Proverbs 2 | The Treasure that Delivers

Sunday Morning | March 23, 2025 | John C. Majors | Louisville, KY

In his sermon titled "The Treasure that Delivers," Pastor John emphasizes the invaluable nature of wisdom as depicted in Proverbs 2, highlighting its paradoxes, protective qualities, and the path it offers to a righteous life.He urges believers to earnestly seek and accumulate wisdom, drawing parallels to the desperation shown in Numbers 22.To achieve this, Pastor John outlines practical steps: fervently praying for insight as encouraged in James 1:5, establishing consistent spiritual habits akin to "rutted pathways," confessing one's shortcomings, and diligently embedding God's Word within one's heart.

You can join us on Sunday mornings at 11 AM for worship. We are located at 8911 3rd Street Road, Louisville KY 40272.

Transcript

0:02

Well, I'm grateful for how Isaac responds to challenges. Yeah. Some would be so derailed by that; would be so distracted. And he just continued to lead us in joy and in worship. And I hope that's the atmosphere we're present in right now, is that we're expecting, in spite of whatever challenges, distractions with lighting. And I appreciate Isaac saying that. We're- we've become dependent on those things for worship. But we we shouldn't be. I hope our hearts are still in the atmosphere of longing to hear from the Lord, longing to know him better, being deep in his word, understanding what he's saying to us in His Word. And that's the hope today. Last week we started a series in Proverbs. We're going to continue in that today. Proverbs is all about wisdom, something we all need, something our age desperately needs is wisdom. How do we get wisdom? If you've sought out wisdom in the financial realm, you've probably heard of the name Dave Ramsey over the years. He's well known, especially in Christian circles, for his advice. If you asked him how he is, what does he say? Better than I deserve. That's his little tagline. He always says better than I deserve. One of the pieces of wisdom he gives for those who are seeking to get their hands around their finances, is he [says] you need to create, one of the first steps, you need to create an emergency fund. You need to have a little money set aside so that when rainy days come, you're ready for whatever may come. If you wait until the tragedy happens to go find the money, you're borrowing money at that point, right? If if at that moment you need it, you gotta go find it. It's too late. You gotta already have set it aside. You've gotta store it up for a rainy day. That's the idea we're going to see in today's passage how do you store up wisdom for a rainy day? How do you store up wisdom so that when you need it, you have it? We're going to see, especially in Proverbs chapter two, that we're going to look at today, wisdom for a rainy day. How do you get wisdom for a rainy day? We're going to see four ways in particular in Proverbs chapter two. First is we're going to see a father to his son. Give a plea for wisdom, a plea, begging. Please seek out wisdom. Then we'll see in the passage a paradox around wisdom. Wisdom can be paradoxical at points. It can be hard to understand. We'll see the protection of wisdom that comes from storing up wisdom. And then lastly, the path of wisdom. A plea, the paradox, the protection, and the path of wisdom are what we're going to look at today in Proverbs chapter two. So if you have a Bible, Proverbs chapter two is where we want to turn. And if you have a church Bible, I think that's on page-- I don't remember actually. Does anybody have a church Bible and know what page that's on? We can shout it out to everyone. What? 494 if you have a church Bible, if you don't have a Bible, we have Bibles out in the lobby in the Connection Corner. Slip out and grab one anytime those are free for you, you'll be able to read along. Follow along. You can keep that. That's for you to have so that you can read God's Word as often as you like. But we'll be in Proverbs chapter two, and I'm going to start by reading just the first five verses of chapter two to set the stage for what we're going to see here in the entirety of the chapter today. Proverbs chapter two. My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments within you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding, yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver, search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. Last week, in introducing the idea of Proverbs as wisdom literature, we talked about what is a proverb? Oftentimes, a proverb. And we understand this even in modern languages. A pithy, witty, short statement meant to make you think, meant to catch you off guard, meant to kind of force you to think about something from a different angle. One you might hear, maybe your grandma said to you, better to remain silent and appear wise than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. Right? That actually is at the end of Proverbs 17. You can go look that up later. A different version of that. You get these little pithy statements, and much of the book of Proverbs, especially chapter ten and onwards, is just a seemingly random collection of these statements that don't seem to be closely connected or surrounded around the theme. But what's different about the front half of Proverbs, especially chapters one through nine, is it's less that way. There are parts of that, but there is more flow, more uniformity of thought, more structure in that section, especially today in chapter two. Chapter two is one of the more carefully structured chapters in the book of Proverbs, which is crazy because you're expecting it to just be random statement after random statement. But this is really helpful to know about this, because Proverbs chapter two through Proverbs chapter nine are one long speech basically from a father to his son. If you just randomly flip through those first few chapters, usually the beginning of the chapter, you see it. Chapter three, my son. Over and over. As you pass through, you'll see over and over again my son, my son, my son 15 different times, my son or oh sons. There's this long lecture from a father to a son. And by the way, parents, we love to give a good lecture, don't we? It just feels so good when I've delivered a solid, well thought, carefully crafted lecture. And I know my children adore receiving those lectures. No, nobody likes that, right? But we feel better about ourselves when we've laid it all out there. Now, here's what's great about this. Yes, the father is giving. In fact, chapter two is one long sentence. It's just one sentence. But what's happening here that's so encouraging that there are no commands in chapter two, the father giving instruction to his son. But it's not a commanding you will do this and we know how that goes. No, it's a plea. Let me appeal to your heart. This is the path you should go down. If you have a boss, you know that at any time they can come and demand that you do this task. I want you to do this. I want you to do it now. I don't want to debate about it. I don't want to hear talk back, go do it. Get it done. And yes, they can do that. They have every right to do that. But what's way better in general is for them to appeal for you to work together, for you to be fully on board with the direction for you to be also convinced that this is the best thing for you, for the organization, for everyone. That's a better approach in the long term. Of course, there are times when you got to have the command issued and we just got to move on. But the father knows in his wisdom here that with a son a better tone, especially an older son. The assumption here is, is this that this is a young man entering into the prime of life, a better come with an appeal. Let me appeal to you. In fact, we're going to see here in these first few verses a plea for wisdom. Let me make a case for why the path of wisdom is better than everything else you'll see out there. And so look at some of the words he uses here. Look at verse one again, my son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments within you, I love that word treasure. It's also translated as store up my commandments within you. Psalm 119 nine through 11. In that section it says, I have hidden. I have stored up God's Word in my heart, so that I might not sin against him. You know, it's interesting the things that you store up, in fact, what you store reveals some about what you adore, right? If I walk into your home and I see a large collection of something, I'm going to know that's important to you. If you come in our home, you'll see a couple of things that you may not see as much of in other people's homes. House plants, have a lot of house plants; books, lots of books. Here's an interesting one. I bet we have more of this than anybody else here. Salt. We have way more salt. Anyone? You're going? Why? I don't mean to. I'm wondering that as well. That's part of the conundrum. Julie knows quite the variety of salts there. I had no idea there was any more than one kind of salt when we married. But there is, and it affects the flavor of the food you're cooking. She’s a great cook and loves to test out. And we have a lot of it as a result. The point is, what you store shows some of what you adore. If I came in your home, we can have a conversation about, oh really? Tell me more about that. You obviously love that. You have a lot of it. Here's the interesting thing, I said we have a lot of books. Here's the interesting thing about books. You can collect a lot of books but not collect wisdom. You can have a lot of books on your shelves and actually have never read them. It doesn't make you any wiser. Some book collectors are like that. They don't care what's inside the book. All they care is what's the price tag on this book? How much can I make off of it? How can I trade off and on? But here. The challenge. The call is to treasure up God's word. Not. Not just to collect it, to treasure, to adore it, to cherish it. He has some other words to describe what that looks like. Making your ear. This is verse two, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding. Make your ear attentive. Incline your heart to understanding the the word picture thereof. Inclining your heart has this idea of bending down to it, leaning in toward it. And you all know how this is. If you're in a conversation with someone and you say, look, I've got something I want to share with you. And if they lean in right as you're about to share it, you know you've got them. You know they're listening. You know they care. They really want to hear what you have to say. It's not just words that pass over and they forget immediately. You've inclined your heart to wisdom. This needs to be mine. Lady wisdom was seen out, crying out for the naive. Come all who want wisdom, come in to me. I've got it to offer. She was the one crying out in chapter one. And now here. The difference is here we are called to cry out for wisdom. We are to be the ones who are so desperate for wisdom that we're yelling, please come. Come into me. I need wisdom so badly. There's a desperation that is seen here. And when you're desperate for wisdom, man, that's the time when you're most likely to actually gain some, to soak it up, to receive it. You know, I never just randomly sit around watching videos of how to repair appliances. Never. But when an appliance breaks and I want to save a little bit of money, I'll watch hours and endless hours of videos on how to fix this one little thing. Because I'm hungry for knowledge in that moment, I'm desperate for wisdom. Part of me goes, you should have just spent the money to call someone. Was it worth all that time? But when you're hungry, that's when your heart is attentive. That's when it leans in. That's when you're desperate for wisdom. And that's the plea of the father here. Have that kind of desperation for wisdom. But there's a paradox here about wisdom. So the father is saying, you need to be hungry. You need to long for wisdom. But there's an there's a paradox, he points out. Here's the crazy thing about wisdom. Look with me in verse six. For the Lord gives wisdom. From his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice and watching over the ways of his saints. So here's the paradox of wisdom. We're called to cry out for it, to seek for it. In fact, he said, search for it like silver, like a hidden treasure. And you know, if there's a hidden treasure in your house, something you forgot about, you're going to tear it apart trying to find it, have that kind of attitude towards wisdom. And yet at the same time, you can be the best hidden treasure seeker in the whole world. But unless God shows up and provides that wisdom, you won't ultimately gain it. Ultimately, we are completely dependent on him to open our eyes to his wisdom without him opening our eyes. They're they're blind to true wisdom. Here's an example of this. If you've been reading through the church Bible reading plan recently, earlier in the month, you would have gone through the Book of Numbers. So turn with me to the Book of Numbers. Numbers is the third or fourth book here into the beginning of the Bible. It's up near the front. We're going to look at numbers chapter 22 and just hearing that there's a book of the Bible called Numbers and we're turning there strikes fear in the hearts of some. We're just going to talk about numbers. But the writers were they had the wisdom enough to pepper in some stories. In the midst of talking about how many people were in each tribe and numbers chapter 22. There's this little story placed in there about a guy named Balaam. A king comes to him and says, I want you to curse the people of Israel because they're coming into my land and I don't want them here. So you come and curse them. He goes, let me check with God first. God said, no, sorry, can't do that. And the king comes back to him. Check again, please, because you obviously misheard your God. He checks again and God says, well, go ahead and go on the journey with him. You can go on the journey, doesn't really give him approval to curse them, but go ahead. And while Balaam is going on this journey on his way to meet with the king, the king is hoping he'll curse Israel. God gets angry with him and he's riding his donkey, and the donkey starts diverging off the path. And three times this happens, and three times he beats the fire out of the donkey for doing this. And finally the donkey. If you've heard this story, you know what happens. The donkey speaks up for himself as donkeys are prone to do. And what's fascinating about the story, what happens is, in fact, if you look at numbers chapter 22, his response to the donkey, look at verse 28 and 29 then the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey. She said to Balaam, what have I done to you that you have struck me these three times? And Balaam said to the donkey, because you have made a fool of me, I wish I had a sword in my hand, for then I would kill you. Now there's a couple of things really interesting about this. One is the fact that he doesn't even a miss a beat, that he's now in a conversation with his donkey. His first response isn't, woah what? You can talk. His first response is, how dare you make a fool of me? If you're ever having a conversation with an animal, you need to just pause. That should be a red flag that something's not right. Don't just keep going with it. A pause, but here's what happens, that doesn't shock him. Here's what it takes to wake him up. Look at verse 31. Then the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam. Balaam couldn't see what was really going on. He opened his eyes and saw that there was an angel carrying a sword blocking the path, and. And if the donkey, who could see reality of what's going on, had continued forward, that would have been the end of Balaam. His wisdom didn't come to the Lord opened his eyes. And so you can accumulate all the biblical knowledge you want in the world. But until he opens your eyes to true wisdom, you won't have it. So that's the paradox of wisdom. Yes, seek it. Strive after it. It's not either or. We don't just passively wait and hope that wisdom comes. Seek it. Strive after it, and pray that he'll provide it and trust that he will provide it. In fact, it says he will provide. If you seek wisdom, he will. He will provide. He wants you to be wise. Now here's what's happening. As you accumulate wisdom, here's what the father says to the son. Here's what will happen. You will accumulate wisdom, and wisdom will protect you. And in fact, there's two types of people in particular, he points out that wisdom will protect you from. Look back... look in particular at verse 12, verse 12 through 15, and then we'll see verses 16 through 19. Those are two different groupings addressing two different types of people. Both sections start with the word. You'll be delivered from them. Wisdom will deliver you from two types of people. First is the evil man. Look at verse 12. Let's start with verse 11. Discretion will watch over you. Understanding will guard you, delivering you from the way of evil, from men of perverted speech who forsake the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness, who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil men whose paths are crooked, and who are devious in their ways. Here's how this man who is seeking to influence the young man. Here's some of the words that are used to describe them. Look at this man of perverted speech. We're going to see that with the man who seeks to deceive the young man and the adulterous woman. Both use their words to do that. And it says, here is men of perverted speech. That word perverted at its core, meaning it means to flip upside down. In fact, it's used. You would use it to describe flipping over a pancake. In the realm of morals, it means to flip morality upside down. Scripture talks about those who call evil good and good evil. And if you go back to the garden, that's the first temptation. The serpent says to Eve, Did God really say not to eat from the tree? Did he really say that? I tell you what's really going on. He's afraid you'll be like him. He's afraid now you'll see things the right way. He's afraid you'll actually have wisdom. Using his words. Perverting, turning it upside down. It also says of them that they rejoice in doing evil. Verse 14, and delight in the perverseness of evil. This isn't just a reluctant-- I didn't really want to do that, but I did. This is a rejoicing in evil. And I've shared this story before. It's a famous story. I'll just do it in brief from Saint Augustine, who's probably the most influential Christian writer outside of those who wrote scripture in the history of the church. This would have been three hundreds A.D. when he was alive. He wasn't always a Christian, and he talks about when he was a non-Christian as a young man, how he delighted in evil, even simple things like they would steal fruit off a neighbor's tree. And even though they knew it wasn't ripe, it wouldn't taste good. They stole it. Not because they would delight in eating it, but just because they delighted in doing evil. The taste of the forbidden was what he looks back on and his heart rejoiced in. This is the kind of person that is seeking to persuade a person who is also crooked and devious. And that word, devious, speaks to this idea of concealed hidden intent. And you've you've been around people like that who say one thing on the surface, but there's something else going on. They have a different intent. They have a different desire. They're seek, they're concealing their true desire from you. In order to get you to do something that you really shouldn't be doing. This is why I think it's so important that any church you are a part of, or any if you are like, you know, I have never heard of Christianity and I'm here today and I'm just comparing different religions. One thing to be mindful of those and to watch out for are those that have their hidden knowledge that you've got to work up to, to eventually get to it, to attain it, to find it. And they keep it secret. Maybe you've heard the Masons do that, or Christian Scientists or there's these different groups that say, maybe one day as you progress we’ll reveal it to you, but look here, it's it's all here for you to see. We don't hide anything here. Go. We we tell you. Go get God's word. It's out there in the hallway. Go grab a copy. You can read it all for yourself. We'd love to talk to you about it. Everything we believe is on our website. We're not trying to hide anything. That's one of the reasons, by the way, that people have the privilege of calling Christians hypocrites. You know, you can only call someone hypocrite if you know what they say they believe. I can't call you a hypocrite if I have no idea what you believe, but we've put it out there. Here's what we believe, by the way. Call us to account if we're not living up to it-- um, when we're not living up to it. Open, public, we're not concealing anything. We're not being hidden in our beliefs. We want to be as forthright as possible. We won't always get it right. But that's our hope. That's our desire. In contrast to the evil man here. Now, there's a second category of people he's warned against in Proverbs chapter two. The first was the evil man. The second is the adulterous woman. Look at verse 16, so you will be delivered from the forbidden woman, from the adulterous with her smooth words, who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God. For her house sinks down to death, and her paths to the departed. None who go to her come back, nor do they regain the paths of life. This is the protection of wisdom. The protection of wisdom protects you from the adulterous woman, from the person who is seeking to draw you into the life of sin. And in particular, here it says of her that she uses her smooth words, her silky words, her words that just make the path toward sin smooth and easy, and that make the next step seem like no big deal. I wrote in the midweek update about a guy that passed on some wisdom to me when I served with him in ministry. His name is Dennis Rainey, and I put a bunch of different quotes in there. I'm going to do the second half of those this week, but one of them that has always stood out to me is he says life is full of temptations disguised as small choices. How many times is there that call to make that that small compromise, that smooth compromise? It's no big deal. No one will care. It's easy. It's silky smooth. But that is the temptation disguised as a small choice, and the wise is aware of it. Is not naive to it. It also describes her this way, that those who sink down to her house sink down to death. Don't be naive to this reality that this path, as smooth as it is, leads to death. And at this time that would have been a literal result of getting caught in adultery, would have been death. It would have been a capital offense, but yet also it reveals the reality of a spiritual deadness that is occurring, that you just continue down the path toward sin. And he's pleading with his son, be aware, be mindful. Store up wisdom in your heart for a rainy day. Be ready for when that time comes. Because here's the truth. First Corinthians ten says it this way. It starts out by saying, no temptation has overcome you except that is common by man, but God will provide a way out when it comes. I've shared the story before, too, about a pastor friend of mine who confronted one of his leaders who seemed to be having too close of a friendship with another woman, and the guy came back to him later and said, God used you as a way out. God brought you to me and gave me a way out through you, and I ignored it. Store up wisdom in your heart for a rainy day so that it's there when you need it. Because he'll give you a way out and you'll be ready to take it. Instead of closing off to it. You'll be ready. In fact, the big contrast of the Book of Proverbs is that there are two paths to take. You see this so much in Scripture. Are you going to be hot? Are you going to be cold? There's no lukewarm. There are two paths to take. There's the way of wisdom and the way of the foolish. And this is how he ends this chapter. It's the contrast of the whole book of wisdom, and he ends it here in chapter two. Look at the last two verses. This is the path of wisdom. So you will walk in the way of the good and keep to the paths of the righteous. For the upright will inhabit the land, and those with integrity will remain in it. But the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous will be rooted out of it. There are two paths to take. This is where it all lands. There's two ways to go which isn't going to be. Is it going to be the wicked or the righteous? And he says they will be rooted in the land. That is often used to be synonymous with the idea of being in God's presence. When you're in his land, you're in his presence. When in his land you are near him, you are close to him. And if you store up wisdom in your heart, it will guide you down the path toward righteousness and route you in his presence. In fact, this is what's at the very core of the book. And part of the structure of this book is it's split in half. Usually what's at the center reveals what the purpose of the section is about, the chapter, not the book, but the chapter in particular. Look at verses ten and 11. For wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. Discretion will watch over you, understanding will guard over you. This is the same thing we talked about last week. The imagery of wisdom coming into your heart that speaks to what happens when Christ comes in to our lives. He is the one that guides us. The Holy Spirit guides us to His Word, and that's our dependance. How do we store up His Word? Treasure his word in our heart? I'm going to give you four practical points here to wrap it up four ways we do this. Here's the first one. Start by praying for wisdom. Just pray. James is often called the Proverbs of the New Testament. The book of James in James chapter one verse five says, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask for it, because God gives generously to all who ask. So the first step is, if you lack wisdom, start by praying. Ask for it. God, give me wisdom. Please beg for it. He will graciously give. Second, confess. If you're being drawn away towards sin, if you have been drawn into sin, start today. Confess that. God, I know I've stepped away from you. I know I have chosen to sin against you. Please forgive me. Please. I don't want to continue down this path. I want to repent of the sin. I want to turn away from that sin and turn towards you. Pray for wisdom, confess when you've lacked wisdom. Number three think about how you develop rutted pathways. Rutted paths. And here's what I mean by that. Oftentimes you might say something like, man, I'm just stuck in a rut right now. Now, we almost always mean that negatively. Oh I'm stuck in a rut. I'm in a hard place. I keep going down this path. I don't mean to, but a rut is neither good nor bad. It's just a well-worn path it's easy to slip into. That can be good as well, by the way, if you've developed patterns that force you to go towards the good rut, the good thing that's what you want. I was going to show an image. In fact, if you've heard of the Oregon Trail, that early pathway that was developed for people to head west in the early times of our settling of our country, and there are still sections today on the Oregon Trail you can go to and see ruts in rock. So many people traveled over the same path over and over again, and if you were traveling that way, you would know where to go. This is the direction I go. Many people have gone before me down this path, positively in your life, develop rutted pathways, paths that make it so that the first thing you do is the right thing. Part of that is developing spiritual disciplines so that that start your morning with prayer and in God's Word, and you move towards the positive of following him rather than towards the path of the unrighteous. The last one I want to give you is the come straight from the first verse in chapter two-- store up God's Word in your heart. Store up God's Word in your heart. That's probably one of the most powerful ways you can develop rutted pathways in your life. Good ruts in your life. Store up God's Word in your heart, and there's no shortcut to doing that. Have a multilevel approach. Get a copy of our Bible reading plan. It's out in the lobby. Start reading his word. I know a number of you have told me I recommended this devotional book on Proverbs by Tim Keller, a number you've told me. I picked that up this week and it's been great. How many of you grabbed a copy of that and have enjoyed reading that? Yeah, so I saw about six hands-- more than that told me they had copies of that. I promise it's a great read. It's just another way to get the drip of God's Word into your heart. Find an accountability partner to memorize scripture with. We pick a monthly memory verse as a church. This month’s is in Romans 11, we make it easy for you. We keep it in front of you. Many of them have a song attached. Just play the song. You can't not memorize it when you play the song, it makes it super easy. Get God's Word in your heart and do it with a desperation. Because you're going to need it. You may not feel you need it today, but you're gonna need it. Mary Jones was eight years old in the year 1800 when she came to know Christ. And she was so moved by coming to know him, she just wanted to soak up his word. But the challenge was, first of all, Bibles were very expensive at that time and hard to come by in her native language. She was from Wales and they speak Welsh and that's what she spoke. And she didn't have access to a copy. And so she asked around, how can I get this? And people told her it's very expensive, hard to find. People far away have it. And so she started to save, eight years old, for six years. She saved and saved and saved. Think of the last thing you spent six years saving for. That would have been like a new air conditioner at our house. Our new car. She saved and the day finally came. I've got enough money to buy my own copy. Now where do I get it? The only guy we know that has one around is in this village. Way over there. And little Mary, now, after six years of saving, who is dirt poor, has no means of transportation. She does not even have shoes. She says, I know where that village is. I've got to have a copy of God's Word. I'm going to get there. And she takes off walking and she walks, not five miles barefoot, not ten miles barefoot. She walks 25 miles barefoot to get a copy of God's Word that she saved six years for. She was desperate to have his word in her life, in her home. Part of that reveals that what we store shows what we adore. Store up God's Word, have his wisdom ready for a rainy day. Store it up in your heart because we're going to need it. Let's pray. God, I think we all know here that your word is important. We wouldn't be here otherwise. And yet, I confess too there are times it's more important to me than others. There are times other things seem more interesting. And you know that you're not shocked by that. You're not caught off guard by that. My simple prayer today for myself, for everyone here, is that our desperation for your word would grow, that our ability to treasure your word would grow, and you would give us a hunger to seek it out and to store it up. And I thank you for how you have worked this morning. Thank you for so many who've worked hard behind the scenes to keep things going and to limit distractions. And. Thank you for all the ways you've provided for us at this church. I know we take many for granted week by week. I do as well. Thank you for the people who serve so diligently, who work so faithfully for the money that's given to keep the lights on and to provide the generators and computers. I thank you for the generosity of so many. Lord, may we feel your presence around us as we leave today. We love you. Amen.