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Apr 15, 2018

Living Wisdom

Living Wisdom

Passage: Proverbs 1:1-7

Speaker: Brian Land

Series: Proverbs

Category: Grace Brevard

Keywords: decisions, hope, life, proverbs, truth, wisdom

Theme: In an age of unprecedented access to information, we are continually left parched for something more real. The Gospel invites us into a new depth of relationally knowing the Author of all knowledge (“The Word”) as he applies this knowledge into our everyday, real-life Gospel Living founded upon His Ancient Truth and our newly created identity as His cherished and empowered children.

Worship Order

Prelude: Ten Penny Whistle by Creekside Crawfish

Musicians: Creekside Crawfish - Matthew James Overholser, Clara Overholser, Michael Prey, Dylan Zink, Leader - Owen Grooms (Pretty Little Goat), Vocal Leader - Randy Johnson

Call To Worship: Psalm 111:2-4,7,10 ESV

Reading: John 1:1-5 ESV

Songs: Come Thy Fount, Mighty to Save, Amazing Grace, Praise the Savior Now and Ever

Sermon Title: Living Wisdom

Central Text: Proverbs 1:1-7

Illustration: SNL - Alexa Silver

Benediction: The Lord’s Prayer ESV

Related Scriptures:

Romans 12:1-2 

James 1:5

James 3

Matthew 7:24

1 Corinthians 1:30-31

Matthew 12:42

Colossians 2:1-3

Media:

4.15.18 Album

Discussion Questions & Applications

  1. What are the pros and cons of having access to so much information?

  2. What is the difference between information, knowledge and wisdom?

  3. What do you want/need wisdom for in your life right now

  4. How and Why do you sometimes “despise wisdom”

  5. Matthew 12:42 talks about how Solomon was the wisest man in history, but Jesus is Wisdom incarnate:
    The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.

  6. What is the difference between wisdom being impersonal information and wisdom being the person of Jesus?

    How can that actually be harder?

    How is that actually better?

  7. So how do you get wisdom?

    What is this “fear of the Lord” part?

  8. Who in your life do you think of as wise? What makes them so in your mind? How do you think they became so?
  9. How is wisdom related to but distinct from knowledge? Why is it important to understand the distinction? What’s the worth of wisdom? The fallout of folly?
  10. What’s the difference between “servile” and “filial” fear as the sermon mentioned? Why is one far more grand than the other? Why is the gospel best “furnished” to instill the grander of the two?
  11. What wisdom do you need from your elders? Wisdom for acts of mercy from your deacons and deaconesses?

Quotes:

  • I don’t think it would have all got me quite so down if just once in a while—just once in a while—there was at least some polite little perfunctory implication that knowledge should lead to wisdom, and that if it doesn't, it's just a disgusting waste of time! But there never is! You never even hear any hints dropped on a campus that wisdom is supposed to be the goal of knowledge. You hardly ever even hear the word 'wisdom' mentioned!  - J.D. Salinger’s Franny and Zooey
  • . . . this [wisdom] restrains itself from sinning, not out of dread of punishment alone; but because it loves and reveres God as Father…. Even if there were no hell, it would still shudder at offending him. - John Calvin
  • Filial fear does not turn away from God, but hates sin above everything else, and fears to offend God: servile fear is a flight and hatred, not of sin, but of punishment and of the divine judgment, and so of God himself.  - Zacharias Ursinus
  • How vain and foolish, then, thought I, for timid untravelled man to try to comprehend aright this wondrous whale, by merely poring over his dead attenuated skeleton, stretched in this peaceful wood. no. only in the heart of quickest perils; only when within the eddyings of his angry flukes; only on the profound unbounded sea, can the fully invested whale be truly and livingly found out. - Herman Melville, Moby Dick
  • Where is the life we have lost in living?
  • Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
  • Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? - T.S. Eliot

Sermons:

True Wisdom - Timothy J. Keller

Proverbs 8:10-16,22-31

Making Space: Proverbs Introduction - Jeff Vanderstelt

Proverbs 1:1-17

How to be wise by Sinclair Ferguson

Proverbs 1

Wisdom and Wealth by Thabiti Anyabwile

Proverbs 1

Books

God’s Wisdom for Navigating Life: by Tim and Kathy Keller

Jesus in Proverbs by John Piper