Jeff Durbin - Applying Wisdom From Above

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Open your Bibles to the book of Proverbs. If you're new to the Bible, that's about midway through the

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Old Testament. Book of Proverbs, God's wisdom from above.

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We've been in an expositional series, verse by verse, through this amazing word from God.

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And today we're doing a summary and foundation, going back to all that we've learned so far and asking

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God to help us apply it, to bury it within us. So Proverbs chapter 1, starting in verse 7, is really the highlight verse of the entire work.

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So Proverbs 1, verse 7, hear now the word of the living and the true God. The fear of the

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Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction.

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Thus far as the reading of God's holy and inspired word, let's pray together as his people. Father, this is your word and these are your people.

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We pray today that God, you'd move by your spirit in us, that you would teach us by your spirit, allow us to understand, give us understanding,

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God, we seek it. Speak through your word today and by your spirit to your people, renew our minds, conform us to the image of Christ.

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Please get the teacher out of the way. Let us all remember what we've learned from you today.

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For your glory and for your kingdom, in Jesus' name, amen. So we've been talking a lot.

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Hopefully now it's buried within us, the distinction in Scripture between wisdom, proper, and knowledge.

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And this is the book of Proverbs, different than many books you have in the Bible, like say the book of Romans, that's technically called didactic or teaching literature.

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It's systematic. It runs from one point to the next point to the next point. It's a coherent argument all the way through.

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It's teaching literature. It's giving you knowledge. It's giving you understanding. It's dealing in abstractions and theology and all the rest.

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And you have a book like this, that's the book of wisdom, often ignored because we love to be knowledgeable fools.

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We like to know a lot of things. But the challenge is living like Jesus, like the one who was wisdom incarnate.

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Wisdom is the skillful application of the truth. It's knowing how to apply the truth, not just knowing the truth, not just knowing the facts and the data and the details, but it's knowing how to actually live that out.

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So think about knowledge like the blueprint of a building. Recently you guys know we went to go see

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John Barros, and as a church we've never been really hard up or pursuant of our own church building.

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We've sort of been grateful for the unique circumstances we've had. We started in a hospital. We've been renting from other churches throughout our entire church life, and that's blessed us in many ways to be able to give a lot away.

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We do a lot of benevolence to our church body, pay for adoptions, pay for mortgages, pay for cars, pay for food, pay for medical bills.

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We're there and able to take care of so many of the members of our body because of our unique situation. But we recognize now as God is growing us as a church, it'd be kind of nice to have our own place.

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And so it's mostly been me that's needed to be broken to say, okay, maybe we'll start pursuing getting our own building one day, and you guys are like, please

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God, please. But while we were in Florida, we went to go see

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R .C. Sproul's old church. He pastored St. Andrew's, and it's really our heart's desire if we're going to build a church building, we want it to be meaningful.

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We want it to be something significant that really goes back to historic Christian thinking about church buildings and reverence and awe for God.

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St. Andrew's is like that. The building tells a story about Jesus. And so while we were there, we were taking pictures and video for our building team.

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Yes, we have a building team. We're working on it. If anybody has about $20 million, that'd be great.

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But we're in that preliminary stage where really we're saying, hey, look what can be done? Let's take a peek at this.

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Let's pray about this. And then we're next stage, blueprints, right? Draw up some plans of architecture.

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How will this look? And so you can do all that. You can draw the plan. You can say, here's the data.

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Here are the facts. This is what it's supposed to look like. But everyone recognizes the difference in the blueprint for the building or the church and the skillful builders that have to put it actually together, right?

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Because you might be the kind of person that could actually draw up a blueprint. You can build the architecture.

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You can put it all in a map and say, it looks just like this. Here's all the measurements. Here's how it's supposed to be.

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Here's the materials. But it takes a skillful builder to actually put it together and not make a complete mess of it, to do it in such a way that it's safe, to do it in a way that it's artistic and beautiful.

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We recognize the difference between wisdom and knowledge in that way. Skillful application.

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And think about it in the life of Jesus. When you think about the book of Proverbs, Jesus is the wisdom of God.

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So Jesus lived his life skillfully, not just with knowledge. Think about the fact that Jesus preached,

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Jesus taught, Jesus engaged in that kind of ministry where he gave theologically accurate truths.

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When Jesus is challenged by people, Jesus is challenged on his theological orthodoxy.

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Jesus is challenged on what he actually says about God. The Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scribes, they like to challenge

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Jesus and is he getting it right? Is he saying the right things? And of course Jesus always does. He's God incarnate.

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He's got that going for him. Of course he's going to nail it. But Jesus wasn't simply impressive because he said the right theological things.

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What actually was powerful in the life of Jesus was not just that he said the right theological things.

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What was powerful in his life is that he was wisdom incarnate. That he lived skillfully.

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That he lived in such a way that he could say something that you and I can't. And he would say, which of you accuses me of sin?

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Now he could say that in front of his friends, his family, and his enemies, and no one can accuse him of anything.

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Rightly accuse him of anything. Why? Because he doesn't just know the truth, he has skill in applying the truth.

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He is wisdom incarnate. And I believe with all my heart that God doesn't want us to just have our heads filled with theological abstractions and the ability to defend the triune nature of God and sola scriptura and sola fide.

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We need to be able to do those things. Those things are vitally important, but we need to at the same time be able to live skillfully with the wisdom of God.

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Now this text is the baseline for the entire book. That's why we're going back to it.

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If we're going to actually say, all right, Lord, we've been a long way, now bury this inside my heart and my mind. We need to go back to the very foundation.

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What is it? It's in the beginning of the book. It says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction.

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We have to fear God. That's how it starts. Every place we've been so far in this magnificent word from God goes right back to that foundation.

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Do I fear God? Do I fear God? Here's the principle of wisdom. The question is, do

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I fear God? Right? Because I can know it. I can express it. I can teach a Bible study on it.

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Doesn't mean I can do it. Doesn't mean I can actually apply it. There are a lot of amazing, reformed, knowledgeable fools.

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People that are great at reformed theology. They can articulate Bavink. They can talk about Calvin.

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They can go into the history. They can just dig into the text. And that's great, but they're fools. They're the first to gossip.

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They're the first to slander. They're not patient. They're quick to speak. They don't wait for the whole story.

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They're easily led into schism and division and disunity. They don't try to protect their neighbor's reputation.

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They don't know how to live, but they can tell you about the Trinity. They can defend it. Praise God. Wonderful. And look at the witness that leaves.

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Is that knowledge puffs up. We've got a ton of people that know a lot about God and are very conceited.

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They're puffed up, but they can't live. The first sign of conflict within the church body, they can't manage it.

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They do it all wrong. They've abandoned all their commitments as soon as that conflict arises in their families, in their churches, but they sure know a lot about Jesus.

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They can explain the doctrines of grace, but they can't live out those principles. So what do we have to do?

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We have to fear God. We have to have reverential awe before God. Just consider something very important.

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Have you noted, we've talked about it before. Have you noted that in the Bible, when angels appear, what's the first response almost universally in Scripture?

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When angels appear to bring a message from God, what's the response of the person receiving the message?

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What is it? Fear. They're terrified. They're afraid. And the angels have to consistently in Scripture come in when they appear to bring a message from God, like really good news, like, hey,

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I have good news. Everyone's like, ah, like they freak out. The angels are like, don't be afraid.

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Stop freaking out. Like, calm down. But the response of a human being to a heavenly being like an angel, an angelic creature, is fear.

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They're afraid of the creature that God made, but we don't feel that way about God.

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We're not afraid of God like that. We're more afraid of angels that God has created than the very words of God.

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We're more afraid of his creatures, like what other men can do to us, than we are actually afraid of the one that can throw our body and souls into hell.

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We don't fear God. And the truth of the matter is, is that this series, we could finish the entire book of Proverbs and I could fill your heads with all the knowledge and all those facts and we'll still leave this series on wise people, knowledgeable fools, if we don't work on the very foundation of wisdom and knowledge in the first place, which is fear of God.

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We don't fear God. When you see the challenging words in Proverbs that we've had so far, don't go to the door of the harlot woman.

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Don't go down, she'll drag you into the pit when she's trying to bat her eyelashes and show her figure and draw you in.

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You're going to go down into the pit. She takes people into Sheol. You'll still go. You'll go.

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I'll go if we don't fear God. Fear of God is the starting place of wisdom, knowledge, understanding.

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How do I navigate that? Not slandering a brother. Not breathing out lies.

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I'm not going to obey that wisdom and apply it in my life if I have no fear of God. We must fear

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God. Think about this. Why do we run to evil? Why do we run to evil?

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We don't fear God. Why are we unteachable at times in our lives? Why? Why are we unteachable?

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Well, you could be fed by pride and arrogance, of course, but ultimately it's because I don't fear

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God. Why are we arrogant and proud? We don't fear God. Why do we run to the adulterous woman?

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We don't fear God. Why do we do what God hates? We don't fear

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God. Why do we cause divisions among us? We don't fear God. Why do we breathe out lies?

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We don't fear God. Why do we show partiality? We don't fear God. Why do we use unequal weights and measures?

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We don't fear God. Why do we rush in judgment before hearing both sides of a conflict?

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We don't fear God. Why are we lazy? And why do we squander our gifts?

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Why are we slothful? We don't fear God. This text says that what is underneath all of this divine wisdom, what we need to capture to pursue it and to be wise men and women is we have to fear

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God. Fearing God is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom. Fools despise wisdom and instruction.

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Now listen, this is really important. This is the universal problem of humanity. It's the universal problem of humanity.

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We don't fear God. Why is there injustice in the streets? People don't fear God. Why do people breathe out lies?

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Why do people harm other human beings? They don't fear God. It's the indictment on all of humanity.

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You know this verse, Romans chapter three, this section from Romans. When the apostle

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Paul wants to indict all of humanity, what does he say about the universal human condition?

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He says this in Romans chapter three, verse 10. He says, as it is written, none is righteous. No, not one.

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No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless.

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No one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips.

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Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. In their paths are ruin and misery.

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You guys have heard these verses before, right? We're like going right back to Proverbs. And then it says, the way of peace they have not known.

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Here's a summary verse of the universal indictment upon all of humanity. Are you ready for it? There is no fear of God before their eyes.

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There's a summary. Paul puts it at the end of the indictment. There's no fear of God before their eyes.

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That's our problem. We don't fear God as unbelievers. No fear of God in our eyes.

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And as believers, there's points of contact in all of our lives where the real issue is we don't fear

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God. We've forgotten God. We think God is far off, God's not concerned, or God doesn't see.

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Or maybe God won't keep his promises concerning how he judges wickedness.

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We don't fear him. Just think about this. It's the downfall, no fear of God, is the downfall at nearly every point of failure in all of biblical history.

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Just some noteworthy examples. You already probably aware. You can think about it right now. Adam and Eve.

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God says don't. They do. Why? They don't fear

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God. Ultimately they're not afraid of God. There's no reverence for God.

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There's no awe before God. There's no fear of his holiness. There's no fear of his justice and his judgment.

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He told them, do this and you die. And then they do. Why? Why? Ultimately, no fear of God.

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That's the problem at the starting point of our human story. No fear of God. How about in Noah's day?

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The flood's coming. God's going to judge the world, he's going to flood the world. And what do you get?

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Human beings, Adam and Eve's descendants say what? Scoff. Not going to be taught.

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You're foolish. And then God wipes them out. They had no fear of God. How about Abraham and Sarah?

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You have a son coming. You're going to have a son in your old age. What's Sarah's response?

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What is it? Laugh. She laughs. No fear of God.

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No fear of God in terms of his power, his knowledge, his justice. She laughs.

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Why? No fear of God. Or how about Lot's family? Lot's family is given this gracious gift of God to escape this horrible situation.

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God's even showing lots of patience in the angels and how they're doing it. Like, all right, let's go guys.

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Hey, like we can't do this until you're out of here. Hey guys, how about we get going now? Hey, how about we go? And the whole thing is don't look back.

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Don't look back. Don't look back. And then what happens? She looks back and salt.

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No fear of God. Or how about King David, the man after God's own heart? The man after God's own heart.

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He knows the law of God. King over Israel. He's a giant of the faith. And of course

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Bathsheba comes into the picture. He engages in adultery. He doesn't fear God.

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In that moment, no fear of God. Or how about Zechariah, John the Baptist's father?

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You would think he, he knows his Bible well enough as a priest to know that when he's told you're going to have a baby in your old age, he would go, yes, sir.

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I know the story. I know about Abraham and Sarah and all the rest, but what does he do? He doesn't fear

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God. The message comes, you're going to have a son. He doesn't believe it, and so he's mute.

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He doesn't fear God. God shuts his mouth. Or how about the Jews at the trial and crucifixion of Jesus?

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What did they say? What marked their judgment that day?

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He says, shall I crucify your king? And the covenant people of God, the covenant people of God that should have known the scriptures, they should have known exactly what was going on.

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They say in response to a pagan ruler, they say, we have no king but Caesar.

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Caesar, you rule over us, not God. We have no king but Caesar. And then he says, his blood is on you.

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I find no fault in him. And they say, let his blood be upon us and what?

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Our children. So no fear of God. They get the word from the ruler.

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This is an innocent man. What are you people doing? He's one of you.

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What are you people doing? He's innocent. I find no fault in him. And they have this fearlessness about God, and they say, let his blood be upon us and our children.

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And within that generation, what happened to them? They were wiped out. Blood was pouring like, literally like a river through the streets.

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They were eating their own children to survive. They were eating dung to survive. Their city was sacked.

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It was burned down. They asked for it. Let his blood be upon us and our children. No fear of God before their eyes.

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You hear my nose closing up, can't you? It's getting worse. There's a verse in Ecclesiastes, a little known book.

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It's actually in the Bible. Did you know that, Ecclesiastes? Ecclesiastes 12 .13.

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It's amazing, because that book is incredible and complicated and devastating to the human condition.

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So much of it would just resonate with you at painful moments in your life. And there's a summary in Ecclesiastes.

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It goes like this. It sounds really just like the rest of the Bible, Proverbs 1 .7. Ecclesiastes 12 .13

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says, when all has been heard, the conclusion of the matter is this.

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Fear God and keep his commands. For this is the whole duty of man.

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This is the whole duty of man. Fear God and keep his commands.

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When I think about this, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and correction or instruction.

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I think about two categories of people, and this is what I wanted to impress upon us as we think as God's people.

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How do I bury this into me? How do I seek this like treasure? How do I teach this to my kids? How do they see it in me?

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I want my family to see that I'm a wise person, a just person, that I honor God and love God.

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I'm not a hypocrite. How do we live this out? I think about two categories of people. One, the rebellious unbeliever, and how they don't fear

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God. The rebellious unbeliever that even knows the truth and loves the lie.

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How many of you guys got a chance to see the video that we just put up when we were at the Orlando Women's Center where I talked to the

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Satanist Communist? Anybody see that? Pray for him. His name is Simon.

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Go watch it later if you get a chance. Anyways, it starts off rather rough, you know, very straightforward.

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You're going to be judged. You guys are being influenced by demons. You're not speaking for yourselves right now.

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You need to understand that, that God's going to answer you for every single child that's been murdered here. He knows their names.

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He's going to respond to you for every single one that you escorted into here. You're not going to escape his judgment.

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It starts rather rough, and then I get into a conversation with Simon, a 22 -year -old kid raised in a

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Christian home, a Southern Baptist home, abandoned the faith, living as a homosexual, a

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Satanist, and a Communist. He's got the trifecta. Starts off kind of rough, and if you watch that video, very important in terms of this thing of fear of God, he knows the truth.

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He was raised in the truth. He's rebelled against the God of his youth.

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He knows the scriptures. He says he's read the Bible twice, and he's knowingly abandoned

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Jesus Christ for darkness, meaninglessness, purposelessness, evil, and sin, and you'll hear him.

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You'll hear him acknowledging what I'm talking to him. So you have just embraced darkness.

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So you're abandoning Christ for meaninglessness. Yep. So you just love the devil.

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Yep. And as I was telling him about you're being influenced by demons, you're going to be judged by God, he was satisfied and taking pleasure in the fact that he was going to go to hell.

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He said, I'm looking forward to going to hell. I'm looking forward to going to hell.

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Like I love Satan, and this is where I want to go. So you have that sort of like unbeliever that knows

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God and says, I hate him. And they have no fear of God.

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None. They're not thinking about judgment. They don't care about the judgment. They actually, in some points, want it.

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They hate God so much that they want his judgment.

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But I also think about this lack of fear of God, not just in the rabid unbeliever who knows the truth and hates

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God and wants hell, but I think about the knowledgeable Christian. Two categories, rebellious unbeliever and the knowledgeable Christian.

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I'm talking about Christians who have decades in the Christian faith. They profess faith in Jesus for decades.

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They should be wise. They should be patient. They should be knowledgeable, wise people that can be depended on.

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They can teach Bible studies, and yet when conflict arises, all fear of God is abandoned.

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They know lots of things. They can teach the Bible. They can teach Bible studies, but when conflict arises, it's almost like all the commitments just get thrown out.

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No more commitments to wisdom. No more commitments to God's truth. When conflict arises, quick -tempered.

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When conflict arises, prideful. When conflict arises, impatient, rushed to judgment.

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When conflict arises, pick favorites. Pick a team between the conflicting parties.

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Show partiality. Pick your group. Serve them. Build them up. When conflict arises, they dig in their heels.

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No fear of God. When conflict arises, these knowledgeable Christians build factions.

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No fear of God. When conflict arises, these knowledgeable Christians that should know better cause divisions.

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When conflict arises, they can teach the truth of the triune God in Scripture. They can defend historic

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Christian orthodoxy, but they actually make accusations without evidence. They spread stories about their neighbors without evidence, without proper biblical standards.

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They abandon any cross -examination. They don't fear God. They know a lot about Him, but they don't know how to walk with Him.

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The fear of the Lord is the beginning. The fear of the Lord is the beginning. If we want to be a wise, skillful people, a holy people, we have to fear

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God. That's where it starts. At every point of contact we read right now in the book of Proverbs, we've gone to about twelve chapters now, every single challenging moment of skillful wisdom is only going to be applied by us if we fear

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God. That's the beginning of it. That's where we start. Do I fear God? They know a lot about Him, but they don't know how to walk with Him.

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What we both need to hear, the rabid unbeliever who knows the truth and hates

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God, and the Christian who knows the truth and yet abandons wisdom because they have no fear of God, what we both need to hear is this word from Jesus in Matthew chapter 10 regarding the fear of God.

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Matthew 10, 28. Jesus says, and do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul.

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Rather, fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

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Now, pause. Today in the modern era with evangelism, people will say,

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God's the very happy, nice, sweet sky daddy and He really doesn't want you to fear

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Him. He wants you to see Him as Father. He wants you to see Him as Father. And let's acknowledge the truth in it.

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Yes, God is my Heavenly Father. He's adopted me into His family. He will never condemn me. He will never judge me because Christ has already been judged.

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All of that is absolutely true, but that's one category about God. My Heavenly Father who loves me.

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But there's another category about God that Jesus taught, and that's this. You must fear

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God. Don't fear man and what he can do to you. So Jesus says, here's a contrast.

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Don't fear man and what he can do to you. Fear the one who can throw your body and soul into hell.

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That's who you should fear. So I should look at my Father in heaven as the Father who loves me, who will never forsake me, who's given everything for me, who is merciful every morning, new mercies.

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He'll never abandon me. He saved me, and yet he's still the God to be feared. We must fear

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God. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. It's the starting point of all of this truth. Our hearts need to be changed, brothers and sisters.

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If we're going to apply what we've learned from God's wisdom, our hearts need to be changed. How? We need to go from a love of self and our pride to a love and a fear of God.

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Now I want to just challenge you with something right now. There is no way in the world any of you in this room or me are going to love these divine truths given to us in the book of Proverbs unless your heart's been changed.

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If you're not saved, if you don't have the mind of Christ, if your heart's not been changed, you will not care about obeying this.

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Let's be honest. All of this is just a waste of your time. If you're not in Christ, you're wasting your time right now.

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Because all of this, if it's just impressed upon you from the outside, it's just going to be external pressure with no love for it in the inside.

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And Jesus says to people like that who want all this stuff to look right on the outside but their hearts are not in it, he says to them, you are a hypocrite.

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Don't bother. Don't bother. Don't bother looking right on the outside when your heart is far from God.

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He called religious people who looked right on the outside, he called them whitewashed tombs.

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You look clean on the outside, but inside you're full of rotting, stinking, dead flesh.

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So Jesus, look, Jesus gives you permission to walk away. So walk away. Jesus says to crowds of people, he says to thousands, he says to them, he says, if anyone comes to me and does not hate, he lists your favorite people, and he says, if you don't take up your cross and come to die, he says, then don't come.

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And Jesus says to the religious hypocrite that maybe a few of you in this room, if you want to just look on the outside like you've got it all together, but inside your heart's not in it, he's inviting you to leave.

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Leave. Because he wants the reality of a relationship with you, not pretend. Not a fake relationship.

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Jesus isn't interested in the person who is soulless. You're not invested. Your heart's not there.

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So what do you need? Regeneration. And I go, I got news for us all. No one can do it. You can't change your spots.

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You can't fix yourself. You can't change your nature. You need to hear about yourself, that you don't fear God, that you are under his wrath outside of Jesus Christ, that you'll be judged, and the only way to salvation is through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, who is the righteous one who took a death we deserve and rose again from the dead.

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Your only hope in salvation is Jesus. And if you turn to him in faith, you will have the gift of eternal life and the presence of the spirit of God to cause you to observe his word, his statutes, and to love him and long for him.

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None of this is going to matter to anybody who doesn't actually know Jesus. Just like words on a page, insignificant.

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Your heart needs to be changed, and so does mine. Can I give you one section that I think summarizes the whole thing?

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We've been in a lot so far. So much has been challenging. This is what I would say, just, this has been the most challenging sermon series we've ever done.

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I've been in ministry for a long time. I've preached I don't know how many times, and this has been the most challenging because not only is this book really hard to preach through and teach, because you'll have like one verse, now build an hour and a half on it, or 45 minutes.

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But here's a biblical principle. Now unpack it faithfully and apply the word of God faithfully off of this one verse.

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That's challenging. It can be challenging. I love it, but it's still challenging. But it's also challenging because before a message ever comes to you from over this pulpit, it's first preached to me.

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It's challenging. It's challenging. So much in here just works us all over in terms of our own inconsistencies, our injustices, our hatred, our secret hatred, our foolishness, our pride.

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But Proverbs chapter 2 basically summarizes everything in one point.

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Here's what it says. Verse 1. My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commands with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding, yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the

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Lord and find the knowledge of God. There it is again. Seek it like treasure.

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Pursue it. Don't lose sight of it. Keep on that path. For the

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Lord gives wisdom. From his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright.

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He's a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice and watching over the way of his saints.

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Then you'll understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path. For wisdom will come into your heart and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.

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Discretion will watch over you. Understanding will guard you, delivering you from the way of evil.

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There it is again. That path of evil, the path of the righteous, the blessing and prosperity of the upright versus the judgment of the wicked.

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To walk in the ways of darkness, who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil.

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Men whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways. So you will be delivered from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words, who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her

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God. For her house sinks down to death and her paths have departed. None who go to her come back, nor do they regain the paths of life.

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So you will walk in the way of the good and keep to the paths of the righteous. For the upright will inhabit the land and those with integrity will remain in it.

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But the wicked will be cut off from the land and the treacherous will be rooted out of it. Chapter two gave you the whole rest of the book at almost every major point.

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God's protection of the righteous, the destruction of the wicked and the treacherous, protection, path of righteousness, seek it like treasure.

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You'll understand the fear of the Lord when you seek it, you'll find it. Now we have to talk about the tragic deficit of wisdom in the church, skillful application of the truth.

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Why is it tragic? It's tragic because as Christians, we have the oracles of God.

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Think about that. God, the creator of everything in existence, has condescended and given us his word.

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He's told us about himself. He's given us special revelation. And it's tragic that people who have the very words of God would not live with wisdom.

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We have his revelation of wisdom. How do we apply wisdom? And yet we don't obey.

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We often act, professing Christians, we're all in this, we often act like we're unbelievers when things get hard.

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When there's conflict, we step away from a Christian worldview, we step away from the law of God, we step away from wisdom, and we try to manage things like unbelievers do.

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And why is it tragic? Well, it's something the Apostle Paul speaks to, go to 1

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Corinthians chapter 6. First Corinthians chapter 6. The Apostle Paul, under inspiration, speaks to the same problem in Corinth.

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Listen to this. This is what I mean by tragedy. This is what

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I mean by tragic. 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 1.

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When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints?

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Why are you Christians going to court against one another, having some unbelieving system adjudicate your conflict?

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That's the point. Why are Christians, in this context, having disagreements, skipping over God's wisdom,

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God's judges, and just going right to the court system, and Paul says, are you going to go before the unrighteous instead of the saints,

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God's people? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world, and if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases?

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Do you not know that we are to judge angels? A whole sermon could be preached on this right now. I'm resisting the temptation, but just the principle today.

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Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more than matters pertaining to this life?

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So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? I say this to your shame.

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See? It's tragic. It's tragic, Christians, that you're believers who know

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Jesus, who have the word of God, and you're running off to unrighteous judges, judges to unbelievers to adjudicate things when they don't have the revelation of God by which to do it.

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So Paul's point is, why are you laying this before the people who have no standing in the church?

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I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers?

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But brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers? To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you.

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Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? But you yourselves wrong and defraud even your own brothers.

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Do you see that? First century Corinth, Paul's saying, you've got the words of God, you're

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God's people, you're saints, and you're going to war with each other and having unbelievers adjudicate your conflicts?

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He's saying this. Wouldn't it be better that you just be defrauded than to bring shame to Christ's name like this?

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Wouldn't it be better just to be wronged instead of blowing this up and bringing it before the unbelieving world?

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Why don't you just be defrauded? Why don't you just let God be the judge? Why don't you let vengeance be mine, sayeth the

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Lord? Or why don't you have the church adjudicate it? Don't you know we're going to judge the world?

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We'll judge angels. So it's tragic that as Christians we have such a deficit of wisdom.

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Why? Do you know one of the things that happened because I believe because of this section of Scripture? I've mentioned it before.

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Early on in Roman history, the first few centuries of the church, the

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Christian church became popular because they would adjudicate conflict for unbelievers.

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So the Roman courts and the Roman system was bogged down. People couldn't get heard.

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They couldn't get their case before a judge. There were shifting standards. There was no justice. And so the

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Christian church actually became well known as the place to go to have your conflict adjudicated justly.

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Think about that. Pagans coming to the church to mediate their conflict because it's the

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Christians who are upholding a standard and they're being consistent. So while this is a tragedy,

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I believe it actually instigated a lot of righteous good in the world because we're supposed to be the ones that have justice before us.

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I'll tell you something very personal. I'll leave out names.

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Before the Lord called us to plant Apologia, I was pastoring at a different church.

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It was a bit messy. There were a lot of people in the eldership that just,

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I believe today, were not ultimately qualified or trained well enough as pastors, as elders.

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And there was a situation that came up, a tragic situation, a painful situation, where a teenage girl in the youth group had accused the youth pastor of inappropriately touching her.

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Now, of course, that should be taken very, very seriously.

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The problem was is the accusation was contradictory. The story was changing.

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The source itself was somebody who was, had a reputation for lying and causing problems.

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But as soon as this one accusation and one witness came forward, even though it was a contradictory story, the elders of the church immediately pushed that pastor aside and they didn't even speak to him for like three months.

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They wouldn't converse with him. They wouldn't message him. They took the accusation as true immediately.

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Then, get this, they immediately laid hands on somebody and ordained somebody as a pastor who was the principal of a school who had dealt with sexual accusations or sexual abuse accusations before.

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This person had no place being a pastor, no qualifications for pastor, but they immediately ordained him as pastor to guide this process through this accusation.

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I can tell you from personally knowing the situation, I tried to speak into it.

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I tried to confront it and say, guys, the word of God tells us how to handle this. We're not handling it rightly. This is not how we're supposed to do this.

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This is abusive. We need to investigate this. You're treating him as though he's guilty immediately.

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The story's changing. They shunned his family for three months, broke his wife's heart.

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She was for three months traumatized and so was he. And three months later, the girl comes out and confesses that she lied about the whole thing.

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Wrecked this man's life, traumatized his marriage, wrecked his reputation because they didn't follow

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God's law and God's standards of judgment. So when

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I talk about tragic lack of wisdom in the church, I'm talking about things like that. How do we protect our brother and sister?

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How do we protect their reputation? How do we protect victims? How do we defend them?

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We have a tragic lack of wisdom. So how should the wisdom for above change us?

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Final thoughts. These are just,

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I could say a lot, but these are the things I think about for myself. We need to repent of being knowledgeable fools.

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Jerry was over last night with Katie, his wife. I've known Jerry since he was 16 and I was 18.

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Jerry's a deacon at our church. And we were reminiscing and laughing about how utterly stupid we were.

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We were laughing about how when we were like 18, 19, 20 years old, we were sharp, sharp, sharp, sharp apologists on the street doing evangelism.

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And we were laughing at the fact there were these zealous young men who had so much knowledge and so much skill in apologetics and everything else.

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We could go anywhere and defend the truth and we were absolutely undeniably foolish. We knew so much about God, we could not live right.

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We were absolute fools. So when I talk about being a knowledgeable fool, much of it is coming because I was one.

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Absolutely. We need to repent of being knowledgeable fools. We need to meditate upon God and fear

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Him. We need to truly hate what God hates.

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Let me give you an example. You know where I'm going. Proverbs 6, 12.

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Let's take this in. A worthless person, a wicked man goes about with crooked speech, winks with his eyes, signals with his feet, points with his finger, with a perverted heart, devises evil, continually sowing discord, therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly.

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In a moment, he'll be broken beyond healing. I assure you,

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I guarantee you, if I was a betting man, I'd bet money on it. There is a man or woman or men or women within our church body that are like this.

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You're just like this. You're hiding. You're hiding it with a whitewashed tomb.

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You're hiding it with the veneer of Christian faith. You work against people you don't like.

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You do it secretly. You talk badly about people you don't like in this church body. You may be even working to build a faction against somebody in this church body.

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You may be trying to harm others. You see, we read it and we see this person with their fangs out and their claws out, this dark, horrible person, and sometimes it's just a beautiful woman that can't stop slandering other women, can't stop gossiping, can't stop working against a sister in Christ that they desperately want to take down a notch.

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This exists in our body. Most church bodies will experience this. We've experienced it. The person who devises evil, continuously sowing discord,

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God hates that. Do you? Do I? Or is it a respectable sin among us?

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Is it something we just give ourselves grace in, that we can cause schism, we can cause disunity, we could devise evil against a brother or sister in Christ, we could try to hurt other

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Christians? And God says this in verse 16, there are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to Him.

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Haughty eyes. Do you hate that? Do you hate it not just in others, do you hate it in yourself? See that's the key, right?

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Because don't we do it? I mean just, is it me? You read the indictment and you start thinking out there, who's like that?

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I hate those prideful people. Yes, God, I'm on your side. I hate the haughty eyes. But do you ever turn the finger back at yourself and say, is it me?

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Like am I uncorrectable? Do I need to have the premier voice in the conversation?

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Am I the most important? Do I have haughty eyes? Do I hate haughty eyes? A lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breeds out lies, and one who sows discord among brethren.

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Do we hate what God hates? We need to rely on and believe

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God's principles and promises of victory and blessing for the upright, wise, and righteous over against the destruction and judgment upon the foolish, arrogant, and unrighteous.

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In other words, brothers and sisters, we think about being changed by this series. Key thing, believe

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God's promises and principles of the blessings and victory of the righteous. Believe it and believe that when

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God says pride comes before the fall, he means it and it's coming.

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So if I live continuously filled with pride, not being corrected, if I live embracing pride,

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I need to believe that judgment is coming. Sooner or later, God will cut you down.

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That's the promise. That's how I'll be changed by this wisdom. Brothers and sisters, we are called by God through where we've been so far in so many places to be patient.

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So much of it is just connected to patience. Like, in being a good judge, in adjudicating a conflict, you don't need to have the answer right away.

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Sometimes you have to be patient enough to wait for the answer. Can I give you an example?

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Something that's like, it's like a phenomenon. Remember like, what year was it that it came out,

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Making a Murderer? How many of you guys saw Making a Murderer? Raise your hand.

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Look, okay. How many of you guys have Netflix? Sinners.

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Okay. Just joking. I have Netflix. There was a film called

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Making a Murderer, a series on Netflix that just blew Netflix up. Netflix was popular, but this series blew them up.

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Making a Murderer, people were signing up just to watch this thing because everyone is talking about it. It was about Steven Avery and the murder of Teresa Halbach.

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Yeah. She was the victim. Now, do you guys remember that when that series first came out, everybody's talking about it.

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Everyone's like, I can't believe this injustice. Can you believe this? And all this manipulation of facts and data and evidence and all the rest.

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And admittedly, everyone goes, this is a tragedy. This guy, they're framing this guy. This is evil.

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It's awful. And now you have a decade later, Candace Owens doing a series going, no, they spoon fed you that stuff in the documentary.

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They left a ton of stuff out. They didn't give you both sides. Here's the horrifying stuff they left out.

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And why did they leave this stuff out? And now you have these factions going, was he innocent?

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Is he guilty? Oh, maybe we should have waited to come to the conclusion before we should get all the evidence.

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And so many people have egg on their faces now by choosing a side before patiently saying, well, what does the other side have to say?

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We should be patient enough to say, let me get the whole story. Let me hear both sides. Let me be just.

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Let me show no partiality. We're called to be a wise people, not just a theological people.

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Patient. Humble. Slow to respond. Bound to unity and peace.

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Do you know what one of the greatest scandals in the early church was? What they saw as just scandalous.

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You can't do that. That's against the rules. You just don't do that. You know what it was? Schism. Disunity.

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Splitting up the body of Christ. Destroying the local church. One of the greatest scandals in the early church was schism.

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If you're a schismatic, you're dangerous. If you're willing to divide the body of Christ, you're dangerous.

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You're unwise. Why is it so important? Because what is the prayer of Jesus for you and me?

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What is it? Father, that they be one as you and I are one.

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How intimately one are the Father and the Son? How perfect is their fellowship?

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Absolute perfection. And Jesus says, Father, may they, you and I, the body of Christ, may we be one as he and the

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Father are one. We need to hate schism. Hate division. We've seen that in the book of Proverbs so far.

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We need to be a teachable people, not scoffers. We need to be hardworking people, not lazy.

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We need to hate sexual immorality and the harlot and love sex

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God's way. I mean, isn't that what Proverbs says, right? Is that what it says?

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Good news for you. God is big on sex. Huge. And he says the way to avoid the adulterous woman and the harlot is to enjoy your wife.

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Enjoy your husband. So go get them, right? Go all in.

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Just give yourself away to your spouse. That's how you avoid the harlot woman.

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God's not saying don't enjoy this amazing gift from God. He's saying enjoy it my way, the way it was created to be.

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So God says blessings on the righteous. Holy matrimony, that's how it works.

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We need to be teachable, peaceable, hardworking, and we need to protect.

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This is one thing that's clear from Proverbs. If you haven't caught it yet, I hope you embrace this as a final word.

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We need to love God and neighbor enough to fight to protect one another's reputations.

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Hang on that. Fight to protect one another's reputations.

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How do you do it? Don't receive accusations without proper evidence.

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Don't spread stories. Don't allow disunity. Don't breathe out lies.

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Don't try to plot and scheme and work against your neighbor. Fight to love your neighbor enough to protect their reputation.

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Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you. Amen? Isn't that the key thing? There's the principle.

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Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you. So what would you like someone to do? According to Proverbs and all the wisdom we've gotten here, and accusations and breathing out lies and all the rest, what would you want someone to do for you if people were making false accusations against you?

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What would you want? Wisdom. Wisdom.

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Protection of your reputation. God's standards of justice. Brothers and sisters, my heart's desire is that our church would be so transformed through this experience of God's word here in Proverbs, that we would ultimately be a foundation for the same kind of work that God has done in history, where the world looks into us and says, if you want justice, go to that church.

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If you want righteous standards, go to that church. If you want proper mediation, go to those people.

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They love God and their neighbor, and they're a wise people. Let's pray. Father, I pray that you would allow your word and wisdom be buried within us.

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We give you glory and praise for your word. Lord, convict us, challenge us for your fame and the knowledge of God that covers the earth.