Bill Johnson - Wisdom is Speaking to You, Can You Hear It?
I want to invite you into this lifestyle of wisdom because you will create and think of different ways. It doesn’t matter to me if you’re a lawyer, accountant, or a stay-at-home mom or dad; it doesn’t matter what it is. You will have new ways of approaching life simply because the gift of wisdom is functioning, and you’ll learn how to tap into realms of excellence while maintaining a heart of real integrity so that what we do is rock-solid. Well, hello there! Welcome back; I’m so glad that you have joined us and that we get to spend this time together in the Book of Proverbs, really on a quest for wisdom, with God’s assignment to reign in life. It’s one of my favorite chapters, chapter 8. We’ve decided to make this one a little longer. The temptation was to divide it into two parts, but we’ll just make this a bit longer.
There are a couple of major subjects—three major subjects for me—in this chapter, and I want to start with verse one. If you’ll take a look at it, it says, «Does not wisdom cry out? And understanding lift up her voice? She takes her stand on the top of the high hill, beside the way where the paths meet. She cries out by the gates, at the entry of the city, at the entrance of the doors.» Then it goes on with this great appeal: «Wisdom, come learn from me.» Here’s the first thing that delights my heart. Part of the reason is I have so much of my life involved with the idea of seeing transformation in cities and nations. So, what do we have here? We have wisdom at the gates. The gates are the place of authority; in Scripture, the gates are the place of authority. Wisdom stands at this place of authority in the city and begins to decree.
This is what I believe it means. I believe the Lord has made sure that in every city, wisdom is available at those places of authority to anyone who will ask for it. The Bible goes on to teach there’s a woman of folly who also stands there and makes her appeal. Here’s the deal: you and I can make decisions as people, as citizens in a community. We can make decisions; we can live lifestyles, we can make decrees, we can serve in the ways we serve—all to reinforce an appetite for an entire city to live with wisdom. Why is that appealing to me? Because cities are God’s idea. He didn’t make us to live five miles apart, with no connection. He made us to be able— even if you live on a ranch somewhere—there’s a community somewhere close by where you meet with other friends, where you go to restaurants, buy gasoline, and things of that nature.
The fact that God designed cities to actually be shaped by wisdom, and my cry for my own city is that wisdom would shape us. We are seeing improvements; over the last 20-plus years, we’ve seen some great things take place here. But I want to encourage you: just live with the realization that wisdom is crying out at the places of authority in your city. Pray for those in authority that they will truly yield to that spirit of wisdom and receive the direction that the Lord wants to give. His wisdom is very practical. When wisdom is in place in a city, everybody wins. It’s not just a competition where this business wins and this one loses, or this family is healthy and this one is filled with disease. It’s the opposite. In wisdom, everyone profits; everybody wins.
We move on to something that is a very special subject for me. I get somewhat concerned by teachings of Jesus about resources that don’t hold up in the rest of Scripture. It’s not the teachings of Jesus that are the problem; it’s the way we repeat them, taking one verse or one illustration and removing it from the whole picture. Proverbs helps to bring a clarity that is really critical. If you would just look at verse 10 with me, it says, «Receive my instruction and not silver.» Wisdom is making a very distinct choice here: «And knowledge rather than choice gold.» Wisdom is better than rubies, and all the things one may desire cannot be compared to her.
So, here is this clarification: you’ve got wealth, you’ve got natural riches, and you’ve got wisdom. Wisdom is standing there saying, «Don’t be foolish; choose wisdom. Choose knowledge. Choose understanding. This lifestyle of understanding and wisdom and knowledge; choose this as the priority of your life.» A few verses later, down in verse 17, it says, «I love those who love me,» this is wisdom still talking. «I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently will find me. Riches and honor are with me, enduring wealth and righteousness.» My goodness, this is interesting to me that the Lord would say, «Choose wisdom, not money. Choose wisdom, not wealth. Don’t choose all this material gain; choose wisdom.»
Then wisdom comes along and says, «By the way, look what I brought with me! I brought the things that you chose not to make a priority in your life.» What happened to Solomon? Solomon chose wisdom, and the Lord spoke to him and said, «Because you didn’t choose fame, you didn’t choose wealth, you didn’t choose longevity, I’m going to give you all these other things.» Do you know what I believe this is? This is the Old Testament equivalent of Matthew 6:33: «Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.»
Idolatry happens when we take something that God values in our life and elevate it to a higher place of value than He does. In this case, «Seek first the kingdom.» What is that? The dominion of God over every part of my life. He says, «Make that your top priority, and then these other things will be added into your life. I’ll take care of this stuff; you make sure that you’re focused on the right stuff.» What happens is we start to taste of the favor of God. We start tasting of the blessing, the resources of Heaven, and the focus begins to shift where it feels so good—the gratification, the resources, the blessing—and the shift takes place.
We stop making wisdom, or in this case the kingdom of God, the priority and start making these other things the priority. When that happens, we’ve just elevated the blessing of the Lord into the priority, the focus, and it becomes an idol. I feel like the Lord wants to bring clarity here. I know prosperity is so twisted and perverted, and I understand that. But I feel like the Lord is giving us a chance to redefine what real prosperity looks like because real prosperity has purpose; it has eternal impact. The Lord is welcoming us into a relationship with Him where we discover first what it’s like to tap into unlimited resources to apply to His purposes on Earth. That’s the privilege we have as believers, but if we’re afraid of «and all these things will be added unto you,» then we won’t manage what He releases into our lives well.
So that’s a huge concern. That’s all the time we have for that one right now. Let me move on quickly. The last part of this chapter is exciting to me because it describes creation. Wisdom was a principal element in creation. Now I want to remind you, in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 30 or 31, Jesus is identified as the person of wisdom. So when it says here in verse 30, «I was beside Him as a master craftsman,» wisdom is talking. Wisdom was involved, from verse 22 all the way to 31, with the creation of the world. Everything was shaped by wisdom; everything ran through the filter of divine wisdom.
Why is this important? Because wisdom creates. Wisdom is identified for me in three principal ways through Scripture: number one, creativity; number two, excellence; number three, integrity. You could probably find a dozen other expressions, but those three stand out to me as the three principal ways that the wisdom of God is seen in our lives.
Number one: creativity. As believers, we should be the most creative people on the planet—not the only creative people, but we should really lead the way in music, art, architecture, and financial arrangements—all the stuff that pertains to life—so that we would be able to tap into that creative nature of the heart of our Father and represent Him well with creativity. Here we see Jesus, the person of wisdom, was beside the Father as a master craftsman.
Now, Exodus 31 and Exodus 35 both have this phrase: «Bezalel was a man filled with the Spirit.» The first person in the Bible mentioned filled with the Spirit was filled with the Holy Spirit for the purpose of wisdom, and that wisdom was used to create. He had understanding and skill in working with metal, wood, fabrics, and stone. It was this creative artistic expression that came through this man because the Holy Spirit came upon him in the form of wisdom.
I want to invite you into this lifestyle of wisdom because you will create and think of different ways. It doesn’t matter to me if you’re a lawyer, accountant, or a stay-at-home mom or dad; it doesn’t matter what it is. You will have new ways of approaching life simply because the gift of wisdom is functioning within you, and you’ll learn how to tap into realms of excellence while maintaining a heart of real integrity so that what we do is rock-solid, continuously testifying of the kindness and the goodness of the Lord. I bless you with that. I pray that you have an ever-increasing appetite for wisdom to be seen and demonstrated in your life in the same way. Chapter nine is going to be interesting because we’ll find in chapter nine that wisdom actually builds. Amen. Bless you.