How To Keep Growing In Wisdom
Sermon Notes
Intro
The things we just celebrated are a few examples of what your invitations and financial giving are helping us accomplish. I mean if we never invited people to come to church, to be a part of City Awakening, there wouldn’t be anybody here. If we never gave financially to the church, we couldn’t rent this facility for the people we’ve invited to come. But your invitations and financial giving are allowing us to meet in this faciality, which is allowing people to come and have their lives transformed by Jesus, including lives in our student ministry. Your giving helped provide financial support for our students and chaperones to go to camp, and so thanks for your generosity. Let’s remember it’s your invitations that can lead to transformations, and it’s your giving generously that can reach more missionally. Let’s keep inviting and giving, so we can keep reaching people and reaching the world with the gospel!
Now as for today we’re continuing our teaching series on a book of the bible called Proverbs, which is about gaining practical wisdom for everyday life. This is actually our last week in this series, because next week we’ll be starting a new teaching series we’re calling Saturate, which is about learning how to live as instruments of grace. It’s about learning how to live as instruments of grace in our daily lives and city. But since today’s the last week in our Proverbs series, we want to talk about how to keep growing in wisdom? Throughout this series we’ve talked about growing in wisdom in different areas of our lives, but we certainly didn’t cover every area of our lives. In other words, there’s still areas in our lives we didn’t touch on that we still need growth in. So how do we keep growing in wisdom, despite the fact this series is ending? That’s what we’re talking about today, so let’s turn to Proverbs 3 and get into it. You’ll find Proverbs in the middle of the bible, and we’ll be in Proverbs 3:5-12. Title of today’s message is How To Keep Growing In Wisdom, and here’s the big idea. Growing in wisdom isn’t a sprint, it’s a process that takes time...Growing in wisdom isn’t a sprint, it’s a process that takes time...
Context:
Here’s your context. Proverbs was written by King Solomon who’s considered one of the most famous, wealthiest, wisest kings in history. Historically people traveled all over the world to gain from his wisdom, and in our study of ch 4 we learned everybody’s taking steps that lead to somewhere. Every step you take is a progression down a path that’s leading somewhere, and the path of wisdom is a marathon not a sprint. It’s a gradual progression of growth that happens over time. A baby isn’t born wise, they develop wisdom over time. It happens one step at a time, one day at a time, over a long period of time...But sometimes we view the path of wisdom as a sprint. Sometimes we expect our kids to be further along in wisdom, we expect new Christians to be more mature in their faith, or we expect ourselves to be more mature. But the path of wisdom is a marathon not a sprint, and if your daily steps are foolish, you’ll grow into being a foolish person. If your daily steps are wise, you’ll grow into being a wise person. Solomon’s about to teach us 4 daily steps, 4 daily practices, to help us grow in wisdom. Let’s check it out.
The Word:
Proverbs 3:5 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart...” There’s the 1st daily practice.
Daily Practice #1 = Trust God: Solomon says to trust God, to trust the Lord with all your heart, meaning you need to bury God’s love deep within your heart. It’s about having a relationship with the Lord, a deep trust in His unbreakable, unfailing love. It’s about reminding yourself daily to trust the Lord saying, “I trust you Lord. I trust you’re for me, not against me! I trust you’re committed to me and won’t abandon me! I trust even if today brings hardships that shatter me, you’ll pick me up with your love that can’t ever be shattered! I trust you Lord.” You need to remind yourself daily to trust God’s unfailing love. If you trust God’s unfailing love, it’ll help you to not panic when life falls apart, which allows you to make wiser decisions in life. When you’re panicking you aren’t thinking clearly, and you’ll make irrational decisions. But when you aren’t panicking you’re more clear headed, and you’ll make much wiser decisions.
So let me ask you this, what’s been causing you to panic?...What’s some things in your life, that are causing you to panic, causing you to worry, causing you to lose sleep over?...Are you panicking over finances or an unexpected bill?...Are you panicking over shifts in political power or conspiracy theories?...Are you panicking over recent spikes in COVID?...What’s been causing you to panic?...Those things you’re panicking over, worrying about, losing sleep over, are areas in your life you aren’t trusting God with. You’re panicking over those things because you aren’t trusting God will see you through those things, and you’re in danger of making some unwise irrational decisions for your life. I’m not saying you should be flippant about these issues or other issues in life. I’m saying if you trust God with all your heart, it’ll help you be so much more clear headed, and you’ll make much wiser decisions than if you’re panicking. If you trust the Lord with all your heart, you won’t have to panic when life falls apart. You won’t have to panic because you trust God’s unfailing love, will eventually make your bumpy path straight.
Again vs. 5 states, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding.” This the 2nd daily practice for growing in wisdom, it’s...
Daily Practice #2 = Read God’s Word: Solomon tells us to trust God, but to also trust God’s word. He says don’t rely on your own understanding; the Hebrew can translate as don’t lean on your own understanding. To lean on something means to put your weight on it, to rest on it. When you lean on a wall you put your weight on it and it helps hold you up, it helps take the burden off your feet. Solomon’s saying if we rely on, lean on, press our weight deeply into the wisdom of God’s word, it’ll lighten the burden of our steps. It’ll help make our path in life much straighter, than if we lean on our own understanding. Solomon’s considered one of the wisest people in history, yet here he is telling us the source of his wisdom, came from leaning on the wisdom of God. So how do we do that? How do we lean on the wisdom of God? First you need to read the wisdom of God, you need to read the bible. You can’t lean on the wisdom of God unless you read the wisdom of God. The bible’s full of wisdom for marriage, parenting, singleness, friendship, work relationships. It’s full of wisdom for your wealth, your mental health, emotional health, physical and spiritual health. It’s full of wisdom in so many areas of life, including how to have joy in life, and how to have a relationship with God so you can enjoy eternal life. Do if you want to grow in wisdom in all these areas and more, then read the wisdom of God.
Second you need to submit to the wisdom of God, submit to what the bible says. One of our codes here at City Awakening is we’ll read the bible and let the bible read us. What we mean by that is instead of us shaping and changing the bible, we want the bible to shape and change us. If you read the bible saying, “I don’t like that teaching, so I’m not going to believe and submit to that.” If you read the bible like that, then you’re leaning on your own understanding instead of God’s. You’re saying you have greater wisdom than God, you’re a greater expert on life than God. We do this a lot in life; we think we know better than the experts. A financial expert gives you wisdom for your finances, but you don’t follow it. A counseling expert gives you wisdom for your mental health, but you don’t follow it. A cardiologist expert gives you wisdom for your heart and physical health, but you’re still eating Baconators at Wendy’s...See our problem isn’t lack of information, it’s lack of implementation. It’s that we don’t implement the information we’ve been given. That’s why I’m saying it isn’t enough to just read the wisdom of God’s word, we also need to submit to the wisdom of God’s word. We need to live it out in our daily lives. James 1:22 states, “Be doers of the word and not hearers only... 25 The one who looks intently into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres in it and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer...this person will be blessed in what he does.” God is a far greater expert on life than us, and our lives will be blessed if we read and submit to His wisdom. Our path in life will be much straighter if we lean not on our own understanding, but on His wisdom.
Again vs. 5 states, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways know him, and he will make your paths straight. 7 Don’t be wise in your own eyes...” Solomon’s again telling us to not rely on our own wisdom, only this time he says it more explicitly. This leads to our 3rd daily practice for growing in wisdom, which is...
Daily Practice #3 = Let Others Examine Your Life: When Solomon says don’t be wise in your own eyes, what he’s saying is you need to let others examine your life, because you’re not as wise as you think you are. We live in an individualistic culture that thinks “I don’t need God’s word, I don’t need counseling, I don’t need help with daily life. I’m an American not an American’t...I can make my own decisions in life; I don’t need anybody else speaking into my life.” Solomon’s saying you’re a fool...He’s saying if you think you can go through life without the wisdom of God and the help of others, then you’re a fool...See wise people know they need help, because they know they have a lot of blind spots. But you can’t see your blind spots if you don’t have the wisdom of God’s word and other people examining your life. You’ll make foolish decisions in life, because you can’t see your flaws, weaknesses, limitations, your blind spots. I mean this is why when you take a picture you’re sometimes like “Let’s take another one. I don’t like that one, it was on my bad side.” Well, I hate to break it to you, but that bad side’s there 24/7. It’s there 24/7 and taking another picture, angling the camera up here instead of down here doesn’t change that. But you’re in denial of that reality so you take another picture. What about the first time you heard yourself on a voicemail? You’re like “Is that really me? Is that what my voice really sounds like?” You’re in denial the first time you hear your own voice. You sound way different than you think, and it takes other people to confirm it’s really your voice.
My point is you have blind spots, and you’ll never grow in wisdom if you don’t have others in your life who can speak into those blind spots. It’s one of the reasons we constantly encourage you to join a small group in our church. It’s because small groups can help you see what you can’t see in yourself. They can help speak into your blind spots, give you wise counsel, help you better understand God’s word, and hold you accountable to living it out. But we need to keep in mind the wisdom of others is always secondary to the wisdom of God. If the wisdom of others, if the wisdom of our culture disagrees with the wisdom of God, we submit to the wisdom of God not our culture. It’s because our culture has blind spots too. Everybody has blind spots except God! So it’s His wisdom that’s the greatest source of wisdom for speaking into the blind spots in your life. Hebrews 4:12 states, “For the word of God is living and active...discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” There’s no greater source of wisdom for speaking into the blind spots in your life, than the wisdom of God’s word. We need the wisdom of God’s word to reveal the foolishness in our hearts, and the community of believers to help examine the blind spots in our lives. Only a fool thinks they can be wise, in their own eyes...Let’s pick it up in vs 11.
Vs. 11, “Do not despise the Lord’s instruction, my son, and do not loathe his discipline; 12 for the Lord disciplines the one he loves, just as a father disciplines the son in whom he delights.” This is the 4th and last daily practice for growing in wisdom. Solomon’s teaching us...
Daily Practice #4 = Learn from the Lord’s discipline: Vs 12 says the Lord disciplines those He loves. This is why the 1st daily practice is so important, because if you don’t remember to trust in God’s unfailing love, you’ll get bitter at God and life when discipline or hardships come. But if you remember His unfailing love, then you’ll realize He isn’t disciplining you or allowing hardships in your life to hurt you, it’s to grow you. Just like a loving parent doesn’t delight in having to discipline their child, God doesn’t delight in having to discipline us. But He disciplines us because He loves us and wants to grow us. Just like you think it’s foolish if a parent lets their child do whatever they want, it’s foolish to think God should let you do whatever you want. Just like you think it’s foolish if a parent doesn’t discipline their child for foolish decisions that are harmful, it’s foolish to think God shouldn’t discipline you for foolish decisions that are harmful.
When God disciplines us or allows hardships in our lives, it’s always out of love and for our good. This is why Solomon says we shouldn’t loathe His discipline. He’s saying instead of loathing the Lord’s discipline, we should learnfrom the Lord’s discipline. Some of our greatest growth comes through learning from our mistakes, hardships, and discipline. If you want to grow in trusting the Lord, you have to go through difficult situations that require you to trust the Lord. If you want to grow in faith, you have to go through difficult situations that require you to have faith. If you want to grow in wisdom, you have to go through difficult situations where you’re disciplined for making foolish decisions. Some of our greatest growth in wisdom comes when instead of loathing we’re learning from our difficult situations in life. There’s a great poem that captures this well called It’s In The Valleys I Grow by Jane Eggleston.
The Big Idea:
So here’s the big idea. Growing in wisdom isn’t a sprint, it’s a process that takes time. It’s a process that can happen through the 4 daily practices. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus is the God that Solomon was pointing to. Jesus is the God who proved his unfailing love for us by dying for our sins on the cross. Jesus is the God we can lean on for wisdom, for growth in the valleys, for forgiveness of sins, for eternal life. Jesus is the God we can lean on to make our paths straight. It doesn’t say he’ll make your path easy, it says he’ll make your path straight. So instead of leaning on your own understanding lean on Jesus. He’ll not only make your path straight, he’ll make your path great, through the power of his resurrection.
COMMUNION
Communion is a reminder of the gospel. It’s a reminder that Jesus came to live, die, and rise again for the forgiveness of our sins. It’s a reminder of the unfailing love of Jesus. If you don’t believe in the gospel, if you aren’t a follower of Jesus, then please refrain from taking communion so you don’t go through the motions of this. Instead use this time to reflect on how leaning on your own understanding is working out for your life, and consider leaning on Jesus... At this time let’s start passing the elements, and as the elements are being passed let’s take a few minutes to prep our hearts, and for those online to prep their tables. Let’s take a few minutes to pray asking Jesus to forgive us for leaning on our own understanding, for trying to live our lives without him. Then let’s thank him for his unfailing love that he poured out on the cross.
On the night Jesus was betrayed he took some bread, gave thanks for it, broke it saying “This is my body which is to be broken for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. As often as you eat it, do so in remembrance of me, in remembrance of who I am and what I’ve done for you.” When supper ended, he took the cup, blessed it, gave thanks for it, and said “This is a symbol of my blood which is to be shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. As often as you drink it, do so in remembrance of me, in remembrance of who I am and what I’ve done.” City Awakening let’s eat, drink, and stand to worship Jesus for his unfailing love.