Life Is Complicated: Fear God and Pursue Wisdom

If you want to know the greatest problem, I believe not only in our culture but in the church of the Lord Jesus in 2026, it is that we have lost any sense of the fear of God. We have lost the fear of the Lord. By fear, I don't mean a phobia, I don't mean a trembling sort of anxiety over the Lord. I mean a holy reverence and a desire to walk with him that is rooted deeply in my reverence and my respect for who the Lord is and what the Lord says. We need to learn to fear the Lord again. [00:39:32] (46 seconds)  #RestoreFearOfGod

And after a few hours something flew over the wall and it was Sheba's head. You see, one wise woman in this case was better than having 10 mighty warriors. She saved the lives of everyone in that city except one, which was a much better trade off for them I'm sure. And she said and Solomon is saying to us, you need to make sure that you pursue wisdom. You need to make sure that you pursue God's wisdom. Because after all, look at this, we need to honestly evaluate ourselves. There is certainly no one righteous on the earth who does good and never sins. [00:44:22] (54 seconds)  #WiseOverWarriors

But we need to seek his wisdom and his wisdom is revealed through what humans would look at and call folly. What we would look at and say, that's not victory, that's defeat. And we'll celebrate it in a couple of weeks more extensively because the wisdom of God is expressed in a cross. In first Corinthians chapter one verse 18, for the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is the power of God to us who are being saved. [00:58:14] (40 seconds)  #WisdomInTheCross

And because we live in relationships, I don't control everything that happens in my life. Life just isn't always fair. I've seen the righteous get cancer and I go, boy, they didn't deserve that. I've seen the unrighteous live to be a 100 years old. I mean, is trying to help us understand something that we'd simply need to grab onto and say you know what, you can't control outcomes in your life. By doing the right thing you cannot become sovereign over your life. God is still the one who's sovereign over your life. [00:36:03] (39 seconds)  #GodIsSovereign

Life is much more like an essay test than a math problem. The formula doesn't always work and that's one of the things that Solomon wants us to understand. We have to learn to live with apparent contradictions. We live in a fallen world and in a fallen world the formulas don't always work. Now Solomon is going to help us to understand that before the fall in Eden, everything was predictable. Everything was uncomplicated. But with the fall in sin, our world got really complicated. [00:30:29] (49 seconds)  #LifeIsEssayNotMath

I resolved I will be wise but it was beyond me. Now the wisest man who ever lived said that but think about that. What exists is beyond reach and very deep. Who can discover it? I turn my thoughts to know, explore, and examine wisdom and an explanation for things, and to know that wickedness is stupidity and folly is madness. And I find more bitter than death the woman who is a trap, her heart a net and her hands chains. The one who pleases God will escape her, but the sinner will be captured by her. Look, says the teacher, I have discovered this by adding one thing to another and finding out the explanation. Solomon says, I I need God's wisdom. He says, I sought out I sought out wisdom on my own. I sought to to live to understand everything and there are things that I can never understand. [00:52:29] (69 seconds)  #WisdomBeyondReach

At the end of the day, Solomon says, here's what I know, that in the beginning God made us upright. Life was simple. But then in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve decided they would go their own way. They didn't need God's rules. They didn't need God's laws. They didn't need God himself. And so they pursued many schemes, and we have done that. We have. And Solomon is saying to us that we are the problem. We are to blame. Not God, we are. [00:57:29] (45 seconds)  #WeChoseOurOwnWay

Solomon is looking at us in these moments and he's telling us that we can't earn God's favor by being overly righteous, with being super spiritual, by having legalistic rules. We can't control outcomes and we can't give up on living a righteous life either. We can't give ourselves over to sin. So what is the answer to it all? Well, in verse 18 Solomon gives us the answer. It is good that you grasp the one and do not let the other slip from your hand for the one who, here it is, for the one who fears God will end up with both of them. [00:38:36] (42 seconds)  #FearGodBringBalance

Solomon says life is complicated so as you approach different situations and problems in life you need to be self aware. You need to have a sense of of self awareness about your situation. And in verse 19 he says, wisdom makes the wise person stronger than 10 rulers of a city. The word rulers there can be translated warriors. He said one wise person in a city is actually better than 10 ferocious, well trained warriors to defend the city. Just one wise person is better than 10 warriors. [00:41:08] (39 seconds)  #WisdomBeatsWarriors

Solomon is saying to us that sin is seductive and destructive. This sounds a lot like Proverbs chapter three that Solomon also wrote when he's warning his son, don't go to the house of the adulterous woman. And in this passage he's again going back to that sexual sin model that he that he proposed in Proverbs chapter three and he's talking about how sin is so seductive but sin is also destructive. In verse 29, Solomon says only see this, I have discovered that God made people upright but they pursued many schemes. [00:56:44] (45 seconds)  #SinIsSeductiveAndDestructive

But we do need to be self aware and understand because Solomon says, you know what? When you hear your servant criticizing you, the truth is they just heard criticism from you about somebody else. And he's going back to that reality that we are all flawed. None of us have have been perfect in our speech either. None of us have gone through life without saying something unkind and critical about somebody else. And so why should we be surprised when we receive the other end of it? [00:51:39] (29 seconds)  #CriticismReflectsYou

And then Solomon gives a piece of advice that might seem to like, well how does that fit in here? It actually fits perfectly. He says, so since you are flawed, since you have failed, since you're not perfect, then when somebody criticizes you, don't take it too seriously and don't panic over it. Look look back at the text verse twenty twenty one. Don't pay attention to everything people say or you may hear your servant cursing you in your heart you know that many times you yourself have cursed others. [00:49:41] (37 seconds)  #DontPanicOverCriticism

Now, I like that and and I I would advocate for that most of the time, But Solomon says to us, the fact of the matter is that your choices cannot control the outcomes in your life. Sometimes life isn't fair. You do the right thing and you get a bad outcome because of a few things. First of all, we all have a sin within it. We have a flesh even when we're saved. That's true. But the other people in our life that we deal with have a sin nature or a flesh as well. [00:35:18] (45 seconds)  #ChoicesDontControlOutcomes

When he talks about being overly righteous, he's talking about what we might call performative righteousness. He's talking about pharisaic righteousness where we put on a good show of our religion. And he says, when he says you can be a little wicked, he's not saying that a little wickedness is okay. What he's telling us in this passage of scripture is that there are those who say, well you know what, if righteousness doesn't pay, what does it matter? Grace covers it all anyway. [00:38:04] (31 seconds)  #BewarePerformativeRighteousness

I've had people tell me you use too many illustrations. I've had people tell me you don't use enough illustrations. I've had people tell me my sermon had one person who told me one time your sermons are too biblical. I don't know how to do it any other way. I I just don't. If you listen to every bit of criticism, you will be schizophrenic. You will. And here's a great piece of advice that I've tried to convey to my daughter and that is you don't have to accept criticism from anybody that you wouldn't take advice from. [00:50:48] (41 seconds)  #FilterYourCritics

When we were in school, when you were in school, in a English literature class you had to write essays. Maybe in a history class you had to take a test and it was an essay test. You had to to write out lengthy paragraphs about the answer to the question. And the grading of an essay test is highly subjective. There are certain rules that obviously you'd have to follow like subject verb agreement and proper punctuation, but the content many times would be somewhat dependent upon the professor or the teacher's bent and what they wanted to see in the essay. [00:28:58] (41 seconds)  #EssayTestsAreSubjective

Math on the other hand is highly predictable. If you have the right formula and you use the right order of operations, you get the right answer and there's only one. It is very objective not subjective. You just get the right answer. Math is predictable. It's it's there's only one right answer to a math problem. I have a friend who's a math professor at MSU and I've asked him, have you ever given a test where there was a question and there was more than one right answer? He laughed and said that's not possible in math. [00:29:40] (40 seconds)  #MathIsPredictable

Solomon says, in my life I am I am looking at life and I've realized that it's not so simple all the time. First of all, life is complicated. It doesn't always make sense. It's complicated. Life doesn't always make sense. Solomon says, in my futile life, I I now I've seen it all. We've all of us have used that expression when we see something startling or we see something that seems contradictory, now I've seen it all. That's what Solomon says in verse 15. [00:32:53] (34 seconds)  #LifeIsComplicated

I have to be honest with you, is when I study scripture there are things that I have to really dig in on sometimes and verse 16 and following really puzzled me for a while. Don't be excessively righteous and don't be overly wise. I've never met anybody who was too wise. I'm just gonna leave it at that. He says, don't be excessively wicked and don't be foolish. Why should you die before your time? So Solomon seems, and when you at first glance, he's he's advocating for, okay, don't be really really righteous and don't be really really wicked. [00:36:48] (40 seconds)  #AvoidRighteousExtremes

Be moderately righteous and it's okay to be a little wicked. Now that is contrary to the rest of scripture. The bible says, the bible says that we should be holy as God is holy. We should pursue righteousness. Jesus said seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. So it can't be that Solomon is saying, be moderately righteous and moderately wicked. Kinda be in the middle of the road. That is not what Solomon is saying. Here's what Solomon is saying to us. [00:37:28] (37 seconds)  #PursueTrueRighteousness