We’re in a series called “Be Wise.” Look at somebody around you and say to them, “Be wise.” Come on, tell them again, “Be wise.” And now say this: “Self, be wise.”

We’re not talking about being educated—there’s nothing wrong with that as long as it’s good education. We’re not talking about being famous—nothing wrong with that as long as it’s for the right reasons. And we’re not talking about being rich. This is not about being popular; it’s about being wise.

I’m excited about this series, and let me just tell you why and how it was born in my heart. I’ve always—you know, my mission statement in life, the one line, is to locate and communicate wisdom. Years and years ago that became my mission statement for everything that I do. It’s not my role—I have many different roles: a father, a husband, a papa, a pastor, a writer—but my mission in life is to locate and communicate wisdom.

So I’ve always loved the idea that heaven’s wisdom is available for us. And I’ve always said, “God, if you can just help me help people by bringing your wisdom into their life, Lord, I feel so fulfilled by being able to do that.”

This is the year of uncommon favor, and we are proclaiming that. We’re thanking God for it. We talked about favor, and then I was reading the verse where it says, Luke 2:52, “Jesus increased in wisdom, stature, and favor with God and with man.” And I thought, “There it is right there—favor and wisdom, favor and wisdom.” I had permission to go into this topic at the beginning of this year and talk to you about how if Jesus needed an increase of wisdom, then how much more do you and I need to increase in wisdom?

I’m excited today. I want you, if you would, to just say this out loud. Say this with me: “My heart is open. My mind is ready. Make me better, God, by your word. I receive it. I believe it. I won’t be the same again in Jesus’ name.” And you may be seated.

Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Okay, Proverbs chapter 4. We’re going to read out of Proverbs 4:7. I’m going to talk a little bit about Proverbs today and the background on it, but let’s just read Proverbs 4, verse 7. It’s going up on your screen. If you have your Bible, have something to take notes with. I encourage you to do that today and follow along with us.

This is a great verse. This is what I’m about to read to you—it’s mind-boggling. It says literally that “wisdom is the principle thing; therefore get wisdom.” Somebody shout, “Get wisdom! Get wisdom!” And with all your getting, it says, “Get understanding.” Like, get wisdom, get wisdom, get wisdom—it’s the principle thing, it’s the primary thing, it’s the main thing. So clear right there. It is uno, it is number one. And all you’re getting—get wisdom.

Proverbs is known as the wisdom book of the Bible. Solomon, who was the wisest man that ever lived, oversaw writings with several contributors, telling us first of all that God is the source of all wisdom. Secondly, that God created the world with wisdom as the craftsman at his side. That’s how it describes it in Proverbs—that wisdom is the craftsman or was the craftsman by his side when he created the universe. Meaning that by wisdom he separated the waters from the land, by wisdom he formed plants and animals and seed time and harvest, and then he formed man out of the dust and he breathed the breath of life into him. And the wisdom is the craftsman right there as he flung the stars out into the sky. Wisdom is the architect. Wisdom is the craftsman.

And the good news is that God’s wisdom isn’t just who he is or available to him, but God’s wisdom, scripture teaches us, is available for everyone—not just a few, not just the educated. We talked about that last week. Not just some who qualify—God’s wisdom is available for everyone. Anybody thankful for that today?

I want to recap real quick last week—a couple of things, three things that hinder wisdom that I mentioned last week.

**The first one is blind spots.** The Bible calls it ignorance, and I’m trying to be a little bit more polite with it, but that’s what it is. It’s when people think they know, but they don’t know that they don’t know. And thinking you know literally hinders you from knowing. So blind spots—it gets in the way. It’s a big hindrance to us in receiving the wisdom of God.

John Wayne said this: “Life is tough. It’s much tougher if you’re stupid.” And that’s a reality, right? In your own life, when you’ve been stupid and you realize, “Oh man, it just gets tougher.” Life gets tougher. You take a tough situation and you make it even more difficult. You watch your children do this. We watch our friends do this.

So the goal is Proverbs 4:7—wisdom. I’ve got to get some wisdom. Amen.

**The second thing that we said hinders wisdom is pride.** Pride is not a teachable posture. Pride hinders people from listening and learning.

Proverbs 11 says this: “When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.” Say, “Wow, wow.” God, help us be humble, right? Don’t let pride get in the way. Don’t let your pride get in the way. Don’t let pride cause you to miss out on the opportunities that you have every day for wisdom to be in your life. Be curious. Be humble. Ask questions. Be quick to say, “Well, I know some things, but I don’t know everything, and I want to learn. I want to grow.” I’d rather have something I know actually repeated to me so that it’s affirmed in my heart than to miss out on wisdom.

So blind spots, pride.

**Third thing we said hinders wisdom is emotions.** Wisdom doesn’t consider our feelings. When wisdom speaks through a counselor, a parent, a friend—a little warning sign for you right now—when wisdom speaks through somebody else in your life, it might make you mad. It might trigger you, cause you to revolt against what you’re hearing, like a slap in the face.

And here’s my point: if we can just beware—we are all people with feelings. Emotions are the way God wired us. We all have emotions. And the goal is to always choose wisdom above our emotions. In other words, stay in the room. Stay in the conversation. Ask questions. Just say, “I want wisdom. This feels really hard right now. It feels like somebody’s doing surgery.” Your counselor is trying to get in there and teach you truth. And the goal is we don’t want to miss out on wisdom. Amen.

So if you’re taking notes, write this down: **Wisdom is the master key to all the treasures of life.**

I mentioned a while ago that Solomon’s the wisest man that ever lived. Solomon wasn’t born the wisest man in the world. When he became king, he was fully devoted to the Lord. He was a son of David, and he had grown up watching his dad worship and praise God. And he became the king, and he was so devoted and so humble, and he led his nation in a huge display of honor to God. He did that repeatedly.

But there was an occasion when heaven was moved by Solomon’s offerings, by Solomon calling the nation together and saying, “We need God. We need to sacrifice to the Lord. We need to come to him in humility and prayer.” And so he led the nation in this amazing—if you can imagine just the whole nation coming together to pray and to be humble before God and offer sacrifice.

Well, that very night, heaven was so moved that God visited him. And God said to him, “I’m so pleased with how you are leading the nation. I’m so pleased with your heart and who you are.” And then God said this: “Ask for whatever you want me to give you. Ask for whatever you want.”

And here’s how Solomon responded: “Give me wisdom and knowledge that I may lead this people, for who is able, oh God, to govern? Who’s able?” He wasn’t like, “Oh, I got this. My dad, you know, he’s great, I’m greater, I’m going to be better.” No, no. He’s like, “Who can do this?”

And God said to Solomon—I think God said, “Wow.” But here’s what the Bible says. He said, “Since this is your heart’s desire and you have not asked me for wealth, you’ve not asked me for possessions or honor, nor the death of your enemies, and since you’ve not asked me for long life, but for wisdom and knowledge to govern my people over whom I’ve made you the king, therefore wisdom and knowledge will be given you.”

And then—and we’re going to talk about some of this today—God also said, “And I will also give you wealth, possessions, and honor such as no king who has ever come before you has had, and none after you will have.”

Somebody say, “Wow, wow.” Somebody say, “Amazing.” Say, “That’s incredible.” It really is. It’s a story of how humility moves the heart of God.

You see, wisdom is the master key to all the treasures of life, meaning that God said, “You’re going to get wisdom, and I know what wisdom does. Wisdom brings all the other along with it. When you have wisdom, all the other stuff just is going to happen. You’re going to have honor. You’re going to have the things. You’re going to have riches. You’re going to have wealth. You’re going to have blessing. People are going to want to listen to you.”

And I just want to remind every man, every woman this weekend: our lives are different with wisdom than without it. I said, our lives are different with wisdom than without it. I said, our lives are different with wisdom.

See, there are incredible benefits and blessings when we walk in wisdom. Life is so much better—it’s not perfect, but it’s so much better when our choices are wise choices, our decisions are wise decisions.

The second thing, if you’re taking notes, is that **the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.**

So you might say, “Well, wow, Pastor Kevin, last week and today you’re just talking about wisdom, and I want that. I need more of that. I want to increase in wisdom. Where do we start?”

Well, here you go. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Proverbs 9:10 says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One—what God’s ideas are, what God’s opinion—the more we know that, that’s the fear. Now, let me explain the fear of the Lord. This doesn’t mean to be scared of God. It means to be in awe of God. It means to reverence and respect God.

And when we reverence and respect God, then my life and my choices will proceed from the consideration of, “What would God want for me? What would God’s idea of this situation be? My next move?”

It’s like if life is a chessboard and you have a complicated board in front of you, to pause long enough because you have the master of chess who is ready to whisper the next move in your ear. And to hear that move, that voice, with such respect—to pause long enough to hear it, to pause long enough to go to the scripture and search it out, to be the one who’s like, “I respect God enough that I’m not going to just go on what my impulse says or what my friends think or what culture’s telling me. I want to hear from God.”

And then the most reliable way—hear me out on that—to hear God speak is listening to what he says to you through his word. So good.

See, his words are living. His words are active. When you look at your Bible and your scripture, don’t just look at it as a book that’s thousands of years old and it’s not relevant for us today. No, no, no. His word is living. His word is active. His word is powerful. His word will encourage. His word will bring correction into our life. Amen, amen.

Anybody thankful for the word, God’s word? And it’s alive right now. It’s present right now in your own life to give you direction.

So to be able—let me just give you an example in the area of relationship. It would be respecting what scripture says, respecting it. Proverbs 13:20 says, “He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.”

So it’s not saying, “Well, I know my friend is a fool. He’s an idiot. He doesn’t know, but I like him. I like hanging out. We’ve been friends since grade school.” No, no, no. You—it means God’s saying to you, “You can’t hang out with that and it not get on you.” It’s like secondhand smoke. You can’t be next to it, in the room with it, and you not be affected by it, influenced by it.

You’ve got to go to the word with so much respect. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And you’ve got to say, “God’s word says to me that if I want to be wise, I’ve got to walk with wise people. I’ve got to surround myself with wise individuals and wise men and women—not perfect, but people who have the fruit of wisdom in their life and they are honoring God like I honor God, they respect God like I respect God.”

See, everyone in your life is not wise. And some people in your life are not people you want to listen to and get advice from. I like to say it like this: everyone who is good to you is not good for you.

So there’s a lot there. We’ll be talking about it, but there’s a lot there. In, for example, relationship, I’m just giving you an example of what it means to fear the Lord. It means to go to the text, read the text, meditate on it, and then receive it with your heart and apply it to your life.

Another area would be in your thought life. In your thought life, God’s word is active, right? God’s word is powerful. The Bible has direction for your life, wisdom for your life.

And so if your mind is just anywhere or anything, and then you go to Philippians 4:8, and here’s how it reads: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

So we don’t just read that. We don’t just hear a sermon on it. We don’t just go and gloss over it and keep on thinking all the other thoughts. We fear God enough. We have enough reverence and respect that his thoughts are higher than my thoughts, his ways are higher than my ways. That’s what it means to fear the Lord.

And the writer is telling us in scripture that the fear of the Lord is the beginning. We’ve got to start here. If you don’t have reverence for God, if you don’t really respect God’s word in your life, then you’re undermining wisdom being a part of your life and your future, because you’re basically saying by ignoring it, by thinking any thought, walking through life with any old person, you’re basically saying, “No, my way’s better.” That’s not the fear of the Lord.

So the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And you know what? God may speak to you through the wisdom of a friend, through a sermon like today, a song, when you open up your heart to hear and you get your ear inclined to God’s way. And you’ll read it in the scripture, hear it in a message—it’s affirmed, it’s affirmed.

Knowing what God says in his word will help you know and recognize his voice. So if you know his word, my point is, you can be listening to a friend and you’ll go, “That is not what God says,” or you could go, “That is in line with the word of God in my life.” Amen.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

Okay, here’s the last little area I want to talk about today. Everybody good? You’re receiving God’s word? Amen, amen, amen.

Okay, here’s how it goes. Write it down: **Wisdom is more focused on who you are becoming than what you are accomplishing.**

Wisdom—I’ll take my time, let you write that down—is more focused on who you are becoming than what you are accomplishing. Wow.

Let me read Proverbs 3, verse 13. It’s beautiful. I just grabbed a little bit of it here. It says:

“Blessed are those who find wisdom and those who gain understanding, for she is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold. She is more precious than rubies; nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are pleasant ways, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her; those who hold her fast will be blessed.”

Can you see how just a little bit of reading—how Proverbs is so rich in content? It’s so beautiful. It’s poetic, and yet the verbiage and the words and the way they describe wisdom—it causes us on the inside to realize that, man, this is not just another ingredient in the recipe of a good life. Wisdom is the main thing.

And if I be wise—if I be wise in this situation, if I’ll be a wise husband right now when I feel like doing this, or if I’m a wife and I feel like saying that, and as a parent I want to act this way—but if I will rein it in and say, “God, I know you have wisdom that’s not based on how I feel right now. I turn to you right now for your wisdom, God.”

And if we would just approach our life like that, the writers of Proverbs—they’re assuring us and they’re telling us wisdom is available for you. God’s wisdom is right here for you. And if you just open up your life and you, one day after another, start walking in wisdom of God, it changes who you are and it changes the outcome of your life.

Let’s look at these verses, though, before I get too far from what I just read in Proverbs 3, because I want you to notice something. In those verses, blessing is not the focus. It says, “Blessed are those who find wisdom, those who gain understanding. She’s valuable.” But I just want you to notice that blessing is not the focus; wisdom is the focus. Blessing is the byproduct. Silver and gold are not the focus; they are the byproduct.

I read this and I think, “God, help us all,” because we are so easily swayed, and there’s a lure a lot of times to other things as the main focus. And then before you know it, our eyes are off of what is wise, what would God think, what would God say, what would God want. Pretty soon we’re drunk.

So if you’re single, for example, don’t focus on having a boyfriend or a girlfriend. Don’t think, “Well, people think I’m silly or I’m not worthy, or if I just had somebody walking next to me.” Don’t allow yourself to think in those silly ways, and don’t do that.

What do I do, Pastor Kevin?

Focus on becoming a real prize—somebody that that person would thank God for giving you. The opportunity and the time to just develop and become—focus on becoming. Who am I becoming?

And when you focus on becoming, you become attractive. People—the person that you would want in your life and God wants in your life—will be like a magnet drawn. Do you see what I’m saying?

You can’t—we can’t allow ourselves to be focusing on what we are wanting in our flesh. We’ve got to focus on becoming.

Don’t focus on wanting to get married, all you single people. Don’t focus on wanting to get married. I always like to remind people there’s something worse than being single: it’s being married to the wrong person. You’ve got to remember, get this right. Don’t have this idea that that’s going to validate me and that means I’m somebody or I’m something. Stop it. You are something right now. You are special right now. God’s got you right where he’s got you. Don’t mess this up. Amen.

So it’s not about accomplishing. Here’s another one: don’t focus on recognition or a position of leadership.

Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.

Let’s say you’re on your job—there’s a promotion you want, and if you get too much in the mindset of, “I’m going after this. I am. I’m going to get this”—there’s nothing wrong with having goals, but you’ve got to be careful in that you start assuming you know what God’s will is and you start chasing after an accomplishment on your job, a position, recognition. “I want people to recognize who I am.”

Well, what do I do, Pastor Kevin?

Focus on becoming a person who has the character and the qualities and the skills of a great leader. Just focus on that. The rest happens. That’s exactly what these scriptures teach us. Good.

Blessing is a byproduct of wisdom. The favor of God and man is a byproduct of wisdom.

For Solomon, God’s like, “Wow. You asked me for the right thing, because I’ll answer that prayer. I’m going to honor the fact that you didn’t ask me for all these other things. But by the way, whether you know it or not, Solomon, when I give you wisdom, all that other stuff is going to come just automatically.”

And he became the great king. They came from all around—other kingdoms. The Queen of Sheba came, and she admired Solomon’s work and his kingdom. And in the years after that, he was amazing—an incredible historical figure as a king. But where did it start? With a humble request for wisdom.

So, church, moms and dads, I just want to say: don’t focus today on accomplishing; focus on becoming. Focus on becoming.

Wisdom will cause you to focus. Here, let me—we’ll say things about people when they’re not really being wise: “Boy, they’re a piece of work.” A lot of us are a piece of work. Thank God he’s still working on us. Amen.

We’ve had all kinds of nonsense in our mind, all kinds of ideas in our mind, all kinds of stuff. We come from a background where people were crazy. They weren’t very smart. They weren’t very wise. And now we come to God, and if we’re not careful, we’re all caught up in the silver and the gold, the riches, the popularity, the fame. And we’re clawing our way into that role, that position—”That thing, I want this, I want that.”

And today, if I could just say to you: wisdom focuses on becoming, not on accomplishing.

Am I helping anybody today? Amen.

I want to remind you a couple things today before we end this. You can’t go where you want to go and be who you’re meant to be, have what you’re supposed to have, without the wisdom of God in your life. You just can’t do it. You can’t be the dad you’re supposed to be without the wisdom of God. You can’t be the mom you’re supposed to be without the wisdom of God. You can’t be the friend you’re supposed to be without the wisdom of God. You can’t be the business entrepreneur and owner that is in your heart to be without the wisdom of God.

And the wisdom of God—the fear of the Lord is where it starts. Reverence for God.

So whether things are going good in your life or whether you are in a crisis right now—and I’m talking to you in Yakima, I’m talking to you in Bellevue, I’m talking to you in DuPont, talking to you online in your living room, wherever you are—and I’m appealing to you today: if you’re in a crisis, if you’re dealing with confusion in one or more areas of your life, I am praying that this series, the things I say, the atmospheres of worship that we’re in right now—for our church is in a season of favor, God’s working in our lives, so many great reports happening, so many breakthroughs, so many good things going on—and I’m praying that you’ll be inspired right where you all are, even in the difficulty or the opposition, to realize that God is working in me. God is doing something special.

And that you will ask God for wisdom. Continue to pray. If it’s not in your daily utterance of request, would you please put it there? Would you just not just pray for favor or not just pray that God will open a door—that’s all good—but will you just pray and back up a bit and say, “God, I want your wisdom. Wisdom. If I can just have your wisdom, if I can increase in wisdom, if I can grow like Jesus did in wisdom, all the other stuff, God—I know that it’ll come. You know my deeds, you know what I’m dealing with, you know what I’m going through.”

So I invite you, I encourage you. And again, I don’t know what you’re going through. I don’t know what you’re dealing with. But I know that there are men and women who need me to say this to you today, and young people and young adults—whatever it is, God’s got you, and he works in our life through wisdom.

Let’s believe him. Let’s believe he’s with us, that he’s guiding us.

Will you close your eyes right now? Will you just—I know you’re seated—will you just put your hands out like this to receive, right where you are? And let’s believe that God is with us. He’s guiding us.

I pray right now, God, that we might hear your voice today, tomorrow, this week. I pray, God, that nothing would hinder us, sidetrack us. We ask you for wisdom in our relationships. We ask you for parenting wisdom. We ask you for wisdom in our finances. We ask you, Holy Spirit, to guide us. Let your wisdom be known to us. We pray, and as we pray for it, we apply our faith to know that, God, you don’t withhold anything good from us and that it’s your will even now, God, to guide us, to help us, to speak to us, to talk to us.

I know there’s people that are in a—there’s young people that are in a relationship that is not the one, God. It’s not the person you have picked out for them. And they’ve heard me talk today. And I just pray their hearts would open up to you and your guidance. And, God, that the walls would come down and that we would be open and we would surrender to you and to your voice, that we would respond to you, God, in a way of having respect for what you would want and what your word says to us in our life.

We receive that today. We receive your guidance and your wisdom. I know it’s coming. I know, God, you are with us, and I know you are helping us. And everyone right now who believes that—can we just celebrate today the gift of wisdom and the blessing of wisdom? Come on, we just celebrate in faith today and thank God for his wisdom in our life. Amen, amen.

Okay, whatever location that you’re at today, I want to invite you by raising your hand to just say today—just say openly, don’t be inhibited about this—”Pastor Kevin, I want to receive salvation in my life today. I want a new beginning in my life, in my relationship with God.”

I want to invite men, women, couples, wherever you are, whatever location—we’ve been praying for you, actually. We may not even know your name, but we’ve been praying for you that you would arrive in this moment. And if you sense today in your heart a drawing—that God is drawing you—I just want you to raise a hand or both of them in the air. Come on. Good, good. God bless you. We’re going to pray with you today, a prayer of new beginnings. Good. Hands up, hands up.

Let’s all say it together. Say:

“Lord Jesus, welcome to our world. Welcome to my world. Forgive me of all my sin. Come into my life and make me a new person. I receive you today as the leader and the Lord of my life, and I’ll never be the same again, in Jesus’ name.”

Okay, come on, church, let’s celebrate. God bless you. Welcome to the family of God.