Gracious Heavenly Father, we ask that you would
help us to listen carefully to your Word. We
pray that you would change us as we listen to
it and help us to commit to your Word and to
wisdom that this may not just be a one -time
thing today, but something we do for the rest
of our life. And we ask this in Jesus' name.
Amen. Well, when we lived in Broken Hill, one
of the realities about Broken Hill, which we
learnt pretty quickly, is that there are two
seasons in Broken Hill. There's summer and winter.
You get about two weeks where it's actually nice.
It's either extremely hot or extremely cold.
And so one of the things you have to do is make
sure you've got a pulpit like Cairns. And so
in summer, when it was really hot, we would take
our kids for a swim. Here was our pool. We actually
had a bunch of bees and wasps. So we set up some
netting to try and keep them away. That's what
all that is. But here's our pool back in Broken
Hill. And normally it was pretty good. But if
we took the pool cover off, do you know what
would happen on those hot days? It would be extremely
cold in the pool. Actually, any time we took
the pool cover off, it would be extremely cold.
And for our kids, it meant they got stuck in
paralysis. Because here's what they'd do. They'd
go up to the pool and they'd dip their toe in
the water. And they'd go, too cold! And they
wouldn't jump in. And they'd stay outside and
they'd miss out on the fun. And so you know the
trick. Do you know the trick with the pool? You
have to dive in, don't you? Feet first. And then
you're not cold once you're in. or you need a
parent to throw you in. I don't know, one of
the two. But some way, you've got to get in that
pool, don't you? Well, in life, there are big
long -term decisions that we all make that are
a bit like that, aren't there? Let me give you
one example. One example is marriage. It's tricky
to work out who to marry. And dating is kind
of dipping your toe in the water to see if it's
good. Is this a good fit? Okay, well... I'm just
dipping my toe in. But marriage is where you
jump in feet first, isn't it? You say, I'm going
to share my life with someone, commit to them
through the ups and downs for life. And many
people today, they won't commit because they
don't want to be stuck. They don't want to be
tied down. They want to keep things casual. So
they say, maybe forever. But at some point, to
get the best out of it, you have to commit, don't
you? Well, I want to suggest that's what's been
going on as we've been reading proverbs. Reading
proverbs is a bit like dating wisdom. I don't
know if you realise that you've been dating wisdom
this last term, but you have. And we've been
seeing if wisdom is a good fit for us. But there
comes a point where we have to commit. Where
we go, will I stick with wisdom or will we move
on? I can't just keep flirting with wisdom forever.
And this last chapter of Proverbs is trying to
show us that this is the most important decision
ever. Our passage is saying committing to wisdom,
having it in your life, is the best decision
you can make. Here's our big idea for today.
Commit to wisdom, you will not regret it. That's
what I'm hoping you'll take away from today.
Commit to wisdom, you will not regret it. And
it's a fitting end to the book, as we've been
dating wisdom. It's saying to us now, marry wisdom,
commit, jump in feet first. And it closes the
book by giving us three ways in which wisdom
is awesome, to really try and get us across the
line that we will commit. So here are the three
ways. wisdom prevents awful ruin, wisdom brings
rich blessings, and wisdom beats everything else.
So let's have a look at each of these. Firstly,
wisdom prevents awful ruin. It protects you from
the ruin of folly and all the awful things that
go along with folly. Have a look at verses one
to nine with me if you've got your Bible there.
The sayings of King Lemuel. and inspired utterance
his mother taught him. Listen, my son, listen,
son of my womb, listen, my son, the answer to
my prayers, do not spend your strength on women,
your vigor on those who ruin kings. It is not
for kings the mule, it is not for kings to drink
wine, not for rulers to crave beer, lest they
drink and forget what has been decreed and deprive
all the oppressed of their rights. Let beer be
for those who are perishing. Wine for those who
are in anguish. Let them drink and forget their
poverty and remember their misery no more. Speak
up for those who cannot speak for themselves.
For the rights of all who are destitute, speak
up and judge fairly. Defend the rights of the
poor and needy. Now, King LeMule's mum is doing
some fantastic parenting here, isn't she? She's
preparing her son to fulfil his calling, to lead
wisely and fairly, to care for the poor, the
needy and the vulnerable. And she's warning him
that what will undermine him is anethetising
himself. Whether it's through lots of relationships
with women, whether it's through alcohol, anethetising
himself will actually stop him being the sort
of ruler and person that he needs to be. She's
warning him about using women and alcohol like
opioids and painkillers, that they just help
him forget everything, which will cloud his judgment
and steal his focus. And such folly wouldn't
just hurt him, but it would hurt the people under
his care. Did you see that bit there where it
says down in verse 6, let beer be for those who
are perishing, wine for those who are in anguish?
You know, it's not saying that yes, we should
go and just hand out wine and beer to all those
who are struggling. It's a biting sarcasm here.
It's saying let them get drunk, not you, you
ruler. The least you could do is let them have
some painkillers and opioids to just forget about
their pain for a while. Don't you go off drinking?
Actually, you know, it would be better than that.
Go and rule well so they don't have things to
worry about and be upset about. But this is what
happens though, isn't it? When one isn't committed
to wisdom, they become committed to escape. And
they hurt themselves and those under their care.
And that's what Lemuel's mum is warning him not
to do here. Be someone who is alert and awake
and ready to care for others. I remember years
ago when we lived in Perth, Ethan started his
first day of school and he got to know this other
kid and they became really good friends and as
we got to know this other kid's mum, we found
out she had a very sad story. She was a recovered
drug addict and at one point she'd actually had
her kids taken away because her addiction got
so bad. Her desire to escape the pain of her
life stopped her being a functional parent. That's
so sad, isn't it? And thankfully that was the
wake -up call she needed to stop taking drugs.
But she had to see that her addiction hurt so
many, her kids, her wider family, her neighbourhood.
Anecetising yourself is not harmless. It removes
our judgement and stops us caring for people
as we should. And what about us? Are we anaesthetising
ourselves at great cost to ourselves and others?
See, our culture today has normalised numbing
anything painful, uncomfortable or unsettling.
We do it today with unbridled sexual gratification
or excessive alcohol But there's other ways we
do it today isn't there with online retail therapy
sugar screens sport I Think these days we become
so tired and stressed that we chase anything
that feels good even if it clouds our judgement,
even if it drags us from responsibilities or
stops us sitting with important problems. Now,
don't get me wrong, I'm not saying let's just
be all grumpy people all the time. There is a
time and a place to enjoy yourself and enjoy
good things, but if we're always looking to anethetise
ourselves from life, we've got to ask why are
we doing that? Who are we hurting by doing that?
How are we going to change? See, committing to
wisdom means balance. It's enjoying the good,
not consistently self -indulging to escape. It
means processing pain healthily and handling
our responsibilities. Such wisdom prevents ruin.
and it's a good way to live. So that's what committing
wisdom looks like. It prevents ruin, but it's
not the only thing that happens when you commit
to wisdom. Here's the other thing that happens.
Wisdom brings rich blessings. Wisdom brings rich
blessings. Have a look with me at verses 10 to
12. She is worth far more than rubies. Her husband
has full confidence in her and lacks nothing
of value. She brings him good, not harm, all
the days of her life. Now this is an incredible
passage. The wife of noble character going all
the way from verses 10 to 31. And it's actually
an acrostic poem. So in the Hebrew alphabet,
each letter of the Hebrew alphabet is used here
at the start of each line. So this is literally
the A to Z on how wise this wife is. And it's
all about the themes of the book that we've been
reading. It's all about, I mean, she's industrious,
she's entrepreneurial, she's charitable, she's
got wise speech, she's fearless, all things that
we've come across through the Book of Proverbs.
And the effect that it's meant to have on us
is that, you know, you've got to remember Proverbs
was written for young nobles in the royal court.
They're meant to read this and go, wow, she's
really attractive. It'd be so good to be married
to a woman like this. So where do you find her?
Does she go to our church? Is she at the church
down the road? Maybe if you were married, you
should say to your wife later, oh, it's you,
sweetheart. That would be a wise thing to do.
But where is this woman? It's hard to find. Because
this is lady wisdom. Remember earlier in Proverbs
we met lady wisdom and lady folly? This is, I
think, lady wisdom personified as a woman in
the real world. Because again, it's summing up
the earlier themes of the Book of Proverbs. It's
tying those threads together of everything that
we've looked at. And so the author is painting
a picture here of what you'll get, your future,
if you marry, if you commit to wisdom. I think
this is bigger than just he is an ideal wife.
I think there's some element of that, but I think
it's bigger than that. This is what you'll get
if you commit. or married to lady wisdom. It's
a bit like this. One day, my boys will bring
home a girl to meet us. That's going to be a
new stage for us. I mean, we only had Ethan just
become a teenager the other day. It's going to
be a big stage when that happens. But when that
happens, there'll be so many love chemicals going
off in their brains that they're not going to
be thinking objectively, especially if the girl
they bring home is really good looking. So one
lesson I'm hoping to instil in them before this
and remind them of then is I'll say, make sure
you meet her parents. Because her parents will
give you a partial glimpse into your future if
you choose to commit to her. I mean, it's not
perfect, people can do the work, sort themselves
out, be different, but there's some wisdom in
that. because her parents gave her the blueprint
for relationship. And so their dynamic will be
a pretty good indicator of what your relationship
will look like in the future. Well, in the same
way that I'm gonna try and do that, well, that's
kind of what's going on here. The description
of wisdom is saying, hey, here's your future.
If you marry Lady Wisdom, this is what it's gonna
be like. And it's going to be even more certain,
more sure. This is like looking into a crystal
ball. If you commit to wisdom, you can bank on
it being so good for you. Now, we've got to remember
there's some nuance here. It's not saying, well,
you commit to wisdom, life is going to be easy
and rosy. Jesus committed to wisdom more than
anyone in the history of humanity. and it got
him crucified. Ultimately, committing to wisdom
is beneficial. I mean, Jesus dying on the cross
meant that we were saved and that he was glorified.
But it doesn't mean committing to wisdom will
be easy, just like in any marriage. Committing
to wisdom may be tough, but it will always be
worth it in the end. And actually that's... where
we need to understand how some of the wisdom
literature interrelates with each other. So we've
just done proverbs, which is all about the benefits
of wisdom and how great wisdom is. But maybe
one day we ought to go through Ecclesiastes,
which is all about how life is meaningless and
unfair and things don't always work the way we'd
like them to. There's a fully -orbed way of seeing
wisdom that we do need to understand here. But
if we've established that if you commit to wisdom,
it can be tough, even though it will ultimately
be good, what are the real -world implications
of that? Well, firstly, I want to say with this
passage, it's not wise or fair for men to go
around using this as a criteria for dating or
for their spouse. You know, please don't go and
evaluate your wife at the end of the week and
say, well, sweetheart, you didn't live up to
verse 17, okay? like that would not be wise.
Especially if you're not aspiring to that yourself.
Yes, we should have standards about who we marry
and we should marry, if you're a Christian, marry
a Christian and those sort of things. But we
all need to seek to reach those same standards
too, don't we? Men need to just as much be aspiring
to be like this wife of noble character, just
as much as any woman does. And we also got to
remember this as an ideal. So if you find someone
who's half as wise as this and you marry them
that is a great gift from God. The main point
here I don't think is who should you marry. I
mean I think there is some of that but I don't
think it's the main thing. I think this is saying
wisdom is so wonderful you should put a ring
on her finger. Commit to her. But secondly, it
highlights the value of ordinary consistency.
It's saying just normal everyday consistency
is wise. I mean think about how, if you were
writing proverbs, think about how you could have
finished the book. You could have finished the
book with wisdom as this spectacular general
conquering lands and nations. You could have
finished with wisdom as some philosophical genius
wrestling with the deep and toughest things of
life and the universe. But the book doesn't finish
like that. It finishes with a wonderful woman
doing everyday tasks. That's wisdom. Wisdom is
found in consistently doing the ordinary things
of life well. When you've changed your 16th nappy
for the day, fed your kids and put them to bed,
it's easy to long for something different and
feel like this is not very meaningful. But your
wisdom is keeping them alive. It's keeping your
household running. There is great dignity and
value in that. So much of wisdom is doing small,
God -honouring things well, again and again and
again, even if it's mundane. Do you remember
these sheets that we got at the start of our
series? One of the things on them, they had an
action plan for change. Well, I want to suggest
to you, you can make a huge impact if you just
do one ordinary thing consistently. What would
it be for you? Maybe it's just nailing down that
daily devotion or a family devotion. Maybe it's
reading a few pages each day of a Christian book.
There's a little thing there you might want to
check out if you want to read some good Christian
books. I don't know, might have just come out
today. Or you might want to build your capacity
bit by bit, whether it's physical, whether it's
being calmer, whether it's being more joyful,
whatever it might be, building your capacity
bit by bit, that's a good thing. Ordinary everyday
consistency is wise and powerful. So let me ask,
will you be consistently committed to wisdom?
But there's one more reason Proverbs 31 gives
us to why we should commit to wisdom. Here's
our last reason. Wisdom beats everything else.
Come with me to verses 28 to 31. So you've got
wisdom in verse 27. She watches over the affairs
of her household and does not eat the bread of
idleness. And then here's the response. Her children
arise and call her blessed, her husband also,
and he praises her. Many women do noble things
but you surpass them all. Charm is deceptive
and beauty is fleeting but a woman who fears
the Lord is to be praised. Honor her for all
that her hands have done and let her works bring
her praise at the city gate. So this ideal wife
modeled after Lady Wisdom finishes the book with
a chorus of praise. Her children, her husband,
even the author of the book are all saying she's
the best. She's better than all the others. This
one characteristic's better than all the other
characteristics. It's crying out to us, see her
value. She's better than all other women. Wisdom's
better than charm and beauty. Those things, they
lie, they're shallow, but valuing wisdom and
a very specific type of wisdom. Fearing the Lord.
It matches the start of the book. Remember we
started with fearing the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
Well, here we close the book with that same fear
of the Lord. And it's saying desire and celebrate
that above anything else. If you see fearing
the Lord, wisdom as the best. You've grasped
it. You've understood how good wisdom is and
you'll stick with it. I couldn't go this week
without a World Cup illustration of some kind,
even though it was very tragic what happened
to the Socceroos yesterday, but we won't go there.
There's a lot of hurting people today and one
really happy person. But years ago I used to
play FIFA, the soccer video game with my kids
and friends and each time I'd play you had to
pick your team and I'd always try and pick my
team thoughtfully because each team had different
attributes and players had different attributes
and abilities. Some were really good at kicking
and tackling and passing and heading and dribbling.
But there was always one I'd pick. Here's my
tip for FIFA, if you want to know. Pick the ones
who had speed. It was the most overpowered thing
in the whole game. If you had a team with speed,
you got the absolute best results because your
guys would be going like that and the other ones
would be there, you know, lingering behind, rolling
along. It was awesome and it meant I'd probably
won more games against my kids than I deserved
to win. Now, Proverbs is saying here that valuing
God's wisdom, God's wisdom, that's overpowered.
That's like speed in FIFA. You should want that
in your life more than anything. And we live
in a culture that conditions us not to want that,
don't we? We're taught to admire, be drawn to,
aspire to, to devalue temporary, shallow, and
external things. Looks, wit, intelligence, confidence,
charisma, the fun person, we often see them as
more valuable. But integrity, maturity, fear
of the Lord, that sort of wisdom, It's so much
better, isn't it? One who trusts God and takes
Him seriously is far better off than anyone who's
got anything else, because they've got eternity
sorted out. They know the God of the universe.
And that should change how we see everything.
If you're single and you want to marry, value
someone who has got that sort of wisdom, who
trusts God and fears Him. And if you don't want
to marry, pursue that sort of wisdom. Be devoted
to that. Make that your goal in life. And if
you are married, seek that yourself. Praise your
spouse when they do that. That should be the
thing we value above all else. Hey, if you're
married, it's wise. Still praise your spouse
for other things too. Like, yes, sweetheart,
you are beautiful, but especially praise them
for their wisdom and their trust in God. That's
the wisest thing you can do and the best thing
you can value. So let's wrap up. We asked, why
should I commit to wisdom? And we saw three things.
Wisdom prevents awful ruin. Wisdom brings rich
blessings. And wisdom beats everything else.
And so the take home from this is one big thing.
Commit to wisdom. You will not regret it. But
Brendan, how do we actually do that? Well, it's
by committing ourselves to the wisest person
in all of human history. Not Adam and Eve. They
thought they were wise by doing their own thing.
by taking the fruit and going, I'm going to be
the lawmaker now. I'm going to be the decider,
not God. I'm going to run life my own way. And
that caused ruin and death, didn't it? It's actually
not by committing ourselves to Solomon. I mean,
Solomon's great. He's got wonderful wisdom that
we've learned on here that God has inspired,
but... If this is all we had, it's quite limited,
isn't it? Because Solomon, I mean, he was committed
to wisdom, but he gave up on it himself, didn't
he? He married all those wives and started worshipping
other gods. Actually, all humans are like this
on our own. We reject God and we can't stick
with him or his wisdom. The pull of folly is
too strong and we don't want wisdom to tie us
down. But there's one person who's not like this.
The Lord Jesus. He's the king who did what King
Lemuel's mum said. He didn't live a life avoiding
pain, but wisely embraced it and processed it
when it was necessary. He was a king who helped
others in need. He was one who was committed
and married to wisdom. He saw value in wisdom
and stuck with it his whole life, even though
it meant dying young in the most foolish -looking
and humiliating way by a death on a cross. But
he knew his death would save us from folly and
its consequences. He knew that his death would
give us all of wisdom's benefits so that we could
have life forever with God. He rose again so
that we could get his spirit so that we could
live as new people Who are committed to wisdom
who have new hearts that are committed to wisdom?
See the way we commit to wisdom is by committing
to Jesus And we do so no matter what life throws
at us No matter how easy or good other ways of
looking other ways of living look. We know that
folly is a siren calling out to us, trying to
draw us in so that we'll be shipwrecked. Flirting
with folly is a dangerous game and if you do,
one day you will lose. But committing to wisdom
by committing to Jesus, well the risen Jesus
shows that that will always pay off. So what's
all of this mean for us? Well, for some of us,
this is all new. And that's great, I'm glad you're
here. Keep coming, keep getting to know Jesus.
See if he's worth committing to. And we're here
to help. We want you to learn about Jesus and
find out more about him. But for some of us,
we've been dipping our toe in for a long time.
We've been coming to church for a while and that's
great and keep coming. But eventually, you need
to make a decision. You need to work out, will
I commit to Jesus? Will I commit to wisdom in
Jesus? If that's something you want to do, please
come talk to me. We'd love to pray with you.
We'd love to help you get baptised. We'd love
to help you take that next step. of committing
to Jesus. And for many of us, we are already
committed to Jesus. We dove in feet first years
ago. But there's always temptations to jump out
of the water and step out, aren't there? There's
always times where we take wisdom for granted.
And so today is a reminder of the rich benefits
of wisdom and of knowing the Lord Jesus. Thank
God for those things. See folly for what it is.
If you do those things, it will protect you from
flirting with folly. So let me close by asking,
where are you at with wisdom? Have you committed
to her by committing to Jesus? Or are you holding
back? Will you let something stop you from committing
to wisdom? I hope you won't. Let's pray. Heavenly
Father, please help us to commit ourselves to
the Lord Jesus and thus commit ourselves to wisdom.
Help us to keep going in Him, abounding in thanksgiving,
growing more and more to know Him, to love Him,
to cherish Him as we follow Him. Please, Father,
help us to see how valuable it is to commit to
Him all the days of our life. And we ask this
in Jesus' precious name. Amen.