So, you Please stand for the call to worship. Our call to worship this morning comes from Psalm 135, verses one through three. Praise the Lord. Praise the name of the Lord. Give praise, O servants of the Lord, who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God. Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good. Sing to his name, for it is pleasant. Let us pray. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, we thank you that we can come and worship you this day, and we pray that your name will be glorified in our worship of you. For we know you are with us, for you are a personal, loving God who has revealed yourself to us through nature and through your word. For the heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims your handiwork. And your word declares your truth, your goodness, and your beauty. and your law is perfect, your testimony is sure, your precepts are right, and your commandments are pure. Now during this time of worship and all throughout this day, including our worship this evening with the installation of Pastor Eugene Oldham as our senior pastor, we pray that through our prayers, our confessions, our praises to you, that they be acceptable in your sight, oh Lord, our rock and our redeemer. It's in Jesus' name I pray, amen. Come, Christians, join to sing hallelujah, amen. Let's lift our voices in praise to our triune God. All Christians join to sing, Alleluia, Amen! Loud praise to Christ our King, Alleluia, Amen! Let all with hearts ♪ And voice before his throne rejoice ♪ ♪ Praise is his gracious choice ♪ ♪ Alleluia, amen ♪ ♪ Come lift your heart on high ♪ ♪ Alleluia, amen ♪ ♪ Let praises to the sky ♪ He is our guide and friend. To us he'll come this end. His love shall never end. Alleluia! Amen! Praise yet our Christ again, Alleluia, Amen! Life shall not end, but stay, Alleluia, Amen! His goodness we'll adore, singing forevermore, hallelujah, amen. The triumphs of His grace. Thy gracious Master and my God, consist me to proclaim, to spread through all the earth abroad the honors of Thy name. He breaks the power of reigning sin. He sets the prisoner free. His blood can make the foulest flee. His blood availed for me. And you can be seated. Our New Testament reading this morning is from Philippians chapter three verses 17 through the first verse of chapter 4. And in this passage, we are called to stand firm in the Lord, even when those around us are not standing firm. They're following gods of their own making. We are to stand firm in the Lord. Philippians chapter 3, beginning at verse 17. Brothers, join in imitating me and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their God is their belly, and they glory in their shame with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved. The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. We are admonished to stand firm in the Lord, and yet how often do we fail to stand firm in the Lord? We doubt, we're faithless. We, like those who reject Christ, make gods of our own bellies. We follow our own inclinations, our own affections, and neglect God's perfect and holy law. And so it is good and right to run to God for mercy, knowing that when we do, he is just and faithful to forgive us of our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So church, would you join me as together we pray this morning our prayer of confession. Oh God, you are good beyond all thought, but I am vile, wretched, miserable, and blind. My lips are ready to confess, but my heart is slow to feel. I bring my soul to you, asking that you break it, wound it, bend it, and mend it. Let me see the sinfulness of sin, that I may hate it and flee from it. Give me grace to grieve over my folly. Grant me to know that the way of transgressors is hard, and to depart from you is to lose all good. I have seen the purity and beauty of your perfect law, the happiness of those in whose heart it reigns, yet I daily violate its precepts. Take a few moments now to silently confess your particular sins to the Lord Listen now to these words from Romans 8. Words of assurance. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written, for your sake we are being killed all the day long. We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I'm sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. God is a God of great mercy. He will not let go of his children. Gonna sing a psalm of confidence, a psalm of trust this morning, Psalm 16. This psalm reminds us that blessing and protection in life depend on our relationship to God. How are you related to God? Is it a right relationship? Is it a wrong, selfish relationship, self-oriented salvation? That brings curse, that brings judgment, but trusting and resting in God, His grace, the gospel, The blood of his son brings blessing and favor. Let's stand again as we sing together Psalm 16. It is worthy, O God, for I'm trusting in you. Yes, you are my master, I said to the Lord. Besides you, I do not possess any good. In your holy messengers, I take delight. Those running to idols will multiply priests. I will not pour out their drink of free Zabba, nor will I confess their vain names with my lips. ♪ Horses and drums ♪ ♪ He who cared for my loves, where the vines fall to be ♪ ♪ My pleasant and lovely inherited land ♪ ♪ The Lord who gives counsel to me I will bless ♪ ♪ For surely my mind teaches me through the night ♪ The Lord ever present before thee I keep. He stands at my right, and I shall not be moved. My glory rejoices, my heart is made glad, and also my flesh. ♪ For you'll not abandon my soul to the grave ♪ ♪ Nor God be one you will preserve from decay ♪ Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we praise you for your mercy on us, your love for us, and the grace you give us new every day. Lord, you supply our every need, hear our every prayer, and are with us in our times of struggle. Lord, as we give back a portion of what you have graciously given us, I pray that it glorifies you and is used to further your kingdom. And I pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. So. ♪ Of the heights where faith can lift the trusting heart ♪ ♪ Lord of all ♪ ♪ Of the depths where fear would tear such faith apart ♪ ♪ Lord of all of the nations great to anchor every heart ♪ Lord of all, of seen and unseen things, of a universe that sings and calls you Lord, Lord of all, of the power not to sin, you have always been and always will be Lord of all. Lord of all, of a peace that we can draw with every breath. Lord of all, a provision for each need in life and death. Lord of all, the turnings of the seas and the earth. Lord of all, the love that purges man of sin and birth. of unseen and unseen things, of a universe that sings and calls you Lord of all. Lord of all, of the power not to sin, you have always been and always will be Lord. Lord of all, Lord of all, Lord of all, Lord of all, Lord of all, Amen. Before we begin this morning's sermon, I need to correct something that I said last week. We were considering how much more valuable wisdom is compared to wealth. And in talking about that comparison, I used an illustration that required me to do math. And I messed something up. I made reference to how much money the world's richest person would have to spend per day if he lived to be 80 years old in order to spend all of his wealth. Well, after the service was over, we were at home eating lunch, and my math-oriented son said, I think you were off by a few zeros. And so we whipped out the calculators, and it turns out he was right. Elon Musk would need to spend not $35,000 per day to spend all of his wealth in 30 years, but $35 million per day, which makes the illustration even more poignant. The value that wisdom brings to a person's life is greater than the stuff that money can buy, even exorbitant amounts of money with more zeros than apparently I can count. So I just wanted to clear that up in case there were some, I know there's a lot of engineers in this church, so sometimes I get paranoid. I'll try to avoid math this morning. Well, today we come to Proverbs 4. This chapter contains three successive speeches from the Father to the Son, and we're gonna look at all three of them this morning. If you would please turn with me to Proverbs 4, we'll read the chapter in its entirety. Proverbs 4, beginning at verse 1. Hear, O sons, a father's instruction, and be attentive that you may gain insight. For I give you good precepts. Do not forsake my teaching. When I was a son with my father, tender, the only one on the side of my mother, he taught me and said to me, let your heart hold fast my words. Keep my commandments and live. Get wisdom. Get insight. Do not forget and do not turn away from the words of my mouth. Do not forsake her and she will keep you. Love her and she will guard you. The beginning of wisdom is this. Get wisdom. And whatever you get, get insight. Prize her highly and she will exalt you. She will honor you if you embrace her. She will place on your head a graceful garland. She will bestow on you a beautiful crown. Hear, my son, and accept my words that the years of your life may be many. I have taught you the way of wisdom. I have led you in the paths of uprightness. When you walk, your step will not be hampered, and if you run, you will not stumble. Keep hold of instruction. Do not let go. Guard her, for she is your life. Do not enter the path of the wicked and do not walk in the way of evil. Avoid it. Do not go on it. Turn away from it and pass on. For they cannot sleep unless they have done wrong. They are robbed of sleep unless they have made someone stumble. For they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence. But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day. The way of the wicked is like deep darkness. They do not know over what they stumble. My son, be attentive to my words. Incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight. Keep them within your heart, for they are life to those who find them and healing to all their flesh. Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. Put away from you crooked speech. and put devious talk far from you. Let your eyes look directly forward and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet, then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left. Turn your foot away from evil. Let's pray. Lord, please open our eyes now that we might behold wonderful things in your word If our hearts are lured in any way towards destructive, foolish paths, would you enable us this morning to notice and to course correct that we might find life and joy and eternal rest in you? I pray in Jesus' name, amen. We've noticed how the opening chapters of Proverbs are comprised of various speeches or lectures from a father to a son. each beginning with the formula, hear my son, or some variation of that formula. We're gonna accelerate the pace a little bit this morning as we try to cover not just one, but three parental speeches. Now, even though there's a great deal of repetition in the themes and promises and commands of these speeches, we've tried to hone in on the distinguishing marks and points of emphasis in each speech. The distinguishing mark of the next speech is that it comes not from the father to his son, but from the grandfather to his son and to his grandson. We see this in verses three and four. When I was a son with my father, he taught me and said, What follows then are words of instruction from grandfather to son to grandson. The passing on of wisdom is a multi-generational endeavor which compounds for good or for bad with each passing generation. Now, there's nothing magical or mystical about this process. It's how familial affection and connection work. Parents love their children, and because of that love, they desire their children to be whatever the parent deems to be successful. A wise parent will want his children to be wise and will seek to pass that wisdom along to his children. A foolish parent will likewise pass his foolishness onto his children. The principle could be stated like this. What you value will be passed on to those whom you love. Or we could state it from the vantage point of the recipient, of the grandson. Those who love you the most will pass on to you the things they value the most. The point then that Proverbs 4 makes is that we ought to not take lightly the wise counsel of previous generations, not only our parents' wise counsel, but even the wise counsel of our parents' parents. G.K. Chesterton, a clever Catholic from 100 years ago, said, tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. We would have the dead at our councils. Chesterton, our culture, is one that generally spurns tradition. Novelty and progress are typically much more highly valued today than tradition. We want to be forward-looking, not backward. And so we often dismiss the ways and the wisdom of previous generations. Now, to be sure, just because something is old doesn't mean it's good or wise. But insofar as ancient counsel is good and wise, we ought to hear it. And even verse one says, be attentive to it. As we walk through these next three speeches from father and a grandfather, we do well to ask ourselves, am I hearing the wise counselors God has put in my life? We should also ask ourselves as parents, as grandparents, am I giving wise counsel to those who are coming after me, to those I love? If wisdom is passed down from generation to generation, am I taking that baton of wisdom and passing it along? Or am I derailing the whole process to the destruction, not only of myself, but to successive generations after me by not hearing, not being attentive, and not walking in wisdom? Well, Proverbs 4 contains three distinct parental speeches. The first one is found in verses 1 through 9, and this speech emphasizes the pursuit of wisdom, the pursuit of wisdom. We've already seen that wisdom is found in the father's and grandfather's counsel, but unless that wisdom is heard and received, then it's of no value. And so we also see that wisdom is gained as the son or daughter pursue it by listening to and valuing that wise parental counsel. Now on a quick side note, this chapter in its application is not limited to males, even though the subjects are grandfathers and fathers and sons, understand that the principles being taught apply equally to grandmothers, mothers, and daughters. The content then of the grandfather's instruction begins in verse 4. And throughout his speech there is a recurring word, a concept that the grandfather just keeps hammering home over and over and over again. It's the word Get, G-E-T. Verse five, get wisdom, get insight. Verse seven, the beginning of wisdom is this, get wisdom. And whatever you get, get insight. So if I were to ask you, how does a person become wise? The answer, according to Grandpa, would be a person becomes wise by getting wisdom. Wisdom is acquired as a person goes and gets it. Now that may sound redundant, that may sound circular, but that's exactly what the grandfather is saying in verse seven. How can I get started on the path of wisdom? Answer, by getting started on the path of wisdom. Wisdom begins for you, grandson, when you resolve in your mind and will to come and get wisdom. Derek Kidner is one of the commentators I'm reading for this series through Proverbs, and he said that this repeated call to get wisdom makes the point that what it takes is not brains or opportunity, but decision. Not brains or opportunity, but decision. Do you want it? Then come and get it. Wisdom, you see, is made readily available in God's world. Our problem is not a lack of opportunity or a lack of intellect or a lack of access. Our problem is a lack of desire. It's a lack of will. If we aren't pursuing wisdom, it's because we don't want it. Verse eight contains an almost scandalous description of what pursuing wisdom entails. Look at verse eight. It says, prize her. That is, prize wisdom highly and she will exalt you, she will honor you if you embrace her. And that word embrace most typically refers to the intimate holding and caressing that is reserved for marriage, things you would only do with your wife. The grandfather is essentially telling his descendants to marry wisdom. It's a metaphor intended to convey how central the pursuit of wisdom is to be in our life. Court wisdom, woo wisdom, like you would your wife. Now everyone in this room, I suspect, would say that they want to get wisdom. Maybe most of us would even think of ourselves as being generally wise. It's easy for good Christian people to affirm the importance and value of wisdom as a desirable character trait. And yet when it comes down to making actually wise choices in real life, our commitment to foolishness often becomes much more apparent. I remember hearing someone say about good literature that the classics, the great books are all those books that everyone wants to have read, but nobody wants to read. And I think a character trait like wisdom can sometimes be viewed that way as well. We all want the reputation of being wise, but we often don't want to have to do what wisdom requires us to do. It requires that we go and get it. Well, the next speech, which is found in verses 10 through 19, makes this pursuit of going and getting wisdom very practical. We might call this speech the habit of wisdom, the habit of wisdom. It would seem from verses 10 through 19 that the chief characteristic of a wise person is their persistence in wisdom. They simply stay on the wise path. Or to put it in the negative, they stay off the foolish path. The recurring word in this speech is the word path or way. What is a path? A path is something that's formed through repeated habitual use, isn't it? I used to love building forts in the woods as a boy. My friends and I would go exploring in the woods behind our home and find some secluded spot to build a fort at out of logs or chicken wire or whatever lumber my dad was tossing out. We'd carry all of our supplies to the site. We'd start building. It would usually take several days for us to get it just like we wanted. By the time the fort was built, we had worn down a path from my house to the woods through the woods to the fort. What had originally been a remote sort of hidden site was now easy to find and easy to get to because we had made a path through the sheer persistent walking back and forth over the same ground. A path is a track made by repeated use, habitual use. Metaphorically, as Solomon is using this term in Proverbs 4, a path is an often used persistent habit that shapes and solidifies the character of a person. And a path, a character habit, may lead to a good place, it may lead to a bad place. The parent says in verse 11, I have taught you the way or the path of wisdom. I've led you in the paths of uprightness. Wise upright paths lead to good places and good things. Verse 12, when you walk on these upright paths, when you habitually do upright things, your step will not be hampered, and if you run, you will not stumble. But there are bad paths to be aware of. Verse 14, do not enter the path of the wicked, In other words, do not take up the persistent habits of wicked people. He continues with this warning in verse 15. Avoid the bad path. Do not go on it. Turn away from it and pass on. So the warning is to not even go near the wicked path. Don't try it out to see how it suits you. No, stay completely off the wicked path. One preacher said, it is far easier to shun the occasion of sin than to shun the sin when the occasion presents it. It's far easier to shun the occasion of sin than to shun the sin when the occasion presents it. In other words, the first step down the wrong path is the easiest step to resist. After that, once that first step has been taken, the desire and the temptation and the habit of it only becomes more persistent. It becomes increasingly more difficult to alter course once that first step is taken. And so the wisest course of action is to not even take that first step onto the wicked path. Now that first step onto a wicked path often involves following the example and the counsel of wrong people. What perhaps begins as merely loving ungodly company in time becomes loving the ungodliness of ungodly company. St. Augustine tells of an incident that happened when he was a teenager. Augustine and his friends decided to steal some pears from their neighbor's pear tree, not because they particularly liked pears, but simply because stealing was forbidden. They hardly even tasted the pears after they stole them, but just threw them to some pigs in a pig pen. And Augustine describes this event in his youth as a moment in which he realized how dreadfully wicked his heart is. And upon reflection, he admits that there was a point in his youth when he would not have committed the vile acts that he did, except for the fact that his friends, whose approval he wanted, were encouraging it. And Augustine said this. He says, it was the company that I loved with whom I did the things I did. When they said, come, let us go and do it, I was ashamed not to be as shameless as they were. I was ashamed not to be as shameless as they were. At first we love the evil company, but eventually we love the evil of the company. So wisdom says don't even set foot on that path. Run the other way. Persist in the path of righteousness. Make righteousness your habit and righteous people your companions. Avoid habitual fellowship with those who hinder your fellowship with God. Let me point out one more thing before we move on to the next speech. In verse 19, Solomon tells us that Those who make it their habit to stay on the wicked path do not know over what they stumble. Do not know over what they stumble. Their life keeps unraveling or not going to plan or is just full of frustrating obstructions, but they never can seem to figure out why their life's path never works out well for them. Part of the nature of the wicked path is this confusion and deception. Habitually unrighteous people are unable to connect the dots between their wicked worldview and the negative circumstances in their life that keep bringing destruction. They don't understand why they seem to not be able not to trip. The righteous upright person, on the other hand, sees clearly why his way is smooth. Verse 18, the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until the full day. Making a habit of righteous living yields an ever-increasing clarity to life's uncertainties and to one's decision-making. It goes well for the righteous, and they understand why it goes well for them. It goes poorly for the wicked, but they cannot grasp or understand the reason why. So to summarize what we've seen so far here in chapter four, Verses 1 through 9 tell us to get wisdom. Make up your mind to get on the path that leads to life. Verses 10 through 19 then exhort us to stay on that path. Persist in it. Make it your habit, your default, your norm to choose the wisest course of action and not play around with foolish people or their destructive habits. And perhaps we could just pause for a moment and ask, What pathways have I persisted on in my life that have become ingrained habits? Habits which maybe I don't even notice I'm doing. Maybe some of us have a well-worn path of worrying and fretting over things instead of trusting the Lord. Maybe we've gotten ourselves into a deep rut of bitterness over some circumstance or some relationship. Some of us, I suspect, have become all too comfortable with anger or lust or rebellion against authority. We've normalized sinful actions and attitudes to the point that we just excuse them under the banner of that's who I am. And we stop mortifying them. We stop putting them to death because we no longer see them as the cancer to our souls that they really are. On the other hand, I suspect the Christians here today who, by virtue of their union to Christ, have the indwelling Holy Spirit to convict and exhort and who have the very mind of Christ guiding them, I suspect that there are many good and upright habits that have begun to form in our lives. Scripture reading. Prayer, attraction to godly friends, love for the Lord's Day, love for the sacraments, obedience to God's revealed will in numerous areas. As these good and upright things become habits in which we persist, we are solidifying our place on the well-worn path that leads to life. Stay on that path. Don't ever veer from it. Don't begin to speculate how much easier or more fun or more rewarding life would be if you imitated those who have haven't taken their faith in Christ so seriously, or haven't made efforts to put sin and its desires to death, or haven't struggled to increase in their knowledge of God and His Word through diligent study and meditation on Scripture and zealous prayer. Don't even contemplate that path. Stay the course. Keep to the path that leads to life. Maintain habits of wisdom. Well, this brings us into the final speech in chapter four, a speech which focuses on what we might call the anatomy of wisdom, the anatomy of wisdom. Verses 20 through 27 are full of references to various parts of the body, the ear, the eyes, the heart, the mouth, the flesh. Each of these body parts are important in their own unique way, and each of them is presented in the speech in a logical way, beginning with the ears. As we've seen numerous times already, using our ears to gain wisdom is a frequently recurring exhortation in Proverbs, isn't it? We are to listen, to hear, to be attentive to wisdom's voice. Begins with the ears. Even an unborn baby in the womb is able to hear the voices of his parents. Next, the focus moves to the eyes. Verse 21, let them not escape from your sight. keeping your figurative gaze, your focus, your attention fixed on wise instruction. Then the latter half of verse 21 shifts the focus to the heart. And this is really the central and most important focal point of the speech. The heart. In fact, look with me at verse 23. It says, keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. Let me read verse 23 again in the New International Version. The NIV says, above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. More than anything else that needs guarding, it is the heart that needs guarding the most. And why is that? Well, it's because everything a person does, and in fact, everything a person is, flows from the heart. In other words, The heart is a pipeline to literally everything else in a person's life. Before I say something with my mouth, it's already been spoken in my heart. Before I choose to do some action, it has already been evaluated and resolved to be done in my heart. Before I embrace an ideology or entertain a desire or commit to a relationship or reject an ideology or a desire or a relationship, I've already embraced, entertained, committed to, or rejected it in my heart. What then is the heart? It's really not an English equivalent that fully captures the meaning of the Hebrew word for heart. Some of our words come close. Words like mind or will or emotions get very close, but they even fall short. This word occurs 46 times in the book of Proverbs, so it's a very prominent concept in this book of wisdom. It occurs 858 times in the Old Testament. One theologian said that the heart is the most important anthropological term in the Old Testament. Of all the parts that make up a person, the heart is the most significant. Now, of course, physically speaking, we understand the heart to be an organ in our chest cavity that pumps blood to the whole body. But the Hebrew use of the term involves so much more. The heart is that part of us that prompts us to do all that we do. It's the part that makes us be all that we are. It determines the words that come out of our mouths. It establishes our disposition, our mood. It determines our decision making. It's the engine that drives our intellectual activity and emotions and even our ethical convictions. Sometimes in English, we draw a distinction between the head and the heart. And what we mean by that distinction is that part of us is the rational part and part of us is the emotional part, but that's not how the Hebrew mind would have conceived of the makeup of human beings. The thing that joins the rational part and the emotional part of us is the heart. It is the center of everything. And so when it comes to wise instruction from a father or a grandfather, or when it comes to the foolish influence of ungodly friends, the heart is the part of a human being that is able to receive and embrace or reject and discard. When we refer to our acceptance of something, we speak of taking it to heart, right? When we refer to our rejection of something, we speak of hardening our heart. So if the heart is this central to a person's emotional, intellectual, religious, and moral activity, then it needs more than anything else to be safeguarded. It is the citadel. Keep your heart, verse 23, with all vigilance. Now does this mean all we have to do is keep an eye on our heart and all will be well? No. You see, the fact is the heart, as central as it is to a person, is still influenced by outside sources. In other words, the heart is the pipeline to every part of me, but that pipeline runs in both directions. While the heart is the great influencer of, say, my ears and eyes and mouth, it is also true that my ears and eyes and mouth hold a significant influence over my heart. Think for a moment with me the interaction between our speech and our heart. For example, there's clearly a connection between the two. Luke 6 45 says, out of the abundance of the heart, a person's mouth speaks. In other words, what comes out of my mouth is an audible and accurate reflection of what is inside my heart. But at the same time, my speech can affect and influence my heart. James 3, 6 says, the tongue, the speech, is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life. And so guarding our heart will also involve keeping watch over our mouths. Last week, I came across a very convicting statement that warns of the heart's vulnerability to external sin habits, like ungodly speech. It said this, cynical chatter, fashionable grumbles, flippancy, half-truths barely meant in the first place, can harden into well-established habits of thought. Words that you just idly speak and don't even mean can become habits of your heart. The tongue and the eyes and the ears are pipelines from the heart, but they are also gateways to the heart. And what we tolerate with regard to these gateways will eventually become normalized and acceptable in our hearts. So Solomon says, keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. And how do you do that? Verse 24, by putting away from you crooked speech and devious talk. Verse 25, by letting your eyes, your attention, look directly forward and your gaze be straight before you. Verse 26, by pondering the path of your feet, considering the consequences of your actions. These are the ways we guard our hearts. We talk about and think about and gaze at and pursue righteous paths. We keep the focus of our affection on what we ought to be loving and away from what we ought not to be loving. Had Eve not focused on the forbidden fruit, she would have never sinned. Transgression begins in the heart. long as we keep our gaze fixed on God's truth and our affections fixed on that which God would have us love, Satan loses his advantage over us. Well, Proverbs 4 is rich with insight. It contains three different speeches with three different points of emphasis. So as we close this morning, let me just highlight Three words that come from each of these speeches that summarize the application of Proverbs 4. The words are get, persist, and guard. Get, persist, and guard. First, we are to be wise, if we are to be wise, we must resolve in our hearts to get wisdom. Passivity does not make a fool wise because our default starting place is not one of innate wisdom. It's a place of innate foolishness. If that is to ever change, it's going to require a conscious choice to go and get wisdom. So ask yourself, am I looking for wise counselors? Am I exposing myself to the best moral and spiritual examples and models and mentors I can find? Am I putting myself in the way of wise people and wise words? Am I listening to the authorities in my life whom God has entrusted with my training in wisdom? If you want to be wise, you've got to go and get wisdom. The second word to keep in mind is the word persist. Having resolved to walk the wise path, you need to persist on that path. Don't think that your Monday morning resolution to get wisdom will be all achieved and wrapped up by Monday night. No, it will take a lifetime of persistent pursuit, full of temptations and opportunities to veer off the path and return to old ways, old ruts. Don't do it. Wisdom is developed through the mundane steadiness of upright habits. Thirdly, you need to guard, guard your heart, protect the engine of your affections and will and thinking by fixing your gaze on that which you ought to be becoming and on what you ought to be doing and on what you ought to be loving. Lastly, let me just say this, all of this getting and persisting and guarding is not something that any of us can do in our own strength. You need Christ. You need the Holy Spirit. You need the motivating, reassuring love of God the Father. Why? Because apart from the triune God, there is no wisdom to be found. The beginning of wisdom is not self-confidence. The beginning of wisdom is not grit. The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. So in all of your getting and persisting and guarding, fear the Lord and rely on him to give the grace to become wise. He is the all-wise Father. So hear him, you sons and daughters. Let's pray. Lord, you are wise and we need the wisdom you give. Please give it to us. I pray this in the name of Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, and as a demonstration of your fatherly love for us. Amen. Let's stand together as we conclude our time of worship this morning singing. Aflit and saint, to Christ draw near, your Savior's You can believe that as your days your strength shall be. Your faith is deep, your foes are strong, and if a conflict should arise, The Lord will make a tempter flee, as your days your strength shall be. victory's won, God shall supply all that you need. Yes, as your lineage, your strength shall be. Should persecution, rage, and ♪ And trust in your Redeemer's name ♪ ♪ In fiery trials you shall see ♪ ♪ That at your days your strength shall be ♪ ♪ So sing with joy aflame ♪ The battle speaks, but the victory's won. God shall supply all that you need. Yes, as your days, your strength shall be. When you call to bear your wings, or sore affliction, pain, or loss, or deep distress, or poverty, still as your days, your strength shall be. So sing with joy. The battle's fierce, but the victory's won. God shall supply all that you need. Yes, as your days, your strength shall be. Amen. I chose that song because Proverbs is a very action-oriented book, as we've acknowledged. It's very easy for me, maybe for you too, as you study this book and meditate on it, just to feel beaten down and feel like I'm falling far short of wisdom's expectations and requirements. We need to be constantly reminded we don't do this in our own strength. Our strength comes from the grace of God, comes from a merciful God who has given his only begotten son to be our wisdom when we're fools. And that's our place from which we go and apply a book like this book of wisdom. So keep that in mind this week. Don't be discouraged, but run hard after wisdom by running hard after Christ. We invite you to come back tonight at 6 o'clock. This is a special service. Presbytery is going to be joining our evening service as we install myself as a pastor at Grace Church. Bill Threlkill, he's a friend of mine, recently retired pastor of Back Creek PCA, not Back Creek ARP, Back Creek PCA up in Mount Ola, North Carolina. He's gonna be preaching the word. Jay Crestar will be here to give a charge. Bruce Brown will be here. He'll also be giving a charge. Some other friends from our presbytery. And then there's a finger food fellowship after the service. We also have lunch today at, well right now, As soon as we're done, we'll go up to the fellowship hall and enjoy some time of fellowship. So I hope you can stay for that. If you're visiting, you're welcome to stay. There's plenty of food, I'm sure, for everyone. As we conclude, would you receive the Lord's benediction? The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. And all God's people said.