Please open your Bibles to Proverbs chapter 8. This afternoon we're going to be looking at Proverbs chapter 8, the whole chapter. Begin reading in verse 1. Does not wisdom call? Does not understanding raise her voice? On the heights, beside the way, at the crossroads, she takes her stand. Beside the gates, in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals, she cries aloud. To you, O men, I call, and my cry is to the children of man. O simple ones, learn prudence. O fools, learn sense. Hear, for I will speak noble things, and from my lips will come what is right, for my mouth will utter truth. Wickedness is an abomination to my lips. All the words of my mouth are righteous. There is nothing twisted or crooked in them. They are all straight to him who understands, and right to those who find knowledge. Take my instruction instead of silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold. for wisdom is better than jewels and all that you may desire cannot compare with her. I wisdom dwell with prudence and I find knowledge and discretion. The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil, pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate. I have counsel and sound wisdom. I have insight, I have strength. By me kings reign and rulers decree what is just. By me princes rule and nobles, all who govern justly. I love those who love me and those who seek me diligently find me. Riches and honor are with me, enduring wealth and righteousness. My fruit is better than gold, even fine gold, and my yield than choice silver. I walk in the way of righteousness, in the paths of justice, granting inheritance to those who love me and filling their treasuries. The Lord possessed me at the beginning of His work, the first of His acts of old. Ages ago I was set up at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths, I was brought forth. When there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills I was brought forth. Before He had made the earth with its fields, or the first of the dust of the world. When he established the heavens, I was there. When he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, Then I was beside him like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of man. And now, O sons, listen to me. Blessed are those who keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise and do not neglect it. Blessed is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors. For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord. But he who fails to find me injures himself. All who hate me love death. Well, this is God's word. Let's pray for his blessing upon this time. Our Lord Jesus, we remember how you said that we search the scriptures daily, thinking that in them we have we find life. And yet it is these scriptures that testify about you. And we come now to this time to look at your scriptures because we recognize that without you, we have no life. We need your life and your light. We need you to sustain us, to give us faith. And so, Lord, we pray that we would find you, Lord Jesus Christ. Show us yourself. Help us to see you. Help us to see your glory and increase our faith in you. We pray these things in your name. Amen. Proverbs 31.10 says, An excellent wife who can find Her worth is far above jewels, or maybe your translation will say, her worth is far above rubies. An excellent wife, who can find? And the young man hearing his father give the last three lectures in chapters five, six, and seven, might be asking his father that question. Well, dad, how is one supposed to find an excellent wife? You told me in chapter five that I was to delight in the wife of my youth and enjoy the blessings of marriage and to stay away from the forbidden woman. And there are these forbidden women out there. And then you told me in chapter six, once again, about the adulterous woman. And you told me about all the dangers that she might pose. And so, okay, I need to avoid that kind of woman. And then you told me again in chapter seven about another kind of adulterous woman, the woman who, when her husband is away, that she is going to come out and seek to meet me in the streets at night. that she's just going to stab me through the spleen and kill me. Okay, well, I don't want a wife like that. And I don't want to be with a woman like that. So dad, how am I supposed to find an excellent wife? Well, that question is a question that many people are asking today. How am I going to find a good wife? Even as I sat down to write this sermon, the very day that I began to write the sermon popped up on the feed that an article had just been published, and the article was called, Lots of Single Christians, Few Weddings. The article is about how, in our day, among conservative Christians, there are a lot of single Christians, but they don't seem to be getting married to each other. They don't seem to be finding each other. And the article talks about all kinds of reasons for that, which I'm not really going to get into. But it is a question, how am I supposed to find a godly spouse? Christians are more and more a minority in this country. Bible-believing Christians are even more of a minority, and we seem to be spread out over the country. And in our day, many people work. And so you spend most of your working day maybe at an office around unbelievers. How are you going to find a godly spouse? Well, if a few of you thought this was going to be a sermon on that question, how to find a spouse, that might be disappointing to a few of you, and that might be a great relief to a lot of you. I'm glad he's not going to spend a whole sermon on this. The sermon is not really going to answer that question. How do you find an excellent wife? But it is the answer to what the son is asking his father. The Son is probably most likely thinking this question. And we know this partly because of how verse one starts. Notice that when the father starts a new lecture, he uses the words, my son, and that's what tells us he's beginning a new topic. But we don't have that in verse one or in chapter nine. And so really chapters eight and nine are continuing this lecture about the forbidden woman. and it's providing for us the alternative, providing for the son, the alternative. And notice how verse one is a rhetorical question. Does not wisdom call? So here is the forbidden woman, and here are all the dangers, and if you follow her, it's gonna lead to death, but, but son. Isn't wisdom calling out to you? And so here in chapter 8, what the father is doing is presenting the alternative for his son. Instead of seeking after this type of wife or woman, you should seek after wisdom. Wisdom is the excellent woman who is calling out to you and she also is asking you if you will have a relationship with her. And she's there and she is on the heights beside the way in parallel to the forbidden woman who is at the street and at the market and on every corner. Well, here's another lady who is also competing for your attention, young man. So don't ignore this lady who wants your attention to pay attention to the forbidden woman. And so that's the father's answer to his son. With the question that the son might ask in his mind, well, dad, how am I supposed to find an excellent wife? The father's answer is seek out wisdom. If you seek this lady, seek wisdom, Well, it could be in God's providence and in his timing. If a good wife is from the Lord, God will provide you that good wife. But what yours to look for is lady wisdom. So this is what we're going to think about as we look at this passage today. So first, With wisdom described as this lady, we're going to see her call, the call of wisdom, verse 1 through 11, then her profile, verses 12 to 31, and then the exhortation to go find this woman, verses 32 to 36. So again, wisdom calls aloud, verse 1. Does not wisdom call, does not understanding raise her voice? So wisdom is provided here as the alternative, as the alter ego of the forbidden woman. And who is she calling? Well, verses 4 and 5 tell us this. To you, O men, I call. And my cry is to the children of man. O simple ones, learn prudence. O fools, learn sense." So she's calling to what is here described as men, children of man, the simple ones, and the fools. Now, we could say that this is generically referring to mankind, to people. but it's interesting that the father is using the word that is the word that means male when he refers to he says wisdom says oh men you could translate this literally as males and so not mankind in general but males I am calling to you there is This call of a lady wisdom, specifically talking to the males again as the alternative to the woman in chapter seven, who is also calling out to the males. And then the same with the children of man, literally the sons of man or the sons of Adam. And so, you know, like in Narnia, C.S. Lewis uses that term. He calls the girls the daughters of Eve, and he calls the boys in the story the sons of Adam. And so, yes, you could take this generically, children of man as mankind, but it does seem that it's specifically more addressed to the sons, to the young men. And they are called simple ones. Remember, it was back in chapter 7 that the father looked out of his window and he saw, oh, there's a simpleton. He's going out at night. Oh, no, this is not going to end well. He is a simple youth. He's a simpleton. And now wisdom is calling out to the simple young man. And the same with fools. Again, she is calling to the fools to learn wisdom. And then she tells them why they need to listen to her. Verse 6, For I will speak noble things, and from my lips will come what is right. For my mouth will utter truth. Wickedness is an abomination to my lips. All the words of my mouth are righteous. There is nothing twisted or crooked in them. They are all straight to him who understands, and right to those who find knowledge. Take my instruction instead of silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold. For wisdom is better than jewels, and all that you may desire cannot compare with her. Why should you listen to her? Because she speaks what is right and true. She tells you straight what she wants to say. Car salesmen have a reputation for being not so upfront. in their selling of a car, and they will not be up front with maybe the problem that a car might have, and they will emphasize the good things about the car, and they'll tell you, oh, look at this wonderful new technology, and how you can send text messages with your voice, and yet the engine is about to blow up. But they're not going to tell you that part about the engine, which is what you really need a car for. And then they'll not tell you all up front the cost of the car. They'll say, well, just for you, I'll give you $5,000 off. And you say, well, why didn't you just tell me that it was $5,000 less? And then maybe I would actually want to buy the car first. And then they'll tell you, well, you need to pay for this warranty. And then you've got these fees and then you've got these taxes. And so you go through this whole process and you realize that they're just trying to make a sale. They're not trying to help you. They're trying to make as much money as they can. That's their job, but that's not what you want is to give them as much money as you can. You want a good car. And so they don't tell you up front everything that is true and right. And in the same way, back in chapter 7, in chapter 6, the Father described the forbidden woman as having words that are smooth as oil, you know, and she tells you all these things and she flatters you. She doesn't tell you, hey, if you come to my house, there's going to be a spear going through your stomach. No, she's not going to tell you that. She hides the danger and she pretends that everything's going to be good. But what is Lady Wisdom like? She's the exact opposite. From my lips come what is right. My mouth utters truth. There is nothing twisted or crooked. She tells you the truth. But you see, we don't like to hear the truth. We wanna hear things that make us feel good. We wanna hear the things that will flatter us. We don't wanna hear difficult things, but wisdom tells us straight up what we need to hear. It will hurt many times to hear the truth about ourselves. to hear the truth about what we actually need versus what we want. We need the truth, and it doesn't feel good at first, but it leads to life. And she says it's better than jewels, it's better than silver and gold. There's nothing that you desire that could compare to having this lady who will tell you straight up what is actually true about you. There's nothing better, but it's gonna hurt. And so this is what the fool needs to learn, and this is what all of us need to understand, and especially the young man, he needs to understand. Do I want to find truth? Do I want to find what is right? Or do I just want to think that I am right? Because if I think that I'm right about everything, then I'm never going to learn anything. And young people have this particular stubbornness about them to think that they are right and to absolutely insist that they're right and they know everything and they don't want to hear and receive the truth. But if you're gonna be a wise person, And if you're gonna have a good life and a God honoring life, you need to have this attitude that I need to receive truth even when it's hard for me to hear. So wisdom calls in the first 11 verses. Next, she tells us about herself in verses 12 to 31. And so I've called this wisdom's profile. She's telling us a profile about herself. Some of you have Facebook. You have a Facebook profile and you might have on there your birthday or your college and the things that you like or whatever it is. There are dating apps, which of course I'm not, I don't know anything about, but there are dating apps where I'm sure that they have a profile as people are searching for a spouse. And so that you can know, do I want to reach out to this person? Is there a chance that I might like this person? And this is what wisdom is doing now. She says, I'm calling out to you, so now let me tell you about myself. And so, the purpose of this is to get us, if you're seeking wisdom, if you want to have a relationship with wisdom, then you need to like the things that she likes and hate the things that she hates. And you need to know what she's like so that you can then know how to do things that she likes. So guys, You're interested in a girl and she says, I like Mexican food. And you want to take her out on your first date? You don't take her to Five Guys. She's telling you, I like Mexican food, so take her to the Mexican restaurant. And so this is what wisdom is telling you to do. She tells you about herself so that you will know what pleases her. So first she tells us about her qualities in verses 12 to 21. some things about herself. Where does she live? She has a roommate, verse 12. Her roommate's name is Prudence. What does she like to do? Well, she has a hobby she likes to go looking for. She likes to go exploring knowledge and discretion. So if you want a relationship with this woman, you also need to be interested in finding knowledge and discretion. What are the things that she doesn't like? If you know that she doesn't like something, then you as a young man, you're trying to get her to be interested in you, you're going to put those things away. She tells you, I don't like those ratty t-shirts you always wear. Then you go to Target and you're going to go buy polos and you're going to wear polos to impress her. What does she, wisdom, hate? She hates evil. Verse 13. Pride, arrogance, perverted speech. Young men, are you willing to put away pride? Get rid of the arrogance in your heart? Are you willing to put away the perverted speech that you speak so that you can have the relationship with wisdom? Well, if you really want this, then you need to put these things away. What are some of her traits? Verse 14, she says, I have counsel and sound wisdom. She doesn't tell you about the color of her hair or the color of her eyes or whatever. She says, no, I have counsel. Let me tell you that I have insight and I have strength. What does she do? She's an advisor to kings. She's a counselor. Verse 15, by me kings reign and rulers decree. What is just by me princes rule and nobles. She is there to always give counsel and advice to kings about how to reign in a wise way. That's her job. What does she love? Verse 17, she says, I love those who love me. She come from maybe less money, or more money. She says, verse 18, riches and honor are with me, enduring wealth and righteousness. She tells us that she's an investor. My fruit is better than gold and my yield than choice silver. She knows how to invest well. And so if you have a relationship with her, you can have more interest gained than someone who invests in the choice silver. Sounds like someone you'd be interested in. Sounds like something, someone you would want to get to know. Where does she hang out? What are the kind of places she goes? Verse 20, I walk in the way of righteousness, in the paths of justice. So this is the excellent wife that you want to seek after. This is the kind of woman you would want to spend some time with. So I want to focus on verse 17. What are you supposed to do then? Verse 17. She says, I love those who love me. Love her, because then she will love you. Now, I'll get in a little bit to talking about who wisdom is more specifically, but I think you understand at this point at least that we're talking about spiritual things here. And so I want us to think for a minute about verse 17 and what it means that we love God and love Christ and have this promise from him. He loves those who love him. We can read it as a promise that God loves us, his people. Sometimes maybe you might doubt, does God really love me? You might feel overwhelmed with your sin sometimes and you know that you continue to struggle with certain sins and you wonder, does God really love me? Because look at all of my sin. Or it's especially in times of difficult circumstances when trials happen and specific things happen to us that don't seem to be happening to all the other people we know. And we say, maybe God has something against me. Maybe he has it out for me. And this is one of those places. This is where you put your finger on this promise. I love those who love me. The conditions here are not how little or how often you sinned. The conditions here are not, well, unless you're going through a really bad time, then, you know, I decide to not love you anymore. No, he says, I love you if you love me. And you might say to yourself, well, how do I know that I love him? Or I don't really feel that I love him. Maybe that's why I know he doesn't love me because I don't really love him as much as I should. Well, do people who don't love God wonder if they love God? No. Are the celebrities of Hollywood sitting around all day wondering, does God love me? No, they don't care if God loves them. They are living their godless lives, doing whatever they want. And so those who are missing the love of God, those who sense a lack of assurance and those who are seeking after more of this assurance are doing it because they do love God. And so you can apply this promise to yourself. God loves you, his people, because you know that you are his because you do love him. But this is also an exhortation, an encouragement for us to grow in our love for him. Love him more. The more you love him, the more that you will sense, in general, his love for you. We grow in our assurance as we do the things that help us to be more assured of our relationship with them. Think about it this way. You get depressed and you say, well, I don't really feel like God really loves me. Well, what's the solution? What's the answer? Is the answer less Bible, less prayer, and less church? No, I don't think so. No, that's not the answer. No, the answer is do the things that will increase your love for God. Things like the word and prayer and church. But isn't it funny how this is how we act? We think, well, what good is it? I don't sense God's love for me. What's the point of reading the Bible today? What's the point of praying? What's the point of showing up at church? Well, the more we do these things of seeking to love Christ more in general, that is how God works to then assure us more and more of his love for us. So it's a promise, but it's also an encouragement. Love him and you will know more of his love for you. So she's told us about her qualities, verses 12 to 21. Now she tells us about her background. And most of the sermon really is we're gonna focus on verses 22 to 31. And think about this background of Lady Wisdom. Where is she from? Could even ask it this way. How old is she? It's like you might put your birthday on the profile. Well, when is the birthday of Lady Wisdom? We can, in a sense, ask that question. That's what Lady Wisdom is going to tell us about here in 22 to 31. Now, as we get to these verses, I'm just going to say that I'm going to interpret these as a reference to the Son of God and describing who the Son of God was before the creation and at creation. And so I can only say, if you have a lot of questions about that, I did a Sunday School lesson on that a few weeks ago, and you can go back and watch that as I walked through the issues of translation and why I think this is about the Son of God. One thing that I didn't really talk about and that you might have a question about is because I've been emphasizing so much this idea of lady wisdom. You might think, okay, well, that's odd. How does that work with now we're talking here about the son of God? Well, one option we could say is that the first 21 verses are more like a generic description of wisdom. And now here in verse 21, it's like wisdom personified, and that's personified in the Son of God. It's one way you could read it, that there's sort of a shift going on here. Personally, I don't think we really need to do that. I think we can see the whole chapter as about being the Son of God. And it doesn't really bother me that wisdom is described using feminine words, feminine grammar. And that's just because there are some grammars that have feminins and that doesn't really mean anything about the actual object. So, for example, Spanish has masculine and feminine in its words. And so the Spanish word for chair is a feminine form of the word. And so you would refer to it with feminine pronouns. But that doesn't say anything about chairs being feminine and forks being masculine. You get what I'm saying? It's just grammar. It's just a way of referring to an object. And so to refer to wisdom with the grammar and feminine, I don't think is really saying anything about what wisdom is. And so clearly the Son of God is a son and he is a male. So it's not saying anything odd about who the son is. But this metaphor of wisdom is being used for the Son of God. Now Jesus talks about himself this way. in the Gospels. He refers to himself as the wisdom of God with feminine words. Matthew 11 verse 19, he says, the son of man came eating and drinking and they say, look at him, a glutton and a tax collector, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds. And it seems to me that he is referring to himself there as being justified. But he calls himself wisdom. He says wisdom is justified by her deeds. Another verse is in Luke 11 49. Jesus says, therefore, the wisdom of God said, quote, I will send them prophets and apostles. He goes on. So Jesus is quoting some source, and he says, the wisdom of God said. But what's interesting is that then Matthew has his version of this saying, Matthew 23, 34. And it says, therefore, Jesus speaking, therefore I send you prophets. So you see, Matthew is taking out the term wisdom of God, and he's just inserting I. uh, that Jesus was the one who said this. That's what Matthew says. Luke says, wisdom of God said this. And so this is a new Testament reference to Jesus as the wisdom of God. And Jesus refers to himself this way. First Corinthians one 24 Paul says Christ is the wisdom of God. He's not saying there Christ has the wisdom of God, but that He is the wisdom of God. So again, I'm not trying to make any odd claims about the Son being female or feminine or anything like that. The Son of God is the Son of God and He is male. He's described in masculine terms. But I think we have biblical reasons to read these verses. as the Son of God being described, portrayed as wisdom. So, where is she from, or where is He, the Son, from? Well, He never had a beginning. The Son of God is eternal. And I'll just read, I should have put this all together in Sunday school, the way that I translated, I walked through these verses. I'll just read it to you the way that I would translate these verses. Verse 22, the Lord begot me as the head of his work, the head of his acts of old. From eternity I was installed, from the first, before the beginning of the earth. Then verse 24, when there were no depths, I was begotten when there were no springs abounding with water. And so these verses are telling us that before creation, which means before time began, so in eternity, so when there was nothing, no time, no space, the Son of God was begotten. He was begotten before all ages. And then as the one who was already existing preexistent before creation, he was then installed as the head of creation. He's the first born of creation. And through him, all things were made. That's what these verses go on to say. Verse 30, that he is beside God, the Lord, the father, as a master workman, creating things. The father is creating through the son. And the sun is the master workman in creating the world. So, he goes on to describe creation in verses 25 to 30, and how the sun, wisdom, and God together, they create everything. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills I was brought forth. Before he had made the earth with its fields, or the first of the dust of the world. When he established the heavens, I was there. When he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him like a master workman. The Son of God was there as the whole world was being created. Maybe you remember the last few chapters of Job and the response that God gives to Job starting in chapter 38. He says, were you there when I marked out the heavens? Were you there when I created this animal and that animal? Are you the one who plays with Leviathan like a little fish on a hook? And I thought of God's questions to Job as I read these verses. The son of God could answer all those questions and he could say, yeah, I was there. I was there actually, God. I was there right with you. Together we created Orion and the Pleiades. Together we cracked open canyons and we said, now let's make it a little deeper. Together we decided to create this giant ball of fire called the sun. And it was a great delight to be there. The son says it was a great delight to enjoy creating this masterpiece of the world together. And then he goes on in verse 30 to talk about this delight. I was daily his delight rejoicing before him always rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the Children of man. And so this rejoicing and delighting was happening as the world was being created, but it was happening even in eternity. Daily wisdom, the son of God was the delight of God, the father and daily wisdom. The son was rejoicing before the father always. And so there's this mutual rejoicing and delight that existed between father and son from eternity. And this is what it means. This is why it matters that the Son of God is eternally begotten of the Father. It means that these three persons are not just these neutral, abstract things. We can't comprehend them, but these are persons. This is a relationship of Son and Father. God is not just this being who is, I don't know, it's just this thing, this giant rock. People sometimes accuse us of thinking God is just this big rock. He just decrees one thing and decrees another, does whatever he wants. Like he's just this thing. But we are meant to see God as this triune relationship. where eternally a father loves his son and a son loves his father back and is receiving the love of the father and all of this along with the relationship of the Holy Spirit. In this delight and rejoicing, the New Testament says is what we enter into through Jesus Christ. Jesus prayed in John 17. He said, I pray father that they may be in us. Just as I am in you and you are in me. Just as the father is in the son and the son is in the father, I pray that they may be in us. We don't become gods, we don't become part of the Trinity, but what we do is we enter into the relationship of the Father and the Son. In other words, we are adopted as sons through the Son of God, and we receive all of that love that the Father has for His Son. You have communion with the Father and the Son. You can, in some sense, insert yourself into this verse and say that daily you are His delight. Because the Father loves His Son and you're in the Son, and so daily He's delighting in you. And then you always are able to rejoice before Him. And so this is what you need to see about yourself. You are in Christ. If you have faith in Jesus and you're resting in him as Savior, this is your identity, is that you are united to Christ. In him, fully united to him. And this is what you need to think about yourself when things are difficult in your life, when you face great suffering. Do you think about all of your suffering? Or do you think, I am in Christ? And therefore, I am daily my father's delight, and I can rejoice before him always. When you are rejected by others, do you think about how daily the father delights in you? When things are not going well for you, can you say? Like Paul did. Having nothing. Yet possessing everything. Can you say that about yourself? Paul said, I have nothing, but I have everything. And what did he mean? I have everything because I am daily the delight of the father and daily I can rejoice in God, my father. Though I possess, though I have nothing, I possess everything. And so this is who the son of God is. This is who wisdom is in his background, the eternally begotten one. And so the father ends the last few verses with the exhortation to find wisdom. And so now we go back to wisdom speaking in the first person. And now, Oh, sons, listen to me. Blessed are those who keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise and do not neglect it. Blessed is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors. For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord, but he who fails to find me injures himself. All who hate me love death. Just as It should be that the man is to pursue the woman and seek a relationship with her. So it is that this woman is inviting, hinting, giving a pretty strong hint, an invitation, a call. But the call is, you have to seek me. You have to wait daily at my gates. You have to wait beside my doors. Uh, she didn't have a phone back then. There is no Facebook messenger to send her a message. So, so if a young man wants a relationship with a young lady, what does he do? He goes to her house and he seeks to get permission to enter into a relationship and he waits and he waits for the time when he's able to talk to her. And this is what you have to do to seek after wisdom. You have to be diligent. You have to make the effort. You have to not be neglectful, but to daily watch and seek after and go after and find because whoever finds me, she says, finds life. The father says, no, I don't have advice for you about how to find an excellent wife, the human spouse that you're looking for. The father says, son, now listen to me. Here's what I want you to do. This is what you need to do. Find wisdom. Seek after wisdom. He's basically saying what Matthew 633 says. Seek first the kingdom of God and then all these things will be added unto you. That's my advice. If you're seeking a spouse, the first thing you should do is seek the Lord and seek Christ and then let God take care of those things. This is applicable to all of us who want things to happen in our life. Seek first the kingdom of God. Seek after the son of God. Prioritize your relationship with God as father and knowing his son and being united to him and love him. And he has his way of working things out for us. Now, as we come to the end and as we come to the Lord's Supper, I wanted to think about Proverbs 8 in light of the supper that we take. Think about how wisdom is easier to be found for us today than it was in the days of the Old Testament. If we are to seek after wisdom, and wisdom is found in the Son of God, Well, what does the Bible tell us? John 1 14 tells us the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory, glory as of the only begotten of the father, full of grace and truth. The begotten son of the father is glorious. And a son in a thousand AD or 900, sorry, 900 BC, he might be listening to all this in verses 22 to 31 and say, wow, that's wonderful. That's great. But how do I know this God? And John says, but now the begotten of the father became flesh. And the apostle John saw him with his own eyes and saw his glory and was able to spend time with him and touch him. And now we don't live in those days that John lived, but Jesus told us that it was better for him, that he would go away, that physically he would not be present with us, but that he would send us his spirit and in some way that we have the spirit. means that we are more united to Christ than the Apostle John was standing right beside Christ. We have the spirit of Christ dwelling within us to unite us to him, to make us daily the delight of the father and to allow us to daily communion, rejoice before him always. And this is because he became flesh. He took on the human nature and accomplished the work of salvation so that we could see the glory of the only begotten of the Father and know him and be united to him. And this is what we remember and celebrate in the Lord's Supper. We take a bread, we take a cup, Because these things represent flesh and blood. This is the Son of God that you worship. This is the Son of God that you have a relationship with and communion with. The eternal Son of God is flesh and blood. He dwelt among us and we see His glory. And so we see His glory by the Spirit as we read His word, as we hear the word preached about Him, we see His glory. And as we take the Lord's Supper and we have physical emblems that's just bread. There's nothing special about the bread and there's nothing special about the cup. Those things in themselves, they're just physical emblems. But what happens is that the Spirit uses this table to remind us and to teach us and to grow the faith in our hearts. that we can see the glory of Jesus by faith. And so the bread and the cup remind us that Christ, the son of God, became flesh. They remind us also that he came to die. It is bread that is broken, and it's a cup that is poured out. And it reminds us that Jesus Christ died on the cross, the eternal Son of God became man. And so, Jesus Christ as the Son of God is the Father's delight. And we can think of John 10 and how Jesus said, For this reason, my father loves me because I lay down my life for the sheep. As Jesus was on the cross, dying in his humanity, the father says, I have all the more reason to love you. I loved you from eternity as the son of God. I have all the more reasons now to love you because in your humanity, you're laying down your life for the sheep. So the Father delights in His Son, delights in His sacrifice to save sinners like us. And when we come to the table, we remember this, but we also receive it for ourselves. This is for us. We enter into this delight. We are in Christ. The Father delights in you. not for any good in you, but because you belong to Christ. Let's pray. Our God, we pray by your spirit that you would help us to heed these calls from wisdom and to seek wisdom. May these words not be merely words that we hear, but may we receive them. May they work in us. May you, oh Lord, by your spirit increase our faith. and give us more and more a sense of the reality of who we are as we seek wisdom and as we seek the Son of God. Well, Lord, we pray that you would encourage us with the truth of who we are in Christ. And even now, as we come to this table, remind us again, help us. We are in need of your grace and your kindness to us. May these not just be a ritual that we go through. But bless it to our souls, we pray in Jesus name. Amen.