SERMON: Proverbs 8:14-16 (Wisdom and Authority)

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day sermon. We pray that as we declare the Word of God that you would be encouraged Strengthened in your faith and that you would catch a greater vision of who Christ is.

May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word and may the Lord be with you. By some estimates the average US senator Increases their net worth by 1500 percent while they're in office. And that all comes from a very modest paycheck that just so happens to auto Magically turn into turn thousands of dollars into millions of dollars.

This magic happens to certain families like the Pelosi's the Obamas and others. Same is true for most US presidents that their net worth has increased dramatically by astonishing proportions just by the very sheer fact of where they're.

Where they're sitting in. 1600, Pennsylvania Ave. It really seems like and all of us feel it in some way or another. That power is for sale in America. You mentioned the lobbyist you can go through insider trading you go through all of it.

It seems like money is the engine behind The politics and the government. That authority is auctioned off to the highest bidder that our political class have learned how to launder corruption and greed through their legislation and How to legislate greed in the name of public service.

This is where you get a few a few years ago a year ago I can't remember how long it was that song. Richmond north of Richmond. The whole sentiment behind that song in the raw emotion. That's underneath that song is the fact that there's a system in place.

That's not fair a system of purposeful exploitation and. Yet none of us would say that that system that we look at that we grown at was. None of us would look at and say this is right. This is good. None of us would say that this is the way that you should produce a healthy state or a flourishing nation or a vibrant culture.

All of us at some level wouldn't look at it and say down in our bones. This is not good. This is not right. And this is where Proverbs 8 begins to speak, especially the passage that we're on today. Instead of looking around us at the world.

However, and how bad it is it does the opposite it actually invites us in what into what the world should have been what the world would have been had it not been for sin and error and blasphemy and fallenness and Depravity if those things had not crept into what we know as power what we know as authority.

What we know is Dominion if those things had not had not sullied that. What would the world have looked like. And it's a great question to ask. Because it teaches us what kings are supposed to be what rulers are supposed to be.

What princes and governors and magistrates? Are supposed to be and what you and I in.

Whatever.

Expression of authority and power and dominion that we've been given ought to be as well. Today we're not going to be naive. And today we're also not going to be jaded. We're not going to sit and grumble about the swamp waters of Washington.

What we are going to do is we're going to go back and look at what God has said of Power authority and government in Eden and Proverbs 8 in Christ and to the ends of the earth. So if you will join me in Proverbs chapter 8 Just two verses today Proverbs 8 15 through 16.

And I'll read it for you as well as we get started Proverbs 8. Counsel is mine and sound wisdom I Am understanding. Power is mine. By me kings reign and rulers decree justice. By me princes rule and nobles.

And All who judge rightly. Let us pray. Lord, we don't take our views of what healthy authority healthy rule healthy Dominion are from sinful governments. Whether they be communist socialist Marxist.

Fascist or.

Democracies. Where we take our cues we we understand what the purpose of rule authority power and government is. From your word and how you designed it Lord help us to see today a a very clear picture of what it means to be.

Both a father and a president a mother and a queen and Everything in between. Lord, it's in your name. We pray. Amen. As we begin I want to just define wisdom. I want us to start with the Common understanding of what wisdom is because before we're gonna see how wisdom exalts a nation or how it crowns rulers or how it fills Treasuries with righteousness.

We have to stop and ask the foundational question every week. What is wisdom. Because God is saying if you have wisdom you will get these blessings. So we need to know what wisdom is. And if we don't define it rightly.

Then we will chase shadows in confusion. Wisdom in that sense is not mere academic cognitive and intellectual knowledge. A man can know the law and still break it. A Woman can memorize scripture and still live as a practical atheist and with this in mind wisdom.

Here's the longer definition. So if you're taking notes, you can wait. I'm gonna give you a shorter one, but here's the longer one. Wisdom is the spirit wrought scripture. Saturated ability to see the world as God sees it to love what he loves to hate what he hates and to live as He would have you live in every sphere and circumstance of life.

It's the art of skillful living under the sovereignty of God. It's learning how to apply the fear of the Lord in every step every decision every relationship and every realm. And here's the simple definition.

Wisdom is knowing Loving and doing the will of God. Wisdom is knowing loving and doing the will of God and there's implications for that if we will have wisdom. Which means if we will know love and do the will of God then there are blessings that come about through that.

There's prosperity that the book of Proverbs talks about there's authority that the book of Proverbs talks about there's life and vigor. That the book of Proverbs talks about which means that. Especially in light of our passage today.

That no one can rule righteously or even rule well. Without being ruled by the wisdom of God. That's the fundamental premise. Underneath this text is that if you want to rule well if you don't have authority if you want your authority to matter if you Want your authority to bring life instead of bringing death that it must be submitted to God.

Because it is wisdom in this passage. That gives power. It's wisdom in this passage who gives judges right? Understanding its wisdom in this passage who gives authority that blesses. And in that sense The first thing that we ought to recognize about power.

Authority and all those things is that it's not ours. It's actually given to us by God. This is how the passage actually begins by me. Kings reign. It doesn't say by them. They reign or by their power.

They reign or by their authority their reign or by their birthright? They reign because they just so happen to be born into the right family. It says by me lady wisdom they reign. And In this sense, she doesn't flatter our egos here.

She doesn't she declares boldly and unmistakably that every single drop of Dominion every ounce of authority. Every lawful decree ever made underneath the heavens flows from her not from a ballot box.

Not from a party not from a battlefield not from a bureaucracy and not from a globalist and not from any other System of government you could imagine it comes from her by me Kings reign. She says. Which dismantles the myth that we all have grown up in an America of self-sovereignty.

Power in that sense is not self-generated. Dominion is hers authority is hers. And in that sense power is not a reward for the clever. It's not a gift of the rich. It's not a reward for ambition. It's not a birthright to the elites.

It's not earned by expediency coup d 'etats or hoarded by the greedy. Authority and power.

Entirely.

Come from God because there is no authority outside of his. There's either two. There's only two ways to actually approach and implement this idea of authority in alignment with God's will or out. There is no authority Outside of his and we see this all the way back to the very beginning of how God created the world.

Genesis 128. God blessed Adam and said to him be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and rule. So the very first command in the Bible is for Adam to rule. Adam has authority, but it's not his authority.

It's a shared authority. It's a given authority. This is why Adam in theological terms is called a vice-regent. Because he's not the king. He's ruling in he's ruling with the king in alignment with the king downstream of the Kings authority.

So what we see here before the fall. Before there were such things as crowns or constitutions God gave humans a commission to rule. Which meant to cultivate to guard to build and to steward life? The original Commission was not about tyranny it was about ruling over the world that God gave from a place of Producing and procuring more life.

God put them in a garden that was overflowing with life and he told them to keep it and.

To work it.

There you have down in the vocabulary of what Dominion means to Hebrew words Abad to work and Shamar to keep which tells us what Dominion actually is. Dominion is not domination. The idea of domination is that someone would impose a kind of power on to another people that would produce death and submission.

Whereas the idea of biblical Dominion is one of spreading life Starting from a garden and being fruitful which is life Multiplying which is life rolling over the life Subduing the parts of it that tend toward chaos and Producing more and more and more life.

And had Adam actually obeyed God The entire world would be filled with people. The entire world would be filled with fruit. The entire world would be a garden the entire world would look like The greatest paradise but even infinitely more so because there are no weeds.

So the idea of Dominion is one of receiving the the authority that God has given you to work and to keep. To bring life to do an honest labor. To keep things to preserve things to uphold things. Not to tear things down.

In a fallen world Dominion is often perverted and used to tear things down. But originally in biblically Dominion was not so it was used to preserve to replicate to multiply to keep. So when lady wisdom and Proverbs 8 15 says by me Kings reign.

She's not she's not she's not gonna naive assumption that all Kings do this well or even do it at all. She's not blind to the injustices the greed the warmongering the lying politicians or the dirtbag senators.

She's not she doesn't under she's not naive to the fact that people use authority badly. People use Dominion to kill people use wars and and armies to to level Civilizations and to plunder them. She's not naive to that.

But what she is saying is that the Edenic source of power? The the framework by which God made the world is that power authority and Dominion would be used to bring life to the world not death. And you'll know the health of a nation on where they land on the continuum of life and death.

In the same way that you will know the state of your lungs if you have an x-ray or an MRI. You will know the state of a nation depending on their proclivities towards life or death. So when you see a nation Committed to abortion as a religious sacrament.

When you see a nation covering up child trafficking. When you see a nation That lets murderers off the hook, but in prisons grandma's in for standing outside of the Capitol building. There's so many examples of death in this culture that our culture stinks of death.

And then you ask yourself the question. Can we be healthy as a society if we're so enamored with.

Death.

Because power for power's sake is not what God intended. Riches for riches sake is not what God intended. Power is supposed to be exercised under the authority of God for God and for the life of the world.

And This teaches us that authority on earth is not autonomous. Authority is borrowed. All power and Dominion and authority that we have is on loan from God. Whether you're the CEO in a boardroom or the father at a dinner table. Your authority is on loan from God.

Whether you're the mayor of a town or the monarch of a nation none of you Have autonomous authority. None of you report to yourselves alone. All of us Report to God in the way that we steward the authority that we've been given.

This is why Abraham Kuyper famously said there is not one square inch in the whole domain Of our human existence over which Christ who is sovereign over all does not cry mine. That means.

You.

That means your children. That means your habits your proclivities. That means your neighborhood. That means your house. That means your car. That means your work. That means Everything. And this is a very important point.

Because there are only two ways that you can rule. There are only two ways that you can have authority. You can have authority and rule by wisdom submitted to God and have your life downstream of God's blessings.

Or you can rule for the glory of something else. Whether it be national pride It's not a bad thing in and of itself, but it shouldn't be your God. Or whether it's racial purity shouldn't be your God. Whether it's love of national history Definitely shouldn't be your God.

What if it's patriotism definitely shouldn't be your God. If you make anything else the God of your state then the state as Doug Wilson says will become God and It will eventually End up in death. It can't help itself.

All idols lead to death and devastation and Destruction. Only fearing God leads to life. That's why Solomon says that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom and wisdom is loving and obeying what God wants you.

Don't love and obey. You can't even do that without the fear of God. Now we ask ourself the question here based off of Proverbs 8 15. How are our?

Leaders.

Do we have presidents and senators who love God with all of their heart soul mind and strength who are leading our country into life. Do we have executives and influencers who are doing the same thing?

Are they wise? Do they fear the Lord? Do they submit to Scripture? Do they tremble before Christ? Because the implication is is that the only way to have life and blessings is to have wisdom. Wisdom is what brings life and blessings into our nations into our homes into our leadership.

Everything else is either a shallow slope towards death or a steep one. No matter What it is if it's not focused on God and his Christ. No matter if it's legal No matter if it's attractive. No matter if it's a foot taller than all of the others and handsome likes all.

It will eventually lead to death if it is not submitted to the Lordship of God, this is why Christians we have to care about leadership and politics. This is something that gets my blood going a little bit.

Because most of my life I was taught not to care about politics because that's unchristian. Not to care about how leaders use their power because oh, they're sinners. They're gonna do what they do. Anyway.

Just go to church. Just read your Bible. Everything is gonna be okay. That's kind of like handing a loaded revolver to a baby and saying that if you go to church and if you take the sacraments. Then everything will be okay if it's true if it's really true that the only kind of leader who can bring blessings to our people and We love our people.

We love our country. We love our nation. If the only kind of leader who can actually bring life to our people is a God-fearing leader than we ought to want and we ought to labor for and we ought to work towards Christian rulers and If a ruler hates God Either with their words or by their life's Decisions and actions they are bringing death to us.

If you if I knew that you were hanging out with someone who was gonna kill you they had plans.

I.

Would be unloving to let that continue. I would call the cops I'd fight. I'd go out in the parking lot. I don't care if I'm a pastor or not. I would stab someone for you. Because it'd be it would be unloving and hateful for me to let you continue on with someone who's killing you.

Why do we yawn at politics? Why do we put up with politicians who are killing us? Why do we put up with leaders senators? Who have no accountability who don't submit to God and who openly mock God. Who bring so much death in their budgets who bring so much chaos in their policies?

Why do Christians yawn at politics with apathy when it is downstream of life and death. In my mind these decisions matter and Here's the thing. If there are no godly candidates for our for us to vote for then maybe we ought to become them.

If There are no people who will submit to the Lordship of Christ in our land in the body politic of our place. Maybe we ought to run. Because the life and the health of a nation is downstream of its commitment to wisdom and.

To.

Obedience to God. It's unmistakable and it's undeniable because God has said it. I Don't care what studies you cite. I don't care what statistics you cite. God has said it in his word. Therefore. It's settled as Christians we must care about these things but Proverbs 8 goes even deeper than this even deeper than just our mayors and our Select boards and our school boards and all of those things.

It goes down to the bones of rule and authority itself.

It says that.

For all who would rule righteously That's not just Kings That's not just potentates and dictators. That's everybody who has any level of authority whatsoever that they would rule by wisdom. That means fathers are called to shepherd their family with wisdom.

That means pastors are supposed to lead by guiding God's people to truth. The way I think of my role as a pastor is.

That.

I'm very passionately say things and We all get moving in the same direction. And when we get there, we all kneel at the same cross looking at him. A pastor who either points to himself or points to some other mission.

May God remove him and stamp out his lampstand. Because he is not serving Christ with wisdom. And this way Lady Wisdom says that she establishes all Dominion. She says by me Prince's rule nobles rule and all who judge rightly.

So the scope of this is comprehensive. Everyone who has any level of authority whatsoever Gets it gains it from Lady Wisdom. And Lady Wisdom as we talked about before is a personification of God. She's the one who gives her wisdom to all who have authority in every form of Dominion at all.

Whether it's Counselors or whether it's tribunals or pulpits or dinner tables or boardrooms or classrooms. Everyone who rules at all.

Rules.

Either in alignment with the wisdom of God or in Opposition to the wisdom of God one of those paths leads to life. One of those paths leads to death. The passage gives us three categories of people princes which are kind of regional rulers Nobles who are elite advisors governors lawmakers counselors and then all who judge rightly.

Which is the broadest category of all and it affects every single person in this room. Whether you're an elder or a mother or a teacher or a boss or an employee or a manager or an office worker. Every single one of us has some kind of authority that God has given us for us to submit to him in its.

Implementation in.

This way wisdom is not for the elites. Wisdom is not just for the heads of state or the Ivy League graduates. Wisdom is not locked in the government archives or not just for the lieutenant colonels or for the specialists.

That's e4 in the army. If you don't know it means I didn't make it very far. Wisdom is the property of all who fear the Lord and wherever there is dominion of any kind wherever there is be fruitful and Multiply and rule and subdue and spread out wherever there's any of that in any realm or any facet of your life.

There is a righteous Requirement that it be done with wisdom. That means for those of you who rule in your home as heads of household. Rule in such a way that you love what God loves and you do what God would have you do for the people God has given you rule with wisdom.

Some of us rule over children as the matriarch of a home. Teaching them in a homeschool curriculum or or teaching them the commands of God. Do it with wisdom. Do it with love for God and devotion to your little people.

Some of us govern churches. Do that with wisdom and with righteousness and with integrity and with truth. Some of us lead companies. Do it in such a way that gives glory and honor to God. Some of us are called to rule over ourself.

All of us are called to rule over ourself do it with wisdom deal with integrity. Do it with wisdom justice holiness and truth with the eye to honor God and give him glory and enjoy him in everything you do.

The text says all who judge rightly that means that there's a right way to Use your authority that God has given you in your station that you were in and there's a wrong way to use your authority as well and this gives us The truth that what we do is not subjective.

If there's a right way and a wrong way, that means that morality is not just a matter of our opinion. What you do today in your body is not a matter of your preference. It's not a matter of what the mood strikes you.

Truth is not whatever feels good. We live in a world where truth is Concrete where truth is real and truth can be known. By knowing and loving the Word of God that God has given us. Where he tells us what he wants us to love where he tells us what he wants us to know.

Where he tells us what He wants us to do. We have no excuse. If we say well, I don't know how to how to love God. I don't know how to do what God would have me do. I don't know how to lead my family. I don't know how to how to be a mom.

I don't know how to be a boss. I don't know how to do these things Christianly. Well, you do know brother and sister you do know children. What sayeth the Lord of these things and then do that. That is wisdom.

Wisdom is just having the intestinal fortitude to ask the question. What has God said and Then having the courage.

To do it.

That's what wisdom is and wisdom is for all of us. We live in a world today where drag queens are called role models. Where criminals are treated like victims in prison cells. Where sex change are paid for by taxpayer dollars.

Where righteous men are maligned for speaking the truth. And We're told that power is a kind of abstract Concept unless you're unless you're white male and Christian. Then you're an oppressor. Unless you're flying a rainbow flag.

We live in a world that's filled with pure lunacy that's filled with injustice. And Proverbs 8 declares that any Dominion that we would exert in such a foolish culture must be rooted and tethered to the Word of God.

Do we want to see life come back to this land? Do we want to see it revived? Do we want to see it recover from the dumpster fire that it's in? Then we need Christians who have courage to say what saith the Lord and that must I do.

And To do that for a lifetime and to instill that in your children and for your children to instill it in your grandchildren. So now there's a legacy of faithfulness that's germinating and growing in this place.

That's how you make America great again. Not from a top-down Political sort of method. You do it By what saith the Lord that will I do? And you do it in every church across this land. You make disciples who make disciples who make disciples in your families and abroad.

And Then you make America in every other country on earth great. Because greatness and health and life and fruit are downstream of the wisdom of God. We're governed by fools today. Fools in Congress. Fools in the statehouse.

Fools on the school boards. Fools in the homes fools behind the pulpits. The only recourse we have to be faithful and to actually recover is to submit our lives to God. This is why Proverbs says it so clearly about the consequences of rule the consequences of authority.

Proverbs 29 to. The second half of that verse says when the wicked rule the people groan. Why. Because when wickedness is in high places it causes death. But this is also why the same verse in the beginning of it says when the wise rule the people rejoice.

Because wisdom produces order and Order brings justice and justice brings more life. This is why Jethro told Moses To appoint men capable men God-fearing men truth-loving men into service. Because godly leadership brings life.

This is why the qualifications for eldership are not flippant first Timothy 3 and Titus 1 what's required. Not marketing savvy. Not charisma. Not wealth. Not skinny jeans. Not popularity contest. Not thousand-dollar sneakers or Instagram selfies, which I think is a little feminine.

Anyway for men to be taking Instagram selfies of themselves all day long. And how many bicep curls they're doing. None of that that's not the qualifications for eldership. The qualifications for eldership is a man who has character that aligns with the Word of God.

A Man who has a heart that bleeds for the people of God. A man who has courage self-control. Hospitality. A man who's able to judge rightly. And a man who's able to hold fast to the gospel. In other words.

Wisdom.

This is why fathers are told in Ephesians 6 for to raise your children in the discipline in the instruction of the Lord. Why. Because that's wisdom. This is why rulers are called to bear the sword of God with righteousness because why that's wisdom.

Wisdom is for every sphere of life and we ought to want to see it first and foremost in us and in our neighborhoods and in our cities and in our towns and in our states commonwealth's our countries and in the world and because Of the way that God created the world.

Remember this this is important. God made the world infused with wisdom. God made the world to glorify him through wisdom. God made the world and he called it very good. Well God abandoned that plan before it's finished.

Which means that eventually The whole world will be filled with the wisdom of God because and we're getting a little bit ahead of ourself here. The very wisdom of God himself Jesus Christ will ensure it be so.

Again, we're getting ahead of ourself right now. The command and Proverbs is That every area of our life must be submitted to wisdom for fathers or the prince of your home. You've been given dominion not to dominate your children, but to disciple them.

Not to dominate and run over your wife. But to build her up and wash her in the water of the word. Ask yourself the following questions men. Are you ruling right now today with wisdom or are you ruling by impulse?

Are you raising your children in the fear of the Lord or are you reacting to them in the flesh? Are you intentionally bringing Christ into their lives or are you being passive and winging it and if you're like me?

And you you didn't know these things when you were young and maybe your children are already grown. And maybe you look back and you say They don't know Christ. Are you doing the small things today? To bring Christ to them where they're at because you don't stop being a father just because your children are grown.

You may not be successful at bringing them Christ. They may be heart of heart at this age in their life. But are you doing it? Are you taking them Jesus? Are you bowing before the throne of grace and giving God your children in whatever stage that they're in fathers?

This is so important that you rule with wisdom. Don't let your defeat cause you to give up how often as men. Do we allow the idea that we're gonna lose to get us to quit? You've already won. If you're in Christ, you've already won.

So fight the good fight of faith and do it in your home. Your generations actually matter and they will be blessed by your work. If you're aspiring to the office of elder or to deacon. Your judgments matter the way that you are discipled right now matters.

Do you have a fear of God or the fear of man? That matters. Do you exist to serve God's people to love God's people like he loves them to care about them not with? Impartiality or pomp or pretense but to be a tender-hearted leader who has affection for the people of God.

You have to ask yourself the question. Am I governing with biblical love and charity and grace? Am I correcting God's people with the same kind of care and compassion that Jesus has for his bride? Or am I shepherding God's people according to my vision my plan and what I think is best so that it will serve me.

And if that's you Repent For homeschool teachers. What an important job. I think it was GK Chesterton who's falsely Attributed this quote. I don't know who actually said it's a guy named William. But I'm gonna quote it as GK Chesterton is that's who I heard at first the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.

The job of a mother we have no idea how important it is. Men you work you labor you do everything you do to give her space. Time and safety to do the most precious work on earth women. Every choice you make in the home every book you read in the home.

Every sin you confront in the home every attitude that you permit in the home all of it matters because all of it will either be in accordance with the wisdom of God that leads to life or it will be in Accordance with your will your plan and it will lead to death.

For.

Citizens, we have a duty to put leaders in place who actually love God. Ask yourself the question. Do we value policy or just smooth talking? God will hold our nation accountable For the leaders that we vote for.

I Remember, I'll admit this to you and you'll probably Vomit in your mouth. I was a young man when Obama was running for his first term. And I had no idea about biblical wisdom. I had no idea. I just knew he sounded really nice and I cast my first vote For that party and I have never done it since.

But what got me was the smooth talk the rhetoric. What do we value? Are we principled based? Are we textual are we biblical or we caught up in some kind of momentum or some kind of movement? Because at the end of the day God will judge the way that we wield authority in any sphere at any sector because he says by me all judged righteously.

That means that judges Will be judged for the way that they make rulings. That means that rulers will be judged by the ways that they level power. That means that pastors will be judged by the way that they exegete the scriptures.

It means that fathers will be judged by the way that they govern households and so forth and so on. And every single level of authority is an expectation of Judgment if we level authority in unbiblical and unrighteous ways.

Because if all dominion comes from God, then all dominion must be submitted to God. There's so many examples of this in the Bible of when it happens rightly and not perfectly. Even Joseph in Egypt didn't seek to elevate himself.

But elevated God and all that he did and God brought life to a pagan nation because of Joseph think about David. David has marks on his record. David has blights. David has big ones. But God calls him a man after his own heart and David presided over the greatest years of the Israelite Empire.

Before it fell and was severed and never came back together again. And then you think about men like Herod Who died in freakish agony on his bed? Because of the ways that he ruled in the ways that he led.

Think about Ahab and how the dogs Licked up his wife's blood. Because of the way that he met sorry Shannon it's in the Bible the point is That wisdom will judge all of us for the way that we rule. We will either rule righteously or we will rule wickedly.

And what I think is so sobering about all of this is when I look at my life and I look at the sum total of my leadership. I Have no hope in myself so many of my decisions that look like they're good on the outside have been even stained by self-preservation.

My ego my pride my desire to have people like me Underneath all of the decisions that I've ever made is a kind of selfishness.

And.

I don't think it's just me. I Think that's what sin does to all of us. It makes us rabidly in love with ourselves. So that who here could actually say to themselves I've ruled righteously and yet there is one right there is one who did.

There is one who from the moment he was born he cried out in That little stall in Bethlehem who ruled righteously and everything that he did there is one who had wisdom and all of his Dealings there is one who perfectly ruled and there is one who at the very apex of his ministry Was crushed for our transgressions and for our sins he was.

He was scarred and I don't want you to miss the importance of this. I Know Christianity that says, oh great I sent he forgave me now I can go do what I want from the very beginning of the Bible. God cares about how we use authority and Because we could not use authority in righteous ways.