Transcript & Slides: Get Wisdom!

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Get Wisdom!
By David Feddes

Welcome to this class on total fitness. What do I mean by total fitness? Well, I mean that you're fit or healthy or flourishing or thriving in different parts of your life—whether that's in your spiritual life, your body and physical health, your finances, your intellectual life, your relationships and emotions, your work, and your vocation. Total fitness is flourishing across the different areas of your life.

And in order to flourish in these different areas, we need life skills. We need to know what we're doing. In other words, we need wisdom. So this first talk on total fitness is going to focus on getting wisdom.

The book of Proverbs says, “Get wisdom, get insight. Do not forsake her and she will keep you. Love her and she will guard you. The beginning of wisdom is this: get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight. Praise her highly and she will exalt you. She will honor you if you embrace her” (Proverbs 4:5–8). So the first thing in getting it is simply wanting it and being determined to get wisdom.

What is wisdom? Wisdom is skill, expertise, competence that understands how life really works—how to achieve successful and even beautiful results. That’s the definition given by Ray Ortlund Jr. in his good book on Proverbs. He says that you can't just walk out onto a football field and hope for a good game or hope that you're going to succeed. If you're going to succeed in a game, you need to know what it takes to succeed and develop the skills to do it.

So wisdom is a skill, and it's being able to achieve success. It's not just having smarts, having a high IQ or a good brain. It's not just having lots of knowledge about this or that, but it's the skill, the good judgment, the ability to figure out how to succeed.

Now I'm not a football player, but I did play a lot of basketball and I've coached quite a bit of basketball for boys. And in basketball, there are some people who have a ton of talent. They can run fast, they can almost jump to the moon, they've got tremendous physical ability, they've got strength. But they don't have something called court sense or basketball IQ. And they may not even have very many skills. You can have a person who's very strong, very fast, tremendous jumping ability, and they still might not be a very good basketball player because they haven't done the drills and learned the skills that it takes to shoot, to pass properly, to use the proper technique on defense so that you can stay in front of somebody.

And so they need to be coached. They need to practice. They need to learn how to do things. And once they learn how to do those things, then they need to know how the game actually goes. They've got to get experience. And with experience comes the ability to recognize what's going on on the court—in other words, court sense or basketball IQ. There are certain things you can do just by drills and practicing and learning to make a shot, but to see who's the open man or what the right play is to make at the right moment, that takes court sense. That takes basketball wisdom, if you will.

And what we want to think about when it comes to getting wisdom is: how do you get the skills, the life skills, and how do you get the good judgment, the experience, and the proper sense of what to do when? That’s what we're doing when we're getting wisdom.

Let's think about that in a little more detail. What does it take to get wisdom? I want to focus here on six things. First of all, glorify God and put him first. Then treasure truth. You need to love truth and want it. Next thing is keep commands. Know how to take orders before you try to do too much thinking for yourself. First learn from somebody who knows better than you do. Then expand your knowledge base and research reality in many different areas and learn about it. Then accept advice. Don't just follow your own thinking or your own research, but learn from others who know more in a particular area than you do. And sometimes accept correction. You might not like it when they point out some mistake you've made, but one of the best ways to advance in wisdom is to learn from your mistakes—not just from having made those mistakes, but from somebody else who points them out to you and corrects them. And then ponder your path. Think about what's going on in your life and apply wisdom to the actual events and challenges that you face.

Let's look at these aspects in more detail. First of all, glorify God. That's what you need to do to get anywhere with wisdom. Proverbs says, and other parts of the Bible repeat again and again, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” or “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 1:7, 9:10). And what is the fear of the Lord? It's taking God more seriously than you take anything else. It's putting God first. It's knowing that God is supreme over all things and having a healthy respect or fear of the Lord. You are not smart, you are not wise, if you don't know who the most important being in the universe is.

Also, there's another reason why we need to put God first and honor and respect him and seek to know him, and that’s because all other wisdom comes from him. “The Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding” (Proverbs 2:6). You glorify him and you put him first so that you can learn from him and you can gain the knowledge and understanding on every other aspect of life. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5). The Bible says again and again that somebody who’s wise in his own eyes or who leans on his own understanding is a fool. But when you're trusting in the Lord and you're leaning on him and not just your ability to think, then you actually get wiser and wiser and wiser—because he’s the one who gives wisdom.

And all wisdom, no matter what part of life we're talking about, depends on God, was designed by God, and can be taught by God. “By wisdom the Lord founded the earth; by understanding he created the heavens” (Proverbs 3:19). Wisdom is this genius, this insight, this knowledge of all things that God has by which he made everything. God is all-wise and all-knowing. The Bible says that he is all-wise. And so you can't look at any part of life that God doesn't understand and that God doesn't know best about. He made everything by wisdom. And when you get pieces of his wisdom, then you can apply it to those areas of life that he made.

So number one when you want to get wisdom is glorify God and know that wisdom is a gift from him. “The Lord gives wisdom,” and he gives that because he made everything. And if you want to understand how to operate in his world and succeed in his world, well, he's the one who made that world. He's the one who made your mind. And if you want a mind that understands this world and flourishes in it, then you've got to put God first.

The next thing is to treasure truth. Wisdom is a gift from God, but it’s also something that you need to search for, like you're following a treasure map or like you're really after some sort of hidden treasure. The Bible says, “Seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures. Wisdom is better than jewels, and all that you desire cannot compare with her. How much better to get wisdom than gold. To get understanding is to be chosen rather than silver” (Proverbs 2:4; 3:15; 16:16).

Now there may seem to be kind of a contradiction here. We just saw that the Lord gives wisdom, and now we hear that you've got to search for it, you've got to look for it. Well, which is it? Does he give it or do I have to go get it?

The answer is both. He gives it, and you've got to want it. You've got to seek it. You've got to search for it. The primary author, at least, of the book of Proverbs—Solomon—was a young man who was just in the process of taking over the kingdom from the great King David, his father. And one night Solomon had a dream, and God spoke to him in that dream. And God said to him, “Solomon, if you could have anything you want, what would you want me to give you?”

And Solomon said, “I want wisdom. I'm just a young man, I'm a youth, I can't manage this kingdom, I can't manage all these people. I need wisdom from you.” And God was very pleased with that request. He said, “You could have asked for money. You could have asked for fame. You could have asked for the death of your enemies. You didn’t ask for any of those things. You asked for wisdom, and I'm going to give you wisdom. And when you get that wisdom, you're going to be wiser than any other king has ever been. And in the process, you're going to get money and fame, and your enemies aren't going to want to mess with you.”

So in requesting wisdom and in treasuring truth, Solomon received God's gift of it. But he would not have received it if he had not treasured it, wanted it, pursued it, and gone after it.

So to get wisdom, you know that it's a gift from God. You put God first, you depend on God, and at the same time, you pursue it. You seek it. It's a little bit even like God's great gift of salvation. It's entirely a gift from God, and certainly it's all paid for by Jesus' blood and his merit. The Bible says, "By grace you're saved." It's a complete gift, not of yourselves. And yet it says, "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it's God who works in you." So in the ultimate matter of salvation, it's a total gift, and yet you're working it out because God's working in you.

And with wisdom, it is from God completely, and yet it's something you've got to want. You've got to pursue it. You've got to wish you could have it more than you wished you got rich, more than you wish you could have gold or silver or jewels or treasure. Wisdom comes to those who want it.

In the process of gaining wisdom, a great place to begin is by listening to people, and by listening supremely to God and obeying those who know better than you do. In Proverbs it says, "Treasure up my commands." And often it's a father addressing a son, a parent addressing a child. One of the ways that kids get some wisdom starting out is simply by listening to their parents, who've been around a little longer and know better than they do.

And supremely, we need to listen to God's wisdom and his commandments—the orders that he gives in his Word, the directions and the guidance that he provides. The Bible says, "Whoever despises the word brings destruction on himself, but he who reveres the commandment will be rewarded. Whoever keeps the command keeps his life; he who despises his ways will die" (Proverbs 13:13, 19:16). So if you want to get wisdom, you definitely have to listen to God's orders. God gives orders. He gives his Ten Commandments. He gives other commands on how to direct your life. He gives so much guidance in his Word, and we need to follow that.

God provides people in your life such as parents or superiors, and one of the ways to get started on the wisdom path is simply to listen to the commands and instructions of those who know better than you do. But that's not all there is to it. Because God doesn't just want to keep giving commands and specific orders for every situation, any more than a parent wants their kids always to come back to them and not do anything unless they're directly told to do so.

After a while, you gain a sense of what the right path is—of what you ought to do—without even being told. Okay, you hear commands, you hear commands, you hear commands. And after a while, you just kind of know what you're supposed to do. You gain a sense of it. And even if a new situation comes along that you hadn't faced, the fact that you've been following commands for a while means that you're starting to get an idea of what you ought to do in that situation.

Let's get back to my comparison to basketball. When I'm coaching boys, at first I have to show them exactly how to do everything. And then, after a while, they get the hang of it. And they don't need to be told what to do—they know pretty well what they need to do. They can still use a coach for some of the higher strategies or because I see something going on in the game that they don't see. But a lot of the time, I don't want them looking over at the bench. I want them in the game, taking what they learned from me, following the commands I gave them earlier, but also improvising, using their own good sense that they've developed.

So it starts with keeping commands, but then you gain a sense. And besides, God said that by his Holy Spirit he's going to write his law on our hearts. And so his commands are not just going to be words on paper, but guidance in our hearts that God gives by the power of the Holy Spirit—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the counsel of knowledge, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. That's what the Bible says of the Holy Spirit who rested on Jesus and the Holy Spirit who lives in us.

So when God's commands are imprinted on our heart, then we become not just people who say, "Oh, Holy Spirit, tell me right now what I need to do." Sometimes we can pray that prayer, and we should. But other times we say, "Holy Spirit, give me wisdom. Help me to make good decisions by the wisdom you give me, rather than me just always needing a direct word from you or a direct sign of what I have to do." Once we've followed his commands a while and his Word is imprinted on our hearts by his presence in us, then we're ready to move on to living by wisdom—while not violating his commands, of course—but seeing beyond the guidance of the commands to new situations that the command might not have directly addressed, but now we know what to do and what he wants.

The next step of wisdom is to research reality. Proverbs involves looking at a lot of different areas of life, as does the rest of the Bible. And just a couple of examples: the Bible says, "Go to the ant, O sluggard, lazy bones. Consider her ways and be wise" (Proverbs 6:6). Just look at the ants and learn from the insects. Look at the locust—see how they march in formation. Look at this animal or that animal. Look at how God does things. Look at how things are in different aspects of life, whether it's in the animal world or anywhere else.

Part of wisdom is not just saying, "Okay, now the Bible—I've got that, and that's all there is to it." Of course the Bible is basic, and God's commands are basic. But wisdom involves living life in the situation God has put you in. And so part of wisdom is looking at the animals, looking at nature, studying people, becoming a people-watcher. And you figure out what makes people work the way they do. You see what works in life and what fails. You learn from people who know more than you do in various areas, and you research.

The Bible doesn't tell you what a green light means and what a red light means when you're driving down the road. It doesn't tell you which side of the road to drive on. If you're in one country, it may be one side of the road. If you're in another country, it might be a different side of the road. To know what signals mean, to know what's proper in a given situation, you need to learn the rules of the road. You may need a driving instructor or to take driver's education.

The Bible doesn't tell you how to run a computer. If you want to become skilled in certain kinds of work that require computers, you've got to learn that. You've got to research reality and find out how to use the various programs and software that might be necessary to learn various life skills. You've just got to figure those things out.

And Proverbs addresses quite a range of things, actually, when you get right down to it. For instance, it tells you don't be too noisy early in the morning. It says, "A man who blesses his neighbor loudly early in the morning—it will be taken as a curse" (Proverbs 27:14). If at noontime you'd given that loud, hearty blessing, he would have smiled and thanked you. But when it's early in the morning and he's still waking up—hey, he didn't appreciate your noisy blessing.

Proverbs says, "Hey, when you sit down with an important person to eat a meal, be careful. In fact, you might want to hold a knife to your throat. Because usually, when important people are serving you fine food and wining and dining you, they want something. So don't think you're just there to stuff your face—there's something else going on" (Proverbs 23:1–3).

The book of Proverbs just has all kinds of observations for all kinds of different situations in life. And one way to grow in wisdom is to read the book of Proverbs. But then do the sort of thing that Proverbs does—be an observer. Look at things that happen, and then learn from them.

Keep researching reality. Keep studying the areas of life that you're trying to learn about. So for example, if you're interested in physical fitness, you can read some of the basic Bible guidelines about taking good care of your body and offering your body to the Lord. But you may also want to learn: what is healthy nutrition? What are some good things to eat? What are some things that aren't as good to eat? What's the role of exercise in your life?

If you're wondering about healthy finances, you can read the Bible's guidelines on that. But then you're probably going to also need to know: what are the financial options in the situation we're in? What's involved in banking and bank accounts? What's involved in savings? What kind of investments are available? And so you take the Bible's underlying guidelines, and then you search out what's going on in your situation and learn more—what you might call the technical details. You research reality, and you do that in one area of life after another, and you keep adding knowledge and skill. You want wisdom. You want the wisdom that comes from God. And you want the kind of wisdom Solomon had.

Solomon had wisdom in politics. He had knowledge and wisdom and skill in human relationships. The Bible says he studied the plants. He would study the little plant that grew out of a wall. Solomon's wisdom made him interested in everything, and he wanted to learn from everything. He was interested in poetry. He was a person whose wisdom extended to so many different areas of life. He wanted wisdom. And so he didn't just pray to God and say, "Give me wisdom." He certainly did that, and God gave it. But then Solomon kept on searching and researching reality and kept adding to his knowledge base and to his wisdom and to his skill in making decisions.

Another area that might not be quite as popular is: accept advice. This is key for wisdom. "The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice" (Proverbs 12:15). We all think we're smart. We all think we're right just about all the time. And a wise person isn't always right. A wise person listens to advice. If you're always right, you can't learn from anybody. You can't learn from anything. But you're actually not wise then—unless you're God. Only God knows everything and has nothing to learn and nowhere to improve. All the rest of us are sometimes wrong and have plenty to learn and lots of areas to flourish and be improved and become more healthy.

"Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed" (Proverbs 15:22). So one thing you do when you're thinking about decisions or when you're trying to gain knowledge is you look for advisers. If you're struggling in your spiritual life, it's sometimes wise to talk to a pastor or a very mature and trusted Christian friend or to a spiritual advisor, because they might be able to help you in your walk with God. If you're looking for help in the area of health, it might be wise to consult a nutritionist—either by going to him and asking him or her for advice or by finding an excellent book on healthy nutrition or on proper exercise. If you're struggling in your emotional life, there may be a therapist who can help sort through those things, and counsel will help you.

I could multiply the examples. In finances, sometimes a person you know is really good with money, or there are paid financial counselors who may know a lot and could help you in various areas. But with advisers, you succeed. “The ear that listens to life-giving reproof will dwell among the wise” (Proverbs 15:31). And if you read the book of Proverbs, over and over again it talks about reproof or rebuke or correction. This is so, so important in becoming wise.

You listen to reproof. You accept correction. And if you don’t, you can’t get wiser. You can’t learn from your mistakes. One of the most important areas in life that you learn from is your mistakes. But our trouble is that often we don’t recognize our mistakes. If something goes wrong, we might not recognize that it’s gone wrong while it’s going wrong—unless somebody points it out. Or we might know that it’s gone wrong, and we don’t know why it went wrong. And we certainly don’t think we’re to blame for it—it’s somebody else’s fault. But “the ear that listens to a life-giving reproof, a rebuke, a correction that says, ‘Hey, that’s wrong, and you blew it, and you need to do better—and here’s how you can do better’”—we may be offended by it, but God can use that to make us a lot wiser.

The Bible speaks of people who are “the simple.” And there’s no crime in being among the simple. That just means you’ve got a lot to learn. And the book of Proverbs says, “Hey, I’m giving these proverbs for instruction of the simple.” And the wise can also add to their understanding. But the Bible doesn’t just talk about the simple who need to learn more. It also talks about “the fool.” The fool is like the simple in not knowing what he needs to know, but the fool is somebody who isn’t willing to learn. And then there’s something even worse: the mocker. The fool not only doesn’t know what he needs to know and doesn’t want to listen, but even makes fun of those who know better and mocks them and has contempt for them.

So that’s the wrong path. If you find yourself mocking when somebody tries to straighten you out or tries to help you learn something, you’re on a really bad path—towards being a fool and a mocker who’s too hardened to learn anything. But if you’re just simple, if you say, “Hey, you know, I’m not that bright or I didn’t know that much about this area, but I’m going to learn from my mistakes and I’m going to learn from people who are pointing things out”—well then, you’re going to end up among the wise.

And that means that you don’t lose your temper every time somebody points out something you don’t like to hear. Sometimes the truth hurts. “Be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger” (James 1:19). That’s how you learn to listen.

King David was a great king overall, but he did some really dumb things. One of the things he did was to take another man’s wife. And when his cover-up of that failed, then he had the man murdered. And then he went on with business as usual. And the prophet Nathan came to him and told him a story that seemed not to have much to do with the situation. And Nathan told him about a man who had a precious little lamb, and he loved that little lamb. And then some rich guy with a whole flock of sheep came and took that lamb and butchered it and fed it to somebody. And David got so angry. He said, “The man who did that deserves to die! That guy had better give four lambs back from the rich guy to make up for it.”

And Nathan said, “You’re the man. You could have any woman you want. You had plenty of women. But you stole another man’s wife.” And David confessed, “I’ve sinned.” David didn’t kill the prophet Nathan for telling him the truth—the way some other kings would kill a prophet who told the truth. So accepting advice is the way to get off the path—sometimes it’s the path to hell. If you heed a rebuke and get off that terrible path and back on the path to life again, other times it’s getting off the path of doing something really dumb and getting on the path that’ll help you flourish. But accept advice.

And then this: ponder your path. Think about where you're at. Think about what's happening. That's one of the troubles with many of us—we just don't pay attention and think. We race through life without pausing to think about what's going on and how we could do better.

The Bible says, “The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day. The way of the wicked is like deep darkness; they do not know over what they stumble” (Proverbs 4:18–19).

I remember when I was a boy out camping with some friends, and I pulled a prank on them. I took down the ropes that were holding up their tent, and it collapsed on top of them. Then I ran off in the dark. There were several tents, and I didn’t want them to know who had done it, so I raced off in the dark as fast as I could. I wasn’t going to turn on my flashlight, because then they would see the light and go chase it.

The nice thing about running as fast as you can in the dark is that other people can’t see where you’re going. The bad part about it is you can’t see where you’re going. I was running full speed, and all of a sudden I stumbled over something and I fell hard. Then I got back up, and a little later on I went back over to the campfire. When I got to the campfire, I saw that there was a hole in my pant leg. In fact, my pant leg was covered with blood. Something sharp had stabbed into my leg, and I didn’t even know it. It was numb from being stabbed, and I didn’t even know I’d landed on anything—because it was dark.

“The way of the wicked is like deep darkness; they do not know over what they stumble.” That’s what happened to me. I was racing along in the dark, and I got injured in a way I didn’t know. I didn’t realize how serious it was until I got back into the light again. Then I had medical attention and it was taken care of.

When you're in the light, you're thinking about what's going on. “Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure” (Proverbs 4:26). Think about what’s flourishing—what’s doing well in my life? What’s not? Think about your finances. Are they doing well or aren’t they? If not, why not? Think about your spiritual walk with God. Are you growing in grace? If so, how can you grow even more? If not, why not?

Think about these things. Think about: am I quick to anger? Am I upset a lot? Well, think about why that is. In many areas of life, think about the path of your feet. “Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure.”

The Bible gives examples of people who didn’t ponder until they had to. There was a king named Manasseh, a king of Judah, who was very wicked. He worshiped other gods. He was such a wicked and violent ruler that the Bible says the streets were filled with blood. And God had enough of that. So he allowed an invading army to come and capture King Manasseh, and he was led off with a hook in his nose and locked in a dungeon in far-off Babylon.

And there he had some time to think. He hadn’t listened to God before. He’d had a godly father, but he didn’t listen to him and took a totally different path. There were prophets who were alive in that time—he didn’t listen to them. He would just persecute them. But there in the dungeon, he had some time to think, and he remembered the God of his father. And he prayed and he repented. And God brought him back out of the dungeon, and Manasseh ended up back on his throne.

King Nebuchadnezzar was a king of Babylon, and he was very proud. He was very successful in his conquests, and he was warned by the prophet Daniel that if he didn’t change his ways and start being kind to the poor and humble himself, then something very bad was going to happen to him. He would lose his mind. He would go crazy. He would start eating like a cow and eating grass. His nails would grow like a bird, and he would just be bonkers.

Nebuchadnezzar didn’t listen. He didn’t listen to advice. And so one day he was walking around, strutting on the wall of the palace, and he said, “Is not this great Babylon that I have built by my power and for the glory of my majesty?” And a voice came from heaven and said, “This is what is decreed for you, King Nebuchadnezzar.” And he lost his mind. He was out there chomping on the grass and his nails were growing.

Then Nebuchadnezzar said, “After a while, I looked up to heaven, and my sanity was restored.” His mind came back to him.

Or take Jesus’ story of the son who didn’t really like his father very much—he just wanted Dad’s money. So he said, “I want my inheritance right now, even before you die.” And he got all the money that he was supposed to inherit—maybe didn’t deserve it, but he got his cut of the inheritance—and he took off with the money. He wasted it all on wild living. Then one day he found himself starving, and he was out working for a pig farmer and wishing he could eat that pig food.

Then he came to his senses. He said, “My father—even their hired men have plenty to eat over there. I will return and go to my father.” He pondered his path. In this case, he pondered the pig pods. “What got me here? Well, it was going far, far from my father. And now the only way is to go back to my father.”

And so whether it’s silly Manasseh with a hook in his nose sitting in a dungeon, whether it’s King Nebuchadnezzar chomping on the grass, whether it’s the prodigal son envying the pigs their slop—they pondered, and then they got on a different path.

And so it is with you. Whatever aspect of your life it is, be ready for correction and advice.

But also, think for yourself. Ask yourself: Is this where I want to be? How did I get here? What would it take to get me to a better place? “Ponder the path of your feet, and all your ways will be sure” (Proverbs 4:26). If you don’t ponder, you’ll perish.

The Bible says of a wicked and immoral woman, “Her feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol” (Proverbs 5:5). “She does not ponder the path of life; her ways wander, and she does not know it” (Proverbs 5:6). Isn’t that a scary statement? She doesn’t think about where her life is going—she just wanders. She doesn’t even know. And that’s a deadly thing.

So if you want total fitness, you’ve got to think. You’ve got to ponder. You’ve got to think about what’s happening in all these different areas of your life.

But let’s just suppose you’re a good person and you’re actually pretty well-behaved. Well, Ray Ortlund says, “If we have love but not wisdom, we will harm people with the best of intentions.” You love them. You want the best for them. But you don’t have the wisdom to know what’s best for them.

Sometimes, for instance, you can try to help a poor person. But if all you do is throw money at them when in fact they’ve got a drinking problem, you didn’t help at all. Your good intentions were there, but you didn’t help. You may love somebody and you may give them advice on nutrition, but if you don’t know anything about nutrition, you might make them sicker.

So good intentions and love aren’t enough. You need wisdom to actually be able to help people. If we have love but not wisdom, we’ll harm people with the best of intentions. If we have courage but not wisdom, we will blunder boldly. We’re not scared—we’ll be brave—and we’ll blunder into all kinds of stuff. If we have truth but not wisdom, we will make the gospel ugly to other people. You may have all the truths nailed down and think that you know everything, and you may even be accurate in your knowledge. But if you don’t have wisdom in how you relate to other people, if you don’t have wisdom in how to present something in an attractive manner, if you don’t have wisdom about yourself and what aspects about you might turn some people off needlessly, well, then you can make the gospel ugly to other people.

So even a good person who’s loving and knows gospel truth needs wisdom—and needs it desperately—in order to flourish himself or herself and also to be of help to other people.

So in this course, let me just give a very quick overview of what we’re going to be looking for and what wisdom will be applied to. We want spiritual fitness. We want our spirit to be in tune with God, and we want to develop more and more to be like our Lord Jesus Christ.

We want physical fitness. We want healthy bodies. We want financial fitness—to know how to manage money well and not just fall into poverty needlessly. If we have to go into poverty as a sacrifice for the Lord in a particular calling, that’s one thing. But we want to be financially skilled and fit so we know how to manage money.

We want intellectual fitness—to stay sharp, to stay on top of things, to be thinking people. And that’s of course very closely related to this overall area of getting wisdom.

And emotional fitness—we need to be able to deal with negative emotions: anger, shame, despair, depression—as well as cultivating positive emotions: love and joy and peace and all those things that come as the fruit of the Spirit.

Relational fitness is skill in dealing with other people—in your marriage, in relations with kids, in relations to neighbors or people at church, in dealing with the run-ins we have, in being able to forgive and to move forward in life, in being the kind of person that other people take to. Someone who grows in favor with other people. When it said of Jesus when he grew up that he “grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52)—that'd cover four of them right there: wisdom, intellectual fitness; stature, physical fitness; favor with God, spiritual fitness; favor with man, relational fitness.

Vocational fitness—your job and the other aspects of your life where you’re called to work and to accomplish things. How do we develop life skills for that?

So those are the areas we’re going to be talking about: knowledge and life skills that will help us in these areas. And so I’m praying that this course will be a big blessing to you. And I just want you to take again this first talk and take it to heart.

Get wisdom. Revere the Ruler. Put God first. Treasure truth and really want it. And when you get it, savor it and keep getting more. Keep God’s commands and keep the commands of people who know better than you do. And then, as you go along, internalize those commands more and more so that you can understand what to do without even being told.

Research reality. Look at the broad spectrum of reality and learn from life and from experience and from other people. Accept their advice when they know a good many things. And take time to think. Ponder your path and ask, “How should I change? What could I do differently that would help me to flourish even more and make me a better tool, a better instrument, in God’s hand?” Get wisdom.

Get Wisdom!
By David Feddes
Slide Contents

Get wisdom; get insight; do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth. Do not forsake her, and she will keep you;
 love her, and she will guard you.
 The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight. Prize her highly, and she will exalt you;
 she will honor you if you embrace her.
 She will place on your head a graceful garland; she will bestow on you a beautiful crown.” (Proverbs 4:5-8)

What is wisdom?

Wisdom is skill, expertise, competence that understands how life really works, how to achieve successful and even beautiful results. (Ray Ortlund, Jr.)

Get wisdom!

• Glorify God
• Treasure truth
• Keep commands
• Research reality
• Accept advice
• Ponder path

Glorify God

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. (1:7)

For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. (2:6)

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. (3:5)

By wisdom the Lord founded the earth; by understanding he created the heavens. (3:19)

Treasure truth

Seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures. (2:4)

Wisdom is better than jewels, and all that you may desire cannot compare with her. (8:10-11)

How much better to get wisdom than gold! To get understanding is to be chosen rather than silver. (16:16)

Keep commands

Treasure up my commandments. (2:1)

Whoever despises the word brings destruction on himself, but he who reveres the commandment will be rewarded. (13:13)

Whoever keeps the commandment keeps his life; he who despises his ways will die. (19:16)

Research reality

Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. (6:6)

I saw and considered it; I looked and received instruction. (24:32)

• Study animals, nature, and people.
• See what works and what fails.
• Learn from those who know a lot.
• Keep adding knowledge and skill.

Accept advice

The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice. (12:15)

Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed. (15:22)

The ear that listens to life-giving reproof will dwell among the wise. (15:31)

Be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. (James 1:19)

Ponder your path!

But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day. The way of the wicked is like deep darkness; they do not know over what they stumble…

Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. (4:18-19; 26)

Ponder or perish!

Her feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol; she does not ponder the path of life; her ways wander, and she does not know it. (Prov 5:5-6)

Goodness needs wisdom

If we have love but not wisdom, we will harm people with the best of intentions. If we have courage but not wisdom, we will blunder boldly. If we have truth but not wisdom, we will make the gospel ugly to other people. (Ray Ortlund, Jr.)

Total fitness

• Spiritual fitness
• Physical fitness
• Financial fitness
• Intellectual fitness
• Emotional fitness
• Relational fitness
• Vocational fitness

Get wisdom!

• Glorify God
  
• Treasure truth
• Keep commands
• Research reality
• Accept advice
• Ponder path