Sunday, September 28, 2025 AM

Wisdom as Life and Godliness

Let's go to the Lord together in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank You for gathering us here today to rejoice in Your truth, to sing praises to the glory of Your name, to exalt our Savior, to be filled with Your Spirit in fellowship and truth.

We ask that as we continue in our worship of You, as we bow the knee to the truth of Your Word, that You would give us grace to greatly amen what You have to say. That You would, by Your Word, through the power of Your Spirit, find great purchase in our hearts, to change us, to transform us, to conform us to Your image, the image of Your Son, Jesus Christ.

I pray that You would turn our attention to Him today as we share in communion together, acknowledging our fellowship in Christ and His sacrifice and His resurrection. And we pray for these many mercies, looking only to Jesus, the One with whom you are well pleased.

Amen. Amen.

I invite you to open your Bibles and turn with me to Proverbs 2. Proverbs 2. We're going to read verses 10 through 22. We continue thinking of wisdom as life. Wisdom as life. We are created in the image of God, which means that all mankind has been made for godliness, without exception.

And godliness, this godliness in our lives by way of reverent reflection brings glory to our Maker, to our Creator. It brings glory to God. And this godliness is expressed by wisdom. It comes about by wisdom through the skillful mastery of our relationships, our responsibilities, and our resources.

When you think about it, none of us deserve to live. Life is a gift. And so, the Giver of life deserves all of our worship, the fullness of our devotion. God is the Giver of life, the Maker of life. He deserves all of our attention and affection.

When you understand life is a gift, it is the grace of God, and that He made us so that we would glorify Him, it's important that we understand that the junction of that grace and that glory is godliness.

That's where they meet. That's where they meet, where they come together, where God's grace redounds to His glory. It's the image of God in righteousness, which is why Christ is the supreme expression of all of God's glory.

We don't look to fallen men to understand what it means to be human, what it means to be a man or a woman. We look to the faithful man. We look to Christ, who is good and true and beautiful, full of wisdom.

He calls us to abide in Him because He is the true vine and that we are the branches. He tells us to abide in Him because He is the head and we are the members of His body. Communion reminds us of that wisdom today, that Christ is our life, that our Good Shepherd gives us life and that He protects us by His comforting rod and His staff.

He leads us into an everlasting inheritance. I invite you to stand with me as we read God's holy word, Proverbs 2. We read verses 10 through 22. This is the word of the Lord. When wisdom enters your heart and knowledge is pleasant to your soul, discretion will preserve you, understanding will keep you, to deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks perverse things, from those who leave the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness, who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perversity of the wicked, whose ways are crooked and who are devious in their paths, to deliver you from the immoral woman, from the seductress who flatters with her words, who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God, for her house leads down to death and her paths to the dead.

None who go to her return, nor do they regain the paths of life. So you may walk in the way of goodness and keep to the paths of righteousness, for the upright will dwell in the land and the blameless will remain in it, but the wicked will be cut off from the earth and the unfaithful will be uprooted from it.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. When we think about the Lord's Supper, we remember its background in Passover. And there's a similar theme that runs through both that perhaps we don't think of as often as we should, and that is the theme of movement.

Passover was eaten in such a fashion that emphasized, we're not sticking around. We are packing up to leave. We have no time for a normal meal. We're leaving quickly. That's why the whole lamb had to be consumed.

Nothing left behind. Anything left over was to be burnt to ashes. Eating meat was not their daily diet at all, but it was especially nourishing before a grand trip. They made unleavened bread, a quick cracker.

They had no time to wait for the leavening to work. They were about to be delivered, and that deliverance included a destination. God was going to bring them up out of Egypt into the wilderness and into the promised land.

They ate this meal in anticipation of their new direction. Similarly, because Christ satisfyingly fulfills the meaning of Passover, He offers Himself as the unblemished Lamb. His offering without a broken bone, the Apostle John is careful to specify.

Jesus has something to say as He gives Himself as the Lamb. His body as bread. His blood as the wine. There's a deliverance. There's a salvation through Christ that includes a destination. He's bringing us out of one place into another.

And that's in view as we remember His salvation and sharing the bread and sharing the cup. We remember that we have a direction. We have a hope set ahead of us. Now abide these three, faith, hope, and love.

The greatest of these is love, but don't forget hope. Hope is the direction. Hope is movement. Hope is bringing us along. Hope fuels our here and now and fills our horizon. As we conclude Proverbs 2, we do so with an appropriate meditation on our inheritance of life in Christ.

The Pursuit and Protection of Wisdom

All along, Solomon has been encouraging his son in chapter 2 to pursue wisdom as if wisdom were as valuable as his son's life. Wisdom as life. And it's not about your best life now or your best life in retirement or your best life in theory.

This is about life, eternal life. There was a need for his son to pursue, to seek this wisdom, to not stay where he was, but to ardently pursue wisdom until after seeking wisdom, he secures wisdom, and having secured wisdom, he discovers that wisdom has secured him.

That's what brings us to this portion of Proverbs, that the pursuit of wisdom will then translate into the protection of wisdom. It reminds me of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and his main character, Christian, who lived in the city of destruction.

And he was given information, he was given a little book, and he began to read about how destruction was soon coming upon him and everyone who lived in that city. He was so burdened by this news because of his great sin before the great king that he could not live normally, and he was greatly distressed.

And then one day, despite all of the different complaints about his strange behavior and all of the attempts to dissuade him from leaving, he stopped his ears with his hands and he ran for the gate yelling, Life!

Life! Eternal life! It was time to pursue wisdom. And by the pursuit of wisdom, he found its protection. Very much what we find here in Proverbs 2. As we work our way through a review, I want to talk about verses 10 through 19 and remind us what we've been talking about.

We need to remember what verse 6 says, Proverbs 2,. For the Lord gives wisdom. Who is the supply of our wisdom? Where do we find wisdom? It's in the Lord. So if we're going to seek wisdom and pursue it as we would life, it means that ultimately we're seeking the Lord.

It's from His mouth that come knowledge and understanding. And that when we pursue this wisdom, there is indeed deliverance, there is indeed a qualitative difference in the life of the wise man.

Versus the fool.

That this is not a difference in terms of different flavors of your favorite candy, but this is genuinely, objectively, a different quality of life. That when you pursue wisdom, when you pursue the Lord,.

By His grace,.

Your life is a whole lot better, a whole lot more safe, a whole lot more righteous, and a whole lot more godly than the life of the fool. There is a genuine difference. Proverbs 14, 27 says, The fear of the Lord, that we think of Him first and think of Him most.

The fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom. The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life to turn one away from the snares of death. Well, in pursuing wisdom, it must be internalized. Verses 10 -11 remind us that deliverance is by internalized wisdom.

It's in the heart. It's in the soul.

It's something that we treasure closely. As Proverbs 6, 20 -22 says, My son, keep your father's command and do not forsake the law of your mother. Bind them continually upon your heart. Tie them about your neck.

Keep them close. When you roam, they will lead you. When you sleep, they will keep you. And when you awake, they will speak with you. To do what? To deliver you. This is what Solomon is saying in chapter 2.

To deliver you from two things, particularly from the infernal way, verses 12 -15, and deliverance from the immoral woman in verses 16 -19. Deliverance from the infernal way. Deliverance from the tempting practices of unrighteousness.

Proverbs 16 -25 says, There is a way that seems right unto a man, but the end thereof is death. Deliverance from the immoral woman. Deliverance from the tempting person of unfaithfulness. Proverbs 22 -14 says, The mouth of an immoral woman.

Is a deep pit.

He who is abhorred by the Lord will fall there. Well, this brings us to verses 20 -22. This deliverance is into an inherited world. There's a promise at the end of this chapter. Not just of protection, but of an inheritance.

Now, verses 12 -19 explain protection from danger in light of verses 10 -11. But we are to not lose sight of verses 10 -11 when we come to verses 20 -22. Yes, the deliverance is real, but also this deliverance into an inherited world.

So look at verses 10 -11. When wisdom enters your heart and knowledge is pleasant to your soul, discretion will preserve you, understanding will keep you, and then put in your dot, dot, dot,.

Keep you for what?

Verse 20. So you may walk in the way of goodness and keep to the paths of righteousness. See, treasuring wisdom, loving the wisdom of God, has this end result, so that you may walk in the way of goodness and keep to the paths of righteousness.

For the upright will dwell in the land and the blameless will remain in it, but the wicked will be cut off from the earth and the unfaithful uprooted from it. Here we have six lines that are organized into three pairs.

Each pair is a verse. But think about how it's connected with the rest of the passage. Wisdom has to protect Solomon's son, and by extension, wisdom protects the Israelites, those who are living under the Old Covenant, protects them from the infernal way, and protects them from the immoral woman, because otherwise, they don't get to enjoy the inherited world.

Wisdom directs them away from evil and away from transgression, away from sin, so that they may enjoy the blessed promised land in which the Lord has brought them. Solomon is saying this to his son. This is the way it's supposed to work.

That one generation would say to the next, know the Lord. That one generation would for the next make sure that God's words would be hidden in their heart. That everything that they would do and everything that they would think, everything that they would put their hand to and everywhere they would look, they would do all in light of God's Word.

What would guarantee the loss of the land? Unrighteousness would guarantee the loss of their land. God said so. Who would be uprooted from the land? The unfaithful would be uprooted from the land. That's what verse 22 tells you.

And that's in perfect agreement with what the Lord said to Israel in the wilderness, before they inherited the land. The idea here is this. Without wisdom's protection from the infernal way and from the immoral woman, there would be the loss of the inherited world.

Without wisdom, there's no inheritance. It's no wonder then that when we come into the New Testament, we find in Christ the fullness of the treasures of all of God's wisdom. And we find in Him our inheritance, the perfect heir.

Because of His perfect wisdom and His perfect righteousness, He inherits all things. He is the heir of all things. The perfect brightness of His Father, He inherits all things, all authority in heaven and earth, given to Him.

And in Him, by faith, we are co-heirs. Outside of Christ, there is no inheritance. But we are cut off in outer darkness if we are outside of Christ, forever in exile, Adam's bane. When we look at these three verses, we need to keep our eyes on the path, the prize, and the promise.

And these themes roughly correspond to the three verses, but there's some crossover as well. You'll notice the language of a path or way, which is language that features very strongly in Proverbs 2. You can see that in verse 9.

Then you will understand righteousness and justice, equity, and every good path.

Verse 12,.

To deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks perverse things. Verse 18, for her house leads down to death and her paths to the dead. And so again, here in verse 20, so that you may walk in the way of goodness and keep to the paths of righteousness.

Proverbs as a whole has a great deal to say about one's course and what kind of character it displays. Very famously, we have Proverbs 3. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not into your own understanding and all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths.

Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and depart from evil. So the path is made up of two things.

There's the course,.

And then there's the character. Now, verse 20, again, says walk in the way, keep to the paths. Listen to that, walk in the way, keep to the path. Now, both of those are very active things. You have to concentrate on both.

But the first you notice makes progress while the other one conserves. There's the idea of moving forward while holding fast. And notice something else. The first is singular, one way, walk in the way.

And the second is plural, keep to the paths, plural. So what's Solomon saying here? He's saying walk in the way. That's the singular. There's the idea of your entire life, one's whole life, the entirety of one's belief and behaviors.

Walk in that proper way, but then keeping to paths. Well, that's in the plural. That has the idea of all of those choices that you have to make within that life. So, in other words, this is first about destination and then about navigation.

There's your destination, now navigate there. Wisdom from the beginning sets our course towards life and then all along the way steers us clear of death. Now, this course has a character to it, doesn't it?

It's not just way and path, it's the way of goodness. It's the paths of righteousness. The character is part of the course. The goodness and righteousness are chiefly emphasized here because they are overflow and measure.

They are bounty and standard. Think of righteousness as that which is right. That is the platform, that is the dais upon which goodness may hold forth without restraint. But if you lose righteousness, if there is no standard of righteousness, then goodness has no footing and sinks into the mire of confusion.

Further, we note the character issues, concerns continue. Verse 21, it's the upright who dwell in the land, it's the blameless who remain in it, and then the contrast, but there's the wicked who are cut off from the earth and the unfaithful who are uprooted from it.

So we have two groups, don't we? There's one that treads the ways and the paths that remain in the land, and then there's another group that walks a lonely road of exile. You see how Solomon is crafting the culminating portion of this chapter of Proverbs.

He's saying to his son, it matters how you pursue wisdom. You have to seek wisdom and treasure wisdom. It matters in your life. If you follow wisdom, you will enjoy the land.

You will be like Abraham,.

Walking to and fro the length and the breadth of it, and you will greatly enjoy it. But if you are foolish like Lot, well, where do you end up? In exile outside of the land. The language of walking, of course, is ancient.

There's a kind of walking that is abiding, and there's a kind of walking that is in exile. We see that especially in Genesis. There was a walking with God in the cool of the day in the garden versus a walking away from the garden in exile.

There's a kind of walking of the sons of God with the Lord and calling upon His name, and there's a kind of walking where you're in exile away from everyone else, like Cain. There's two types of walking.

You see it, again, as I said, in Abraham and Lot, but you see it in Isaac and Ishmael. Isaac's travels were different than those of Ishmael, were they not? There's Jacob's travels versus Esau's travels.

There's the generation that got to go into the land, and there's the generation that walked around in circles in the wilderness until they died. There's the type of walking with the Lord that was David's life, even when he was on the run, and there's the kind of walking that characterized Saul's life as he tried to avoid the Lord.

Lots of contrasts in Scripture by this point for Solomon to direct his son's attention, but we see that how we walk matters. By this language, Solomon is reminding his son, hey, there's a covenant to keep, and this covenant tells of a Creator who made us in His image to walk in His ways, to live to His glory according to His Word.

Clearly, all paths do not lead to God. All paths do not lead to God, to heaven. The gate that widens to accept many paths leads to destruction, but there is One who has called Himself the way. He says, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father except through Me.

And He Himself is given to us as the new covenant. He says, this is My body, this is My blood. Do we acknowledge and confess that the way of goodness and the paths of righteousness are neither meandering nor circular?

Their deliverance has a direction. We do not have to endlessly debate the right way. We have been given Jesus Christ as our King. We have been given the way. And the more highly that Christ is exalted, the more clarity we know.

The more dearly that Christ is loved, the more unity we have. And the more closely Christ is obeyed, the more glory we give to God. I think it's helpful as well to see how the walking of these paths that Solomon encourages his son in, it was both in the land that was promised and toward all that was promised about the land.

Are we there as well as saints that we are in life in Christ and yet still heading towards all that is promised in Christ? So we think about the prize and the promise. And now in verse 21, we see the upright will dwell in the land and the blameless will remain in it.

But the wicked will be cut off from the earth and the unfaithful will be uprooted from it. Now, you notice you have in my translation, New King James, you have land in verse 21 and earth in verse 22, same word in the Hebrew both times.

What is Solomon saying? He's saying that walking does not necessarily mean departure. Destination, yes. Departure, not necessarily. There's a kind of walking, there's a kind of path selection that keeps his son dwelling in the land and Solomon desires to see the kind of blameless covenant keeping that will ensure that his son remains in the land.

After all, God had made the land a big part of all of his dealings with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Israel. How central was that? When we think about God's promises to Abraham. How many times when God talked to Abraham, did He talk about the promised land?

So much so that Abraham looked for a city with foundations, Hebrews tells us. How much of Exodus through Deuteronomy and Joshua and Judges is all about the land? The land, the land, the land. It was made clear in no uncertain terms to Israel that their continued possession of the land depended on their living upright and blameless in regards to the covenant.

They fail that, they lose it. So what Solomon writes in Proverbs 2, 21 -22 is basically a summation of entire chapters in the Old Testament. Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 28. Which of course is simply the amplification of what happened in Genesis 3.

Adam and Eve exiled from the garden. But what is the good news? The good news is that by God's grace He has for Himself a people to gather into His place to be blessed under His rule. We see that in the creation.

We see that in all the covenants. We see that in Christ. And what Solomon references here is from his father's own words from Psalm 37, verses 9 -11. David says, Evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait on the Lord, they shall inherit the earth.

Same word in the Hebrew, eretz, land. For yet a little while, and the wicked shall be no more. Indeed, you will look carefully for his place, but it shall be no more. But the meek shall inherit the earth.

Again, same word in the Hebrew, land, eretz. And shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.

Hmm.

So, this describes those who pursue Christ. Those who have been granted salvation from God. Jesus says in Matthew 5 -5, Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Why?

Because they are those who wait upon the Lord. Those who put their faith in Christ. Those who are in Christ inherit the promise. Those who are in Christ inherit the earth. Those who are in Christ inherit the land, as we inherit all things in Christ.

He is the upright, blameless, humble, and perfectly wise Son of God. And so He receives all of creation as an inheritance. And those who trust in Him as their righteousness and wisdom share in that inheritance.

And that occupies whole chapters in the New Testament. Romans 4, Romans 8, Galatians 3 and 4, Hebrews 3 and 4. Now again, as we reflect on the correlation between the wisdom that Solomon offers to his son and this wisdom as seen through Christ, do you remember that those who were faithful and enjoyed the land did so as they rested in that inheritance?

As they rested in that inheritance? What was one of the chief reasons why God exiled them from the land and said you can't have it anymore? It was because they did not keep Sabbath in the land. They did not rest in the land.

They did not rest in the land. They did not rest in the land. And so they lost the land. What does that tell us? It tells us that Christ, who is our inheritance, we are to rest in Him. This is why Christ is called our Sabbath.

We are to rest in Christ. We are to abide in Christ. We are to rejoice in Christ. We are to be satisfied in Christ. And one of the best ways we do that is when we gather on a Sunday and we gather to have communion.

We are to abide in Him and enjoy Him. He's the one who owns everything. He is Shiloh, the one to whom it all belongs. We are to rest in Him. This is a promise. Verse 22, But the wicked will be cut off from the earth and the unfaithful will be uprooted from it.

So the promise is this, that those who are in the way of righteousness will abide in the inheritance while those who are not found in the way will be cut off from the inheritance. So what is Jesus saying when He says, I am the way?

We need to be found in Him. We need to be with Him because He is the way and therefore we will abide in Him. The latter, those who are not in the way, will be uprooted. They have no root, no life-giving attachment to the land.

You could state it positively and negatively in verses 21 and 22, but however you say it, there's a sifting that goes on here and there's a clarity, those who are in and those who are out. We remember that as sinful creatures, Adam and Eve were exiled from the garden.

That transgressing covenant members, Israelites, were exiled from the land. The message is that only by faithfulness will God's promises and purposes of life be established. And so Christ lives. As all men should live in perfect godliness, He fulfills the covenant.

He finalizes creation. He's the true vine. He's the true shepherd. He's the bread of life. So there's no life outside of Him. To whom else shall we go? Christ has the words of eternal life. So we see the wisdom here in Proverbs 2, that we are to pursue wisdom as life, which means necessarily that we should pursue Christ as our life.

Life, life, eternal life. Father, we thank you for the time you've given us in your word, and I thank you that today we can share in this special meal and remember Christ's life, death, and resurrection, the centrality and absolute need that we have for Christ's saving work.

I pray that we would partake of this supper with great joy as we look to our Savior alone. It's in His name that we pray.

Amen.