course I'm aiming for wisdom. That's my nature and I would ask you rhetorically are you sure because it's a feature of human nature for us to maybe reduce our lives to a series of just attainments like get a diploma. Find a spouse earn a promotion secure a retirement fund none of those things are bad but if that's your aim look you can become a degreeed fool you can become a married ledger you can become a vested idiot if those attainments are your aim you've aimed too low too wide of the mark. Proverbs is having us aim for maturity because it's more valuable than any of all those other things while they might be valuable in themselves maturity is more valuable why. Because the human heart is tempted to derive too much to depend too much on those other things to find our identity too much and our stability too much in those things when maturity actually sees those things for what they are. They don't define us are just parts of our story maturity means a contentment with them and a contentment without them that's maturity that's what we aim for who are the people you most respect in your life. It's the people who have shared with you the most about what it means to live well irrespective of their income stream what they wear where they live what their background is. It's those that have taught you most about life who are the wisest that's why it's attractive we seek the wisdom of God we seek the maturity of God that's why we lean into the Proverbs that's its first aim here's the second which speaks not only to the profitability of the Proverbs but to their outright necessity. If you listen in verses eight and nine you hear a continuing homage to the goodness that leads to wisdom. It employs a couple metaphors to help you understand its goodness it speaks of instruction as a garland upon your head as a real mark of distinction of achievement that wisdom is a true achievement unlike any other thing. Pendants and necklaces that give an air of distinction and attractiveness such that wisdom to those who have it are attractive to those around them. Then the remainder of the text paints a rather stark image speaks of conniving men that are out for gain at the expense of innocence. They invite others to participate in their scheme they promise bountiful gain to those who partner with them but they're apparent wisdom. The wisdom to hatch and execute and fulfill a plan that wisdom is actually falling they're compared to hunters who lay out their nets in the presence of the birds they're trying to catch. I've never been on a duck hunt but I'm betting you don't wear bright orange and you don't play your portable radio in the perch. It's a little bit counterproductive to your ultimate end but that's what those who lie in wait for blood for innocence are doing when they seek to hatch their plan that's their wisdom. Their folly lies in the fact that the trap they set is for their own self. They lie in wait for their own blood they set an ambush for their own lives the text says they're out for gain but they suffer loss. Why? Because they deny the wisdom of God that speaks of unrighteousness and equity justice they refute that and it costs them. The story is meant as a warning. It's meant also to underscore the need of the Proverbs and so my second point is this why come to the Proverbs because it exposes the deceitfulness of sin. We need the Proverbs because we are eminently and ultimately duped by sin more often than we would care to acknowledge. Look, I understand this story that we hear there it sounds almost like a caricature something that you'd see in a comic book sweeping statements hyperbolic good bad evil black white and you might think yeah nice good enough for maybe a 12 year old right. But I submit to you that it's lesson is eminently relevant for you and me because the story though it is about men whose greed leads them to seek unjust gain. That story is a pattern for every sin you and I would commit. At the bottom of every sin is a promise of gain. No one sins because they think it will cost them in the end. They think it will be for their good for Adam and Eve to sin. They had to believe that by eating the fruit of that tree it would be gained to them. We all know it was lost profound loss to commit adultery. You have to believe that you're going to get better outside the marriage than what you've got inside it. To neglect your family, your wife and your children for the sake of your career, you got to believe that the gain of prestige and power and wealth and reputation is a greater gain than the loss of integrity and honor and respect from those with whom you've made a covenant. To hoard all your money and time and resources all for your own sake and not give any of it away to the work of the ministry of the church is to believe that there's greater gain in holding on to everything that you have rather than giving it away. That's the promise and in every case there's loss, but you don't believe it. Every sin, lust, greed, avarice, sloth, it all promises something good and in the end it's loss. That's why we need the proverbs. To expose the intrinsic deceitfulness of sin, the proverbs know the human heart and they know the deceitfulness of sin. And so we draw near to them that we might not be bound up and ensnared in that deceitfulness too often and too profound. I walk into this illustration with a little measure of delicacy and fear and trembling, but I read an article recently by a woman named Mary Eberstadt called The Weight of Smut. And it is her argument that the reason pornography has become so rampant in our culture is because conventional wisdom has made us believe that it is essentially harmless. And she seeks to debunk that myth in two ways. There are those who believe the pornography has become rampant because it is, quote, just a private matter. And if it is so private, she asks, why are so many families and marriages decimated by it? And if the reigning myth is that, you know what? It's just the choice of a consenting adult. Then why is it that those consenting adults have such a hard time escaping its lure? Why does it end up compromising the intimacy that exists between a husband and a wife? Brothers and sisters, there may not be more, a more stark example of the deceitfulness of sin than its rampage through our culture. And there may not be a more straightforward commentary on godly intimacy than in the proverbs. You and I need the proverbs because we're so easily duped by sin. We need something to refute its premise. Ideally, we need something to preempt the influence of sin. And Solomon is arguing that you shall find that in the proverbs.
So far, we've talked about two reasons why you and I should lean in and listen. But I want to say my last point for what I think is the linchpin for their benefit. And it boils down to what you find in verse 7. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, fools despise wisdom and instruction. So much rides on believing that verse. The remainder of your time in the proverbs hinges on whether or not you buy that verse. And that's why the third point I'm making is the key to the benefit of the proverbs is having a fear of the Lord. And what does that mean? It's such an inematic phrase, easily misunderstood, and yet it shows up so often in the proverbs, so often in the rest of the canon that you really have to get inside of it. You can't just ascribe it to, that's just a mysterious phrase, what does it mean?
In one sense, fear means fear. The reasons to be terrified of the Lord are many, because the promises he makes to those who oppose him are fearsome. His power is great, and his judgments are fierce. There's reasons to fear him, but this fear is not meant to be understood exclusively as some sort of raw terror, object horror. A terror that makes you want to run and hide and avoid him. It can't be that, because there's too much rejoicing and delighting in the wisdom of God to think that our fear of him means that we would want to avoid him at all costs that just doesn't square with each other. This fear is richer, it is deeper, it is a profound awe at his transcendence, and awe that leads you not to want to trifle with him, not to want to mess with him. But it's an awe also of appreciation, of adulation, you're terrified of messing with him, but you wouldn't dare be separated from him. That's the fear of the Lord. The nature of God is such that we can't comprehend him fully. He's infinite, we're finite, but to have a fear of him is to see just enough of him, enough of his essence. It's to see both his fearsomeness and his mercy, his love and his justice. The closest thing I can approximate it to is if, and I've never done this before, but maybe some of you have seen a witness to the launch of the space shuttle. You get too close to that thing and lift off, you are literally toast, but you want to be near enough to it because you want to see it and hear it and feel it and smell it. You don't want to avoid it, there's this amazement that comes with your understanding of how small you are in comparison to this thing that is just noisy and loud and going so fast and so far away. That's a fear of the Lord. You understand its greatness, but you dare not separate yourself from it. Augustine said that the fear of the Lord militates against one thing, human pride, the capacity to make ourselves larger than we are, to see ourselves as we truly are, not that we would cower in a corner, but that we would finally understand ourselves, that we're created people and contingent people and dependent people. That's a rough explanation of what the fear of the Lord is, but that still begs the question, why do we need it to be truly wise? What is its value? Having the fear of the Lord first of all establishes the authority of the Proverbs without a fear of the Lord, then what you're going to read over the next several weeks are just guidelines, just tested experience, but not really binding. I can tell you that they lead to maturity, I can tell you that they expose the deceitfulness of sin, but without a fear of the Lord undergird in its authority, I'm just making bald assertions. To fear the Lord is to believe that he exists and that he is a fixed point of reference in the universe by which to make our determinations, what is wise and what is not. It not, it establishes its authority, but the fear of the Lord also sustains our motivation to follow them. Look, you're going to read stuff in the next several weeks, that's just plain hard, what it asks of your mouth, of your heart, of your hands, of the process by which you make decisions. Sometimes it's rather counterintuitive, and a lot of times it's pretty countercultural, and the promises that it makes for obedience are sometimes very slow income, but with the fear of the Lord you understand why it's worthy to persevere in. He sustains your motivation to abide in them. That's the reason you have to have a fear of the Lord, but there's one more reason why you have to have his fear.
Because it will be the only thing that keeps you honest in what really motivates your obedience. I'm going to get up in your face right now. Some of you have already done what the Proverbs ask of you. You have done everything you can to raise your children in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord and they have still repudiated you and him. Some of you have been faithful to the spouse of your youth and they still cheated on you. Others of you have done everything you can to live above board with utter most integrity and you've still been defrauded. And in that moment you got a choice. Do I discard the Proverbs as invalid? Do I discard my trust and the one who claims to have authored them?
Or do I circle back to what it says about the fear of the Lord being the foundation of all true wisdom? See, it's in living with the right fear of him that we see what has to motivate our obedience to him. We don't obey primarily to get what the obedience promises. We obey because we love the Lord. Even if all we get is the satisfaction of knowing that it pleases him to obey. That's the heart he intends for us brothers and sisters. That's where peace thrives in obedience for the love of God alone. These Proverbs are not little formulas to get you what you want. They're lived out expressions of what it means to love the one who authored them. Often times they do yield goodness to those who obey but they always yield satisfaction to those who will do them for God's honor alone. So as you walk through the Proverbs again for the next several weeks and you begin to bump into something that you've done before and it doesn't seem to have materialized in the promise that it makes, I will ask you this question. Were you doing it for you or were you doing it for him? That's what it means to live in the fear of the Lord. And right now it's inevitable that at least several of you in this room are thinking right now that ain't me. I can't possibly live in that way of thinking where my obedience is simply for the love of the one who calls me to such a loan. And if that's what you're thinking you're absolutely right. You can't. I can't just tell you live with that fear. It's not by sheer force of will that you can obey simply out of love for God alone. The only way you can walk in the fear of the Lord is to have come to fear him as we've spoken of fear. And that's why I want to say to you brothers and sisters finally, if you would have the fear of the Lord you must look at Jesus.
You have to look at the one who Luke says grew in wisdom and in stature. You have to look at the one who was innocent, who was ambushed with good for no good reason, who was swallowed up by death and then swallowed up death himself. You have to look at him to know a fear of the Lord that you might grow in wisdom and maturity. You have to look to the one whom Isaiah said the spirit of the Lord rests upon him with wisdom and understanding and the delight of the fear of the Lord rests on him. You cannot do it without trusting in the one who loved that fear most. You have to look at his love squarely in the face. And that's why there was a seventh century English monk by the name of the venerable bead who distinguished between a servile fear and a friendly fear. A servile fear is Rio Bay out of a fear of punishment. And a friendly fear is Rio Bay out of fear of offending the one who loves you when you look at Christ and you see how he loves you and you understand what it means to obey. So let me say in words of conclusion a little bit by way of application. How do we seek that wisdom that we're to aim for? First it means you turn everything off around you and you listen to what it says. You must come to it in an undistracted posture. You must try to understand what it says and try to understand why it is wise. And then when at moments the cost of doing what it says seems excessive that it asks too much. You have to consider what it cost God to bring you his wisdom and more in Jesus. That's not an underhanded way of using guilt. As if to say look how much God did for you can't you at least meet him halfway. That's not gospel motivation. When you come to the proverbs and you find something that it asks of you and you feel like I cannot do it. That means right there that you are loving something more. Whether it's a person or an idea or an ideology or an issue. It means that you're loving that more than the Lord. And this proverb and this Jesus says to you. That thing whatever it might be will never love you back as much as God has done for you in Christ. And when you see his love and when he makes that love real to your heart. Then you understand why it's wisdom. And then you find the strength to walk in it even when it costs you. That's the linchpin to reading the proverbs. And then you know his wisdom. And then you discover his maturity. And then we realize that if in fact the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. But we do so principally by aiming for his wisdom. Aim well. And the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.