Christian View of Wisdom
Text: Proverbs 8:18-21
The most important things in life are spiritual
- Something I’ve learned and something you’ve learned in this life is that the most important things in life are things that money can’t buy.
- This proverb says wisdom gives you access to these important things in life that money can’t buy.
- Not like money that is corrupted, or that thieves steal, or the government takes, or that fails when health can’t be bought.
- Wisdom has eternal purchasing power. The market never goes down for wisdom.
- Therefore, what wisdom produces is better than gold. Her revenue better than silver.
- What are the revenues? What are the things that are better than gold? What are the things that wisdom buys that money can’t? What are some of these durable riches that wisdom can obtain?
- Money can buy a house, but not a home.
- Money can buy pills, but it can’t buy peace.
- Money can buy information, but it can’t buy motivation.
- Money can buy time, to some degree, but it can’t buy hope.
- I read a letter from a man who works in the Texas juvenile system. He talked about a father he was acquainted with who was having trouble with his daughter because of her boyfriend. The boyfriend had encouraged his daughter in drugs which created all kinds of complications in her life and with her family. The father came home after work one day and found his daughter dead in the garage from suicide.
- The suicide rate is at an all-time high and our country spends more money than ever trying to combat it. The highest recorded suicide rates in the world are among the wealthiest people.
- Money can buy activity, but it can’t buy joy
- Jesus Christ, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame.
- This joy is durable. It can take the beating the world will give it and sustain itself.
- Money can buy friends, but it can’t buy love
- The conclusion is that wisdom has purchasing power beyond money. Wisdom can acquire things that money will never be able to obtain. And even more importantly, these intangible, spiritual qualities are more vital to life and having a future than anything that can be purchased.
- Think of it this way. Wisdom is like water to people. You have to have water to live. Without it, things start to fail. Organ failure. This dehydration process can take days or months or years.
- Moses law like dew – Deuteronomy 32:2 My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass:
- Water out of a rock for the Israelites as a metaphor for the life-giving words of God to the nation of Israel. The prophets would say to the nation, those words are your wisdom. Paul would illustrate in Corinthians that the nation was given fed with water from a rock, but that Rock was Christ and the water was Moses’ teachings.
- Then Jesus would liken God’s Spirit to water in John 7:37-39. The teacher of wisdom would be Jesus over Moses now. And Jesus’ words would run everywhere like rivers of water and this would be the pouring out of the Spirit of God. The Spirit would be found in the words, specifically the words of Jesus Christ.
Wisdom is something that is given by God
- The LORD said if anyone lacks wisdom ask God.
Jesus Christ has become our wisdom
- If you want wisdom look to Jesus Christ.
- Paul said he is our wisdom. And he provides the things most needed in this life.
- Ephesians 1:17 That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:
- 1 Corinthians 1:20-24, 30, 2:6-8
The divine commandment is to hear Jesus Christ
- Hearing means more than recognizing the sounds coming out of someone’s mouth. It means paying attention so you can listen to their heart.
- The act of hearing vs the art of listening
- The Father says Hear ye him…
- Hear Christ’s words
- Hear Christ’s life
- Chrisrt’s words became the apostle’s doctrine.
- Sermon on the Mount Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
- The full revelation of wisdom is in Christ.
