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An Invitation to Wisdom
My brother is the master of board games. If you walk into his office you will see countless playing card decks, chess sets, and over 325 unique board games. Not only does Clint like to collect, he likes to play – and he’s good. He has a current win rate of 59% of all games that he’s played.
Most people who play with him assume that he wins because of his experience with all of those games. But here’s the thing: with all of those games and limited time, he only plays a handful of them every year. With over 325+ it would take nearly a year if he played a new game every day!
So what’s Clint’s edge? He reads the rules. I come over and learn as I’m playing – he’s already got the rules memorized. When we played Twilight Imperium he read the book – I only sat through his 2 hour PowerPoint presentation explaining the rules.
How do we get an edge in life? We read the rules!
Proverbs 1:1–6 ESV
1 The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel:
2 To know wisdom and instruction,
to understand words of insight,
3 to receive instruction in wise dealing,
in righteousness, justice, and equity;
4 to give prudence to the simple,
knowledge and discretion to the youth—
5 Let the wise hear and increase in learning,
and the one who understands obtain guidance,
6 to understand a proverb and a saying,
the words of the wise and their riddles.
Here is our invitation to wisdom, and it is open to anybody willing to learn:
- The simple
- The inexperienced
- The wise
- and those who already have understanding
So often wisdom is thought of as reserved for the select few: the scholar, the guru on top of a tall mountain, someone who has spent years pondering the deepest mysteries of life.
Well here’s God and he’s throwing the door open to all of us:
Proverbs 1:20–23 ESV
20 Wisdom cries aloud in the street,
in the markets she raises her voice;
21 at the head of the noisy streets she cries out;
at the entrance of the city gates she speaks:
22 “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?
How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing
and fools hate knowledge?
23 If you turn at my reproof,
behold, I will pour out my spirit to you;
I will make my words known to you.
Wisdom is out there in the public arena, in the crowded marketplace shouting for people to find her.
The simple fact is that God wants you to be wise. He wants you to be skilled in living life the best way. When God tell us to fear him, he is not simply demanding our obedience so he can be the boss. He’s telling us these things for our own good.
And it all begins here:
Proverbs 1:7 ESV
7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and instruction.
That’s one of those heavily misunderstood phrases. Fear is not one of those words we associate with an unhealthy relationship. So we’re going to take some time in Proverbs 3:5-12 which I think helps unpack this phrase so we can understand what it looks and feels like to fear God.
And we’ll find that fearing Yahweh is not to run away in fear of punishment, but fearing a life without God.
Proverbs 3:5–12 ESV
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.
7 Be not wise in your own eyes;
fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.
8 It will be healing to your flesh
and refreshment to your bones.
9 Honor the Lord with your wealth
and with the firstfruits of all your produce;
10 then your barns will be filled with plenty,
and your vats will be bursting with wine.
11 My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline
or be weary of his reproof,
12 for the Lord reproves him whom he loves,
as a father the son in whom he delights.
Throughout this section we see the fear of God involves trust, humility, and submission to his discipline.
Trust
When we think about the Fear of the Lord we are first and foremost talking about our trust in him. Proverbs largely spends the first nine chapters trying to convince us that he is the source of all wisdom and that we should be looking exclusively to him for it.
So we are told:
Proverbs 3:5–6 ESV
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.
When we plan our lives an determine the best paths to take, are we going to trust that God knows which will the best one for us? And are we willing to trust him without compromise – putting all of our eggs into one basket?
This concept of trust is described as leaning, either on God or yourself. Don’t lean on your own understanding but put everything on him – and that can be kind of scary. Have you ever tried leaning against something you thought was solid only for it to suddenly shift? You jump up on your own feet, no thank you! It’s scary because we’ve leaned on others and been disappointed. So we decide we’re never going to do that again!
There are many areas in life where we’ve determined only we can know the best or right thing to do. “If you want it done right, do it yourself.”
But fearing God means I’m not going to assume I have all of the answers. My wisdom, my understanding, my thinking and insight is all set aside as I let God take over my ways of thinking even when it doesn’t make sense.
I think of King Ahaz in the book of Isaiah. Assyria is the big bad evil guy going around conquering everyone and Israel is left thinking “Do I fight back? Do I join with them? Do I enter into alliances with these other nations?”
And God, through Isaiah, says “I want you to sit down and do nothing. I want you to be still and let me take care of everything.”
Because in the midst of political turmoil and war it makes sense to sit back and do nothing right?
So there are some tricks we use to look and sound like we’re trusting in God, but are really trying to have it all our way.
- Maybe we’re like Balaam, and when God gives us an answer we don’t like we keep asking or fighting against it until we get our way
- How many people have made the dumbest decisions in work and family life because they felt God was calling them to be something different?
- We think “God wants me to be happy” and use that as an excuse to pursue our plans and desires
- Or just any old excuse: God wouldn’t want me to do that, I must have been mistaken, well let’s give my way a shot first and then we’ll check with God.
But we are to acknowledge God in all of our ways. In every decision we make we immediately rely on God to know the best one.
- Even when we don’t understand
- Even when we don’t agree
That’s another out we try to take. I’ll obey, but only if I agree with the decision.
The Fear of the Lord is our trust in him with every step we take.
And that’s going to take a healthy does of humility.
Humility
Proverbs 3:7–8 ESV
7 Be not wise in your own eyes;
fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.
8 It will be healing to your flesh
and refreshment to your bones.
If we don’t have humility when listening to the wisdom of God, then we’re doomed from the start. If I think I’m already wise and know the best answers, and how to live my life to the fullest – then I’m not going to be too interested in what God has to say about it. It’s the trap we see the Pharisees falling into every time they talk with Jesus.
- Think about John 9. Jesus healed a blind man? He can’t be a prophet, he did it on the Sabbath!
They were always too wise, too knowledgeable, too smart to learn anything form the Son of God. They already had everything all figured out.
And notice the second half of verse 7: Fear the Lord and turn away from evil.
The wiser we are in our own eyes the more apt we are to turn away from God entirely.
That was the problem with the Corinthian church. You read through 1-2 Corinthians and you have this church that thought it was so smart, so wise, so beyond Paul’s simple gospel. And when they started changing things about the gospel that didn’t make sense to them – like the resurrection – it led to a whole host of problems:
- Sexual immorality including incest and prostitution
- Lawsuits
- Divisions and cliques that thought they were smarter than the rest
The more we try to be wise on our own terms the more we just fall in line with the sin of Adam and Eve – taking the knowledge of good and evil and saying we have just as much a right as God to determine what’s good and what’s evil.
But if you want healing – if you want refreshment and wholeness, it all goes to the fear of God. We in our wisdom are always searching for the ultimate answer or satisfaction that never comes, because it’s only found in God.
The fear of the Lord is about trusting in God, and finding all of your answers with him.
And often times that trust is going to cost you
Charity
Proverbs 3:9–10 ESV
9 Honor the Lord with your wealth
and with the firstfruits of all your produce;
10 then your barns will be filled with plenty,
and your vats will be bursting with wine.
Trusting God means that you have something at stake.
So at the time Proverbs was being written and put together wealth was determined by how much land you had to produce food. The first-fruits
were among the first harvest of the season. The ideal was that you would get the first-fruits and those would be offered to God. The challenge is trusting that after having offered to God, there would be a ‘second-fruits.’ How tempting is it to hold onto the first of the harvest to make sure you’re taken care of, and then offer God what comes afterwards?
One of the best ways to see if you trust God is to see where your money goes. We tend to pay the people we think are responsible for our success – ourselves!
- When was the last time obedience made you lose something or do something you didn’t want to do?
We are to trust God in everything but we mostly find ourselves agreeing with him. I like coming to church so it’s easy not to forsake the assembly. Trusting in God comes when you do the things you don’t like about serving God.
And then we read verse 10, and I wonder if we actually believe that? It’s a passage that is definitely abused by the health, wealth, and prosperity preachers who frame it as “Just give all your money to God and soon you’ll be driving Lambo’s and moving to Malibu!” But we’re smarter than that – we know that life is more complicated and that generosity is often sacrificial – not an investment.
But here it is nonetheless.
I’d say a key in understanding this passage as God intends it, not as the scam artist do, is understanding it within the framework of fearing the Lord.
The prosperity gospel doesn’t fear God, they treat him like a vending machine. I put money or obedience in, and blessings come out. There’s no relationship, it’s a transaction. The only fear we have is that sometimes the vending machine might eat our dollar without getting us what we want.
But if we read this under the idea of fearing God, trusting him, and letting him rule over our lives, then the takeaway is that we’re going to trust God to provide for us. Does it make sense to burn up your produce, your livestock, your money on an altar and see the smoke go up? Not to most people. The only return you get on charity is a tax break.
But the fear of the lord trusts that God is going to take care of me. I can give the first-fruits and trust God to provide more down the road. I can give charitably to him and to others and still have enough. I can be content with what he gives me, knowing as Job did, that we came into this world naked and that’s how we’re leaving as well. Everything comes from God and so I’m going to live with the mindset that all that I have is from God.
The fear of the Lord is relying on him to provide for us – even when his wisdom goes against our basic survival instincts.
Discipline
And finally, the fear of the Lord involves being corrected by him.
Proverbs 3:11–12 ESV
11 My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline
or be weary of his reproof,
12 for the Lord reproves him whom he loves,
as a father the son in whom he delights.
Discipline is not fun. Two reactions:
- Despise – Anger
- Weary – Depressed
When we read Hebrews 11 we hear about some of the horrific things God’s people have endured:
- Wanderings
- Torture
- Death
- Imprisonment
- Poverty
Not only is that a chapter that inspires us to have a greater faith to endure these trials, but it all leads up to Hebrews 12 – a discussion on the Lord’s discipline. We need to consider our hard times not as a sign of God abandoning us but testing and disciplining us. Rather than abandon wisdom because that’s what got us here in the first place we need to press on into that wisdom to preserve us through the storm.
It is a sign of love.
An artist will quickly sketch something for a fan that he cares nothing for. The drawing is done and over and never to the perfective quality he demands in other pieces. But in a artwork he loves he will always be scraping away imperfections, washing away smudges, and fussing over it. Because he loves the masterpiece. God’s constant scraping and reshaping of us, although painful, s a sign of his love in perfecting us.
Conclusion
Each of these ways of trusting God, by giving him money and submitting to discipline seem counterintuitive. Why should I give away money to receive more? Why should I submit to further punishment and a hard life when I can escape in other ways?
Don’t lean on our own understanding. Embrace the seeming paradox of God’s wisdom and learn to fear the Lord.