to pleasure to be once again with you and to look into the book of Proverbs. What you stand with me is we prepare to hear this reading of God's Word in Proverbs chapter 30. Proverbs chapter 30 verses 1 through 9. Hear the word of God. The words of a glor son of Jacob, the Oracle. The man declares, I am weary, O God. I am weary, O God, and worn out. Surely I am too stupid to be a man. I have not the understanding of a man. I have not learned wisdom nor have I knowledge of the Holy One. Who has ascended to heaven and come down? Who has gathered the wind and his fists? Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name and what is his son's name? Surely you know. Every word of God proves true. He is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, lest he rebukes you, and you be found a liar. Few things I ask of you, deny them not to me before I die. Remove far from me falsehood in lying. Give me neither riches or poverty nor riches. Feed me with the food that is needful for me. Lest I be full and deny you and say who is the Lord, or lest I be poor and steel and profane the name of my God. This is the word of God. Ask the blessing of God, the Spirit upon this reading of his word to our hearts, let's pray. O Lord, we pray, O Holy Spirit, open our eyes that we might be hold wonderful things in your law. Quicken our hearts that our dry bones might live and help us to be doers, not merely hearers of this word. And we pray these things in Christ's name, amen. Please have seat. Well, yes, your pastor came back from vacation, not for Lord's Day worship, but for RTS graduation on Friday night, the seminary had its commencement service, and he did a fine job in leading and prayer during that. Some of you were there, a little secret if you ever go to a graduation, and ours is no exception to that. When the graduates received these wonderfully colored, rich looking diploma covers, that some of those diploma covers are missing the most important ingredient, which is a diploma. There are a few cases where maybe a student has not completed one or two classes, and rather than wait a whole year to go through commencement, they get to go ahead and walk as we say, on the condition that until they complete those one or two classes, that they don't receive their diploma, and our registrar is very diligent in seeing that that doesn't happen. Well, just as with all curricula, whether it's high school college or graduate school, you don't get the diploma until you complete the curriculum, right? It's fundamental. And a goal is the book of Proverbs begins to conclude, tells us there is a danger when it comes to God's wisdom to miss the final lesson, to miss the final course. The book of Proverbs had you started last Sunday at my suggestion, and read continuously and studiously these last seven days through the whole book, you would have learned a great deal about wise living. And you would have seen a lot of the promises of God about how the righteous who follow God's ways, who live wisely have the promise of His blessing, and you would have seen the warnings to the foolish and the wicked that there is danger in foolish and wicked living. But to miss this final course that Agora would teach us this morning would be to, in the end, fail to graduate in the school of wisdom. You see, you could read through the book of Proverbs and decide there's great wisdom here for living a comfortable life. And that I want to follow God's commands because it will lead to a better life, and it will. Not a trouble-free, trial-free life, but in general, a better life for you and those you care for and provide for and so forth. But a comfortable life is not the ultimate goal of wisdom. It is divine life. And that divine life, Agora will show us in these verses, comes from a praiseful dependence on God. Not simply having the blessings of wisdom, but being a person who lives in a prayer, a praiseful dependence on God. So the God is the one who is glorified. These verses will teach us this as we look at them this morning, that the goal of wisdom is a glad and praiseful dependence upon our masterful creator. And that means we must humble ourselves before God as the true and only source, and the only goal of wisdom. In the end, these verses will teach us, if we want to wise up, not only must we look up as we learned last week, but we also must look down in humility before Him. We must bow down. Now last week, we had three hours for the beginning of wisdom. This week, and don't be nervous, students. There are three Fs, but not of the kind, perhaps, sometimes we are accustomed to students. There are three Fs to learning how we must bow down in order to be wise. So the first F, if you will, is the futile search for wisdom, the futile search for wisdom. Because Agurb begins this final course in the School of Wisdom with a confession, and it's a confession of ignorance, which is really surprising considering that he is one of the sages of Israel. He made it into the book of Proverbs. He is a sage of sage. It's not only this, but what he says is described here as an oracle, in the very first verse, the words of the Guru, son of J. Cass, a man of standing, a sage in Israel, the oracle, that is, a revelation from God. So this is not only a confession of ignorance, this is a divinely inspired one. And what he confesses is that I am weary of God, I am weary of God, and worn out in the search for wisdom. Now, let's remember what wisdom is. Last week, I suggested to you, wisdom is skillful understanding, especially as it relates to the social realm. Not only have we lived before God, but as a consequence and as a responsibility, how our wise living affects others around us. So the wise person is a blessing to the community. The fool is a curse upon the community. The wise person brings harmony to the community. The wicked person brings disharmony and enmity. And so in Agurb as a student of wisdom, observing all that Solomon and the other sages have said, realizes this, this search is a never ending search if it's simply a search for wisdom on the horizontal. It reminds us once again that wisdom's just not sanctified common sense. It's something more. It's something has to be gotten from God. So he is too stupid to be a man and he doesn't have the understanding of a man because he can't get ultimately to where wisdom would lead, which is perception into the divine mind. Nor have I learned wisdom nor have I knowledge of the Holy One, verse three says, because ultimately search for wisdom must end with a knowledge of God, not simply a knowledge of his commands. He is the inspired sage who confesses that his search for wisdom has been futile. He does not see into God because wisdom requires knowing God. And in particular knowledge of the Holy One, this knowledge is a knowledge of a person, God as a person, as a personal being. Knowledge is not abstract, provisitional knowledge, but it's also knowledge of a transcendence one. He is the Holy One. He is other, completely other than than we are. And so it is this tension between personal knowledge of a transcendent one, which as the book of Proverbs begin, told us has to begin with the fear of the Lord, but must lead to a personal relationship, if you will, if that term has not been overused. And he's not gotten there. This danger of missing this first F reminds me of the Prodigal Sun. The Prodigal Sun who mistakenly thought that the riches of his father was what he had in his pocket, after he had convinced his father to give him what was his due. He thought his riches was in his pocket, not realizing that his riches were at his father's table. So a Guru knows this. A Guru knows to have all the precepts and all the wise sayings of all the wise sages, but not know the Lord, is to ultimately fail in the search for wisdom. So alienation from God as a person or a lack of understanding of God as a person or a lack of knowledge of him personally is a failure in the school of wisdom. And the only way we can graduate from this school is to first of all to recognize that. On precept alone, we will not find the ultimate end of wisdom because on precept alone, we do not find the Lord. And this is where a Guru in this final course and the curriculum of wisdom begins. The futility of the search is confession of ignorance. What it means for us, as we must turn our eyes up from simply the knowledge of God to the knowledge of God, to seek to know him through his precepts, not to seek to know his precepts in lieu of knowing him. This surrender is not a defeat, rather it is the first hourly exam in this course which a Guru would have us pass. So that's the futility of wisdom. Now the second F in the curriculum of this final course is the font of wisdom, or to use a longer word, the fountain of wisdom. And a Guru finds that in God's transcendence, not that God has simply revealed his will but that the nature of who the one is that has revealed his will. See what he says in verse four, who has ascended to heaven and come down, who has gathered the wind in his fists, who has wrapped up the waters in a garment, who has established all the ends of the earth. What is his name and what is his son's name? Surely you know, and this is a prayer portal, surely you know. You know who? Because the answer to this question is God and God alone, but it's not simply God as a name or God as an abstract concept. This is the God who spoke to Job after his three seminary classmates finished advising him. Sorry, it's so easy, seminary students, but I take it too from those who mispronounce seminary to seminary to seminary, the burden we bear. This is language right out of the book of Job. Remember, after all the friends and after Job's pleas, God asked begins to ask Job, the questioner, he begins to ask him questions. What are my favorites? Where were you when I said to the waters, this far you shall go on no farther? You all were at New Smirna this past week, there are others who were perhaps at the beach sometime in recent times. Can you imagine drawing a line in the ocean saying, yes, sir. And this is who God is. Where were you when I drew out Leviathan with a fish shirt? And this is not just his power, it's his role as the creator. So with the picture we get here in verse 4 is God as a masterful creator. Some of you might admire complex and well-designed machines or find an intricate art because you see in those things the brilliance, the insight, the skill of the one who has made those things. That's what good art, one thing it does. It leads us to the skill, and the knowledge, and the wisdom of its creator. So Job is being echoed here by Egorator in mind that God is a skillful creator. But he's not just a skillful creator. He providentially rules over all that he has created so that the ocean stays put so that Leviathan sits when he's told to sit so that the star and the suns and the moon and the sun and the moon stay in their places. And there is this covenant with the day and the night that Jeremiah talks about where the sun will come up in the morning and go down at night and do it again tomorrow because of the covenant word of God, the God's creative word which binds together creation and knowledge order so that you know when you put seeds in the ground and the food will come out and so when even down to the very details of modern life when we turn the key and the engine starts because of the laws of nature so to speak. The masterful creator has created and sustains his world and therefore it makes sense to live in harmony with this world as to live in the ways that the masterful creator has made it, made life to be lived. When we try to go across the grain of life, when we try to cheat on the final exam of life, when we try to end around, around wisdom so that we gain at the expense of others, then we're transgressing the way the world has been made according to God, the masterful creator. Wisdom has to come from him as a transcendent one but he's not just transcendent, he's faithful, look at verses 5 and 6, every word of God proves true. He is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words as he rebukes you and you be found a liar and very simply we can say these verses say God can be trusted for what he says. As Jesus said to Satan in the wilderness, man doesn't live by bread alone but he lives by every word that comes from the mouth of God. The scriptures can be trusted, not just to be able to assert facts about God, not just the correct others in their erroneous assertions of facts about God. Not simply we'd be precise about our idea of God but rather to trust in God, to step out onto his promises. The Psalter begins that way, right? Blessed is the one who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, understand the way of sinners or sit in the seat of scoffers. Blessed is the one whose delight is in the law of the Lord and he meditates on it day and night. Why does he meditate on it day and night? Because the word of God is life. He'll be a tree planted by streams of living water that will always bear fruit. The word of God can be trusted because he is not only trustworthy himself but he is able to keep his promises. You know, I can promise you the moon and you might know me as a generally trustworthy person. I try my best to do everything in my power to keep my promises but there are only so many things within my power to keep my promises. But with God's promises everything is within his power to keep his promises. So he promises according to his character which includes his goodness but he also promises according to his ability to keep his word which is limitless. So as you're making your plan in life where there's planning for tomorrow or planning for the next 10 years and the next stage of your life where it's planning for your whole life, God's word can be trusted. So we're invited by God, we're asked by God, God proves himself and he commands us to trust in his direction. The mind of a man plans his way but the Lord directs his step. And this takes humility, doesn't it? It takes an admission that God's ways are not our ways. It means not taking God's counsel under advisement. The Christian doesn't have many counselors but he has one ultimate counselor through whom many counselors may help make God's guidance clear. You undoubtedly heard this week, there were, there's been an unprecedented number of deaths on Mount Everest. Have you heard that news? And the climbing Mount Everest is dangerous just in and of itself. But I heard in an interview someone ask why so many deaths at this time. And apparently the Nepalese government has issued an unprecedented number of permits to climb Mount Everest. And that a much higher percentage if not most of these deaths have not occurred on the way up but they have occurred on the way down. Imagine having achieved climbing the highest peak on earth and the person who aspires to do that must must must hold it out in their heart and their mind as as an ultimate achievement having achieved that and yet experiencing death as an immediate consequence. Not in aspiring to some great thing but after having aspired to that great thing. Well this is much more true in terms of the life with God that the pinnacle of accomplishment is not in our upward aspirations but he is our downward humility. That many people ultimate will die on the way to humility because humility is self death, humility is the giving up of our own wills to God's will and the admission that his wisdom is greater than our wisdom. And in that moment where we hesitate between whether we'll do the right thing or walk in our own councils which seem to be more expedient in the moment or if we act according to our own desires it needs because we have labored so long under these longings but it's the longing to be with someone whether it's a longing for success whether it's a longing for acknowledgement of other whatever it is and we say I can have those in the moment rather than deny myself and wait upon God and his time to keep his promises. See when we hover in that moment we hover in that little death between following God's councils versus following our own and we hesitate on that downward descent where wisdom is ultimately found by looking down in humility. The font of true wisdom is a transcendent God who's a masterful creator. His councils must exceed all other councils in reality in the operative places of life. I'd like to make one more application from this before we look at the third death and that is this kind of outlook to see God as the font of true wisdom requires us to be worldly wise according to wisdom, to be worldly wise according to wisdom. And I say this because even starting probably my generation of being young the pace of change in the world has become such that children grow up in a different world and their parents grew up in. I mean it was happening I know when I was a kid it's probably been happening since time in the moral but it's happening at such a rapid pace that it's a tremendous challenge not only to live but also to guide and lead children and how to live because it's unfamiliar territory it's unmarked it's unmarked I had a coach in high school he was a quirky old basketball coach he tried to teach us a set shot which had expired about 30 years prior but anyway he made progress to the jump shot eventually but one of his pieces of the dice is when we went to play in a way game at another gymnasium he would make us get out on the basketball floor and dribble around before he had to find the dead spots in the floor. For one we knew if we knew where the dead spots were we would avoid them when we were dribbling but for two if we knew where they were we could force our opponents to dribble toward those spots and perhaps they might fumble the ball away or something and it would provide an advantage. We talk about home field advantage when it comes to sports and if you're a baseball fan you know they're the wriggly field winds and ivy or Fenway Park and Boston the green monster this great green wall that makes no sense but it is an advantage to those who are wise about it you see for the Christian in living in a fallen world we really are never with a home field advantage unless and until we see God as a masterful creator whose understanding and power is able to direct and life toward its proper ends. This is why let Paul to the church in Colossi where in which he announces and praises Christ as the wisdom of God because he's not only the first born from the dead but he's also the first born of all creation and that that Paul later says walk in wisdom toward outsiders making the best or as an older translation said redeeming the time see what it means to walk wisely is not simply knowing the rules but knowing which rules apply when and also understanding the nature of the world in its relationship to us so that it does not win our affections so it doesn't so it's the liturgies don't shape our outlook online but rather that we look upon the world through the lens of God's word and understand where there is true danger true risk and where there is true life and wisdom to be lived and this is especially important for us who are raising children because our children are growing up in the world that we did not grow up in but God equips us through wisdom for every age so that we might live wisely and soberly and rightfully as Paul said to Titus. So these are the two asks of the final course in the School of Wisdom the futility of our own search for wisdom unless its end is knowledge of the Holy One. The font of true wisdom got as the transcendent masterful creator whose ways hold the keys so life the last F in this curriculum is faith and that faith is simply expressed in verses 7 through 9 faith that is a petition for contentive dependence on God two things I ask of you deny them not to me before I die remove far from a falsehood in lying now think about falsehood in lying for the what is false why do we lie now some people lie just because their lips are moving but that's not the main reason people lie when I got sent to the principal's office in third grade it told the wait there into the principal came in and then when the music teacher came in and said has the principal come in yet and I said yes as she said he couldn't have because he's out of town it was a setup job I lied because I thought it would get me out of trouble or we lie because it's potential gain or we lie in order to keep people from knowing the truth about ourselves or to project a different alternative set of facts about it there all kinds of self preservation preservation preserving reasons why people lie what it comes down to lying is not believing that the truth is the best option because it's a lack of trust in God's ways and God's promises right so it's foolishness so he says remove far from a falsehood in lying and he says give me neither poverty nor riches feed me with the food that is needful for me this I before and deny you and say who is the Lord that's that you pour and steal and profane the name of my God he's saying God give me enough so that I won't be tempted to sin but don't give me so much that I'll be tempted to sin that is breed in me by your sovereign provision of me for life breed in me a humble dependence on you that's what living by faith is not just believing that God is but believing that he's a rewarder of those who seek him believing that what is in our hands that is gotten through rightful gain that what is in our hands is from God that what is in our hands is for God so that we can be generous and share and bless others and even what's in our hand from ill gotten gain is God's. Zacchaeus is my favorite New Testament sage because he heard the word that salvation was coming to his house and he proved a generous host and he not only gave back what he had unrightfully taken from others but he restored even more that is he became a generous man because he knew that anything he had was a blessing from God and that because it was a blessing from God that all he had was to be a blessing for others now you might look at these verses and say well if advancement in life if if social economic growth if climbing the ladder economically is out then I'm out well if that's your first instinct got reaction then you probably should be familiar with you should learn about the store of the rich ruler to whom Jesus said sell everything you have because he was very sad he went away very sad because he was very red the only commandment of the second table of the law that Jesus omitted there was the commandment not to cover because he knew that this man was a deeply covetous man you see that that particular reaction if if walking by faith means I can't prosper if that's the instinctual reaction then you're probably in line for a retake on the course and you'll have to re-register the next semester but but we do know from taking these verses in the whole context of scripture that the Proverbs in general promise prosperity and sufficiency and abundance for those who trust in God's wisdom we know that the person who doesn't work shouldn't eat that we are to provide for others under our care so we don't take these verses completely out of the context of the larger teaching scripture we know we're supposed to go to the ant as our example and not the sluggard even the name sluggard speaks for what the sluggard is but the ant is industrious it works hard so what there is saying here is not negating that wisdom that larger wisdom but he is saying this he's commending simplicity and dependency and if we cultivate by faith this simplicity and dependency that we may find that we for it and prosper but we'll also find that we become a tree of life as the Proverbs says not only is God a tree of life but the righteous person becomes a tree of life and that will be like Paul admonished Timothy at the end of the first letter that those who are rich in material things be generous and be rich in spiritual things and if you've known somebody of considerable wealth whose great joy in life is the seeing the well-being of others through the use of that wealth it's a wonderful and God glorifying thing to see you might recognize in verses 7 through 9 and echo the fourth petition of the Lord's Prayer this is where Jesus finds the basis for those words give us this day our what our daily bread why because our daily bread means continued dependence our daily bread means our sustenance and sufficiency and it's a life of faith it's getting up each morning and saying God your ways are not my ways I will walk by your commands and trust you because the best life now is walking by faith and trusting in me so those are the three Fs the futility which we have to begin with recognizing God the masterful creator as the font of blessing and then faith walking by faith in God's commands some of you may have noticed as we conclude some of you may have noticed this phrase in verse 4 what is his name and what is his son's name surely you know and probably for those to whom they go our first route and who read these verses in Old Testament Israel they thought well it could be simple Hebrew parallelism where the same thing is said twice in different terms or they may have thought well the son is the divine king of Israel who is described as the son of God and Solomon we know was a great and wise king at least in his beginnings but over time perhaps the people of God in the Old Testament recognize that the kings of Israel were not always wise in fact they increasingly became foolish and wicked and it was in this context that Jesus came to Nicodemus the teacher of Israel in John chapter 3 and Jesus spoke to Nicodemus of life the kind of life that the Proverbs holds forth the kind of life that Jesus talked about in John 1010 I came that they may have life and have it abundantly and when Jesus began to explain this Nicodemus the teacher of Israel said how can these things be you haven't yet taken the final course and the curriculum of wisdom and Jesus said to him are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things you're supposed to know Nicodemus a Pharisee is supposed to be a sage as well and so Jesus then explained to him no one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven the son of man you see he answers the riddle of agres proper agres says who could go up to heaven and get wisdom from God and bring it back we need it but who can do it and Jesus answers he says the only one who's qualified to go get what we so desperately need the wisdom of God which brings a life to us the only one who can go to heaven and get God's wisdom is the one who has first come down so we see in the incarnate one who was the creative word in the beginning through whom creation was made and then that word that became flesh and dwelt among us the one who himself got low who looked down who came down is the one in whose ascension now the wisdom of God has been displayed that he has put the shame every other power and he has vindicated God's wisdom so that those who live by faith can trust in the promise of Paul in Romans chapter 8 why do we know wisdom will work out on the end why do we know wisdom will ultimately lead the life Paul says it if he did not spare his own son how much will he how much more will he not give you all things what in him Christ is the wisdom of God and the power of God Christ is our wisdom our righteousness and our sanctification not only in his atoning death but in his teaching of wise ways and in his masterful creating with the father and in his ruling over all things including subduing us to himself so that we might graduate and learn the true end of wisdom which is a humble dependence on the masterful creator he has made that a fountain of life through his only son so that when he became poor it became our riches in him let's pray God we thank you for this word that teaches us that school is not out until we humble ourselves until we daily cultivate our dependence until we look up on the world wisely according to your ways and rather than the liturgies of the world so help us Lord to trust in you so that you might receive the glory of our humble dependence and we pray this in Christ's name come in