The Benefits of Wisdom
Sermon Notes
When I was a child I had a fascination with infomercials that explain every great feature of the product. “But wait there’s more!” Today, we’ll explore even more benefits to Wisdom than we have already in this series.
We’ll cover most of the context as we go, but just as a reminder, Proverbs is written by King Solomon as a guide to wisdom for his son. And Solomon gave us a thesis in chapter 1:7 for the entire book that colors everything that is taught throughout. The part of that thesis dealing with wisdom is “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” So, wisdom and knowledge as Solomon understands it finds its beginning and core identity in a right understanding and relationship with God. So, with that in mind, let’s dive into the Benefits of Wisdom.
My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, 2 listening closely[a] to wisdom and directing your heart to understanding; 3 furthermore, if you call out to insight
and lift your voice to understanding, 4 if you seek it like silver and search for it like hidden treasure, 5 then you will understand the fear of the Lord and discover the knowledge of God.
Here we see the first benefit of Wisdom…
1. Wisdom leads to and strengthens our relationship with God.
These verses are teaching the same exact thing as the thesis that we just discussed from verse 1:7. But in our text today Solomon uses an extended conditional or if/then statement to teach it. This is an incredibly common teaching and rhetorical technique, and something that we use in regular conversation. (quick example) So, let’s take a look first at the “if” section. What you’ll notice is the sheer number of appeals that Solomon make to his son to implore him to seek and believe God’s wisdom. He appeals to him to accept wise teaching and store it up, don’t let it slip away. He’s to listen closely, the ESV translates that as “make your ear attentive,” and direct or incline his heart to understanding (the heart in the Bible is used as the center of your personality, emotions, and even thoughts). He is to call out with a loud voice for wisdom and understanding (we’ll talk about that more in a sec), and he is to seek it out and regard it as precious treasure. These verses show that God’s wisdom is not to be just an accessory of our lives or an appendage, but something that we holistically follow and seek after. It is to be gone after with every aspect of who we are.
This reminds me so much of a few things that Jesus would eventually teach. Many times, when Jesus was about to teach, He would say “he who has ears, let him hear.” Now He didn’t say that because Galilee and Judea had a huge epidemic of deafness and earlessness. It’s because Jesus knew that the posture of someone’s heart or their willingness to be taught by and receive wisdom affected how they would hear His Gospel. He taught this in the parable of the soils. All the soil types received the same seed of the Gospel, but only one grew to full belief and life in Gospel truth and wisdom. We experience this frustration in our lives as well. We all have experienced the disappointment when people hear truth or wisdom, and some are changed by while others reject it completely. Parents, has your child applied everything that you’ve taught them the first time you taught them? (Yeah, just checking) And there’s examples of this all across our lives. The challenge then is to check you heart, your inclination, your desires, and your listening when it comes to learning about God and His wisdom for your life. This applies to those of us who are Christians, but it applies even more so if you would call yourself a skeptic or exploring Christianity. If you don’t believe in God now, are you at least seeking Him with open ears and a willing heart? It’s a question you need to wrestle with, because it will certainly affect how you approach Christianity.
This point of Wisdom leading to and strengthening our relationship with God. Mirrors our Gospel DNA as a church. When it comes to the Gospel, we affirm that “The Gospel is not just the way to eternal life, the Gospel is our life.” The Gospel is the good news that leads us to a right relationship or fear of the Lord. It tells us who God is, who we are as sinners in relation to Him, and how the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus reconciles that difference. That leads to eternal reward for us, instead of punishment. But Proverbs shows us that there’s even more benefit to us. Not only does relationship with God give us joy in eternity after this life is over, it helps us to live this life that we have in the wisest and most satisfying way. Let’s take a look at another benefit of Wisdom…
6 For the Lord gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding. 7 He stores up success for the upright;
2. Wisdom is a gift from God (6-7a)
We should seek wisdom diligently, but we don’t get it based on our merit. We receive it as a gift from God through His grace. This is one of those times when we have to recognize the two truths that are stated in Scripture. One, that God is sovereign over all things. And two, that we still bear responsibility for our individual choices and actions. The Bible is clear that both of these things are true and does not put them at odds. We as finite thinking humans have at times put these concepts at odds. What we have to do is exercise some humility and wisdom to understand that there is enough space on this issue for Christians to debate the exact mechanics and nature of how this works. Where we stray into wrong doctrine is when we start to deny one truth of Scripture in favor of another truth of Scripture. There’s a passage out of the book of James that teaches this so well. Remember these are the words of Jesus’ own brother, who for a time did not believe in Jesus as the Son of God but later became a key leader in the early church. Take a look at James 1:5-8.
5 Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God—who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly—and it will be given to him. 6 But let him ask in faith without doubting. For the doubter is like the surging sea, driven and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord, 8 being double-minded and unstable in all his ways.
James is talking about the gift of Wisdom from God just like Solomon does. It is a massive blessing that if we value wisdom from and desire to have it, we can ask God and expect to receive it. And not only does He give it, He gives it generously and ungrudgingly. God doesn’t shake His head and go, “I can’t believe you are so foolish and need me to give you wisdom. (Sigh) Ok here you go.” That is an incredible gift and source of confidence for us. But he also teaches that this can’t be done with doubting. The kind of doubting that James is talking about is doubt that questions God’s goodness or inherent nature. We can’t dishonor God by questioning even his goodness and then readily expect to benefit from His wisdom. So, instead of feeling the security and grounding of wisdom coming from the fear of the Lord, we would feel the instability of being double-minded.
Those two benefits of Wisdom work hand in hand. Wisdom is something that connects us to God, because it is a gift of God. Now let’s move on to the benefit that Solomon spends the most verses in this chapter on.
He is a shield for those who live with integrity 8 so that He may guard the paths of justice and protect the way of His loyal followers. 9 Then you will understand righteousness, justice, and integrity—every good path. 10 For wisdom will enter your mind, and knowledge will delight your heart. 11 Discretion will watch over you, and understanding will guard you,
3. Wisdom shields us from major sins and consequences (7b-19)
Take a look at all of the safety and protection language that Solomon uses here. Shield, guard, protect, justice, integrity, discretion.
Like we talked about last week, wisdom doesn’t protect us from all bad or hard things that could happen to us. It likely won’t stop a cancer diagnosis or tornado damage. It will, however, give us the tools and mindset to deal with those things in a way that pleases and is aided by God. What wisdom is very effective at protecting and shielding us from are the consequences that inevitably flow from our own foolishness and sinful actions. Acting wisely with money shields us from things like bankruptcy due to us always overspending or from criminal trial due to the thought that no one would notice if we just skimmed a little off the top. Acting wisely in relationships shields from the brokenness that comes from things like bitterness/conflict, adultery, or casual sexual relationships. As you can see, while wisdom doesn’t shield us from all harm, it most certainly limits that harm that we may end up doing to ourselves.
Solomon gives us two examples of sins that Wisdom protects us from in the next few verses. He does this by personifying the sins as a man and a woman. Now to be clear, these illustrations aren’t exhaustive of how all men or women sin. We have to remember that Solomon is illustrating these sins in a way that his son would best understand them. This will be clear as we read them.
The first example we need protection from is the Crooked, Deceitful Men
rescuing you from the way of evil—from the one who says perverse things, 13 from those who abandon the right paths to walk in ways of darkness, 14 from those who enjoy doing evil
and celebrate perversion, 15 whose paths are crooked, and whose ways are devious.
Many translations use the masculine pronoun in verse 12, that’s why I describe this as the crooked and deceitful man. But take a look at the sins that we need to be shielded from: perversion of the truth, abandonment of the right paths in favor of darkness, enjoying evil instead of loving God’s wisdom and guidance. This was the tactic of the serpent in Garden with Adam and Eve. He twisted God’s Word and made them question God’s intentions and it led to disastrous results. Romans 1 describes this as exchanging the truth of God for a lie. Elsewhere in Proverbs and Psalms these kind of men are associated with violence, and they’re always looking to recruit others to take part in their violence and perversion of truth. You can envision the crooked employee at the firm the pulls aside the young new hire and says, “Here’s what you’ve got to do to make it in this business, cut a few corners, fudge some numbers. It’s all part of the industry, everyone’s doing it.” This is the gang member recruiting a kid to join the gang, because he know how to teach him to be a real man and take back some power. We’ve all seen the devastating results that happen when people start to believe the lies and enjoy living in the darkness.
Wisdom and knowledge shield us from this by revealing these schemes for what they are, destructive and deceitful lies. It lets us understand that God’s ways are there to bring us a joy that will never fade. If you flip one book forward to Psalm 1 we actually get a beautiful picture of someone who lives in God’s wisdom instead of these destructive lies.
How happy is the one who does not walk in the advice of the wicked or stand in the pathway with sinners or sit in the company of mockers! 2 Instead, his delight is in the Lord’s instruction,
and he meditates on it day and night. 3 He is like a tree planted beside flowing streams
that bears its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.
That’s quite the stark difference, wisdom not only shields us from the destruction of living in darkness, it also refreshes us with God’s power and sustenance. It allows us to bear fruit in this life that matters and causes us no guilt or shame. Let’s see what else wisdom shields us from.
16 It will rescue you from a forbidden woman, from a stranger with her flattering talk, 17 who abandons the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God; 18 for her house sinks down to death and her ways to the land of the departed spirits. 19 None return who go to her; none reach the paths of life.
Again, before we believe lies that our culture might spread about passages like this, this is not Solomon saying that all women are wily temptresses. Or that all adultery or sexual sin are the fault of seductive women. We know that’s not true, because the chapter before this he personified Wisdom itself as a virtuous woman and he ends the book of Proverbs with chapter 31 about a godly woman. Again he’s contextualizing this to make the most sense to his son.
Let’s take a look at the sins and temptations that wisdom shields us from. The first is flattering talk, someone or something bolstering your ego, building up your pride. This is a temptation we all face. Social media and the influencer movement have made this even worse. If you want to be affirmed in something, even sinful decisions, you can find a community that will affirm you. Someone’s always ready to tell you “Be you” “Live your truth, your best life.” “It’s your life, you have the final say.” If we cast off God’s wisdom, we can convince ourselves that anything we want is the best thing for us. And we end up in the same place that we talked about with the Crooked and Deceitful Man. While the man pushes you to that place with lies, the flatterers slowly lure and pull you there. But the result is the same, we begin to love darkness and sin more than God’s wisdom.
The other sin mentioned here is adultery, lust, and any sexual sin. We so often claim that our current time is so sexualized, but the truth is, this has been a problem for humanity ever since the Fall. We’ve always been able to convince ourselves that sex outside of God’s design of one man and one woman united in covenant marriage is justifiable and even preferrable. We buy into the lies of sowing your wild oats or try before you buy or do whatever makes you happy. But look at where it leads us to. Brokenness, dissatisfaction, perversion, addiction. Even in these verses, the adultery leads to the destruction of the man and woman and both of their original families. We’ve all heard too many stories of even prominent pastors and faith leaders that have fallen into this temptation ruining their ministry and the good name of God.
Ironically, despite Solomon’s historically documented wisdom and power, even he succumbed to this sin. The Bible tells us that he had 700 wives and 300 concubines. Now if that wasn’t problematic enough, many of his wives were from foreign nations that worshipped other gods. Out of Solomon’s misguided love and feelings of flattery and lust that he got from all these wives. He allowed them to bring in their own idols for worship and even took part himself at times. As a result, Israel fell back into a constant struggle with idolatry, particularly the worship of sexual or fertility gods like Baal and Asherah. This idolatry caused the kingdom of Israel to split within a few years of Solomon’s death and eventually led to both halves of the kingdom being destroyed and exiled as punishment from God. Following God’s wisdom is not just helpful bits of insight to live by, it’s a vital protection against these real-world examples that are too numerous to list across history.
Like I said, there are numerous and wonderful benefits to God’s Wisdom. But wait, there’s more! One more benefit from this chapter to close us out this morning.
20 So follow the way of the good and keep to the paths of the righteous. 21 For the upright will inhabit the land, and those of integrity will remain in it; 22 but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous ripped out of it.
What you may be thinking right now is, “Oh no I fail at living wisely all the time.” Maybe you’ve fallen into some of the sins that we’ve described today that wisdom is supposed to protect you from. Maybe you’re sitting there thinking that there’s no way you can live this out. Or you just can’t picture what this could look like in your life. That leads us to this 4th benefit of God’s Wisdom.
4. Wisdom finds its fulfillment in Jesus Christ.
Solomon advises his son and us to follow the way of the good and stay to the path of the righteous. What we talked about all through our Visible God series that went through the Gospel of John is that Jesus is perfect and holy God made visible to us. He exemplified the wisdom of God and lived perfectly according to it. The book of Hebrews tells us that He was tempted in every way that we are yet without sinning even once. He faced direct temptation and confrontation with Satan himself in the wilderness and turned away every advance by quoting the wisdom of Scripture back at him. And as a result of Him living the life that we could not live and dying the death that we deserve, we now have forgiveness for the times that we still are not able to resist the sin in our lives. In the same way that we can ask for wisdom and receive it from God, we can ask for forgiveness and repent from our sins. 1 John 1:9 tells us, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” The Benefits of Wisdom are not supposed to lead us to despair when we fail, but to give us the hope and joy needed to face the various challenges that life in a fallen, sinful world will throw at us. I implore you today to ask for God’s wisdom and forgiveness found in Jesus either to help you grow even closer to him or for the very first time today.