Calvary Chapel Staten Island

Max Lucado: In times like these, we all need a word of encouragement. From pastor and bestselling author Max Lucado comes the Max Lucado Encouraging Word Podcast. With over 40 years of ministry and more than 145 million books sold in 50 languages, Max shares the greatest story ever told—the Living Savior who brings hope for a lifetime.

Through rich biblical insight and heartfelt storytelling, you'll be reminded that God is always near, always for you, and always in you. Listen to the Max Lucado Encouraging Word Podcast, where hope meets your day. Subscribe now wherever you get your podcasts.

Guest (Male): Hello and welcome to God in our City, the daily edition. Your host and Bible teacher is Pastor Dave Watson. Pastor Dave has been the pastor of Calvary Chapel on Staten Island for 35 years. In addition, he is the co-founder and president of the New York Institute for Biblical Studies.

To receive a special downloadable gift from Pastor Dave, please go to calvarychapelsi.org/gioc. That's calvarychapelsi.org/gioc. Now here's Pastor Dave and our show.

Pastor Dave Watson: Welcome, everybody, to another edition of God in our City. You've made it this far in the week. We trust that you're going to have an incredible last few days of the week. The weekend and the new week beginning are things you're looking forward to and things that you know are going to be a huge blessing.

I am Pastor Dave Watson. I have the privilege of being the pastor of Calvary Chapel on Staten Island and the host of this program and the primary Bible teacher. We're very grateful that you have joined us. We study the Scriptures here, generally verse by verse, here a little, there a little, line by line, helping us to understand what the Lord is saying to us.

We are in the middle of a study on the Book of Proverbs, about really in the middle. It's our seventh week. We're on Proverbs chapter 8. The title of our series is Living iSmart in an eStupid World. We have a ton of resources for you to make your study much more profitable and productive.

You can go to calvarychapelsi.org/gioc. You'll find there our study guides. They're free and they're downloadable. We're on week seven, but you can download all of them that way you have them. They are there for you. In addition, there's an opportunity to get the Proverbs Bible journal.

It's just the Book of Proverbs with a journal space provided for you so you can read the Book of Proverbs and record your thoughts in a journal right there right next to the page. On one side is the Scripture text, and on the other side is the empty page. Then we have our memory verses there. We'd love to give those to you.

How do you get these? Just fill in the blanks that we ask you to fill in. We'll mail it to you, and we will pay for postage and handling. Beyond that, we also have a 31-day study of the Book of Proverbs. You can download that again for free. While you're there at calvarychapelsi.org/gioc, please consider making a donation to God in our City.

We're hoping and praying, and it's our desire to be both a local church-sponsored program and a listener-supported program. Please pray about that. Don't take money from a missionary or your church, but if God would lay it on your heart to give, please obey him. Give. We'd love to have you as a supporter of our ministry.

We have been working through Proverbs chapter 8 all week, and we're going to keep doing that. It has some incredible things to say to you and me regarding our Christian experience and regarding being wise people. We're going to move into our Scripture reading, and then we're going to get right into our text today.

It's our privilege to pray for you. If you have a prayer request or a need that you want us to pray for, please don't hesitate to simply call us. Our number is 718-720-5390. You can use that number as well to leave a Bible question. We try to answer Bible questions on Friday. Or you can send them to dwatson129@gmail.com. But let's read our Scripture and get into our study for today.

Proverbs chapter 8, verses 22 through 31: "The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth, before he had made the earth with its fields, or the first of the dust of the world.

When he established the heavens, I was there; when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of man."

Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, thank you for your word. Please help us, Lord, in our moments together to appreciate it, to understand it, and to apply it. Lord, teach us this day the truths you want us to know. Work deeply in our hearts regarding this whole area of wisdom.

Help us, Lord, to make a decision to follow you with everything we have. Help us, Lord, to give ourselves fresh and anew to you even today as we think about these things. Lord, we need your help in understanding your word. We need your help to change us and make us more like Jesus. We need you, Lord. We need you every hour. We pray this in Jesus's name. Amen.

The crazy thing about the Lord is that he is a jealous God. I guess it's not crazy; it's just who he is. He doesn't want to share his glory with anyone else. He doesn't want to share you with anyone else. As I'm talking to you about the need to hire wisdom and to bring wisdom aboard, there's something that you and I have to do before wisdom is going to come and take the job as our life coach.

Listen to the words of Proverbs 3:5 and 6. We looked at them earlier. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths." Did you see what needs to happen? I need to trust in the Lord. I need to hire him as my primary, as my exclusive counselor.

I need to hire him as my life coach, but I need to do something else too. I need to fire all the other life coaches I have. I need to begin with that. Where are you and I getting most of our advice for living? Is it the media, the television programs we watch, the stuff we check out on the web, our friends in the office, our colleagues, or our neighbors?

Where are we getting most of our life coaching? Here's what we need to do today. We need to fire all those coaches because we need to begin with one coach. We need to have one life coach that we're going to listen to, and that is wisdom. That is the Lord personified in the wisdom of Proverbs.

Remember the cover letter from Proverbs? The review of wisdom, the wake-up, was, "I'm crying out to you in a powerful, public, pointed, personal way because I have noble, incomparable, and stuff I can understand wisdom." My resume is: "I associate with prudence, I affirm the fear of the Lord, and I give you sound advice." My achievements are: "I'm good at leading and good at helping you achieve great wealth and a great inheritance."

That's who wisdom is, and now it's incumbent upon you and me to fire everybody else and hire only wisdom for all our wisdom needs. That's tough, right? Because we don't want to think that we need to get rid of everybody else and not listen to anybody else. But the truth is, we need to listen to wisdom and wisdom alone.

What we have looked at here is the review of wisdom, the wisdom's cover letter, which says basically, "Wake up," because wisdom is crying out. Then the resume of wisdom is to look up and see how really privileged we are to have wisdom at our beck and call. And now we're going to talk about the references of wisdom.

Shake up. It's as if God the Creator is providing here for us a reference. He's telling us how good wisdom is. It begins with this thought that the Lord is the source of all wisdom. Wisdom is a part of God's person. That's who he is. "The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth."

Wisdom has been around for a long time. It's part and parcel of who God is. He's a wise God. Wisdom comes out of God. In a sense, he gives birth to it as part of who he is. And then wisdom is before God's creation. Proverbs 8:24 through 26: "When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth, before he had made the earth with its fields, or the first of the dust of the world."

Wisdom comes from God. It is a part of God's person, but it is before God's creation. Before there was anything else, there was God. Part of who God is, is wisdom. Wisdom existed before Genesis 1. Before there is a creation, there is wisdom. Wisdom has been there and done that. It has this wealth of experience.

Creation provides a reference. The Lord himself provides a reference and says, "Wisdom and I are tight. Wisdom comes out of me." And then creation provides a reference by telling us that wisdom is a companion of the Lord in all that the Lord has done. She participates in the work of creation.

Wisdom participates in the work of creation. Proverbs 8:27 through 29 says, "When he established," that is the Lord, "the heavens, I was there. When he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep," perhaps referring to the way the initial creation was with water underneath the firmament and above the firmament.

He's saying wisdom is a companion of the Lord. She participated in the very work of creation. It goes on to say, "When he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundation of the earth." When God established all of it, who was there? Wisdom. Who was advising God? Wisdom. Who was giving God advice? Wisdom.

The first five days of creation are really what he's speaking about here when the Lord made the heavens and the earth and the skies and the seas and the dry land. Genesis 1:1 through 23. All of that was done through and with wisdom. And she not only participates in the work of creation, she participates in the rejoicing over creation.

Day six of creation, man is made and the Lord steps back and what does he say? He sees what he's made and he said, "It's very good. It's very good." Proverbs 8:30 and 31 speak to us this way: "Then I was beside him, like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of man."

Wisdom is speaking about the creation of man. It's speaking about the workmanship of God and it's saying that in this there is this rejoicing, this incredible rejoicing because of what God has done. The word "master workman" here is the Hebrew word *amon*, which means a skilled craftsman. "Daily his delight," wisdom was used every day, and then wisdom rejoiced over the creation. "Delighting in the sons of men" here means that wisdom helped make us and wisdom delighted in our creation. Wisdom cares for us. That's why wisdom cries out for us to listen.

Where are we here now? We've laid out some pretty heavy groundwork. There's that opening cry in chapter 8 for us to wake up. Wisdom is crying to us now to wake up. Then wisdom gives us its resume and is telling us to look up at what I have done, look at who I am.

Then it's as if God comes along and says, "What, you need references for wisdom? I'll give you references. Wisdom is amazing. I'm the source of all wisdom. Wisdom comes from me. I mentored wisdom, as it were, and wisdom is part of my person. It's part of my creation." And then wisdom has been my companion. Wisdom has been with me always. She participated in the work of creation. She participated in the rejoicing over creation.

Now as you look at the fallen world that we live in, you and I admit it has some effects because of the fall, but we also look at it with marvel. We say, "How did this all come to pass?" Let me tell you how it all came to pass: wisdom. And the Lord is recommending wisdom here for a job. He's saying, "I used wisdom. Wisdom was by my side when all of this happened. When I created all of this, wisdom was hand in hand with me when I made all of this."

And then he's basically saying to you and me, "Why won't you hire her? She was good enough for me; she ought to be good enough for you. You need her. Give your heart to her." I think that's basically what he is implying here—that wisdom has a great recommendation, wisdom has a great resume, it's got a great review.

But here's the recommendation, here are the references regarding wisdom. The Lord is the source of all wisdom, and wisdom is part of who God is. Wisdom is before God's creation. Wisdom is a companion of the Lord. She participated in God's work of creation. She participated in the rejoicing over creation. Now, please, hire her.

As we begin our time together today, fire your previous wisdom givers, your previous wisdom sources, and hire wisdom. Say, "God, I want to hear from you. I want to learn from you. I want to become a wise person no matter what, and I want you to be my mentor, my instructor." Good words, powerful words, words that are true that should go down to our very core.

Wisdom was good enough for God to use, and wisdom is now available for you and I to use. By the grace of God, may you and I step out of our comfort zone and surrender and take up this book, the guidebook for living, filled with wisdom. Take it up, put it in, let it change us, and by the grace of God, may the Lord make us into the people he wants us to be.

My first and foremost thought today, though, is you can't have many different counselors. You need to start with one: the Lord. Fire everybody else and then maybe come back and add these others in a role on the outskirts, but wisdom is my primary life coach who I listen to daily, and wisdom is simply a personification of the Lord.

Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we've covered a lot of ground today. We pray for our audience. Lord, we pray that you'll give some of them the courage before this weekend is out to fire some of the people, some of the advisors that they have been listening to. Lord, help them to turn off that TV program that they need to turn off and look at your word.

Help them, Lord, to get up early and not faint. Help them to look at your providing for them. Help them in every single way to seek you, to get to know you better, just to be people who want to be wise with your help. Lord, change us so that we stop being so stubborn and we allow you to have your way in us.

Lord, thank you for your grace to us, your forgiveness to us. From this day forward, we want to be different. We want to fire what we've been listening to and hire wisdom. We pray, Lord, that that will happen in our lives in Jesus' name. Amen.

Please go to calvarychapelsi.org/gioc and take advantage of some of our free resources. Please while you're there consider making a gift to God in our City and please join us again tomorrow for another edition of the daily edition of God in our City.

Guest (Male): Thanks for listening to God in our City with your host, Pastor Dave Watson. We hope the show was a blessing to you. Again, to receive a downloadable gift from Pastor Dave, go to calvarychapelsi.org/gioc. That's calvarychapelsi.org/gioc.

Please check out Pastor Dave's blog at nycshepherd.com. That's nycshepherd.com. Please invite a friend and join us every weekday for another edition of God in our City.

Max Lucado: In times like these, we all need a word of encouragement. From pastor and bestselling author Max Lucado comes the Max Lucado Encouraging Word Podcast. With over 40 years of ministry and more than 145 million books sold in 50 languages, Max shares the greatest story ever told—the Living Savior who brings hope for a lifetime.

Through rich biblical insight and heartfelt storytelling, you'll be reminded that God is always near, always for you, and always in you. Listen to the Max Lucado Encouraging Word Podcast, where hope meets your day. Subscribe now wherever you get your podcasts.