Proverbs 8:1-3 (The Call 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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Well over the last couple weeks We've been in Proverbs 7 and we've been looking at the adulterous woman of Proverbs 7 and we've been

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Using that chapter to show us many things about sexual sin and in that chapter

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We've looked at we've looked at both male sin and female sexual sin We built an autopsy report that will help us avoid the pitfalls that lead to sexual ruin

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Well today we're in Proverbs chapter 8 and a new woman emerges Today, we're greeted by a new woman and this woman is not

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Lady Folly from Proverbs 7 This woman is called Lady Wisdom And in a way we can recognize that Solomon is not necessarily

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Describing to flesh -and -blood women. The woman of Proverbs 7 is not an actual woman in Proverbs and the woman in Proverbs 8 is not an actual woman, but they stand for Categories they stand for something their metaphors of both foolishness and righteousness

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Lady Folly stands for the appetites that lead to death the carnality the sin

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Lady Wisdom stands for Righteousness that if you will listen to her that if you'll follow her then you will have wisdom and you will have life

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But if you follow Lady Folly You will follow her down to death And in that sense

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Solomon is telling us that there are two voices that are always calling out our name

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There's the voice of Lady Folly and there's the voice of Lady Wisdom and As we learn

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Folly is the one who waits in the shadows and speaks with us with honey dripped Poison the one whose bread is sprinkled sprinkled with myrrh her promises seem like silk and yet they're infested with worms

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She's loud. She's seductive. She's persuasive. She is death -dressed in a pretty dress and She hides in the dark corners and Whispers to us through our culture through our screens through our secret hidden desires

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Calling us down into death telling us what we want to hear but never telling us the cost that is

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Lady Wisdom who calls us like a spider to her web and Today we're looking at Lady Wisdom Who is the exact opposite of Lady Folly Lady Folly stands in the dark

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Lady Wisdom stands in the light Lady Folly is in the Hidden recesses and Lady Wisdom is on the top of the hill screaming to us

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Not with tricks not with flattery not with hidden fees not with words that tickle the ears

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But with her words that are righteous her invitation is not private It is public.

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Her promise is not death. It is life She doesn't seduce you she summons you she doesn't pray upon you.

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She leads you to pray She pleads for your wisdom Her name is wisdom and her house is heaven

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And in that sense these two women represent two great kingdoms one is Babylon and one is Zion One is the flesh and one is the spirit one is death and one is life

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One says come and lie with me one says come and live one flatters one warns

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One leads you to ruin with a kiss One leads you into glory with a call and in that sense.

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It is a matter of eternal Consequence which voice that we listen to If we listen to Lady Folly, we will go down into death.

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We listen to Lady Wisdom We will go unto life and I'm reminded this morning of what a seminary professor once told me about what a good sermon is

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I'm not going to tell you that this is a good sermon that would be presumptuous, but I am going to tell you that the outline at least follows his pattern a

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Sermon should tell you what you must do and then it must tell you why you can't Then it must tell you what he has done and then it must tell you who you are in light of it

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And that will be The sort of overarching outline that we work through today as we talk about the voice the call of Lady Wisdom What does it mean to be called by Lady Wisdom?

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What does it mean to chase after the call of wisdom? What does it mean to in the end find wisdom and find life?

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Those are the things we're gonna be talking about today and we're gonna look at the call in five different ways

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Number one her call is clear Number two her call is urgent Number three her call is strategic

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Number four her call is public and number four her call is deeper and better and sweeter

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Than you could imagine. So if you will turn with me, we're only gonna do three verses today

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Proverbs 8 1 through 3 I will read them to you. We will pray and then we will begin

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Proverbs 8 1 through 3 This is the word of the

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Lord Does not wisdom call and Understanding lift up her voice on the top of the heights beside the way

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Where the paths meet she takes her stand Beside the gates at the opening of the city

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At the entrance of the doors. She cries out. Let's pray Father we thank you so much for all that you've done for us

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We thank you that we have this great example in Proverbs 8 of lady wisdom who calls to us

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Not with whispers, but actually with shouts Help us father

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As your people bought and paid for by Jesus Indwelled by the

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Spirit of God Help us to heed that call and To live a life of wisdom to the glory of God for our good and for the good of your church

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It's in Christ's name. We pray. Amen Now it's been a little while since we talked about lady wisdom.

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Who is lady wisdom? Well, she's not a literal woman, but she is a literary masterpiece

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She is Solomon's definition of what a righteous life looks like what it walks like what it talks like She is the voice of clarity in a world full of chaos

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She is the counselor that stands in the streets She is not in the shadows like the woman of Proverbs 7, but she offers her truth in the life in the light

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She offers correction without cruelty. She offers instruction without insult and she offers truth without apology

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She is everything that the Proverbs 7 woman is not She is pure instead of polluted

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She is life -giving instead of the death giver and in this we see that she is a glorious Literary addition to Proverbs 8 and she not only stands in juxtaposition with the woman in Proverbs 7

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She stands in the high places of the city and calls your name Not to trap you but to teach you

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Not to seduce you in the midnight hour of your sin, but to save you from your darkness

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And that's why we must follow the lady wisdom. That's what we must do We must follow the lady wisdom the one who cries out the one who calls to us the one who teaches us the

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Word of God we must answer her call. And how do we answer her call? Well We must know what

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God says See the call of wisdom is a call to know what

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God loves and to do what God loves that's a wise life If you know what

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God loves and you do what God loves you have wisdom So the call of Lady Wisdom is a call unto

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God to do what God says to love what God says and Her call comes in five different ways to us.

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It comes to her as Lighter comes to us as life for us urgency for us.

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It's I'm not gonna say strategy like George W Bush It's public and it's deeper.

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So let's go to first wisdom's call for us is life Lady folly is a picture of sin and death.

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She's the one who's must lead us or our must lead us into carnality She's the one that seduces us deceives us and destroys us

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She's the one who whispers to us in the dark and she is a metaphor and she is a picture of what sin is

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Because what does sin do but whisper to us in the dark recesses of our own soul?

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What does sin do but come looking for you? It says in Proverbs 7 that she went out looking for the man

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Just like sin comes out looking for you She's the one who speaks in honey dripped phrases.

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She's the one who promises poison pleasure just like sin Sin promises you a kind of pleasure and yet when it is fully born, it leads to bitterness and death and one aspect that we didn't talk about Is how this woman?

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Takes the man in Proverbs 7 and feast upon him until he is dead and then she feeds him to Sheil It's kind of like a black widow.

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Have you ever learned about what a black widow does a female black widow? Well after she is pregnant eat the male and dispose of him.

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That's a picture of sin when you have messed with it and Then you have been devoured by it

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This is sins devouring nature pointed out by this woman in Proverbs 7

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But now we have a new woman a new picture a woman who is not lurking in the street corners

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But a woman who's in the public and who's in the light and who's bringing us life speaking with a sweeter voice a

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More subtle voice and yet a louder voice calling us to pay attention because if we do it will lead to our life

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Let me say it this way if you pursue sin you will end up in Lady Folly's bed and The more you sin the louder it screams will become have you ever noticed that?

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There's a principle there The more you sin the louder sin screams at you the louder sin clings to you the louder sin

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Hold your or the tighter it holds you sin actually loves to begin subtly and then to multiply

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That's why people who get caught in sin end up going deeper in sin Because sin has a plan to bring you down into the depths that's why a

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Pornography addiction ends up in all kinds of sexual ruin because sin has a plan to bring you deeper and deeper

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That's why a lie ends up with more and more and more lies on top of you You can do this with any sin sins goal is to get you stuck and then to get you eventually devoured by it when

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Its main goal is to bring you down to death. It's to rob you to steal from you to wither you to cripple you and To rob you of your vitality.

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That's why sin is so dangerous Because for a small pleasure you drink a cup of wrath you drink a cup of withering you drink a cup of being brought down Until you're paralyzed, that's why someone says don't walk and then don't stand and Then don't sit in the seat of scoffers.

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You see the progression when you begin with sin, you are walking until you can't walk anymore and You're standing until you can't stand anymore.

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And then you're paralyzed in your sin unable to even move. That's the progression of sin and here lady wisdom calls to us and Offers us the promise of life which by Just by common sense.

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We ought to follow her right if somebody said hey take the left path It leads to life take the right path that leads to death

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You'd be dumb if you went down the right path and yet how often do we go down the path of the lady folly?

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How often do we choose death over life What Solomon is laying before us is two women and two destinies

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You're either going to be in the bed of sin or you're going to be embraced by righteousness embraced by this lady wisdom

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You're either gonna cave into the saccharine size of lady folly Or you're going to follow the holy screams of lady wisdom her call leads to life.

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That's the first thing The second thing is her call is urgent Solomon says does not wisdom call and understanding lift up her voice a

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Idiomatic translation of that would be does not she scream Doesn't she shout

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Here she's crying out not in calm ladylike tones Not in the little pinky up drinking her

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Her tea her black tea with a little orange spice on this.

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It was so good. This is not her she's

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Screaming because she's urgent and why is she urgent because the need is actually really important because she thinks

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That we have the possibility of going down to death So she screams at us like a woman screaming at a child.

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Don't go in the streets In that moment, you probably don't even say that you probably just scream their name because that you're trying to get their attention so quickly

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Imagine lady wisdom looking at you and screaming your name Kendall Stop Don't go there

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This is not a text. This is a siren call. This is like the bat symbol

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If you know anything about Batman, you don't like that thing up for nothing You don't like that thing up and he comes and he's he's like, what's the problem?

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Got a hangnail sir, can you help me out? Liable to to get punched in the face by Batman if you do such a thing you like that thing up when it's dire when the same way

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Lady wisdom is lighting this alarm because the situation is urgent Because she doesn't want you to go to hell

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She doesn't want you to follow your sinful nature to your grave That's what we learned in Proverbs 7 is that you follow it.

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You'll end up dead Not just physically That would be that would be bad enough

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But a kind of death Where you'll never be with God Separated from him for all eternity.

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That's the stakes. That's why she's screaming That's why she's yelling and that's why I want everyone here to think about this

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She's not just screaming something abstract. She's screaming your name

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Your name is what's being yelled out your name is what's being shouted your name is what's causing her vocal cords to become coarse my name but how

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How few actually heed the call of Lady Wisdom How few actually answer her call how few reach out and grab the life ring that she is throwing

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And instead float down into the depths of death How do you pursue

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God? How do you how do you cling to this call? We have to flee your sin You have to pursue the things of God.

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You must immerse yourself in the scriptures. You must know what God loves You must love what God loves. You must hate what

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God hates. You must follow him where God is leading you And you must have a different kind of craving than the filth that your flesh is craving

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You have to let scripture guide your direction you have to put away your appetites you have to begin living by these different Cravings you have to no longer sin and be pursuing the things of God Lady Wisdom calls out

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Her voice to you to warn you to alarm you that you are on your way to death and she does that Because she doesn't want you to she wants you to live

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If you would pursue the things of God Lady Wisdom will be a compass for you She'll be a

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North Star for you. And her message is loud because most of us are hard of hearing

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When it comes to the things of God, right? She's the one who when you're on the precipice of sinning.

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She says don't go there Don't do that that leads to death don't click that Don't speak that Run away from that Obey God in that fight that This is how you live that's what she says

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Because the more you pursue the things of God the louder this voice will come isn't that good news?

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Because the more and more and more and more you sin the louder sins voice becomes but the more you pursue the things of God the louder her voice becomes or the more

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Attuned your ear becomes to hearing her screams Her clarity is unavoidable.

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If we will listen, she doesn't just shout in the storm. She stands in the open She doesn't just plead in the darkness.

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She posts up on the hilltops She doesn't just whisper in the quiet places of your conscience.

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She blares through the chaos To say don't go down that way and Her clarity demands our attention

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That's number two. Her call is urgent and her call is urgent because our situation is urgent The sec the third thing is that her call is obvious Solomon says does not wisdom call on the tops of the on the heights beside the way

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So it's not just that her call is urgent. She's making an abundantly clear that she wants you to hear you

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She's went to the highest point of the city and said What are you doing

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Stop Stop it, and I love this because it tells me

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That God wants us to hear his truth, and he doesn't want us to be hidden. He didn't want it to be hidden from us

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God doesn't want us to be confused. He tells us things in very obvious ways if you're pursuing the things of God if you're opening up the scriptures if you're

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Soaking and bathing in the word and walking by the Spirit and by the way In an interesting that those simple things are the things that your flesh and the enemy attack most ferociously

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It's it's not It's not the big things It's usually the small things that get attacked most ferociously because if your foundation is corrupted then what can you do?

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But if you do those things you will not be left in confusion You will not be stuck in guesswork.

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You won't be sitting at home rolling the dice wondering what it is that you're supposed to do Because God actually wants you to know what you're to do.

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God wants you to have wisdom God wants you to know what he wants in a situation. That's why lady wisdom is screaming out to you

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She doesn't want you going down the path of chaos. She wants you going on the path of clarity She wants you to know in every situation of your life.

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What would God have you do? In that amazing like how many of you have like me got to a situation and you said

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I don't know what God wants me To do lady wisdom wants you to know that And she doesn't want you to know that by any kind of mystical

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Gnostic divination she wants you to know that by knowing God by knowing what God says and listen, if you know what

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God says in his word the Overwhelming majority of things in your life will be made clear

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You'll have a chapter and a verse on what it is you're supposed to do I've heard so many Christians ask questions that are clear in the

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Bible Lady wisdom is calling open it up Should I forgive my dad?

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Yes Why cuz he forgave you? Doesn't mean you need to trust him doesn't mean you need to let him keep hurting you over and over it again

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But should you forgive him? Yeah Christ forgave you Should I sleep with my boyfriend?

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No Says flee sexual immorality don't follow a lady folly down into the pit

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Should I go to church? Yeah It says don't forsake the gathering. So if we break down that sentence don't

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Do not forsake the gathering so come

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That's the positive. You must come and why must you come because God is worthy We can we can sit here and we can list out all of the different things

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Oh, you're gonna be blessed other people are gonna be blessed. It's gonna be good for you Of course, those things are true. But at the end of the day, he is

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God you are not he said come you must come That's the simple logic of it

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So there's many things like that. We could talk about that are clear in the Bible that you don't need to ask.

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Should I? Don't repeat with Eve and or sorry with the serpent did

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God really say just go look and see what God said Almost 99 % of the things that you go through in life will be cleared up if you just go to the scriptures

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Lady wisdom is not calling you to guess she's calling you to read to study to meditate to know and Her voice will cut through the fog of almost every situation in your life and Her presence will be a compass to you in a world full of counterfeits

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That's why when you come to crossroad moments in your life, that's why when you come to the fork in the road it is so important Before you make a decision

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That you just see what God has said Whether it be explicitly in his word or implicitly in his word or by good and necessary Consequences in his word you can almost entirely figure out what it is that God wants you to do

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So that there is no confusion. That's wisdom Finding out what God wants and doing it and there's a simplicity and a beauty in that Doing the will of God and you will be wise

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That's the simple formula for a life well live. That's the tagline underneath. Yeah right there that's the tagline of our sermon series a life will live because you just know what

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God says and do what God says you have a good life Because he didn't give you these commands to give you a bad life

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He gave you these things to bless you He gave you these things to to work into you righteousness

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Which means that you will be blessed the people around you will be blessed. You'll have an inheritance That's why Proverbs is so lavish and talking about that that your children will be blessed your children rise up and call your wife

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Blessed your children will have an inheritance because you are wise There's so much practical wisdom in this book that if you would just do it you would be blessed and in that way

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It's obvious. That's number three but There's 1 % of the time and that's about it

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Where we come to decisions? That feel so complex That don't feel like black and white but feel really gray

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This is after we've searched the scriptures. This is after we've went to pastors or elders and asked.

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Hey, does the Bible talk about this? I'm not seeing it There's about 1 % of the time.

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I don't know if that statistics accurate It's a number that I'm saying not a lot.

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That's my point There's about 1 % of the time Where you're not gonna know what to do and in that way wisdom's call is also strategic

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Solomon's next line says doesn't wisdom call where the paths meet She takes her stand

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Solomon is basically saying doesn't wisdom speak at the fork in the road That's what he's saying Where the paths meet where I could go left and I could go right and I'm not sure which way to go wisdom speaks there as well

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Wisdom speaks at the crossroads the true crossroads of your life Should I stay in North Carolina and serve

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God here or should I move to New England and go and go to seminary there? That was a situation where I was like, well,

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I don't have a Bible verse about it I don't know exactly if there's a good and necessary consequence for it But I know that I'm supposed to make a decision about it.

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So what am I supposed to do? And when you pursue the things of God Then God will provide wisdom and you can ask yourself questions like If I stay or if I go which one will bring most glory to God Which one will kill my flesh more which one will cause me to trust

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God more Which one will cause me to love God more which one will cause my family to grow more which one will cause?

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And you can keep going on and on and if at the end of it You truly don't know the answer

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You can flip a coin and go to sleep Because if you can glorify God in both if you can love

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God in both if you can submit your life to God in both if You can repent in both if you can grow in both if your family can be blessed in both

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Have freedom make a decision and go to bed Wisdom speaks in those moments wisdom shares her voice with you wisdom guides you through nuance

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Wisdom gives clarity. That's why James says if any of you are lacking wisdom ask God and he'll give it to you Because wisdom doesn't want us confused

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God doesn't want us confused a Confused Christian is a contradiction in terms

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It is a Christian with an identity crisis right

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That's the fourth thing. The fifth thing is That wisdom's call is also very public.

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I Love this because the call of Lady Folly is so private Isn't it interesting that sin often takes us into places where we are not known and where we are

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Isolated and where we are clinging to things in the shadows and yet Lady Wisdom calls us into the light

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Out of our privacy and into community Lady wisdom calls us into the public

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It says does not wisdom call beside the gates at the opening of the city at the entrance of the door

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She cries out. She cries out and says come out Come out into the light come out into the world come out into the community of God.

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She preaches at the gates and In ancient Israel the gates were the place where the elders ruled the place where the men defended the place where Conversations and the place where culture in the place where everything in the city happened and in some ways

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Air conditioner has ruined this you're like, where did that come from? Well when it's baking hot inside of your clay oven house

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Makes a lot of sense to go outside and fellowship Makes a lot of sense to be out where the breeze is blowing in some sense our modern

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Conveniences have caused us to be isolated where we sit in air -conditioned rooms watching

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Glowing screens and we are more alone than we've ever been You go to third world countries and they don't have anxiety like we have anxiety they don't have depression like we have depression

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They're not on medicine and it's not because they don't have access to it because the West finds ways to pump Pharmaceuticals in every country on earth for their own financial gain

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Whole nother topic there But my point is they don't have the issues we have because they're around people

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There's something uniquely I Nate and our nature that makes us more human when we're around humans and We're actually more awkward more weird more mangled

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When we're by ourselves all the time, and I'm an introvert. I'm admitting that to you. I need people and So do you?

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Wisdom calls us out into the light out into the public. She calls us to live our faith publicly.

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She calls us as men To live our faith in culture with courage

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She calls us to raise our children with courage. She calls us to speak truth at work she calls us to be shaped by Wisdom in every aspect of our life so that it guides the way that we post the way that we have

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Discipline the way that we run our schedule She stands in the gates because she is not she's not calling us to bow down to the idols of our age

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But to with courage have a public obedience against those things the

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Bible a point is The Bible is not meant to live and die between two cowhide it covers

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It's meant to come into you and to change you and to shape you and to send you

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That's why the Christian service begins with the call. We're called in We are prepared

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We are then commissioned The point is is that we're being sent out into the world the call is not for you to go back to your living room

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The call is to bring in the gospel to all the nations every tribe tongue a nation under heaven The call is for us the church to equip the

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Saints for the work of ministry. What's the ministry? It's out there In every town that we're represented in every neighborhood that we're living in in every school board

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Whether you have your kids in school or not, we should care about the way that they're mangling and mutilating children Outside of the

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Planned Parenthood's To our neighbors and friends We're not called to live privately.

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We're called to live publicly for Jesus Christ So in those moments where you're tempted to be quiet don't

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I Remember when I first started doing this It's the silliest thing.

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I feel so much. I feel so silly for it, but I was in Alabama on a trip and I kind of quietly closed my eyes to pray for my

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Chipotle. I Really like Chipotle except by the way, never mind and I Felt like the

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Lord put on my heart the verse He who is ashamed of me. I will be ashamed of And I was like, okay, what does that mean?

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and then I just I remember very nervously putting my hands together like this and And just folding my hands and closing my eyes and bowing my head and looking as if I'm praying

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And I remember I was trembling. I was so scared I was so nervous to actually let anybody know that I was praying and I walked out of there a nervous wreck

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But you know how many times that people have came up to me now and Said hey, I saw you praying when you pray for me.

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My mother has cancer I'm not wearing a clerical collar. I'm not wearing a tie. I don't do that except on Sundays But they saw me praying they knew that I was a

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Christian and they came and they asked me for help Have faith and confidence that the

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Lord will use you in so many different ways Just by being authentic by being who you are

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You're a Christian Let your light so shine among men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven

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Don't hide it and don't live in a book. Don't cover it with a bushel That's the fifth thing

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And what we notice here and all of that if you're paying attention is that we don't do it

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We don't live these things. We don't listen to the call of wisdom. We don't we don't follow the things that she says

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We don't chase after the things of God We don't and in case we think we do

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Paul would say there's no one righteous not even one There's no one who listens to God There's no one who obeys all have fallen short of the glory of God all have sinned for the wages of sin is death and on And on and on we could go you and I are not righteous you and I have not followed

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Lady Wisdom and And here's the point at the end of the day if there are two voices that are that are calling us

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Every one of us Have ended up at Lady Folly's house There's not a single one of us that obeyed

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Lady Wisdom in her shouting and ended up at her house We all ended up at Lady Folly's house if we would have followed

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Lady Wisdom's counsel What we would have seen is that when we got to her she wasn't standing anymore.

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She was bowing What we would have seen it says that she's screaming on the tops of the hilltops

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What we would have seen if we climbed to the top of the hill is not a woman. We would have seen a man a man hanging on a cross and the point here

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I think is that Lady Wisdom calls to us who cannot answer her in our sin as A picture of what

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Christ is going to come and do because he's the one who ascended the hill He's the one who screamed from the hilltop my god, my god

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Why have you forsaken me and what we see in this passage is that there's two voices, but there's actually a third

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That's sort of growing in volume underneath the text as Solomon is looking past Lady Wisdom To Jesus Christ and in that sense,

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I think that this whole passage is about Jesus Because you and I like I said, we cannot actually obey what this call is

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We're not righteous but yet if we look to the one who was righteous if we look to the one who did what we could not do if we

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Look to the one who did obey if we look to the greater Adam who didn't listen to the voice of folly If we look to the greater

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Solomon who didn't give himself to the Lady Folly Isn't it interesting that the one who wrote this book is the one who gave himself to Lady Folly?

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Hundreds and hundreds of times that's not hyper burn. That's not hyperbole Solomon had hundreds of wives and concubines.

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He gave himself over to sexual sin He gave himself over to all kinds of misery and at the end of his life

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Solomon is bowing down to every idol under every tree and We're like Solomon.

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We're no different The wisest man in the world was crippled by Lady Folly And so have we so the point of this text is not pull yourself up by your bootstraps

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The point of this message is not go home. Try harder follow wisdom do the right thing because you can't you won't

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You'll get about five inches down the road. Like I did you'll hit a pothole You'll break your leg and then you'll wither there in your own misery.

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That's what we all do So the point is that we have to have another voice

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You're either gonna listen to the voice of folly You're not gonna be able to listen to the voice of wisdom or you're gonna say

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I need Christ and The one who screams at the top of his hill

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Will now bring you to Lady wisdom's hill Because he trades places with you Because in your sin, he became sin in your curse.

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He became curse In your folly he is the wisdom and he traded places with you

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So that you no longer have to earn your status and earn your place. It's been earned by Jesus So rest in him

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So the point of this passage is here's what you're supposed to do Here's the recognition.

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We haven't done it But look to the one who has Because if you rest in him

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By his spirit, he'll bring you back to Lady wisdom's hill He'll bring you back to a place where there's there no for no condemnation for those who are in Christ He'll bring you back to a place where they're neither height nor depth nor anything and all of creation can separate you from the love

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Of Christ he'll bring you back to a place where where you don't boast because you did anything But you now boast in Christ who now has given you work to do that He gave you before the foundation of the world that you could not do unless Jesus came

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So brothers and sisters as we rest and as we work Let us work from the proper foundation

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We work from the foundation of Christ the cornerstone who did what we could not do So now that we could do what we could have never done without him

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So go not right now But go live a life of wisdom

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By believing in the Lord Jesus Christ and trusting him to supply you with everything that you need For it is he who wills and works in you for his for his good pleasure.

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Amen Let's pray Lord we thank you that the gospel is so clear in this passage

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That there's a binary of ways to go and we always choose the wrong one. We always choose the flesh

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We always choose our pleasure. We always choose folly and sin. We always go down into The web like Frodo being sucked dry and like Shelob and we are no different in our sin

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Lord help us Help us to remember That we stand and we move and we have our being in Christ alone

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To the glory of God alone by faith alone and by his grace alone

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Lord help us to remember that our foundation is Christ the reason that we can stand with Lady Wisdom on top of the hill is because Jesus stood for us on top of his hill and Lord help us now in Christ To take very seriously the things that your word says

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Not because we're trying to earn something. It was already earned Help us to take these things seriously now

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So that we can live a life of wisdom because you're worthy We can live a life of wisdom because we want your blessing

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We can live a life of wisdom because we want your church to be blessed We can live a life of wisdom because at the end of the day at most glorifies you

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That objects of your wrath would now become objects of your glory