Proverbs 1:1-7
Amen. Turn in your copy of God’s
Word to Proverbs, and tonight we’ll be looking at verses one
through seven, but next week we will return to verse seven
as a standalone subject. The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom, but we also want to include it in our study tonight
just briefly. So turn to Proverbs. one, one
to seven, we begin a new series that will probably last us until
the end of February. And what we’ll do is we’ll pick
our way through chapters one through nine, verse by verse,
and then after chapter nine verses, or chapters 10 to 31, you really
get into all kinds of subjects. So we’re going to pick about
a dozen or so subjects and compile the verses. that seem to match
those subjects. So let’s give our attention now
to Proverbs 1, verse 1, and it says this, the Proverbs of Solomon,
the son of David, king of Israel, to know wisdom and instruction,
to understand words of insight, to receive instruction in wise
dealing, in righteousness, justice, and equity, to give prudence
to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth, Let
the wise hear and increase in learning and the one who understands
obtain guidance to understand a proverb and a saying, the words
of the wise and their riddles. The fear of the Lord or the fear
of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom
and instruction. Amen. This is the word of the
living God. Americans spend billions, yes
that’s billions with a B, on education. And I imagine it’s
going to hit trillions with the T before long, though I think
COVID-19 is going to right-size the American education system.
We’ll have to see. History is not written there.
But Americans spend billions on education. They want their
children to have information, skills, and learn traditions
as well as ideologies. But I have a feeling, I think,
education is at a crossroads. You’re finding many people saying
no to liberal education, no to bad indoctrination, You’re seeing
people begin to say no to high cost due to administrators and
tenured professors becoming rich. You’re also seeing people say
no to 15 years of postgraduate high interest debt. Education
has become two things nowadays. It’s worthless and it’s not affordable. It’s worthless and it’s not affordable.
But for years and years, people have said yes to this billion,
maybe even trillion dollar educational system. And why? Because it was
a pathway to what? Success. You don’t get a high
school degree, people used to say. You won’t succeed. Now you’ve
got to have a college degree. And now college is the new high
school, and so you’ve got to have a master’s. And so people
are spending half their life and most of their money getting
an education. I had a friend when I pastored
in another town who was the headmaster of a local private school. It was an elite school. It was
expensive. And so parents would sit across from his desk, even
before little Susie and little Johnny were able to enter school.
They were coming to get interviewed to get on the wait list. And
they would ask my friend this, if my child comes here, now mind
you, the kid hadn’t even been enrolled yet. If my child comes
here, what college or university will you guarantee their entrance
into? That was what was on the minds and the hearts of these
parents as they began to prepare little Johnny and little Susie
for success. Cradle to college, spend whatever
it takes has been the motto. in order to put our children
on a path for success. For years, Christian parents
have also said yes to Christian discipleship, yes to secular
education or long-term education. But for years, parents have also
said yes to Christian discipleship. Every time the church doors were
opened for Christian education, for prayer meeting, for worship,
whatever the church offered, parents were there. And children
would learn the Bible, they would learn the catechism, they would
learn hymns, and they would be with God’s people. Kids even
sat through worship, my goodness, and they participated. But I
think we’re living in a sad day today. Not only are we seeing
the millions and the billions and maybe the trillions getting
spent on education, we’re seeing church no longer supports the
discipleship of children, neither do families. Christian kids,
if they are followers of Christ, in fact, are not in church. They’re
often shuffled out of the service. Right before the most important
event, I was doing a little internet snooping this week, seeing where
some of my classmates are serving, and I was looking to see what
some of their churches are doing during COVID-19. And one particular
church, this would be a reformed Presbyterian Church in a denomination
that believes like we do said this. During COVID-19, we’re
having outdoor church. It’s a 45 minute service. It’s
family friendly because all their other bells and whistles weren’t
available. And it says this, you’re welcome to bring your
children. but it’s also okay to leave them at home. Yeah,
I gasped too. That’s horrible. That’s horrible. Just totally against our good
covenant theology. And that’s in the reformed church,
but most of the modern American church is afraid of having kids
get bored. Have you heard that before? Oh,
we don’t want our children to be bored, and so we don’t put
them in regular church, we put them in junior church. I served
the church several years back and one of my tasks as the associate
pastor was to take my sledgehammer to everything that was broken
and then to take my mortar and tools and put it back together
the right way. And one of the things we had
to do was put a stop to the puppet show where kids would be shipped
out of church and put in front of a puppet show. And their parents
would pick them up later. You know, what in the world has
the church begun to think? You begin to wonder. Well, they
think of everything. They think of everything. But
we’ve been afraid of boring our children. And so our kids grow
up in junior church and then they go to high school church
and then When you want them to come to the real thing, guess
what they say? Don’t think so. That’s boring. And so as John
MacArthur says, big church is now junior church. We’ve created alternatives to
what God has put in front of us as the way of wisdom, the
way of worship, the way of life. About 10 years ago, there was
a book written. It was written by a Princeton theological seminary
professor, that probably tells you a good bit right there. But this lady, I think she was
a United Methodist, she wrote a book called Almost Christian. And the premise of her book was
from what Felix Agrippa said to the Apostle Paul. Remember
the Apostle Paul was arrested for causing a riot in Jerusalem
and so he appealed to Caesar and on his way he visited a couple
Roman governors who heard his case and Felix wanted to hear
what the way of salvation was according to Paul. So Paul preached
it to him. And what is Felix response? Thou, Paul, hast almost
persuaded me a Christian. Not quite, but that’s the title
of this lady’s book. And what she does is a study
of the way church has treated our youth in the last generation. And her premise is this, we’ve
inoculated children. We’ve taught them to think this
is what church is. You know, the fun, the cookies,
the, what do you call it? The cokes and the jokes. And
so we tell our children, this is the way of the fear of Yahweh. It’s the cokes and the jokes.
It’s the fun. You’re not big enough yet to handle real church. And so we’ve got to keep you
from getting bored. and all the rest. And so her
book goes through a history of a generation where they were
taught to be almost Christians. And she piggybacks on Christian
Smith’s assessment of Christianity. He was the professor of religion
at the University of North Carolina, I believe now at Notre Dame,
and he coined the term moralistic therapeutic deism. The modern
American church teaches moralism, be good, Therapeutics, feel good,
and deism, there is a God, he’s not sovereign, he’s there if
you need him, but he won’t bother you if you don’t want him in
your life. And so the main American religion these days is moralistic
therapeutic deism, and that’s what has largely been taught
throughout the youth centers of the American church. And so
we have prevented our children from knowing God and knowing
Christ. And so combine, if you will, in your minds, secular,
education, which we spend billions with a B on, so that our children
can have success. Combine secular education with
really worthless churchianity. and moralistic therapeutic deism. And our children have little
to no instruction in the fear of the Lord and in the ways of
this world. The other day I was listening
to a number of old question and answer series from Ligonier If
you have the Ligonier app, it’s helpful to go to conferences
and teachings, and if you’re doing a little yard work, put
your earbuds in and just get out there and pull weeds and
listen to Ligonier’s Q&A. It’s quite a good experience.
But many of you know the name Cal Thomas. He’s a nationally
syndicated columnist. I think his column appeared in
this morning’s Times News about the only thing worth reading
in there. Also, there’s World Magazines there. He’s a regular
writer there. And I think weekly, he’s on the World and Everything
podcast. But he’s an older man, a very critical thinker. He’s
been in politics and journalism for quite a while. But he was
on the panel of Q&A at this Ligonier conference. And I don’t know
when it was. It’s got to be several years ago because R.C. Sproul
was still living. He was there on the panel as
well. But Cal Thomas got very animated.
Somebody asked the question, you know, what about our children
in today’s culture and he kind of gave the what do you expect?
Comment I’ve said this before but he’s an older man and he
said it really loudly What do you expect? When your children
really aren’t under the teaching of the Lord and they’re getting
a secular education and then they come home for Christmas
and they’re liberal you come home, but they come home for
Christmas and They disrupt the dinner table because of their
crazy new beliefs that you did not instill in them. And on and
on it goes. He says, what did you expect?
You sent them to the bastions of secularism. And so if you
combine secular education with the goal of your children becoming
winners, and you give them little to no Christian education because
of the current situation in the church, you have created heretics
and fools. And so we’re raising a generation
of fools who live a life full of sorrow, a life full of great
pain, and that pain, as we know from the scriptures, lasts for
generations. What does God say if we fail
to pass along godliness to our children? Godliness will last
generations, but what will foolishness do? It will last generations
as well. And it is hard to shake foolishness. It is hard to get that dirt off
of us. And so we begin a study of Proverbs,
and we note in Proverbs 1, verse 1, it says, the Proverbs of Solomon,
son of David, king of Israel. And we remember Solomon’s prayer
when David, his father, died and Solomon was to become king
and sit on the throne. He asked God for one thing. Now,
if I were to ask God for one thing, I would first of all say,
why not three wishes, right? If you rub the genie bottle,
it comes out and you’re supposed to get three wishes. And what
are you supposed to wish for in your first wish? Three more
wishes, right? You’re supposed to be smart about
this. Well, what does Solomon do? He asked for wisdom. And
you know, as a little kid, having watched cartoons and seeing the
genie come out of the bottle and, you know, getting whatever
three things you want, you start to, realize the world’s ways
have snuck into your way of thinking, and you think, what a dummy.
Why did he ask for wisdom? Why didn’t he want riches? Why
didn’t he want the things of this world? Well, he wanted what
would last. He wanted what would give him
life, what would give him success. And so Solomon was the writer,
the compiler. He was the one who was responsible,
along with King Hezekiah, for passing along the wisdom tradition
of the Old Testament, the Old Covenant. wisdom and the proper
application of knowledge for life. And so in one verse one,
we see the beginning of this book. It’s the Proverbs of Solomon. And also we have Agur and Lemuel
pop up later in chapters 30 and 31, but it’s largely the wisdom
of Solomon. And he gives us his purpose in
verses one, one to six. And that’s what we want to land
on for just a few minutes tonight, to know wisdom and instruction,
to understand words of insight, to receive instruction and wise
dealing and righteousness, justice, equity, to give prudence to the
simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth, to let the wise
hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain
guidance, to understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the
wise and their riddles, and then the capstone, the fear of the
Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. So I can’t do the flip of the
board here, but I’m gonna turn it around. I said it would be
upside down if I did it the other way. But I want to give you just
a visual so you can see a little bit of where we’re headed. These
are the nine things that Proverbs seeks to teach. And this is the
audience, the simple, the young, and the wise, and the understanding. And you’ll see these things in
verses one, or chapter one, verses two through six. I really dislike
giving a lesson or a sermon or a teaching that’s a glossary,
but that’s really the best way to get through this. And so we
see in verses one, two to six, the purpose of Proverbs. And
notice what kind of key verbs are there in verse two, to know.
Also in verse two, to understand. And then again in verse three,
to receive. And then in verse four, to give. And so Proverbs teaches us to
know and to understand and receive, but also its purpose is to give. And it’s to give these nine things. Proverbs, as you’ll see in the
coming weeks, is a father’s wishes for his son. He wants his son
to be wise and not foolish. He wants his son to have a prosperous
life. He does not want him to be foolish
and to live a life of folly, which ultimately leads to death.
And so what should we know and understand and receive from our
parents, from the church? and from the Holy Scriptures.
Well, the first thing we have is wisdom, and I’m gonna follow
the words listed in the ESV. You may have a different word
or two, and you’ll also notice in the words and definitions,
there is a lot of overlap. But wisdom, you’ll notice, well,
there’s another word down here that means wisdom as well, but
this wisdom is the overarching word. It’s the umbrella, and
it’s a word that is common in the Old Testament. It’s a wide
term that teaches us to observe, obey, plan, and to conduct our
lives a certain way. It teaches us to seek and know
and do God’s will. And so wisdom, just in general,
is to live a godly life. Wisdom, in general, is not to
live a stupid life. We talk about people sometimes,
don’t we? And sometimes we do it in a gossip way, but sometimes
we just observe. So-and-so’s an idiot, right?
You ever said that? So-and-so’s a fool. So-and-so
is stupid. But we love it, don’t we, when
we can say about a person, they are wise. We mean by that, they
live a godly life. They seek to do God’s will. Not
perfectly, but that’s the pattern. That’s the direction. And so
we want wisdom. We want a godly life. But then
there’s also instruction. And instruction really has to
do with parental instruction, parental discipline. Withhold
not, what, correction from a child. What’s a child prone to do? Is
a child come out of the womb saying, I want to be wise? No,
they want to be foolish. And I remember one of the first
things we learned as young parents is your job is to drive the folly
from your children, is to drive the foolishness out, and to insert
wisdom. And so instruction is a parent’s,
especially early task, I believe, of correcting their children.
No child, this is foolishness. No child, this is wrong. No child,
this is wrong and this is right. This is the way. And often instruction
involves pain. You’ll see throughout the book
of Proverbs, spare the rod, spoil the child. Withhold not instruction
from your children. We are increasingly seeing parents
who are afraid of their children. I’m an observer of life, and
I look at some parents and say, who’s running the show here?
Is it the two-year-old, or is it you, the 30-year-old, or the
26-year-old, or whatever the parent may be? Most usually,
it’s the two-year-old. And you can watch children, can’t
you? Have you ever noticed children size up the room, and they know
who’s the weak link? You can see it. They can detect
who’s in charge and who is not. And so the job of the parent
is to be in charge. 16, 17 years ago now, took a group of
young couples through a parenting course. We were all about to
have children. This was down at our church in
the Charlotte area. And I think there must have been a full moon because
about eight or 10 couples had children on the way. And so we
all sat and listened to a biblical set of parenting lessons. And
I remember one thing that really stood out. This man said this,
your children need a totalitarian police state until they’re about
five or six. It’s always going to be no. And yes, no and yes,
but they do what you say they can do, and they do nothing else.
And I can tell you from experience, it works very well. You don’t
have children with their fingers in the electrical outlet. You
don’t have children dancing on the dishwasher door. You don’t
have children that you say when they’re age six, now, little
Johnny, do you want to eat supper? By the age of six, they sit down
and eat their supper or else. And so instruction is the second
word in the book of Proverbs, and you’re gonna see these fleshed
out over time as we get our way through the Proverbs. The next
word is insight. To teach, to give, to receive,
not just wisdom and instruction, but words of insight. You want
your kids, you want, as an adult, to be able to see the whole and
grasp it and understand it and choose the best path. We’re raising
one-dimensional children. You look at most kids these days
and what’s the content of their life? It’s this. And they’re
one-dimensional. They can’t think because this
thing thinks for them. They have no attention span.
And so as I look across the landscape of the congregation, particularly
on Sunday morning, you can tell who has been rewired by gadgets,
and you can tell who’s learned to sit and watch and listen and
take notes and these sorts of things. But we want our children
to learn insight. We want them to be able to see
the whole and choose the best. And that really happens, doesn’t
it, by doing Deuteronomy 6. What does Deuteronomy 6 say?
As we rise up, as we lie down, and as we walk along the way,
what do our children do? They live life with us. Patrick
and I were reading, what is it we’re reading? Swiss Family Robinson
for about the umpteenth time. And what’s fascinating in it
is they’re living life stranded on the island, which they call
New Switzerland. And their dad is a wealth of
knowledge. I think he’s read every nature
book and every how-to book. He’s a Boy Scout, whatever year
that was, they were stranded on the island. But as the boys
go with him along this island, their family learns not just
to survive and thrive, But they learn instruction. They learn
to see the whole and choose the best. But he’s with them along
the way. There’s some things they do where they’re foolish.
And he says, don’t do that ever again. But he teaches them to
thrive. And there’s a point in the book
where he says, I am getting to be an old man. And I have to
think about the fact that my family, my wife and my youngest
could be stranded on this island without me here. And so I’ve
got to teach the older boys. to be able to run the island,
run the household. And so words of insight, seeing
the whole and choosing the best. And then there’s a word here,
instruction. The word instruction is connected to skills. We want
our children to have skills. We want as adults to have skills.
And then prudence. That’s the next word, prudence.
We want our kids to be shrewd. Now this word is connected closely
to Genesis chapter 3 verse 1. I think I mentioned that verse
this morning in the sermon in Luke. Now the serpent was more
crafty than other beasts of the field. He was more shrewd. And
we don’t want our children to be crafty. They get that on their
own. We want them to be shrewd. We want them to be able to know
when they’re being duped. We want them to be able to know
how to best deal with someone. What’s the best way to teach
them to do that? It’s to take them with you when you go to
buy a car. That’ll teach them how to be shrewd, won’t it? And
then there’s this knowledge word. God’s requirements. It’s closely
connected to verse 7, the fear of Yahweh. But how does a child
become to know God’s requirements? Well, you read the word, you
live the word, you require the word, and you discipline according
to the word. I think most children nowadays
have figured out, I think I mentioned a minute ago, they can size up
the room pretty good. They figure out who’s in charge
and what’s their desire. Their desire is for you to not
be in charge and for them to what? be in charge. And we don’t want the monkeys
running the zoo, as we like to say. But kids need to know the
word. They need to know what’s right,
good, and true. They need to know how to fear God and keep
his commandments. And if you’re not living a biblical
life, teaching a biblical life, and most especially requiring
a biblical life, guess what kids are going to do? They’re going
to figure out how to beat the system. And that’s really what
we’re seeing our kids become graduates of these days. They
learn to beat the system. and they learn to come out on
top. But we want them to know God and his requirements and
fear the Lord. Then there’s the word we love
and ought to know, the word discretion. Discretion is prudence. Discretion
is a planning word. It’s a word that really gives
the message of we want our children to look down the horizon and
say, here are all the choices. This is the best choice, and
this is the one I’m going to go after. So many kids now are
aimless. They live moment by moment by the gadget, by the
sensation, and the next sensation or thing that comes their way.
And so we need discretion. Then there’s a word, learning.
This word is also maybe best described as grasp. We’ve seen
this word before with understanding, but we want them to grasp a subject.
a method of education, classical education. And basically in the
early stages, a kid can learn facts. In the second stage of
classical education, they can learn to argue. You know what
a middle schooler’s like. They got stinky armpits and they
argue with you. And then there’s the older kid’s age. They can
teach you what they’ve heard. And so the goal for your kids,
for us as adults, to be lifelong learners, for sure, is we want
to grasp a subject. We want to know it forwards and
backwards, and we want to be able to explain it to others
and argue the merits, but also defend it. And then there’s this
final word, this ninth word, guidance. It’s a word that maybe
has the meaning wise counsel or how to steer something or
someone in the right direction. And so we want our children,
we want ourselves to be well-versed in all these words, all these
nine words. They mean a lot. There’s a lot of crossover. There
are nine words, and the goal is to teach these to the simple
or the naive. It’s to teach them to the young,
and particularly it says the young men. And then the wise
and those who are understanding, or that’s those who’ve been there,
done that, and got the t-shirt, we need to be reminded of it.
We need to be growing in our wisdom. And so the simple, the
simple is someone who can be easily seduced. And I have this
theory that most of us get a hold of a kid, we can’t wait to have
a kid, and we get the kid, and we don’t know what to do with
it, and then it disrupts our life so much that what do we do with
the kid? We can’t get rid of it fast enough. And so we pass
our simple, naive children off, and where have we thrust them?
We’ve thrust them into the world. And then when they grow up, we
wonder why they’re messed up the way they are. And one of
the things we have to remember is that our children are easily
seduced. You put your kids in a pack of
other children, and if your child is an influencer, what are they
going to do? They’re either gonna lead others well or lead them
astray. But if your child is influenced, what’s gonna happen? Well, they’re gonna go one way
or the other depending on who the leader of the pack is. And
so who’s the best leader of the pack for the simple? It’s mama
bear. And for those early informative
years, that’s the way the Bible has taught it. But what about
the young man? The young man is also, described
in the scriptures as a tender youth. We have out here in the
courtyard, our second dogwood tree we’re trying to get planted.
The first one was put in about two years ago. It didn’t make
it, but we’ve put in a new one in the recent months. And what
did we do? Did we just stick that young
little tree out there and say, hope for the best? No, we dug
the hole. We got it wide. We put our little
bit of peat moss in there, our potting soil. We put it in the
ground. We packed the dirt. We watered it like we’re supposed
to. But what else did we do? We tied it to stakes. And why
did we do that? Because the wind will come. The
rain will come. The storms of life will come.
Two weeks ago tomorrow, we’ll have experienced a hurricane
that passed through the area, a tropical storm, tropical depression.
And what happens when the storms of life hit the tender youth?
Well, they can’t make it like us who are older can, whose feet
are firmly planted, our roots are deep in the ground. And so
a sapling has to be staked until it’s ready. And so our teaching
of these things is to the young while they’re impressionable,
and it’s while they’re still in the home. The home, I think,
is like a greenhouse, and we ought to keep our children in
it as long as possible until their roots are ready. But while
they’re in that greenhouse, we need to make sure these nine
things plus the rest and the whole of the scripture is put
into them. But how about for us who are gray haired? How about
to those of us who have supposedly learned wisdom? We need to keep
learning it. And I would challenge you both as people with families,
but also as older and wiser people, keep reading the Proverbs. You
can read 31 chapters in 31 days. Guess what that is? Every month
you’ve read the Proverbs. It’s a good thing. I encourage
you to do it. So what’s the ultimate goal?
The ultimate goal you find in verse seven. The ultimate goal
to these nine things is the fear of Yahweh. The fear of the Lord
is the beginning of wisdom, or the fear of the Lord is the beginning
of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. Can’t you just
hear the voice of Mr. T in that verse? I pity the fool. The ultimate
goal is the fear of Yahweh. It is the beginning of walking
wisely and fools despise it. What is the fear of God? We’re
gonna talk way more about it next week. It’s simply reverence.
The fear of the Lord is reverence for God. I fear him. When you
see a police officer, when you see a soldier, when you see a
judge in a courtroom, there’s a sense of reverence in you.
I remember attending a court case with a fellow in our youth
group down in the Charlotte area. This was 15 or so years ago.
This kid had prank called his school teacher and said some
idiotic things on the phone. He was a fool. He wasn’t wise.
And he got hauled into court for harassment. So I went as
a character witness, because he was a decent kid. And so I
sat in the courtroom. And the judge said to this court
full of people, Jay, you’ve probably seen this. He was going to be
in there all day with these people. And he said, look, this is my
courtroom. You will address me as your honor. And if you’re
not wearing a coat and tie, you’ll leave until you have one on.
And then he addressed the women and what they should be wearing.
And he says, if your phone rings, you’re kicked out. And if you
miss your court date, you’re guilty. I mean, he just went
through it. I mean, it was his courtroom. It was his way or
the highway. And we, we’ve come, I mentioned earlier how church
has gotten so crummy. We come to church and God is
our little homeboy, right? Hey God, what’s up? That’s how
we pray these days. I have friends in ministry. They
think praying to God like that is so cool. Hey God, what’s up?
I’m here. He is the Holy one of Israel. He is the mighty one. He is the one who speaks and
that which did not exist comes into being and that which he
wants out of his way is removed. He is not to be trifled with.
He is to be reverenced and obeyed. And this ought to be our world
and life view. This ought to be everything to us. Whoever finds me finds life.
Proverbs 8 says about wisdom. So we ought to live wisely, yes.
And you can live a very wise life. You can organize your pantry. You can spend your money well.
You can keep your car neat and clean and your tires at 35 pounds
per square inch. You can do all the right things
in life. But unless you trust in Christ,
who is ultimate wisdom, and turn from the folly of self, you will
ultimately die. And so we need to put our faith,
our hope, our trust in the living one, Christ Jesus. He himself
is wisdom. Now, as we end tonight, I want
you to think of a picture of your kid. Some of you have pictures
on your wall of your kid and their diploma, right? And their
little mortar board hat with a little tassel. They got their
gown on from graduation. They got their diploma in their
hand. You’re proud of them. They got a job. And that’s the
American dream, isn’t it? Get a good education, get a good
job so that you can have power, money, and leisure. That’s the
American dream. Or how about a picture of your
child who’s a skillful liver? Not the liver inside here, but
a liver, right? A lifer. They can observe, grasp,
plan. They can learn in pain and the
ups and downs of life. They can choose the best. They’re
skilled at life. They’re shrewd. They’re prudent.
They can heed counsel. You need both. I would suggest
we need, as Christians, to be well-educated to live life in
this world. God wants us to, what does Genesis say? have dominion
over the earth and dress and keep it. You can’t have dominion
over the earth without a good education, but you can’t live
a wise and skillful life without wisdom. So one will get you a
job, right? Get a good education, get a job.
but the second you’ll keep the job and that’s important. But
what’s the most important thing is to live life fearing God and
entering his glorious and eternal presence because you trust in
him and live according to his ways. Let’s ask God for his blessing. Lord, we pray that you would
help us to be wise not in our own eyes, but wise according
to the fear of the Lord. Help us to seek first your kingdom
and to love your scriptures and commands and to live a life that
is blessed by you because we shun what is evil. We reject
what is foolish and we seek first your kingdom looking for what
is wise and will ultimately lead to life. Hear us and help us
in Christ’s name we pray. Amen.