Central Christian Church Message Podcast

The Pursuit of Wisdom | SELAH | Pastor Cal Jernigan

November 13, 2022 Central Christian Church of Arizona
Central Christian Church Message Podcast
The Pursuit of Wisdom | SELAH | Pastor Cal Jernigan
Show Notes Transcript

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Well, welcome everyone again. It's so good to have you with us. And if you are watching online or on any of our other campuses, man, we just wanna welcome you as well. Uh, we've already already explained, I think, a little bit of what we're gonna be doing here. We're starting a series, uh, today that we're calling Sale Law.

And uh, it's a different kind of series because of the, just the nature of it. The word sayah is used 71 times in the Book of Psalms and 74 times. In the Bible, and as was just explained in that bumper, uh, the actual meaning of the word is somewhat uncertain. It's, it's a musical, uh, it tends to be like a musical, uh, uh, word that would be inserted.

And in some psalms it's multiple times. But exactly what happened in that moment. Uh, we're, we're just not, not sure. Um, a pause a break. A a, a refrain. I think of it as like a moment to catch your breath. Uh, some definitions said it was like it was the end of something before the beginning of something.

It's that middle. Something some suggested that you would insert a, a benediction in, in the say law moment. So what I wanna do is I want to use this as the idea of catch your breath and a pause. Uh, we just finished three months in the book of James and it's been delightful. We, before Long will start a series, um, called Would you Believe?

It's gonna take Us Through Christmas and it's, uh, gonna be a great series. But there comes a time when we want to just pause and go. We're not gonna do a long series, we just want to talk about some stuff. And think of it just as kind of a brief respite, uh, in the normal routine. So that's, that's what we're gonna do.

And again, I'm absolutely thrilled by this. What I wanna do in this segment, and, and what I need you to understand is we're gonna do this for the next three weeks, but we planned one of these for February. We have another one later, and there's just gonna be, say, law moments for us as a.  just in between moments, uh, moments to pause.

But what I want to do today is I wanna, I wanna do a teaching that hopefully will help you understand your Bible better, and it will help you when you read your Bible to get I Oh, I see what's happening here. Uh, and if you read your Bible a lot, you might have all of this and you go, I know all. But I fear that what happens is, is we read our Bible and we don't know, like, what exactly is that?

And so I want to, I, I, I just wanna hopefully make it make sense. Okay? So here's what I wanna encourage you to do. Now, we're not gonna spend a lot of time there, but I do wanna encourage you right now to find in your Bible one Kings chapter three, if you have an electronic version, that's gonna be easy. If you don't have an electronic version, it's gonna be about halfway through the Old Testament, somewhere in that middle of that.

All right, So just find one Kings three. So let me begin by saying, I want talk about something that a lot of us don't want to talk about. I wanna talk about the word stupid. I, I want to talk about its meaning.  and I want to talk about stupid's effect on all of our lives. That's what I want to talk about.

Um, stupid is a real thing. Denying it exists is, well, stupid. All right? Uh, perhaps you've heard the expression, Stupid is as stupid. Does. If you've seen the movie Forrest Gump, you've certainly heard that expression itself several times throughout that movie. Well, what is stupid is as stupid does what does that actually.

If you chase the phrase down, uh, and you try to figure out, okay, like in the origin of that phrase, it's not the movie Forest company, the origin of that phrase, what was meant by that, you're gonna come up with this statement. A person's intelligence may be judged by the wisdom of his or her actions. A, a person's intelligence can be judged by the wisdom of his or her actions.

Now. Now let's be really, really clear here. We have all done stupid things. I have, and you have, There are no exceptions in the room. There are no exceptions. Wherever you are, we have all done stupid things. The question is, did you learn anything from that stupid thing you did? Right? Because that's really what matters.

Um, doing stupid things. Doesn't make you stupid doing stupid things over and over again cuz you never learned from any of it. Probably might qualify you right? We're, we've all done stupid. If, um, if, again, if you think you're an exception, you're not part of life is trying to figure out how to not be stupid in our actions.

There's a story told that I learned, I heard this a long time ago, I've just never forgotten. It is about. A young bank president that was replacing an elderly bank president. The elderly guy was retiring. He was very successful. And so the young guy wanted to get some wisdom, you know, from the elderly guy.

Like he was very successful. And so the young guy wanted to glean from him, you know, how did you do it? And uh, so he asked him, he said, What was the key to your success? And he said, Well, two words. Two words. Good decisions and he said, That's awesome, but how do you learn how to make good decisions? He said one word experience.

He goes, Okay, I understand good, good decisions and experience, but how do you get experience? He said two words, bad decisions. That's how it works. You make bad decisions and you learn from those and you go, I will never do this. I didn't realize when I first did it, but now I do understand if we open up a conversation to all of us and we just said, Hey, let's just share our stupidest moment.

There's no one who's got nothing. Are we good? You got something, you might not be comfortable sharing it. You might be embarrassed to share it. You might be like, I'm, I'm not gonna share it. It might still be affecting you in some negative way, but we've all done. As I was thinking about this, I got a number of opportunities that I could share, but one that I look back on and I go, that, that was really stupid and it is not a life and death situation.

It was just really something stupid I did once. Um, what happened was is we were driving into town and the car that I had was kind of overheating and uh, I thought, you know what? I'm gonna buy a car while I'm in. And so I got in late Friday night and I got up the next morning and I went to, went down Camelback Road and, and I found the, uh, Avis used car dealership where they clear out the lot and I thought, Well, that's probably a good place and I don't have a lot of money, and it would be a used car, and so let's go see what they have.

And so I went in there and, uh, you need to understand the day before I had no intention of buying a car. I just on a whim, on an impulse. So I go in and I've done no research on any cars. I have nothing in particular I'm looking for. I don't have any financing worked out. I just go in there and like, what you got?

Well, it doesn't take a whole lot of brain to sell to understand. I set myself up bad. Yes. And so, um, I, uh, I bought that day a uh, Chevy citation hatchback. If you don't know this car is the car. All right. And uh, as soon as I got it home, it was literally leaking oil all over the driveway. And that was just the beginning of the problems I had with this car.

I could go on and on, um, but I remember so clearly the salesman selling me on this car and he. He goes, The color of this car is called desert sand or something like that. He goes, It's a perfect car for Arizona cuz you just don't see the dirt. And I thought, that's a good point. And then I remember him going, Feel how cold that AC is?

Remember like, listen how quiet this, It was all suggestion, power of suggestion. The air conditioning went out not long after I bought it. The engine had all kinds of trouble. I could go on and on and. You get the idea. I was upside down in that thing from the moment I bought it, and it took me about five years until I could get out from under it.

But here's what I learned. Never again. Never again will I be so stupid as to do that. You've heard the expression Fool me once. Fool me once. Shame on you. Fool me twice. Shame on me. Shame on. Because these stupid people don't learn. I don't wanna be a stupid person. Um, did you learn anything? I, I'm gonna say something here that is a little bit provocative and I, I don't mean to be offensive and I know immediately there's gonna be a counterpoint to what I'm about to say, and I'll make the counterpoint, but I'm gonna put a, an expression up on the screen.

that's gonna say something that's gonna be a little bit, a little bit abrupt. Your life, your life is the sum total of the decisions you've made. Now the counterpoint is you've had things happen you didn't have any control over. I don't question that at all, but you do have control over how you handle the things that happen.

You, you see, if you want to know what happens in a person's life, when you make the decisions you made, and when you handle the situations, the way you handle it, you get you. And if you're right, awesome. If you're happy with it, you, you've done, you've done well, you've done good. And yet so many people look at the condition of their life and they don't wanna own any of it.

It's all they did, they did all this to me. I didn't do.  and if you think everybody did it to you, you become a helpless victim at the whim of everybody else's desire. That's a horrible way to live versus I don't have to be this person. I don't have to be in this situation. I can make my mind, I can make some decisions, and I can choose a different course.

What happens to us in life? Listen, careful.  is this decision gets compounded to that decision, which gets compounded to that decision and, and the decisions start to pile up on us. And we get to this point in our life and we go, It's just a mess. But did you believe it had to be? I don't believe it has to be.

I just don't believe it has to be. So I'm gonna throw an idea out here at you and then I'll circle around it a few times. Wisdom. Wisdom is the ability to foresee the consequences of decision and then do a decide appropriately. Wisdom is the ability to understand that if you do that, it's gonna take you there.

I don't wanna go there then I'm not doing that. You see there's another expression. You get what you got when you do what you. It. I don't like what I got. Then you gotta quit doing what you did because when you do what you did, you end up where you ended up. And I don't think you have to end up in a place you don't want to end up.

I don't think God does that to us. I think God gave us volition. You know it's interesting if you look up the word stupid in the Bible, you might be offended, like I even said the word stupid. Cuz some people think stupid is a curse word. Like don't ever say the word stupid. It's not politically correct. I get that.

but stupid is as stupid does, and it would be stupid to say stupid doesn't exist. So can I just show you a couple verses from the Bible just so we're all clear? Proverbs 12, one, Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but whoever hates correction is stupid. That's the Bible. That's just stupid. You don't learn.

That's stupid. All right, A Kioski's 10, three says, Even as fools walk along the. , they lack sense and show everyone how stupid they are. Now, if you use the word stupid, there's only like four times in the Bible, the word stupid Jew, if you use the word the Bible uses for stupid, if you hit the mother load.

See, the Bible doesn't like, I don't think it likes using the word stupid, and so it uses the word foolish. What is, What's a foolish.

Help me. It's a stupid decision. So if you use the word foolish, the Bible is just like, you'll again, the mother load man, you hit the guer and all throughout the Bible, you can, you can read about that. And, and, and what I want you to understand, and this is the point of the sale, a moment, is God wants you to get wise.

He wants you to wise up. He wants me to wise. He, he doesn't take the light in watching me put myself in a stupid situation with stupid consequences because I lack the foresight to understand that if I make that decision, it will take me there. And wisdom is the ability to understand that the decisions you make or have consequences, and you wanna be careful when you make those decisions.

Now let me just say this. So say that God honors the why. Is an understatement. God honors the wises. Uh, God is wisdom. God values wisdom. God wants to give you wisdom. This is all through the Bible. This is the point. God wants to give you the ability to understand the consequences of the decision you're about to make.

And a wise person pauses before they just make. And, and, and thinks about where that's going to leave you. And it says, I don't want to go there. I don't want to do that. Um, there's a book in your Bible called Proverbs. Proverbs are just distilled statements of the wives. If you would just distilled statements of the wises, you, you probably, uh, growing up, certainly growing up, ran across Asop, Aesop's fables.

Asop was a guy that lived about six. Uh, about five 60 BC before Christ. And, uh, he, uh, he would take animals doing stupid things or things, and then he would extract like a, a pithy little statement and he would say, This is what you need to learn. Uh, again, there's so many Asop show. Just a couple. If you've ever heard the ant and the Grasshopper.

And the grasshopper that makes the point that, that a wise person plans for the future. Uh, if you can remember the birds of the beasts and the bat, that's AOPs fable. Um, the point of that one is he winds up friendless who plays both sides against the middle. Now here's what I need you to understand. AOPs fables are loaded with wisdom.

and, and I and I, I think, again, not everyone, but there's a lot of truth in Aesop's Fs, and they're worth knowing. That'll help guide you when you have to make decisions. But what if you could sit down with God himself? What if you could sit down and just have a face to face conversation with God and he would just tell you, like you say, Hey, God, here's what I'm thinking, and you lay out your idea.

And God would go, Oh, oh, no, no, no, no. Now I wanna explain something to you about God. God doesn't say no for the fun of saying no God's. I think prime interest in your life is that you would get the best life your life could ever be. All God wants to do is guide you into making the best decisions for the best shoe, for the best life you could ever.

The problem is, is that we don't want to know what God has to say. We don't listen to him when he speaks, and so we just kind of let's it make our own mind up about that. But if you could just sit down with God, Let me, let me show you something. And in the Bible you have a book called Proverbs. I just referenced it.

We're gonna reference it that number of times. The book of Proverbs is statements from Solomon, and I'm gonna explain to you in a moment why Solomon was so sign. Because I want you to understand your Bible better, but the Book of Proverbs begins with a plea that you would listen and learn. You could paraphrase by just Don't be stupid, but so this is what it says in Proverbs one, one to six, The Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, King of Israel, for gaining wisdom and instruction for understanding words of.

For receiving instruction in prudent behavior, doing what is right and just and fair for giving prudence to those who are simple knowledge and discretion to the young. Let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance for understanding proverbs and parables, the sayings of riles and riddles of the Ys.

That's the book of Proverbs. It is, uh, it's a fascinating. Why is Solomon qualified to write the book of Proverbs? Now again, let me give you some background cuz I think this is important that you understand. Solomon was the son of King David. He was the second son. Uh, the second child of, uh, David Esheba.

The first one died Solomon Lift. Um, when David died, Solomon became king. He became David's successor. He took over the kingdom. When he was young, he was wrestling with what, what? How do I, how do I do this? I don't know how to do this. How do I be king? How do I be a good king? And so in First Kings three, which is the pastors I asked you to look up, versus seven to nine, you have this dialogue.

Let me show it to you. All right now, Lord, my God. There's Allman saying, right, You have made your servant king in place of my father David, but I am only a little child. He's not literally, he's a grown man. I'm a little child and I don't know how to carry out my duties. Your servant is here among the people you have chosen a great people to, numerous to count or number.

So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between, right? And. For who is able to govern these great people of yours? He's going, I don't know what to do. God, what do I do? How do I do this? And he asked God to give him insight. Now if you read on the next section, the Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this.

So God said to him, Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth, you know, you get the genie with a bottle. Three wish. You haven't asked for a long life or wealth for yourself, nor have you asked for the death of your enemies. But for discernment in administering justice, I will do what you have asked.

I will give you a wise and discerning heart so that there will never have been anyone like you nor will there ever be. Moreover, I will give you what you have not asked. Wealth and honor so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings. And if you walk in obedience to me and keep my decrees and commands as David your father did, I will give you a long life.

The most famous, uh, thing that you probably heard about Solomon is that time when there. Uh, two mothers who came to him and needed a dispute, settled. You might remember what happened. These two women show up and, and, uh, according to the first woman, uh, she said she took my baby, uh, that, that she laid on her baby, killed her baby, and then she took my baby and substituted her baby for my baby.

And, and that's her baby that died, not mine. And the other lady you know, said, That's crazy. There's no way I did that. She's crazy. Upon hearing these claims, you might remember, Solomon just said, Okay, get me a sword. It was such a simple, it's just such a simple, get me a sword. And they said, Why? What if she, he, I'll just cut the baby at half.

I'll give each of you half. And he knew because wisdom is the ability to understand the consequences of your decisions. He knew. He knew the mom, the real mom would not take the life of her baby to be cut in half. And so she, the real mom said, No, no, no, no. Give it to her. Give it to her. And the other one goes, Cut it in half.

And Solomon goes, Give it to that lady. And that got around and people went to Solomon going man, You, you have this ability. Wisdom is the ability to foresee the consequences of your decisions, then decide appropriately. But by the way, from that point on, just so you know, Solomon was known as the wisest man on the earth, the wisest man.

Some said that have ever lived. There's three books in your Bible. This is how I'm trying to help you understand how to read your Bible that are credited to him. One is kind of a romantic kind of a, uh, it's kind of. I'm not sure what the right word would be. It's spicy. It's spicy. It's called a Song of Solomon.

It's about two lovers. Woo. It's got some juicy language. Uh, most believe the Solomon wrote that when he was young. And then there's the Book of Proverbs. The book of Proverbs is just, again, it's a whole bunch of really wise sayings that you'd be really smart to get down so that you think before you act.

And then he wrote what's called the Book of Ecclesiastes. The book of Ecclesiastes is almost like looking back over his lifetime, what his wisdom helped him to do and where he failed to have wisdom. And it's just a book of observations of life. All of those would be worth your reading. Reading. But here's where I want us to go.

In the last few moments I've got with you, I want to take you to Proverbs chapter. , and I want to just give you a spirit of the book of Proverbs. All right? And then I'm gonna make some applications and we'll be done. Proverbs chapter two verses one to eight. Solomon says this, My son, if you accept my words and store my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding.

Indeed, if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as as, as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom from his mouth. Comes knowledge and understanding.

He holds success in store. For the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blame. For regards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones. Well, why? Because he wants to give you wisdom. Once wisdom, wisdom is the ability to foresee the consequences of your decisions and to decide accordingly, appropriately.

So let's make it practical. How do you get wisdom? I, I, I think we could come up with 25 ways. Let me just give you four, four ways. How does one attain wisdom number? Pray and ask God for it. This was our text last week. I referenced James one. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God. I, I don't know how passionately to say this.

God passionately wants to give you the ability to understand where that decision you're about to make is gonna take you. But you gotta ask and you gotta be open. You gotta be willing, Show yourself as teachable to God. I, I think about Jesus in the garden and the conversation he had with his father when he was in the inner garden.

I just think about the conversation. God, is there any other way? He's gonna be crucified tomorrow. God, if there's any other way, can you take this cup? He's plea, He's in the moment so deeply immersed in a relation with his father. Is there any other way and he just resolves. There's no other way. This is how it's gotta be.

When you understand that God is behind the decisions you're about to make, those decisions are swallowed so much more easily. And Jesus went to the cross cuz he had a conversation with his father and he understood. So pray and ask God for it. And this is again, my plea with you today. Read the wisdom literature in your Bible.

Read the wisdom literature. Now, I want to just take you, and again, you don't need to look this up. Let me just, I wanna show you something. I think it's just fascinating. There's a woman named the Queen of Sheba and uh, this is Guy Ethiopia. In second Chronicles nine verses three through seven. Let me just read to you what happens.

When the Queen of Sheba saw the wisdom of Solomon as well as the palace, he had built the food on his table, the seating of his officials, the attending servants in their robes, the cut bears in their robes, and the burnt offerings he made at the temple of the Lord. She, she was overwhelmed, she said. She said to the king, The report I have heard in my own country about your achievements and your wisdom is true, but I did not believe what they said until I came and saw with my own eyes.

Indeed, not even half of the greatness of your wisdom was told to me. You have far exceeded the report. I have heard if the Queen of Sheba would travel all the way to pick his brain, wouldn't it make sense? If you wanna make good decisions to sit down with the wisest man that ever lived and pick his brain, you can do that.

You know how you do it? You read the book of Proverbs, you read the book of Ecclesiastes, you read Song of Solomon, you read the Book of Job. This is a, a genre in the Bible called the Wisdom Literature. It will give you insight. I would also probably throw the Psalms in there, although that's a little bit.

So read the Wisdom Literature three. Trust God to know more than you know. Yeah. See, the problem with so many of us is if you think you're the smartest person in the room, you act like you think you're the smartest person in the room. And when you act like you think you're the smartest person in the room, you don't think anybody else has got anything to say that's smarter than what you're thinking.

And that's a really stupid thing to do. It makes you fool. Because you don't learn anything. Proverbs three, five and six, Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding and all your ways submit to him and he'll make your paths straight. Be a student of God first, not a critic of God.

Let God speak into your life. Speak wisdom into your life. As I was thinking about this, I was just thinking about this kind of random passage was going through my. Matthew 2337. Jesus looking over the city of Jerusalem before, literally in the last week before he's crucified, and he says this, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you.

How often I have long to gather your children together as a hn, gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. You know what he was saying? Oh, Jerusalem, if you'd only listen, If you'd only ask him questions, if you'd only sought the wisdom I could have given you, I want it so badly. I think this is an incredible picture of what God wants for you.

So will you listen, which takes me to the very last point, and I'm gonna end this on this. Listen and seek wise counsel, this is all through the book of Proverb. Listen and seek wise counsel. There's one proverb that again, I think is maybe just one of the absolute gems in the book of Proverbs, of which there are many, but this one, Proverbs nine, eight, and nine, uh, do not rebuke a mocker or they will hate you.

Don't try to straighten out somebody who's a fool. They're just gonna resent. Rebuke the wise, and they will love you, instruct the wise and they will be wiser. Still teach the righteous and they will add to their learning. What, what, what is all this? You see, you have people who are trying to teach you things.

You have a God who's trying to teach you things, and the question is, when you're confronted with some information, do you lean.  or do you lean out? Do you lean in and open up and go, Help me, Help me. Or do you go, That's not true. That's not true about me at all. I, I have a conviction that I live by. It's this.

I am surrounded by people who love me. It's just one of my, it's one of my rules. I'm surrounded by people who love me, who want nothing but the best for me. I have an executive team that I work with. They love me, I love them. They love me. They are doing everything within their power to help make me successful.

That that's what they're there, That's what they're, they're doing. They're doing everything within their power to make sure that I don't fall flat on my face and failure. They're going to sometimes tell me things I don't want to hear, just like you have. Who love you dearly, and they're gonna try to tell you something that you don't want to hear.

And the question is, or what are you telling me? The more you wanna close your arms and not listen is a sign you should open your arms, lean forward and listen because they're trying to help you. The Book of Solomon, the book of, uh, prove. Solomon's insight. A wise person always leans forward a fool. Resist.

Now I'm gonna do one last thing we're gonna do. So I'm gonna ask you to, I'm gonna ask you to gimme wisdom. I'm gonna ask you for insight. I'm gonna plead with you that you would give me some feedback, okay? I don't have enough words to tell you how much I love this church. I don't have enough words to.

How many times? I mean, I lay awake at night praying for this church, praying for you, praying for situations, praying for people. I, I, I am consumed with the welfare of the church. It's my thing and I just, I like, I don't ever want to do anything to harm this church. But you know what? I don't know what it feels like to go to the church cuz I don't just go to this church.

I lead this church and I got a team of people that lead and we want nothing but to lead. But how are we ever gonna know what that means? If you who come to this church, don't give us insight. So they're gonna put a slide up. I'm gonna ask you to pull your phone out. I'm gonna ask you to do something we do every year, and I am pleading with you to participate.

It's really important. Don't, don't, don't just waste your time by just saying whatever you think I want to hear. It's not a, it's a survey. In fact, it's gonna come up right here. Hey, look at me. I'm in the clouds. Did you see me? I was in the clouds. I just saw that. So if you will do this, I'm gonna stop talking.

I'm just gonna give you a moment to help your church, to invest yourself to, to make us better by just answering some questions. It, I problem two minutes and I hate these things that go on and I, you know, do you have one minute for a survey and then it's 15 minutes long? I hate that. We're not gonna do that.

So if you'll do this, uh, I'm just gonna stand here. I'm gonna stare at you. I'm gonna see if you get up and walk out, By the way, that'd be stupid. That was supposed to be funny. It was funny in my head. You should have heard it. It was really funny up here. So

just answer the questions as honestly as you can. It will be really, really helpful. I'm gonna ask every service, every campus to do.

When you're done, I'm gonna close in prayer. They're gonna tell me cause I have no idea. Someone's gonna tell me when I'm gonna pray, so I'll just stare at you.

All right, why don't we wrap that up. If you, uh, aren't done, if you just hold it in just a few minutes, you can finish that. But let me, uh, let me close. I want to, I want to tell you what's gonna happen next week in our, say loss series. Is a pause, the kind of moment in between, a moment to think, catch our breath.

The economy right now, uh, is crazy today. Uh, not so. Been good today, but uh, it's been crazy. Have you ever wondered if you could sit down with God and just ask questions financially? God, what should I do? Like, how, how should I handle this? We have a guy on staff that I've mentioned his name several times.

His name is David Briggs, and David has a lifetime of involvement with helping people manage money. He's gonna bring to you next week a message from the book of Proverb.  on what would God tell you, uh, about how you ought to handle your finances so that you're not feeling so stressed, so overwhelmed, so distraught.

If, if you could, if you know, wisdom is the ability to, you know, see the consequences of my decisions and then to change, you know, direct appropriate. What would God tell me to start doing? What would God tell me to stop doing? I think it's fascinating what he's gonna bring to you next week, and I'm excited for that.

So I wanna encourage you to be here and bring somebody with you cuz it's gonna be good. It's gonna be good, right? Let close in prayer and, uh, we're gonna continue in our worship. Please don't take off cuz we're not quite done, but, uh, let's go to the Lord right now. So Father, thank you for this time and this opportunity and for again, those who are in the room and those who are not, that are experiencing the same.

God help us to be wise, Help us to not do stupid. Um, stupid is so painful. Stupid is so costly. Stupid is just playing dumb. But we do it so often cuz we don't think through the consequences. So God, as you've given us these books of wisdom, help us to just dive in and go, Okay, God, I'm leaning in, I'm listening.

Teach me, show me a better. And God, I know your, your desire for us is not to cage us in and box us out. Your desire is, is to raise us up and set us free. So I pray that we would wise up and listen more carefully to the instructions you're giving to us through the Book of Proverbs. So to that end, Father we pray.

Amen. Thank you guys.