Download Transcript

Download Video

Transcript

(this transcript has been lightly edited for readability)

Well, one of the dominant underlying themes of Proverbs is humility. I would say it this way, “It’s a core underlying transcendent theme of Proverbs.” Although Proverbs doesn't discuss humility on every page, it's on every page because the life described in Proverbs, the portrait of the way we are meant to live in fear of the Lord, that way grows in the soil of humility. Humility is the soil in which this rich beautiful life of wisdom grows.

Fear of the Lord is the key to wisdom. And what is that fear about? It’s about submission, a humble sense of need, willingness to consider and confess, it's about God's honor, it's about worship of Him, living in awe of Him, it's about a willing and joyful dependency. I have to say it again that in that way, Proverbs fits with the move of Scripture. Listen, the move of God's grace is not moving us from dependence to independence; but from independence to a greater willing and joyful dependence on God and the instruments that God puts in our life.

Proverbs 3:34 is one of the principal Scriptures on humility, “Toward the scorners he is scornful, but to the humble he gives favor.” That theme, that passage, is repeated in James, and in Peter, as they think of the importance of humility.

Proverbs 22:4 connects humility with the fear of the Lord; and by that, we begin to understand that fear of the Lord crushes pride. If you're proud, if the people around you would describe you as being proud, you just don't need to be committed to humility; you need to grow in fear of the Lord, because fear of the Lord and pride don't live in the same soil, they just don't.

Why does God hate pride? Well, I’ve just told you because a proud man is a man who lacks fear of Him; and because he lacks fear of Him, he doesn't worship Him as he should; and because he doesn't worship Him as he should, he doesn't submit to Him as he should; and because he doesn't submit to Him as he should, he doesn't obey Him as He should; and because he doesn’t obey Him as he should, he wants his own way instead of God's way; and because of that, his life is moving away from the Lord, away from His honor, and away from that rich experience of life that He promises those who will humble themselves before Him. In that way, every Proverb is an invitation to a humble life.

Now, can we talk here? I don’t know why I'm asking permission; I'm going to talk. That's not natural for us; it's not natural for you to be humble. I think of parenting again; my children have never come to me and said, “Dad, if you could just control me more, if you would just command me more, if you would just take greater charge over my life, I would be so happy.” But it's natural for your child to resist that; it’s natural for your child to act like they know things they don't know.

A child trying to learn to tie his shoe; you’ll reach down to help him and he slaps your hand away. He could try to make a bow for the next century, and he would never make a bow because he doesn’t know how. But there's an instinct inside of him that says, “I don't want to be a person who needs help.” And so, we’re confronted with this life that God says, “This is the good life, this is the rich life. It’s lived in humble recognition of my position, my authority, and your desperate need of me.”

And so, once again as I’ve said over and over again, you cannot read the Proverbs without running to the cross because the Proverbs tells me again and again the thing I most need to be rescued from is me, and there's grace for that rescue!

Download Transcript

Download Video

Transcript

(this transcript has been lightly edited for readability)

Well, this theme that’s all over Proverbs, I call, “Sadness and Celebration.” It's about emotions; there's something interesting that comes to the surface in Proverbs, and it is the rich multifaceted emotional life of people made in God's image. Godliness is far from stoic. God never asks you to deny your emotional life, never.

In fact, think of the theology of emotions that comes across in Scripture. The Bible presents God as an emotional being, even in his infinite, holy perfection. God gets angry, God has pleasure, God hates, God loves, God rejoices. And so, it makes sense that if we are made in God's likeness, if we are made in His image, then that dynamic, that created truth about us sanctifies emotions. Emotions are a place where we’re God-like, and we’re more like God than we are like the rest of creation.

Man, the range is here in Proverbs. You have hot-tempered, glad heart, sorrow heart, anger, joyful heart, hatred, laughter, joy, grief, aching heart, stricken heart, fear, restless heart, and the list just goes on and on. But the Proverbs does something with emotions that I think is just so helpful and so important. It presents emotions as a moral barometer.

You could argue that your emotions are never neutral because they're attached to what rules your heart. If you want to know what you’re really living for, if you want to know what really controls your heart, don't look at your confessional theology; look at where you find joy, look at where you run after pleasure, look at what makes you angry, look at what you hate, look at what you love, and you will begin to understand what is really an effective, functional, street-level control of your heart. Every emotion can be an expression of what is deeply unrighteous or what is beautifully righteous in God's eyes. We need to pay attention to our emotions because they are a barometer.

The Bible will tell us that there is righteous anger; that in a fallen world, there are reasons that we should be angry. In a fallen world, there are things that we should hate. But the Bible also presents that there's dark and evil anger, selfishly oriented anger, anger that’s about me and not about God, and there is evil and dark and destructive hate. In a fallen world, there are reasons to fear. In a fallen world, there are reasons to be sad and to mourn.

And so, the Bible never, never calls you to deny your emotions. What the Bible tells you is that your emotions are never neutral. Your emotions are a barometer of the moral condition of your heart.

Now, I don't know about you, but I find that deeply convicting. I wish I could say that all of Paul Tripp’s anger is completely righteous, but I can't. I wish that I could say that all the things that make me sad are the things that would bring sadness in the heart of God, but I can't. And so, once again, as I think of the moral nature of even my emotions, I know how much I need the work of Jesus in my life!

Download Transcript

Download Video

Transcript

(this transcript has been lightly edited for readability)

Well, we’ve talked about emotions, but I wanted to pick one that has a special place in Proverbs, and its anger. I would call this theme the problem of anger. As we talk about the rich emotional life depicted in the Proverbs, Proverbs has a particular focus on anger, not just our anger, but God's anger. I would say this way, “There's a whole lot of the divine and people anger in Proverbs.

And let's admit it, it’s good for you to admit this, “We’re all angry.” I don't think there's probably a day that goes by for us that we don't experience anger in some way. And there's probably not a week that goes by that that anger doesn't prove to be ugly. And so, we need the wisdom of Proverbs. You see, what Proverbs begins to hold before us is that the question is not, “Are you angry?” Now listen carefully, the question is, “What is the reason for your anger, and what is the object of your anger?” Let me say that again, the Proverbs doesn't first ask the question, “Are you angry?” Proverbs assumes that we’re angry. But what the Proverbs asks is, “What is the reason for and the object of your anger?” Again, anger never exists in this easy ground of moral neutrality.

This theme is especially precious to me because, early in my marriage, I was a very angry man. I was in the process of destroying my life and my ministry and I didn't know it. And, God, in His grace, put me in a situation where He just pulled back the curtains, and I saw myself, and I heard myself, and that began a process of confession and repentance that has radically changed my life. So, I’m very thankful for this theme.

Now, what Proverbs calls us to be, “slow to anger,” and says that the wise person is slow to anger. Now, stay with the logic here, from where does wisdom come? From fear of the Lord. And so, righteous anger is God-centered anger; it's anger that flows out of your fear of the Lord; it's anger that has God in His rightful place.

Listen, it's only when God is in His rightful place that you will be in the appropriate place in my heart; it's only people who love God above all else who will ever love their neighbor as their self. So, if being slow-tempered is wise and wisdom is rooted in the fear of the Lord, then you solve your problem with anger, not horizontally; you solve it vertically because you have a God-ward problem, not just a horizontal problem of people-ward problem.

Again, let the conviction of this wash over you. Conviction is a good thing. There are only two types of anger, “God-centered anger,” and “me-centered anger.” Angry, because somehow people are in my way; somehow, they haven't followed my sovereign rule; somehow, they're not submitting to the ways of my kingdom, and so I'm angry! Or, anger that really flows out of my love for the honor of God, my love for His wisdom, my willingness to submit to Him.

It's a huge grace that Proverbs takes us where we would not normally go with our anger and says, “What is the reason for your anger? What is the object of your anger?” And makes that distinction between anger that is God-centered and anger that is me-centered. Today when you get angry, examine that anger!

Download Transcript

Download Video

Transcript

(this transcript has been lightly edited for readability)

Well, there is a whole theology of work in Proverbs. Sorry, it's true for those of you who don't like work. And you can't have a system of wisdom like is in Proverbs without concluding, “To be human is to work.” And again, that's how Proverbs fits so well with the larger narrative of Scripture.

One of the misconceptions of people is that work is the result of the fall; that's not true! God assigned work to Adam and Eve in that perfect paradise, perfect people, in a perfect relationship to God, everything in its right place, everything doing what it was meant to do, in the shalom of the Garden. God assigned Adam and Eve to work the garden, to dress it, to care for it, to manage it. They were assigned work, and so part of the dignity of my place, in God's economy and the way God decided to rule His world, is that I'm called to work. That's part of what defines me and defines the honor of my role. There's a place in the Psalms that says, “The heavens belong to the Lord, but the earth He has given to man.” I'm like God's resident manager; I’m meant to take care of this world. It’s a position of dignity and honor. And you surely see that in Proverbs.

The fear of the Lord, that life of wisdom, is a life of responsibility; of diligence; of willing, hard work. Proverbs 10, 4 and 5 says, “A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.  He who gathers in summer is a prudent son, but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who brings shame.”

I like the slack hand. If your hand is slack, it means you don’t have any tool in it, you're not working. In an agricultural society, that's just such a picture because in an agricultural society, before the invention of the tractor, if you’re going to do farming work, you picked up tools, you didn’t have a slack hand. So, a slack hand is a word picture of laziness, an unwillingness to work, a denial of my work nature as being created by God.

Proverb 10:26 says, “Like vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes, so is the sluggard to those who send him.” Now, those who send him are his employers; so, saying it's “like vinegar” or like “how smoke hurts your eyes,” to be in the employ of somebody but not want to work. I think we have a culture that actually values doing as little for as much as you can get paid. Rather than finding joy in the gifts and ability that God has given me to work.

A wise worker plans, the Proverb says. The wise worker is a self-starter; he doesn't need a boss. I love this, the Proverbs literally says that if you understand how God has created you to work, you won't need a boss. There are only two theologies of work, again, and this has been a theme in everything we've looked at in the Proverbs. You either work as unto the Lord; you willingly work hard because you understand that God has called you to work, and you use the proceeds of your work for generosity, justice, and to relieve the poor. Proverbs would say, “Don't just work for yourself, you work so you can be a tool of those things in God's hands.”

The Proverbs then says there's the fool's work; it denies God, he works for his own selfish gain, he uses his power to crush the poor, he uses the poor to gain more. So, we always need to ask ourselves, “Do I love work, and for whom am I working?”

Download Transcript

Download Video

Transcript

(this transcript has been lightly edited for readability)

Well, we continue to work our way through the themes of Proverbs, and I find myself wanting to say each time, “I love this theme,” because I actually love all of them. But this is the theme of stewardship; it is really a chord that just travels all the way through the Proverbs. Stewardship is your personal commitment to care for what God has entrusted to you, that's what stewardship is.

And from the beginning of Proverbs to the end of Proverbs, you have this wonderful, multifaceted definition of what stewardship is and what it looks like. Proverbs 3:9 says this about stewardship, that it's about honoring the LORD with your wealth. Whatever God has entrusted to you, you want to ask yourself the question, “Do I honor God by the way I use this?”

Proverbs 13:11 talks about the perseverance aspect of stewardship. Stewardship is hard, it requires perseverance, it's about gathering little by little by little. Stewardship is not four or five big things, it's 10,000 little things.

Proverbs 13:22 talks about stewardship, is about determining you are going to leave a good legacy, “A (righteous) man leaves an inheritance,” not just for his children, but for “his children's children.” Proverbs 16:3 describes stewardship as working unto the LORD, “Commit your work to the LORD.” I wonder how often I do that, that every day I would say, “LORD, I want to commit the work that I do to you?”

Proverbs 16:8 says that stewardship is righteous work, it’s about the character of your work, not just how much you work but the character of your work. It says, “Better is a little with righteousness than (much) with (foolishness).”

Proverbs 22:7 talks about the responsibility of the success of your stewardship, that you will get rule and influence; and so, a good steward will have that responsibility.  How do I handle the influence that my stewardship has brought to me?

And then Proverbs 28:27 talks about the fact that stewardship includes generosity, “Whoever gives to the poor will not want.”

Now here’s what you need to understand, the root of this call to stewardship is the doctrine of creation. I'm a painter, and when I finish a painting, it belongs to me because I made it. And so, the doctrine of creation tells us that everything belongs to the LORD. I don't own anything in my life; it all belongs to Him. What we are, we are God's resident managers, but you have to get up in the morning and say to yourself, “Everything I am, and everything I have, and everything I'm about to do, every situation, every location, every relationship, all of my personal capabilities, belong to the LORD,” and then say, “LORD, I will commit my work today to you.”

The question all of us should be asking between the already of our conversion and the not yet of our home going is, “How am I, right now, right here, today, using what belongs to my LORD?” We have to surrender to His ownership and forsake the thoughts of our own ownership.

Now, you have to know this is counterintuitive for us, this is not natural. We are possessive and selfish and claim ownership over things that don't along to us; and so, once again, this call to stewardship drives us to the grace of the LORD. “Oh! May I recognize God's ownership over everything in my life; and may I always, by grace, commit all of my work, all the time, every day, in every situation, to Him?”

Download Transcript

Download Video

Transcript

(this transcript has been lightly edited for readability)

So, I think this is a theme that we’re now going to look at from Proverbs; it is particularly helpful for this moment in time. It's the practicality of Godward living. I think we have a massive cultural problem. Yes, even in the church. We live with this spiritual, secular dichotomy in our lives. That dichotomy is assumed by way more believers than you may think. It says that spiritual things belong to the Lord; that's church, that's my tithe, that's ministry, that's fellowship with other believers, that's devotion, and everything else is secular.

What the Proverbs would confront us with is that everything is spiritual. God makes a claim on everything in my life. Everything demonstrates the condition of my heart; everything points to whether I'm serving God or serving myself. There is no dimension in your life according to Proverbs that isn’t deeply and comprehensively and expansively spiritual. All of life is spiritual! You have no secular dimension in your life, whether it’s family, or money, or sexuality, or your talk, or your business, or your possessions, or justice, or wealth, or government; every dimension that you find yourself in is deeply spiritual.

And so, the Godward life is lived out in all of those dimensions in your life here.  Your godliness, your spirituality is not just lived out on Sunday mornings, it’s not just lived out in moments of devotion.  It’s lived out in the way you think about your possessions, the way you spend your money, the way you talk to other people, the way you make decisions about the necessary essential things in life, the way you care for the poor and the disadvantaged, the way you think about the role of government, the way you do your business. It's all part of an expression of your spirituality.

The Godward life, according to Proverbs, is worshipful, and obedient, and submissive, and wise, and generous, and just, and merciful, and righteous, and faithful, and committed to working pure. And those character qualities, again, are lived out in all of those dimensions of your life.

I'm afraid if you'd ask many believers, “Do you have a desire to serve the Lord?” And they would think right away, “Well, maybe I should do some ministry at my church.”

Well, you serve the Lord by the way you eat; you serve the Lord by the way you respond to your neighbor; you serve the Lord by what you do with the money that's in your pocket; you serve the Lord everywhere, or you don't.

And it's sad when we give the Lord this narrow, religious dimension of our lives and we claim everything else belongs to us to do with it as we will. That's just alien to the view of life that is presented in Proverbs. The Godward life is intensely practical, lives in all the places where you live and act and decide and speak and respond every day.

Where does the Proverbs say godliness lives? Everywhere in my life! Or, godlessness lives everywhere in my life! That's why Jesus said, “If you want to follow Me, deny yourself and take up a cross and follow Me; you give Me your life.” That's godliness, and that is powerfully depicted in the wonderful practicality that's presented to us in Proverbs.

Download Transcript

Download Video

Transcript

(this transcript has been lightly edited for readability)

Well, I can say with enthusiasm, “I've been waiting for this theme.” It's the theme of womanhood that is presented in Proverbs. In fact, this is one of the crescendo themes of this book. It’s really interesting where it's positioned, and I love the picture of the strength and value of a woman presented in Scripture.

Women show up in the biblical narrative way more than you would probably think, are way more essential to the way that God moved His story than you may think. And sadly, I think often in the church of Jesus Christ, the gifts, the presence, the value of women have been underestimated. And then we have just artifacts of misogyny and instances of abuse that are a horrible devaluing of women.

What is the picture of a woman in Proverbs? Well, she's an excellent wife. When you get done with this description, you would think, who wouldn't want to be married to a woman like this? She is trustworthy, a woman of character, she's willing to work, she provides for her family, she's not just dependent, but she's part of providing for her family. This is a woman with business savvy; she goes out and buys real estate and she plants a vineyard, and she's out there making those kinds of decisions.

She's presented as being strong. I love the picture of the strength of a woman. She's generous. This passage in the Proverbs says, “She opens her hands to the poor.” She's fearless. Now, why is she fearless? Because she's prepared. The Proverbs says, “She's known for her strength and her dignity. She's wise; she's capable of teaching.” I like this couplet, “wisdom and kindness.” She's anything but lazy, and she's respected and praised by her family.

Now, why is she all of these things? It says because, “she fears the Lord.” The motivating factor is her deep, abiding confidence in the Lord; and because of her confidence in the Lord, she's able to be strong, and courageous, and make wise decisions and not just think of herself but think of others and be generous and just; it's a beautiful description. She's not timid, she's not unhealthily dependent, she's a leader and an activist.  It’s a beautiful, beautiful picture.

I love this summary, “Charm is deceitful, beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.” What is it that our culture values in women? What is it that the Christian culture values in women? May it be more than her appearance; may it be the value that she has as a child of God, the significance and sensuality of her gifts.

Charles Spurgeon, when he was thinking of the value of women in the body of Christ, said, “Women don't see truth the way men do. They don't experience things the way men do. We need these gifted women in our churches,” and he said, “We must not say to our women in the church, ‘Go home.’” The church needs this kind of women and we should celebrate that God has placed these women in our lives to contribute what they alone are able to contribute.

Download Transcript

Download Video

Transcript

(this transcript has been lightly edited for readability)

So, I want to talk about a theme that's not in Proverbs but is in Proverbs. It's Jesus, the wise, obedient Son. The name ‘Jesus’ is not in Proverbs; don't bother looking, it's not there. But I think that Proverbs is a beautiful portrait of the Savior who would come and would live a life that just fits right inside of the Proverbs.

Proverbs has this father and son motif structure to it. God is the wise, loving, generous, kind, protective Father who says, “Son, listen to my voice; listen to my instruction; pay attention to my wisdom; always teaching, always controlling, always providing, always rescuing, always warning, always rewarding.

But the Proverbs is not just a portrait of the Father, but also a beautiful portrait of the Son. If God is the Father, who is the ultimate obedient Son? There’s only one name that you can give; it's Jesus. His name is never mentioned, but Proverbs is a prophetic portrait of what Jesus would be like when He took on human flesh and lived. It's telling you what this Messiah will be like.

Think with me, who's the only one who perfectly listened, who perfectly obeyed, who lived a perfectly submissive life, who was perfectly loving, perfectly generous, perfectly kind? Well, the answer is ‘Jesus.’ He was obedient, yes, even to death on a cross. He was generous, came not to be ministered to, but to minister and give His life as a ransom for many. He was submissive; Jesus said, “I came to do my Father's will.”

There's Jesus all over the Proverbs because all of us fall short; all of us have times where we refuse to listen; all of us have times where we actually think that we’re smarter than God; all of us fail in generosity; fail in stewardship, use our ability to communicate for things that are not good, don't always love our neighbor, or have sympathy for the poor, don't always work unto the Lord, but Jesus does!

And what's exciting about this portrait of Jesus is Jesus was the wise, obedient Son in our place. He came to be the obedient Son precisely because He knew we would never be that. We would always fall short of God's requirement, so Jesus came to live that wise proverb-life as a substitute for us so He could be the perfectly righteous lamb that would pay the penalty for our sin, so we could be welcomed again into the arms of our Father from whom we had been separated by our sin. What a gorgeous story!

You don't get the Proverbs fully unless you know the Proverbs are evangelistic; they’re meant to make you hunger for Jesus, to cry out for Jesus, to celebrate Jesus. There is a perfectly righteous Son; it won't be you and me, but that Son lived that righteous life on our behalf. So, there's forgiveness and transformation and eternal life for us even though we’ve lived as fools. What a beautiful story! And Proverbs gives you a portrait of that One who lived that way, not just for His own glory, but for our eternal good!

Download Transcript

Download Video

Transcript

(this transcript has been lightly edited for readability)

So, we want to look at the theme of the beauty and function and limits of God's Law as presented to us in the Proverbs. Proverbs reminds us that it is vital for us to love, to listen to, to celebrate God's Law.  God's Law is not given to rob us of the good life, but so that we would thrive! I love this.

Think about when the Law of God was initially given. God had redeemed His children from four-hundred years of suffering and slavery in Egypt. But these recently liberated slaves had no idea how to live, and so God, in an act of abundant love and amazing grace, gave His Law to them. It was not to wreck their lives, to restrict their lives, but so that, in the boundaries of what God had laid out for them, they would thrive because God loves His children. You know, life doesn't work without boundaries. Every good thing in life needs boundaries, and so God set boundaries for His children.

Think of the power of the Law; you really get this in Proverbs. The Law does an incredible job of exposing the foolishness of sin. I mean, if you can read the Proverbs and not feel exposed; you don’t get down on your knees and say, “God help me, God help me, God help me, I have a hard heart.” Because the Proverbs just exposes the foolishness of sin; the Proverbs is meant to bring you to this point of personal, spiritual awareness and confession.

Now, we need that because, let's be honest, sin doesn’t always look sinful to us. When I’m eating the third piece of cake in an act of gluttony, I'm not thinking danger; I'm just thinking how beautiful that piece looks and how great it tastes in my mouth. If you're at the mall, lusting after a woman, you're not thinking of the danger and rebellion of that act; you're seeing something that’s beautiful to you. So, we need something that exposes to us the sinfulness of sin.

But the Law does something else. It is a wonderful guide for our living. The Law guides us. I need that guidance; because as long as sin lives inside of me, there will be artifacts of foolishness in my heart. And so, I need to be told how to live and reminded again and again how to live, and you see that beautiful guidance on every page of the Proverbs. How elaborately and how expansively and how repeatedly God repeats His guidance to us in Proverbs. Those are wonderful functions of the Law to expose sin and give us a guidance for our lives.

But the Law has limits. The Proverbs highlights those limits because the Proverbs teaches us the centrality of the heart, that my problem is not just informational, and my problem is not just relational, and my problem is not just situational; my problem is the sinful condition of the heart. That's why, in Proverbs 4, the father says to his son, “Above all else guard your heart!”

And what the Proverbs never tells us is that God's Law has the power to transform our hearts. It has the power to expose our hearts, but it takes grace to rescue and change the heart. That's why Jesus had to come.  If the Proverbs could rescue and transfer my heart, Jesus would've never had to come. And so, the Proverbs presents to us the beauty of God's Law but the limits of God's Law as well.  If all we needed is God's Law, then the coming of Christ, His righteous life, His acceptable death, His victorious resurrection would not have been necessary. Celebrate God's Law, but know its limits!

Download Transcript

Download Video

Transcript

(this transcript has been lightly edited for readability)

Well, we are about to consider our final theme, and I am beyond pumped to talk about this. This is the best crescendo to the Proverbs you could ever have. I'm so excited to just spend a moment talking about this. It's the glorious glory of God that's presented in the Proverbs.

You see, you haven't really understood the Proverbs; you haven't really seen or understood the life-changing message unless you leave the Proverbs in awe of the God behind this amazing portion of God's Word. Who is a God like this God? Who has this wisdom? Who has the love to download this wisdom to us? Who would care for us so much? Our God!

It's very important to let yourself meditate on the glorious glory of His glory because it's there, it's there all over Proverbs. He's glorious in wisdom. He's glorious in love. He's glorious in generosity. He's glorious in holiness. He's glorious in tenderness. He's glorious in mercy. He's glorious in understanding. He's glorious in sovereignty. He's a glorious protector. He's a glorious guide. He's a glorious Father. He's a glorious judge. He's a glorious teacher. He's a glorious Savior. He's glorious, He's glorious, He's glorious, He's glorious!

And like every other passage of Scripture, God puts His glory in front of us; may we have eyes to see it. May we not just have a sadly utilitarian approach to the Proverbs, “I need a piece of wisdom today, let me find that piece of wisdom,” and never bow a knee to the glorious One who is the source of the wisdom that you hunger for.

I would say this, “If you only walk away from Proverbs feeling a bit wiser, you’ve missed the core message of this Book.” You want to know what the core message of this book is? I can say it in a word that only has three letters, “God!”

The study of the Proverbs should result in awe of God.  It should leave your heart pumping and your mouth agape and your knees a bit weak as you stand before this One, mind blown by who He is and what He does on your behalf! That should result in worship, not just the formality of worship on a Sunday or in your personal devotions, but a life of surrender and worship, “I want to give my life to this!” And then, I’ve said the word, a surrender of everything in your life to this One of such glory.

You see, all of life is a glory war. There's some kind of glory that will grip and control your heart. It's either the glory of created things and that catalog is virtually endless, or the glory of God.  Your heart will be ruled by the lesser glory of creation or the greater glory of the Creator! And what Proverbs is meant to do, please hear me say this, is cause a glory shift in your heart away from the glory of you, the glory of physical things, toward the greater glory of God. I want to know this One of such glory! I want to serve this One of such glory! I want to worship this One of such glory! I want to surrender to this One of such glory! I want a life that depicts awe of this One of glory! The greatest theme in Proverbs, the crescendo theme is the glory of God!