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Apr 15, 2018

Knowledge, knowledge everywhere...

Knowledge, knowledge everywhere...

Passage: Proverbs 1:1-7

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: Proverbs, Searching for Wisdom

Adrift in a sea of information--perhaps to a degree like no other time in human history--we’re all looking for a life-raft known as wisdom: that insight into life informed by knowledge of certain facts but whose essence is the application of that knowledge at the right time, in the right manner, and for the right reasons. For our next season of life together, we’ll look to the Proverbs for the wisdom that reaches into the heart of reality and thereby allows us to flourish. We’ll listen to its pithy axioms and vivid images, not as formulas by which all things turn out well, but as proven experience we dare not ignore--and particularly because that experience looks to the Lord as the author of life and the giver of wisdom.

Order of Worship

Pre-Service Text: Job 28:12 (ESV)
Call To Worship: James 1:5, 1 Corinthians 12:4-7, Romans 12:5, 6
Sermon Title: “Knowledge, knowledge everywhere...”
Central Text: Proverbs 1:1-7
Response: Ordination/Commission service of new elders and deacon(nesses)
Benediction: Hebrews 13:20-21
Post-Service Text: James 3:17

04.15.2018 Sermon Slides

04.15.2018 Song Lyrics

Readings/Scripture

Pre-Service Text: Job 28:12 (ESV)
12 “But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding?

Call To Worship: James 1:5, 1 Corinthians 12:4-7, Romans 12:5, 6
LEADER: If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.
CONGREGATION: Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord;
LEADER: and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
ALL: so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them

Central Text: Proverbs 1:1-7
Prov. 1:1 The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel:
Prov. 1:2 To know wisdom and instruction,
to understand words of insight,
3 to receive instruction in wise dealing,
in righteousness, justice, and equity;
4 to give prudence to the simple,
knowledge and discretion to the youth—
5 Let the wise hear and increase in learning,
and the one who understands obtain guidance,
6 to understand a proverb and a saying,
the words of the wise and their riddles.

Prov. 1:7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Benediction: Hebrews 13:20-21
LEADER: Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will,
ALL: working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

Post-Service Text:
James 3:17
But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.

Related Scriptures:

  • Job 28:12-13
  • Isaiah 11:2
  • Luke 2:52
  • 1 Corinthians 1:28-31

Discussion Questions & Applications: 

  1. Who in your life do you think of as wise? What makes them so in your mind? How do you think they became so?
  2. How is wisdom related to but distinct from knowledge? Why is it important to understand the distinction? What’s the worth of wisdom? The fallout of folly?
  3. What’s the difference between “servile” and “filial” fear as the sermon mentioned? Why is one far more grand than the other? Why is the gospel best “furnished” to instill the grander of the two?
  4. What wisdom do you need from your elders? Wisdom for acts of mercy from your deacons and deaconesses?

Quotes:

  •  I don’t think it would have all got me quite so down if just once in a while—just once in a while—there was at least some polite little perfunctory implication that knowledge should lead to wisdom, and that if it doesn't, it's just a disgusting waste of time! But there never is! You never even hear any hints dropped on a campus that wisdom is supposed to be the goal of knowledge. You hardly ever even hear the word 'wisdom' mentioned! - J.D. Salinger’s Franny and Zooey
  • . . . this [wisdom] restrains itself from sinning, not out of dread of punishment alone; but because it loves and reveres God as Father…. Even if there were no hell, it would still shudder at offending him.  - John Calvin
  • Filial fear does not turn away from God, but hates sin above everything else, and fears to offend God: servile fear is a flight and hatred, not of sin, but of punishment and of the divine judgment, and so of God himself. - Zacharias Ursinus
  • How vain and foolish, then, thought I, for timid untravelled man to try to comprehend aright this wondrous whale, by merely poring over his dead attenuated skeleton, stretched in this peaceful wood. no. only in the heart of quickest perils; only when within the eddyings of his angry flukes; only on the profound unbounded sea, can the fully invested whale be truly and livingly found out. - Herman Melville, Moby Dick

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Inview Media, 04.15.18 Album