Ever flown off the handle at someone – said something that you wish you could take back but you can’t?  Yep we all have.  And sometimes we still do.  What we need – what we really need is a piece of wisdom that we can put into action – right there in the heat of that moment.  A piece of wisdom … that works.

There are times as I look back on my life when I’ve said things in the heat of the moment that I wish I hadn’t said. That I wish I could take them back, I wish I could undo. The problem is that once it’s said it’s out there. Once it’s said it’s impossible to take back.

And whilst words spat out in anger, in the heat of the moment may well be forgiven, these white hot words leave a scar that is never forgotten. And you know for some people those scars rob them of life. They go on hurting for years and years, even a lifetime.

And if we’ve dished it out no doubt we’ve all been on the receiving end of the odd angry outburst in our lives as well. Can you remember such a time? When someone you’ve respected, when someone you loved turned on you, lashed out at you with words that just tore you apart. I can. I can remember those times very clearly.

Isn’t it sad how often it’s the people we love the most, the people that we care about more than all the others around us with whom we exchange angry outbursts? In all my years of going to Church, listening to sermon after sermon, this is a subject I’ve never really heard a message of.

Perhaps a preacher here and a preacher there have hedged around it but words spoken in anger are amongst the most potent of all the destructive forces that we can unleash. And so today we’re going to spend some time talking together about this very thing.

Over the last 3 weeks we’ve been spending some time plundering the Old Testament Book of Proverbs for Gods wisdom in this series that I’ve called Wisdom That Works. And I for one have been astounded at the many, many different areas of life to which God graciously gives us His wisdom.

Wisdom’s more than knowledge, it’s a depth of insight that comes from experience. It’s not just knowing the right thing to do in a situation, it’s actually getting on and doing it.

If I’m confronted by a complex or a difficult or a messy situation and I know how I should handle it, I have the knowledge and the experience and the principles to do well at this but I don’t put them into action then no one is going to look at me and say, “gee, he showed some real wisdom today in that difficult situation didn’t he?”

Wisdom is knowing what to do and then doing it. That’s the whole point of wisdom. It’s having the theory and putting it into practice. And that’s never more true than when we’re angry.

Man oh man I have seen some crazy things done by people who are angry. Road rage for example. Can you believe road rage? People actually shoot each other dead on freeways because of some stupid traffic incident. I know that’s extreme but doesn’t it just show you how absolute crazy the things are that we do when we’re under the influence of anger and rage.

It seems that we throw reason right out the window and the adrenalin just takes over. There are many, many people in prison around the world today because of the crazy things they did in a fit of anger. And one of those crazy things that we do, as I said at the beginning of our time together today, is that we spit out horrible words.

Have a listen to what God has to say about that through King Solomon in the Book of Proverbs, chapter 12, verse 18:

Rash words are like sword thrusts but the tongue of the wise brings healing.

Isn’t that so powerful? Let me say that again:

Rash words are like sword thrusts but the tongue of the wise brings healing.

A rash word is like a sword in the heart, it stabs so deeply, it hurts so much, it can so quickly destroy a relationship. In an instant, years of relationship building can be torn asunder by a rash word. In an instant a marriage can be damaged so deeply and just a handful of these sword thrusts can literally tear a marriage apart.

We’ve all done it and we’re all capable of doing it again. In a fit of rage, stabbing a loved one in the heart with rash words spat out in anger. But look at the alternative:

The tongue of the wise brings healing.

Wisdom is what we need in the midst of anger. We all get angry from time to time and the Apostle Paul tells us this, Ephesians chapter 4, verse 26:

Be angry but do not sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger and don’t make room for the devil.

In other words, angers a natural reaction to a situation sometimes and it’s possible to be angry but not to sin. Just because we’re angry about something doesn’t mean we have to go ahead and act on that anger. Just because we have a flash of instantaneous anger or rage over something, it doesn’t mean that we have to take out a sword and stab someone in the heart with rash words.

From time to time I experience anger, we all do. And as much as it’s possible here’s what I try and do when I’m angry. I try to do nothing. Say nothing, do nothing, don’t react. I don’t always get that right but it’s something I’m learning because I used to be one of the angriest people you’ll ever meet. Truly.

But anger’s so ugly and so now when someone makes me really angry I work hard at not reacting straight away. Again in Ephesians, this is what Paul says, Ephesians chapter 4, verse 31:

Put away from you all bitterness, wrath, anger, wrangling, slander, together will all malice. And instead be kind to one another. Tender hearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven you. So be imitators of God as beloved children and live in love as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us. A fragrant offering and a sacrifice unto God.

Most times we’re angry because someone’s offended us. We’ve been denied our rights as we see them. And we want to lash out but what if we listen to Gods wisdom and imitated Him. What if we, you and I, the next time someone makes us angry became imitators of God instead:

This God who is merciful and gracious and slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. (Exodus chapter 34, verse 6.)

The flash of anger, we hold our tongue, we keep our sword in the scabbard, our mouth shut and we remember that our God is slow to anger with us. But towards us He abounds in steadfast love and faithfulness. And then, then we do what Solomon said, instead of using our mouth to stab someone in the heart with rash words, we speak instead through Gods wisdom:

The wisdom from above which is pure and peaceable and gentle and willing to yield and full of mercy and good fruits. (James chapter 3, verse 16.)

We speak peace from Gods wisdom. Just think about that. We speak peace from Gods wisdom and in so doing our words bring healing instead of pain. Proverbs chapter 15, verse 1:

A soft answer turns away wrath but the harsh word stirs up anger.

This is the sort of wisdom that you and I need right in the middle of that angry moment. It’s the sort of wisdom that brings love and mercy and healing and forgiveness right into a highly charged tense moment. It’s the sort of wisdom that speaks of Gods love that dissolves the anger and that brings peace.

My friend, this isn’t a theory lesson, this is a practical, this stuff actually works. It’s Gods wisdom, it’s wisdom that works. May He bless us ever so richly as we take His word and His wisdom and put them in our hearts. Just tuck them away there because one day soon, I guarantee you, we’re going to need this bit of wisdom. One day soon we can be a mighty blessing when we put His wisdom to work.

A soft answer turns away wrath but a harsh word stirs up anger.

Some people – frankly – talk too much.  Blah, blah, blah – on and on.  In their own eyes – they appear so wise.  But you know what I’ve noticed?  The really smart people, the wise ones talk less and listen more.  In fact the more I see, the more I learn … the more I come to the conclusion that wisdom is, well … understated.

Over the years I’ve met many a person who promises a lot but as time goes by fails to deliver. Have you ever met such people? I’m sure you have. They talk a lot, they even impress us but when push comes to shove, when it comes time to deliver on the claims and the promises they’re nowhere to be found.

They just talk a lot. A lot of hot air too much but light on delivery. Now you may have gathered that my particular gift is to talk. In fact each year I talk rather a lot. Almost 500 separate episodes of the different radio programs that I produce. That’s a lot of talking and actually in my life, earlier on, I was something of a talker, too much.

Always ready to share what I thought. Always the first to jump up and give an opinion. One of the things I was fortunate to have was a great mentor. His name was Graham and he saw something in me that he decided to nurture. But one of the things he had to teach me, one of the things I had to learn was not to talk quite so much.

One of the things I had to learn frankly was to zip my lip, to shut up and to listen. Question is, why do we need to learn that?

I trust over these past few weeks you’ve been enjoying, as I have, spending some time in this Old Testament Book of Proverbs. Discovering Gods wisdom on a whole bunch of things. The sort of wisdom that works. And that’s been the name of this series, “Wisdom That Works”.

Learning how to live an effective life, a Godly life. A life that honours God and brings blessing to others is something that most of us do in a hap hazard way. Depends on the instruction we have from our parents. Perhaps they were great at teaching us wisdom, maybe they weren’t.

To some extent we pick some of it up through our education but then again it doesn’t appear to be so much of a deliberate process of teaching the young to grow up. It’s more something that, well this wisdom thing that we’re supposed to pick up naturally, almost by osmosis.

Very few people seem to have grown up where they’ve had some deliberate proactive teaching on how to live. How to deal with their weaknesses. How to discover their strengths and make the most of them. How to plan wisely. How to deal effectively with conflict. How to balance our needs with the needs of other people around us.

And I guess one of the things I was really blessed with was this man who I mentioned earlier, Graham. We were business partners together and he was twenty years my senior. One of the wisest men I’ve ever met. To this day, in fact, even though we sold our business going on ten years ago now and he’s well and truly retired and I’m off doing something completely different, I still call him to run things by him. And one of the most important things he ever taught me, listen to this, was to shut up.

Now let’s dive into Gods word, to plunder it for another piece of wisdom. Proverbs chapter 12, verse 23:

One who is clever conceals knowledge but the mind of a fool broadcasts folly.

Now that takes some thinking about. Two parts to it:

One who is clever conceals knowledge.

Is the first bit. Now why is that? And the second part:

The mind of a fool broadcasts folly (Or foolishness).

Well let’s tackle the first part first. Wisdom is a powerful thing and if you’re someone who is wise as my friend Graham was with me, and you meet someone without that same level of wisdom and maturity, that was me when the two of us first started working together. Then the one who isn’t as wise just doesn’t get it.

I mean they’re often not ready to receive the wisdom from the one who has it. When we’re immature, when we’re all wrapped up in our own selves and our own self importance, when we’re proud and haughty and we blah blah blah on about ourselves, are we ready to accept wisdom?

Of course we aren’t because wisdom is an anathema. Jesus put it rather more directly than this Proverb from Solomon. Matthew chapter 7, verse 6:

Do not throw pearls before swine or they will trample them under foot and turn and maul you.

Pretty graphic picture and it makes the point well. So if the one who is wise, who has wisdom and has understanding that comes from years of experience, if that one just blurts out all their wisdom and dumps it on the one who isn’t wise, it’s just not going to work.

No because the one who isn’t wise isn’t ready to accept the wisdom. Indeed they can’t, their mind is hostile to wisdom because they’re proud and learning wisdom requires humility.

Remember where we started a few weeks ago, Proverbs chapter 9, verse 10:

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy one is insight.

And so sharing all our wisdom with such a person is a complete waste of time, it will just stir up trouble. And that’s why the one who is clever should conceal their knowledge. It’s exactly what Graham did with me. He didn’t try to change me in a day. You see I belonged to the second part of that verse:

But the mind of a fool broadcasts folly.

It’s not that I wasn’t pretty smart, I was. It’s just that I was immature. The problem was that I was full of myself. I was puffed up with pride, I thought I knew it all, I thought I knew better than everyone else. How do you begin to change that? How do you deal with someone who’s like that?

Well Graham shared his wisdom with me drop by drop. It was a drip feed over years. I remember how he used to coach me coming out of meetings where I’d spoken over the top of people, something I used to do a lot. He’d coach and share and give me a different perspective and guide me.

He taught me to listen, to understand. He taught me to pick up the cues and the clues as he used to call them from other people. So I really could figure out where they were coming from. And you know little by little as he drip fed this without telling me I was an idiot, without telling me I was a fool, without putting me down. By encouraging me and showing me a different way.

What I discovered was that his wisdom actually worked. It was a benefit to me from taking on his wisdom. See he was wise enough to conceal his knowledge. To drip feed it a pace that I could accept it and digest it step by step.

Now there are still things that I don’t understand. There are still things I get wrong. The last thing I want you to do is to imagine somehow, because this guy’s on radio he’s holding himself out as some paragon of wisdom and virtue. No, we’re all on a journey, a journey of learning and discovery.

We all know people with much greater wisdom than we possess and people with much less wisdom. And when we’re dealing with someone that’s not as mature as we are. When we try and tell them, try and show them the right way, try some days to shove it down their throats because we’re so frustrated with them and then they don’t get it and they rebel and we get all bitter and twisted and annoyed with them.

You know what I’m talking about here, then this piece of wisdom is what works in this situation. Let’s go back to it, Proverbs chapter 12, verse 23:

One who is clever conceals his knowledge but the mind of a fool broadcasts folly.

God’s wisdom is gentle and firm and peaceable and pure and encouraging. It’s understated yet it’s strong. It pulls alongside the one who’s mind is broadcasting folly, to the fool, to the less wise. It pulls alongside that person and lovingly serves them. It’s a sacrifice for someone to serve in that way.

It was a sacrifice for Graham who was wise as my business partner to spend years pulling alongside dealing with my foolishness and my folly. But he served me anyway. And that’s what wisdom is. It’s proactive. It’s deliberate. It’s not a hit and miss thing. It’s a decision and yet it’s patient and understated. It’s progressively revealed at a pace that the pupil can learn.

Now that my friend, that is the sort of wisdom that works.

We all have the odd panic attack from time to time.  Or anxiety gnaws away at us and grinds our bones into dust.  But there’s an antidote.  There’s a cure.  And whilst sometimes we can’t administer it to ourselves, we can give it to others.  That cure – is called … encouragement.  Costs nothing, but gives so much.

Most of us, well if the truth be known, all of us have experienced anxiety. For some people it happens now and then, for others it happens rather a lot more. And it’s just not a nice thing to be anxious about something. I went to my dictionary to get a definition of anxiety and this is what it said:

A feeling of worry and nervousness, unease typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome.

And I thought, man what a great definition. It’s typically about something imminent, something with an uncertain outcome. We just don’t know how things are going to turn out. Is this going to turn out well or is it going to go badly? And so we turn it over and over and over and over and over in our minds and we imagine all the bad things that can happen if it goes wrong.

Ever done that? Of course you have and it’s not that we don’t want to have faith in God at the time, for His provision and His protection, not that. It’s just that, well this thing just eats away at us and it’s as though it grinds our bones into dust.

Fear, anxiety, worry, they all come knocking on our door from time to time and it’s only as we overcome them each time with faith that we grow ever stronger. My faith has only grown as I’ve experienced anxiety and then seeing God’s faithfulness come through again and again and again.

And I’ll be really honest with you here because I was in a position of deep anxiety over something when I actually prepared this message. Normally, normally I do all my preparation early in the morning. I’m one of these crazy early risers, you know up at 3 or 4 in the morning.

And I actually love reading and praying and writing and preparing radio programs at that time of the day when everyone else is in bed and it’s just God and me. Peace and quiet, phones not ringing, wonderful. But this program, it was prepared around 11.30 at night.

Now I can tell you I almost never, very, very, very rarely work at the end of the day because I’m a morning person and not a night person. Over the last 5 years I’ve maybe worked that late at night, I don’t know, once, twice, three times maximum. And why was I up late?

Because I couldn’t sleep. Again that’s an absolute rarity for me. And why couldn’t I sleep? Because I was anxious over something. My wife Jacqui and I felt called to step out into something in faith and it was something right at the time I was preparing this message that didn’t seem to be going that well.

There was an uncertain outcome ahead and all the evidence seemed to point to failure rather than success. At the same time a whole bunch of other things, not directly related but deeply impactful on our finances, they were going wrong as well. Have you ever had that happen? You step out, you go follow God in faith.

Like Peter, you step out of the boat to follow Jesus and all of a sudden you notice there’s a storm raging around you. Fantastic. So here I was preparing messages at the wrong end of the day, stepping my way as we have been these past three weeks, through the Book of Proverbs and the verse that leaps out at me is the verse about anxiety.

God is good isn’t He? And here is that verse. Proverbs chapter 12, verse 25:

Anxiety weighs down the human heart but a good word cheers it up

And I thought, “that’s exactly it”. The thing with anxiety is that it weighs down our hearts. Anxiety is draining, it’s exhausting. It’s like a heavy load that we have to carry around until the situation that’s making us anxious is resolved. It feels like we’re carrying a heavy weight around in our hearts.

It’s bad enough to have to carry a heavy weight around on our shoulders, that’s tiring enough but when we carry it in our hearts it weighs down our emotions and our spirit. See that’s why anxiety drags us down to rock bottom. That’s why it can feel so unbearable.

I don’t know about you, when I’m anxious I feel completely isolated. It’s as though there’s no one else who can lift the load. But here is Gods wisdom, there it is, let’s listen to it again, Proverbs chapter 12, verse 25:

Anxiety weighs down the human heart but a good word cheers it up.

A word of encouragement is just what we need when we’re anxious because our most natural tendency is to try and cope with anxiety on our own. To let it stir around on the inside instead of going to a dear and trusted friend who will give us a good word to cheer us up and lighten the load.

Now at this point you may well be thinking to yourself, “Oh come on, there’s more to it than that. You can’t get rid of anxiety that easily. It’s not that simple”. And my response to you, if that’s what you’re thinking, would be this. That I would encourage you at this point to remember that God’s wisdom is the sort of wisdom that actually works. It does.

So let’s give God the benefit of the doubt here and just stop and chew it over for the moment. We know that anxiety weighs down our hearts. It pulls us down and down and down and the one thing we need at that point is some encouragement. Because what does encouragement do? It lifts us up again.

I have a good friend, Keith, who is such an incredibly good encourager. Whenever I have a chance I love to sit down with him and chat over coffee. I always walk away feeling that whatever I’m facing I can now take on the world again. We may not even talk about the things that are bothering me. It’s just that he is such a natural encourager, his encouragement lightens my load.

Friend, God doesn’t mean for us to go this alone. That’s why He uses friends and loved ones and we can choose to shut them out. Many people do when they’re anxious. They just isolate themselves and they crawl into a hole and it’s like the whole world is coming to an end and the sky is falling down.

But it’s to our loss that we do that. It’s to our loss that we isolate ourselves. Or we can go to our friends, our loved ones and let them encourage us. And by the way, when the shoes on the other foot, if we just go and encourage someone else who’s anxious and worried, that is about the greatest blessing we can give anyone.

But what if there’s no one to encourage me? What if no one else cares or understands? What if this anxiety is so deep rooted that nothing anyone else says or does makes just an iota of difference? Well you know, that happens. Sometimes things are so bad, they’re so dark we feel so alone. I’ve been there.

The problem is so big and so deeply worrying that, well no ones kindness and no one’s encouragement seem to make even a dent on the darkness and the heaviness and the load that we’re carrying. Well there’s an answer for that too and it comes from the lips of Jesus Himself.

So if you happen to be in that place at the moment please listen carefully to what Jesus said. Matthew chapter 11, verses 28 to 30:

Come to me all of you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble of heart and you’ll find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

When all is said and done in Jesus we discover rest for our souls. When it’s all too much and too burdensome and too wearying, when nothing anyone else can say or do makes a difference, then Jesus is the answer. I don’t care what the problem is, how big, how daunting, how potentially catastrophic Jesus gives us rest for our souls. Peace.

And when we can’t push anymore so long as we’re yoked up with Him He’ll take the load for a while. He’ll do the things that we can’t do. He’ll be alongside us shoulder to shoulder and my friend it doesn’t get any better than that. That’s why a relationship with Jesus is such a fantastic investment.

Whilst some people under spiritualise life – I have to do it all in my own strength, others over spiritualise.  They expect God to do the things they can do and then they wonder why things fall in a great almighty heap.  So where’s the balance – between us killing ourselves at something versus leaving it all to God.  What’s the middle ground?  How’s it supposed to work?

One of the hardest things for me to learn and it’s something I’m still learning as a Christian, a Jesus follower, is this. On the one hand I think we should all work hard and be diligent but because of who I am, my natural make up, is that I’m this go getter action man.

I have a tendency to have a go at things at 100 miles an hour. Because of that I can often find myself, in a sense, running ahead of God. When I’m working so hard, pedalling so hard, getting myself so exhausted I find that I’m trying to do it all in my own strength and then not leaving room for God to bless whatever it is that He’s got me doing.

I don’t leave room for God to do the mighty miracles that only He can do. And so I can end up achieving much less through all this hard work than would have been possible if I’d relied on God. Der. But the other end of this equation, the opposite extreme if you will is what I call the spiritual couch potato.

The person who had all these dreams and talks about all these wonderful things and never makes any of them happen. They want to do this for God or achieve that in their lives but well you know they just never get around to getting off the couch. Seems that God doesn’t show up and doing miracles at all no matter how long they sit there and wait.

How much do we do and how much do we leave room for God to do? That’s the question we’re going to put under the microscope on the program today.

My hunch is that this is a dilemma that most of us face if it’s our heart to serve God. God, what do you need me to do? What are the things I need to do and what are the things where I need to give you room to do your bit? Where’s the balance Lord?

And to be honest that’s the question I grapple without almost on a daily basis in having the responsibility of taking this ministry of Christianityworks forward to reach millions of people each week around the world with the good news of Jesus. On the one hand our small team here at Christianityworks, there are just nine of us.

Each person works incredibly hard and without that hard work I just don’t think that we would have seen the incredibly rapid growth in the reach of these programs around the world. From zero to over a thousand radio stations broadcasting these programs in just under five years.

Not bad and in a worldly sense we’d say, ‘Well aren’t those people clever?’ And well they may be but here’s the thing. If you ask me, ‘Berni, how did that happen so quickly? How is it that you went from zero to a thousand radio stations broadcasting these programs in such a short time?’

You know what my answer would be? I have to tell you I really don’t know. Truly. How is it that these programs are heard in Rwanda and the Congo and across Europe and Asia and the Pacific? How did that happen? I really don’t know. Because somehow these doors just opened up before us and we kind of walked through them.

Miracle after miracle. None of this would ever had happened without the miracles and so, do you see my dilemma? How much should it be our hard work and how much of it belongs to God?

Well lets do what we’ve been doing these past weeks and dive into the Book of Proverbs for God’s wisdom on this whole subject. Proverbs chapter 14, verse 4:

Where there are no oxen there is no grain. Abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.

And then Proverbs chapter 14, verse 23:

In all toil there is profit but mere talk leads only to poverty.

Two pretty poignant verses. Basically what God’s saying here to us through these two verses is this. That it’s normal for us to have to work at things. To apply our skills and our energies and our creativity.

I mean a farmer back in those days, before mechanisation, he could stand there and look at his field but unless he yoked up the oxen and ploughed the field and sowed the grain there simply wouldn’t have been a harvest. It doesn’t matter how much he believed in God for a harvest.

Sitting inside on the couch channel surfing with the remote control wasn’t going to do it. He had to get off his proverbial, apply his energies, get the oxen yoked and go and make it happen. No surprises there although sometimes people sit there channel surfing, praying and wondering why nothing’s happened.

A bloke by the name of Michael Yousef, perhaps you’ve heard him talk on radio, well Michael recently wrote a book called, “You Want Me To Do What?” with a subtitle “Get Off Your Blessed Assurance and Do Something”. I love that title, its great isn’t it? And it captures the sentiment behind these two verses from Proverbs perfectly.

Blind Freddy can see that in toil there is profit but mere talk leads only to poverty. It’s a basic law of the universe. And if perhaps you’re one of the talkers instead of one of the doers that part of today’s message is for you. But if hard work is all that we’re into then our potential is going to be seriously limited.

Unless God is in the business of building this house then the builders are labouring in vain. Unless God is going to bless our efforts then frankly we’re wasting our time.

Most of us, I guess, know the story of Jesus feeding the multitude, it happens twice. Once He feeds 4,000, another time He feeds 5,000. The disciples want to send all these people away at the end of the day to get some food. They’re out in the middle of nowhere, they’ve been listening to Jesus preaching.

No one’s got any food and so they think, “well, it’s time for them to have a Mac attack and go and get some dinner”, but Jesus has a different idea. This is what Watchmen Nee, the Chinese pastor martyred in the 1970’s wrote on this subject. He said:

What do we mean when we talk of God’s blessing? We mean divine activity that’s not based on human activity. We mean a working of God that is not based on our work. The blessing of God is not something we can earn by our efforts; it is not something we can buy with our money.

One penny should always procure one penny’s worth but if without our one penny God gives us ten thousand penny’s worth that’s God’s blessing. His blessing makes our calculations futile because it leaves us without any basis from which to calculate.

When five small loaves provide nourishment for five thousand people and leave a surplus that fills twelve baskets that is God’s blessing. So many of us, instead of looking to the Lord to bless the loaves, are looking at the loaves in our hands.

Our one hope in face of today’s immense need is that He will perform a miracle and that He will do it by taking the bread into His hand and blessing it. When the Lord, in His goodness, brings us to a totally new position where we recognise the paramount importance of His blessing then the way will be open for Him to work.

Isn’t that a powerful perspective? Sometimes we get to thinking that our hard work is the beginning and the end of it all. But if that’s where we’re at then all we’re capable of doing with our five loaves and two fishes is feeding, well a couple of guys. But you want to feed five thousand with a couple of loaves and two fishes then that requires God’s blessing.

Friend, I encourage you to work hard. To use your gifts and your skills and the resources God’s placed in your hands, the things He’s entrusted to you and use them with all that you have for His glory. But equally I encourage you to adopt a high view of the essential nature of God’s blessing on our efforts.

In fact it’s that blessing that makes all the difference. You ask me, “how did we get from zero to a thousand radio stations playing these programs in under five years?” My friend it happened through God’s blessing. We did the little things we could do, God blessed it and He fed the multitudes.

God’s wisdom as it turns out … well on the one hand, when we’re sitting there all wrapped up in our selfish desires, God’s wisdom seems pretty counterintuitive.  Seems to cost a lot and not deliver too much.  But actually – God’s wisdom delivers just enormous blessing.  Question is – how do we get our hearts in a place where we’re ready to listen?

Well over these last four weeks isn’t it amazing how much wisdom there is in God’s word as we’ve stepped through the Book of Proverbs in this series that I’ve called Wisdom That Works? If you’ve had the opportunity to join me on and off over these past weeks my prayer is that you’ve been moved as I have by the power of God’s wisdom.

On all sorts of different things. On friendships and wealth and impurity and infidelity and on what we say and the desires of our hearts and on foolishness. The list just goes on. God’s wisdom is so practical and so real and you know what I’ve found in my life? So liberating.

God’s wisdom sets us free from so many of the things that blind us. So many of the things that rob us of life. The abundant life that He has planned for us. But in these four weeks, twenty messages in all including today, you know we’ve only stepped through just a few chapters, just a handful of chapters in this Old Testament book of wisdom, the Book of Proverbs.

There’s so much more there and that’s the thing, people sometimes ask me, ‘Berni, you produce hundreds of episodes of your radio programs every year so don’t you ever run out of ideas? Don’t you run out of fresh content?’ NO. If I get to do this every day for another hundred years I still will only have scratched the surface of God’s wisdom.

And that’s not because it’s big or it’s complicated, it’s not because you need a PhD in theology to understand it. God’s word is simple, practical, straight forward. It’s just that, well I’m a slow learner, I need to feast on God’s word every day and little by little He changes me.

You know the more time I spend in God’s word each day the less of it I read. Now that sounds a bit weird, let me explain. I used to try and plough through several chapters each day as though somehow it was a race to see who could get to the end first.

But then, then I stumbled on a passage written by Paul the Apostle. Old and experienced, much wiser for it, writing to his young ministry protégé Timothy. This is what he said, 1 Timothy chapter 2, verse 7:

Think over what I say for the Lord will give you understanding in all things.

Just stop and think over what’s in God’s word, that’s when it makes a difference.

Had a young listener email me recently and she said, ‘I have a problem. I try and read my Bible like you said but by lunch time I can’t even remember what I read’. So I said to her, ‘I used to have that problem too and so what I started doing was reading less. Not less often but less in volume and started thinking and praying about it more.’ That’s when it started coming together for me.

God’s wisdom is so powerful but just like good food we need to chew it over and swallow it for it to do us any good. I encourage you to do that. To take His wisdom, to chew it over, think about it and then pray over it, swallow it and let the spirit of God write it on your heart. That’s when it becomes part of who we are.

Over the last decade and a half of doing that I can honestly say that God’s word has become part of the fabric, the essence of who I am. That’s what transforms us. That’s how His wisdom starts working in our lives. We take it in, little by little and the old maxim is true, we discover that we are what we eat.

The place where I think is the best place for us to draw this four week series to a close is the place where we kind of began. Proverbs chapter 9, verse 10 sums it up best. It says:

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.

If we read this stuff, God’s word, with a proud heart, if we’re full of pride that we know better, that we should be able to hang on to our attitudes and our sin and my friend that is so often how we come, at first, to God’s word. So often if that’s how we approach God’s word then it will profit us nothing.

The beginning of wisdom, the starting point is the fear of the Lord. The beginning of wisdom isn’t hard, prideful, puffed up, full of myself heart. The beginning of wisdom is a humble heart, a soft heart, a teachable heart. A heart that knows that without God it’s poor, wretched, pitiable and naked.

A heart that seeks first to honour God, that’s the place where wisdom begins. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Nothing else and unless and until we’re ready to humble ourselves at His feet and accept His ways above ours, friend there will be no wisdom.

That’s sad because without God’s wisdom, let me tell you because I’ve been there, without His wisdom frankly it’s a lousy life. We can either proudly head off in our own direction and as the old song goes ‘do it my way’ but it doesn’t matter how clever we are it only leads to pain and destruction.

Or we can choose to listen to God’s word, God’s wisdom, the sort of wisdom that really works. Lay down our pride and do it His way. That way, that way leads to life.

I for one know how hard it is sometimes to let go of my sin, to humble myself, to open the door to God’s wisdom. Believe you me, I know. So many times in my life I was so determined to do it my own way. So many times it ended in pain. I know how hard it is to lay down pride but it’s such a powerful turning point when we do that.

I know people who live their lives in the bitterness of unforgiveness but when we lay that down at God’s feet and He teaches us His wisdom of forgiveness, how to forgive, well then we’re set free from bitterness and anger. It’s pride that stops us from taking that step. It’s pride that stops us from turning back to God. Its pride that keeps us heading on the path to destruction.

Wake up! And so right now if you know this is something that you’re struggling with. Pride in whatever area of your life that really needs God’s wisdom, well let’s pray together about it right now.

Lord God
We come to you to confess that so often we’re caught up in our own sense of pride and self righteousness, we know that. And we know that you oppose the proud but that you give grace to the humble.

We know that you hide the truth from those who think they’re so wise in themselves and yet you choose to reveal it to those who come to you with a simple child like faith.

Father
Thank you for being like that and we ask you to forgive us for our pride. We come to you now with a simple faith, the faith of a little child to receive your wisdom.

Lord
Pour out the riches of your wisdom on us in great abundance and give us the humility to drink it in. Lord we ask this in Jesus name. Amen.

Friend the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It seems odd does it not that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom but it’s the second part of that verse that really explains the first part:

And the knowledge of the Holy One gives insight.

When we really get to know God that’s where we discover His insight into life. When we draw close to Him and listen to His heart beat, His words, when we see through His word how He reacts to things, how He makes things happen that’s the place where truth sets us free.

Why oh why I sometimes wonder, did I let my pride get in the road of that? There are some days when I have challenges and struggles, just like you do, and there are some days when people come against me then the enemy comes against me. When circumstances that should have been in my favour come against me.

On those days it is God’s wisdom that steers me through. I dread to imagine living my life the way I once did. In the pride that rebelled against God. And on that day, a decade and a half ago, when I laid my life down for Him, when I chose to honour Him, to fear Him as it were, that was the place for me where wisdom began. And I wouldn’t swap that for all the tea in China.

May the Lord bless you with His wisdom.