The Balance and Behavior of Wisdom

Is it any wonder, by the way, that Solomon will say wisdom is the most important thing you can ever get? Wisdom draws you to the Creator of wisdom. It draws you to the Word of wisdom. It draws you to walk in wisdom.

It gives you the joy of having the gospel of wisdom that Jesus took all of that dishonor upon himself. Jesus will forgive your empty pursuits and will fill your life with purpose. Welcome to Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. The very first step in getting true wisdom is actually wanting the right kind of wisdom. You need to want to get the wisdom of God. And by the way, it's a matter of life and death. Left to ourselves, we'll pursue perfectionism or maybe some of the world's wisdom. We'll become paralyzed when we face dishonor and criticism.

We'll become proud in our knowledge. Today we'll discover that pursuing wisdom will draw you to the Creator of wisdom and the giver of wisdom and the Word of God's wisdom, which points to the gospel of wisdom. Here's Stephen with today's message. Johann Sebastian Bach composed a wonderful music for the church, for the world for that matter. He composed over 200 cantatas for the church, choral works for the church on the life, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. He composed songs for his 20 children, teaching them biblical truth. He lived from 1685 to 1750, and as you can imagine, a large number of original documents were preserved and have been over the years.

Most of them are his original musical compositions. But only one document has survived all these years. It wasn't discovered until about 80 years ago that he never intended to publish. These were the notes that he made in his Bible, more than likely seen by his wife, Anna, and his children. These notes were written in the three-volume German Bible.

We would call it today a study Bible. What I found interesting in an article I read on the subject is the fact that the book of Ecclesiastes was evidently his favorite book of the Bible. It's the most marked up book in Bach's Bible. And Ecclesiastes, chapter seven, where we are today, has more verses underlined than any other chapter in his Bible. And Bach would often compose a piece of music, and for those of you musicians, you probably know this, he would often write on the front of that composition the words soli deo gloria, to the glory of God alone.

That mattered most. Verses two and three of chapter seven have stated that sorrow is a better teacher than laughter, the end of life is better than the beginning of life. All the way to verse 13 where God knows, God alone knows why life has so many twists and turns. Bach was evidently deeply consoled by this. He marked it up.

More than likely, it's because he buried 10 of his 20 children before they reached adulthood. Life depended on trusting in the sovereign plan of God for life. There were times, by the way, it was interesting when Bach would have difficulty writing a piece of music, and he would write in the margin, Jesu juva, Jesus help me. That'd be a great caption, by the way, for life as a believer. Just to write those in the margins of your life. Soli deo gloria, to God alone be the glory for whatever we do for his glory. Along the way, Jesus help me.

Doesn't get any better than that. Well, we're in this chapter, evidently a favorite of Bach's. After almost 70 years now, Solomon has come to define life along these same lines. For much of his life, as you know, he lived for his own glory, and he had a lot of it. He never thought he needed God's help, but now here in chapter 7, he begins to transition and bring God clearly back into the picture. We're at verse 15 now, and he's going to say something, by the way, he's already said 10 times.

This is the 11th time. In my vain, fleeting life, I have seen everything. I've been there.

I've done that. I've seen it all. And with that, he's going to launch into another series of observations and proverbs that take us all the way to chapter 8 and verse 1, which I believe concludes the series. These are difficult passages to preach or teach for those of you who teach the word because they seem so random.

However, on closer inspection and just kind of reading over and over and over again, it strikes me this common theme occurs. It is the theme of wisdom. Solomon is saying, I've seen everything, but boy, do we ever need wisdom, especially when what we see doesn't make any sense. Notice, again, there is the righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evil doing. In other words, I don't get it.

I don't get this. Godly people die young, and ungodly people live a long time. Sometimes life doesn't play by the rules. Solomon is essentially saying that without an understanding of God's sovereignty who designs life from beginning to end, who designs our lives, you might end up with the wrong conclusion that it doesn't matter. Now, Solomon goes on here to mention two extreme ways of approaching life. This is perhaps, by the way, one of the most misunderstood passages in the book of Ecclesiastes.

Look at verse 16. He says here, be not overly righteous. Do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself? Be not overly wicked, neither be a fool.

Why should you die before your time? It is good that you should take hold of this, and from that withhold not your hand for the one who fears God shall come out from both of them. Now, at first glance, it might appear that Solomon is telling you not to get too carried away with trying to live a holy life or a wicked life. By the way, that happens to be the plan of salvation for a lot of people I talk to out there over the years.

You probably heard the same thing. I'm not all that perfect, but I'm not all that bad. I found the middle road.

I think God's going to let me in. That plan of salvation, by the way, has nothing to do with Jesus and has everything to do with them. It also has nothing to do with walking in wisdom. God isn't suggesting here that Solomon doesn't try to be too good or too bad.

In fact, in the Hebrew text, the verbs in verse 16 carry the idea of reflexive action. Both extremes are descriptions of self-centeredness. So verse 16 could be understood to read, don't go around claiming to be so righteous. Don't go around trying to be, to make yourself out to be so wise. All he's doing is describing someone who wants to appear to be righteous. Don't go around making yourself out to be perfect. Solomon is essentially telling us here that a wise person doesn't present themselves to other people as having spiritually arrived.

Did you notice the danger at the end of verse 16? You're not going to build anything up. You're going to tear everything down. You're not going to encourage anybody that way. He's also telling us it's dangerous to try to make a name for being entirely wicked.

I've bumped into those people too. Let me tell you what I've done. Let me tell you how bad I am. Solomon says, don't be a fool. That's destructive as well, verse 17. Then in verse 18, he says essentially walk with God. Godly wisdom will keep you not walking down the middle, but godly wisdom will help you avoid both extremes, is the idea. Wisdom enables you, beloved, to walk in godly balance, avoiding both. It's as if Solomon says now in verse 19, I've seen it all. Let me show you the value of wisdom. Notice verse 19. Wisdom gives strength to the wise man, more than 10 rulers who are in a city.

Let me break that down quickly. In other words, one wise person in town is worth more than 10 rulers, political leaders. One paraphrase I read interpreted it 10 mayors. You could paraphrase this to read one wise person is more valuable in their community than 10 unwise politicians. Now what Solomon does next is launch into rapid fire proverbs and principles and essentially shows us not just the balance of wisdom, but the behavioral patterns of wisdom.

Let me give you four of them. Number one, wisdom rejects the pursuit of perfectionism. Look at verse 20. Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins. Solomon isn't being cynical. The verb for being or doing good means continually, without interruption.

No one ever continually does good. No one lives a life that is never interrupted by sin. Solomon warns us to avoid the extremes of selfish wickedness and of self-righteousness, and you might think, well, maybe I could arrive at sinless perfection. I've actually met people who think they did. I remember a guy telling me one time he didn't sin anymore.

I really wanted to talk to his wife and get the real story. No one, even among those following after God, will arrive in this lifetime at sinless perfection. That's why the gospel is such good news. Jesus Christ is the perfect sinless son of God who died on behalf of the fact that you can't get through one day without sinning, and neither can I. It's why the blood of Jesus, John writes, the tense is, continually, constantly, never-endingly cleanses you from all sin.

You entered that bath, as it were, as a believer, and the faucet is never turned off. If we could ever make it to a state of sinless perfection, Jesus wouldn't have had to die. Wisdom is when you understand your sinfulness in light of Christ's forgiveness. Sin and holiness, by the way, isn't going to be achieved in this lifetime, but it is your future glory.

It's our goal. It's the direction we have our toes pointing. We agonize when we sin. We run quickly to the cross, but it is our future glory when we are one day perfected in the likeness of Christ.

How great is that going to be? Here's another behavioral pattern wisdom takes care of. Number two, wisdom refuses to be paralyzed by painful criticism. Look at verse 21. Do not take to heart all the things that people say implied about you, lest you hear your servant cursing you, and your heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others. The word here for cursed means slighted. It can mean to dishonor. It hurt, didn't it?

There isn't anybody in this auditorium that hasn't experienced the sting of those words. It might have been critical or condescending. It might have been crude.

It might have been cruel. Solomon says, don't take it to heart. One author wrote when he said that the key to being a good leader is keeping people who don't like you away from all those who are still undecided. Now, what's interesting here is that Solomon doesn't say, if you hear somebody slighting you, don't worry because it's not true. Take another closer look at verse 21.

Do not take to heart, notice, all the things that people say. In other words, some of it might be true. Some of it might be an invitation from God to repent.

It might be a change. It might be a step of real growth to come to terms with that. It might be to go to God and simply say, God, is it true? Repent of it and then say, now would you help me to walk wisely so that I can prove it in the future to be untrue? Take criticism with a grain of salt and while you're at it, remember your own faults.

That'll keep your feet on the ground. Walking with balance and wisdom allows you to work through these issues. Wisdom rejects the pursuit of perfectionism. Wisdom refuses to be paralyzed by painful criticism. Now, thirdly, wisdom recognizes the limitations of intellectualism.

Look at verse 23. All this I've tested by wisdom. I said, I will be wise, but it was far from me. That which has been far off, very, very deep, who can find it? You don't get up in the morning and decide I shall be wise.

It emanates from a relationship with the Lord. Notice verse 25 elaborates, I turned my heart to know and to search out and to seek wisdom and the scheme or explanation of things and to know the wickedness of folly and the foolishness that is madness. In other words, I set my heart and my mind on figuring out the human condition. I was going to track it down. I'm going to figure out the world around me. I'm going to nail it down.

I didn't get very far. I often think of Isaac Newton, the Berean physicist. For 200 years, his mathematical formulas and equations controlled scientific thought.

He'd be the first scientist knighted by the crown. This guy was bright. He was a committed believer. In his later years, he wrote, and I quote, I have only discovered the edges of God's ways. There is a great ocean of knowledge and I have but been paddling in the shallows.

If he's been paddling in the shallows, I'm 30 miles inland. Wisdom recognizes the limitations of even our greatest intellectual achievements. One more, fourthly, wisdom resists the invitations of hedonism. Now, hedonism is a worldview. Hedonism is a way of life. Hedonism says the pursuit of pleasure is the best pursuit in life. The mantra is get all you can. You're only going around once.

That's the idea. That's hedonism. Beloved, you happen to live in a world totally convinced that hedonism is the way to live. Notice verse 26. I find something more bitter than death, the woman whose heart is snares and nets, whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her.

He focuses on one aspect of the hedonistic lifestyle, the invitation to elicit sexual activity. Behold, he writes, this is what I found, says the preacher, while adding one thing to another to find the scheme or explanation of things which my soul has sought repeatedly but I haven't found. One man among a thousand I found, but a woman among all these I have not found.

See, this alone I found that God made man upright but they have sought out many schemes. This is not a passage you're going to put on your wedding invitation. Don't misunderstand Solomon to making a universal rule that rates women as less trustworthy than men because he couldn't find one woman among a thousand, but one man he could trust. If you read his writings, Solomon speaks highly of women in the book of Proverbs. In fact, he even personifies wisdom in the form of a woman in chapter 1, chapter 8, and chapter 9. There is some discussion as to whether or not Solomon is referring to a prostitute.

It seems to fit Proverbs chapter 7. More than likely, and I would throw my hat on the ring with this particular interpretation, that what he's saying is that he is gone looking for love. He's gone looking for pleasure. He's gone looking for something lasting.

He's wanting companionship. He found one friend among men. He tried a thousand women and couldn't find one among them. You need to understand, in order to understand this text, the context of 1 Kings 11.

That number 1,000 is not just a random number. If you're older in the faith and you understand a little bit of his biography, he had either married or had concubines totaling 1,000 women. 1 Kings 11, 1 to 8. He had 1,000 women in his palace. All he did was turn his heart away from God.

He walked in with his eyes wide open too. Now, here, he's a 70-year-old man and he comes to the conclusion that there wasn't one woman whom he could trust. In fact, pursuing pleasure robbed him of genuine pleasure. A relationship with the wife he never had, that he will describe in Proverbs 31. In fact, he will say of her, in verse 11, the heart of her husband does safely trust.

It doesn't get any better than that. See, Solomon is looking at all the wrong places. Where are you looking?

Where are you looking? Hedonism is going to be a dead end. Solomon wraps up his comments now. He's given us the balance of wisdom, the behavior of wisdom, and now there are three added benefits of wisdom.

Chapter 8 and verse 1, I think, finishes off this theme. Who is like the wise and who knows the interpretation of an issue, a matter, a thing? A man's wisdom makes his face shine and the hardness of his face is changed.

Let me give you three added benefits quickly. Number one, wisdom will help you live uniquely. Go back to verse 1, just the first phrase. Who is like the wise? That's another way of saying, where can I find a wise person? Can I tell you something? When you walk wisely, you have no idea how rare you are. You have no idea how unique you are. To walk in wisdom, you're that rare family member. You're that rare student. You're that rare neighbor, how rare you are when you walk with the balance and behavior of wisdom. Secondly, wisdom will help you make decisions correctly.

You could add the word many because we don't make all of them correctly. Verse 1, the middle part, who knows the interpretation of an issue? The word for interpretation can be translated solution. Who can come up with a solution to the problem? Who's got some discernment? Life is filled with riddles, with questions, with difficulties, with dilemmas. A wise person will think through it biblically, will pray through it carefully, then entrust themselves to God and be thankful, even when every decision is incorrect. Number three, wisdom will help you live more graciously. A man's wisdom makes his face shine and the hardness of his face is changed.

You know what that means? That means that wisdom is going to show up on your face. It's going to show up in your personality.

It's going to improve your relationships. It's going to be displayed in your attitude. He has a way of saying in here that means it's going to soften the hardness of your heart.

Anybody here recognize that their heart is hard? If you do, you're probably pursuing wisdom and that's going to show up eventually in your temperament and disposition. Is it any wonder, by the way, that Solomon will say, wisdom is the most important thing you can ever get. Wisdom draws you to the creator of wisdom. It draws you to the word of wisdom. It draws you to walk in wisdom. It gives you the joy of having the gospel of wisdom, which is that Jesus alone is perfect, which is Jesus took all of that dishonor upon himself, which is Jesus is all knowing. He is omniscient God the Son, which is Jesus will forgive your empty pursuits and will fill your life with purpose and meaning.

As an old man nearing his death, Johann Sebastian Bach was totally blind, entirely dependent on his family to write anything. As he neared the end of his life, the very last song he composed, we'd call it a chorus, just a short lyrical statement of his greatest desire. It reads, before your throne, I now appear. Turn out your gracious face from me, a sinner. Confer on me this blessed end, Lord, that I may see you eternally.

Amen. I hope this time in God's word has spurred you on in your pursuit of true wisdom. Our message today is called The Balance and Behavior of Wisdom and it's part of a series from Ecclesiastes entitled Pursuing Wisdom Under the Sun. I'm glad you joined us today here on Wisdom for the Hearts. You can hear more of Stephen Davies' Bible teaching at our website, wisdomonline.org. In fact, for this series, Pursuing Wisdom Under the Sun, you can watch the full length videos from when Stephen first taught this series to the church he pastors. Just navigate to Ecclesiastes in our teaching archive and you'll find this series there. Again, it's wisdomonline.org. We'll continue through this series next time. So join us then here on Wisdom for the Hearts.