Amen. Good morning. I won't introduce myself because I know all of you.
It's good to be back with you again. Good to see so many of you after so long.
Thanks for your commitment to this community and so many of you who have tuned in from afar and
so many of you who have stepped up and served in new ways and continued serving in old ways.
We just praise God for the way he's held us together as one community following Jesus together.
This morning we're going to continue in the book of Proverbs.
If you've been with us, you know we started that a few weeks ago.
The book of Proverbs is a book about wisdom.
Wisdom is skill and the art of living.
It's how we navigate the path that God's given us in this life and it's how we stay on the path.
The beginning of wisdom, its very start, its foundation is the fear of the Lord,
which I've been telling you from one man is an attitude of submission, respect, dependence, and worship.
And as it begins with the fear of the Lord, it continues with a characteristic of humility and teachability.
We start with the fear of the Lord, but if we want to grow in wisdom, we want to continue in wisdom.
We have to be people who are humble, who are willing to learn.
Now, if there's anything we've learned over the last few months,
certainly that the foundations, the things that we rested on in this world are perhaps a little less secure than we thought they were.
The world's maybe a little more fragile than we would have admitted last year or realized.
And sometimes there's disasters that come and some people run towards those disasters and some people run away from them.
If we had known in 2019 what was going to happen in 2020, maybe we would have done certain things differently.
Maybe we would have prepared in a certain way.
Of course, that's true of many aspects in life.
There's a preparation for what's to come.
There's a mitigation of preparing for what might happen in terms of disaster.
And that's what the author of Proverbs is going to tell us about this week.
We're going to look at how do we prepare for what's to come in this life.
How can we be ready when disaster comes?
We're going to hear about a storm.
So our question is, how do we survive?
How do we prepare for the storm that's to come?
It's with that that we're going to turn to Proverbs 1, verse 20.
I invite you to turn there with me in your Bibles or in your worship guide or your phone.
And as we come to Proverbs 1, remember that this is God's word.
In Proverbs 30, verse 5 tells us that every word of God proves true.
He is a shield to those who take refuge in him.
And so that's why we read now in chapter 1, starting at verse 20.
Wisdom cries aloud in the street.
In the markets, she raises her voice.
At the head of the noisy streets, she cries out.
At the entrance of the city gates, she speaks.
How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?
How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?
Verse 23.
If you turn at my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit to you.
I will make my words known to you.
Because I have called and you refused to listen,
have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded,
because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof,
I also will laugh at your calamity.
I will mock when terror strikes you,
when terror strikes you like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind,
when distress and anguish come upon you.
Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer.
They will seek me diligently, but will not find me.
Verse 29.
Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord
and would have none of my counsel and despised all my reproof,
therefore they shall eat the fruit of their ways
and have their fill of their own devices.
For the simple are killed by their turning away
and the complacency of fools destroys them.
But whoever listens to me will dwell secure
and will be at ease without dread of disaster.
Father, I invite you to pray with me as we come to this portion of God's word.
Our Father in heaven, we thank you
that you don't leave us alone,
but instead you speak to us by your word.
You, like a good Father, warn us
of things that are going to come in the path of life.
You prepare us for what's to come ahead.
We ask that you would do that this morning,
that you would send your Holy Spirit to encourage us
and stir us up by your word.
And you'd also send him to convict us
that we would have soft and tender hearts,
hearts that are open to you and your wisdom.
We ask that you would do that now
and that you teach us by your word.
We ask these things not because we've earned them
or deserved them,
but because we can ask them in Jesus' name.
Amen.
As I mentioned when I was giving the announcements,
today is June the 14th,
and I'm curious if you remember what happened two years ago
on June the 12th and 13th.
We are right at the two-year anniversary of something.
If you were living in Colorado Springs two years ago,
I can guarantee you, you haven't forgotten about this.
Very beginning of June,
we got hit by one of the worst hailstorms in recent memory.
And you all remember,
that was the first of two hailstorms that summer.
And what I remember about that hailstorm,
first of all,
I didn't really know anything about hail
because I had just moved to Colorado Springs
a year before that,
and hail was just a concept at that point.
But what I remembered about that
was that there was no warning.
No one told us there was going to be a hailstorm that night.
It just happened.
Now, the following hailstorm,
the one that happened, I believe,
in August of that summer,
we had some warning.
And so there was more of a chance to take cover.
Both hailstorms were destructive.
Some people had to have their roofs replaced twice.
It's great for those who had it,
who delayed and only had it replaced the second time.
Well, that highlights something for us
that there are two kinds of storms in this world.
Sometimes there's storms that we know about.
We can see them coming.
And then sometimes there's storms
that just happen without any warning.
I was caught without warning.
My car was outside when the first hailstorm hit.
When the second hailstorm hit,
I had just picked up a rental car
to have my first car worked on.
That's another story.
But there are two kinds of storms, right?
And we face storms in this life.
And in this section of Proverbs,
we're told that calamity can come.
When we don't follow wisdom,
it can happen like a storm.
And the reason that it's compared to a storm
is that it's going to feel in some ways
like something that's unexpected.
It's going to come up in a moment.
That's what we see here in verses 26 and 27.
Wisdom is going to laugh at people
who haven't listened to her
when terror strikes them like a storm.
And calamity comes like a whirlwind.
There's these storms in life, in other words,
that we can live without wisdom.
We can live in foolishness for a certain amount of time
and feel like we're getting away with it.
We can feel like there's not going to be any consequences
and that what we're doing is working
until the moment that the storm finally comes.
There can be a disconnect sometimes
between our present actions
and how it's going to affect us in the future.
And so we're going to look at that storm this morning.
We're going to see a few things.
First, the reality of the storm,
then the characters of the storm,
and then the escape from the storm.
The reality of the storm,
the characters of the storm,
and the escape from the storm.
We've already sort of talked about the reality of the storm.
Wisdom is warning us
that if we ignore her for long enough,
we will face a storm.
In fact, this is true.
We know this intuitively of many areas of life.
For example, if you don't save,
which, by the way, is a major topic
in the book of Proverbs, money.
If you don't save,
say maybe you don't save for retirement,
you don't save in general,
you'll be fine for a while.
You won't feel any consequences for a while.
You might think, this is working great.
There's no reason I need to change my behavior
until one day the storm comes.
One day you need the money.
You don't have the money.
Book of Proverbs talks about alcohol.
You might abuse alcohol for a time.
You might think, this is fine.
It's not affecting me in any big way.
I just have a large supply of ibuprofen in the morning,
and I can keep doing this
until one day the storm comes
and your health finally catches up with you.
It can happen in your work.
The book of Proverbs talks about people
who are lazy, the sluggard.
Maybe you're not doing a great job for a time
and you're on pace with your peers.
You're at the same point in your career,
and then suddenly you wake up one day
and you realize that they've advanced
several levels ahead of you,
and you're still in the same place.
Maybe even worse, you're losing your job.
It can happen in the other way.
Maybe there's overwork,
and you think, I can keep running at this pace.
I'm not facing the consequences yet,
and then one day,
doing too much for too long catches up,
and your heart and your mind
and your body begin to shut down.
This can happen in your relationships as well.
Maybe you do what the Proverbs warns against.
You're foolish with your words and your emotions.
Seems to be working for a time,
and then one day it catches up with you,
and the people that you wanted
and thought were close to you
are all walking away.
There will come a time
when foolishness catches up with us.
There will come a time
when we get what we've wished for.
That's what verse 31 tells us.
Therefore, they shall eat the fruit of their way
and have their fill of their own devices.
There's a time when it's too late
to turn back the clock.
There can come a time
if we ignore wisdom for long enough.
Wisdom will also ignore us.
There's a tragedy that's coming,
and sometimes we can't go back.
There is a real and true storm.
Now, I've talked about this real and true storm
in the sense of physical consequences, right?
Our health and our money and our friendships.
There's also a real storm spiritually.
It's easy to ignore God for a time
and not to face any of the consequences.
You might think,
oh, this is fine.
I'm living my life.
There's these Christians who pay attention to God,
but I am having just as good of a life as they are.
Therefore, I don't understand why it's important
for me to embrace Jesus Christ.
Well, the same thing is true spiritually
that's true of all these examples physically.
We can get away and get along for a time,
and one day the storm is going to come.
Spiritually, when we talk about the storm,
we're talking about the fact that one day
we are going to face God
as the great judge of this world.
It will happen either when we die
or when Jesus Christ returns to the earth
for his church.
And so whether it's in this life
or it's in our relationship with God,
our present actions affect future consequences.
And just because we don't see a storm now
does not mean the storm isn't coming.
And so wisdom cries out to us.
Will we listen in time?
We're told in this passage that
not only does wisdom cry out,
but there's going to come a time
when it will be too late to turn back.
That's what we're told in verse 28.
Then they will call upon me,
but I will not answer.
They will seek me diligently,
but they will not find me.
In other words, wisdom cries out to you
and you don't listen.
One day you will cry out to wisdom
and wisdom won't listen.
There will be a moment
when it's too late to turn back.
And so there's an urgency.
There's an urgency to embracing wisdom,
to embracing the cry,
to change now,
to prepare for the storm
before it's too late
because there will come a moment
when the clock cannot be turned back.
That is the reality of the storm.
If that's the reality of the storm
and wisdom is crying out,
there's of course a variety of ways
to respond,
to answer the call from wisdom.
And that's where we find
the characters of the storm.
We're given three characters here.
In verse 22,
we meet someone called the simple,
we meet the fool,
and the scoffer.
Now the simple person
is someone who doesn't really understand
what we've just talked about.
The simple person doesn't understand
the relationship
between present actions
and future consequences.
The simple person is very naive.
The simple person hasn't committed.
We talked last week about the fact
that there are really only two paths
when it comes to wisdom.
We can embrace the path of wisdom,
and if we don't embrace that path,
we're automatically on the path of foolishness.
There are only two ways to live.
There's only two ways to go.
And so the foolish person
or the simple person
is technically on the foolish path
because they haven't embraced the wise path.
But what's different about the foolish person
from the other two
is that the foolish person,
there's still some hope for them.
They're open.
They're naive.
They're described by some people as gullible,
but there's still some hope for them
to return to the path of wisdom.
And so you'll notice in verse 22,
wisdom actually is only crying out to the simple.
When she mentions scoffers and fools,
she's just commenting on them.
She's not even inviting them.
The fool is someone
who can be invited to do what's right,
has not made that commitment yet,
or the simple is invited to do what's right,
hasn't made the commitment.
So in that sense,
the simple person is a fool,
but there's hope that they might become wise.
Now, when it came to hailstorms,
I was a simple person.
I was not a fool,
at least not yet.
So I was unaware of how hailstorms worked.
I knew them as a theoretical concept.
I didn't realize the danger.
I didn't hear wisdom crying out to me.
My car was on the street
on the night of June 12th, 2018.
The great irony was that
while I typically did not have access
to the garage in the house I was living in,
one of my housemates was out of town
and there was a garage slot open.
However, I didn't take advantage of it.
I was simple.
But I was open to the call to wisdom.
So that night when the hailstorm started,
one of my housemates came
and knocked on my door and woke me up,
told me, your car is on the street
and it's hailing right now.
You need to bring it in.
So this is the call of wisdom
to the simple person, right?
So I ran out, except it was hailing
and it was huge hail.
It was dangerous for people to run out in.
So she gave me her snowboarding helmet
and I had the top of a rubbermaid bin.
It's my shield to guard myself.
And I ran out into the hail.
I got into my car and I started
and I pulled it into the driveway,
into the garage,
and it was already too late.
My car had already been wrecked by hail.
So I was the simple person, right?
And I didn't respond quickly enough.
There's a true urgency.
What we're being taught here,
in part, is that there's not a time
to sit and consider wisdom.
The time to respond to wisdom is now.
The time to respond is now
when it comes to circumstances in our life
and the time to respond now
when it comes to embracing Jesus Christ.
That no one of us knows the day
or the hour that we'll face the Lord.
And there may come a time
where the cry of wisdom is too late.
The cry of wisdom is too late
in our personal lives.
There are some things that happen.
And there are some things
that people in our community do
that we can't just turn the clock back on.
I had comprehensive coverage.
So my car was fixed.
And it cost Geico thousands of dollars.
And it cost me an enormous headache, right?
My housemate could not turn the clock back
on that for me.
The call to the simple
had not happened fast enough.
We also meet the scoffer and the fool.
The fool is worse than the simple
because the fool is not open
in the way the simple is.
The simple can still be pulled
onto the path of wisdom.
The fool is set.
Remember, we've talked about the fact
from Proverbs 12
that the fool is wise in his own eyes.
So the fool is convinced
he knows everything.
So the fool is going to hear the cry.
The fool is going to be confronted
by people and friends and mentors
who describe to him
how foolish his life is,
how the path he's on
is going to lead to destruction.
The fool's not going to listen.
Now, we've met people like this.
I'm sure you have people like this
in your family or your friend group.
Many people come and say,
look, the path that you're on
is not going to end well.
But they're wise in their own eyes, right?
The fool keeps going.
So that's why we see wisdom
is not crying out to the fool.
The scoffer is even worse.
The scoffer's like the fool,
except the scoffer has this
mocking tendency,
makes fun of the wise.
The scoffer's vindictive.
The scoffer's sarcastic and cynical.
The scoffer's the kind of person
that always points out what's wrong
and never sees what's right.
The scoffer takes being wise
in their own eyes to an extreme.
Of course, if you've lived in this world
long enough,
you've met people like this as well.
And the challenge from wisdom
is to the simple.
Turn back before it's too late.
Turn back before it's too late
because there's going to come a time
when things can't be undone.
When this storm comes,
you can't go back in time and redo.
Of course, I would love to go back, right,
and park my car in the garage on June 12th.
That's not an option.
Better to learn the easy way
than the hard way.
Learn in verse 31,
the fool,
if the simple doesn't embrace wisdom,
the simple's going to eat
the fruit of their way
and have their fill of their own devices.
Verse 28,
they're going to call upon wisdom,
but wisdom won't be there to answer.
And so,
the application here for us
is simple.
Listen.
Listen to wisdom
before it's too late.
Listen to wisdom
before it's too late.
We've seen the reality of the storm,
that there are real storms
coming in this life,
physically, materially,
and also spiritually.
We've seen the characters
of the storm,
that there are a variety of ways
to respond
when we're being warned
about the storm.
But there's also
an escape from the storm,
and that's what we see here
in verses 20 through 24.
Wisdom is crying out.
Wisdom isn't doing something
in secret.
Wisdom isn't doing this
in a seminar
that you have to be invited to
and pay money for.
No,
wisdom's crying aloud
in the streets,
verse 20,
in the markets she raises her voice.
Wisdom is not a respecter
of persons.
She's not crying out
only to some classes
and not to others.
She's not crying out
only to rich,
but not to poor.
No,
she's crying out
in public
to everyone.
Anyone and everyone
can have access
to wisdom.
She's loud.
She's urgent.
She's highlighting the fact
that the decision
has to be made,
and all they have to do
is listen.
She's crying out.
She's speaking.
Verse 23,
if you turn at my reproof,
in other words,
if you listen
and do what I've told you to do,
I will make my words
known to you.
I'll speak to you.
Verse 24,
she's called out
and you refuse to what?
Refuse to listen.
I stretch out my hand
and no one has heeded.
In other words,
no one has listened.
Verse 25,
you have ignored
all my counsel.
In other words,
no one listened.
The call of wisdom
is for everyone
and the call of wisdom
is a limited time offer.
And so the time
to act
is now.
The time to listen
is now.
wisdom
doesn't just
cry out
and call.
Wisdom also
makes it easy.
The command here
is not that we
pull ourselves up
by our bootstraps,
not that we go off
on some journey
where we have to
put together
a habit tracker
and make sure
we're setting
a new set,
a new threshold
and bar
that we have to
jump over every day.
wisdom actually
offers to help us
and give us
everything we need.
You know,
there are many
adventures in
Colorado Springs
that if you want
to be successful
and you have no
experience,
you're going to want
to hire a guide.
If you've never
hunted before
and you decide
this is something
I want to get into,
you can hire someone
to help you
and show you the way.
If you want to be
a fly fisher,
you don't know
the right spots
to go to,
you can hire someone
to come with you.
Wisdom here
is telling us
she is there
to be a guide
but we don't
have to hire her.
She's actually free.
We don't have
to hire wisdom.
We don't have
to pay anything.
She offers
her services
to anyone
who's willing
to accept them.
That's what we see
in verse 23.
If you turn
at my reproof,
behold,
I will pour out
my spirit to you.
I will make
my words known
to you.
This is freely
available.
Not only am I
going to be
your guide,
not only am I
going to take you
on the hunting trip,
I'm going to provide
the guns that you need.
I'm bringing
all the food with us.
I'm packing everything.
All you have to do
is get in the car.
That's what wisdom
is offering.
Wisdom is offering
to empower
and enable.
whatever we need,
all we have to do
is listen and accept.
All we have to do
is receive
the correction,
what here is called
reproof.
Verse 23
and 25.
All we have to do
is here
to turn away
from foolishness
and to turn
to wisdom.
If the simple person
teaches us anything,
it's this.
There is no middle ground.
ultimately,
we either choose
to be wise
or we choose
to be foolish.
And so we have to
listen before
it's too late.
We have to heed
wisdom before
it's too late.
If we're people
who have faith
in Jesus Christ,
we heed the call
of wisdom
in all sorts
of areas of life.
We heed the call
of wisdom
in our relationships
before they're destroyed.
We heed
the call of wisdom
when it comes
to the way
we treat food
and drink
before we hurt
ourselves and others.
We heed
the call of wisdom
when it comes
to dealing
with those
who have more power
than us
and those who have
less power.
We heed the call
of wisdom
when it comes
to bringing justice
and loving goodness.
Because God
wants us to walk
well in this world.
He doesn't want
us to face
the disaster
that happens
when we disregard
wisdom.
If you're not
a Christian,
remember that
the beginning
of wisdom,
the beginning
of knowledge
is the fear
of the Lord.
And so before
we embrace
anything else,
we have to embrace
Jesus Christ.
We can't have
wisdom without Him.
And just like
there's a coming storm
in the physical
circumstances
of this life,
there's a coming
destruction
that while things
may seem good now,
there is a time
and a day
when Jesus is going
to return to this earth.
And if we die
before then,
we will also
have to face Him.
And so no matter
how good things
are going now,
we need to be
prepared for that.
And so we do that
as the author
of Proverbs tells us
by receiving
the reproof,
which is a repentance
word,
a turning away
from sin,
repenting of our sins
and turning
to Jesus Christ.
No matter what we do,
we have to remember
the lesson of the simple
and embrace wisdom
now because it is urgent.
embrace wisdom
now because wisdom
provides everything
that we need.
It invites us
to go on a journey
and she supplies
everything that's needed
for the path.
I've been telling you
as we've been going
through the book
of Proverbs
about Matthew 12,
verse 42,
which tells us
that Jesus is greater
than Solomon.
He's the great
wisdom teacher.
He's even greater.
He teaches us more
than what we learn
in the Proverbs.
But that's not
the only aspect
of wisdom
that we see in Jesus.
We're also told
in Colossians 2,
verse 3,
that in Jesus
are hidden
all the treasures
of wisdom and knowledge.
We're told
in 1 Corinthians 1,
verse 24,
that Christ
is the power of God
and the wisdom of God.
In other words,
Jesus doesn't just
teach us wisdom.
He is the full
and final
and greatest embodiment
of God's wisdom.
This woman represents
wisdom,
lady wisdom,
in Proverbs 1.
Jesus is the greatest
fulfillment
and embodiment
of God's wisdom.
That's why we're told
in verse 29,
hating knowledge
means not choosing
the fear of the Lord.
Jesus is the one
who comes
and actually allows us
to have true fear
of the Lord,
not fear of punishment,
but fear of displeasing
the God who offers
us salvation.
And we know
even more
than people
in the Old Testament
about this spirit
that's going to be
poured out in verse 23.
How is it
that we're going
to be given
everything we need
for the journey
of wisdom?
Well, it's because
God is pouring out
his spirit on us
because of Jesus Christ.
He offers us
not worldly wisdom,
not wisdom
we have to create
and build,
but wisdom
that he gives us
through his word
and by his spirit.
And so God
provides everything
needed for wisdom
for those who will
simply hear
and listen
in turn.
God doesn't just
change our hearts.
He gives us
a new and true
desire for wisdom.
And he helps us
to grow in it.
He helps us
through his word.
He helps us
through his spirit
and he helps us
through the community
that he's given us
in one another
in the church
that we would have
what we need
to listen
to wisdom.
wisdom.
So how is it
that we are prepared?
How is it
that we look forward
knowing that we're ready
for the storms
that are to come?
We have to know
that the storm
is real.
We have to choose
not the way
of the simple
but the way
of the wise,
the person who
embraces wisdom
and listens.
That's how we're ready
for what is to come
spiritually
and physically
in this world.
In his book
Deep Survival
Who Lives
Who Dies
and Why
a man named
Lawrence Gonzalez
tells the time
that he spent
at the Vermont
Wilderness
Survival School
with a man
named Mark Morey.
And during that time
in the survival school
they would spend time
walking through
the forest together
and one thing
that Mark taught him
is that he had to
listen to the birds
because the birds
were what he called
the radars
of the forest.
That when the birds
were making noise
it was time to listen
because there was
something going on.
That reminded Lawrence
of another time
when he was hiking
on the U.S.-Mexico border
and it was incredibly
hot outside
it was over 100 degrees
and so he wasn't
thinking very clearly
but he was with
a hiking partner
and this woman
he was hiking with
at one point
put out her hand
and stopped him
on the trail.
He looked up
and what was there
making noise
but a bird
there was a
a blue jay
who was screeching.
He looked up
at the blue jay
that was screeching
and then his guide
pointed him to the ground
and he saw
right in front of them
across the path
a huge rattlesnake
that had just devoured
the little baby
of the blue jay.
the blue jay
was crying out
warning him
of the danger
that was to come
and all he had to do
was listen.
Wisdom
is crying out.
All we have to do
is listen
and live.
I invite you
to pray with me.
Our Father in heaven
we praise you
and we thank you
that you don't let us
stumble
and wander along
but instead
you cry out
with your wisdom.
You invite us
to walk with you
on a journey
that you provide
everything
we need.
We ask that you do this now
that you
if we're simple
that you stir up our hearts
to commit to you
and be wise.
If we're scoffers
you'd soften our hearts
and convict them
of sin
and that if you're foolish
we're foolish
you'd help us to know
that we shouldn't be wise
in our own eyes
but we need to learn
from you.
Ask that you'd encourage us
that you give us
your spirit
that we don't walk
the way of wisdom alone
but it's a place
that we walk with you
as our guide
and our comforter.
We praise you
that we can learn
these things
from your word
together
that we can worship you
with one voice.
So we ask these things
not because we've earned them
or deserve them
but we ask them
in Jesus' name.
Amen.