Well, hello church. If you would, open up to 1 Kings 3. 1 Kings 3. And if I could have you stand. This is a long passage, and I want us alert and paying attention. We don't always stand to read the Word before the sermon, but let's do it this evening. We're continuing this series. Can you all hear me? We're continuing a series here on virtues, neglected virtues, and we'll be looking at the virtue of wisdom tonight. So let's look at it. 1 Kings chapter 3, starting in verse 1. Solomon made a marriage alliance with Pharaoh, king of Egypt. He took Pharaoh's daughter and brought her into the city of David until he had finished building his own house and the house of the Lord and the wall around Jerusalem. The people were sacrificing at high places, however, because no house had yet been built for the name of the Lord. Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of David, his father, only he sacrificed and made offerings at the high places. And the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, for that was the great high place. Solomon used to offer a thousand burnt offerings on that altar. At Gibeon, the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream at night, and God said, Ask what I shall give you. Solomon said, You have shown great and steadfast love to your servant David, my father, because he walked before you in faithfulness and righteousness and uprightness of heart toward you. And you have kept for him this great and steadfast love, and have given him a son to sit on his throne this day. And now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of David my father, although I am but a little child. I do not know how to go out or come in. And your servant is in the midst of your people whom you have chosen. a great people, too many to be numbered or counted for multitude. Give your servant, therefore, an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, and who is able to govern this, your great people." It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this, and God said to him, because you have asked this and have not asked for yourself a long life or riches or the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself an understanding to discern what is right, Behold, I now do according to your word. Behold, I give you a wise and discerning mind so that none like you has seen before you or none like you shall arise after you. I give you also what you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that no other king shall compare with you all your days. And if you will walk in My ways, keep My statutes and My commandments as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your days.' And Solomon awoke, and behold, it was a dream. And then he came to Jerusalem and stood before the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and offered up burnt offerings and peace offerings, and made a feast for all his servants. Then two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. And the one woman said, Oh my Lord, this woman that I live in the same house and I gave birth to a child while she was in the house. And then on the third day after I gave birth, this woman also gave birth. And we were alone. There was no one else with us in the house. Only we two were in the house. And this woman's son died in the night because she lay on him. and she arose at midnight and took my son from beside me while your servant slept and laid him at her breast, and laid her dead son at my breast. Then I arose in the morning to nurse my child, and behold, he was dead. But when I looked at him closely in the morning, behold, it was not the child that I had borne. But the other woman said, No! The living child is mine and the dead child is yours. The first said, No. The dead child is yours, and the living child is mine.' Thus they spoke before the king. Then the king said, The one says, This is my son that is alive, and your son is dead. And the other says, No, your son is dead, and my son is a living one. And the king said, Bring me a sword. So a sword was brought before the king. And the king said, Divide the child in two, and give half to the one and half to the other. Then the woman whose son was alive said to the king, because her heart yearned for her son, oh my Lord, give her the living child and by no means put him to death. But the other said, he shall be neither mine nor yours, divide him. Then the king answered and said, give the living child to the first woman and by no means put him to death. She is his mother. And all Israel heard of the judgment that the King had rendered, and they stood in awe of the King because they perceived that the wisdom of God was in Him to do justice. Let us pray. Father, we pray for Your wisdom to be understood tonight and desired and sought after. We know it's available for us. You say that there are storehouses of wisdom to those who will ask. And so, Father, we pray that You would work in us a yearning and a desire for this wisdom. That, Lord, we could live lives of wisdom and that people could see in and through us Your wisdom so that You get the glory and many people receive good. We pray it in Jesus' name, Amen. You can be seated. Well, as we continue this series on neglected virtues and we get into the virtue of wisdom, I don't know about you, this was an easy one for me when I thought, well, who do we study? Who's the person in the Old Testament we study to learn about wisdom? Most all of us are going to say Solomon. And that's because God promised Solomon, even in this passage, promised him wisdom as none before him had and none after him would have." And then we know that God used Solomon to write wisdom literature. He wrote Proverbs and Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon. Now, look, Solomon is not wisdom personified, okay? He, even Jesus said, one greater than Solomon is here. And the greatest thing about Solomon was his wisdom. And so Jesus claimed to one up Solomon with wisdom. Jesus, it says in 1 Corinthians 1, He is the wisdom of God. Colossians 2, 3 says that all of God's wisdom is in Christ. And so Jesus is the personification of wisdom. He embodies it perfectly. So what we're seeing in Solomon is some measure of Christ's wisdom coming through Him. And we want to learn from Solomon what true wisdom looks like. And I want to come at this in three levels, I guess we could call them. The first level is wisdom in self. So that's verses 1-15. Wisdom in others is the second. That's verse 16-27. And then the last one is wisdom in God, verse 28. So we'll just walk through the passage like that. Let's start with the wisdom of God and the self. The first thing you notice here about Solomon's wisdom is that he lacks it. At least at the beginning. Look at verse one. It says he married Pharaoh's daughter. Now, I spent too much time studying that out this week. You can get lost in a lot of rabbit trails on that issue. Was this right? Was this wrong? Most commentators say he was not actually wrong, but unwise to do this. And we know that this first marriage led to Solomon had a thousand wives and concubines. So this may have opened the door for many other unwise decisions. We know that Deuteronomy 17 says that they should not return to Egypt. And it says that a king should not have or acquire for himself many wives, lest his heart turn away from the Lord. And we know later in life that's exactly what happened to Solomon. He's offering sacrifices in high places here. That also is compromise. And we know later by chapter 11 of 1 Kings, he's already apostatized. And so another area of compromise because of his lack of wisdom. And then we see in verse 2 that he builds his own house first, and then he builds the Lord's house. At the very least, the priorities are wrong. Now the redeeming quality of Solomon here is in verse three. It says Solomon loved the Lord. And that was genuine. And we know it's genuine because number one, it says he loved the Lord, but then it's also demonstrated by how he walked in the statutes of David, his father. And I don't know if you've ever seen anybody who genuinely loved the Lord, but because they lacked wisdom, there were still many areas of compromise in their life. So what is wisdom? Hukmah is the word in Hebrew. Hukmah, what is that? And many have said it very succinctly and we'll start at the most simple level. It is the skill or the art of godly living. The ability to, with skill, live godly. Some of you who are flight students, I know we got a lot of people out tonight, but any of you who have who are pilots, you know there are certain laws in aerodynamics that if you follow those laws, you can keep a plane in the air, you can fly. If you break the laws of aerodynamics, the plane is not going to fly any longer. When it comes to emotional realities or relational realities, there are certain realities embedded in the universe and how people are to relate. Wisdom works in line with those. Those who rebel against those laws of nature, those relational or emotional realities, are fools. There are spiritual realities in the universe. You go against those, you move away from God, you work within those, and you move toward God. So foolishness is living against God's created order What he has created, it says that God created the world in wisdom. He created the world to work in certain ways and to get your life in line with those ways is wise. To rebel against that is foolishness. Now, let me try to make this maybe a little more practical. About 20, 25 years ago, there was a book written by Dan Goldman. I think I've mentioned this before. He's not a Christian. But he wrote a book, and in that book, he talks a lot about emotional intelligence. And this is where they coined the phrase EQ as opposed to IQ. You know, we know IQ, how you test your intelligence. EQ is another form of intelligence, but different. It's an emotional intelligence. And he argued what we need for living is not just intelligence, a high IQ, but a high EQ. which is the ability to apply the right emotions at the right time in the right way. So Dan Goldman would say it is to hate the right things at the right times. It is to love the right things at the right times. It is to say and do the right things at the right time. That sounds a lot like biblical wisdom. And it's interesting, there's been a lot of studies that have come out that those with high IQ don't necessarily succeed in life when it comes to relationships, when it comes to holding jobs. They aren't necessarily happy people oftentimes just because they have a high IQ. But someone with a high EQ seems to be more successful in life. And so it's interesting that the Western scholarly elite took about 3,000 years to come up with the same thing Solomon's arguing for over and over in his writings. Wisdom is the ability to not entertain every thought and pursue every emotion. It's the awareness that My own heart and my own ideas cannot be trusted, but God can be trusted. Wisdom is clear thinking that weighs out consequences of actions. It's the renewed mind that's able to test and discern what is the will of God, what is good, acceptable, and perfect. That's wisdom. Ephesians 5.15 says, look carefully how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. So wisdom is the ability to understand the will of God. And in the time allotted to you, which you don't know how much you have, you order your life according to God's will within that time frame. That's wisdom. It's ground level Christianity, which is what we need, especially in our church, because we love this book and we love to study this book. But you're a very unbalanced, I'll say it charitably, unbalanced person if you just know a lot about this book, but you're not good at actually living the realities of this book. That's, some have called that lopsided Christianity. You know, you've got your theological library all situated. You really get technical and you understand, but your life's all out of order. And there's a big disconnect. That would be someone who greatly lacks wisdom. We don't want to be the lady who's having her daily devotions, but who, she's lazy all day. We don't want to be the man who gets a men's internship Tuesday night and we can talk about prayer, but we never pray. And there's no godliness in our lives. We don't want to be a man who's diligent at work, but then comes home and has no control with food or entertainment. We don't want to be someone who can talk gently to strangers. but then verbally lashes out at our own family. Wisdom aims at the formation of the whole person. It balances the whole person. And guess what? It doesn't just fall in our laps, and it doesn't just come with age, and it doesn't just come through sermons on wisdom. Wisdom is something you must seek. You must desire it. I don't know y'alls. I don't know everybody here. You know. You're how much you've sought or desired wisdom in your life. I know this wasn't something that was really on my radar much when I first became a Christian. I thought about discipleship. I thought I need to be making disciples. I need to be preaching the gospel and I put a lot of time and thought into that. And then I realized, man, I don't really even know what I'm saying to people. You know, I should probably start reading my Bible and learning what the gospel is and how to. And so I began to just listen to as many sermons as I could and read scripture and study. And then I realized, wait a minute, now I'm actually got some stuff to say. Lord, give me the ability to preach and teach. And I started praying for power and for the ability to preach and teach the Word. And then I realized, what does it matter if I can preach if I can't go and love my wife during the whole week and raise my children? And then about four years ago, I think it became really, really clear to me. And I would say that this desire has persisted over about four years as what I would consider my greatest need is wisdom. As I've studied this particular passage, here's the struggle with this word hukmah or wisdom and trying to preach this passage to this church and to help you see you need this. You need this. What Solomon's praying for, what Solomon's displaying, you need it. I feel like if I was talking to a bunch of courtroom judges, you know, who you were sitting at a bench and you were deciding between two difficult, in a difficult case. Is this person right? Is this person right? Here's all the information. You know, I could read this passage to you and you'd be like, oh yeah, absolutely. I see why I need wisdom. You know, one woman says it's her baby. The other person says it's her baby. You can't figure it out. Clearly, you know, wisdom's needed. But how do I preach this passage to you? And then you go, I need that. I need wisdom. Because I believe you need wisdom as much as Solomon does. And so here's my argument. You are not a judge. You are not a king. But you are called to rule and to govern. Therefore, like Solomon, you need wisdom. You're not a king, you're not a judge, you're not a pastor, most of you. But you are called to govern and to rule, and therefore you need wisdom like Solomon. That's my argument. But let's start with Solomon and then we'll get to us. Solomon needed wisdom because he's ruling Israel at this point in the shadow of David, his father. That's a high bar. Right? And he makes that clear in verse 7. He says, Oh, Lord, my God, you have made your servant king in the place of David, my father, although I'm a little child. So you say, where does wisdom start? It starts with a realization of what you don't know. It starts with admitting, I don't have what I need. Look at the end of verse 7. He says, I do not know how to go out or come in. I'm a king, but I don't know how to be a king. I'm in charge, but I don't know how to lead or rule. He feels the weight of responsibility. He says, your servant is in the midst of your people whom you have chosen a great people too many to be numbered accounted for multitude. And then what does he ask for? Give your servant, therefore, an understanding mind to govern your people. That I may discern between good and evil. For who is able to govern? Your great people. Now again, now I hope you see what I'm saying when it's kind of difficult to make the application. You go, well, I see why there's need for pastoral wisdom or if somebody has a big place of leadership and all these people under them. Somebody is a king, somebody is a judge. So again, you aren't a king, you aren't a judge deciding cases, but you are called to rule something or someone. We have, we'll call them little kingdoms. All of us. We have things that God has called us to be over, to rule, to govern wisely. And many of the problems in our lives come when we haven't governed wisely. Our family. Our home. Our work. Our self. You know, we see some sort of disorder or neglect or failure or sin and we go, what's the problem? We try to trace it out. Where did the thing go wrong? Why is this such a mess? Why is there chaos here? Why is this not right? And usually you can trace it back to a poorly governed self. Proverbs 25 says a man without self-control or wisdom is like a city broken into and left without walls. So a lack of wisdom brings chaos and disorder. Wisdom is how you reorder and restructure your life. At least it starts there. Which means you've got to know your limitations. You aren't a master or ruler over Israel, over God's people, over a nation, but you are ruler and master over yourself. Genesis 4. Sin is knocking at your door. Its desire is for you. But what? You must rule over it. Colossians 3, 5. Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you. Sounds like ruler. Sounds like a mastery over what is earthly in you. Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness. So I'm not saying that you're master of your own destiny or you're the God of your own soul. I am saying that you are responsible to rule over what comes out of your mouth. And what words you use. You are responsible to rule over your bodily passions and your calendar and how you spend your time. You know, this is one of the problems I think with youth ministry isn't so much what, you know, is taught to youth or even humor or something like that, that's not I think the biggest problem with youth ministry, at least at the teaching level, is that many tell youth that they can change the world before teaching them the basics, like how to think logically, how to Reason, rationally, the importance of objective truth in a culture that's relativistic and that rejects truth. I mean, if we've never learned basic biblical doctrines or to obey parents or to work hard in our school and in our jobs, if we've never learned to deny self, if we've never learned to consider someone else more significant than ourselves, what good are we to the world? You know, everybody wants Solomon's influence and wealth and success, or at least a lot of people do. They want a big kingdom. But they need to start with the little kingdom they already have. And rule that well. That's wise. Especially, you read the book of Proverbs. So here's what's interesting when studying Solomon when it comes to wisdom. We don't just have to look at this passage. We also listen to what he's saying to his son. Because remember the book of Proverbs is Solomon, the father, speaking to his son. And we can gain a lot of wisdom from how he speaks to his son. He says, son, you must not go after the adulterous woman. Control your bodily impulses. Learn to love one woman, not many women. Don't covet things that are not yours, son. He says, control your anger. Speak graciously. Learn to work hard. Don't be lazy. What is He saying? He's saying, master the self. This is the boy who will be king one day. But before he can lead a kingdom, He says, handle your own kingdom. Handle your own self. Manage that well, son. And then you can worry about bigger issues. So Solomon's wise enough to know one's ability to change bigger issues starts with their ability to govern well the self. Let me read what he says to his son in chapter 2. This is Proverbs 2. Listen to Solomon's wisdom to his son. He says, my son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom, inclining your heart to understanding. Yes, if you call out for insight, if you raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as hidden treasures. Look at what he's putting his son's focus on. He's not just saying you need to graduate, you need to make some money here. He's saying what's valuable is wisdom, son. Above all else. Why? Look at verse 5. Then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom, and from His mouth come knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright. And then he goes, I won't read the whole chapter I have written out here, but he goes on and he says, you will not commit adultery, you will manage your money, you will handle your body. He pours out all of this wisdom, tells his son to seek wisdom, and all of it is directed toward his son and mastery over the self. And he says at the end of that, if you will walk in the way of the good, the virtue, and keep the paths of the righteous, if you live wise and virtuous, son, you will inhabit the land, those who remain in integrity." So Solomon's wisdom to his son, who would later be king, is rule and govern yourself, then you can rule and govern a kingdom. This is very important also to notice how much emphasis is in Proverbs regarding wisdom to conquer sexual sin. We won't do this now, but if you want to read later Proverbs chapter 5 or Proverbs chapter 7, this father has long teachings for his son on how to be sexually pure. And here's what he tells him he needs. He puts the focus on one issue to keep purity. Wisdom. Wisdom. And then Paul, in 1 Corinthians 6, Paul makes this argument to the church in Corinth that can't control their bodies sexually. He says, your body's a temple of the Holy Spirit. Make sure it's pure. How do you keep your body pure? Wisdom. Ephesians 5, Paul says the same thing about avoiding sexual immorality to the church in Ephesus, and he says, get wisdom. He says you keep being unwise and doing foolish things and you don't have good discretion, therefore you are immoral. Get wisdom. And that flows into his teaching on marriage and parenting in Ephesians 5 and 6. Why is parenting so hard? It's hard. Why is parenting hard? Especially when they're little. Because they don't show up at your doorstep. You know, well or well ordered, very obedient. Knowing how to walk wisely, right, they show up and there's disorder, there's chaos. They don't know what to do. They're all over the place and wise parenting is going, this is the path. And they're all over the place and you just keep. Making the path straight. And it takes a long time. And God gives us 18 years, usually, or so. But that's not how our culture thinks about this. The long approach. You know, our culture, we live in a culture that everybody, you know, we want to fix the biggest problems in the world with a Facebook post. The most complex global issues, you know, hey, listen to this guys, bam, you know, We don't want 18 years to try to give someone wisdom, right? We want, give me two minutes of your time to read this post and I'll fix everything wrong with the world. It lacks wisdom. you know, are all the outcries of the environmentalists in our day. They're saying, and please don't, this isn't about that, don't come up to me afterward and talk to me, I'm giving an illustration here, but they'll warn, the trajectory is bad. If we keep treating the planet like this, it's going to go bad, right? The irony often is, there's such a concern about the big global geopolitical issues, the cultural issues, but yet, very little concern, not even half as much concern about their own life or their marriage. These things are often very backwards. Here's another example, Japan. Talking to somebody yesterday about this. They're seeking to change the world with technology, maybe cutting edge innovation, but They're not going to be a culture or civilization in the future because they can't reproduce at a rate to be a culture or civilization. Putting all this time, all this effort, all this into becoming this amazing country, amazing nation, but yet you can't reproduce children at a rate to even be a country. Lacks wisdom. You know, there is obviously, as you all know, much talk about social justice in our day. Much of it lacks wisdom. Because it's not grounded in facts, or reality, or real responsibility. It's just random, non-grounded outcries of anger. You know, look at Solomon though. Solomon actually does justice. He does social justice. for these two ladies, why? Because he actually had two ladies before him. He actually had facts and reality to deal with and he could actually do justice because he wasn't just shooting it out into outer space. He was dealing with real people and dealing with a situation that was actually on his plate to solve. There's wisdom in that. You know, our culture cares more about aligning with political parties and matters of justice than actually doing real justice. You ever notice that? It's way more acceptable if you just line up with this person or line up with this person politically on a matter of justice rather than just actually doing justice. And by the way, we will be judged on Judgment Day for what we actually did that was just not what we believed or lined up with on social media. We will be judged for what we do. Wisdom starts with self handling our own kingdom first. Deal with what's on our plate before we worry about what's on someone else's plate. Now, wisdom and others, the second point, I'm not going to re-read this whole story, but it is quite a situation, right? You've got two ladies fighting over a baby. They both say it's theirs. What does Solomon do for them? He loves them. He loves these two prostitutes. He's able to actually love them. It says he does justice and he does. But what is justice? In this case, he's actually loving that baby so that that baby goes to the right mother and that mother actually gets her baby back. That's love. And so let me take a little side note here. Jonathan Edwards, he has an old sermon that's called The Nature of True Virtue. And his argument is that the highest of all virtues is benevolence, love. And some of y'all, maybe you're aware, people in our church, I think, understand this. Some people outside of our little world think we're a little odd. We put a lot of time and money into helping our children gain virtue. I'm speaking, I guess, of our family. That's a great time-consuming, money-consuming thing that we think is very important, to instill in them virtue. But if we instill in them all these virtues, but they have not love, they have nothing. Love really is the greatest of all virtues. It really is. You say, Pastor, are you going to preach a sermon on the neglected virtue of love? No, because it's not neglected. We preach about this all the time. Talk about God's love for us. We talk about our love for God. We talk about our love for each other. I don't think this is so much a neglected one, but I will say, if we don't have wisdom, we won't actually love in biblical ways. The connection between wisdom and love is that you can't actually love people biblically without wisdom. Paul said that. Philippians 1, he says, I want you to grow more and more in love with all knowledge and discernment. So love abounds when you have knowledge and discernment, when that love is wise and discerning love. That's Paul's prayer for the Philippians. Let me, maybe this might be helpful. Sometimes we can become wise or we can always become wise by just studying the Bible. Obviously this is, as my wise son said this morning, dad, if we want wisdom, we just study the Bible. I'm like, okay, I guess I could just say that today, you know, that would be helpful. So that's true, right? We study the scripture and we can gain much wisdom from that. But what do you do about all the situations that there isn't necessarily a verse for? Like this one that Solomon's dealing with. Two ladies show up and they both say it's their baby, and the baby was born at the same time. You can't look at the baby and tell. What do you do? Did Solomon go, oh, hold on a second, I think I read something. No, he had no, there is no verse to speak to that. There are 10,000 You know, situations in our lives every day that there is no verse to specifically speak to that. Therefore, we need wisdom. You know, maybe one way to say it is his with his theological Solomon's theology informed his anthropology in his psychology. He didn't make a decision strictly out of his theology. That theology informed his anthropology, his psychology. He understood if I threatened to kill the baby with a sword, surely the real mother will scream out. He understood human nature. He understood human emotion. He understood something about people. And therefore he could do justice. He could do love. but he's working outside of a particular verse. And so often we need wisdom to even know what virtue is. How do I even know the right thing to do so many times when there isn't a verse that explicitly tells me how much I'm supposed to watch TV or not watch TV, or how I educate my kids or don't educate my kids, or what time I wake up in the morning or don't wake up? The verse doesn't tell me exactly. What do I need? I need wisdom. to discern those things, and the way I discern those things will result in how virtuous or non-virtuous I am. So how do we become wise? Well, practically, we pray. That's the first thing. Charles Bridges says, earthly wisdom can be gained through study, heavenly wisdom through prayer. Solomon asked for wisdom. God said, ask whatever you want. Solomon said, I want wisdom. And then God said, well, because you've asked for wisdom, I'll give you the other stuff. As well. And in church, look. That same offers on the table for you. Ask and it will be given to you. James 1 says, if anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given to him. That's your new covenant promise. You know, I was speaking to a man earlier this week and we were talking about parenting. It wasn't anybody in our church. But he said, man, I don't know how to lead my son. I don't know how to be a dad. And he's like, you you seem to know how to be a dad. I'm like, well, I do know how to be a dad. I'm not always a good one, but I do know what I'm supposed to do. He's like, well, how do you know that? Like, well, you just told me earlier, sir, that you've not you don't read your Bible and you don't go to church. So you're neglecting. You're neglecting what God's given you to learn how to be a dad. You're not availing yourself of the wisdom that He puts before you. Like you could. You know, that's hopeful for you, but you haven't done that. You haven't asked for wisdom. You haven't gone to the Word. You haven't gathered with His people. You know, there's two institutions that God really loves to give wisdom through. Maybe you've never thought of it in this way. Human institutions God has appointed that He loves to dispense wisdom through. The first is parents to children. He loves in a family for parents to pour wisdom into their kids. You know, that's ideally what should happen in all of our lives. We get wisdom in the home. But then we also have the church. Which Ephesians says God loves to display His wisdom in the church. Through the church, it says, the manifold wisdom of God is made known. Proverbs 24.6 says, by wise guidance you can wage war, and in abundance of counselors there is victory. So, Hebrew parallelism there. Wise guidance equals abundance of counselors. I get wise guidance through an abundance of wise counselors. Where are the wise counselors? In the church. There's wisdom here among us. Look, some of y'all are very discontented with your lives. You know, maybe you don't like your job. Maybe you don't like your body. Maybe you don't like your health. certain circumstances in your life, you have desires, right? Listen to this. Listen to Proverbs 1. Proverbs 1 says, for the gain from her wisdom is better than the gain from silver or the profit from gold. She is more precious than jewels and nothing you desire can compare with her. Solomon desired wisdom above all else. He said, I want wisdom. That's the greatest thing I want. And what did God do? He said, because you ask for the greatest thing, Solomon, I'll give you the other things. Listen, this is not prosperity preaching what I'm about to say here, OK? It's not. Solomon asked for wisdom and God gave him health, wealth and prosperity. What is that then? You say, if that's not prosperity gospel, what is that? That's Jesus in Matthew 6.33 that says, seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you. Solomon didn't ask for wisdom just for his own pleasure and enjoyment. He asked for wisdom for the sake of advancing the kingdom. Seek first the kingdom and my righteousness and then I'll give you all the other things that you need and desire. sometimes desire, not always, but need always. That's not prosperity gospel, that's a generous God. That's our God. That's the God that Solomon said, give me the thing I need the most, Lord. And then God said, you know what? I'll give you that and I'll give you all the other stuff. That's a generous God. Here's the last, let's just end on this last point. Solomon's wisdom in God. Let's just look at verse 28. And before we do, let me say this, maybe some of you have noticed that this sermon sounds like, maybe you haven't studied this, but Aristotelian virtue ethics, that may mean nothing to some of you, Greek philosophy, Plato, Aristotle, Much of what I've said, honestly, is just Greek philosophy, the best of it, the best of Western thought. When I'm saying master the self, deal with your own kingdom before you deal with bigger matters, that's basic logic, that's just pure wisdom, even on a worldly level. Even the world goes, wow, that makes sense. It's not necessarily Christian. So what makes this Christian? Well, verse 28 makes this Christian. Look at verse 28. It says, they perceived the wisdom of God was in him. They aren't just seeing Solomon's wisdom. They're seeing God. They're seeing something of God in and through Solomon. so that Solomon isn't glorified, but God is. Remember, that's how it's supposed to work. Lord, let them see our good works and what? Give glory to the Father who's in heaven. That's what virtue is about. That's why we're kind. That's why we're loving. That's why we're meek. That's why we're gentle. That's why we honor. That's why we... All of these virtues. So that they see our good works and they give glory to our Father. They saw Solomon's wisdom But they didn't see Solomon. They saw God's wisdom. This is not moralism. This is God-centered living. And all of this is from God, through God, to God. And I want to just end reading a passage. And this will be just to kind of walk us into the table. A passage about the wisdom of God. 1 Corinthians 1. You can just listen to this. You don't have to turn over there. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? Since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom. It pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For the Jews demand signs, and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews, and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For consider your calling, brothers, not many of you are wise according to worldly standards, amen? Not many of you were noble. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are. So that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of Him, listen, because of Him, you are in Christ Jesus who has become to us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification and redemption, so that as it is written, let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. So our boast is the wisdom of God. The God who looked down on a world of rebel fools and sent his son. That's the wisest thing ever to happen in history. God saw rebel fools and sent his son and his son died for their sins and reconciled them to the Father. What Jesus accomplished on the cross that we remember in the table is the greatest display of wisdom we've ever seen. And we're fools if we don't know that. And we're wise if we embrace it, and believe it, and treasure it, and trust it. Let's pray, church. Father, Lord, we know these things are miraculous. Lord, we don't come across the wisdom to believe in Your Son through our own intellect. Lord, You say it is not the wisdom of this world that we could know You. It's the folly of what we preach. It's Christ crucified. So Lord, we don't want to be wise people that just say things and know things and do things, but Christ is not a part of it. We're not interested in that type of wisdom. Let the world have that, Lord. We want the wisdom that comes from You, that starts with Your Son, Jesus Christ, hanging on a cross, dying for our sins, coming out of the grave alive, giving us life and virtue so that people see us and they give glory to our Father in Heaven. We ask for that type of wisdom. And Lord, we ask it so that You get glory and many people are blessed and helped. We pray these things in Jesus' name, Amen.