How To Stay The Course Of Wisdom

This series "Wisdom for the Road" is all about what that song is singing. It's about what we're building our lives on. What's the foundation of our lives? Friends, storms are going to come for all of us. And when the storms come, they reveal what we've built our lives on. Through the book of Proverbs, the Lord Jesus is calling us, inviting us, pleading with us to build our lives on something firm, something unshakeable, something that will hold us up through every season of life. That is building our lives on Christ and his word.

So let's look now at Proverbs 4 and we'll hear the wise words of Jesus about how to build our lives on him. If you're able, let me invite you to stand with me as we honor the reading of God's Word from Proverbs 4:

My favorite band if I had to pick one is The SteelDrivers. They are like a modern day bluegrass band. Do y'all know Chris Stapleton, the country singer? He started his career as the lead singer for the SteelDrivers. I'm telling you, it's really good stuff. And one of the songs that I listen to and sing a lot at the house is called "I Choose You." And it's a man singing to his wife and it goes like this: "I choose you every day in 100 different ways. I make the choice to stay. I could hit the open road and run my life away. But I choose you every day." And honey, I do.

Isn't that good? This microphone can be used for good or for evil. So we're gonna try to use it for good today. But the idea is that when you say, "I do" and you choose this woman to be your wife, that's not just a one time choice that you move on from and forget about. It's a choice you have to continue making every day in 100 different ways. It's a lifetime commitment. And that's what Proverbs 4 is talking about when it comes to the choice of wisdom.

Now, look, if you're here today and you don't give a rip about God's wisdom. This is boring you to tears week in and week out. You're just scrolling your phone. You can't wait to leave. I really have nothing for you. The bus of wisdom is about to leave the station, ok? But if you are here and you want to be on that bus, you want to walk in wisdom, you want to be submitted to the God who designed this universe and designed your life, then this is for you. Because what Proverbs 4 is telling us is that if you've chosen to walk in the wisdom of God in his word, you've made a really good choice. But it's not a one time choice. You don't choose wisdom by just running down to the altar and bawling and squalling and making this big public commitment. You may start there but then you have to get up, dry your eyes, and go about living your life continuing to choose wisdom, day by day, step after step, in every single season. That's how you live a wise life! That's how you stay with wisdom.

Have you ever known someone who started out walking in wisdom for a season of time, but then veered off into great foolishness and destruction? Yes, we all know tons of people. We've all been those people. And so we need this word from Proverbs 4 that the choice of living under God's wisdom, that's not a one time choice. It's a lifetime choice. We want to stay the course in every season of life.

And so it reminds me a lot of the old story of Odysseus, the great Greek hero. He's on his ship with his men. They're going to pass by the island of the sirens, these sirens are these beautiful sea women. And the sirens would sing these songs that would entice the sailors and make them go mad, and they would throw themselves over the side of the boat to their destruction, and they'd be killed. And Odysseus knew that he was susceptible to that. So he told his men, "before we pass the sirens, tie me to the mast, lash me to the mast so I don't lose my mind, so I don't do something stupid in a fit of passion, in a fit of foolishness. I need help to stay the course." That's what Proverbs 4 is about.

It's also kind of like a slightly better version of that story when Jason, another Greek hero, gets on the ship and he has to pass by the sirens. Instead of just tying himself to the mast, he has the musician play higher and better music that's better than the music of the sirens that keeps him there, that keeps him staying the course. Proverbs 4 is the "better music." It's the higher music of the life God created you for, the abundant life that only Jesus can give you.

Y'all, you don't want to let that go! You don't wanna plunge over the side of the ship and kill yourself in a moment of unthinking. We want to stay the course with wisdom to do that. There are three things we need to consider. 

Now, if you've been with us in Proverbs, you know it's been this long conversation between a father and his son who is about to gain independence, who's about to leave home and get on the road of life, who's about to start making his own choices as a young adult. It could just as easily be a father talking to his daughter. But he's preparing this young person for life. Well, up until now, it's been the father speaking to the son. But here in chapter 4, for the first time, we hear a different voice. The dad brings up his dad. So he's bringing up the son's grandfather. Why does he do that? Why does grandpa make an appearance in chapter 4? Because the dad wants his son to understand I had this exact same conversation with my dad 25 years ago. My dad, your grandpa, sat me down at his kitchen table and talked to me about the importance of choosing wisdom for my life. Why does the son need to know that? So he can understand that even though the circumstances of life change over time, the circumstances of grandpa's life were different than the dad's life, and are going to be different than the son's life, the principles of life, the wisdom of God, that's unchanging. The essentials of what it means to build an abundant life under God, that is the same in every generation.

I think about my own great-grandfather who I got to know until I was about six years old. He could not imagine an iphone. He was born in 1899. He could not imagine this computer that I carry around in my pocket. His life was so different than mine circumstantially. But the basics of what went into really living your life, your character, your habits, your associates, the choices that you make and then the consequences that you reap from those choices, the importance of self control, what you do with your mouth, all the stuff that Proverbs talks about, it was the same for granddaddy CC in 1924 as it is for me in 2024. Y'all understand what I'm saying? The wisdom of God is the same in every generation. The key issues of life never change because we're all always living in God's world. He set the ground rules when he created the world. Wisdom is just understanding how God made the world and submitting to it and adjusting your life to what God has designed life to be.

And so here's what the dad is saying to the son, "Look, when I'm talking to you about wisdom, I'm not giving you my weird rules. I'm explaining to you how God designed life in this universe to work. And it's not changing. It's not changing for you. It's not changing for me. It didn't change for grandpa. These are just the rules of the game. And those who listen to God's wisdom and submit to it, they end up with a really happy, fulfilled life. It's true in every generation. There's a provenness to wisdom because wisdom is the same in every generation in God's world. I mean, wisdom has this incredible track record. But you can look back across the generations, you can look back across history, and wisdom proves itself in every age.

Those who listen to the wisdom of God, people who are honest and tell the truth, who are kind to people who are weaker than them, who are humble and don't allow their hearts to become proud, who are faithful and loving to their spouse, who control their anger and their emotions, who are obedient to the Bible, people who just submit to God's wisdom, their lives are happier in every age. It works every time. It's proven at the same time.

If you look around, everyone who has ever hung out with fools, who has cheated to get ahead or slandered the name of someone else recklessly, or who's cared more about the opinions of human beings, anyone who has lived that kind of foolish life has always reaped chaos, because God's world works the same in every generation. Wisdom has a proven track record. Look around for yourself. Look at the lives of people you know, something that Proverbs is always telling us to do. Look at history, you will find again and again the wise way of God is always the best way for us.

But after you've made this inspection and consider the track record, verses 4-7 say, you've got to decide for yourself. You can step into this tradition of wise living. You can step into this long line of men and women who have said, "look, I don't know a lot, but I know God knows more than me and I'm gonna listen to him." You can step into that long line of wise people who let the Lord lead them into his joy or you can reject it and you can forget about the provenness of wisdom's track record. And you can think that you can come up with a better way of living in God's world than listening to God himself. You can do that if you want to. But you've got to make that choice. Grandpa had to make that choice in his day. This daddy, he had to make that choice in his day. Now the dad tells his son, you've got to make that choice.

You can hear it in the urgency of the dad's voice, "There is nothing I want more than for you to choose God's wisdom. Nothing could make your life better, but I can't choose it for you. You've got to choose it for yourself. A great life starts by simply getting decisive. Like verse 7 says, "The beginning of wisdom is this: get wisdom. And whatever you get, get insight." In other words, the road to the life God made you for starts by realizing how much you need God's wisdom, and that you are willing to do whatever it takes to learn from him and to obey him and to follow Him. If you get to that point in that place in your heart, you're ready for wisdom.

Well, starting today, I want to urge you with this father to make that the goal of your life. Your life will have some kind of goal. Your life will be about something. Why not make the goal of your life placing yourself under the wise mentorship of Jesus Christ and letting him lead you in every area of your life? What will happen to you if you do that? Verses 8-9 say that if you yoke yourself to wisdom like that, it will be like marrying up. Do y'all know anyone who you look at and say, "how did he get her?" I know you know one person like that. You're all looking at it! Sometimes we think, "Do you know where some bodies are buried or something? I mean, do you have some kind of dirt on this lady that she had to marry you?" We all know people where we think, "Man, this guy is kind of a bozo and yet simply because he's attached himself to this awesome lady, she elevates him and he reaps all these benefits, and he's kind of honored and we sort of think better of him simply because he's got her." And that's what wisdom is like. You can be a bozo. You can be a complete basket case. But if you will start today seeking wisdom first and foremost, I'm telling you, wisdom will treat you right. Wisdom will elevate you and put a graceful garland on your head and honor you before men and honor you before the Lord. That's always what wisdom has done for those who prize it. It's proven. So this is the provenness that wisdom offers.

I want you to notice that in these first few verses starting in verse 10, how many times the father mentions a path or a way or the steps that you take. Here's what he's trying to do. The dad for his son is trying to drive home this fact that all of us are on a path going somewhere all the time. Every choice that we make is either a step down the bright path of God's wisdom or that choice we're making is a step down the dismal path of folly and destruction. We don't think of our choices like that as we're living our lives Monday through Saturday. We do not think that our choices matter that much. We're just saying stuff and doing stuff and responding to stuff. We're just kind of living without thinking about this path. But when you choose gossip or laziness or anger, you are stepping down a particular path that is going to take you to a certain destination. And when you choose humility, honesty, self control, you step down a different path that's going to take you to a different destination.

So the burning question of Proverbs 4 is, what path are you on? Your feet are on some path going somewhere. What path is it based on this chapter? Where is it taking you? Well, just look at verses 10-13 because those verses describe the path of wisdom. The moment that you choose to obey God and submit to his wisdom, it won't necessarily feel amazing, right? The fireworks aren't gonna go off. You're not gonna hear some movie soundtrack. Everything in your life is not gonna get fixed that moment you make a choice to obey God, but look at the path that that choice puts you on.

Verse 10: He says you won't cut your life short by doing goofy stuff. The years of your life will be many on this path. Verse 11: you'll stay upright. It's the way of uprightness. That means you're gonna avoid a lot of trouble that other people blunder into. You're gonna go to sleep at night with a clean conscience, not having to replay a really sad movie over and over again of your choices. You're gonna have a good name among others. You're not gonna have to duck into the cereal aisle in Walmart when you see so and so. Wisdom is a good path to be on. Verse 12: It says you will run unhindered. That's what the path of God's wisdom is like. You're not constantly tripping up and getting tangled in crazy sinful chaos. No, you're able to live your one life with energy and purpose and vigor and joy. You can run on that path. That's what the path of God's wisdom is like.

But then verses 14-17 describe the other path, the path of the wicked and evil. Those words are just so dramatic and so intense to us. And here's what we need to understand. It won't feel dramatic when you make a choice to reject God's way. Tomorrow afternoon, it won't feel like you're strolling down the path of the evil and the wicked. But here's the truth, the sober truth of Proverbs that we need to wrestle with is this: a step out of fellowship with God is a step down a very dark road, which is why verses 14-15 are so urgent. Did you hear how many times he said the same thing? Avoid it. Don't go on it. Turn away from it. Pass on. Don't take the first step down this road.

I think about when we're at the lake at Pickwick and we're close to the dam and you see all these signs that says, "Danger! Don't come any closer. Don't fish over there." I mean, I'm sure the fishing is good close to the dam, but I hadn't tasted a fish that good, that's worth me fishing right next to that dam getting sucked in through those gates and getting chewed up. I don't want to do that. I don't even wanna see how close I can get. I don't wanna be right up against it. I want to get away from that thing. And that's how the father is talking to his son. You don't even take the first step down this path of thinking that your way is better than the Lord's even if it seems to be in a minor area.

Because here's how it goes down. And the rest of this passage is pretty shocking. We feel like when we don't listen to God and go our way, we feel like we're taking control of our lives, don't we? I'm taking control of my life right here, but you're actually losing control of your life because when you step down this road out of fellowship with God, there is no predicting what's gonna happen, because sin is a power that enslaves. This is John 8:34, "He who sins is a slave to sin." Romans 6, sin is like a slave master, a taskmaster, a tyrant that we just have to obey and orders us around, and we just do it. You don't know what's going to happen to you. When you take this step down this road of sin, you don't know how it's going to change you.

That's what's going on with these people in verses 16-17. They are so miserable. These people can't rest unless they've done wrong, or tripped someone up, or stirred up drama and strife and division. They're horrible people, but they didn't start out like that. It happened to them down the road. Somewhere down this road, they got twisted and now they can't even see that about themselves. They can't get off that path. They don't wanna get off that path because it's all they know. It is dark down that road. Choice by choice we travel a path. And verse 19 is sober. It says the path of evil is always pulling you deeper into the darkness until you're stumbling all the time, hurting yourself, and hurting other people, but you don't even know it. You don't know why you're stumbling. You can't recover your footing and you can't back out of it. As somebody said, it's like those blade things in the rental car parking lot at the airport. You can't throw it in reverse. You can only go forward. It's pushing you one way. That's what this path of evil is like. You can't throw it in reverse. You think you can back out any time. You don't know that. And that's why it says, "Avoid it! Don't go near it. Don't take that step!" Have we not all seen this in the lives of people we love and care about? 

So you could be making a choice to head down that path today or you could with the help of God choose a Proverbs 4:18 life. Look at Proverbs 4:18. This has got to be a top 10 Bible verse for me: "But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn which shines brighter and brighter until full day." That could be your life! That could be how we sum up how you live before God. I thought of it this week.

It's like a picture of a teenage girl who at age 15 decides to get serious with the Lord. And when she makes that choice to get serious with Jesus, it doesn't immediately fix all of her problems. She doesn't immediately have all the answers to all of her questions. She still has struggles and sins she has to fight through. And in fact, it puts her out of step with her peers and the people who are the same age. She's making different choices now and it can get kind of lonely. But on this path that she's taken, she just makes the choice, "I'm gonna stick with Jesus. I'm gonna stick with wisdom. My friends are all sleeping around. I'm not gonna do that. My friends are all super disrespectful to their parents. I'm not gonna do that. I'm going to walk with Jesus. I'm gonna put myself under this word." And at first, it's still real dim and dark, but a light has dawned in her life. Do you understand? And if you come back to her 10 year reunion, it's gonna become a lot more evident that the path she's on is different and better than the path that everybody else is on. There's more light there. There's stability, there's peace, there's joy. You circle back to that 20 year reunion and everybody's asking what has she got? I need that. I've got to have that. You come back to that 50 year reunion. Her life blazes with the brilliance of the glory of God. That's what happens on the Proverbs 4:18 path. The path of the righteous, it's like the light of dawn. It shines brighter and brighter until the full day. It's like Psalm 84:7, "They go from strength to strength," or 2 Corinthians 3:17, "We all with unveiled faces are being transformed into the very glory of Jesus Christ from one degree of glory to the next." That could be your life! And it starts with one step today. That could be your step, your first step on a Proverbs 4:18 life. Just put yourself in the hands of Jesus Christ. Let him be your Lord. It's the path that wisdom takes.

So that bright path that I just talked about it, it sounds great to all of us. But how can we make sure we stay on that path through every season? I think verse 23 supplies the secret to staying on the path of wisdom. Once you start out, look at verse 23, you may want to circle it because it is so important. "Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life." Now, look, we are all hyper focused on our outward appearance. You know, our faces, the makeup, the clothes, the physique. We are hyper focused on our outward appearance. God says we're missing the boat. What really matters about you is your heart. Your heart is what drives your life. Your heart, what you want, what you desire, that's who you really are before God. And that is what's going to determine everything about you, what you say, what you think, what you do, what you choose. It's all gonna flow out of that heart. It is the most important part about you and that's why we've got to keep our hearts.

I think the image here is of a water source for an ancient city. Lots of ancient cities would build around water sources. I suppose they all would because it's necessary for life. Let's say there's one water source for this city and it flows in by springs and to supply the needs of all the people who live there. Everything hangs on that water source. If it gets stopped up, if it gets polluted, if it gets poisoned, all the people die. So, guess what? They take that water source really seriously. They build a fence around it. They post guards around it. They check on it all the time because they know everything hangs on that water source, that life source, everything flows from it. That's what your heart is like! Everything about you flows out of the condition of your heart. Do you understand? 

The person who understands this better than anyone in the Bible is Solomon who wrote Proverbs because we're told as a young king, 1 Kings 3 that his heart loved Yahweh. That's what he wanted more than anything, to walk closely with the Lord, to know him, to honor him, to make him proud, to fear him. And that love that Solomon had in his heart for the Lord, it's what made him great. But Solomon didn't tend his heart. He didn't protect his heart. So over time, that heart began to change, and it began to drift, and began to attach itself to other things besides Yahweh. And we read in 1 Kings 11 that now his heart clung to other stuff like power and status and riches and his wives who worship false gods. And it brought him down. He poisoned the spring of his life when he lost his heart. When his heart didn't cling to the Lord, it poisoned everything else about his life and he lost the kingdom and the same thing will be true for us.

Y'all I've been a pastor for 16 years. I know that's not 60 years, but that's long enough for some data, ok? I have seen this story play out over and over and over and over. Good people who love the Lord who wanna do right, who have the best of intentions, but they don't watch their hearts. And so slowly their hearts stop clinging to Jesus Christ in his wisdom and they start clinging to other things. And before you know it, they veer off into some crazy foolishness, but it didn't happen in that moment. It didn't happen overnight. It was a gradual, incremental, out of the public eye kind of drifting in the heart. You gotta keep it because all the springs of your life flow from your heart! That story, it's happening all over this room right now. Your heart is directing you one way or another. And if you're not keeping it, I know where it's directing you. You gotta keep your heart!

So how do we do it? This is the last part of the sermon, I promise. I think verses 24-27 make it really practical for us how we can keep our hearts and guard our hearts. It's really simple. We've got to watch our ears, watch our eyes and watch our feet.

Verse 24: you've got to watch your ears. That's where it's talking about putting crooked speech away from you, putting devious talk far from you. The point is what are you listening to consistently? Because what you're listening to consistently is shaping your heart. If you binge listen to worldly entertainment without running it through a biblical filter, the values of the world are what are shaping your heart. Or if all day, let's just say in your job, your coworkers are constantly talking about how much they hate their spouse and how sorry they are, and they joke about having affairs, that's gonna shape the way you think about marriage. It's going to cause you to devalue your own marriage. If all you consume is the news without sometimes coming up for air and reading the Psalms and looking at this big God that we've got, it's going to shape your heart and make you tense and fearful and worried and nervous and angry. If you hang out with people whose speech is totally self-absorbed and griping and consumed with money, guess what? That's gonna shape your heart too. If we're gonna keep our hearts, we gotta watch our ears. What's coming in there over and over.

We also have to watch our eyes. Verse 25, "let your eyes look directly forward, let your gaze be straight before you." What I look at consistently shapes my heart, obviously gazing at pornography and other raunchy images that don't get qualified as pornography, that does something to my heart. I can't just lay it down and be unchanged. But so does gawking at other people's lives on social media for multiple hours a day so that you're always kind of comparing yourself to them or looking at what you don't have via online shopping or Zillow or whatever it may be for hours and hours and hours. If that's all you're looking at, that's gonna shape a certain kind of heart as far as contentment and discontentment and all of that goes. I enjoy college football and my eyes were on it a good bit yesterday, but I don't want college football to be on the throne of my heart. I want Jesus to be on the throne there. And so I've got to watch it. That's not all I study, right? It can be something that I study, but I don't want it to be all I study. It's gonna completely shape my heart and get what I love. We use the phrase "I'm obsessed with this right now," which sounds kind of over the top, but it's actually quite accurate and true. Whatever you're looking at, thinking about, studying all the time, you are obsessed with it, and it's shaping your heart and what you love. And that's gonna direct your life. I gotta watch my ears. I gotta watch my eyes.

I gotta watch my feet. This is asking the question, where do I go consistently? And where do I stay consistently? Where do I spend my time? With whom do I spend my time? And what do I spend my time doing? All of those things are going to shape my heart? Would you agree? It's going to affect what I love and what I prize and what I pursue. So when I'm thinking about where I've spent all my time over the last month, did spending my time there letting my little feet take me there, did it incline my heart to love Christ more and to cherish his wisdom and to want to seek him and live all out for his glory? Where I spend my time, does it move me in that direction or if I'm being honest, does it take my heart someplace else to love something less than Jesus? Some places are just a no go for our feet. Just period. Our feet have got no business being there for any length of time. There's some places that are ok to go, but I'm not meant to plant my feet in concrete there. I need to make sure my feet are taking me to the word of God, to the fellowship of the people of God, to the worship of God. On Sunday mornings, I wanna make sure my feet are spending a lot of time there if I want my heart shaped by Jesus Christ. Would you agree with that? Not a lot of amens there, but you can think on those things this afternoon.

What you do with your ears, with your eyes, and with your feet determines the direction of your heart. If I am careless about those areas, this is the teaching, this is the message of Proverbs 4, if I am careless about these three things, my ears, my eyes, my feet, I won't keep loving wisdom in my heart for very long. I'll love all the wrong things. So what are you doing to keep your heart? What needs to change so that you can guard your heart? Here's the good news, wherever you are today, however reckless with your heart you may have been, however far down the path of darkness and evil you may find yourself today, however many times you have ignored the proven track record of wisdom throughout all the generations, Jesus Christ is calling to you today. Jesus, wisdom himself, cries aloud in the streets. He's looking for the simple. He's looking for the foolish. He's looking for the hardheaded. He's looking for people like us. And he says right here, right now, how about we head down the path of life? It gets brighter and brighter until the day dawns. That's for you. Let's pray.

Sermon by Eric Smith
Senior Pastor, Sharon Baptist Church