All right, well, please bow your heads with me in prayer as we ask the Lord's help to understand this text this morning. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, for your goodness and kindness towards us, Lord, for giving us your word, Lord, knowing that within your word and studying it and meditating upon it and reading it and memorizing it, Lord, that it is through these means we come to know truly what the fear of the Lord is, Lord, and which is just simply an awe. not an anxiety of you, but having our breath taken away of your majesty, Lord. And it's truly, as the Proverbs say, that it's until we come to the fear of the Lord that we can truly come to know knowledge and what wisdom is. That is the foundation of it. And we just thank you for your word. And Lord, we ask for your Holy Spirit to be here with us and teach us, Lord, the conditions of wisdom and what we need to do, Lord, in order to receive it. Lord, help us and sanctify us through your word, Lord. Help us to be just drawn to a deeper understanding of the gospel. And we ask all these things in Christ's name. Amen. If you have a copy, either physical or digital, you can turn in your Bibles to Proverbs chapter 2, and we're going to be looking at this morning verses 1 through 8. Proverbs chapter 2, verses 1 through 8. So here now are the words of the Triune God. Proverbs chapter 2, verses 1 through 8. My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding, yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom and his mouth comes knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice and watching over the way of his saints. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Well, if we want to learn a new skill, or ability. You will need to put a lot of time and effort into it. It is a principle of life, especially for us mere mortals. Few of us are actual prodigies. I've been teaching guitar for many, many years now, and one of the first conversations I ever have with students is about this principle of life. I always approach a new student, and this first conversation goes something like this. If you want to play well, if you want to learn how to guitar solo, if you want to learn a song, even if it's something simple like three chords, then there's things that you must do, or that you need to do in order to achieve this goal, to play guitar well. And once I start to teach them, once I start to teach them how to play on a metronome, how to run scales, how to practice chord changing, to achieve this goal, there's all of a sudden this dawning or this look on their face of, this isn't as easy as I thought it would be. This is a lot more difficult. than I imagined. And, you know, the difficulty will breed, ultimately, discouragement, and so they will stop practicing. And I often had parents come and ask me, you know, why isn't my son or my daughter improving at guitar? I'm paying all this money for guitar lessons. Why aren't they improving? And my answer was always the same. If you want them to improve, or if they want to improve, then they're going to need to practice. And I share this story because our passage this Lord's Day teaches us that if we want wisdom, then there are certain things that we must do. Wisdom does not come by opening our Bibles to the Book of Proverbs, placing it under our pillow, and sort of via osmosis as we sleep, wisdom is sort of like uploaded into our brain. That would be a great way for it to work. But I think all of us know that that is not the way that it works. What we learn in Proverbs chapter 2, our passage this morning, verses 1 through 8, is that there are actual conditions to wisdom. We're going to see some if and then statements. We learn in our passes that there are four things a Christian must do to attain wisdom, and wisdom is simply this skillful living that is in accordance with God's law. It's skillful living in accordance with God's law. And so wisdom includes things like discernment, discretion, having prudence, Attaining knowledge, but not just simply a knowledge, but also understanding it. And applying it in such a way, in a skillful way, that is in accordance with God's law. This is what wisdom is. There's much more to be said about that, but suffice to say, that is wisdom. It is skillful living in accordance with God's will and law. And it's something that we desperately need to have in this fallen and broken world. It's a way in which we navigate it in a godly way. And so our outline is twofold. We're going to look at the conditions of wisdom, and I'm warning you, this is the longer heading. And then our second heading is the consequences of wisdom. This is going to be much shorter. So once I'm done with the first heading, you might be thinking, OK, well, the second one is going to be long. It's not going to be as long. It's actually rather quick. OK, so so beginning with our first heading, the conditions of wisdom, let us read verse one. It reads, My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, I want us to notice this phrase, my son. It's an endearing expression. It's actually expressing love from a father to a son. It also is a phrase that communicates a sense of seriousness. My son is an indicator that what follows next is of the highest importance. It is though this father is standing before his son, he pauses, looks at him, and what comes out of him is Proverbs chapter 2. Proverbs chapter 2 is actually this long sentence from a father to a son. And these are words that you would hear a father give to his son before he leaves to college. These are words that you might hear from a father right before his son deploys to war, or goes off to a foreign land, maybe to work, maybe he's accepted his first job, or is about to get married. And love this father reminds his son about the first condition of wisdom, which is to receive his words and treasure his commandments. Now, I want to be clear that the evidence suggests that the father's words transcend mere human opinion, ideas, and thoughts. In other words, it's just not the father's ideas, words, thoughts, that he's kind of just coming off the cuff, giving advice. And how do we know this? Well, many times in the Hebrew and in the Bible, when someone says, my words, it really is a synonymous phrase with God's words. or God's commandments. Fathers also felt the responsibility to obey God's commandments, to teach God's commandments to their sons. And we see this in Deuteronomy chapter 6, in verses 6 through 8, which say, this is God speaking to the Israelites, and God says, these words which I am commanding you today shall be on your hearts. He's talking to the parents here. And he says, you shall teach them diligently to your sons. and shall speak of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up." So suffice to say, the father of Proverbs 2 is reminding his son to receive and treasure God's word and commandments. And the father's words, his advice to his son, these are also in accordance with God's will and God's law as well. And we need to look at the two words here, the words receive and treasure. These are very, very important to note. And in essence, what the father is saying is, I don't want you to receive just to forget. I think parents might know what that is, right? I don't have any kids, but I know I've gone to my library multiple times and I've picked out a book and I grab it, open it, and I see it's highlighted and marked up. And I think to myself, when did I read this? Like, when was it? And then after a while I start skimming through the pages and go, okay, I actually did read this, and somehow I just forgot. But the point I'm trying to make is that we really are prone to forget God's Word. This is something that takes initiative, it takes work, and it's something that we ultimately need to receive in order to keep, to receive in order to not forget. We also look at the word that means treasure. And in the Hebrew, this word treasure means to hide, it means to conceal, it means to store up. And in fact, it's actually the same Hebrew word used to describe what Moses did in order for Moses' mother to hide Moses from death. She concealed him. To treasure does not mean to put out a sight where nobody can see it, but rather it means to place it where it is protected and can never be taken away. where he could be protected and never be taken away. One commentator writes, this father is teaching his son that if he wants to be wise, that he needs to become like Solomon's temple, whose inner sanctuary safeguards and houses the Word of God. This is the first condition of wisdom. Dear saints, we ought to remember this. If we want to become wise, then we need to receive and treasure God's Word. And how is it that we receive and treasure God's Word? How is it that we, specifically here, actually receive it? Well, it's quite simple. And the answer is, we simply read it. We read God's Word. Today we are blessed to have such open and easy accessibility to God's Word. 20 million Bibles are sold in the United States each year. It's the number one selling book. Every year you could bank on it. Yet despite this incredible blessing that God's Word is everywhere, especially here in the United States, a 2021 survey found that only 11% of American adults read their Bibles daily. And some might want to comfort themselves or maybe object and say, well, Julio, that's the general American adult population. I'm not, you know, I'm not sure how professing Christians would survey, right? What about that? Well, Barna Research Group found that only 18 percent, less than one of every 10 professing born-again Christian read their Bible every day. Others may want to ease themselves as well and say, well, life is busier. people have less time than they used to. And while this objection might be true, we do definitely live in a much busier world, much busier time, but the truth is that our time is always given to that which we treasure. Our time is always given to that which we treasure. And John Piper was right when he said that the great use of social media is that it will prove that on the last day God's people did not lack time for Him. God's people did not lack time for Him. And so, dear saints, there is time to receive God's Word. We ought to make time to read it. Once again, we're prone to forget when we need to read it in order to keep it. But it's also not enough to simply read God's Word. You and I also must treasure it, hide it, and conceal it within us. And I believe Proverbs chapter 22 gives us a clue as to what it means to treasure God's Word. And I want us to just listen to verses 17 and 18 of Proverbs 22. It says, incline your ear and hear the words of the wise and apply your heart to my knowledge. For it will be pleasant if you keep them with you, if all of them are ready on your lips. So to apply your heart or to keep them within you is this reference to memorization. And it isn't a memorization for memorization's sake. It's not a memorization in order to flex and to impress your family and friends of how much scripture you know, but rather it is a memorization for the day of trouble, for the day of temptation, discouragement, of loss, of the time when we need discernment. It is being like David in Psalm chapter 119 when he said, I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Or like verse 50 of Psalm 119, this is my comfort in my affliction, that your promises give me life. It's a memorization for nourishment's sake. It's for the day of temptation and trouble. And this is also modeled with Christ our Lord. Each time Satan thrusted a temptation at Christ in the wilderness, the response from our Savior was specific citations of Scripture. When Satan said, make these into loaves of bread, if you truly are the Son of God, Christ's response was not a rational argument, nor did he appeal to his feelings or anything, but rather he appealed simply to Scripture itself, the Son of God. He cited Deuteronomy chapter 8 verse 3 and said, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Christ in the wilderness is not only an example, but also a reminder of the importance of receiving and treasuring up God's Word. If the Son of God used temptation, I mean, used Scripture to fight temptation, how much more ourselves? Dear saints, we cannot live a wise life apart from the reception and memorization of God's Word. And so continuing with verse 2, it reads, make your ear attentive to wisdom and incline your heart to understanding. Now when I first read verse 2, I couldn't help but think of a time where I spent really late at night with my great grandfather. And he grew up in South Texas on ranches, which are very, very far apart. And he was telling me a story about how when he was maybe eight, maybe even 10 years old, nine or 10 years old, actually, how him and his friends in the evening after they were done with the with their work on the ranch, helping their parents, how they would go to a house or go to a home where they knew where there was a radio. And my great grandfather, he didn't grow up rich. He actually grew up very, very, very poor. He didn't come from a family that had much means. But him and his friends would go out to this house and they would try to get as close to the radio as possible to listen to this famous Mexican singer. I forgot the name of who the singer was, but he said that him and his friends would get as close to the house and they would lean on trees. to sort of hear the music that was inside. He said we would also attempt to even get as close to the house and maybe lean on the window to listen to the to the radio or listen to the the record player that they were playing. To still this day they don't they didn't really know what exactly it was but this was a treasure to them. It was something that they enjoyed and I could just imagine you know my grandfather and his description of them leaning as little boys just trying to get you know, some sort of enjoyment out of this treat which was music, right? Today it might sound odd to us because we have Spotify and Apple Music and we can just listen to music whenever and wherever we are. But dear saints, in a similar way, the work required for wisdom demands us to lean forward and give our devotion to God's revealed Word. To make your ear attentive and heart inclined means to give a conscious effort and concentration. It means that we are to extend, to stretch and bend our entire mind, heart, body, and soul to the Word of God. But even more than a willingness to listen, more than an inclination of a heart to receive God's Word. Verse 2 is really about an attentive obedience, as one scholar writes. That is to say, it is an attentive ear with a heart to obey. It is an attentive ear with a heart to obey. Dear saints, here is the second condition of wisdom. We may receive and treasure God's Word, but without obedience, wisdom will never come. We may receive and treasure God's Word, but without obedience, wisdom will never come. The Westminster Shorter Catechism asks, what do the Scriptures principally teach? And the answer, some of us might know, is the Scriptures principally teach what we are to know concerning God and what duty He requires of us. In other words, the Scriptures are given to us for doctrine and duty. God has revealed himself so that we may know him, but also to obey him. Dear saints, obedience is a condition of wisdom because it is evidence, ultimately, of truly what we love, who we fear, who we respect. Jesus said in John chapter 14, if you love me, keep my commandments. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me. John writes in 1 John chapter 2 verse 3, this is how we know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. And if a good parent won't give their child a gift because of their disobedience, how much more our heavenly Father, who knows all, sees all, and can discern the heart of his children perfectly. We may be able to present our lives as obedience to the Lord in public, but the Lord also knows our private life as well. To think we could trick God to receive wisdom through a life of disobedience is folly. This is something that even the Proverbs addresses. That is the reason wisdom will never come, especially for those who practice sin, practice lawlessness and disobedience. Once again, we may receive and treasure God's word, but without obedience, wisdom will never come. So we've looked at the first condition, the second condition, and now we're moving to the third condition, which is verse 3. Read with me. Yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding. Now simply put, the father is reminding his son to pray for wisdom. And there are two things that I want us to note. First, I want us to notice the fervency of prayer, especially when it comes to asking or demanding of wisdom from God. The Father does not tell the Son to ask for wisdom. In other words, it's not an asking or a request, at least the description is not, like we would at a restaurant asking for salt or napkins. But really, this is a pleading. It is an expectation to cry and lift up your voice to the Lord for wisdom. In other words, the language describes someone who knows their lack of resources, someone who is desperate. Infants cry when they are hungry and thirsty. They raise their voice because they lack something that they know that they cannot get for themselves. And the one thing that we know about infants is that they are persistent. And when they don't get what they want, there is an intensity to it as well, until they obtain what they desire. And dear saints, when we recognize our desperate need for wisdom, and we thirst and hunger for it, we will cry for it like our very life depends on it, which it does. You and I need to pray, as the psalmist does in Psalm 119, saying, you are blessed Yahweh, teach me your statutes. Open my eyes that I may behold the wonderful things from your law." Or we need to open our mouths and plead to the Lord for wisdom like David in Psalm 25 when he says, Make me to know your ways, Lord. Teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me for you are the God of my salvation. For you I wait all the day long. And I believe the model, honestly, for asking for wisdom is King Solomon. When he ascends to the throne and takes David's throne, God appears before him and God tells him, ask what you want and I will give it. And understanding the weight of leading God's people. And I think if any of us here in this room were given that opportunity, it might have been something else. But suffice to say, Solomon asked for wisdom. He says, I don't know how to come in and I don't know how to go out. Give me knowledge. Give me wisdom in order to guide and lead your great people. This is how we ask for wisdom. Do we have a sense of need for wisdom? Do we do we feel this lack for wisdom? Do we cry out for it? And secondly, I want us to notice the placement of prayer as well. Knowing our Bible will better inform our prayer. Treasuring the Word will give us language as to what to pray for. Oftentimes when we pray, it's really in accordance with our will and our desire rather than God's. As the Shorter Catechism states when it asks what is prayer, the answer is, prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God for things agreeable. to His will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins and thankful acknowledgment of His mercies." And in Proverbs there are a few prayers, however, there is actually one that is both wise and agreeable, something that we can actually read and memorize and pray back to God. It's His own words, and this is Proverbs chapter 30, verses 7 through 9. Some of us might know this proverb, and it says, Two things I ask of you, deny them not to me before I die. Remove far from me falsehood and lying. Give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, who is the Lord? Or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God. This is a prayer that recognizes both the dangers of wealth and poverty. In wealth, we are prone to forget God exists, and we begin to depend on our own resources, our own power, our own strength. And poverty causes us, really, we tend to lean to forget of God's goodness. We are tempted to steal, and both of them bring dishonor to the Lord. One of the best ways we can pray and know it is in accordance with God's will is to pray in sincerity these words back to Him. Knowing His Scripture is going to benefit our prayer life. We can only do that if we know Scripture itself and treasure it. Now we move to the fourth condition of wisdom, which is in verse 4. Go ahead and read with me. If you seek it like silver and treasure it, as for hidden treasures, or search for it, sorry, for it as hidden treasures. Now here is a metaphor that reminds his son where to spend his energy. The verb seek, in search, describe really a passionate pursuit of something. And it is a passionate pursuit of something that is of such rarity. Something that is not only rare, but also of high value. And even when I'm reading this text, or verse four, or even language that is similar to it in the Proverbs or the Psalms, I'm always reminded of the California Gold Rush. In January of 1848, a man by the name of James Marshall discovered gold at Sutter's Mill in California and the news spread out quickly where the gold was and thousands upon thousands of people left their homes from all across the nation and from different countries, 90,000 to be accurate, just to search out and mine for this gold. And they knew that in this passionate pursuit, that once they achieved or acquired this rare gold, this something that was rare and high of value, that it was really going to alter their life and change their future forever. Well, dear saints, if here's the fourth and final condition of wisdom, which is simply to study God's Word. What the mill is for the miner, the Bible is for the Christian. And what gold is to the miner, God is to the Christian. And just as a miner can never have enough gold, so also the Christian can never get enough of his Lord and Savior. The beauty and wonder of the Scriptures are that because it is God's Word, we can never come to its end. I could read the book of Ephesians in 20 minutes, however it would take my entire life to come to the bottom of it and the truths that are found in there. Augustine actually echoes this in one of his writings. He says, the depths of the Christian scripture is boundless. Even if I were attempting to study them and nothing else, from boyhood to decrepit old age, with the utmost leisure, the most unwary zeal, and with talents greater than I possess, I would still be making progress in discovering their treasures. And what do I mean by study? Well, it's very similar to school. To study is not merely to read. It's not merely to memorize. To study is to devote time and attention, to be in a passionate pursuit, to comprehend the meaning and significance of God's Word. There's one thing to read Isaiah 53, there's another thing to memorize portions from it, and there's a completely different thing of seeing it in light of Christ's person and work, and the redemption of salvation for all of humanity. We should passionately, or be in the passionate pursuit of pursuing God's Word, of studying God's Word. So, dear saints, I know some of us might feel the burden of these conditions, maybe a sense of failure and duty towards God. But what I want to say is this, is that yes, God does demand all of our time and he is worthy of it. He's due all of our attention and focus and our worship as well. However, the one thing we can give him is a heart that wants to make time for him. This is the fourth condition of wisdom. One commentator writes, wisdom is given to minors, not the mindless. So will we be a people that pursue and study God's Word? This is the fourth and final condition of wisdom in Proverbs chapter 2. So now we move to our last heading, the consequence of wisdom. Read with me Proverbs chapter 2 and we're going to look at verses 5 through 8. I will just read them in its entirety. And it says, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom. From his mouth comes knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice and watching over the way of his saints. So, dear saints, it is not until we read, it's not until we memorize, obey, and study God's Word that we will come to understand the foundation of wisdom, which is found in Proverbs 1, verse 7. And it is the beginning of knowledge, or the beginning of wisdom, is the fear of the Lord. And now, many people have a lot of questions. Okay, well, what does the fear of the Lord mean? Well, in the Bible, when it says, fear the Lord, it doesn't mean to have an anxiety, but rather to have an awe. Not a terror, but a reverence of God. Not to have dread, but to have a respect. And our passage this morning is about how we come to establish the fear of the Lord. A couple of months ago I stayed up pretty late with Paula. And she went ahead and went to bed. And like one always does, especially when you can't sleep, you turn on Netflix. And so I turned on Netflix and there was a new documentary that was out and it was about Winston Churchill. And I had always known the character of Winston Churchill and how he, you know, his tenacity and his really his spine of steel in order to not surrender to the Nazis who are right over the English Channel. This documentary was a three-part series and you really got to understand why and how he did what he did. And there was much respect that I had for Winston Churchill after that documentary. I had this sort of surface level of who he was. or an infant understanding of his sort of role in all of World War II. And really what I understand was really that Churchill was good, that Hitler was bad. And after the documentary, I began to read more about him. I began to study more about him. Even some quotes that I knew of him, when they were put in context, I thought, oh, well, that makes a lot sense. And it's also a lot more profound, right? Suffice to say, watching this documentary really got me into digging more about Winston Churchill. Well, dear friends, I mention this because some of us this morning know or might have a simple understanding of God and also the world in which we live in. We might say that God is good and Satan is bad, but when we come to the Scriptures and we begin to study it, memorize it, read it, We learn that God is more than good, but that God is God. That the Lord is not a bigger and better version of you, but that you and I are nothing like him. That he is imminent, yet transcendent. That he changes the world, but he himself never changes. That he creates, yet he is the uncreated. That though you and I depend on so many things in this world, he is independent of all things. and that His ways are not our ways, and that His thoughts are not like ours. This is what I mean by we come to finally understand the Godness of God, or that God is God. And this actually happens multiple times in the book of Ezekiel, where God will act in such a way, and He will say, then you will know that I am God. And when we start to press into the Scriptures, When we begin to read about who He is, we will come to that knowledge. And that is, dear saints, the foundation of wisdom. Without a fear of the Lord, wisdom will never come. And these conditions that we just went through are the requirements in order to come to this fear. And it's something that we should actually take very, very seriously. Lastly, notice that once we come to the fear of the Lord, we just don't simply come to a knowledge, but we also come to this understanding that the Lord actually is our shield. He safeguards us. Read with me verse 6. He says that for the Lord gives wisdom. He is the source of wisdom because He is wisdom. But also if you read verse 7 and 8, it says, He stores up wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice and watching over the way of His saints. And in my sermon thus far, you've heard me say the word, dear saints, often is often the way that I address people in my sermon or the congregation. But in our Bibles, the word translated, saints, in Hebrew is hasid, which is a related word to the word that many of us might know, which is hesed. God's steadfast love, His specific love for His people. It's this covenantal love, and the word Hasid is the same name for God's people that were redeemed out of Egypt, out of the bonds of slavery of Egypt. I think it's important for us to realize that today, because Christ has come to die the death that we deserved and to live the life that we could not, The Hasid, in the fullness of time, are those who are redeemed by the blood of Christ. The Hasid are not, or the saints are not, some super spiritual Christian. It's not this Christian 2.0, but it is one that fears the Lord, that trusts in Christ, is the one that is obedient to his commandment. And the promise here for us is that once we come to know the fear of the Lord, place our faith in Christ, that God is not only our professor, but he is also our protector in this life. He is our shield. He is watching over us. He is guarding our paths. And this is just a wonderful joy to know. And it's the reason why in Psalm chapter 23, David is confident in saying that surely the Lord's goodness and loving kindness will pursue me all the days of my life and that he will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. So what a blessing is it that when we come to the fear of the Lord, when we come to trust in Christ, that he's not only our professor, but also our protector. So let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, for your word. We thank you for your wisdom. Lord, there is much wisdom that is needed in this world. We need wisdom in order to guide our church, to lead the people of God. May we ask for wisdom to lead our families. May we be in this passionate pursuit in order to lead our church, Lord, and to live a godly life that is worthy and honoring to You. Lord, may we be serious about the spiritual disciplines as well. Help us to understand more and more of the gospel. Help us to dive more and more into sin and more and more into righteousness. And we ask all these things in Christ's name. Amen.