Or it's something, you know, that's for my parents. You know, that's my parents' God, and they can have their God, but I don't want nothing to do with it. Maybe that's you. There's no fear anymore. There's no fear of God anymore. People today, I mean, you've seen it on social media, you've seen it on the news, you've seen it in your schools, maybe that you're in, it's a public school, or even in Christian schools. There's no fear of God. There's no reference. People don't understand what the word fear of God is, and I'm gonna explain that. What comes to mind when you hear fear of God? Or a God-fearing person? Is it someone who's scared in the corner? A person who never smiles, maybe? I mean, we've seen some of those Christians who just never smile. They're just straight-faced the whole time. And you're like, man, did God even save you? Or a person who never laughs? A person who says a lot of thee and thou's? A person who comes from a big family, maybe? People who wear suits to church or dresses if you're a lady? Maybe it's a guy that has, or a girl that has a verse tattooed on their arm. God-fearing? Or maybe they have verses on their Instagram feeds or their Facebooks. You know, does that mean they're a God-fearing person? Or maybe a legalist. Or maybe, you know, they're called a God-fearing person. They're called a Pharisee. Churches today stay away from the use of the term God-fearing or the fear of God. They want you to feel comfortable. They think it's Negative, but really, we know it's a positive term. Did you know that Jesus feared God? Not that He was scared or because He sinned, we know He's sinless, but He had an honor, a respect for the Father. And He left us in a dam. I want to show you today what a biblical, reverential fear of God looks like, and how it looks like in your life, from the Word of God. You see, fear of God is the central theme, the big idea, the overarching message in the book of Proverbs. If you get this, you will understand everything in the book. You will understand everything in the book. And then the Word of God. We're gonna go through four points. Four steps to learn and live the book. Forms of learning. the foundations of knowledge and foolishness, and the formula to how to do it, how to fear God. That's what we're gonna be looking at. If you have your papers, you can follow along. We're gonna look at the first point. To know wisdom and instruction. Look there in verse two. To know wisdom and instruction. And I'll just read the whole thing. To perceive the words of understanding, to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity. To give subtlety to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion, a wise man will hear and will increase learning, and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels. To understand a proverb and the interpretation, the words of the wise and their dark science. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. Heavenly Father, Lord, I thank you for this time. I thank you for your word, and I thank you for showing us how we can have a fear for you, what a biblical fear is. Oh God, would you speak to our hearts this morning? In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. Amen. So what is wisdom? Wisdom, we know God is wisdom. We know wisdom belongs to him, it is who he is, and it is a gift from God. A wise man is a man skilled in godly living. We see the instruction, discipline, chastening, and correction. What does that mean? Discipline is to train younger men so they will have more self-control and godly character. Chastening is to punish in order to correct or make better. For whom the Lord loveth, he chastens, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth, he bespoke. And correction, correct wrongdoing, to right. Say you were driving down the road and you're going off the side of the road into the rails or going to the left and going into oncoming traffic. God puts you back on the right path and right within the lanes. It's to learn what the text says. And there's a study To perceive, to discern words of understanding. It's to meditate, to figure out why the text was given. So these are the four steps. To know the blessings that can come from God's word if we follow after Him, follow after righteousness. And to tell us, to warn us of the hurts. of the pain, of the suffering that can happen if we decide to go our own way and to not follow it. To receive instruction in wisdom, in wise behavior, in justice, in righteousness, morally and legally, and in judgment, justice, and equity, just and fairness. Really, This is teaching us to receive, meaning to practice. It tells you how to practice the Word of God. And lastly, it's to give. To give the simple or the naive. Now, what is the simple? What is the naive? The simple is someone who really doesn't think about consequences, really doesn't think about what would happen if I do this. They have no ruler. They just do whatever they feel like doing. They're unwilling to be trained. They're unwilling to learn from godly people in their life. They're unwilling to learn something. They don't think about the consequences. Is that you in your life where you don't think about the consequences? Or you don't care about the consequences? And just to give the young man our prudence, give a simple prudence, meaning considers the consequences. So he went from not considering the consequences to now considering the consequences. He said, man, if I do that, this is gonna happen. If I do this, God will bless me. Let's give a young man knowledge and discretion. It is dangerous, it is dangerous when a Christian just gets knowledge and doesn't apply to the world. You see, growing up, if you grew up in a Christian home, if you go to a Christian school, if you have Bible every day, if you're headed to a Christian college, you're gonna have Bible every single day. And that's a blessing. That is a privilege to study the word of God every day. But if it just remains as knowledge, then you don't get your part. It's just gonna be in your mind. And that's why you have to have discretion, discernment. Choosing the best possible choice really is discipleship. If I were to ask you, who have you discipled? Is there anyone? Maybe even your siblings. Who has a younger sibling? Do I have younger siblings? How often have you taken the time to disciple your younger brother or sister? to share God's wisdom that what you're learning in the scriptures or even go through a book. This is the fourth step, to give, to disciple, that's what it's talking about. And here, this is a quick format. To know is to study. To perceive is to meditate. To receive is to practice, to put it into practice. And to give, is to disciple, to train others as well. With point number two, the forms of learning, verses five and six, a wise man will hear and will increase in learning. You see the passive, and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels, the active. So the passive is you're hearing the word of God, maybe through preaching, Maybe through watching videos of sermons online or listening to it, or people teaching it to you, like I'm doing right now. But it doesn't just stop there. You've got to seek wise counsel. That's what the verse is saying. Shall attain or acquire wise counsel or counselors. Who can you run to? Who can you go to for wise counsel? It might be your mom or your dad. might be a godly teacher or a godly person here at church, I would highly encourage you to find something that can teach you, that can give you wise counsel. We know that there is safety in a multitude of counsel. It is an active search, it is an active way of learning to seek wise counsel. And why do we do this? to understand a proverb, the easy verses, and the interpretation, the words of the wise and the dark sayings, pretty much meaning the hard verses that we're gonna find in the book of Proverbs, the riddles. Third point, we're going through this quickly, because I know y'all want to eat lunch, so. Foundation of knowledge. It is the fear of the Lord. Look at verse seven. Verse that you should circle in your Bible, circle number seven. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. So what is the fear of the Lord? The fear of the Lord is this word called reverence. You've heard it, maybe you don't know what it means, but reverence is having a proper view of who God is. It is having an awe, an honor, a respect for God's greatness. plus a love for His goodness. It is an attitude toward God. It is a hard attitude toward God. That is what reference states. The beginning of knowledge. What the writer Solomon here is saying is the cheapest, the most important thing that you ought to learn is the fear of God. The knowledge, truth. What is knowledge? It's the truth. and of God himself. That is what we're learning. We're learning truth and we're learning who God is. What is the foundation of foolishness? What is the foundation of a fool? Fools. I did a word study in Proverbs and it really means morally corrupt. They don't have a sense to know better. They can be mean, they can be selfish, They can be just wanting to have fun, just wanting to experience physical pleasures in this life. There's nothing wrong with having fun. I mean, I like having fun. I like going skiing, shooting, four-wheeling, you know, all that. But if that's all we want to do, do we have a fear of God? It says they despise wisdom. hold in contempt, to belittle, to ridicule, to reject, to refuse, to fear God. They don't want anything to do with us. They're like, God, you stay over there, I'll stay over here, I'm gonna live my life just the way I want to. They want to be their own God. They want to be their own master, their own ruler. They want to be their own authority in their life. Is that you? And friends, look, they refuse the same things that we're told to acquire in verse two. In verse two it says, to know wisdom and instruction. So the exact things that me and you as Christians are supposed to be learning, a fool despises all of those things. They don't want nothing to do with it. I love this quote. What the alphabet is to reading, notes to reading music, and numerals to mathematics, the fear of the Lord is to attaining the revealed knowledge of this book. So just like you need to learn the alphabet to read, just like you need notes to play music, just like you need numbers to do mathematics, you need the fear of the Lord to understand knowledge. And I put in there applying, because you're not only attaining, but you're applying the Word of God to your life. Four, a formula to fear God. This is knowing, okay, I know what fear of the Lord is, now how can I do it? Turn to chapter 2, Proverbs chapter 2, just a page over. Proverbs chapter 2, starting in verse 1. My son, look at the if, the if word, there's three ifs here. My son, if thou will receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee, so that thou would climb thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding. Yea, if thou cryest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding, if thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures, then shall thou Understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God. So we see the passive search, and we see the active search. The passive, receive, receive my words. If your dad or mom ever told you to listen, they're like, listen to me. This is what he's saying. And hide them in your heart. Hide them within me. So that's receiving. and incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart unto understanding." So that's the passage. That is, really, we're just sitting there and absorbing everything that's coming to us. But then there's the act of searching. In verses three and five, "'Yea, if thou cryest after knowledge, liftest up thy voice for understanding, and thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as hindrance.'" This is the personal study the personal wanting to know who God is, your study, your sacrifice, the searching. It is like a treasure hunter going on a mission to dig up gold, to find treasure, and he won't stop until he finds the gold. He won't stop pursuing until he finds that treasure, and that's what you and I ought to do. I think it can be so easy to just come to church Right? We're being fed richly by the Word of God. And that is a blessing. That is a praise because many churches aren't having that in their churches. But if our only dose of Bible is once a week, man, we're going to struggle. We're going to suffer. The majority of churchgoers do this. They're like, man, what a great message. Praise God. And then when they go home and live throughout the rest of the week, there's nothing there. I mean, you'd be surprised if you open the Word of God and you search for it, you labor through it, and the Holy Spirit gives you wisdom to know what it means. But man, come Monday, come Tuesday, you're in this. Man, this is rich. Man, I love it. Man, I'm hungering and thirsting after this. I just went through that with the kids. Hungering and thirsting after righteousness. And they showed me guilt. What are you filling your life with? Are you filling your life with just experiences? With just hanging out with friends? Are you filling your experiences with maybe sin that you know you're not supposed to be battling? Sin that you dabble in now will be a life-dominating sin in time to come. Sin that you dabble into now will be a life-dominating sin in your life to come. Are you actively searching the scriptures for that treasure, for that hidden treasure that God so richly wants you to have? And then He says, Then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find knowledge of God. So if you do these things, how do you get the fear of the Lord? If you passively search and if you actively search in His Word, you will understand who God is and what His Word says. I love this, to know God is to love God. To love God is to obey God. But friends, you can obey God and not love Him. What do you mean by that? Say you have rules at home. Say you have rules at school. Or even rules here. And you follow all of them to a teeth. But your heart is in the wrong place. Or say you follow all of God's commands in Scripture. But your heart is in the wrong place. You're doing it more for yourself You're doing it just to get by. You're doing it just for your parents. If that's why you're doing it, you don't have to do it. If that's what you're doing, you're doing it in vain. It doesn't glorify God. The more we know Him, the more we'll love Him. And the more we love Him, the more we're going to want to obey Him. The more we understand what God did for us. That He sent His only Son to live the life that we could never live. to die the death that me and you deserved on Calvary, enduring the mocking, enduring the scourging, the beating, the bruising, the bloodshed that was spilt, having nine tails go through your back until he was disfigured and unknown, that's what Christ did for you. And if he hung on the cross there and shaved, naked, That was supposed to be you. That was supposed to be me on that cross. But Christ tapped you on the shoulder and you said, I'll jump in there. You see what God has done for us. How can we not say, God, I'm all yours? God, the life I have is yours. You saved me from hell. You saved me from your wrath to come. God, how do I serve you? There's only two options. You're either fear of the Lord, where you can have blessings and you can have gain. You can follow God's way, or you can be a fool. You can endure all the hurts and the losses that will come by living your own life just the way you want to. friend, it will come. I did that for 19 years of my life. I was living my own way. Yeah, I had some fun, quote unquote, fun experiences, but they don't satisfy. They don't satisfy. I'll tell you that right now. Only God satisfies. You only have two options. Which will you pursue? Which Thank you. Thank you for saving our soul. And God, I pray that if there is one who has not trusted Christ as a personal Lord and Savior, oh God, would today be the day they get saved? Would today be the day that they stop rejecting the gospel, stop rejecting Christ, stop rejecting you? Oh God, that they want a loving relationship with them. And God, I pray for those who are Christians but have not been fearing the Lord, who have been acting foolishly, doing foolish things, living their own way, going after their own desires. Oh God, would you put them back on the right path? God, I thank you that you tell us how to stay on the right path. God, may we fear you today and in the days to come. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.