Proverbs 3:13-18
Let’s hear God’s word together.
This is Proverbs chapter three, beginning at verse 13. It says,
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. Amen, that’s the word of the
living God for us. A popular phenomenon in America
now is to have a life coach. I don’t know if y’all have caught
this phenomenon, but you get a life coach who helps you get
organized so that you can have a path to true happiness. They
get your house organized. They get your schedule organized.
They make sure you have a job that makes you happy. They position
people for positive living, and they pull you out of the position
that a lot of people find themselves in for negative living. The right coaching leads to the
right choices. That’s the idea. A lot of pastors,
by the way, are no longer calling themselves what the Bible calls
them, pastors and teachers. They now call themselves life
coaches. How do I know this? Well, I look on the LinkedIn
website periodically to get more followers, partner with
more people that I know. And you see a lot of pastors
who are ministers of the gospel, ordained and installed at a local
church, and they hide themselves on the professional, what do
you call that? The LinkedIn, the resume website.
They hide themselves or couch themselves in the terms of Life
Coach. I don’t think it’s that they’re
ashamed of being a minister. I think they just want to market
themselves in an area that’s wildly popular. Well, there’s a better way to
have a happy life than to hire a life coach. And it’s simply
this, follow the Lord’s instruction. You want to have a happy life?
Follow the Lord’s instruction. How do we know that? Well, Tonight,
we look at verses 13 to 18. And if you look at 13, what’s
the first word? Blessed. And if you look at verse
18, what’s the last word? Blessed. So in literary terms,
we call these bookends, right? What do bookends do? They hold
up a stack of books. They keep them from toppling
over. Well, in literary terms, What’s in between the bookends
is super important. So in chapter three, which we
have broken up into three sections, last week we looked at pursuing
wisdom and finding her blessings. Tonight we look at the value
of blessings, and we look at it from two perspectives. One
is, you might look at it in terms of your portfolio, right, your
financial well-being. The other way we look at it is
our health. records. So first we’ll take
a peek at the portfolio and we see this in the first couple
of verses. Verse 13 says, blessed is the one who finds wisdom and
it’s implied blessed as the one who gets understanding for the
gain from her is better than the gain from silver. Her profit
is better than gold. She is more precious than jewels.
Nothing you can desire can compare with her. Long life is in her
right hand and in her left hand are riches in honor. Actually, it meant to end at
verse 15 there. But the question might be this, how do I get a
healthy portfolio? Well, you ask the life coach,
and what do they say? You want to have a healthy portfolio,
you need to fill it up with what? Money. Fill it up with money.
What does the world offer as advice for your portfolio? Acquire,
acquire, and acquire. For a lot of people, their bottom
line is their net worth. And the scriptures offer something
better, and we find it here in verses 13 to 15. Get wisdom,
get understanding, The gain and the profit from it are far more
worthwhile, verse 14 says, than silver and gold, and then in
verse 15, jewels. Now, back in the ancient Near
East, they measured wealth differently. You probably measured it in land,
you measured it in children, you measured it in silver, gold,
and jewels. You probably also measured it
in how many sheep, camels, oxen, donkey, and whatever else you
had. Now we just define it in dollars
and probably real estate. But your portfolio, according
to the scriptures, is measured far differently than maybe your
stock market report or the value of what’s in your safe. And so
it speaks of the gain and the profit from wisdom. It speaks
of what is more precious. What is it we go after in life. We go after the things in life
that we prize, right? We go after the things in life
we value. And you look at all the options
out there, there’s thing after thing after thing to go after.
But yet, what is the one thing that will give us long life?
What is the one thing that will give us God’s grace? It’s wisdom. And
it’s wisdom. And so what do we do when we
see wisdom offered for us and understanding offered to us?
Well, we go after it. We seek it. We find it. We sell
everything we have in order to go get it. We had a little book
that we read to the kids growing up called Treasure Beyond measure
and it’s about a man. They take the parable of Jesus
and make it a little bit more modern, but the man sells all
he has and he buys a boat. And what does he do in that boat?
He goes to an island where he knows buried in the sand is a
treasure beyond measure. And so the story shows the value
of seeking what is of greatest value and selling all, as Jesus
says, in order to make a way to procure this treasure. So
the question for us is, do we see the value of wisdom? Do we
see the profit? Do we see the preciousness of
wisdom and understanding? Do we see the gain and the profit
from it? Would we trade in all our worldly
possessions in order to give it? Would we desire to be wealthy
in the sense of wisdom rather than the ways of the world? There’s
lots of worthless pursuits out there. And if you’ve lived life
long enough, you know, you know, right, you can probably Some
of us in the room who are older, we can probably list on the fingers,
on a hand or two, the mistakes we made. I thought I wanted this. I thought I needed it. I got
it. I thought it would bring lasting pleasure. And the shine
wore off of it pretty quick. But we pursued it. It was the
desire of our heart. So a question we might ask. There’s lots of worthless things
in the world that we go after. But the $64,000 question is,
what’s in our portfolio? Is it what’s listed here in these
three verses? Is it wisdom? Is it understanding? Do these
things compare to nothing else for us? So there’s the first
thing to consider. What’s in your portfolio? The
second thing we might pick up from this psalm is what’s in
our health records? I don’t know if y’all keep the
little immunization charts, you know, from your baby book. Y’all
still have those from when you got born and you got your measles,
mumps, and rubella. And you’ve got all your little
shots so that you could go to nursery school and go to grade
school and all the rest. But throughout your life, your
medical records get rather thick. They used to be in the file cabinet
at the office. Now they’re in the universal system where you
can log in online and you can go to your My Health chart and
you can look it all up yourself. But what’s in your health records? Well, go back to the life coach
analogy we’re thinking of here. What’s the number one piece of
advice you’re going to get from a life coach? You need to have
self-care. That’s the big thing out there
these days. You need to make time for you. Have you thought
about how big the exercise industry is? I mean, there was a wave
where everybody wanted a home gym, right? And so everybody
in the basement of their house, they got the walking machine,
the rowing machine. I remember a member of my family
even put in a steam room, just like they had at the Y. And of
course, does that equipment ever get used? No, no. Good investment,
good idea. Never gets used. Goes on Craigslist
by January 15th. But the exercise industry is
huge. Everybody wanted a home gym. Now everybody wants a gym
membership. Now you can’t have a gym membership.
And so you see outdoor exercise classes. But have y’all seen
the exercise clothing industry? That’s the number one choice
of apparel for people nowadays. You don’t see people dressed
up. You don’t even see them in business
casual. Everywhere they go, what are they wearing? Yoga pants,
yoga clothes, exercise clothes. The exercise apparel industry
is huge. And so we have to think a little
bit differently here about our health records. And the book
of Proverbs here, I shouldn’t say wisely, gives us wisdom.
That’s what it does do. But it gives us something for
our right hand and something for our left. In our right hand,
it says we get long life. Verse 16, long life is in her
right hand. And then in the left hand are
riches, and honor. Oh, we thought just a second
ago that it said rich is bad, wisdom better. No, what very
often goes with living a wise life. You live a wise life, you
accumulate over time. You have a positive cash flow,
not a negative cash flow. I quit getting the paper about
a month ago. Decided the paper was rather worthless. I was tired
of reading news from Lexington and news from, what’s the other
town? Is it from New Bern that the
Times News is giving news of? But there’s one thing I do miss.
I read it every day, the obituaries. Any of y’all do that? You read
it, first of all, to make sure you’re not in there. And the
second reason you read it, to see if anybody you know is in
there. I can read them online, so I keep up with it that way.
But periodically in the obituaries, there will be a baby. In fact,
I think about a week ago, there was a little baby that was 20
days old, died at one of the local hospitals. What’s there
to write about a 20-day-old child? other than they are cute, bubbly,
and brought us great joy and also great sorrow. You really
can’t write about much because they never went to high school.
They didn’t play a sport. They didn’t accomplish much. They
had a 20-day life. But on the other hand, you read
the obituary of somebody like Dr. Kernodle who passed away
last week, kind of a giant in the community. And his obituary
is miles and miles long. In fact, this week I was watching
a press conference from the previous Duke football game and the coach,
Duke football coach gave a shout out to Dr. Kernodle’s death.
But there was a man who had a long life. and a long list of accomplishments
and things that he enjoyed and did while he was in this life. But wouldn’t it be neat to have
an obituary written about you that says, in his right hand
was long life and in her left hand were riches and honor. And those things being in the
biblical sense, the eternal sense, I think most people live their
lives, and it would be most appropriate to put in their obituary, they
lived a foolish life, they were exhausted, and now they’re dead. Isn’t that the way most people
live? They make foolish choices, they’re exhausted, they live
their life trying to get out of those foolish choices, and
then they die, and there’s really not much to say about them in
their obituary. Well, the book of Proverbs, I
think, gives us a way to live an alternate life. We, according
to verse 17, can have a life, a life of wisdom, her ways, a
life of pleasantness in all her paths, our peace. That’s a wonderful thing, isn’t
it? We see the t-shirts, right? Lake
life. Seen those? Or beach life, salt
life. Yeah, everybody has those. I’m
not into Christian trinkets, although this is one I think
would be worthy of wearing. Get a t-shirt that says wise
life. Right. That would be a good witness,
a good thing to explain to others for living a wise life. According
to 17 is a pleasant life and it has paths of peace. The section also goes on to speak
of immortality, and up pops in verse 18 something you really
haven’t seen since the book of Genesis, and that is the tree
of life. Wisdom is a tree of life to those
who lay hold of her. Those who hold her fast are called
blessed. You go back to the life coach
analogy. What do people want? They want
a happy life, a peaceful life, and a life that serves them very
well. But most of that does not include
the next life. And one of the things that Jesus
offers us, one of the things that God offers us in Christ
Jesus, is he offers us life now in him, but life forever in him. And remember one of the great
mercies of God in Adam and Eve’s sin is he banished them from
the garden. He put them out. He put the angel with the flaming
swords, the cherubim there that they may not enter the garden
and eat the tree of life and live forever in sin. But one
day we’re going to get back to that tree of life. And what are
we going to do? We’re going to feast on it. And what will it give
us? Well, in faith through Jesus Christ, it will give us eternal
life. It’ll give us life. everlasting. And so the tree of life has a
fruit that is life-giving. And so our life ought to be one
where we keep an idea or we keep an eye on our portfolio. Are
we gaining eternal wealth, wisdom and understanding? Do we see
it more precious than money, more precious than jewels, more
precious than gold and silver? But we also ought to keep a check
on our health records. Are we seeking wisdom as it really
is, the tree of life that gives us life abundant now and also
life eternal forever. I would imagine you wouldn’t
have to think hard to think of an example in your life where
you made a foolish choice and you paid for it for a pretty
long time. Or maybe you know others in your
life or in your family, they make foolish choices constantly
and their life is a systematic pattern of exhaustion because
of foolish choices. That’s what’s put before us.
So here’s the question. I mean, this is the whole question
of Proverbs, but particularly this chapter tonight, do we want
to have a healthy portfolio eternally? Do we want to have good health
records spiritually? Here’s the question. Do we value
wisdom? Do we value wisdom? And what
do we of course say? Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes, I value
wisdom. But you think about where we
are spiritually. I know I’m preaching to the choir
tonight a little, but think about this. Oh, we value wisdom, but
we’re late to church. Oh, we value wisdom, but we disregard
opportunities for growth. Oh, we love wisdom, but we’re
distracted with lesser things. So how do we tell if we really
value wisdom? Well, you can tell by your checkbook.
You can tell by your date book. But I think you can also tell
by your Netflix and Amazon Prime queue. Because I think something
has happened in the last four or five years. We’ve become bingers,
right? It used to be you binge drank,
right? If you used the word binge, it
was related to alcoholism or drinking. Now we say, oh, I’m
a binger. You would never say that five
years ago. Somebody might think you’re an alcoholic. But now
we’re binge watchers. We’ll watch a 42-episode season
of something in one weekend. Right? We are addicted to our
gadgets. And what I’m getting at, I’m
not saying that watching Netflix or Amazon Prime is wrong or whatever
it is you watch, but our brains have been changed. Do y’all know
that about technology? I know you look at people and
the phone is like a third appendage, or the gadget is. But look up
some of the research, particularly some of the Christian research
on what gadgetry does to us. It changes our brains. And this
is the effect it will have on you. You will pass by your Bible
and not read it. You’ll pass by a piece of good
literature and say, well, it’s just easier to watch something,
right? That’s what’s happening to the American culture. We will
pass by a person and not have a conversation. We will do all
sorts of things because our brains have become addicted to gadgets.
And I think that is one of the largest hindrances we have to
wisdom. Now, let me ask you the question
again. Do you value wisdom? What is your checkbook? What
is your calendar? But what does your Netflix or your Amazon Prime
queue have to say about it? Well, wisdom is something that
if we get it, it will provide a gain, a profit. It will provide
a benefit that will outweigh everything in this world. We
must seek Christ and not ignore him for his true wisdom. So what’s
the bottom line with wisdom? It’s always this, go get it. Let’s ask for God’s blessing.
Lord, we pray that you would help us to be done with lesser
things. Lord, help us in this world that
has so many voices calling for our allegiance, gadgets that
have rewired our brains. where we no longer seek your
face. We no longer even seek the faces of those in our own
households. We’re addicted. Our brains have
been changed. Lord, help us to put those things
down, to pick up our Bibles. Help us to read your word, to
read your wisdom, to seek it, and to trust in Christ for a
wise, healthy, and gracious life. This we ask and pray in the name
of Christ, amen.