Pursue Wisdom

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

WATER LEAK INTRODUCTION
Good morning! My name is David Sorn and I’m the Lead Pastor here.
Let me start by saying how grateful we are to God for last week.
As many of you know, we had to cancel first service last week because the shutoff to our water softener inexplicably blew apart (even though everything is NEW in this building)…
…and the utility room, and janitorial closet started to flood.
Even in the 10-20 minutes before our amazing Café Volunteer Jeanne Bott spotted it, water had already begun to leak out into the hallway, and beyond…
But it was manageable, and all cleaned up, and fixed…and we only lost one service.
But had that happened at 3am and not 7:30am... Or on a Saturday.
Who knows what devastation that could have brought to this new beautiful building that we all put so much into, and the Lord is using so mightily.
So even in the midst of difficulty, we praise God for his mercy and protection!

SENGER MISSIONARY SEND-OFF
And let tell you something else we’re praising God for.
We are continuing to be able to send more and more people off to the International Mission Field, which is amazing!
Part of this, is due to the fact that about 6 months ago, we were able to hire, for the very first time ever, a full-time Missions Pastor.
If you haven’t met Pastor Nate yet, he’s a great guy.
He’s actually in South America right now, looking at a possible future missions trip for us
But we want to bring the Gospel, not only to Blaine, but to the ends of the earth…
…and so our heart is to send out may of our own people to the mission field.
So at this point, I’d like to bring Temple & Haley Senger.
Temple & Haley…are both leaving in ________ days to help bring the Gospel to Thailand.
Pretty cool to have a mother & daughter combo, although they will eventually be doing different things in different places.
And I’d love for you to hear a bit from them!

Okay, it’s a massive deal to leave your country, your family, everything you know for the Gospel, so we want to send them off in prayer.
So if you are in their house church, or you’re close friend or family…we want you to actually come on stage and lay hands on them (go ahead)
1st: I’ve asked Matt, who is the Elder of Haley’s House Church to pray over them.
2nd: I’ve asked Tim, who is the Elder of Temple’s House Church to pray over them.
This is the pattern we see in the Bible, in Acts 13, when Paul & Barnabas were sent off to the mission field. The church laid hands on them.

MESSAGE INTRO
If you want to know more about what the Senger’s will be doing in Thailand, they will have a table in the lobby, and they’d love you to ask them any questions you have or encourage them as well!
All right, we are now in week 3 of our 9-week teaching series on Proverbs chapters 1-9 called “Ways of the Wise
Go ahead and open your Bibles
Proverbs 2:1-8
Page 433
Proverbs is a book of the Bible filled with a ton of advice on how we should live.
And that is huge.
We need that.
Because we all face tough decisions, (sometimes more than we’d like!)…at work, at home, with our family or friends.
And my desire for you as you face those tough decisions is that you not only KNOW the wisdom of God, but can live it out.
But we’ve got to start by learning it.
So let’s take a look at this.
(Proverbs 2:1-8) – NIV
My son, if you accept my words
    and store up my commands within you,
2 turning your ear to wisdom
    and applying your heart to understanding—
3 indeed, if you call out for insight
    and cry aloud for understanding,
4 and if you look for it as for silver
    and search for it as for hidden treasure,
5 then you will understand the fear of the Lord
    and find the knowledge of God.
6 For the Lord gives wisdom;
    from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
7 He holds success in store for the upright,
    he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless,
8 for he guards the course of the just
    and protects the way of his faithful ones.
(Pursue Wisdom)
We’re gonna look at the second half of this passage in House Church this week (so don’t miss that), but I want us to really laser in on this first section.
Because within it is this idea that wisdom is WORTH pursuing.
It’s a treasure worth seeking after.
But how do you actually pursue wisdom?
If you truly do want to know the Ways of the Wise, and you want to get wiser, how do you practically do that?
That is what this passage is helping us with.

#1: READ SCRIPTURE
SO I want to give you four ways that you can (and should!) actively pursue wisdom as a follower of Christ.
4 Ways to Pursue Wisdom
#1: Read Scripture
This Book right here is our number one source of wisdom.
It’s incredible.
It literally changed my life when I began to read it.
Not only because it showed me the path to salvation.
But it showed me how to live.
Often, when I look at my life, I feel blessed.
I feel like God has been so good to me.
But I know at least some of the blessings have come from just simply trusting Him and walking on His path.
There’s a Christian song that came out shortly after I came to Christ where the singer wonders if when we get to heaven God will show us how we would have lived if we would have never become Christians.
And I think about that sometimes.
And I know myself well enough, and where I was headed, that there would have been so much heartache and destruction on my future path.
And so it’s not JUST that God saved me from hell.
It’s that by walking with Him and living according to His Wisdom and “the ways of the wise,” He saved my life from a lot of pain.
So look again at verse one of our passage
Solomon tells his son to accept His words of wisdom.
Then He says, “Store up my commands within you.”
That phrase “Store Up” is really important if you want to understand the nature of wisdom
Too often what we want is just knowledge on the spot, which is different from wisdom.
Like, something goes wrong in our lives:
You’re put in a precarious situation at work
Your kid faces a challenge, and you’re not sure what to do
And often what we want is just on-the-spot spot knowledge.
And you find yourself googling, “What do I do when I have an argument with the person I’m dating?”
OR, “What do I do when my adult children won’t let me see my grandkids that often?”
And what we so often are looking for in the instant-society we live in is just quick-fix-answers.
But wisdom, real wisdom, isn’t something that you can just ask Alexa for
Wisdom is, like the Bible says, “Stored up” within us.
And so yes, go to Scripture when life gets hard.
But more importantly, go to Scripture BEFORE life gets hard.
That way, wisdom will be stored up in you, so you will know what to do when you need to know what to do!
And often that “stored up” wisdom is the thing that keeps you from heartache in the first place!
And so if you’re going to obey this advice from verse 1 and store up God’s commands within you…
You want to get started in reading Scripture every day, or to get back into it
And for those of you that are already doing it every: Start storing it up by memorizing more of it (and there are a ton of apps for that)
But listen, we all have the time to read Scripture
There was a study done a few years ago, where they said the average person on social media reads the same amount of WORDS on social media each day that are in the novel the Great Gatsby.
Which, isn’t a particularly long novel.
But still.
You could read a novel’s worth of Scripture each day, and yet here we are watching cat videos and football highlights online.
We have the time.
But you won’t be successful without a plan.
So when you start reading the Bible again today, or tomorrow morning, where will you start?
I have two Bible reading plans I made myself for our church years ago that are great particularly if you’re just getting started (as many of you are) or just getting back to it.
We have our Bible Pyramid
(Bible Pyramid)
Which is where we have you start with the easiest books in the Bible first and build up a foundation.
Or, we have 100 Chapters in 100 Days
(100 Chapters in 100 Days)
Which covers 100 of the most important chapters of the Bible (from beginning to end) in 100 days, and gives you a great overview of Scripture.
You can find these on our app, or out at the Welcome Table in the lobby
OR, there are a million plans online.
But if you want wisdom, there is no greater place to start than in This Book.
It’s a non-negotiable really.
You can’t get wise if you don’t start here.

#2: READ OTHER BOOKS
Okay, let’s get to a second way we should pursue wisdom
4 Ways to Pursue Wisdom
#1: Read Scripture
#2: Read Other Books
Look at verse 2 now.
turning your ear to wisdom
    and applying your heart to understanding—
Look at the intentionality in this.
You are to “turn your ear” to wisdom.
You intentionally are setting your face, your life, towards wisdom.
Seeking it out.
And if you want to do that…you’ve got to read.
Read the biographies of the greats who followed Christ, and God did amazing things through them.
Read what the great Christian thinkers have to say about Theology, or apologetics (why our faith is true), or even what they have to say on raising kids or how to have a thriving, Godly marriage.
And I know that a bunch of you are going, “I don’t read.”
I’d say 2 things:
1: Don’t let your pride of that get in the way of you chasing wisdom. Even if it’s hard.
And 2: If you just can’t get yourself to read:
There’s a ton of good content you can listen to…even on YouTube.
Or listen to an audiobook.
Honestly, over 2/3 of the books I consume each year, I do on audiobook.
On my commute, while I run.
Listen to podcasts.
Now, podcasts can be nice.
But books…books are the results of someone’s very disciplined, and organized, and edited thoughts.
Where a podcast is often just a guests random thoughts.
But still, it’s better than nothing.
But get a plan to, as the Word says, “Turn your ear to wisdom” this year.
Say, “Over the next 12 months, I’m going to read or listen to 2 books.”
Maybe that’s 2 more than you read this year.
Or maybe it’s 5 or 10.
And you have a great resource here.
We have an absolutely incredible Christian library.
When we were doing the initial planning for this building expansion, I told our architects that I wanted a library.
And they said, “Wow, I don’t know. We haven’t put one in a church in probably 20 years”
But I said, “Listen, A) Times are changing, and B) This is a church that prioritizes the pursuit of wisdom. We want God to teach us! Just trust me, it’s going to work!”
And get this, since we opened the library up in March, we’ve already had over 6,000 checkouts, and the amount of books checked out grows every month.
So maybe for you, your application point today is to just walk down to the library in the Adult Wing for the first time, and check out a book.
If you don’t know where to start, I’ve got reading list ideas in there for you, or our librarians can even show you where to find books by category.
Also, I think a lot of this point is connected to the “store up” point of verse 1
So I try and read or listen to 30-40 books a year.
And I want you to understand that rarely do they help me RIGHT IN THE MOMENT.
But they store up wisdom in me that I can use later when I need it.
Turn your ear towards wisdom and start storing it up

#3: SEEK THE LORD.
Okay, let’s get to a third way we should actively pursue wisdom
4 Ways to Pursue Wisdom
#1: Read Scripture
#2: Read Other Books
#3: Seek the Lord
Look at verse 3 now.
3 indeed, if you call out for insight
    and cry aloud for understanding,
In our relationship with God, we should be asking, daily for His Wisdom.
And not just asking…Solomon says, “CALL OUT,” and “CRY ALOUD”
We are to seek with a desperation in our spirit.
It reminds me of a story I read not all that long ago…maybe you’ve already heard of this…
In 2010, a millionaire and collector named Forest Fenn decided to hide a treasure worth about 2 million dollars somewhere in the Rocky Mountains.
(FennTreasure)
He wrote a book with clues, and a treasure hunt started.
And I guess a ton of people tried to decipher the clues and looked for it in the Rockies
In fact, not one, not two, but FIVE people DIED trying to find the treasure.
But in 2020, 10 years after the treasure hunt began, a guy finally found it in Wyoming.
And it’s an important illustration because the Bible says we should seek Wisdom from God like that…like it’s TREASURE. Because it is!
Look at verses 4 & 5 again
4 and if you look for it as for silver
    and search for it as for hidden treasure,
5 then you will understand the fear of the Lord
    and find the knowledge of God.
God is your Heavenly Father, and he wants to give you His Wisdom.
(James 1:5) – NIV
5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.
God is looking at you right now, and He’s just waiting for you to ask.
To say, with humility, “I don’t want to trust my own gut anymore, “Father, tell me what to do!”
This is verse 6 in our passage too:
For the Lord gives wisdom;
    from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
And so ask yourself: “When I pray, am I actively seeking God’s Wisdom?”
Or, “Am just going through my list of wants?”
So this week, when you pray, actively pursue God’s Wisdom!

#4: SEEK OUT WISE CHRISTIANS
And let’s look at a 4th way to pursue wisdom.
4 Ways to Pursue Wisdom
#1: Read Scripture
#2: Read Other Books
#3: Seek the Lord
#4: Seek Out Wise Christians
This one is all over the Book of Proverbs.
Look at Proverbs 15:12 for example.
(Proverbs 15:12) – NIV
Mockers resent correction, 
    so they avoid the wise.
Or..
(Proverbs 9:8) – NIV
Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
The underlying idea is that wise people not only SEEK OUT people wiser than them…
But WISE people then listen to the direction of those wiser than them…even when they’re corrected, or rebuked!
But what do the foolish do?
They avoid the wise.
And I think is a tough one for our current cultural moment.
Wisdom is not automatic for us.
Wisdom is not our default setting.
It makes me think of this quote by Bible Scholar Raymond Ortlund
“We will never get there by drifting. You cannot become a significant person by being neutral and cute and safely unchanged. That is complacency.”  – Raymond Ortlund
4 Ways to Pursue Wisdom
#1: Read Scripture
#2: Read Other Books
#3: Seek the Lord
#4: Seek Out Wise Christians
And what I want you to see is that, particularly on point #4 (Seek out Wise Christians), our culture is working against you.
Because our culture tells you that there is no truth, but your truth.
So why would you need the counsel of others?
And our culture tells you not to listen to people who challenge you, or make you uncomfortable with their feedback, but just to find your safe space…where you’re not challenged by different ideas and perspectives.
But you can’t grow without resistance.
Think about how muscles grow and get stronger.
They grow through resistance training
And so does wisdom.
Your wisdom grows when you let other people (wiser than you) speak into your life…and even challenge your thinking!
It reminds me of when I went to Seminary to learn how to be pastor and Bible Teacher when I was 22.
And I knew almost nothing because I didn’t grow up a follower of Christ.
I had gifts for ministry and teaching, but not much wisdom, and very little knowledge.
And I used to describe seminary this way: “Every day I show up to class and find out that I was wrong.”
I would find out, from some gifted Theology Professor, that what I thought about God or the Bible, was wrong, and I’d have to correct my thinking.
And I still remember, 3 years later, when I was about to graduate, telling a friend, “I can’t wait to get out of seminary, and just be right for a few years.”
I said, “I don’t want to read, I don’t want anyone to challenge me. I just want to be right for a while”
But you know what that did?
It just stalled my growth in wisdom…for about 2 or 3 years!
Wisdom is having the courage to say:
“I’m willing to find out that what I think, or what I’m doing, is wrong.”
Wisdom is asking another Christian to speak into your life.
And tell you what you need to work on.
Wisdom is showing up to House Church, getting in your small group, and saying:
“I’m going to listen to what the others are saying. I want to take their advice and live it out.”
(PURSUE WISDOM – Title screen)
Wisdom is signing up for a House Church in the first place.
Which is half the battle!
You can’t get wisdom from other Christians if you’re not around them!
Our House Churches are very full.
We have over 1,000 adults in House Churches now.
But I know for a fact that we have about 10 spots still open.
PURSUE wisdom.
Sign up in the lobby, or on the app.
And so I want you all to think about these 4 ways to Pursue Wisdom
4 Ways to Pursue Wisdom
#1: Read Scripture
#2: Read Other Books
#3: Seek the Lord
#4: Seek Out Wise Christians
And I want you to pick one of them.
Pick one area where you know you need to improve.
And find a practical way that you are going to pursue wisdom within that area this week.
It’s the way of the wise.
The wise PURSUE wisdom.

GOSPEL
And listen, the greatest source of wisdom is through knowing Jesus Christ.
And if you don’t personally know Jesus yet, this is your day.
Maybe you’ve been coming here the last several weeks, or months even…and you’ve been thinking about this.
Or you’ve seen, as every week, more and more people in our city, and our county are turning their lives over to God here.
And they stand up here and talk about it, and it amazes you.
That’s because God is real, and He can do that in your life.
You just need to invite Him in, and accept Him as your Leader and Savior.
Jesus came to die on the cross for your sins…dying in your place.
And the Bible says that if you believe in faith that He died for you, and you make Him the Lord and Leader of your life.
You can have a relationship with Him, you can be forgiven (because He will have paid for your sins), and you can spend eternity (not in hell), but in heaven!
AND…you can then walk in His Wisdom!!
But it starts with you surrendering to Him in faith.
And if you need to do that this morning, I want you think about it for a few minutes.
And if you’re ready, I’m going to come back up here in a few minutes, and ask you to make a decision for Him, okay?
All right, let’s pray.