SERMON: Proverbs 8:5-11 (The Preciousness Of Wisdom)

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July 13, 2025

At the crossroads of life, two voices cry out—one flatters with ease and comfort, the other pierces with truth and calls for repentance. Lady Wisdom’s voice may wound, but it heals, purifying the heart and pointing us to Christ, the true and precious Wisdom of God.

00:09: Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day sermon We pray that as we declare the
00:16: Word of God that you would be encouraged Strengthened in your faith and that you would catch a greater vision of who
00:22: Christ is May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word and may the Lord be with you
00:34: Imagine standing at the crossroads of a decision where two voices are crying out to you one in a kind of smooth
00:43: Promising quick pleasures and easy wins and a life filled with comfort that Is what the
00:51: Bible calls the broad way that leads to destruction. That is the voice of Lady Folly The other voice however is sharp even
01:01: Surgical urgent cutting through the noise to demand our attention jostling our hearts with conviction
01:09: Promising pains and sufferings that lead unto eternal life
01:15: That voice although it's often not the voice that we love that bristling
01:21: Glorious holy voice is the voice of Lady Wisdom and it's what the
01:27: Bible calls the narrow way In the past several weeks, we've been looking at two basic voices
01:35: Lady Folly and Lady Wisdom Lady Folly as we have seen is the one who speaks promises comforts pleasures
01:44: The one who convicts us challenges us jostles us is Lady Wisdom and In this way the biting scorching grit of Lady Wisdom's voice is what often offends us
01:58: But it's often what we need most fully and What I hope we will see today is that Lady Wisdom's voice though it grinds against our flesh is a grace from God It's God showing us that he loves us by giving us this provocational voice
02:19: So today we're gonna look at three things Lady Wisdom's voice. What is it? It's provocation.
02:25: I mean she is provoking She's urgent and she is strong in her voice
02:32: We're also going to look at how her voice is pure and we're gonna end with how her voice is precious
02:39: And before we do that, I'll define who Lady Wisdom is in case you haven't been here but for now, let us pray if you'll turn with me also to Read Proverbs 8 5 through 11.
02:52: We'll read that we'll pray and then we will begin Proverbs 8 Starting with verse 5.
02:59: I said last week that I intended last week to get to 11 this week. We will The text says this
03:08: Oh naive ones understand prudence and Old fools understand wisdom
03:15: Listen, I will speak noble things and the opening of my lips will reveal right things for my mouth will utter truth and Wickedness is an abomination to my lips
03:29: All the utterances of my mouth are in righteousness. There's nothing crooked or perverted in them
03:35: They're all straightforward to him who understands and right to those who find knowledge
03:41: Take my instruction and not silver and knowledge rather than the choicest gold
03:48: For wisdom is better than jewels and all desirable things cannot compare with her.
03:54: Let's pray Lord you personify your wisdom as this lady who calls out to us to remember the things of God Lord help us today to see that even though that voice is gritty at times and Provokes us
04:17: Challenges us calls us out exposes us Let us remember that the voice of wisdom is not there to hurt us but to help us
04:32: Not there to cut us down but to build us up and Let us remember ultimately that the voice of lady wisdom points somewhere
04:41: Even greater to the very wisdom of God Who came incarnate in Jesus Christ?
04:48: Lord, let us hold these things in In right understanding and Lord let us be a people who grow in wisdom and Who love wisdom and who seek it out like treasure?
05:02: It's in Jesus name we pray amen It's very clear in the Proverbs that the
05:07: Lord wants us to be wise It's very clear that he wants us to understand his will for our life and to understand how to obey him and to do all that he's called us to do and One of the ways that he tries to get this point to us is by personifying wisdom as a lady
05:26: So before we move on I do want to remind us of who lady wisdom is. She's not just a literary character she is a
05:34: She's the divine voice. She's a poetic personification of God's eternal wisdom
05:41: She is his moral order woven into the fabric of creation
05:46: And in that way she speaks not just as our teacher But as a kind of prophetess as a herald of holiness in the streets she points us to the wisdom of God and in one sense she is the voice of the
06:03: Spirit of God calling men to fear the Lord and in another sense
06:10: She is the shadow of Jesus Christ the wisdom of God who is to come and From Proverbs perspective has not come yet for us.
06:20: We look back to the wisdom of God as I've already come so lady wisdom is the voice of God's wisdom to us personified as this woman and She was there from the very beginning the scripture saying this is
06:35: Proverbs 8 22 It's a passage we'll deal with in the future. The Lord possessed her at the beginning of his way before his works of old
06:43: So what this is saying is lady wisdom was not created But that wisdom stood with God before the creation was even made that she was the master
06:54: Craftsman, she was the one who was giving the blueprints for all that is good and true and beautiful She is the personification of God's wisdom
07:03: Even in creation and she points like we've said to Christ First Corinthians 124 says that Christ is the wisdom of God So we know that lady wisdom here in Proverbs is a type of that pointing to that Colossians 2 3 says all the treasures and wisdom of wisdom and knowledge
07:25: Belong to us in Christ. So we know that lady wisdom here is pointing to that So when we hear lady wisdom speak in the scriptures, we're not just examining
07:38: Solomon's creative poetry We're hearing the echo of heaven
07:43: We're hearing the word before the world began We're hearing the voice that sharpened and chiseled the stars and now pleads with sinners in the streets to obey and love
07:56: God and in that way Her voice does not coddle us in our fragilities
08:05: But she assaults us with a holiness that often offends us Look at how her verse begins in a very provocational way.
08:14: Oh naive ones Understand prudence and Oh fools understand wisdom
08:20: Like if you're writing someone a Christmas card and you begin with hey you naive one You're probably not being
08:30: The kind of sweet and sugary nice that we often come to expect in our world you're provoking you start your your
08:37: Your Christmas card with oh you fool You're being provocational and we have to examine why she's doing that she doesn't begin with niceties
08:53: She doesn't open with Affirmations and applause. She doesn't follow the rule. You have to say ten nice things before you say a bad thing
09:02: She clears her throat and she shouts in the street. Oh you naive ones and oh you fools
09:09: Not alone would make her unwelcome in our society today Because lady wisdom does not speak in the dialect of flattery and In a narcissistic culture.
09:22: That is the fuel that often fuels our engines There's a reason that she doesn't do that her main purpose the reason for existence is not to coddle us in our sin
09:34: She's not there to pet us in our perversions She's not a guidance counselor that strokes our ego with affirmational platitudes
09:44: She's not a self -help shaman telling you to follow your heart She's the voice of God's wisdom
09:52: She's the fire the fire in her bones is calling us out by name because let's be honest
09:59: We need it. We're broken. We're sinners. We're naive. We're fools and If the voice of God only coddled us in our naivete and in our foolishness, we would have a padded road to hell
10:18: Wisdom doesn't care about your feelings She cares about your future
10:25: She's not trying to make you feel better. She's actually trying to make you better. I Want you to think about it like this you're sitting in the waiting room
10:34: The doctor walks in and he locks eyes with you and he says if we don't operate on you today, you are going to die
10:42: Imagine if you looked at that doctor and said well you could have said that nicer You understand immediately in that moment that that doctor is loving you
10:52: By bringing the hard word That's what Lady Wisdom is doing she's not attacking you not at least for attacking sake she's intervening
11:02: The problem in fact is not with her message. The problem is with us The problem is that we do not think our sin.
11:11: Is that serious? when Lady Wisdom comes and Assaults our sinful nature.
11:17: We like to comfort ourselves saying it's not that bad and In that way she calls out to us who are naive that's why she says
11:27: Oh naive ones Because we're gullible We're aimless.
11:33: We're morally mushy we float through life without commitment screaming for other people to repent and Never turning the mirror inward and saying my sin is an offense to a holy
11:46: God in Hebrew the word naive here is pet I am which means those who are spiritually soft and shapeless
11:56: We're not talking about hardened rebels when we're talking about the naive we're talking about those whose souls are made of play -doh
12:03: Who are malleable like wet noodles who have situational ethics? Who in this situation comfort themselves and say it's okay for me
12:15: But not okay for thee in one moment, they'll be crying bloody murder over someone else's sin
12:22: But when it comes to their own sin, they'll say things like well, you don't understand what I've went through You don't understand how
12:29: I'm hurting This is something I need to work on that phrase alone is
12:37: A phrase that we use to justify and excuse ourself from repentance We have this thing
12:45: That we keep in the secret recesses of our heart and we say I'm working on that. Well, are you? I'm struggling with that.
12:54: Where's the sweat? Where's the tears? Where's the blood? Where's the calluses? Are we just using that phrase as a kind of justification to say it's not that big of a deal
13:05: It is Because when your Savior screamed my God my God, why have you forsaken me?
13:13: He hung there for even the micro sins that you say aren't that big of a deal
13:22: People over there when they sin burn them at the stake But me don't no.
13:28: No, don't worry. I've got a plan. I'm managing it Lady wisdom calls that to you and says don't be naive
13:35: Don't be so gullible Your sin has tricked you into thinking that it's not that big of a deal repent
13:44: See the universal problem is that sin causes all of us to think that it's not that big of a deal
13:50: It causes us to think that we can manage it like having a pet Cobra While our hearts
14:01: James talks about this while we harbor hatred in our heart for others We excuse ourself before God my brothers.
14:07: This should not be so my sisters. This should not be so Wisdom also speaks to the fools not just to the naive the naive say my sins not that big of a deal
14:17: It's not that serious. I'll deal with it. You need to repent we need to repent But it also speaks to the fools the ones who are hardened in their sin
14:25: The people that you can't reason with the stubborn the mockers the revilers the ones who wear their ignorance like a badge of honor and mock anyone who walks in righteousness and to me that's one of the most shocking parts of this passage
14:44: Is that both are summoned equally by Lady Wisdom? the lime -haired feminist in the streets who's screaming
14:53: I should be able to murder my own baby and you and I who harbor micro
15:01: Micro aggressions Against someone who said something in a tone I'm trying to point out a very what we would consider a mild sin
15:13: Versus something that we consider an extreme sin and Lady Wisdom calls out to both There has to be a kind of holy humility that we have as Christians to realize that we are not righteous
15:29: There is so easy for us in this culture that we live in to look at those who are
15:37: Flagrant in their sin and to have a kind of hatred for that and there's a good hatred There's a righteous hatred that we ought to have for things that break the law of God, but where's the hatred for the things in us?
15:49: Yes, it's right and good to hate the things that God hates. But do you hate the things in you that God hates?
15:57: Often we're not as zealous on that end if we're honest with ourselves and Lady Wisdom warns us urgently
16:07: Because the matter is urgent We we learned about this in Proverbs 124 that there is a time and a place where Lady Wisdom will stop speaking to you
16:17: Lady Wisdom will stop calling you Lady Wisdom will not put up with you anymore Proverbs 124 through 26 because I called and you refused
16:27: I will laugh at your calamity That's serious
16:38: Lady Wisdom calls to us to care for us She's aggressive towards our sin nature to wake us up to flee from our sin
16:47: Her voice is urgent for a reason She's like a mother that is
16:54: Crying out to a child who's walking dangerously close To the edge of a cliff.
17:00: I was I was in the Olympic. I think it's Olympic Mountains in Washington State if not, it's something like that and The clouds the mountains were so high that the clouds had actually descended below us
17:15: So we were above the cloud line and I remember watching a goat Leap out of the parking lot into a cloud
17:24: And I had no idea like is it? Okay? Is that a hundred foot drop? I didn't hear a splat and I think to myself
17:33: What if I was that close to the edge? I wouldn't even know what danger was hitting me. That's sort of what sin is
17:40: Sin clouds our perspective in our view so that we can't see actually how dangerous it is and guess what?
17:46: We're not equipped with the same dexterity as a mountain goat When we step off the edge we fall and we break and we hurt
17:53: She screams with the same kind of passion than an air traffic controller is
17:59: Yelling into his radio to try to stop an airborne collision She screams because she loves you because she's trying to help you.
18:08: That's what conviction is It's God's mercy to us and love to us in our sin.
18:16: And this is why she says to the naive understand She doesn't say
18:21: I hope you understand she commands it understand Not file it away for later not tuck it away in the cranial recesses that exists between our two ears
18:33: She's saying to us Understand in a way that is it's sort of like a chisel that grooves into the rock
18:41: It's changed afterwards the understanding actually comes in When she says understand she's not talking about grasping factoids she's talking about formation
18:53: She's talking about a blacksmith Taking a sword and putting it in the fire and beating it and beating it and beating it until finally
19:03: It's in the appropriate shape for its mission Lady wisdom's job is not to just give you a syllabus that you can memorize
19:13: So that you will be wise know her job is to pound You until you are formed into the image of Jesus Christ To put you into the fire listen
19:26: Iron bends only When it's been sitting in the fire so long that the fire actually gets into the iron
19:37: And when the fire gets into the iron The blacksmith can form it and shape it to his purposes
19:43: You might be going through a fiery trial right now, and you might not like it
19:50: But I want you to remember that you are iron and You need to be bent and shaped to the purposes of Christ and the fire is
20:00: God's tool of grace and mercy to you To shape you according to his purposes.
20:06: So receive the hard season that you're in Knowing that the
20:11: Lord is using it for your good. This is something we need to remember
20:19: Tremendously especially in the 21st century Because too many people in the church know what
20:27: God requires, but they don't know how to live it out or they refuse to We've got households not in this church,
20:34: I hope I pray not certainly possible Where the heads of house are full of theology, but their hearts are bloated with pride
20:43: We've got social media influencers Who can even parse the
20:49: Greek and yet they don't know how to love their own neighbor We've got pulpits where pastors preach a sinless gospel a lovewins gospel to try to coddle us in our perversions
21:07: Listen, I know we don't like to be told that we're sinners. We don't like to be told that we're broken
21:12: We don't like to be told that we need to repent Repentance at the very beginning says that you are not enough.
21:19: You are inadequate We don't like that message so we tend to gravitate towards ego stroking messages
21:29: That's not lady wisdom. That's lady folly That's not the road that leads to life. That's the road that leads to death
21:37: Wisdom aims right at your chest with the arrow and says wake up Understand she's not trying to make you smarter.
21:48: She's trying to make you wise Listen There is a kind of man and I pray to God it's not here
21:58: Who can have all the right answers? Who can have catechized his kids to memorize the
22:04: Westminster Shorter Catechism and all of its beauty? Read reformed blogs like they're candy
22:12: But his wife doesn't feel cherished His kids are terrified of him or worse disconnected from him
22:22: His doctrine is sharp, but his heart is dull He knows what's right, but he doesn't love it
22:27: See, that's the difference between even an unbeliever who has knowledge of the
22:33: Bible and a believer There's atheists out there who can quote the gospel better than you can
22:39: There's people who hate Jesus Christ who can tell you more about his life and his ministry and its cultural context than you or I can
22:49: The question is not about what's in our head The question is has it trickled down into our affections and into our heart?
22:55: Do you not only know what God says, but do you love it? And I will tell you that you can't force that That's the one difference between a
23:05: Christian and a non -christian You can force yourself to memorize any set of data you put your mind to if you work hard enough if you use
23:14: Quizlet enough You can memorize facts But you can't love them without the
23:21: Spirit of God, that's where we must pray Lord, please help me not to just know this truth, but to love it
23:28: Or to help me not just to memorize these facts, but to have affections for them This is why
23:36: Lady Wisdom provokes us because she wants to purify us and Purity doesn't exist on the veneer purity exists down to the depths of a thing and That's our second thing that I want us to look at is her call is pure It not only provokes it does provoke and it provokes us for a reason because she wants to purify us
23:57: We what it says in verses 6 through 9 Listen for I will speak noble things and the opening of my lips will reveal right things
24:06: For my mouth will utter truth and wickedness is an abomination to my lips
24:12: All the utterances of my mouth are in righteousness There's nothing crooked or perverted in them they're all straightforward to him who understands and right to those who find knowledge
24:24: So this way her language is not just provoking us. It's trying to purify us her language is wholly unfiltered.
24:30: It's straight With no kind of emotionally laden chaser
24:38: Her word is pure and undefiled like a white linen garment without spot wrinkle or stain her
24:46: Message is consistent with the character of God That's why her message is pure because God himself is pure Wisdom in this section says listen, that's the first word that she says
24:59: Listen, not like your high school science teacher who's getting ready to give you another lecture on some dung beetle in Africa She tells you to listen and incline your ears and bend your soul to this
25:13: Because what she is about to say has never been polluted I was thinking about this
25:21: How astounding that is? We live in a world where everything is polluted.
25:26: It seems like I'm not trying to get conspiratorial here. We live in a world of chemtrails if you know what that is
25:34: We live in a world of microplastics We live in a world of food dyes that make your kids bounce off the wall like rubber balls
25:43: We live in a world of fetal cells material being added into vaccines We live in a world of seed oils that in the 20s and 30s
25:53: Lubricated engines and now they're given to you as food Here we have a woman who is offering us something utterly pure and you and I barely understand what that means anymore
26:06: Because everything we see and touch has been defiled by something That's what's so beautiful about her message is that it's uncontaminated
26:15: It's pure When she says I will speak of noble things. She's telling you that her words are both exquisite and rare Like a red diamond
26:27: I look this up a red diamond is the rarest diamond on earth even more rare than a red diamond is a
26:34: Diamond that a red diamond that has the words FL out beside of it FL means flawless
26:42: So a red diamond that when you look at it under a microscope doesn't have a single
26:48: Missing atom of carbon out of alignment. No speck. No dust
26:54: Perfectly pure. It's the rarest diamond on earth and What Lady Wisdom is saying is more regal more royal and more pure than that The word that's used here is net a beam which means royal things it means elevated dignified weighty truths it's the kind of things that ought to be on the lips of Kings not on court jesters or click baiters and You contrast that level of purity with the kind of messaging that we hear today
27:25: Where news anchors pretend to care about the truth and they say things like well, if you look behind me
27:32: There's a most full mostly peaceful protest When a city is on fire behind them the politician who preaches about the millionaires and the billionaires and Yet lives in a mansion
27:48: The apostate preacher who says everything is grace and never talks about sin We live in a day where impure speech is normal and Yet here she is giving purity of speech pointing to something utterly
28:06: Clear pure and glorious Which is Christ that's what she's pointing to She says there's nothing perverse in me nothing twisted nothing self -preserving her speech is terrifyingly clean
28:22: Let me say it this way Her words are like a plumb line That is dropped from heaven
28:29: You don't measure her words by your life You measure your life by her words
28:36: Her voice doesn't adapt to culture Her voice doesn't evolve Because the times they are a -changing
28:44: Her voice doesn't bow to straw polls or public opinions. Her voice is righteousness incarnate and The more corrupted the world becomes actually the more abrasive her purity probably and will likely feel
28:58: I I want you to think about it like Like a strong acid meeting with a strong base the stronger the acid is the stronger the base must be to counteract it but also the stronger the
29:14: Chemical reaction that will happen Her words purify and the more impure our words become the more aggressive her speech actually sounds
29:26: She says all the utterances of my mouth are in righteousness That's why you can't listen to her casually
29:33: You can't just sample lady wisdoms words Like you walk up to a charcuterie board and you say
29:38: I don't like the green olives. I like them But you can't just sample them
29:48: You're either going to bend to her purity or you're going to be broken against it And that's a frightening concept because many of us don't even know what that level of purity is
29:59: Some of you struggle with truth because you grew up in a home filled with lies some of you grew up in a home where anger is normal and it was a weapon or a tool for manipulation where love was only given as a currency for what the next request is and Because of that many of us will look at this kind of aggressive
30:24: Purity you fools you naive listen understand and we will hear the voice of whatever abuser
30:31: Was screaming at us from our past There's a long line of people who've likely used weapon or used words as weapons against you because they did not care about you and I can understand that when you hear a strong word
30:48: That it could engender those kinds of thoughts But when all of those people were screaming or saying ugly things to you
30:57: I want you to remember that they did it not because they loved you. They did it because of some brokenness in themselves
31:04: Lady wisdom is pure She has no brokenness So when she gives you a hard word
31:10: It's coming from a place of God's love for you to bend you to his truth not to harm you but to help you
31:20: Lady wisdom is like a sandblast. I don't know like yeah, lady wisdom is like a sandblaster against a rusty car
31:28: It's needed lady wisdom is like a surgeon cutting off a gangrenous leg She's refusing to let you die in your filth and That may not feel like love but I assure you that it is
31:42: Her words are straight. Her words are sharp. Her words are there to help us and my question that I want to ask you is
31:54: Do you want to actually be wise or do you just want to seem wise? Do you want to love the truth
32:04: Even if it confronts you Even if it calls you out and exposes you. Do you want to still love
32:12: God when his truth bristles you and wounds you? Do you want to still submit to his word when it slices you and dices you?
32:24: Do you still want to submit? when it wounds and When it doesn't soothe
32:31: That's one aspect of the voice of God That we don't give enough attention to When we're in pain we want the comforting voice of God, amen
32:43: But why don't we celebrate the wounding the scouring the sandblasting voice of God It's also for our good.
32:54: Is it not? Would you want to be wise even if that is the voice?
33:03: That you received where you're scraped and scraped and scraped
33:09: Like the bottom of a boat where all the barnacles have latched itself to would you want wisdom then the
33:17: Christian says yes The Christian says yes, because I want wisdom because I know who wisdom is
33:25: And we're gonna get to that in a second, but listen to this quote by Richard Sibbes a great Puritan If you could read any
33:31: Puritan, he's definitely on the top three list right there with with Brooks and Bunyan Richard Sibbes says the winter prepares the earth for spring and So do the afflictions sanctified prefer prepare a soul for glory?
33:50: See the reason that we can say that we want wisdom even though it hurts is because we know that it has a destination
33:56: We know that it has a purpose. We know that it has that God has a plan in it We know that the winter
34:01: New Englanders. I didn't have winter until I came here We know that the winter actually prepares the soil listen,
34:10: I'll tell you this I Grew up in North Carolina and the grass is not greener there than it is here. The grass is greener here
34:17: The trees are greener here. The milk is better here You don't have biscuits and gravy and that's to your shame
34:25: But my point is is that because the winters are more extreme here than they are where I grew up You actually have a brighter and more lively spring than I ever grew up with our grass was a kind of brown
34:40: Because it had been scorched Your grass here is green. Your flowers are beautiful and they come on the back of a death
34:50: Winter is a kind of death spring is a kind of resurrection God uses the death burial and resurrection cycle in your life to heal you and to purge you of Your brokenness and of your infirmities and of your sin and of your of your opinions that are in still unsanctified and That's why wisdom is precious.
35:10: That's the final section verses 10 and 11 take my instruction and not silver and Knowledge rather than choices gold for wisdom is better than jewels and all desirable things cannot compare with her
35:23: We live in an age where if you walk up to someone they can tell you the price instantly of Bitcoin But they don't have a category for what repentance looks like We live in a day where?
35:37: 500 people at this point I think Depends on if my research is right 500 people have spent nearly $200 ,000 or more to cryogenically freeze themselves in Hopes of one day having a cure that they can have eternal life
35:53: What a waste because as their putrid body
36:00: Remains frozen in sub -zero temperatures their unsanctified soul roasts and burns in hell
36:06: It's into that madness that lady wisdom walks and she walks shouting don't chase silver and gold
36:15: Don't bow down to jewels. Don't make your life about your 401k Take me is what she says
36:24: She says take me which means not a quick kind of pick me up if you want it It's that word in Hebrew means to receive it with submission
36:33: It's not take as in take it or leave it It's not take like you're walking like the hors d 'oeuvre patter platter passes you and you say
36:43: I'm not in the mood for escargot When she says take it She means in the biblical sense like a soldier taking orders from a general the soldier might not always like it
36:53: But he obeys it because it comes from the general This is like a criminal standing in front of a judge
37:01: This is the negative But I think it really point proves the point the criminal standing before the judge and the judge says guilty
37:06: You've been sentenced to 20 years in prison. You have never seen a criminal say to a judge
37:12: Well, you know what? I actually don't like that. I Don't agree. You've never seen a judge look down at that person and say maybe
37:19: I was too harsh Let's work it out No, that person goes to the exact same federal prison as the person who said nothing except they're on peeling potato duty for four weeks
37:32: Solomon's tell them us to take it To take the words of Lady wisdom whether we like them or not.
37:38: Take them receive them. Let them go down into your bones Implement them live with them and let them define your existence
37:46: Because here's the good news Sometimes the most bitter medicine brings about the best healing
37:56: Proverbs 3 11 says wisdom is better than jewels all desirable things cannot compare with her
38:02: That's not an exaggeration brothers and sisters. You can on faith Believe that God's wisdom is better than your circumstances
38:10: God's wisdom is better than your comfort. God's wisdom is better than your opinion. God's wisdom is better than your whatever
38:19: You don't like it. So what? You love it great But God's wisdom is good and it's precious it's more precious than jewels
38:31: Because gold can build you a palace, but it can't fix your marriage Diamonds can sparkle, but they can't sanctify you crypto can make millionaires, but it can also make it can't make you holy a
38:44: Six finger a six -figure income and a fancy mansion mean nothing when your house is a relational graveyard and you're going to hell
38:55: Wisdom is more precious than jewels and nothing compares with her wisdom is better than jewels
39:01: Proverbs 8 11 all Desirable things cannot compare with her. That's why she's so valuable
39:08: And I want to be very clear as we end here That I am NOT pointing to just dictums.
39:15: I am NOT pointing just to to -do list. I am NOT pointing just to Read this verse and hold to it and obey it and white -knuckle religiosity until you die and go to heaven
39:27: That's not what I'm talking about The reason wisdom is provoking you The reason wisdom is purifying you and the reason wisdom is precious is because it doesn't point
39:39: To herself it points to Christ That's why
39:46: It's so precious because she doesn't point to herself First Corinthians 124 Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, which means that the lady wisdom is pointing to him
39:56: He's wisdom incarnate. He is the divine logos. He's the one who before the foundation of the world was with God and was
40:02: God So what we're talking about is not just a to -do list what we're talking about is love wisdom because wisdom is
40:10: Christ incarnate Love him worship him follow him imitate him.
40:16: That's what she's pointing to When lady wisdom Christ take my instruction.
40:21: She's saying take Christ When she says take my instruction
40:28: She's pointing to Jesus who says take and eat When she offered up her voice for you she's pointing to the one who offered up his body broken for you
40:41: When she told us to remember God's precepts, she's pointing to the one who said do this in remembrance of me
40:49: When she invites the naive and the foolish to repent she's pointing to the one who died in your place on a cross of all places
40:58: Where only fools go to die? And that is the gospel isn't it that this cross that it's foolishness to the world is the very place where the fools are redeemed
41:12: Lady wisdom is crying out to you Challenging you scouring you
41:20: Bristling you provoking you because she's pointing to the one who purifies you
41:26: She's pointing to the all -precious Christ Because he who knew no sin was the one who became sin for you and she's pointing to the fact that if you are in Christ The Spirit of God now comes inside of you and is producing
41:43: Christ in you so brothers and sisters Remember the voice of Lady Wisdom remember who she's pointing to and remember that if you're a
41:54: Christian The Holy Spirit of God now is producing her wisdom in you because her wisdom is his
42:01: Let's pray Lord, I thank you so much for such a
42:08: Beautiful section of Scripture Where wisdom is personified as a woman Lord, I pray that we would remember who wisdom is.
42:19: She's the Word of God She's the righteousness of God and she's pointing to the incarnate wisdom of God Jesus Christ Lord, I pray that we would remember that even in our sins
42:32: Our Lord and Savior loved us so much That he's that he died in our place
42:40: He said in this world, we're gonna have many troubles, but fear not. I've overcome the world. That's true
42:47: At the hill of Calvary he overcame the world So that everything we go through every pain we suffer through every hurt we walk through every wound we bleed through Now have purpose and now have meaning because of Christ.
43:06: It's Paul who said Lord I do not consider these present sufferings even worthy of comparing that of the glory that will be revealed on the day of Christ and The only reason
43:17: Paul could say that is because Christ has won the world Lord I pray that you would help us to remember these things
43:27: When we've had a bad day help us to remember that Christ has won That Christ has triumphed that Christ has
43:37: Regenerated justified sanctified and is leading us to glory. I Pray that that would change our attitude about suffering.
43:46: I pray that that would change our heart posture towards pain and I pray
43:51: Lord That even though while we could not make ourself wise on our own
43:57: That now with Christ and by his spirit you would make us wise you would make us love lady wisdom's voice
44:04: You'd make us heed her commands You'd make us people who love the
44:10: Word of God and Want every part of our life to align to it? Word I pray that that would be for your glory and your honor.