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PROVERBS AND GODLY WISDOM
Lesson Seven
Reasons for Pursing Godly Wisdom
Text: Proverbs 3:13-26
The objective of this lesson: To focus on the blessing of godly wisdom as it teaches people how to behave in life.
The nature of one’s life is to pursue something. It is rare to find a person who pursues nothing. Common pursuits include a sporting interest (golf, football, basketball, baseball, fishing, hunting, auto racing, personal challenges, camping,), music, reading, marriage, parenting, extended family, cooking, academic achievements, surviving, etc. Most everyone is “into” something! Most everyone does the necessary to get to the something. The man or woman who finds no appeal in anything is extremely rare! Even if we cannot do, we imagine doing. If there is no opportunity for actually doing, there is always “wishing, imagining, and dreaming about.”
In this society (and many other societies), most persons pursue something. It is rare to find someone with no goals—though his/her goals may not be your or your neighbor’s goals.
Today’s reading discusses the blessings that come to the person who pursues godly wisdom. Pursuing wisdom produces a gain of understanding. The godly wisdom discussed is not a pursuit of merely knowing. It is more than a pursuit of “fact finding.”
Help your students distinguish between finding facts and producing understanding. Godly wisdom is much more than accumulating the right facts. Wisdom involves understanding why people who belong to God live life as they do.
Godly wisdom cannot be separated from understanding. It is focused on understanding how to behave in life. One cannot be “wise” and refuse to understand how to behave as he/she lives life, nor can one understand how to behave as he/she lives life and refuse to be “wise.” To say the least, the two are inseparable companions. To pursue wisdom is to pursue an understanding of how to live, and to pursue an understanding of how to live is to pursue wisdom.
Stress that godly wisdom and understanding cannot be separated. Godliness cannot be reduced to a rote existence that goes through the motions because one “has to.” Because he/she understands, he/she wants to. Surrendering to God is more than a “necessary going through the motions”—godly wisdom is the way to live, given all possible choices!
This text states three blessings that occur when a person seeks wisdom. The three are these:
(1) The person locates something valuable.
(2) The person locates the pleasant existence.
(3) The person will stay in touch with things that will never become unimportant.
How tragic to spend life acquiring what was considered valuable only to discover late in life there is little value in what you acquired. How tragic never to discover the pleasant existence. How tragic to use most or all of life “out of touch” with the important.
Note these three things do not involve escaping reality, but fully embracing existence. Living for the temporary, for conflict, and in an “out of touch” life does not embrace the fullness of life! As we realize that we are nearing the end of our lives, the issue is not, “I surely had fun!” but “I used my existence in helpful ways.”
Consider how the writer emphasized the value of godly wisdom. There is more profit in this wisdom than can be found in the value of silver or (refined) gold. This wisdom is more precious than jewels. It holds long life in the right hand, and riches and honor in the left hand.
Note the writer used what was commonly regarded to be of great value to affirm the surpassing value of godly wisdom. Godly wisdom offers something that gold, silver, and jewels could never offer—length of days and living a life of value.
Ask “the man on the street” what is the key to finding the valuable? He is likely to say, “Obtaining!” Surely—agreement thus far! Then ask, “Obtaining what?” The answers will include wealth in some form, or position in some situation, or power over others. Perhaps the suggestion is money because money can obtain position or power or both. Perhaps the suggestion is to have something valuable that no one else has. Perhaps the suggestion is to have or do anything you want at anytime you want anywhere you want.
Obtaining is the ultimate objective of all pursuits. The question is not about the “how” but about the “what.” Even wisdom must be obtained. The issue is not about the importance of pursuing something, but about what is being pursued.
Uh-oh! Little or no agreement on the “what!”
Most of the disagreement through the ages has focused on the object or objective of attaining, not the necessity of obtaining.
It is interesting to note that people who acquired incredible “life-changing” sums of money quickly are often worse off a few months later. It is also interesting to discover how empty and unhappy many are who acquired their dreams. People get weary of living in the fish bowl of the public eye. Having often makes one a target. When the uncommon becomes common, all that is “super-sized” is their boredom. “Dreaming” is replaced with “having,” and “having” is often not nearly as fulfilling as occasionally experiencing.
Often the thing a person looks at as the source of or means to great blessings is actually the source of or means to great curses. Acquiring what we envision as solutions may contain consequences we never considered and are totally unprepared to deal with.
How often have you thought that the solution to your problems was money? Or knowing the right people? Or being in the position to tell others what to do—and they did it? Or having the power to make your desired things happen?
Rarely can we use opportunity only in the manner and ways we envisioned. The demands of an opportunity are not restricted by only our desires. It is with the “fallout” we experience many of our problems, not with the anticipated “benefits.”
Questions: Why do so many who have their desired things also have such undesirable lives? If having “the solution” does not make misery an impossible experience, how is it the solution?
Too often that which we envisioned as being the solution to our problems only becomes another source of problems.
If those in Christ aspire to what those out of Christ have, what message does that send about being godly?
If the Christian message is, “If I could live your life, I would have no problems,” something is terribly wrong with our understanding of godliness.
Wisdom produces an existence that embraces peace, that clings to the tree of life, and that results in happiness (not the attempted escape of indulgence). Why? Simple! They belong to the Creator God who made it all.
The objective of godliness is to teach us a wisdom to use as we approach life that makes life genuinely valuable.
The results: (1) They are secure. (2) They are directed by God. (3) They can sleep without fear. (4) They do not live in dread of the wicked because their confidence is in God.
Godly existence produces desirable results. The common deceit: superior results can be found by using life to oppose God.
This is not because the wicked do not exist. It is because they have a superior life based on a superior behavior. That life is based on the Creator God. It produces beneficial relationships. When undesired circumstances come, the relationships and the Creator God remain.
Godly life is NOT lived in a vacuum that is free from all evil or influences produced by evil. Even though evil will harass the godly, still godliness produces the superior life.
For Thought and Discussion
1. Read 1 Samuel 25:2-35; alertly consider 25:31-33. How does today’s reading relate to that?
The discussion should include this understanding: for David to destroy in reaction to a defense of his personal image was an ungodly reaction. What he did would not change, but why he did it would change drastically. Instead of functioning by faith in God, he would function on the basis of his arrogance. Perhaps that is easy to see in David, but hard to see in ourselves.
2. It is the nature of life to do what?
It is the nature of life to pursue something.
3. Godly wisdom cannot be separated from what?
Godly wisdom cannot be separated from understanding.
4. In today’s text, what are the three blessings of pursuing godly wisdom?
1) The godly person locates something valuable.
2) The godly person locates pleasant existence.
3) The godly person “stays in touch” with things that never become unimportant.
5. The profit in godly wisdom surpasses what things?
It surpasses silver, refined gold, or jewels.
6. What realizations/experiences are interesting?
The things that pose as blessings but produce serious problems or disaster are interesting.
7. Godly wisdom produces an existence that does what?
It produces an existence that embraces peace, clings to the tree of life, and results in (lasting) happiness.
8. What are the results of obtaining godly wisdom? Explain why that does not mean the wicked do not exist.
Even in a world that is wicked, godly wisdom produces security, a direction for life that lives by being directed by God, and protection from fear or dread.
Link to Student Guide Lesson 7
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David Chadwell & West-Ark Church of Christ