Wisdom is something we’d all like – but frankly, sometimes, it’s hard to know where to start? Where do you discover the sort of wisdom that works? And how do you bite the bullet – take that step to start living in wisdom with it’s sacrifices up front and rewards down the track?

It’s fantastic to be with you at the beginning of another week. Man they roll by so quickly. And today I’m really excited because we’re kicking off a new series of messages, 20 messages in all over the coming four weeks. And the series is called Wisdom That Works.

Now I don’t know about you but I’ve made some pretty silly mistakes in my life, we all make mistakes and the thing is when we make mistakes they come with consequences. Sometimes those consequences are just, well mildly annoying but sometimes they’re devastating.

Sometimes we don’t even notice some of the silly things we’re doing, they seem trivial. And yet we do them over and over and over and over again and the consequences compound and before we know it we have a real situation on our hands.

Wisdom is about avoiding the mistakes so we can avoid the consequences. Wisdom is about taking the goodness and the experiences and the knowledge that others have developed and deciding to apply it in our lives so we can live a better life. Fewer mistakes, fewer consequences.

And it’s not just about avoiding some mistakes, it’s about, well it’s about knowing how to handle difficult situations. It’s about knowing how to be proactive in making good things happen rather than wallowing around in the consequences of repeated mistakes.

In fact there’s a lot to be said for wisdom. The sort of wisdom that, well that works.

Okay so exactly what is wisdom? I mean intuitively we know that wisdom’s a good thing and most of us wouldn’t mind a bit more. But have you ever stopped to think exactly what is wisdom? Well here’s a dictionary definition, have a listen:

It’s the quality of having the experience, knowledge and good judgement and the soundness of an action or a decision by applying the experience and knowledge and the good judgement.

That’s not bad. You boil that down and there are two parts. Knowing what to do and then actually getting on and doing it. See knowing what to do and then not doing it is pretty dumb and that’s why I for one have sometimes done some dumb things in my life.

Yeah sure sometimes I didn’t know quite the right thing to do so I ran smack bang into a brick wall, it hurt and so I went, “oh that didn’t work, I’ll learn not to do that again”. Maybe even better I listen to someone else who’d run into that same brick wall ahead of me and I learned from their experience.

But sometimes we know the right thing either because we just know, I mean I know that it’s wrong to rob a bank and I know that if I do there are going to be some very undesirable consequences. Or because I’ve been down that road before or because I’ve listened to someone who has.

So sometimes we know the right thing, we have access to the knowledge and the experience and the good judgement but we just don’t use them, we don’t put them into action. See I know that drink driving is dangerous, I know that, I’ve seen the road statistics, I’ve seen the random breath testing stations on the side of the road, so I have the knowledge.

But if I get into a car having had too much to drink and run over a pedestrian, I have to tell you some people do that, then do I have wisdom? No, I just had the knowledge. Wisdom isn’t just having the experience and the knowledge and the good judgement, wisdom is using it, it’s acting on it, it’s doing it, it’s living it. Wisdom is only wisdom when it involves the knowledge and the doing. Does it make sense?

Now quite a few thousand years ago King Solomon, the king of Israel, David’s son, was pretty much recognised as one of the wisest men on the planet. He had a few sons and so he decided to jot down some of that wisdom. We have access to that in the Book of Proverbs in the Old Testament.

And over these coming four weeks we’re going to spend some time ransacking that book for wisdom. Getting as much of the proverbial wisdom of Solomon as we can so that we can put it to work in our lives. And that’s the key, putting it to work. I can help you by unlocking this treasure chest of wisdom in the Book of Proverbs. I can even help you by encouraging you to put it to work but only you can make wisdom happen in your life.

Remember this series is called Wisdom That Works. Okay where do we find that wisdom? Where do we start? Well let’s start at the beginning of the Book of Proverbs chapter 1, verse 1, the preamble, the introduction, the reason for wisdom, that’s what this is about. Proverbs chapter 1 beginning at verse 1:

The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel, for learning about wisdom and instruction for understanding words of insight for gaining instruction in wise dealing, in righteousness, justice and equity. To teach shrewdness to the simple, knowledge and prudence to the young.

Let the wise also hear and gain in learning and the discerning acquire skill to understand the proverb and a figure, the words of the wise and their riddles. For the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Hear my child your father’s instruction and do not reject your mother’s teaching for they are a fair garland for your head and pendants for your neck.

Well isn’t that what we’ve just been talking about? It’s about getting good wisdom into us for a good outcome. God’s wisdom is the sort of wisdom that actually works. I mean there’s plenty of wisdom out there, plenty of people claiming to have wisdom. This is the worlds wisdom but it’s a fake, it’s a “me” centred wisdom and you know that worlds wisdom eventually comes unstuck.

Because it’s not a God centred wisdom and that my friend is the starting point of wisdom. Shifting our thoughts and our hearts away from the seductive slight of hand that passes for worldly wisdom and coming back to the source of real wisdom. The sort of wisdom that actually works.

Have a listen again to what Solomon writes about where to find wisdom that works. Proverbs chapter 1, verse 7. He says:

It’s the fear of the Lord that’s the beginning of knowledge because fools despise wisdom and instruction.

The meaning of this word fear in this context isn’t just the fear of the consequences of Gods judgement if we rebel against Him, I mean there is that and it will happen but it’s awe and respect and reverence.

See when I was a young lad, if I played up I knew pretty much I’d get a belting from my dad but much better to live in respect of my dad knowing, of course, that a belting was in the offing if I mucked up. But actually living in a good respect of my father and avoiding the belting all together. They’re the two sides of this fear thing. Honouring and respecting but knowing if we don’t there are consequences down the track.

And it’s when we finally decide to stick our pride in our pockets because remember fools are the ones that despise wisdom and instruction, we don’t want to be foolish, when we stick our pride in our pockets, when we realise we’ve been trying to do it our way all along and hey, you know, that’s not working so brilliantly well, it isn’t bringing me the joy and the contentment and the satisfaction that I’ve been craving for.

When we finally figure out that wandering out here trying to do it on our own isn’t working, you see I think that’s the beginning of wisdom. I mean I can go to God and say, “God, you know something, I reject your wisdom and your instruction,” but we’re going to have to live in the consequences.

Or I can yield my life to God and do it His way. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. And throughout the Book of Proverbs there’s a sharp contrast between wisdom and foolishness, between good outcomes and bad outcomes. Friend, fools despise wisdom and instruction. Fools decide to go it alone. Fools race on out in the blue yonder and pierce themselves with many pains.

That’s what we’re going to be exploring over these coming weeks but the starting point is here, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and the choice is yours for your life, it’s mine for my life. The question is which one will we choose?

King Solomon was one of the wisest men that ever walked the earth.  He wrote a book on wisdom for his young sons – it’s called the book of Proverbs.  You’ll find it in the Old Testament.  And one of the first things he talks about – is the friends they choose.  Why would he do that?

You remember when you were growing up, you know when we were in those teenage years and our parents would tell us that to do this or to do that and we’d just roll our eyes in the back of our heads just like every other teenager on the planet. What would they know?

When we were teenagers the very best council advice of our parents, well we ignored most of it, it was just like water off a ducks back. Now we can both look back on those years and recognise our immaturity, that’s what it is, part of our growing up was going through that phase of “I know it all”. Truth be known we didn’t know it all and we still don’t.

That’s why this week we’re kicking off a four week series of messages on the program called Wisdom That Works. Straight out of the parental advice of one of the wisest men who’s ever walked this earth, King Solomon, and the advice he gave to his sons in the Book of Proverbs in the Old Testament.

I remember my mother saying to me things like, “Well don’t hang around with the wrong crowd, be careful of the company you keep”. Oh yeah, please. What would she know? Typical teenager’s attitude. Hopefully I’ve done a bit of growing up since then.

So what about today, here and now, when we get the wise council of someone else, someone that’s older and more mature or someone who just sees things that we don’t. How do we react? Do we still roll our eyes in the back of our heads or do we listen to and benefit from that advice?

It’s really interesting in this Old Testament Book of Proverbs, 31 chapters packed, verse after verse, with lots of wisdom. One of the very first things that Solomon talks about to his sons, in fact the very first thing after talking about wisdom itself in their relationship with God, is the crowd that they hang around with.

You know maturity is an interesting thing. As we grow up we grow in our ability to discern what is good advice. With some advice, when you listen to it from people you think it might be hard advice, it might be tough advice but its good advice and we accept that.

And yet other people, their advice, well maybe it’s given in their own self interests or whatever, we look at that advice and we think, “no, you know that’s not good advice, I’m going to reject that advice”. And truly it’s a balance between the two but what we’re about to hear is some very good advice.

Some stunning advice in fact and if we put this advice into action then it becomes wisdom. The sort of wisdom that parents have. The sort of wisdom that works. Now any parent knows that if our kids keep bad company that doesn’t all go well for their future because that bad company is going to have a bad influence and it can terribly, terribly ruin their lives when they’re growing up.

And this is what Solomon says to the young men, his sons, about keeping bad company. Let’s have a listen, it starts in Proverbs chapter 1, verse 10. He says:

My children if sinners entice you don’t consent. If they say, ‘come with us, let us lie in wait for blood. Let us wantonly ambush the innocent. Like Sheol let us swallow them up alive and whole like those who go down to the pit. We’ll find all kinds of costly things. We’ll fill our houses with booty. Throw in your lot with us, we’ll all have one purse.

My child do not walk in their way, keep your foot from their paths for their feet run to evil and they hurry to shed blood. For in vain the net is baited while the birds are looking on yet they lie in ambush to kill themselves. They set an ambush for their own lives. Such is the end of all who are greedy for gain. It takes away the life of its possessors.

Okay hopefully most of us aren’t murderers, hopefully most of us aren’t going to go and mug someone and rob them but we kind of do that sometimes in life through our behaviour and our attitudes and dishonesty and aggressively looking after our own interests above other people’s interests.

And it turns out that keeping bad company is different from just being around bad people. I mean you go to work, you go to Church, you’re a member of a club, you interact with people. Some of them are great, some of them are fantastic, they’re wonderful to be with and some of them are down right awful.

That’s life. When we deal with people sometimes we have to deal with those people and everything in between. It’s not whether we’re around them so much that matters, it’s a question of influence. Listen again to Solomon, Proverbs chapter 1, verse 10:

My child if sinners entice you don’t consent.

Down to verse 15:

My child do not walk in their way, keep your foot from their paths for their feet run to evil and they hurry to shed blood.

See what Solomon is saying is don’t be tempted by bad company. Don’t listen to them when they say, “Come on, let’s gang up on someone and kill them just for the fun of it.” It’s a question of whether we take their advice, whether we keep company with them, whether we let them influence what we think and what we feel and ultimately what we do.

Here’s the chain of events, they speak we hear them. Now when we hear we have a decision, we either accept or reject and if we accept them it changes our behaviour and if it changes our behaviour that has consequences. That’s the important bit. When we hear do we accept or reject? Do we rely on them or not? Do we trust them or not? Do we put our faith in them to the extent that we let them change what we do or not?

It’s not that we’re around bad people so much, it’s not even that we hear them that’s the problem. It’s when we’re tempted by them, when we allow them to change what we do. It’s a question of influence. Bad company can discourage us, it can lead us to complaining, it can be disruptive, it can make us suspicious, it can make us envious. It can make us dishonest, it can make us violent.

Bad company is an entry point for bad influence from other people and I my friend have enough issues in my life to deal with without taking on other people’s bad stuff. At the end of the day all of us want to live a good life, I’m pretty sure we do. Okay we want to be comfortable, we want to be happy but part of that is knowing that we’re living a good life.

That there’s a goodness that we’re reaping fruit from and God comes to us and this stuff from Solomon is from the Bible and we might go, “oh come on, that was written like 3,000 years ago, it’s from the Bible it’s not from me.” Come on this is good advice isn’t it?

God is giving us fatherly advice born out of His love for us and His wisdom. Because whilst bad company may entice us into an action that appears to have a quick win, that’s the example that Solomon uses here with his sons, it’s a good example. Ultimately that bad influence leads us to destruction.

Listen again to what Solomon says about the consequences. Proverbs chapter 1, verse 17:

It’s in vain that the net is baited while the bird looks on. If they lie in wait ultimately to kill themselves. They set an ambush ultimately to take their own lives. Such is the end of all who are greedy for gain. It takes away the life of its possessors.

They think they’re ambushing the other guy through their bad deeds but in fact they’re ambushing themselves. They want to kill the other guy but they’re destroying their own life.

Come on, who do you hang around with? Who are the people whom you allow to influence you? And are any of those ruining your life? Because if they are it’s like drinking in poison from them. It’s time to do something about it. Bad company drags us down. Bad company has consequences.

And we can sit there and go, “Well, you know Berni that was a nice story from the Bible,” and we can ignore it but there will be consequences. Or we can take it on board and say, “Well, that is great advice from God. I never really thought of it that way. You know something, there are some changes I think I need to make about the people I’m hanging around with.”

See remember wisdom isn’t wisdom until you put it into action. That’s when it becomes wisdom that works.

Most investments yield a return during the good times.  But when the storm clouds roll in – a global financial crisis for instance, they fall in a heap.  What you and I need is an investment that, sure – has a return in the good times, but delivers its greatest return during the tough times.  That’d be worth its weight in gold!

Have you ever thought of the concept of making a wise investment? I mean why do people make investments? Why do they take they’re hard earned cash and buy shares in a company or build their own little enterprise or buy an investment property?

Why? Well not so much for the fun of it, people make investments in order to achieve a return. On the stock market the price of shares in a particular company, they go up and they go down according to the markets perception of the return that they can make on their investment in that company.

So if the company has a good profit growth forecast and the industries segment has a good outlook, the share price goes up. Why? Because people buy into that stock so they’ll reap the reward. But if there’s a down grading in the profit outlook, if there are storm clouds on the horizon for that particular industry sector the price goes down as people sell out to avoid making a loss.

And when the whole economy comes crashing down, well it doesn’t matter what we’re invested in pretty much we lose out either in the capital value or the return or, as often the case, both. That’s the way of the world.

But it’s not Gods way. God has an investment that we can make in the good times, that pays dividends in the tough times. In fact that’s the whole point of this particular investment. And that’s what we’re going to chat about on the program today.

On Monday we kicked off a new series of messages, 20 in all so it’s a four week series called, “Wisdom That Works”. Intuitively we all kind of know that wisdom’s a good thing, we all would like to have some more of it and so you can ask yourself, why is it that we’re not all as wise as can be? Why is it that we’re not all full to overflowing with the wisdom of Solomon?

Well the answer is simple. Because like any investment wisdom requires a sacrifice. If I invest some of my hard earned cash in this company or that on the stock market then the point is that I can’t use that money to buy things that I would like to have today. Instead it’s locked away, hopefully because it will earn me a good return. That’s the concept of investing. Sacrificing now so that we can benefit later.

And it’s the same with wisdom. But the mistake that we often make with wisdom is that we imagine that it’s just about having the knowledge and the experience and the principles. All those things are necessary but they don’t become wisdom until we put them into action, until we live them out.

That’s when we demonstrate that we have wisdom. So back to this question, why is it that we’re not all living virtuous lives and reaping the harvest of our wisdom? Because we haven’t bought into it. And when do we buy into a company? When we think we’ll get a return.

The problem for most people is that they don’t perceive a return on the investment, the up front sacrifice when it comes to this precious commodity that we call wisdom. So today, today we’re going to look at what accountants and the economists call ROI, the return on investment.

It’s a wise thing for me to do to invest in relationships and to forgive people but there’s a cost to do that because sometimes I want justice in a relationship and they’ve done wrong and sometimes I’m too tired and I couldn’t be bothered. Here’s a practical example.

So being wise, living out what I know is right requires an up front investment. There’s a cost and the thing that’s going to motivate many a person to be honest is not so much doing right, it’s the return on investment. ROI is a powerful motivator.

So lets dive into the Book of Proverbs, Solomon’s advice to his young sons and lets see what it says about the ROI on the investment of wisdom. Proverbs chapter 1 beginning at verse 20:

Wisdom cries out on the streets. In the squares she raises her voice. At the busiest corner she cries out. At the entrance of the city gate she speaks. How long o simple ones will you love being simple? How long will you scoffers delight in your scoffing and how long will fools hate knowledge?

Give heed to my reproof. I’ll pour out my thoughts to you, I’ll make my words known to you because I’ve called to you and you’ve refused. Have stretched out my hand and no one heeded. And because you have ignored all my council and would have none of my reproof I also will laugh at you in your calamity.

I will mock you when panic strikes you. When panic strikes you like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you then you will call on me but I will not answer. They will seek me diligently but they won’t find me because they hated knowledge and didn’t choose the fear of the Lord.

Would have none of my council, despised all of my reproof therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way and be sated with their own devices. For waywardness kills the simple and the complacency of fools destroys them but those who listen to me will be secure and will live at ease without dread of disaster.

I love the old Hebrew writings and the way they use picture language and here we have this picture of wisdom as a person calling out to us in the middle of life. “She’s standing on the street corner, she’s stretching out her hand but everyone walks by and ignores her, they’re too busy with life.” Doesn’t that just hit the nail on the head?

Yesterday we looked at Solomon’s advice to his sons about, well about the company they keep. Keep bad company and those people will lead you astray and it will cost you a lot of pain. That’s it in a nutshell. So times were good and his sons had the choice, we can either listen to dad, we can take his advice, we can turn away from our bad company or we continue hunting with the pack.

Wisdom is something that is so often comes to us when the times are good, where the economy is buoyant, when the returns are strong. She cries out to us, she stretches out her hand but we ignore her because we’re too busy enjoying the good times.

So we have a choice, we either act on the advice and live out the wisdom of God in the good times, when it appears that we don’t even need His wisdom, when it appears we don’t need to make a sacrifice. We either do it then or we don’t and the whole point of wisdom is that we need to act on it in the good times. It’s like a foundation, it’s an investment in order to reap the reward in the bad times.

That’s when the ROI comes, that’s when we get the return on investment, that’s when wisdom comes into it’s own. Let me say that again, wisdom is the one investment that we can make that delivers a dividend in the tough times. All the other investments come crashing down in the tough times but it’s the dividend of wisdom that stands head and shoulders above the rest.

Listen again to what Solomon had to say. Proverbs chapter 1, verse 32:

For waywardness kills the simple and the complacency of fools destroys them but those who listen to me will be secure and live at ease without the dread of disaster.

So wisdom either helps us to avoid the bad times as in the case of Solomon’s advice to his sons about keeping bad company, or when the bad times hit, which hey, let’s face it, they inevitably do don’t they? We don’t want bad times to hit but they do. In those bad times wisdom pays dividends. Security amidst the tempest of life.

It’s like putting away some savings today so that we can have some spare cash on a rainy day. Bad choices inevitably lead to bad outcomes and bad consequences. Wise choices, living in the wisdom of God, they pay dividends. Now it may not lead to the perfect outcome we had planned in our heads but wisdom pays dividends, huge dividends in the tough times.

This is wisdom that works.

Many, many people feel as though their lives are – well, like a cork bobbing around in a stormy ocean.  True.  And often they’re the same people who’ve made an art form out of filling themselves up to meet every desire.  But there’s a funny thing about security.  It involves trust and it involves honour.

Well it’s been an interesting week so far on the program because on Monday we kicked off a new series, 20 messages actually over this week and the coming three called Wisdom That Works. And if you’ve been able to join me so far this week you’ll remember that there are two parts to wisdom.

The knowledge but also the action. We need both to have wisdom. Here’s the dictionary definition of wisdom again in case you missed it:

It’s the quality of having experience, knowledge and good judgement and the soundness of an action or decision by applying this experience and knowledge and good judgement.

Boil that down and there are two parts. Knowing what to do and then getting on and doing it. Knowing what to do and then not doing it is pretty dumb and that’s why I for one have done some dumb things in my life. Sometimes we know the right thing either because we just know or because we’ve been down that road before or because we’ve listened to someone else who has.

So sometimes we know the right thing, we have access to the knowledge but we don’t get on and do it. And many people know that they should trust and honour God. They just don’t. And so knowing isn’t enough, knowing isn’t being wise. Wisdom is about knowing and doing. That’s what gets the results.

Bottom line is that if we take Gods word to heart it will make a real difference in our lives. God will make that difference in our lives through His Spirit and His word. And if we don’t take His word to heart, it won’t. Can I say that again? If we don’t take Gods word to heart it simply won’t make a difference in our lives.

The defining moment in me coming to realise that, once and for all, was a few years ago. We were sitting in a home Bible study group with a bunch of well meaning Christians. People who faithfully studied Gods word and gone to Church and we were trying to understand this passage written by the Apostle Paul while he was on death row to his friends in the Church at Philippi.

Just have a listen, Philippians chapter 4, verses 6 and 7. Paul writes to them:

Don’t worry about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanks giving let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Now the way I read that is that instead of spending time worrying about stuff, Paul’s saying, take that same time, the time you would have spent worrying and instead use that same time to pray and to ask God for what you need and to thank Him and to let Him know your needs.

And if you do it that way instead of wasting your time worrying, if you do it that way then the peace of God which may not make a whole bunch of sense in our circumstances but that peace, that awesome peace will guard your heart and your mind in Christ. That’s the promise, that’s what Paul learned in his experience, that’s what Paul knew there on death row.

Okay so we’re in the Bible study, we hedged around this verse in the Bible. Remember, Bible believing Christians and the group came to the conclusion, “Ah well yeah sure but we still worry.” And then they’re about to move on from it at which point I couldn’t help myself.

I was jumping out of my skin and I shouted, ‘No, read it again. Do you believe God’s word or not? Are you going to live it or not? Do you believe that if you do it this way God will give you the peace that He promises or not?’ And it’s the same thing with trusting and honouring God.

Sure, yeah, we know we should do that but most people who believe in Jesus don’t and so not only are they not honouring God but they don’t reap the dividend, the harvest. Got to know it and do it for it to become wisdom. Knowing it is not enough. Having read it is not enough. We either believe God, we either take Him at His word and live it out or we don’t. The knowledge and the doing is wisdom.

So let’s get back into that great book of wisdom, the Book of Proverbs and see what Solomon was trying to tell us about trusting and honouring God. Proverbs chapter 3 beginning at verse 1. He says:

Child don’t forget my teaching but let your heart keep my commandments. For length of days and years of life and abundant welfare they will give you. Do not let loyalty and faithfulness forsake you. Bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart so you will find favour and good repute in the sight of God and of people.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Don’t rely on your own insight. Instead in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make straight your paths. Don’t be wise in your own eyes, fear the Lord, turn away from evil. It will be a healing for your flesh and a refreshment for your body.

Honour the Lord with all your substance and with the first fruits of all your produce. Then your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats be bursting with wine. My child don’t despise the Lords discipline or be weary of His reproof for the Lord reproves the one whom He loves as a father the son in whom he delights.

So we’re chugging through life, stuff happens and we get impatient, we want to get ahead and head off in our own direction and here’s Solomon with the wisdom of age telling his sons, “Guys, it’s just going to happen. You’ll want to drift away from God, you just will but don’t do that, don’t forget what I’ve told you. Be loyal, be faithful. I know it won’t always make sense but listen to me, write these words on your heart.”

So stuffs happening and life’s not going just the way we’d planned and it’s not quite making sense and so we have a wisdom decision point here in this place. We can flap around and carry on, head off in our own way, most people do, or we can say hang on a minute, hang on, remember what God told me through Solomon? That was wisdom that worked:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, don’t rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make straight your paths.

Do you see how we have a decision to make? Either we can believe this stuff and take God at His word and Solomon says, “Look honour God, be faithful. Don’t let faithfulness run away from you.” Either we can take this stuff, take God at His word or we treat it like some useless theory lesson.

Promise – trust in God, don’t try and figure it out for yourselves, just acknowledge God in how you live your life, in what you say and what you think and what you believe. And listen, here’s the promise, here’s the dividend of Gods wisdom. Here’s the return on investment. God will make straight all your paths. If you do that God will straighten it all out.

Which bit of that don’t we get? Why do we have to make everything so complicated? Are we going to be like those people I was telling you about before at the Bible study? Are we going to spend hours and hours and hours studying the Bible for study sake as though this was some intellectual exercise without really believing it? Without really living it with our lives. Or are we going to take God’s word to heart and do it?

Remember wisdom is not a theory lesson. Wisdom has two parts, knowing and doing. Well now we know, trust God, just honour Him in how you live your life and all the things that don’t make sense right at the moment He’ll deal with them, He’ll straighten them out.

I love, I absolutely love how practical Gods truth is. And when we put it into action in our lives, when we choose to stop mucking around, stop flapping around, stop complaining and doing the ‘woe is me’ bit and just sit down and decide, God come hell or high water I am going to trust you and just do the best I know how. He springs into action and He starts sorting out the mess.

My friend this is not, let me say it again, capital letters, NOT a theory lesson. God’s wisdom is imparted into our lives when we take His truth and we live it out. This is where the rubber hits the road. This my friend is wisdom that works.

Wealth is something that I talk quite a bit about on this program – and it’s because so many people go looking for wealth in the wrong places. People talk about true wealth – whatever that is.  Well, what is it? Where do you get it?  And is it worth having?

I heard recently of a man who’s about to get married and he set aside some money to build a house for himself and his new bride. Well that makes sense. It’s good for them to have a home to live in. Thing is though he set aside 15 million dollars.

Now we all have different means and we sometimes aspire to have a bit more and according to our means we do the best to provide a home for our families. Of course many, many of the people listening today aren’t even able to do that. Some are in refugee camps, others live in squats and make shift cardboard boxes.

There are more people listening to this message right now today around the globe who are in dire financial circumstances than those who aren’t. And so we all set the bar of financial adequacy at different levels.

But this man lives in a city where two to two and a half million dollars would buy you the most stunning house you can imagine. Okay so even if you agree that two to two and a half million dollars is a lot of money, this man is still spending, wait for it, six times that amount.

So the question you have to ask yourself is this. When is enough, enough? At what point do we draw the line and say, “well you know, I just don’t need anymore to live more than comfortably? And that my friend is a very important question.

A man that I’ve come to have a lot of respect for is a guy by the name of David Bussau. For a good many years we’ve attended the same Church as David and his wife Carol. He’s the founder of a ministry called Opportunity International, an organisation that now creates a new job in the developing world I think every 20 seconds or something outrageous like that.

And I heard David one day talking about the economics of enough. That’s what he called it. I mean David lives in quite a large house but they constantly have people staying who are visiting for ministry reasons. He drives a pretty ordinary car, he dresses in ordinary every day clothes.

He said he came to the conclusion many years ago that he had more than enough, just didn’t need anymore. He talked about the economics of enough.

One of the reasons I talk so often on this subject of wealth, well there are two reasons actually. The first is that so many people are looking for wealth in the wrong place and that’s causing them great pain. But secondly and more importantly I talk so much about wealth because God talks so much about it in His Word, the Bible.

Remember we’re talking this week and over the next few weeks about Gods wisdom, wisdom that works. By taking a step through some of the most powerful wisdom that we discover in the Old Testament Book of Proverbs which was written by King Solomon to capture the wisdom that he was handing down to his sons.

And so not surprisingly fairly early on in the piece Solomon talks about money. Well not so much money but wealth. Have a listen to what he says, Proverbs chapter 3 beginning at verse 13. He says:

Happy are those who find wisdom and those who get understanding for her income is better than silver and her revenue better than gold. She is more precious than jewels and nothing you can desire compares with her. Long life is in her right hand, in her left hand are riches and honour.

Her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her, those who hold her fast are called happy.

Now there was a time in my life, in fact for much of my life where I would have scoffed at this suggestion. “Oh give me a break, please. How can wisdom be better than silver and gold and precious jewels? Is this guy mad? How can wisdom be better than anything else that my little heart might desire? I’ll just have the cash thanks, show me the money.”

And for all that to make sense there are two things that we need to know about Solomon. Not only was he blessed with great wisdom but he was also one of the richest men in all of history. And it all comes to Solomon when he prays to God. Have a listen, it’s a beautiful passage. It comes from 1 Kings chapter 3:

At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night and God said, ‘ask what I should give you?’ And Solomon said, ‘you have shown great and steadfast love to your servant, my father David because he walked before you in faithfulness, in righteousness and in uprightness of heart towards you.

And you have kept for him this great and steadfast love and have given him a son to sit on his throne today. And now my Lord O God you have made your servant king in place of my father David, although I am only a little child I don’t know how to go out or come in and your servant is in the midst of people whom you have chosen, a great people so numerous they can’t be numbered or counted.

Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people. Able to discern between good and evil for who can govern this your great people. Well it pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this. God said to him, ‘because you have asked for this and have not asked for yourself long life or riches or for the life of your enemies but you’ve asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right.

I now do according to your word. Indeed I give you a wise and discerning mind, no one like you has been before you and no one like you shall arise after you. I give you also what you have not asked for, both riches and honour all the days of your life. No other king shall compare with you.

See right from the beginning as a young man Solomon had preferred wisdom over riches. So he asked God for wisdom, what a brilliant thing to do. I wonder what you and I might have asked God for had He come to us and said, “Hey listen, ask me what I should give you?”

So all his adult life Solomon had both great wisdom and great riches. And having lived his life with both, out of his experience he’s able to say to his son’s wisdom is so much better than anything else that you can ever imagine. Why? Why did he say that? Because of the dividend, the return that his wisdom gave him:

Long life is in her right hand, in her left hand are riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace. She’s a tree of life to those who lay hold of her, those who hold her fast are called happy.

As much as we try and kid ourselves, you and I, we know. We know through our experience, we know deep in our hearts that riches can never deliver that sort of dividend. We chase after money alone and it’s a lonely, unhappy life. Believe you me, I’ve been there, I’ve done that, I’ve got the t shirt and I can tell you that it absolutely is. Wealth does not compare to God’s wisdom.

Wisdom means that we learn God’s truth and we put it into action in our lives. Even though sometimes, most times it involves a sacrifice up front like any investment but we live out God’s truth in our lives, that’s what wisdom is, and then we reap the rewards. Peace, life, joy. Those who lay hold of her are called happy.

Why? Because we know how to avoid dumb things we used to do that causes so much pain. Because we know how to make good choices that bear good fruit. True wealth is living a life of abundance in Christ. True wealth is having the wisdom to build strong relationships, to enjoy serving others, to honour God, to get over our pride and our impetuous tantrums.

Wisdom is about living a life that’s worth living whatever life throws at us. Friend this is such great advice from King Solomon. It is such great advice from God but it only becomes true wisdom in our lives when we put it into action and the thing to put into action here is to seek after wisdom above and before riches.

Seek first after the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these other things will be added to you. Because nothing compares to the dividends that come from Gods wisdom. Wisdom that works.