Sermon Tone Analysis

What is wisdom?

Why is wisdom important?

Where can we get wisdom?

What do we do with wisdom once we have it?

Today’s Question: What happens when we are not content with wisdom?

The call to obey the Father’s wisdom

Wise lips build others up

Wise lips show discretion

Discretion: the quality of behaving or speaking in such a way as to avoid causing offense or revealing private information.

Wise lips are not gossip speakers but Gospel preachers

Wise lips preach the Gospel

Wise lips protect understanding

You may think to yourself, “I’m not a priest” but look at what Peter says about you

Wise lips suckle the Word of God

Let the Word of God rest often on your lips.

It’s wisdom can make even the most foolish wise.

It has the power to transform hearts.

It will endure kingdoms, persecutions, and time itself.

The Word of the Lord will never pass away.

It is God breathed profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness.

It equips the believer for every good work.

It is the authority of God, it is clear in its instructions, it is necessary for knowing God and His will, it is sufficient in its content.

There is no other text in all of human history that can compare to Scripture.

It is compiled of sixty-six books written over a period of two thousand years by regular people.

Shepherds, fisherman, tax collectors.

Yet they had one thing in common.

Every word they wrote was inspired by the Holy Spirit meaning that it might as well have been God writing the words Himself.

There are no errors or contradictions.

Let there be no debate, let there be know confusion, where there is no vision the people perish.

His word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.

His Words are faithful and true.

They are an anchor in the storm and a stronghold in times of war.

They are sunshine cutting through storm clouds and the life giving rain that causes crops to grow.

They proclaim freedom to the captive and rest for the weary.

Wise lips are only as wise as the wisdom they speak.

So let your lips be filled with the wisdom and Word of God.

The temptation to disobey the Father’s wisdom

We are going to look at this passage from two different perspectives

The woman referred to here is symbolic for foolishness

The woman referred to here is a person

First lets talk about the adulterous woman in regards to the personification of foolishness.

Satan has many tricks to try to get us to walk away from wisdom.

There are so many philosophies and world views in our culture today that try to tell us that being a Christian is old fashioned, its racist, its sexist, its homophobic.

There are all these other quote unquote “truths” that bombard us.

On top of that there is a temptation for all of us to live a life of self gratification.

To serve ourselves and do whatever it takes to make ourselves happy.

The trap that Satan sets before us is the promise of satisfaction in a place that can’t offer it.

There is a show on television that I believe really captures the theological impact of this passage.

That show is Spongebob.

In the show Plankton sits down for dinner and his computer wife Karen has cooked up for him a delicious meal, holographic meatloaf.

(Show Picture) Sin can be a lot like Plankton’s meatloaf.

It promises fulfillment but can’t keep its promise.

The temptation to live foolishly drips with honey.

It is flattering.

It tells us we deserve to make ourselves happy.

It builds us up with empty praise and self exaltation but all the while it leads us to destruction.

The sweet flattery of sin turns to bitter wormwood.

It cuts our hearts and flows over with insecurity, guilt and shame.

It leads us to death and to separation from God.

Is my life built on Foolishness or on Wisdom?

Now lets look at it in regards to relationships

Dating can be a really difficult thing especially when you guys are as young as you are.

The approach I see in most young people when it comes to dating isn’t rooted in questions like, does this relationship honor God, does this person love Jesus and have a growing relationship with Him, do I love Jesus and have a growing relationship with Him, do we build each other up, could I see this person being my lifelong ministry partner?

Instead it is usually, does this person give me attention?

I like attention!

This person is now my boyfriend or girlfriend.

When we build our relationships on flattery and attention seeking we find that we have to try to do more and more to get it from the other person.

I like when this person gives me attention and they only do that when I am sexual with them so I am going to give myself to them in hopes that they can somehow fill this empty feeling I have inside me.

What Proverbs is trying to teach us here is that we cannot be fulfilled by adulterous relationships.

They will never satisfy.

The foolish give into flattery, deception, and sexual immorality

The wise develop in their purity, integrity, and sanctification

What do I mean by purity, integrity, and sanctification?

Purity: the state of being clean

Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe, sin had left a crimson stain He washed it white as snow.

Purity isn’t something to chase after but is instead something to rest in.

Jesus has already achieved purity on our behalf.

If you feel like you have gone too far or feel like you’ve given away a part of yourself that you can never have back I want you to know that God offers grace and forgiveness freely to all who come to him.

You can be made pure by the grace that Jesus lavishes on us.

Because of Christ we are made righteous.

We are pure.

Purity is finding identity in that truth.

Christ has made me pure, why would I then turn to live in impurity and the sins in once I formerly walked when Christ gave his life to give me a new identity.

Integrity: Doing what is right when nobody is watching.

How we live our lives is important.

We honor God and please Him when we act according to His word.

If wisdom is knowing the right thing to do in a situation and doing it and integrity is doing what is right even when nobody is watching then the two go hand in hand.

Wisdom and integrity are two halves of the same coin, that coin being Christian ethics.

Our lives are living sacrifices to the Lord.

Every second we are alive is a gift from God to be used for His glory, to serve His kingdom and to do what is right.

Sanctification: The process of being made more into the image of God.

The more we grow in our relationship with God the more we begin to think, speak, and act like Him.

Every time we choose to stand against temptation it creates in us a steadfast faith.

God doesn’t just call us to say no to sin but to say yeas to sanctification.

Sanctification gives us far more than our sin could ever do.

Living in sanctification isn’t saying no to sin it is saying yes to God’s will for our lives.

Why is it so important to build my life on Wisdom?

Why is purity, integrity, and sanctification so important?

The best way to avoid the lure of the foolish woman is to never put yourself in her path.

“keep your way far from her. Don’t go near the door of her house.”