Proverbs 4:5-9 (The Attitude of Wisdom)

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Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day sermon We pray that as we declare the

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Word of God that you would be encouraged Strengthened in your faith and that you would catch a greater vision of who

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Christ is May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word and may the Lord be with you

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I wasn't gonna begin this way But I think about movies like the butterfly effect you go back into the past and you change one thing and it changes everything we tend to think about The decision that we make today.

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How's that gonna affect our path? How's that gonna affect our destination? How's that gonna affect the things that we do or the where that we're going?

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We often tend to ask ourself What determines the path that we're on and how do we stay on it?

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Well biblically speaking, there's only one way that we can stay on the right path and that is through wisdom

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And I'll just I'll go ahead and warn you This is not one of those messages

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That is about easy Believism and mere Christian faith there is and we will talk about this the blessing of faith the blessing of salvation, but What do you do after you're saved?

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What do you do now that you are a Christian is? Is Christianity is

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Jesus is salvation the finish line of your story or is it the starting line? Today we're going to talk about what wisdom actually looks like and What our attitude towards wisdom ought to be now, we're back in the book of Proverbs Which is a good thing.

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We were in Revelation for a little while. So this is gonna be very different than Revelation it's a completely different genre and today we're gonna be looking at the concept of wisdom what it is

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Why we need it and why having it is a matter of life and death Proverbs talks about wisdom like it's a matter of life and death that we need wisdom.

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We must yearn for wisdom We must seek after wisdom that wisdom is a gift from God That we ought to open and we ought to treasure

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Wisdom is given to us by God so that we can live faithfully for God And as you remember

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We've defined wisdom in a couple different ways, but today I would call it like this wisdom is the moral ability

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For you to be able to take everything that you know about Scripture and God and apply it to your

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Circumstances in order to live a godly life Wisdom is

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Synthesizing the doctrine of the knowledge of God and what the Bible says and bringing it into your circumstances

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So that you may live a holy life Wisdom is what equips us to do the will of God wisdom is what brings flourishing into our?

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Walk with God into our homes into our jobs and into the world Wisdom is a great blessing that we cannot manufacture

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On our own You can be the most moral atheist and you can't have biblical wisdom.

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Sure You can have worldly wisdom, but the wisdom that God gives is Relational and if you are not in relationship with God, you cannot have this kind of wisdom

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So it's a gift but it's also a gift that we must cultivate It's far better than this, but here's an example

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When I was younger, I don't even remember who it was, but they gave me a chia pet You have to do certain things to get it to work you have to water it and yet you have to be somewhat sentient, right?

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The gift that God gave us was not meant to be put on a shelf and to collect dust the gift of wisdom

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He wants us to cultivate So that we can live a godly life in every aspect of our life

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So today we're gonna look at what that means we're gonna look at how do we acquire wisdom, how do we seek after wisdom?

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how do we employ wisdom when disaster comes when complexities comes when hard things happen in life and what should be our emotional response to wisdom

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So with that if you will turn with me to Proverbs 4 5 through 9 as we look at these things together

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Proverbs 4 5 through 9 Passage reads like this

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Acquire wisdom Acquire understanding Do not forget nor turn away from the words of my mouth do not forsake her and She will guard you

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Love her and she will watch over you the beginning of wisdom is acquire wisdom and With all your acquiring get understanding prize her and she will exalt you.

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She will honor you if you embrace her she will place on your head a garland of grace and she will present you with a crown of Beauty, let's pray

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Lord, thank you for this passage that you've given us and Lord, thank you for the

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The strangeness of it that wisdom would be compared to a woman That wisdom would be compared to a relationship

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That wisdom would not be seen as a concept but as a person

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Lord, I pray that as we seek to be The kind of people who look to the scriptures to define every aspect of our existence

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Lord let us today in Proverbs 4 To see what role wisdom plays in the way that we live in the way that we move and in the way that we have our being

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Lord, it's in Jesus name. We pray. Amen Now there's four things we're gonna look at today We're gonna look at what we must do in relation to wisdom

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Then we're gonna look at what we must not do in relation to wisdom Then we're gonna look at how we are supposed to feel about wisdom and then we're going to look at what wisdom

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Will bless us with what wisdom will give to us So let us begin with what we must do

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The first thing that I would remind you of is that this passage begins with a command

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It doesn't begin with the suggestion I remember when I was a child my father used to have this there's little phrases that your father or your mother

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Had that you remember because they said them over and over and over again And now you are the kind of person that tortures your children the same way

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My dad would say something to the effect of I'm not asking you I'm Telling you that was one of my dad's phrases.

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I'm not asking you I'm telling you and it was helpful Because if my dad's asking me then

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I have some ability to wiggle out of it I have some room to share my opinion about the matter if he's asking me dad based on the evidence

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I don't think that's a good idea But when my dad defined the moment for me,

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I'm not asking you I'm telling you All ability for me to weasel out

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Left in This way God is doing the same thing. God's not asking us to acquire wisdom.

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God's not asking us to acquire understanding He's telling us This is a biblical command.

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This is an imperative Which means that he's saying you must do you ought to do you shall do this and this is

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For me, especially a fascinating thing because how often do we think about how have

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I obeyed this command this week? We think about the Ten Commandments We think about some other commandments like when

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Jesus summarized all of the law and loved the Lord your God with all your heart your soul Your mind love your neighbors yourself, but how often do you measure your life against have

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I? sought actively to acquire wisdom this week have I sought actively to acquire understanding because if we haven't

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Been active in that work Have we really been obedient to this command?

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And if we have not been obedient, let's call it what it is It's in Sins are things that you do that are against the word or sins that are things that you don't do that are commanded

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One is the sin of commission. The other is the sin of omission This is something that's commanded in the word.

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And if we're not doing it, we are omitting what God has said for us to do

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Don't be discouraged But our sins are piled as high as heaven and if it were not for the

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Lord Jesus Christ, we would have no hope But praise be to God that we have him the first thing that it tells us to do in this passage is to acquire a

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Wisdom now acquiring is not an accidental pursuit. It is not an

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Incidental sort of thing. It's not like you're you got an email from your great uncle in Nigeria And he's a prince and he's gonna give you 700 million dollars and wow, you're just so lucky

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This is not what that is This is not walking down the street and finding a coin on the side of the road

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Like if you're my daughter Addison and she finds a penny and she leaps for joy and she says I'm rich This is not accidental, this is not unintentional.

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This is not whoopsie. Here we go. This is intentional pursuit of wisdom

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The way that wisdom is described in this passage is like a bride Love her embrace her seek her cherish her though What Solomon by the power of the

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Spirit is telling us is that the pursuit of wisdom is relational and it is?

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Intentional it is like a man seeking after a bride And there is there's power in that moment

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When you're a young man, and you're seeking after a woman to be your wife for instance

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There is no greater powerhouse in writing in this church than my friend Dan Holt The articles recently have dried up Do you know why because that man is captivated

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It's a powerful emotion We know this think back to when you first started dating

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You would move mountains for the one that you love you would do anything You would stay up till 4 o 'clock in the morning talking on the phone and you have to wake up at 5

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It's a powerful emotion that grips our hearts and God made it that way but think remember

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He's he's giving us this natural thing and he's applying it to a spiritual thing saying that that same passion that you have for the pursuit of a

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Woman should be the same passion that you have for the pursuit of wisdom

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It's convicting Because as I think about it, I can't remember a time in my life

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Where I've pursued wisdom like that It's convicting the word here is

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Kana in Hebrew It means to purchase something to possess something to be committed to something in the ancient world

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You might use the word Kana when you're talking about the purchase of an animal and if anybody has animals here

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You know that they take work. You don't buy them pre -programmed and They take a lot of effort a lot of discipline a lot of work so you have to spend money

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This is the funny thing about like for instance dogs And we all love them or most of us you have to spend money to own them and you have to spend money to train them you have to spend money to feed them and They wag their tail at you and make you feel good

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This word is a word of purchase. It's a word of sacrifice. It's a word. That means that you're going to be all -in

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It means it's a word that's gonna cost you something the question I would ask you is how much has the pursuit of wisdom

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Actually cost you Has it cost you a night's sleep because like David you're awake in the middle of the night wandering through the scriptures and wondering

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What God has to say is it something that has actually cost you time.

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This is something that's cost you your sleep This is the intensity of the words that are used here

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Which I think means that there's room for all of us to repent The thing that we have to remember about this is that the

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Lord is not just wanting us to be busy This is not like a I worked in the government so I can say this.

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This is not like a government job Where what are we gonna do today? Oh, we're gonna line up the trucks again

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We're gonna make sure that they're exactly within a nanometer of each other online, you know

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In the motor pool in the army, we're not gonna polish our weapons again This is not meaningless work

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This is work for your good. God doesn't give us work for us to be busy

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God gives us work for our good any time that God asks us to sacrifice for him he intends to bless us and Maybe the reason why we fumble through life with so little peace and so little joy and so little blessings is because we've been so Slothful in the things of God To the degree that you invest yourself into the things of God I really truly believe will be to the degree that God Encourages you strengthens you blesses you and I'm not talking about material blessings

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I'm not talking about if you just have faith you can have your Bentley I'm talking about that.

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Nothing will shake you. Nothing will rock you You'll walk through the hardest hardest moments of your life with a joy that cannot be taken from you

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The Lord intends on making you wise what is wise wise means that you're able to live for Jesus in every situation that you face

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That's what you were made for. That's what Solomon did right at the very beginning of his life. Solomon says

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I don't need wealth I don't need palaces. I don't need riches. I need you. I I'm not smart enough.

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I'm not wise enough to rule such a great people as that. You've given me Lord. Give me wisdom the posture of humility to say

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I'm not enough is often enough When we come to the end of ourself and we say that I can't do this on my own

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Lord help me is Usually the beginning of where things start to turn around It says the beginning of wisdom is to acquire wisdom.

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That's not circular thinking The beginning of wisdom is the moment you say

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I don't have it. I need to go searching for it I need to acquire it and we know the promise of Scripture in James 1 5 that if we ask for wisdom

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If we seek for wisdom That God will give it The second command in this passage is that we would acquire

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Understanding now, I want you to know wisdom and understanding our sisters in a way There there are two columns in the same building wisdom is knowing what the

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Lord God would have you to do in all circumstances and Understanding is the sort of end result of knowing those things as well wisdom

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You could say is the road that you travel on and understanding are the headlights That keep you on the path acquiring understanding

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It means pursuing the things of God knowing and learning the word one thing

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I would tell you is That the wisest people that you've ever met all have one thing in common.

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They believe the Bible If you meet someone who's a Christian you say wow, they're really wise

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They've spent hours and hours and hours reading studying understanding

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What God has so that in every situation of their life they have a chapter in verse

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What am I supposed to do in this moment and you ask them and they tell you well the Word of God says this

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That's wisdom is when you know what the Word says for every situation that you walk through David says in Psalm 119 130 the unfolding of your words gives light and it gives

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Understanding to the simple you also remember that he says thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light into my path

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I love that passage so much. Do you know why because it's not a spotlight You don't crack open the word one time and get told by God everything that you need to do for miles and miles down the road in Those days you carried a little jar with embers in it that stayed warm and you would crack open the jar and you would get

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Just enough light To let you know your next step Why?

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Because God in his goodness is not going to give us Enough light to where we don't need him anymore

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He gives us just enough light so that we have to rely on him today and just enough light for tomorrow

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So that we'll have to rely on him tomorrow Because what is very best for us is not autonomy its submission

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You also get wisdom through prayer Ephesians 1 17 says that the

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God of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of glory may give to you a spirit of wisdom and Of revelation and the knowledge of him.

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Have you ever been in a situation where something was was bothering you? You didn't know what to do You didn't know whether to go left or whether to go right and then all of a sudden the

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Spirit of God comes upon you And says pray and in that moment The Lord reminds you of some scripture the

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Lord reminds you of some truth The Lord gives you something in that moment to help you and he gives you wisdom

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Wisdom can be gained through knowing and learning and studying the Word of God and it can also be gained through the

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Spirit of God in prayer You get wisdom also through obedience Proverbs 3 13 says how blessed is the man who finds wisdom and the man who gains understanding?

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It's a process Wisdom is a gift, but wisdom is also cultivated. It should be that the longer you walk with Christ The wiser you become

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It should be that the more years that you spend in submission to your Savior The better that you understand how to walk with him in all situations and the more you can actually come alongside of other people and Help them in a lot of ways

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We are being told to be active to grab hold of and to examine our priorities and to see what are we pursuing?

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Are we pursuing our finances? Are we pursuing a job?

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Are we pursuing comfort? Are we pursuing recognition? Are we pursuing the things of man? Or as a primary focus

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Do we have a hunger for the things of God? We have a hunger for the wisdom of God Do we have a desire to pour out our time and our energy and all of us?

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To have the kind of wisdom that would please God again,

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I Would encourage you if you're not doing this and I go through seasons where I struggle as well

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Just because the Lord has called me to deliver this sermon to you this morning doesn't mean that I don't struggle

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When depression sits down on you The first thing that you tend to do which is the dumbest thing that you could possibly do is to isolate yourself

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To not read the Word to not pray I would encourage you to pick a time morning or evening and get your face in the

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Word of God. I Would encourage you For your own good To read through the

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Proverbs. I don't think it's a coincidence that there's 31 Proverbs in 31 days in most months.

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So read one a day journal through it Seek the Lord when he may be found gain wisdom through his

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Word and seek godly counsel, too there's men and women in your life who've been walking with the

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Lord longer than you have who've been processing through how to Handle situations and circumstances in a way that you don't yet know spend time with them if you're young in the faith

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Listen, yeah, maybe maybe some of our older Mature Christians will not be thankful for me saying this invite yourself over to their house

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Invite yourself to their kitchen table sit with them pray with them ask them What should I do in this situation and listen to how they process through it and how they point you to Scripture?

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And if you're older in the faith, don't give worldly wisdom Root everything that you have to say in a chapter and in a verse and point those younger than you to how to think

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Christianly and biblically What an incredible thing it is to have a community of people that will hold you accountable and will push you and point you to Christ and If you're young in the faith,

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I would just encourage you this way It is intimidating Sometimes to look at people who have been walking with Christ for 30 years and you say

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I'll never have that kind of relationship Do you know the same spirit that raised

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Jesus Christ from the dead that lives in them lives in you? Do not be overwhelmed at someone else's station

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Love the Lord where you're at Enjoy him where you're at pursue him where you're at and over the course of 10 20 30 years

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You'll look back and you'll say my God has done an amazing work and there'll be people who look to you and say

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I want them to help me You're preparing today for what God's gonna do through you tomorrow.

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Don't waste the small things Those are the commands that were given to acquire wisdom to acquire understanding and it's active effort the second

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Aspect of what we're told is we're told what not to do It says the first of those is do not forget

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The Bible says this so many times. I didn't actually I should have looked this up How many times it says do not forget? Why do you think it tells us do not forget and why do you think it tells us that we have to remember?

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Because we're forgetful There'll be a moment where it will be at the heights of joy saying

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Lord You're so good in the next moment. Somebody will cut us off in traffic and then now we're an

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Israelite again grumbling We all do this We we see moments of such crystal beautiful clarity and then the next moment we're curmudgeon again

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Solomon says do not forget nor turn away from the words of my mouth because he's speaking for the

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Spirit of God Do not turn away from the words of the mouth of God because if you do

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It's like a ship leaving the harbor without its GPS What a foolish endeavor that would be when we forget wisdom we forget sense

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Because the only sense that God has given us is what he says in his word

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So if we're forgetting wisdom, which is the Bible applied we're forgetting sense It would be like a farmer

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Who plants his crop and leaves it to wither? It would be like a student

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Who sleeps with a textbook under his pillow thinking that by Diffusion That those things would come in by the way.

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I don't like the phrase by osmosis because osmosis is diffusion of water So unless you're sleeping in a swimming pool, it's not osmosis.

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I just want to correct that statement once and for all It's diffusion It would be like a fire going out in your living room fireplace

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But you're too cozy in your bed to get up and put more wood in the fireplace

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Forgetting wisdom is lacking sense. It is harming yourself over the long term and It's inviting chaos and misery and ruin into your life.

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What's the opposite of wisdom foolishness? We're not Neutral people if we are not actively pursuing wisdom,

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I will tell you foolishness will be Encroaching upon you if we're not actively pursuing the things of God the things of man the things of the world the things of the flesh

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Will be encroaching at your doorstep so much of this passage is so encouraging to me that just repenting of our inactivity

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Repenting of our apathy repenting of our slothfulness would take us So far in the things of God The Lord never holds you to a standard of perfection in the same way that you don't hold your child to a standard of perfection

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I remember Making cookies with one of my children in the kitchen and they they really ruined it

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But in my mind it was a success because they were with me and they were learning and they were working with me and over The course of their life they're being discipled up into you know

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A vision of something when we do Bible studies together my children sometimes say very interesting things.

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I remember During one Bible study with Addison. She told me that that unicorns

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Are now extinct because they ate red leaves off of the trees because in the fall the red leaves turn red and in the fall all humanity fell and she

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Completed those two concepts The point was is that that moment wasn't a victory because of her precise theology it was a victory because we were studying the word together

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Oftentimes if you will just get started if you will just repent of your inactivity the

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Lord will use it To grow you and strengthen you in your walk with him Remember the

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Israelites were never told directions by God if they were sitting still You remember they were being led by the

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Spirit of God, right? The Spirit of God was a cloud by day and a fire by night But they were never told to turn left and to turn right if they were sitting still

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It was always once they were moving and there's a lesson in that In order for us to get directions from God on where he wants us to go

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We actually sometimes need to start moving maybe even in the wrong direction So that God can redirect us how many of us fail to start?

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Because we're afraid that we'll go a mile in the wrong direction So we sit there and we don't move and we go nowhere

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I'd rather go a mile in the wrong direction to be rerouted Than to sit and wait and never go anywhere.

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That's what I'm saying This is an active work. It says for us to engrave it upon our hearts proverb 7 -3 tells us how we get wisdom

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Will you bind them on your fingers you write them on the tablets of your heart you be mindful of it

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I don't know if you're like me But I forget the most important things that I'm supposed to do all the time If I have an appointment

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I have to put it on my calendar and I have to put alarm bells and I my phone literally has to has to sound

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Like a nuclear bomb is going off sometimes to remind me that something is going on. Well, maybe set a reminder in your phone

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Maybe set a reminder in your phone that today I need to be in the word. I need to pursue the things of God It's not a bad thing to schedule and to help yourself in your weakness

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It takes energy and effort not to forget. That's the first thing.

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We shouldn't do is don't forget be mindful be active The second is don't forsake Forgetting is sort of a passive work.

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We drift into forgetfulness forsaking is an active work It's when we're spurning the things of God means when we're saying in rebelliousness that I'm gonna go my own way

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I'm not gonna trust the Lord. I'm not gonna follow him in this season. What has God done for me? That's forsaking that's leaving the path of Godliness to walk in the ways of the world and it would be like a president firing his cabinet and Cutting himself off of advisors and saying that I'm gonna do everything on my own and leading a nation into disaster

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The Word of God is a advisor to you. Your community is an advisor to you When we forsake the things of God we cut ourself off like a reckless fool

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Sailing a sailboat in the middle of a coral reef And when we do that disaster is soon to come the

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Hebrew word for forsaking is Azov Sounds like her

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I almost like a magic word. Ah, sorry See, just be child.

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Just be a child at heart. It's it's fun Again forsaking is like leaving a well to cross a desert.

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No one would do that. You would die very soon afterwards But we do it all the time Don't we we leave the well of truth?

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We leave the well the water of life in order to live on our own to do things our own way

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How many times have we fallen flat on our face by the grace of God? Because we decided to walk on our own without God's help the antidote to this kind of behavior is not

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More of your own wisdom more of your own strength. It's not pulling yourself up by your bootstraps The antidote is repentance and covenant faithfulness

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The antidote is to have an attitude like Ruth Do you remember where she said where you go?

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I go your people will be my people where you lodge. I will nudge Wisdom in this passage is not a temporary companion

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But she's talked about like a covenant bride. That's the way you treat her now.

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Let's get to how we're supposed to feel. I And We're told to love her we're told to love wisdom like it's your wife

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Which means that wisdom is not an impersonal force wisdom is not a collection of Confucius fortune cookie statements in your head where you can impress people with your quibblings

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Wisdom is like having a helpmate Wisdom is like having a spouse who when you're getting ready to do something stupid.

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She tells you Wisdom is delighting in her presence.

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It's seeking her guidance. It's being thankful for her ministry in your life. Wisdom is compared to a woman, to a covenant loyal bride.

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And we are supposed to seek her in that way. Proverbs 2 .6 says, for the Lord gives wisdom, from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.

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It's a great gift. The second thing we're told here is to prize her, to cherish her. So not only do we love wisdom, we prize wisdom, we cherish wisdom.

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We cherish her so that she will exalt us. The Hebrew word is salach, which is where we get the word treasuring from.

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We are called to treat wisdom as it's one of the most precious commodities in our life, like oxygen, like food, like water.

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Do your choices, does your life reflect that kind of pursuit of wisdom?

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And if not, that's okay. Repent. Repent and be reoriented back to the

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Lord and pursue his treasures. The Lord has given you treasures and wisdom.

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The Lord has given you things that are more valuable than rubies and wisdom. Don't go chasing after the things of the world that will not satisfy you ultimately.

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Chase after the things of God, which will actually bring pleasures forever. The third word that we're given here is to embrace her, to embrace wisdom, which means that wisdom in its pursuit is an intimate pursuit and it goes down into the deepest parts of who we are.

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It's like a child clinging to her mother during a storm. It's like a soldier gripping a sword in the middle of a battle.

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It's like a lover cherishing his beloved. The Hebrew word there is shabach.

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It means deep and tender, protective embrace. It means the pursuit of the thing that fascinates you and that you're captivated by most.

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And I know that it's odd to think about wisdom in this way. We tend to think about God in this way, but here, one of God's attributes, which is wisdom, we're told to think about one of his attributes in this way.

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And the reason is because wisdom is not just an attribute. Wisdom is a person.

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And in this passage, wisdom is a woman. Those are the three things we ought to feel.

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What will wisdom do for you? This is important because so far, we've talked about what we ought to do for wisdom.

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Now, what is wisdom gonna do for you? If you pursue wisdom, if you acquire wisdom, if you acquire understanding, if you love it, if you embrace it, if you cherish it, what will wisdom do for you?

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Well, there's lots of things that wisdom will do. Proverbs 4, 6 says, do not forsake her and she will guard you.

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Love her and she will watch over you. It's giving wisdom, which is a woman in this passage, the attributes of a soldier.

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She will watch over you. She will guard you. She will protect you. She will keep you out of harm's way. Think about this.

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This is not some aloof, pie -in -the -sky sort of thought. Wisdom will protect you in every aspect of your life.

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Think about your relationships. Let's say that you're a hothead and you are prone to say what's on your mind, the very first thing that comes out, and usually you cut people to the core.

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When you become a Christian and wisdom starts to come in and you realize that the

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Bible says that we're to be slow to speak, quick to listen, and wisdom comes in and says, hey, stop.

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Don't say what you were gonna say in your flesh. Wisdom in that moment protects you from harming someone else.

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Wisdom protects you in that relationship. Think about your finances. Wisdom protects you from impulsive purchases.

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Wisdom protects you from investing in things that are gonna harm you. Wisdom protects you from get -rich -quick schemes or whatever else.

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Proverbs 21, 20 tells us to save wisely for the future, for a legacy, for generations.

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I know so many Christians who have nothing at all to show for their life, nothing to give to their children, nothing as far as legacy, because they didn't use wisdom.

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Wisdom actually will protect you and guard you. Wisdom guards your integrity. Think about this.

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When you're at work and you wanna cut corners or you wanna slack off because everybody else is slacking off, you can do just as much work as they do in half the time, so you only do half the work.

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Wisdom protects you in the sense that it causes you to work with integrity. It causes you to work as unto the

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Lord so that over time wisdom leads to you being honored at your job, you having integrity at your job, you being considered a leader at your job, because after working in a way that honors

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God for years, the people around you see that there's something different about you, so wisdom has guarded you from acting like the world at your work and so that you can act like Christ at your work so that now you are being elevated at your work.

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You're being distinguished from everyone else. Christians, I say this all the time, we ought to be the most hardworking people on the planet.

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We ought to be the people who bring life to our companies. We ought to be the people who our bosses trust us implicitly with the hardest jobs.

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We ought to be the people who eventually are on the boards of our companies, who are working in such a way that we're now shaping the direction of our companies because who else is gonna shape the direction of a company towards life and towards godliness but someone who has the spirit of God?

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The reason our country is the way that it is right now is because spirit -indwelled believers have backed away from the public square and we've let unregenerate, reprobate people lead the direction of our country.

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That's not wisdom, that's foolishness. Wisdom guards your time so that you're no longer wasting time,

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Solomon says, for us to number our days so our time matters. Wisdom guards your moral purity.

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When in a moment you wanna give in to a particular sin, wisdom comes in and says, don't do that and wisdom guards you.

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Wisdom guards your decisions in crisis. We have had a lot of this lately. We were talking about this to our men in Bible study.

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You don't make decisions during crisis very well. You make decisions years before the crisis hits to prepare for when it comes so that when that day comes, you will be ready and you will be prepared.

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That's what wisdom is. Wisdom is preparing for what could happen in the future today. There's so many ways that we can talk about wisdom, guarding you, protecting you.

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It also says in this passage that it will exalt and honor you. Verse eight, prize her and she will exalt you.

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Embrace her and she will honor you. Wisdom is our best friend. Wisdom is the one that promotes us, that elevates us above the fray of the world.

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Wisdom is the one that elevates our reputation. Think about it. When the world sees you, your faith, your diligence in the things of God, they will come to you and ask you for wisdom.

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They will come to you and ask you to tell them what even God might say. I've seen it over and over and over, like just by simple little actions, wisdom will elevate your influence.

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One of the best ways to have influence is to simply be a father and a mother.

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And wisdom in the home, doing everything that you do with your children, according to the word of God, it's not glamorous, it's not glorious, but all of those faithful days that you collect, that are aimed at Christ, that are going in a faithful direction, the

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Lord will use for a legacy that will last. I was talking about this the other day.

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If you look at Jonathan Edwards' biography by George Marston, it's a wonderful book.

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It's about 700 pages, but it's good. It's really easy to read too. At the back of the book, there's hundreds and hundreds of people who came from Jonathan Edwards' line, vice presidents, seminary professors, lawyers, judges, all because he was a faithful father.

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Wisdom elevates your standing because of little acts of faithfulness every day in the same direction.

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Wisdom also elevates our witness for Christ. Matthew 5, 16 says, let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your

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Father who is in heaven. The Lord didn't tell us to do this because it's not possible. The Lord told us to be obvious about our faith.

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The Lord told us to be open about our faith. The Lord told us to be public about our faith because when they see the good things that we do for Christ, they will eventually glorify our

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Father in heaven. Why have we entered into such a season of the church where we hide in our churches, where we hide from showing people the things of God?

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When you go to work, show them who you are in Christ. When you go to the market, show them who you are in Christ.

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Let your light so shine so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. That's wisdom. The final thing that it says is that she will crown you and she will bless you.

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She will give you favor. Now, what I love about this passage, and this is where we'll end, is that Solomon, 1 ,000 years before Jesus came, he could only see so far.

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He could only see through a mirror dimly. And he records in this passage that wisdom is a woman.

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And if you acquire wisdom like you pursue a bride, if you acquire understanding like you would for a spouse, if you don't forget, if you don't forsake, if you love, if you prize, if you embrace, then the

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Lord will bless you, guard you, exalt you, and all these things. But what

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I love so much about the scripture is the trajectory that it takes. Because we've said this whole time that wisdom is a person.

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And Solomon records wisdom as this woman, but the scriptures give us a clearer vision of what wisdom actually is.

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And wisdom most fully is seen in the person of Jesus Christ. 1

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Corinthians 1, 22 through 25 says this. For the Jews request a sign and Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach

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Christ crucified to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness. But those who are called, both

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Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God, because of the foolishness of God is wiser than man and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

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The point that I'm making is, as a Christian, you're not doing these things to be saved.

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You're not obeying God to earn favor with God. But because of Christ, who was the one who perfectly sought after wisdom, who perfectly sought after understanding, the one who did not forget, the one who did not forsake, the one who cherished and loved and embraced the things of God on your behalf, because of him, now you will be guarded.

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Because of him, he will lift you up and exalt you. Because of him, if you keep your eyes focused on him, he will crown you with the crown of life.

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Everything that this passage tells us we can have in Christ, in Christ alone.