Turn in your Bibles today to Proverbs chapter 3. Proverbs chapter 3, beginning in verse 13. And we'll be going to verse 26. Proverbs 3, beginning in verse 13. Blessed is the one who finds wisdom, and the one who gets understanding. For the gain from her is better than gain from silver, and her profit better than gold. She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand. In her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her. Those who hold her fast are called blessed. The Lord, by wisdom, founded the earth. By understanding, he established the heavens. By his knowledge, the deeps broke open and the clouds dropped down the dew. My son, do not lose sight of these. Keep sound wisdom and discretion and they will be life for your soul and adornment for your neck. Then you will walk on your way securely and your foot will not stumble. If you lie down, you will not be afraid. When you lie down, your sleep will be sweet. Do not be afraid of sudden terror or of the ruin of the wicked when it comes for the Lord will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being caught. This is the word of our Lord. Let's pray. Our God, we thank you for this time. Now, when we come to your word, We trust that your word is living and active, sharper than a two-edged sword, able to divide even joints and marrow and soul and spirit, and so able to discern the thoughts and intentions of our hearts. So we pray, God, for your Holy Spirit to use your word in our hearts to reveal to us what we need to know and what we need to do revealed to us how we might grow in faith and wisdom and knowledge and fear of the Lord. We ask that you do this work by the power of the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ. And we pray in his name. Amen. Well, maybe some of you are Tolkien fans, and you know J.R.R. Tolkien and his books, The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. So you might know this line. When Gandalf appears to Bilbo in The Hobbit, Bilbo says to him, good morning. And Gandalf replies, what do you mean? Do you wish me a good morning? Or do you mean that it is a good morning, whether I want it or not, or that you feel good this morning, or that it is a morning to be good on? So you can see Tolkien's very clever. He knows that the word good can mean a lot of different things. And we can say the same thing about the good life. Everybody wants a good life. You want a good life. Who here wants a bad life? And we talk about a good life. And when we go to funerals, people say he or she lived a good life. But what is the good life? In Gandalf's words or in Tolkien's words, do we mean we wish that person had a good life? that it is a good life whether we want it to be or not, or that it feels like a good life, it feels good, or that it is a life that is good, where someone does good. That word good can mean all those different things. What is the good life? That's what this passage is about. This is what this part of Proverbs is trying to teach you. And the father is teaching his son what a good life is. And in the words of this part of Proverbs, it's the word blessing. blessed. And so you notice that the passage starts with the word blessed, and then that stanza, the first stanza in verse 18, it ends with the word blessed. And so the father wants his son to know what a blessed life is like. That word for blessed is a word that basically means happy, but we don't usually translate it as happy because for us happy is a bit shallow, a bit trite, so we call meals happy meals. That's not the kind of happiness that the Bible is talking about here. And so this word is talking about how to have a happy life or a good life or a blessed life. So what does that mean? How can you have a blessed or a good life? There are different parts of the Bible that talk about the blessed life and mostly in the Psalms, they are actually called wisdom Psalms because they have much to do with what a wise life looks like. And so you might know Psalm 1, which says, blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked nor stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord. And on his law, he meditates day and night. And so that psalm tells you the blessed life is to meditate on the law of God day and night. Psalm 119 is the same thing. Blessed are those who keep your testimonies and who seek you with their whole heart. Psalm 128. Blessed is the man who fears the Lord. And so those psalms tell us some aspects of the blessed life And this proverb adds to it and gives us a better understanding that this blessed life, the good life, is for the one who finds wisdom. That's how to have a good life, find wisdom. And then not just to find it, but the passage goes on to tell us that we also need to keep it. And so that's the second stanza in verse 21 to 26. Notice he says, keep sound wisdom. So if you want a good life, not a life that just feels good to you, not a life where you just do good, not a life that you wish was good, but an actual good life, here's what you do. Find wisdom and keep it. So let's look at the first part of the proverb. Verses 13 to 20 are about how to find wisdom. I'll read again verses 13 to 18. Blessed is the one who finds wisdom, and the one who gets understanding, for the gain from her is better than gain from silver, and her profit better than gold. She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand. In her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her. Those who hold her fast are called blessed. So to motivate his son to try to live a blessed life and to have wisdom and find it, here in these five verses, and really in verse 1920, he uses images from creation. Notice in verses 19 to 20, he rounds it off, he ends it by talking about the Lord and His creation. The Lord created the world and He created it using wisdom. The Lord needed wisdom to create the world. We'll get to that more later on. But also, he starts this verse, in verse 13, with a reference to creation. It might not come across in your English Bible, but the first words are blessed Adam. Blessed Adam. The one who finds wisdom is the Adam, and that's the generic word for mankind or for man. It's not the word for a male. There's a different word for that, but for mankind, it's the word Adam, which is why Adam is called Adam. And so, here's how you can be a blessed Adam, a blessed man. He's getting you to think about Adam at creation. He also mentions in the next verse that this blessed Adam who finds wisdom has more profit than gold. Well, in Genesis 2, when it talks about the Garden of Eden and it talks about the four rivers from Eden, it says in Genesis 2, 12, the gold in that land was good. And so, maybe here, the father is getting his son to think of Adam, who has all kinds of good gold in the Garden of Eden, because he has wisdom and he says, I want you to be like that man, the blessed Adam. He talks about how long life and pleasantness, ways of pleasantness and peace were for this Adam in verse 16 and 17. Well, that's also a description of Adam in the garden of Eden. Adam had no sin. He had a life of pleasantness and peace. And then the one that you will quickly recognize is there in verse 18, the tree of life. If you hold onto wisdom, if you find wisdom, it's like grabbing onto the tree of life. And Adam lived in the Garden of Eden with the Tree of Life. But remember that Adam was cast out. Adam ate of the forbidden tree, and so Adam was not allowed to grab hold of that Tree of Life, lest he live forever as a sinner. And so the father, to motivate his son to find wisdom, is saying, I want you to have what Adam had. He had life, he had wisdom, but then he lost. He did not keep it. So, find wisdom. Blessed is the one who finds wisdom. If we are told to find wisdom, that must mean that wisdom is knowable and discoverable. We're not going on a wild goose chase here. We're not like some people going on these great adventures trying to find that tree of life that they think must be somewhere by the Tigris and Euphrates. Or they think that there's this lost underwater empire called Atlantis that they're gonna go discover or that there is a fountain of youth somewhere that people want to find and people make all their documentaries about these things. That's not what wisdom is like. Wisdom is discoverable. You can find wisdom. In Job 28, Job asks the question, where is wisdom to be found? People go through the depths of the earth to find all sorts of jewels and gold and silver, and they can go hundreds and hundreds of feet down. But he says, where is wisdom to be found? And he gives us the answer in verse 23, he starts by saying, God knows where wisdom is to be found. And then in verse 28, he ends by saying, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom. Anyone can find wisdom. But to find wisdom, you need to know the Lord. You need to have the fear of the Lord. You need to walk in a relationship with the Lord. It is through the Lord that you will find wisdom. So blessed is the one who finds wisdom. And then he gives us some reasons. In verse 14, he says, there is more gain in finding this treasure than from silver and gold. You will be better off finding wisdom through knowing the fear of the Lord, then you will buy getting much silver and much gold. As someone once sang in a song, money can't buy you love, but wisdom can bring you much love from other people and from God. Money, we know, as we say, can't buy you happiness, but wisdom can buy you happiness. Wisdom can bring you blessedness. One person said it this way, he said, money can put food on the table, but not fellowship around it. Money can buy a house, but not a home. Money can give a woman jewelry, but not the love she really wants. And it's through seeking wisdom and finding wisdom that often all of these other blessings come around through living a wise life, by not being a fool. So, the gain of wisdom is better than silver and gold. He says then in verse 15, it's more precious than jewels. This idea of precious is telling us that it's valuable, but it's valuable because it's rare. Wisdom is rare. There is a short supply of wisdom around. And the rarer something is, the more valuable it can be. So a quarter Minted in 2023 is worth 25 cents, but a quarter from 1800 can be worth thousands of dollars. And that's because it's more rare. And so it's more precious. So the rarity of wisdom makes it more valuable and makes you want to seek it after it more. Kids, young people, If you want to be outstanding, you literally, you want to stand out. And you know when people apply for college and you're supposed to brag about your resume and all your accomplishments and all your volunteer and all your skills. Well, here's how you can really stand out. Here's a resume that stands out or a college application that would really stand out, although sadly, They don't care if you have this in college. But what would really make you stand out from all of your peers, from other children and other young people, is if you were wise and not a fool. Because apparently wisdom is in short supply. And this father speaks to his son because he knows that, and he talks a lot about other young men here, there are a lot of young men who are fools. and you can go to college and there'll be fraternities full of fools. Don't join a fraternity. It's full of fools. If you want to stand out, then be wise. Wisdom is precious. Maybe you have heard the Rudyard Kipling poem called If, and it's a long poem, but he says, if you can keep your head about you when all around are losing theirs and blaming it on you, he says, then you will be a man, my son. And that's Rudyard Kipling showing the preciousness of wisdom, especially for a young man. If you can keep your head, if you can have self-control when all the other young men are acting like fools, you will be a real man. In the Bible's words, you will be a wise man. So make sure you find wisdom. Well, then he says in verse 16, long life in her right hand, left hand, a riches and honor. He is using a common image of an Egyptian goddess that they would have known about, understood, except he switches it around here. The Egyptian goddess had long life in her left hand and honor or power in her right hand. So she had these two different things that were symbolizing life and power. And the father here in Proverbs, Solomon, he is switching this around to put long life in the right hand to show that this one is more important. Back then they understood that what was, well, I want to say they understood, they believed that what was in the right hand was a symbol of what was more valuable, more important. Back then they did not like the left side and left-handed people. They considered, maybe you know the word sinister. The word sinister is the Latin word for left. So they considered the left side to be sinister, to be bad, and they didn't like left-handed people back then. And so, to say here in verse 16 that long life is in the right hand, is to say this is what is more important, and as we'll see with the tree of life, it's gonna represent immortality. And then he adds in verse 17, her ways are ways of pleasantness. Young people especially, but a lot of people in the world, they think that Christianity is boring and that Christians don't have fun. Sometimes when you're a teenager and your parents say, no, you can't do this, or you can't go to that place, the teenager or the young adult gets really angry, really upset. How come I don't get to have any fun? Or you go to church and your friends are going to football games and baseball games. How come I have to go to church all day? Christianity is boring. And so many young people can't wait to get out of their house, can't wait to be on their own, can't wait to be free from the shackles of being forced and being dragged to go to church. And this passage says that's a foolish way of thinking. And I'm not just saying that because I'm a pastor, but because I'm a Christian. Because Christians believe that the good way, the way of following the Lord is a way of pleasantness. And it actually does save you from much misery. There are many unbelievers whose lives are miserable because of their sin. because of their addictions, because of their relationships, constantly destroying their relationships because of their behaviors and because they are so selfish, or constantly looking for more money and it's never enough and so they're always miserable. It's the unbeliever who is miserable. They're the ones whose ways are unpleasant. Following the Lord is a way of pleasantness. And then finally, we get to the tree of life in verse 18. It's very interesting that only Genesis 2 and then Proverbs in the Old Testament are the only places where the term tree of life is actually found in the Old Testament. There are some references in other places, but the tree of life is only mentioned, it's mentioned several times, maybe five times in Proverbs and in Genesis. And then it's not mentioned until Revelation. And so the book of Proverbs really likes this image of wisdom bringing you a tree of life, and in fact is the tree of life itself. If you grab onto wisdom, you will lay hold of the tree of life. The tree of life represents immortality. It's not just like in the Old Testament how it talks about, hey, if you obey your parents, you'll live a long time. It's not just saying you'll live a long time in the land. No, it's saying immortality, you will live forever if you have wisdom, if you take hold of wisdom. And that's why we know that wisdom is the fear of the Lord. It's a relationship with the Lord. And so here in this verse we have the grace of God held out to sinners. Here we have the way that sinful people who have been cast away from the tree of life like Adam was, sinful people are now being called and invited to come and take hold of the tree of life. God has not changed. He is still a holy God. We are still unworthy and unable in ourselves to enter his presence. We haven't changed. We're just like Adam. We are dead in sin. We're corrupt and guilty. But God has opened up a way by his grace so that sinful people can now come and take hold of the tree of life and live forever. And it's through a relationship with him. We know now that we are after the New Testament, that that way has been made through Jesus Christ. That the Bible says Jesus Christ is the wisdom from God and he is our righteousness and redemption. It's through Jesus. Who was the son of God? Who had all of this, all the glory, all of the gain, all of immortality, And yet he took on flesh. He became a man. And as the song says, "'Tis mystery all, the immortal dies." In a sense, we can say the immortal dies. The human nature of Jesus Christ dies so that sinners can be reconciled. Sinners can be righteous in Jesus Christ. And now we can have a relationship with the Lord through Jesus Christ. Wisdom is knowing the Lord through Jesus. And if you find wisdom, you will grab hold of the tree of life and live forever in Christ. Well, then, as he finishes this part of the passage, he goes in verses 19 and 20 to talk about the Lord. And we have a contrast between the Adam in verse 13 and the Lord. The Lord had wisdom in his creation. He established the earth with wisdom. We could say that there's an intelligent designer of the world, of all of creation. Think about the intelligence, the knowledge that it says here in verse 20, the wisdom that is required to create the world. Think about your creations. When you bake and your bread or your cake just collapses, you lack some knowledge, you lack some skill to create that. or when you're working on a project at your house and you just can't get that bolt to fit. It just doesn't work and you always happen to choose the wrong bolt when you're at Home Depot and so you have to drive all the way back because you lack the skills, you lack the knowledge and wisdom to create something so simple in your house. And yet the Lord creates ecosystems and galaxies black holes and stars and animals and plants and the human eye. All of these things require great intelligence and wisdom. But we don't just believe that there is some intelligent designer out there, some God out there who created all of this world and wisdom, but he has a name in verse 19. He is the Lord. He is the God of Israel. He's the God who's revealed himself in the Bible. He is the intelligent designer. He's the one who uses, uses his wisdom to create all things. So what is the father bring up the Lord in verses 19 and 20 while he's saying you can have access to this Lord. You can learn wisdom from this father. If you enter into a relationship with the Lord, who wouldn't want that? If you want to find wisdom, here's the best person to go to, the one who created all of the universe, using his wisdom. So, question for us, the question for especially those of you who are younger. Do you believe verses 13 and 20 are true? Do you live as if wisdom is more precious than your silver and gold? Think about all the energy that you expend in your life into making profits, to getting income, making money, to acquiring things, acquiring precious things. All of that energy. Do you expend more energy seeking wisdom, seeking to grow, seeking to know the Lord? That's what shows what you really think is more valuable. Are you pursuing silver and gold and all of these things mentioned here? Or are you pursuing even more the acquiring of wisdom. Make it your work each day to grow in wisdom. And wisdom, really, that's a generic way of just saying fruit of the Spirit, Christ-likeness, holiness. Self-control is part of wisdom in Proverbs. Loving others or being gentle towards others. Peace and patience, those are all parts of living a wise life. So, what are you doing to acquire those things? If you find a problem in your life, if you find that you are not a very gentle person, or not a very self-controlled person, or you're not a very loving person, you're pretty selfish, well, what are you doing about it? What are you doing to seek to grow in that area? That's what he's saying. Seek daily to grow. Focus on one area of your life where you need to grow, maybe like being more self-controlled, and do the work, pray, and ask for help, and ask other people to pray, and maybe you need to study some parts of the Bible that discuss that area, but do something to find more wisdom in your life. Find wisdom. But then the second part of this passage is to keep it. Keep wisdom. You know what kids say when they say, finders keepers. You find a quarter on the ground and the other kids, they're fighting with each other and they say, finders keepers, I found the coin, I'm keeping it. Well, that's what I thought of when I read these verses. Verse 13, find wisdom, but verse 25 he says, Keep it. And this passage, verses 21 to 26, is also framed by the word, bracketed by the word keep. Verse 21, keep wisdom. And then verse 26, the very last line, God will keep you. So that's the main point of these verses. Keep wisdom and God will keep you. We also see it in this verses as we will go through them. We'll see all mention of all kinds of parts of the body. And so what he's trying to say is that God will keep all of you. He will keep everything for you if you will keep wisdom. So we'll start with verses 21 and 22. My son, do not lose sight of these. Keep sound wisdom and discretion, and they will be life for your soul and adornment for your neck. And so we need to not just find, but keep. In New Testament words, we would say that a believer must persevere. You must persevere to the end by the grace of God as God keeps you. You can't just say, as I've heard many people say, well, I know that I'm saved. I had a thousand conversations in the South about people who haven't gone to church in 20 years or people who are currently committing adultery and I have to confront them over that and they say, but I know that I'm saved. How do you know that you're saved? What is the fruit in your life? Well, it's that you are keeping. keeping on, persevering. And so God's people are called to persevere. In Jude, verse 21, Jude says, keep yourselves in the love of God. And then three verses later, he says, now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling. And so you see, it's the grace of God that keeps you from stumbling, and yet you are called to keep yourself in the love of God. In Hebrews chapter 12, the writer says to run with perseverance, with endurance, the race that is set before you, to put aside sin and weights that tangle you up and look to Jesus. See, you are called to keep your eyes on Jesus Christ. Keep wisdom. Adam found wisdom. Adam had wisdom in the garden, but Adam did not keep wisdom. And because of it, he lost paradise. He had the ways of pleasantness. He had life. He had the gold and the silver. He had knowledge of the Lord and he threw it all away. because he decided that he did not want to keep wisdom. In Ezekiel 28, God, through Ezekiel, talks about the king of Tyre. And I struggled with whether I should bring up that chapter because I want to preach a whole sermon on Ezekiel 28, but I don't, I'm not going to have time to preach the whole sermon on Ezekiel 28, but it's about the King of Tyre. And he mentions how the King of Tyre is like a man, a man who was in Eden in the garden of God. And some people think that that chapter is about Satan, but I lean towards it being about Adam because it describes him as a man. And so it says in Ezekiel 28 verse 12, and this is why I bring this up, about this man, you were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. He says, Adam was full of wisdom in the garden. But what did he do? He wanted to be like God. And so, because of his desire to be like God, because of his pride, he was cast down. So you can see why a lot of people think that is about Satan, but it can also apply to Adam. Adam was full of wisdom. but in his pride and his desire to be like God, he fell and he brought death. Verse 22 here, so we can move on from Ezekiel, we'll talk about that later if you want. Verse 22 here, he says, it will be life for your soul to keep wisdom. Adam did not keep wisdom, and so it brought death to his soul. Adam didn't physically drop dead that day when he ate of that fruit, but his soul died as he was separated from God because of his sin. And so it is. If you will not keep wisdom, it will be death for your soul. And then he goes on to talk about the ways that God will keep you if you keep wisdom. Verse 23, You will walk on your way securely. Your foot will not stumble. If you lie down, you will not be afraid. When you lie down, your sleep will be sweet. When you're walking and when you're sleeping, God will keep you. When we are traveling, we often ask people to pray that God would protect us when we travel. And we know that that's because planes can crash. and semi trucks can hit you on the interstate and drunk drivers can run past stop signs and kill you. It's not safe to travel. And in their day, without cars, this is what they're talking about, walking along the way. It was not safe. Anything could happen. Your life can be taken at any moment. You need to always trust that God will keep you. And then he mentions sleeping. Well, when you're asleep, you're really defenseless. That's why you have a smoke alarm. That's why you have a carbon monoxide alarm and you have maybe security cameras that alarms will go off to warn you. Somebody could be breaking in your house and you're sleeping through it. Carbon monoxide could be leaking into your room and you're just sleeping through it. When you fall asleep, you are very vulnerable. You fall asleep, you have no idea if you'll ever wake up. So, what do you do? When you lie down, you trust that the Lord will watch over you, and then your sleep can be sweet. Maybe when you lie down, that's when anxiety starts to come into your mind. Uh, you turn off the phone and you turn off the TV and there's nobody talking to you anymore. And so you're just laying there in bed and now, now it's all time for your own thoughts. Nobody telling you what to think. And now you just get to think. And sometimes when you have those thoughts, that is when anxiety comes. Here he's saying that when you lie down, you don't have to spend that whole night up with anxious and fearful thoughts because you can entrust yourself to the Lord, that the Lord is watching over you. The Lord is taking care of you. The Lord will keep you because you have kept wisdom because you continue to follow the Lord. And then the last part in verse 25 and 26, Do not be afraid of sudden terror, the ruin of the wicked when it comes, for the Lord will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being caught. Verse 25 is an interesting way of putting it when he says, don't be afraid of terror. Well, think about that. It's like saying, don't be scared when scary things happen. Well, uh, they're scary because they make you scared. That's what makes them scary. But you get the point that he's making here. These are things that are terrifying. These are things that are terrible. Terrible things will happen to you. That's what he's telling you. There will be moments in your life when you will be terrified. based on the circumstances, based on the things that are happening. But he says, in those moments, you do not need to be scared of the scary things, terrified by the terrible. And what he's really talking about here is the ruin of the wicked, the day of judgment, when God decides that he will judge the wicked. Because, verse 26, the Lord will be your confidence. Literally, he is talking about the Lord being at your side. That's the wording that he's using. So remember, he's talking about all these parts of the body, your eyes not losing sight of wisdom, your neck, your feet walking, and now he says, at your side. At your side will be the Lord. When you stand before God in judgment, and the wicked give an account for all of their sins, and they are condemned to ruin, then you can have the Lord at your side. You can have the Lord on your side. The Lord can be your advocate. Jesus Christ, the righteous one, he will advocate for you. on the day of the ruin of the wicked. So, find wisdom. Find the Lord through Jesus Christ. Keep wisdom. Keep persevering. Keep yourselves in the love of God as God is able to keep you from stumbling. Here's the good life. Here's how to be blessed. Question for you is, is this the life that you want? Is this what you are working for and seeking for as the good life for you? I'm guessing that most of you get letters around Christmas time or New Year. You get letters from family and friends, Some people in their Christmas cards, they have this letter where they tell you everything that happened for the year in that family. And maybe you know the letters where they say, wife's now the CEO, she's got this great job. Husband, he's just bought his new sports car. Daughter just got her PhD. Son has got an internship at the Pentagon. And then our third son, he doesn't have a job, but we're still proud of him. And you can tell in these letters that, at least the way they're explaining it, it is all worldly. worldly success. They want you to be proud of the daughter with the PhD or the woman who's now the CEO. And then it's like, well, yeah, we know that this third child, he's not really living up to what we expected of him, but we're proud of him too. You can tell what they value. You can tell what our world values. They value success, money, PhDs, power. That's what many young people want. That's what children want to be. That's what parents act like. They want their children to be. That's what they're trying to push their children to be. So here's the question. Can you have a good life if you have none of that? What if you don't get that job? What if you're not making a lot of money? What if you didn't buy that nice new house? What if you're still not married? And what if you still don't have any children? What if you don't have any degrees and you never went to college? Can you still have a good life? You can. This is what this passage is saying. The good life has nothing to do with any of those things. The good life is for the one who finds wisdom. Live a blessed life. Find wisdom. Keep it. Know the Lord. Let's pray. Our God, we do thank you for your grace that is poured out to sinners. We thank you for Jesus Christ, our wisdom, our righteousness, our redemption. We pray that we would know Christ and go to him. We pray, Lord, that you would give us the good life, a life of wisdom, and that you would help us to grab onto it, to keep it, and to not let go. Help us to seek you and to fear you above all else. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.