A Successful Life (Proverbs #29)

Text: Proverbs 8:22-31

Wisdom precedes everything

  • Before you sit down to build, somebody comes up with a plan. Wisdom is the blueprint, the design prior to building. God’s creation is no different.
  • Intelligence precedes order, it precedes systems, it must exist prior to effective work being done.
  • Big Bang makes no sense scientifically and no sense philosophically. Order and order as complicated as creation are always preceded by intelligence and planning.
  • Wisdom is one of those things like morality that humanity is allowed to participate in, but is not the inventor of. People did not create the notion of wickedness and righteousness, but all people have a standard of wickedness and righteousness regardless of race, color, class, or geography. Another reason evolution is so dumb. It makes no physical sense, but it makes no spiritual sense either.
  • Or gravity: man didn’t invent it, but he has to work in its framework. Man can make observations about it, but he can’t change it.
  • Wisdom also transcends mankind. There is no human author, but wisdom loves dwelling with mankind as she said in verse 31.

Spiritual truths are found in how nature operates

  • Wisdom is the blueprints, so wisdom describes how things work and how things work together. Like that show, How It’s Made. You step behind the scenes and find out the process and raw materials that go into making this product you love.
  • Wisdom is what it takes to build something successful. So in God’s creation, wisdom is the blueprint. This is why Jesus Christ or even the prophets would use natural illustrations to explain spiritual truths. This is why parables work. Because spiritual truths are fundamentally a part of natural things.
    • Seed and sower
    • Wheat and tares
    • Holiness and fire
    • People as trees

Wisdom is lonely without people

  • Wisdom buried underground is alone and useless. But wisdom among people is happy and productive. Look at verse 31.
  • Now that we know how things work, then my decisions for life need to be based on wisdom.
    • Marriage needs to be based on wisdom because wisdom is what first laid the blueprints for marriage.
    • Education needs to be based on wisdom because knowledge and learning had their origins in wisdom.
    • What I choose to love needs to be based on wisdom.
    • Who I choose to be should be based on wisdom.
    • What should I think about a career?
    • What should retirement look like?
    • What does my Creator want out of my life?
  • Wisdom built the earth, wisdom is how things work, so success is the application of wisdom. Success is doing things the way God intended them to be done.