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Introduction
<<CHILDREN’S SERMON>>
<<PRAY>>
Wisdom - “Seeing God’s world the way God does.”
How things are supposed to work, how God intends us to see the world and live in it.
But wisdom is often sabotaged by the brokenness of the world.
It doesn’t always guarantee success or prevent tragedy.
Solomon’s primary warnings are intended to keep us from trusting in God’s gifts, including wisdom, instead of trusting in God.
And yet,
Chapter 10 takes all that Solomon has said so far about wisdom, and applies it to work
In this broken world, sometimes things get turned upside down.
You could do everything right and still have things go the wrong way.
Like he said last week, the race is not always to the swift, nor bread to the wise.
You could get hurt on the job, as we’ll see in verses 8-10.
But wisdom can help.
A few weeks ago, we looked at the riddle of wisdom, but today, we’re going to look for the blessing of wisdom.
Along the way, we’ll see the error of folly on full display, as Solomon revisits the challenge of wisdom & folly in our work, and the danger of a little folly to ourselves and to others.
ORG: Since Solomon is bringing a lot of material together here, chapter 10 ventures far and wide.
So we’re going to take a bird’s eye view of the whole chapter in 2 parts, and then we’ll zero in on Wisdom’s blessing, and a conclusion.
I. Wisdom’s Fragility (vv1-11)
(outline vv1-11)
As we read verses 1-11, note how Solomon uses the problem of folly to show how it can ruin wisdom’s effect.
<<READ v1>>
Have you known man or woman of wisdom who makes a single foolish choice and pays for it for years?
Sometimes a wise person has to sink their gifts into averting catastrophe due to someone else’s folly.
1 Sam 25 - Abigail - wise woman married to a fatally foolish man.
Abigail’s great wisdom is engaged in keeping her husband’s folly and wickedness from costing them and their servants their lives at the hand of King David.
So continuing in v2
<<READ vv2-7>>
Notice that Solomon is not contrasting the rich and the poor, or the wise and the foolish.
Remember at the end of chapter 9, the poor, wise man who saved a city.
But there’s deep wisdom here: You have wise and foolish across the economic spectrum.
Solomon has seen firsthand what happens if a ruler dumps all the wealthy out of authority because they are rich.
Unchecked idealism is folly because it treats the world as if it weren’t broken by sin.
There’s a reason the French Revolution includes a chapter called “The Reign of Terror.”
Solomon is no stranger to political corruption, but he also knows that class warfare is not the answer.
A wise ruler or electorate or even manager will try to put wise people in positions of authority, and that's both difficult and worthwhile.
APPLICATION: In the Church, Christ the King has given spiritual gifts to His people in great measure for the sake of the whole Church.
His wisdom is at the heart of it.
And notice how Paul says it in
But folly would turn all this upside down.
Now let’s look at verses 8-11.
<<READ 8-11>>
And here we see the fragility of wisdom in everyday situations.
Solomon’s big questions - the problems of vanity, toil, and death - are all tied up together.
APPLICATION: Wisdom helps, but even a careful worker can’t eliminate danger altogether.
ILLUST: Hornet spray (note all the safety precautions I normally took)
A little folly goes a long way, right?
Calling something "fool-proof” is usually asking for someone to invent a better fool, right?
Let’s look at the rest of the chapter, really covering verses 8 to the end of the chapter.
But since we’ve already read verses 8-11, we’ll start reading in verse 12.
II.
Wisdom’s Strength (vv8-20)
(outline vv8-20)
Solomon paints the difference between the wise and the fool with his words.
Notice, he spends half of a single verse on the words of the wise, <<READ 12a>>
and the rest of verses 12-15 are all about the prattling madness of the fool.
<<READ 12b-15>>
The fool has a defective heart according to verses 2-3, pointing him in the wrong direction.
He just goes on and on, but instead of talking himself out of a mess, his lips are his undoing.
And verse 15 says his toil wearies him, but most of his toil is just talk.
Verse 3 warned us that even when he gets on the right road, he won’t know it.
And in verses 16-20, Solomon brings the topic back to wise and foolish government and management.
Remember
Here's verses 16-18: <<READ 16-18>>
There are exceptions, Solomon knows that - he already told us
But the wise king in verse 17 knows how to reign.
Verse 18 is a proverb worth remembering for a household, a business, a kingdom, a church - through sloth the roof sinks in.
I think it’s Dave Hunt who says “delayed maintenance is a death wish for a business.”
Or, as your grandma used to say, “A stitch in time saves nine.”
And verse 19 is like a little wisdom test: If you say, <<READ 19 like a fool>>
“So let’s just live it up and throw money at our problems,” Solomon has a prediction: Woe to your land, whatever you’re in charge of.
You’ve got a leaky house.
Like the Prodigal Son, the money will eventually run out.
But the wise man says, <<READ 19 like a wise man>>, so let’s seek laughter and gladness at the proper time, and remember that just because money has an answer doesn’t mean it’s the right one.
And Solomon finishes the chapter with a reminder that secret bitterness not likely to stay a secret: <<READ 20>>
What a chapter.
We’ve just touched the surface.
Try reading chapter 10 this week, and digging into some of these proverbs.
Think about how folly spreads, and spoils wisdom.
It can ambush wisdom, it can upend understanding.
But we’re going to focus on wisdom, and specifically wisdom’s blessing.
III.
Wisdom’s Blessing (vv2, 10, 12)
<<READ 2, 10, 12>>
EXPLAIN:
Wisdom directs the heart, helps the wise succeed, and wins favor.
A few weeks ago, Pastor Aaron P showed us in chapter 8 part of wisdom’s blessing,
And wisdom’s blessings are mighty.
Maybe you remember back in July, we saw how Proverbs 2 answered the question, “How does God use wisdom to guard our hearts,” and we saw that a wise heart is protected by God, and prepared for Godliness.
Some people have called wisdom “skill for living,” which is fine, but it misses the most important part of wisdom.
That’s why we’ve defined wisdom as “seeing God’s world the way God does.”
Wisdom knows what a thing is because it knows the Creator.
In our neighborhood in Highland Park, IL, all of the manhole covers had this black plastic circle on them with a plain, silver plate in the shape of a piece of sandwich bread on it.
Every time we went on a walk, I’d wonder what they were.
And if you know, please let me know.
But if I knew the maker of those manhole covers, I could find out what the thing is and what it’s for.
To see God’s world the way God does is to see what things are, and what they’re for.
And this gets at what verse 10 tells us.
<<READ v10>>
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