The Pursuit of Wisdom

Well, thank you, Nontet, Octet. How does that go? And there's nine of them. I don't know. Nine-tet. We'll leave it at that. Very beautiful special music. Thank you guys very much. I got duped by the illusion. It looked like there were two of them to me. No, it is wonderful to have the visitors. It's nice to see Kayleen and Courtney again and bringing the family with them. It's wonderful to have you all here. Bring you greetings from the Southlands of Eugene. They said hello, so I will pass that on to you all.

And I hope you're all having a fantastic Sabbath day. In 1927, there was an invention made that has really changed all of our lives. The television was invented. And the very first thing that was broadcast on the very first television that was produced by Philo Farnsworth, fantastic name, by the way, Philo Farnsworth, who was a 21-year-old inventor who dreamt this up when he was in high school. He put this thing together. The very first thing that was transmitted on the television was a plain straight white line. They've come a long ways, as you might imagine. While it was functional and while it would eventually become what we recognize as a television today, it would require some additional work to get it functioning to the degree that we would recognize it now. Now we have 3D TV. We have 4K. We have, who knows, where they're going next.

But they hit milestone after milestone after milestone throughout the 1930s and finally began full-scale commercial production and broadcasting in the U.S. in 1947.

Now, interestingly, in 1946, the total number of devices, the total number of televisions in the United States was 6,000 in 1946. By 1951, 12 million devices were in use. And it's gone up since then. Today you're hard-pressed to find a house that doesn't have a television in it. Some of them have three or four. Some of my students have said they have one in every room of the house. They can continue watching their show as they walk from room to room to room to room.

As Seneca the Younger once said, and it was taken and stolen by Semiconic in the 90s and put in the song Closing Time, every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end. And so it was with television. I was born in 1980. I don't remember a world without TV. It's always been in the background of life for me. I can remember days without computers. I can remember days without internet, which many of my middle schoolers just go, oh, what did you do? Just so shocked and so surprised. But many of you remember a day before television. Some of you remember time before electricity, perhaps, and came to your homes. We're getting to the point where not as many now recall that. But many of you remember a world without it. And honestly, perhaps it was a world that was a little bit simpler and a little less frantic. It seems like the more devices we have and the more constant feeds we have, the more frantic life becomes. I grew up on a steady diet of John Denver from my mom. She's a huge John Denver fan. And one of the songs that he's saying brings to mind visions of a time before television. I will spare you the song. I won't sing it.

But it was a time when familial connection was stronger and stories were shared. In the song Grandma's Featherbed, some of you may be familiar with that tune. In the song Grandma's Featherbed is the following lyric. After supper, we'd sit around a fire. The folks would spit and chew.

Pa would talk about the farm and the war. Granny'd sing a ballad or two. And I'd sit and listen and watch the fire till the cobwebs filled my head. And the next thing I know, I'd wake up in the morning in the middle of that old featherbed. You know, in the United States, societally, we don't do this much anymore. We don't sit around as a family and share stories.

Societally. I mean, there may be some. But as a whole, this is an aspect of familial life that is kind of gone by the wayside. And not necessarily for the better. We've abdicated our storytelling to sitcoms, to reality shows, to election results, and election coverage, and news stories. And as a result, storytelling is becoming a dying art. It's been around for millennia, thousands of years. It was the primary means of passing on information.

Teaching. Jesus Christ utilized parables, taught the masses using stories that they would recognize. Today, analogy is one of the greatest ways of connecting abstract concepts to something people can hang their hats on. A good storyteller can teach, they can inspire, they can motivate, and they can entertain. They also can provide cautionary warnings. And stories have been used for years to impart morals and principles to young people. Stories were and are still used to pass on wisdom from one generation to another. And you know, looking around today, even just looking at the news headlines of the past couple of weeks, wisdom is something that seems to be in short supply.

Wisdom is in short supply these days. Knowledge is everywhere. Knowledge. Knowledge. Guys, I'm holding the entire compendium of human understanding in the palm of my hand.

I push a button and I can access everything we know as a group. That's incredible. That is absolutely incredible. But yet, right in our pockets, we have all this knowledge. But it seems wisdom is becoming scarcer and scarcer. Personally, I think, personally, that it's largely due to this loss in storytelling, passing on the lessons from one generation to the next.

I think there's this disconnect. And I think that disconnect came around about the time that the television took over the living room and the fires and the stories died out. I'm not the only one who believes that. In fact, there's a short essay here I'm going to share with you by a person by the name of Maria Popova. The essay title is, Wisdom in the Age of Information and the Importance of Storytelling and Making Sense of the World.

It says, we live in a world awash with information, but we seem to face a growing scarcity of wisdom. And what's worse, we confuse the two. We believe that having access to more information produces more knowledge, which ultimately results in more wisdom. But if anything, the opposite is true. More and more information without the proper context and interpretation only muddles our understanding of the world rather than enriching it. This barrage of readily available information has also created an environment where one of the worst social sins is to appear uninformed.

Ours is a culture where it's enormously embarrassing to not have an opinion on something. And in order to seem informed, we form our so-called opinions hastily, based on fragmentary bits of information and superficial impressions rather than true understanding. Knowledge, Emerson wrote, is the knowing that we cannot know. To grasp the importance of this, we first need to define these concepts as a ladder of understanding. At its base is a piece of information which simply tells us some sort of fact about the world. Above that, next rung up is knowledge, the understanding of how these different bits of information fit together to reveal some truth about the world.

Knowledge hinges on an act of correlation and interpretation. At the very top, the upper rung, is wisdom, which has a moral component. It is the application of information worth remembering and knowledge that matters to understanding not only how the world works, but also how it should work. And that requires a moral framework of what should and shouldn't matter, as well as an ideal of the world at its highest potentiality. This is why the storyteller is all the more urgently valuable today. And a great storyteller, whether a journalist or an editor or a filmmaker or a curator, because we do have stories told today, and there can be incredible amounts of wisdom passed on in some of the stories produced today.

But a good storyteller helps people figure out not only what matters in the world, but why it matters. A great storyteller dances up the ladder of understanding from information to knowledge to wisdom through symbol, metaphor, and association. The storyteller helps us interpret information, integrate it with our existing knowledge, and transmute that into wisdom. She provides an analogy.

She says to think of it this way. Information is having a library of books on ship building. Knowledge applies that to building a ship. Access to the information to the books is a prerequisite for knowledge, but not a guarantee of it. Once you've built your ship, wisdom is what allows you to sail it without thinking, to protect it from the storm that creeps up on the horizon in the dead of night, to point it just so that the wind breathes life into its sails. You know, I could probably figure out how to build a boat.

Chances are it would leak. But I couldn't tell you how to sail it. I couldn't tell you how. I've never sailed in my life. Put a motor on the back of it, we're golden. But trying to figure out how that sail works, and how you're able to cut this thing, and tack that, and this... speaking a different language. I just don't have the background. I just don't have the context. And so it's important that we understand wisdom and knowledge are two vastly different things, even though they're closely related. Knowledge is facts, figures, tidbits, things that people might understand, useful information. But wisdom asks a question. Wisdom says, yeah, but what can you do with it?

What can you do with it? What's the value of that knowledge? How can you use it? How can you make judgments and decisions based on what we know? Wisdom asks us to ask ourselves, what is right?

What is lasting? What is applicable? As an example, knowledge is knowing that the trail you're going to hike through the desert is 12 miles long. Wisdom is being smart enough to pack a canteen for the trip. My personal favorite, knowledge is knowing tomatoes of fruit. Wisdom is knowing don't put it in fruit salad. Right? I mean, knowledge, wisdom, two different things. Wisdom comes by experience. Largely it comes by experience. Yet, interestingly, it's not possessed only by those of great age.

I've met a number of men who've gained incredible wisdom over the years. I've also met others who, for their years, had very little wisdom to show. I've met a number of young men who, despite their lack of time on the planet, were wise beyond their years. It's not solely possessed by those of age and experience. And sometimes even those in positions of leadership, people that are experts in their respective fields, don't show a great deal of wisdom when it really comes down to their field of expertise. A couple of quick examples here, because I found these kind of humorous. A couple of quotes here from folks that, well, they may have lost their job when they were done with this. It says, there's no reason anyone would want a computer in their home. Ken Olson, President, Chairman, and Founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977.

This telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us. Western Union, internal memo, 1876.

We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out. Decca Recording Company rejecting the Beatles, 1962. Whoops.

Heavier than air, flying machines are impossible. Lord Kelvin, President, Royal Society, 1895. Poor guy's gone here twice. Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau. Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, October 1929.

Airplanes are interesting toys, but of no military value, as Marichal Ferdinand folk.

Everything that's been invented, or that can be invented, has been invented.

Charles Duelle, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.

X-rays will prove to be a hoax. Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, 1893.

Poor guy.

640k, not talking thousand dollars, but memory. 640k ought to be enough for anybody. Bill Gates, 1981.

640 terabytes? What?

Unworthy of the attention of practical and scientific men in, quotes, British Parliamentary Committee report on Thomas Edison's electric flight bulb.

Now, I would imagine some of these guys were kicking themselves for their lack of foresight, but it does show wisdom is not a function of age, position, or expertise per se, though it does proportionally favor the elder rather than the younger, just by sheer matter-of-life experience. So what is wisdom? How do we obtain it? How do we seek it?

And once we found it, what do we do with it? What do we do with it?

We're going to explore these questions with the time that we have left today.

I've entitled the message, The Pursuit of Wisdom. So let's start by taking a look at really what is it? What is wisdom? When we start talking about it, what is it? And if we're going to dig into the concept of wisdom and how we apply it, you go one place. You go to the writings of Solomon. And so let's go ahead and flip over there. We'll be in 2 Chronicles to begin with today. Now, while not perfectly applicable throughout his entire life, Solomon made some kind of dumb moves at times. He was the wisest man to have ever lived according to Scripture.

He got it. He understood what wisdom was and how it worked, thanks to the inspiration and the understanding that were afforded to him by God. So let's go to 2 Chronicles 1.

2 Chronicles 1. And we'll explore the moment where Solomon asks for and receives the wisdom that he was ultimately provided. 2 Chronicles 1.

And we'll pick it up in verse 7 to begin with.

So if you've already beaten me there, you can start ahead and I'll try to catch up to you.

2 Chronicles 1 and verse 7. This is following an unbelievable amount of burnt offerings. Went through and had a thousand burnt offerings the night before this.

And it says, On that night, God appeared to Solomon and said to him, Ask, what shall I give you?

Ask. Ask of me, what shall I give you? Imagine for a moment you're in Solomon's place. You have just had the creator of the universe. You're a young man. You've just had the creator of the universe ask you what he can give you.

The world's open. Credible power, money, unbeatable army. These are all things he could have asked for. I mean, God may not have granted them, but he could have asked for them.

Verse 8, we see what he did ask for. It says, And Solomon said to God, You've shown great mercy to David, my father, and have made me king in his place. Now, O Lord God, let your promise to David, my father, be established. For you have made me king over a people like the dust of the earth in multitude. You were with my father David. Be with me, too.

It's essentially what he's telling God here.

In verse 10, Now give me wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and come in before this people, for who can judge this great people of yours?

Instead of power, instead of riches, instead of some unbeatable army, Solomon asked of God wisdom and knowledge, that he might serve God's people more effectively, that he might make righteous judgments, discern these tough situations, and make the right decisions for God's people, not for himself.

The parallel passage to this scripture, 2 Kings 3 and verse 7, Solomon was humble. He referred to himself as a child who didn't know how to go in and out, like didn't know his way around.

He recognized and he understood that when it came to governing the nation of Israel, that he was in over his head.

He knew that. He was in over his head. He was humble. He asked for God's guidance and wisdom. We see God's response in verse 11. It says, then God said to Solomon, because this was in your heart and you've not asked riches or wealth or honor or the life of your enemies, nor have you asked long life. Or like what we did as kids, if you had three wishes, what would you wish for? Three more wishes.

Right? We always thought you could cheat the system that way. But these are the things that he asked for.

He asked for wisdom, knowledge, not long life, the life of his enemies. It says, you ask wisdom and knowledge for yourself, that you may judge my people over whom I have made you king.

Wisdom and knowledge are granted to you and I will give you riches and wealth and honor. In other words, all those things you could have asked for, I'm going to add to you because your heart was in the right place.

You made the right call.

You asked for the right thing.

I'm going to give you riches and wealth and honor such as none of the kings have had who were before you, nor shall any after you have the like.

You know, he could have had it all. He could have asked for anything, but he asked God for wisdom.

And because of that, God honored that request and blessed him exceedingly, giving him riches, power, and honor, as well as great wisdom. Now, Solomon uses the words wisdom and understanding interchangeably. He uses these two words pretty interchangeably.

In this particular section, he asked for wisdom to govern the people. In 2 Kings 3, we won't turn there, he asked for an understanding heart. Said, I would like an understanding heart. God refers to it. We'll give you a wise heart. So these words are used interchangeably in many ways.

We also see that his wisdom was known not just to the people of his own nation, but worldwide in many ways at that point in time. We saw the Queen of Sheba, she comes and praises him in 1 Chronicles 9 and verse 5. 1 Chronicles 9 and verse 5. I'm sorry, 2 Chronicles 9 and verse 5. Queen of Sheba comes and says, you know, the wisdom that you have isn't even half. I mean, take that back real quick. It isn't even half of what people describe.

It was way more than what she had understood and what she had heard.

Way more.

And so she was pleased to see that the reports were true. But even more than that, we see in that passage. Let's go to 2 Chronicles 9 and verse 7. Let's go there.

Because we want to see what happens when you have a righteous and a wise leader. We want to see what we have in the people who are his servants and whom work for him. So she was pleased to see these reports were true. And even more than that, his wisdom exceeded that of what she expected. But 2 Chronicles 9 and verse 7 says, Happy are your men, happy or blessed are your men, and happy and blessed are your servants, who stand continually before you and hear your wisdom. You imagine if you're serving in this area, you have opportunity to overhear these tidbits of wisdom. You have an opportunity to glean this from Solomon as you work around the palace and as you serve.

And they were blessed and they were happy for that. In the book of Proverbs, Solomon records, and we'll just drop this down, Proverbs 29 too, that when the righteous, or by extension you might say those who are wise, are in authority, the people rejoice.

When the righteous are in authority, those who are wise, the people rejoice.

But when the wicked rule, the people mourn.

When the wicked rule, the people mourn.

Happiness and blessings of a nation depend upon the wisdom of their rulers. And you might personalize that and say, you know, in a family, it's the same way.

The family, the blessings, and the happiness of a family is dependent upon the decisions made by the one in charge.

And sadly, godly wisdom is something that is in short supply these days, as people continue to reject God, put Him out of their lives further and further and further. And we can look back over the last year to year and a half in the United States and see a marked difference in just the last year to year and a half, as God's been pushed further and further and further away. Let's go over to 1 Corinthians real quick. We'll get an idea as to why. Let's go to 1 Corinthians, and we'll pick up the words of the Apostle Paul here in 1 Corinthians 2.

1 Corinthians 2, we'll pick it up in verse 6.

1 Corinthians 2, verse 6.

1 Corinthians 2, verse 6 says, However we speak wisdom among those who are mature, or as some translations put it, are full grown, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew.

For had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. So there is a wisdom of the world in a way. There is a wisdom of the world. There are wise things out there. We're all familiar with Confucius, and we're all familiar with all these little short little, almost proverbs, that are put together by individuals who have lived a long life and have seen a lot of different things.

Are those godly wisdom? Do they have a spiritual component? Occasionally they come close. But you need a spiritual component for it to be godly wisdom.

Paul contrasts it very clearly with the wisdom of God here, telling people in Corinth that for those that are mature, for those that are full grown, that he speaks wisdom. Not worldly wisdom, but the wisdom of God. That the rulers of the world and the wisdom that they have are coming to nothing. That they will be soon forgotten.

Go on in verse 9, But as is written, I has not seen nor ear heard nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love him. But God has revealed them to us through his Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the Spirit of the man which is in him? Even so, no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. For us to fully understand the things of God, it requires the Holy Spirit in our lives. It requires that gift that was poured out on that day of Pentecost so many years ago. Not just the receipt of that gift, but the use of that gift. Yielding ourselves to the Spirit of God in order to discern his will in various situations. Go on in verse 12, 2 Corinthians 2, verse 12. Now we've received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. How many of you ever had a conversation with somebody out there? And you've tried, I mean, everything you're talking about makes such perfect sense to you. It all connects, it all makes perfect sense, and they're looking at you like you got three heads. I mean, how many times have we had that conversation? Right here! But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him.

Nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. They're spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ. The wisdom of God is eternal. It is timeless, and it is priceless. It is not antiquated. It's not outdated. It's not old and tired. The gospel of God is as relevant today as it was two thousand, three thousand, four thousand years ago. That wisdom that we receive helps us to understand the mysteries of God, to unlock these things so that we can understand them. It's referred to in Scripture as treasure. It's referred to as more precious than rubies. It's referred to as our wealth.

It's a gift. It's better than gold. To get understanding is to be chosen rather than silver.

It's a priceless gift that guides our life. So how do we obtain it? How do we nurture it?

The early part of Solomon's writings in the book of Proverbs established really the entire purpose for the book. Let's go back to Proverbs 1 and verse 1. Proverbs 1 and verse 1. And we see this within the first couple of passages of Proverbs that the purpose of the book is 100% outlined. Why this book exists, what it's for, and what it's meant to do. Proverbs 1 and verse 1. Proverbs 1 and verse 1 says, The Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel, to know wisdom and instruction, to perceive the words of understanding, to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, judgment, and equity, to give prudence to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion. A wise man will hear and increase learning, and a man of understanding will attain wise counsel. To understand a proverb and an enigma, the words of the wise and their riddles. The entire purpose of this book, the whole reason for its existence, is to establish a series of instructions to provide wisdom, to provide us with the ability to discern, to teach us to deal wisely, righteously, and equitably, and to make the simple wise. He goes on to establish in verse 7 where this process begins. The fear of the Lord, verse 7, fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. No punches pulled. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. There's a parallel scripture to this that states it just a little bit different. Proverbs 9, verse 10. We won't turn there yet. We'll go there a little bit later. But the fear of the Lord is the beginning of, in that particular section, wisdom. Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, and it is the beginning of knowledge. It is the beginning of the process.

See that all who follow his precepts have good understanding. Fear of the Lord is the Hebrew word yare, and it's a healthy respect and awe of God. It's not a phobia. It's not a hide under a rock. It's, I mean, there are some aspects of that later in the New Testament talking about using the Greek word phobos. But this particular one is dealing with a healthy awe, a healthy respect of God. Really, to be perfectly honest, our only real reasonable response when we are confronted with the absolute majesty of our Creator. You know, we're studying right now. I teach a seventh grade science class, which I've mentioned is a nightmare, and I've brought that up. But I have a seventh grade science class this year, and our final unit of the year is astronomy, which I love. I love astronomy. And my ultimate goal is to make my seventh graders feel this big. And not in a bad way, not in a bad way, but just to understand their place in it all. They really have no way to fathom the scale of the universe. They really don't. They just don't. And I blame the poster companies. I blame the companies that make posters, because they jam all the planets right next to each other on the poster, and they look so close and scaled wrong that the kids just think you could jump from one to the next to the next. But when they look at the size and the scope of the heavens, and when we consider it, when we think about what God has done, an awe and a majesty is truly the only response. We are standing on a rock that is rotating on its axis at a rate of about 460 meters per second, roughly a thousand miles an hour in a circle. Round and round and round and round. I don't feel a thing, right? A thousand miles an hour. Round and round and round and round we go. But in addition to that, we're orbiting the sun at a speed of about 30 kilometers per second, which is about 67,000 miles an hour. So not only are we spinning in a circle at a thousand miles an hour, we're also going around this way 67,000 miles an hour. Okay? Our sun, we want to take it out a step, our sun is rotating around the Milky Way galaxy at speeds that just boggle the mind. 220 kilometers per second, approximately 490,000 miles per hour. It's incredible. It's incredible how far these things go. The next planet out, Mars. So if you take and you go from Earth to Mars, Mars is 33 million miles away.

33 million miles away. That's a distance that takes a photon of light about three full minutes to travel at about 186,000 miles per second. It is an incredible distance. The next closest star, so we've got our sun, the next closest star in our galaxy is Proxima Centauri. And here's the number. It's 24 trillion 943 billion 8 million 171 thousand 517 miles from our sun. And that's our next closest neighbor. And that is one of billions of stars within the Milky Way galaxy. Now next to that, let's zoom out one more step, the next nearest galaxy to the Milky Way is Andromeda, which is a paltry 2.5 million light years away. It's incredible. When you look at the billions of these galaxies that are out there and you think about the fact that our God made them all, that inspires awe, that inspires fear, that inspires an incredible amount of respect.

So when we're faced with a creation of that scope, the only real legitimate response is fear and awe and a respect of a God that made all of that happen. Obtaining wisdom is a process, it has a beginning, and that beginning is the same for us as it was for Solomon. It begins at the only source of truth and wisdom in that vast universe. God Almighty. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, it's the beginning of wisdom, and brethren, we can't expect to receive wisdom if we don't start there. We can't expect to receive wisdom if we don't start there, which is why the Bible makes statements such as, you know, the fool says there's no God. By definition, they can't obtain godly wisdom. They can't obtain discernment of God, just an equitable judgment, because they've rejected the giver of that gift. So how can they? Let's take a look at Proverbs 2, verse 1. We'll see just where the process goes now that it's begun. Proverbs 2, verse 1, says, My son, if you receive my words, notice that active word, receive, and treasure my commands within you, so that you incline your ear to wisdom and apply your heart to understanding. Notice active words, verbs.

We receive the word. We lay up where we treasure the commands. Notice that special reverence given to his word. It's not enough to receive it, to just hear it. We have to respond to it. There's action involved. There's a step. We have to lay up those commandments like treasure and treat it with reverence and respect. Verse 3, yes, if you cry out for discernment, you lift up your voice for understanding. If you seek her as silver and search for her as for hidden treasures. I'm going to lose everybody if I tell you to turn around, but there's people outside right now metal detecting, searching for treasure, looking for things that they can find. They're out here on a day off, sweeping around, looking for these things. You've seen movies and television shows where these guys do unbelievable amounts of work for three or four specks of gold. We should be seeking wisdom as these individuals seek riches. These individuals seek riches. We have to cry out for discernment and lift up our voice to understand. Verse 5, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. Seeking diligently, you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom. From his mouth comes knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk uprightly. Guards the paths of justice, preserves the way of his saints. Then you will understand righteousness and justice, equity, and every good path. If after all of those things, if we receive the word, we lay up the commandments, we listen to wise instruction, apply our hearts to understand it. If we cried out after discernment, lift up our voice for understanding, seeking and searching for it as one hunts for treasure, then and only then we will find wisdom. Brethren, this isn't a passive activity. It's not watching television. It's not listening to a sermon and then not just kind of sitting there downloading it. Search for wisdom is active. It is a pursuit. It is a pursuit.

It is happening in our day-to-day lives as we go about living our faith, living the word of God.

And as we've learned from experience and as we learn from our experiences, as we discern and as we apply the knowledge that we have, we grow in wisdom. And as such, it can't be shortcut. It can't be shortcut. It's a process. It can't be shortcut. Put a little marker or something in here. We're going to turn over to Genesis 3 and then we'll come back. Genesis 3, we see within the account of Satan's temptation of Adam and Eve, verse 6 of Genesis 3, we'll see one of the motivations behind their sin in the garden. Genesis 3 and verse 6. And we'll see that very specifically there was a shortcut attempted here.

Genesis 3, verse 6 says, So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit, and she ate. She also gave it to her husband with her, and he ate. And the eyes of both of them were opened. They knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. Obviously, Satan's influence played into this temptation, but the fruit of the tree looked edible. It was physically appealing, and it was desired to make one wise. New Living Translation puts it, she desired the wisdom that it would give her. She desired the wisdom that it would give her. A shortcut. A way to receive wisdom without going through the work and the life experience to receive it. A way to become wise without the effort and the lessons that come with it. There isn't a get-rich-quick scheme that comes with obtaining wisdom. There's no easy button. It's a process, and it's a process that takes incredible effort. Proverbs 9 contrasts these two ways of life. Let's pop back over to Proverbs 9. Hopefully you followed the advice and actually put a marker in there. I told you to do that, and I didn't follow my own advice.

Proverbs 9. That'll teach me.

Proverbs 9, we see two different ways of life contrasted. We see the way of wisdom. On one hand, we see the way of folly on the other. Proverbs 9, we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 1. For those of you that are kind of academically, you can almost see this like a compare-contrast, Venn diagram type thing, where you can see one on one side, one on the other. There are similarities, but we also see a vast difference between the two. This is the difference between wisdom and the difference between folly. It says, Proverbs 9, verse 1, Wisdom has built her house. She's hewn out her seven pillars. She's slaughtered her meat, mixed her wine, furnished her table. She sent out her maidens. She cries from the highest places of the city. Whoever is simple, let him turn in here. As for him who lacks understanding, she says to him, Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Forsake foolishness and live and go in the way of understanding. He who corrects the scoffer gets shame for himself, and he who rebukes a wicked man only harms himself. Do not correct a scoffer, lest he hates you. Rebuke a wise man and he will love you. Give instruction to a wise man, and he will still be wiser. Teach a just man and he will increase in learning.

Wisdom calls out. It has prepared its house. It has prepared the meal, furnished the table. It calls to us. Come, eat of my bread, drink of my wine. She sent forth her maidens, calling from the highest places of the city to us as we navigate our life.

Now, on the other hand, there's somebody else calling out too. Verse 13, A foolish woman is clamorous. She is simple and knows nothing. For she sits at the door of her house on a seat by the highest places of the city to call to those who pass by, who go straight on their way. Whoever is simple, let him turn in here. Come on over here, my place. And as for him who lacks understanding, she says to him, Stolen water is sweet, bread eaten in secret is pleasant, but he does not know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of hell or sheal or the grave. She's calling out too. She's simple, the void of understanding, calls to them that pass by, beckoning them. Come on, come on over here, come on over here.

And as we navigate our life, there's a choice. There's a choice. Every day we come to forks in the road. And honestly, that's the essence of the book of Proverbs. Way of wisdom, way of folly. What's it going to be? What's it going to be? When it comes time to make that decision, what's it going to be? You know, we're admonished to seek wisdom. We obtain it through our experiences, our mistakes, our joy, our successes. On one hand is wisdom and on the other hand is folly. And the question that God gives us daily is, what's it going to be? What's your decision?

Now, as we learn that process and as we work our way through this life that we've lived, there comes a very important lesson because we reach a point in time where we need to start thinking about how do we pass it on? We've obtained a life of wisdom. How do we pass it on?

How do we teach the younger generation? Like many of you, this is the what do we do with it section. Like many of you, I recently attended Sue Cheney's memorial service, and I was struck by the fact that I learned more about Sue from her memorial service than I had in my conversations with her in the past. I learned more at her funeral than I did in all the times that we spoke while she was still living. She lived a life in the face. She had experienced living this way of life for many, many, many years. She'd been through the worldwide days, through the upheavals and the nigh- from imperials. She had this incredible, you know, other realm of experience that, you know, not everybody had either. She was a mother, a grandmother, a wealth of experience in a lot of different ways. As we go through our lives, we gain worldly wisdom. We have basic life experience, but for those with God's Holy Spirit, we also find spiritual application in the worldly wisdom, the things that we learn and the things that we see. We get to see the spiritual aspects.

And brethren, let's be honest with ourselves. We're not getting any younger.

We're not getting any younger. We recently held the 13th annual Senior brunch up here in Salem, and got to see a lot of you there, which was wonderful. But we had quite a few less people this year, quite a few less people this year. And we, you know, afterwards we kind of debrief real quick, like, all right, did we pick a bad weekend? Did we not get enough information out? You know, it was a hot weekend. But, you know, we have to think in two afterwards. We've had a number of deaths. We've had a number of people's health deteriorate to the point where it's difficult to get out and to do things. We're not getting any younger. And as we look around that room, and as we see, you know, all of these folks that have lived a long life in the faith, there's hundreds of years of experience in that room. Hundreds of years of experience in that room.

After we were done, we were cleaning everything up, and one of the young adults, we sat out on the bench and talked a little bit, and asked the question that's been rattling around in my head, for quite some time. How do we bottle that up? How do we bottle that up? How do we find that wisdom? And how do we pass it on to the next generation? Because we face a crucial time in our church. Things are a-changin'. Demographically, things are a-changin'. Transition-wise, things are changing. We have a generation gap. I mean, Salem in particular, it's a fantastic blessing, but we are almost 50% of the congregation is under the age of 12. I mean, for real! That's awesome! That's a fantastic blessing! Hallelujah! But imparting the truth and the way of God to the next generation is absolutely essential. It's absolutely essential. And sadly, with every member who passes away, a little bit of that God-given wisdom goes with him. So how do we use it? How do we use this? How do we ensure that we can provide it to the next generation? I'm going to approach it from the other side, because specifically we see in Proverbs, we're admonished to seek it out. So young people, I'm going to talk to you for the next little bit. Older people, you're not off the hook either, but younger people, how can we draw from these walls of wisdom? How can we draw from walls of wisdom? I'm going to give you two very brief points. The first of them is fellowship. First of them is fellowship. And we've heard a lot about fellowship of late. I'm going to give you just a little bit more. One of the absolute most important things that we can do as young people is purposefully focusing on intergenerational fellowship, meaning that maybe we step away from our group of friends and we go and we sit down and we listen. We ask pointed questions and we listen, and we absorb like sponges, and we absorb. We give them opportunity to share those stories of a life lived and give opportunity to understand those things. And we can't do it well, honestly, if we don't know somebody well enough to have those conversations. Or, frankly, if as young people, we just don't seek it out. You know, we started this message today with a discussion on the dying art of storytelling, and that's why we started there. You're all fountains of wisdom. All of you have a life experience that is vastly different than the person sitting in that chair next to you. We have one thing in common, okay? Maybe a little more than that, but we have some big things in common, but our differences are significant as well. Every last one of you has a life story that can be told, and frankly, the younger people in the church can learn from you. You might not think it's an important story. You might not see the value in it, but we do, and we need them. We absolutely need them. We need to create those opportunities where these stories can be told, whether it's through church services, service projects, focused, purposeful mentorship, whatever it is. Brethren, your story is important, and we need to share them. We need to talk with one another and share those things. I don't think it's a coincidence that the Bible's outlined in a story format. You know, you look at David and Goliath and Samuel and Ruth and the kings of Israel and Judah, the minor prophets, on and on it goes. Christ taught in parables for a reason. It's because they stick with you. They're not easily forgotten. Stories about salt and bread and sheep. They're things that are well known at the time. He used analogies people were familiar with, and for good reason. Those that had the Spirit of God had the wisdom to understand the meaning of the story. And as do we, a simple story of life you may not think has any value whatsoever.

Growing up during the Depression, avoiding the pulls of the world around us, the Vietnam era, the 60s, you know, you may not think it has any meaning whatsoever. It might just be a simple story, but who knows what the Spirit will suss out of that? Who knows what we'll learn from that?

Deuteronomy tells us as we teach our children, as we walk by the way, that's what we do. They're little as little, potentially mundane things. The lesson in the ant, the lesson in the soil, the weeds, the seeds. Older members, you are a wealth of information.

Younger members, seek it out. Seek it out. Sponge it up. Older folks, please seek those opportunities to share. Find ways to do it. Last thing, too, that we can do is we have to be looking for wise counsel. We have to be looking for wise counsel all the time. I had a situation come up at school yesterday where I actually sought counsel from somebody else. I went and found a few different people. I had a, briefly tell this story real quick, I had a straight A student who falsified her final score by a bit, about seven points. I didn't bother checking it because she's a solid student. Didn't bother, didn't bother checking it, looked legit, everything was fine. So first day of finals, she adjusted her score by quite a bit, seven points. It's not a ton, but it's a bit. It was enough that she maintained her A. So she comes in the next morning, and it must have just eaten her up overnight because the first thing she came in the door, I have to talk to you, I have to talk to you, I wrote down the wrong score yesterday. I did, you know, she came clean completely 100% came clean. She owned up to it. She told me what her score was, and as a decent kid again, I imagine it just ate at her all night. She did the right thing. She came clean. She did exactly what she should have done, and her grade dropped to a B. Grade dropped to a B. So now I have a moment where I'm trying to decide what's the best course of action here. Do I have her keep the B? Do we talk about the importance of integrity? How proud we are? All that stuff with the B that she earned?

Or do I reward her and allow her to keep her A for doing the right thing?

Goes to scale. So I started asking people. I had an idea in my head, but I was curious what other people would do. I talked to three or four people that I respect, I believe have a good deal of wisdom in this type of thing. Some of them are godly folks, talk to some church folks, talk to some that were just other teachers that have done this for years, and based on that council, I made my decision. Proverbs 15 verse 22, we won't turn there, says, plans fail for lack of council.

Plans fail for lack of council. If we don't take council prior to our planning and prior to our decisions, we don't seek God's will first, but if we don't also then ask other people who have been there, we run the risk of making some really crucial mistakes that, by all odds, could have been prevented. On the other hand, though, there is another hand, there's like five hands, I think, so far, but on the other hand, if we seek wise council, and if that wise council comes back near unanimously one way, and we go, nah, nah, I don't think so. Well, why did we seek wise council then, if we're not going to listen to it? Why did we seek council if we're not going to listen to it? Especially if it's something, you know, I mean, if it's a split decision, sure, but we can't afford to surround ourselves with yes men. We just can't. We can't afford to surround ourselves with yes men. I sought out a group of men five years ago, and it's five of them total, and as kind of council for me, and I had decisions to make, had some things I was trying to figure out, and I chose them very specifically because I knew they wouldn't tell me what I wanted to hear.

I knew they would tell me what I needed to hear. I knew that they absolutely would not be yes men, and all of them were picked for that very purpose and the fact that they had other specialties.

I've used them occasionally throughout the years, and the advice that I've received from them is just invaluable. But, brethren, when it comes to obtaining wisdom, when it comes to the things that we do in our life to obtain wisdom, it really comes down to one thing. We just have to do it.

We just have to do it. It has to have action that goes along with it. We all know what's required of us. The Bible's clear. We know what we need to do. We know what we need to do. Often the disconnect comes from the actual process of doing it. We just need to make it happen. Doors of the word, actively living, what we know to be true. Laboring in it and living in it. We need to ensure that we listen to the prompting of the Spirit of God, look for that spiritual lesson in every experience, and let God teach us through our experiences as we yield our will to Him. Brethren, pursue wisdom, seek it out, gather it like you would gather riches, and then pass it on.