Proverbs 2

Minnesota

My job as a pastor is to attempt to give you clear thinking on the scriptures. To unveil the scriptures for you every week

To help you grow in Christ and to present you fully mature in Christ

Sometimes that means we need to confront the news and learn to handle our culture in Biblically relevant ways.

So, This week,I like many of you saw the incident that happened in Minneapolis that resulted in Renee Good being killed

I am aware of and keep paying attention to the developments that are happening in Minneapolis.

And So I think I just want to try and reflect with you as best as possible and then pray for this situation the best I know how.

First, I think the only thing we can all agree on is that we don’t know all the facts. I have learned early on in ministry to be careful responding to incidents in the first 24 or even 48 hours because we just do not have all the facts…there will be an investigation into this and I am sure more information will come out…Already one video came out and then 24 hours later a body cam video came out that changed the story…

But here is what we do know

It’s a tragedy that Renee Good was shot and killed

It’s a tragedy for Renee’s 6 year old child who lost her mom

It’ s a tragedy for this officer who took a life, that will take a toll on him for years to come

Theologically… We are a resurrection people who believe in the power of life over death. We believe that Jesus is the ultimate source of life. We believe every life matters to Jesus

That ICE officer and Renee Good’s life both equally matter to the Lord.

It is a tragedy because in our society this shooting also revealed something deeper in the church

That is, how you view this incident is entirely related to what your politic is.

That is if your a republican you likely saw a police officer defending himself from being run over

and if your a democrat then you likely saw a woman trying to drive away and getting shot in the head

What I am concerned about pastorally, it seems to me is that politics is becoming our new morality as a society…And that is seeping into the church.

What we see as good and true and beautiful no longer originates with the scriptures but with a political position

and this will leave you empty and lost

Jesus was offered a political kingdom, by Satan and he turned it down..>Actually from that time on he went and preached about the kingdom of God…

Jesus offers his own kingdom

I am concerned about Minneapolis, I am concerned about Renee Good, but as a pastor I am also concerned with the church.

And I hope I am wrong

But with every major social event we are seeing republicans analyze it one way and democrats another.

My point is this event is revealing to me that we need Biblical reflection more than ever.

Becauase we are seeing the church try to be united but have two different starting points.

if we can’t put our politics aside then can we ever be united in Christ the way the scriptures call us to be united?

In the last 25 years Churches have split over sexual ethics…

In the last couple of years we have seen the rise of the progressive church and the rise of the christian nationalist church….These are churches that lead with their politics rather than the one who is really at the head of the church…Jesus

And the reality is I don't want to be any of those, I want to be Jesus’ church…Because frankly those churches eventually have to do morality gymnastics and try and support something their guy did biblically when it can’t be supported ….

I think people choose their political side because it feels like the most moral way to go, but there is a harsh reality

Politics is now masquerading as morality….

Politics is not about morality it is about power

So what I what to invite us into today is a minute of prayer

I do want to pray for Minneapolis

I want to pray for Renee Good

I want to pray for that officer

But I want to pray for the church too. That we truly embody the third way of Jesus. That we don’t just by default fall into the kingdoms of the world and that we remain united in the blood of Jesus

let’s Pray

Intro

To start the year we are on a small series on the book of Proverbs.

It is about understanding the source of all wisdom.

Last week we looked at what proverbs are...

These short pithy statements that give the wisdom of the Lord.

Now of course there are other proverbs out there

proverbs that give wisdom that are not biblical or that teach something…

But it is my aim always to point you to Jesus but at the beginning of 2026 to remind us that we need the wisdom of the Lord

This world is only getting crazier we need the wisdom of the Lord

This week I asked Chat GPT what the approximate education level of sacramento was

So for Sacramento City Adults 25+

Less than High School Diploma: ~6% 

High School Graduate or GED: ~28% 

Some College or Associate Degree: ~30% 

Bachelor’s Degree: ~25% 

Master’s or Advanced Degree: ~11%

So what I take out of this is that this is we are very well educated…

Especially compared to a hundred years ago

We live in a very educated society

So why if we are so educated today does society seem more fragile?

So why if we are so educated does life feel less satisfying?

Our educations are great, but they are a double edged sword.

We can get just enough education to feel secure. To feel like we know it all and we don’t lack anything

But it seems to me that often times I don’t lack education,…If I need answers I know where to get them…

What I lack often times is wisdom…

How do I apply the knowledge?

See knowledge and wisdom are different and if we are not careful then our education can serve as a false comfort to us to make Us believe…I can do it on my own

So let’s Review last week:

Proverbs 1:7 (NIV) The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

This is where we left off.

Sure there is the knowledge of academia and that is all good stuff

But if you want true knowledge…True wisdom

Then it begins with the fear of the Lord

I was realizing this week when I went to write that I never covered: this part: But fools despise wisdom and instruction

Assuming that you have nothing to learn is a foolish position

One of the ways that people are assessed is in teachability…Do you have the type of temperament that you are open and willing to learn from the Lord…

Are you willing to learn from others who are further down the road than you?

I mean…How many times do we come to church and we don’t even prepare for this time.

Maybe we ought to pause right now and just say Lord, I am ready to learn from your word. Help me to hear it…Convict me where I need convicting, help me to cherish your wisdom and not despise it

I am sure that many of you watched the office

And one of my favorite lines from the office was when Michael Scott’s character tells a racist Joke and he has to go to diversity Day counseling and they need him to sign a paper saying he learned something and he has a problem with that and he says:

“OK, it says here that I learned something and I knew all this stuff already, so... I know, I could sign something that says that I taught something, or that I helped you teach something”

This is just emblematic of how we are sometimes…Because fools despise wisdom and instruction

So as it turns out this is really Key…To have a teachable spirt…To admit we don’t know everything and have a lot to learn….

So with that said…Let’s look at Proverbs 2

Proverbs 2:1–8 NIV

My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding— indeed, if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He holds success in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless, for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones.

Knowledge and wisdom comes from fellowship with the Lord

This is what this verse is saying

By diligently searching for wisdom you will find Yahweh

another way to say this is by searching for the truth

This by the way is the invitation of God though the whole bible

Deuteronomy 4:29 NIV

But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul.

Jeremiah 29:11–13 NIV

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

Proverbs 8:17 NIV

I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me.

This is what Proverbs 2 is talking about:

All knowledge..>All wisdom comes from the Lord. So wisdom starts with relationship with the Lord!

This is the testimony of countless people by the way.

Friends, there is a body of uniquely Christian knowledge that is available to all who would seek it and to all who would receive it

Francis Collins The guy who mapped the human genome! He was shocked that there were scientist who were christians so he went searching for truth and found Jesus

I have met many people in life who have asked me. How do you know that Jesus is the way the truth and the life? Isn’t it arrogant to believe that jesus is the only way to the father?

Isn’t this statement by Jesus arrogant?

John 14:6 NIV

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

I mean Jesus is claiming to be the truth!

My response is no! not at all

Jesus is the only one that offers his life for our lives. You can’t claim it is arrogant to offer what no one else offers…

he is the only one to die for a sinful people and offer himself as a cleansing sacrifice…because he loves you so much

It is not arrogance at all to take what no one else offers

But Jesus in this statement gives us another very impotrant lesson in knowledge and wisdom

that is:

The truth is a person not a concept (John 14:6)

I have had many students in my youth ministry…I have had many people just ask me…How do you know Buddhism isn’t the way or Hinduism or Islam or even Judaism

And I tell them what I tell people all the time. I have every confidcene and faith in the world that an honest search for truth will land you at the cross.

I have seen it over and over again

There was a time in my own life…I had become a christian at age 14 and then started taking philosophy classes in college and honestly there was a year that I questioned everything…

Did I just choose Jesus because that was the first thing I read?

So for about a year, I kind of abandoned christian practices…Now I do not recommend that…But I went on a search for truth…I went to the other world religions…I asked the question, why is Islam growing so rapidly…I looked at them all…And Guess where I ended up?

Back at the person of Jesus The only one who can offer true forgiveness of sins. The only one who can answer the big questions of life in a coherent way The only one who actually lived and died and rose again….

I mean I don’t want to spiritualize that time…I fell away for a time…But its almost as if God was also taking me on a journey before he called me into ministry…

So if this is true which I believe it is

That all knowledge and wisdom can be found in fellowship with the Lord…That the truth is a person and not a concept

and so if that us all true and again I have built my whole life on it then it tends to follow

that when God is first in your life, everything else falls into place…

When God is first in your marriage you experience a Godly marriage

When God is first in your finances, Guess what you experience Godly provision

When God is first in your relationships you experience redemptive relationships!

Seeking God first and putting him first in your life gives you wisdom for every area and aspect of your life

So proverbs 2 goes on to warn the reader about the wicked man and the adulterous woman

So what will relationship with God do?

Proverbs 2:12–15 NIV

Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men, from men whose words are perverse, who have left the straight paths to walk in dark ways, who delight in doing wrong and rejoice in the perverseness of evil, whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways.

See if relationship with God is your plumbline then you are in relationship with all truth…You know truth! And if that is true then you are going to instantly recognize the ways of wickedness

Part of that is just getting that feeling when you are around them…This isn’t right

They delight in doing wrong

they rejoice in perverseness

Last year I had liked a few comedy pages on facebook and when Charlie Kirk was killed just instantly they put these awful memes out there celebrating and delighting in an assassination…

and I just had to stop following that page like immediately

I was like I do not care what side you are on politically just these Memes are like arsenic for the soul…I wont be part of something that delights in evil!

This has happened multiple times in my life…I was a part of sometrhing and then all the sudden I saw its true colors and…>Was like wow I better leave before my paths become crooked

The book of proverbs first tells us to seek Yahweh…It first tells us to fear the lord…and that is how you are going to recognize what is good, what is true and what is beautiful in this world

And its not just men that do evil….

Proverbs 2:16–18 NIV

Wisdom will save you also from the adulterous woman, from the wayward woman with her seductive words, who has left the partner of her youth and ignored the covenant she made before God. Surely her house leads down to death and her paths to the spirits of the dead.

So in the book of Proverbs there is “Lady wisdom”…Wisdom is personified as a women…Obviously right ladies?

But that is contrasted with the Sinful woman…And it is called the adulterous woman

And the adulterous woman isn't all about sex…

This woman uses her sexuality to manipulate

Guys every advertising agency on the planet has figured out how to manipulate you into buying things…Put a sexy woman on whatever you are trying to sell to men and say hey buy this!

The adulterous woman leaves the husband of her youth…In other words she doesn’t respect the covenant that she made with her husband

It literally says that…the sinful woman ignore the covenant she made before God!

The fun part about this section is that when The bible says that the way of the adultrus women...Her paths will take you to the spirits of the dead…The phrase there is “Rephiem” in Hebrew It is the same word for decedents of the Nepheliem in Genesis 6….

It is basically saying the adulterous woman turns into an agent of hell and leads you there

Here is the deal…If you know Solomon: who is the author here…Isn’t he speaking from experience? Both the wicked men and the adulterous woman has gotten to him…

He has 700 wives and 300 concubines…He know’s what he is talking about

So it is in this context that we find one of the most popular teachings of the book of Proverbs

proverbs two says all knowledge and wisdom comes from the lord.

There are two paths that will derail you

The sinful man

the adulterous woman

But there is one more way that will derail you

Proverbs 3:5–8 NIV

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones.

This is basically a summary of everything we read in chapter 2….Knowlegdge is from the Lord and Don’t rely on your own knowledge

Lean not on your own understanding

A wise person places a low priority on their own will and a high priority on God’s will

I want to give you a picture of what it looks like to live this out.

Last Summer I heard a podcast interview with a guy named Jamie Winship a few years ago he wrote a book called living fearless

so I listened to the podcast and I liked it so I bought the book

His whole story is how he went from a detective to a CIA oppretive living in Baghdad during the US Shock and Awe campaign with his whole family…His young kids and everything

As a detective he had a crazy solve rate…I mean highest in the country this guy could solve crimes and it got the attention of the CIA and so they came to him and asked him, Hey we want you to work with us….we want to know the secret sauce

And he said…you’re not going to want to hear it…And they said whatever you are doing we want to hear it

So he told them -about his first major kidnapping solve

It was at a school, a man had gone into the parking lot and snatched a child. He was on the scene early, the parents were there just absolutely frantic. And at this point Jamie is a young detective and he told the parents almost like he was in a movie..>Were going to find your daughter

The elder detectives said you can’t do that!~

You can’t make that kind of promise what are you thinking

So he got in his car and he put Proverbs 3 into practice…

He said…I knew God knew where this little girl was…God cares for her he loves her so his entire strategy for solving cases was proverbs 3.

Lean not on your own understanding and in all your ways acknowledge the Lord…

So Jamie literally tells the CIA recruiter my secret sauce is that, Jesus is Lord and I pray to him and ask him to reveal to me what happened

So the story goes with that kidnapping…

Jamie Winship gets in his car and he literally bows his head and prays…he begins to drive back to the station and there is a car in front of him. And Jamie says, there is absolutely no legal reason to pull this car over. There is nothing suspicious about the car or the driver for that matter

But he gets this overwhelming feeling to pull the car over And so he does…

He pulls the car over he runs up to the driver and tells him to pop his trunk

Well the driver was so shocked that he just complied and there is a little girl in the trunk…This little girl was lost for less than an hour…

So Jamie tells the CIA recruiter that its nice that you’re looking at me but I am not a good detective, it turns out an Omniscient God…The God who knows all and sees all is the best detective

Well the CIA officer says, I dont care how the job gets done, I want you to come and teach that in the middle east….

So that is a whole other story…

But I just wanted to give you a picture of what it looks like to not trust yourself but to trust the Lord…

You can do this with your work

You can do this with your family

In all your ways submit to the Lord and lean not on your own understading

But this is why I opened up with talking about how Educated we are

Our Education can either be an amazing tool in God’s hands or it can be a barrier

It is a tool in God’s aerosol when it is surrendered to him

When you are educated enough to say Lord, take my life and my education and everything I have and make it yours

When you are the kind of person who fears the lord…then you are Humble enough to says Lord I don’t know everything I need your help

Trusting in God is an awareness that our own understanding might be wrong

I love how it also says in all of your ways submit to him and he will make your paths straight

The hebrew word used for Submit here is Ya’da

It is the same word a know

And it is the same word as acknowledge…

So the advice that Solomon is giving is look in every way of your life, acknowledge that God is first and he will make everything strighten out

See when we lean too much on our own understanding its way too tempting to give ourselves the credit and glory

We tell stories in which we are the heroes

See when we Go to the lord for wisdom and then that plays out well in our lives and we take the credit then don’t you see, we are robbing God of the glory that he is due!

Solomon will go on in chapter three to give examples about what it means to put God First

Proverbs 3:9–10 NIV

Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine.

Put God first not just in your intellect

But trust God with your whole life

The first fruit of your crops isn’t just a tithe…It’s your very survival

Trust God with your survival and he will take care of you

Its like the first part of Proverbs 3 says trust God in all your ways

But honor God with the material wealth you have too

Honor the Lord with your wealth

And he will honor you

As we begin to wrap up

But we love to lean on our own understanding don’t we?

Our education has become an idol

Our own ideas are not open to critique or the scrutiny of the Lord

It actually makes us feel secure to know!

Solomon isn’t talking to uneducated people. He’s talking to capable people. People with resources. People with experience. People who think, “I’ve seen enough. I know enough. I’ll figure this out.”

And God says: “Trust Me instead.”

Not just with your theology. Not just with your Sundays. Not just with your intellect.

But with your whole heart. Your marriage. Your finances. Your future. Your decisions. Your blind spots. Your fears. Your plans for this year.

Lean not on your own understanding — not because you’re dumb, but because you’re limited.

You don’t see what God sees. You don’t know what God knows. You don’t love like God loves.

And the good news of Proverbs — the gospel thread running right through it — is that God is not hiding wisdom from you.

He says, “If you seek Me, you will find Me.” He says, “If you cry out for insight, I will answer.” He says, “If you put Me first, I will make your paths straight.”

And ultimately, He didn’t just give us wisdom — He gave us Jesus.

Not a principle. Not a system. Not a philosophy.

A person.

Jesus is wisdom in the flesh. Jesus is truth with skin on. Jesus is what it looks like to trust the Father perfectly.

So the invitation as we start this year is simple, but it’s not easy:

Will you be teachable? Will you fear the Lord? Will you stop pretending you know enough — and start trusting the One who knows all things?

Some of us don’t need more information this year. We need more submission.

Some of us don’t need a new plan — we need a surrendered heart.

So maybe the most spiritual thing you can pray today is this:

“Lord, I don’t know everything. I don’t see everything. I don’t trust myself as much as I trust You. Teach me. Lead me. Order my steps.”

Because when God is first — everything else finds its place.

And that… is the beginning of wisdom.

Let’s pray