For All In The Family · Part 3

0:00 We're in part three of our titled message, For All in the Family, focusing on the word for. For all in the family, the way of wisdom, Proverbs chapter three, verses 11 to 18. And today we'll be finishing off verses 15 down to 18. If you would read the even number of verses, you guys know the drill, nice and loud. My son, do not despise the chasing of the Lord, nor detest his correction. For the Lord else he corrects, just as the Father, the Son, and the Son, and the Son. Verse 14, for her proceeds, that is wisdom. Oh, wait, sorry. I just wanted to join you guys in an even number of verses. Happy is the man who finds wisdom and the man who gains understanding. For her proceeds are better than the profits of silver, and they're gained in fine gold. She is more precious than rubies, and all the things you may desire cannot compare with her.

1:04 Her ways are the ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace. Father, speak to us out of your word. Lord, I'm trusting you to teach all of us. Lord, I pray that I would simply be a mouthpiece to what you want to impart to your people. May all of us be students today. Lord, we know that you, and I'm grateful that you've established this church almost 40 years ago, 36 years ago, as a disciple-making church. I pray today that we would leave more diligent disciples than what we've come in here this morning in Jesus name we pray and all God's people said amen you may be seated and as you well know that Solomon is speaking to his son and the remarkable fact of the matter is of course God the Holy Spirit I want to stress this God the Holy Spirit the Bible says is the author of the Bible. I love that circular reasoning. Somebody might say, that's insanity. No, listen, when God wanted to communicate to mankind, God gave the word of God and he gave it through mankind. He gave it through authors like Moses, for example. Here, Solomon. And you might think, well, because man wrote the Bible, which is not exactly accurate, that the Bible then must be filled with errors and with problems, mistakes. And that's an easy thing to say because it is the only thing to say.

2:49 And you've had people argue that defense, but when you counter back and say, well, yeah, okay, wait a minute. I see where you're coming from, that the Bible was penned by man, but the Bible says that the Holy Spirit possessed these men and wrote the word of God. And if you entertain that for a moment what the Bible says. Then it explains how this book, 66 books, 40 different authors, most of them never meeting one another, many of them on different continents,

3:24 nearly 1,800 years span of time with every doctrine of the Bible. Not one contradiction. And to seal the deal, Bible prophecy in the Bible trumps all of the religious writings in all of mankind's history. That the God of the Bible says, I am going to tell you these things in advance that when they come to pass, you will believe in me. Wow. And the book of Solomon, or I should say his writings in Proverbs are God-inspired. We hear about the wisdom of Solomon, but that was God-given. We hear about the wealth of Solomon. That was God-given. And I want to drive this home before we dive in and wrap this up. Notice that the wisest guy in the world and the richest man in the world in his day, learned quickly in his life that all of the wisdom and all of the wealth doesn't matter if you are not going to follow God because Solomon departed from those truths and he got into his flesh. It's called the book of Ecclesiastes. You want to read a guy who had it all and then winds up living his own life and it's like the book of the backslider.

4:51 But at the end of his life, he remembers, I need to get back to where the real wealth is and where the real wisdom is. It's not of this world. So we are reading, as it were, a journal of a man that we can learn a lot from. Very quickly, number one, we saw this. The strong hand of our God was found in verses 11 and 12. That the way of wisdom for all in this family that God has called us into is looked at with the strong hand of Almighty God. And we made argument for that. You can review that study on our media site. Number two, which was last week, we saw that there's the generous spirit of our God, the strong hand of our God. Number two, the generous spirit. That is the Holy Spirit. We learned about him, that person and the work of the Holy Spirit. And in your lifetime, it is the Holy Spirit's job to teach you truth and understanding and discernment among the principal things that we learn of God, the Holy Spirit, generous spirit.

5:54 I want to add a few more verses before we dive into our third and final argument. And that is found in Romans chapter eight. Romans chapter eight, verse 26 and 27. Very popular verse, but let me read it to you slowly. Let me exaggerate it this way. Romans 8, 26, likewise, the spirit, which is the Holy Spirit, which is why the translators put the capital S onto spirit. This is not a ghost. This is not your spirit. This is not an aberration. It is the Holy Spirit of God also helps in our weaknesses. Remember, we saw this last week. For we do not know, that's you and I do not know, what we should pray for as we ought. In other words, there's limitations to you and I in our prayer life because we don't know what's going on in our lives and around our lives very accurately. Think about it, everybody.

6:48 We pride ourselves as people that, well, I can handle it. I know that. And if I don't, I'll just go to YouTube and figure it out. We don't know how to pray always. And you don't throw your arms up in surrender saying, oh, no, I guess we're doomed. No, the exact opposite. We don't know how we ought to pray. But the Spirit himself makes intercession. What does that mean? The Holy Spirit steps in between you and God, and he argues your case or your pain before God. He's the one who the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, God the Spirit, speaks to the Father for you and I. Can I hear an amen on that one? Man, the more desperate you become, the more happy you are about this verse. Because when things get big, we don't know how to pray. But the Holy Spirit does for you and I.

7:41 for with us with groanings which cannot be articulated is the word uttered verse 27 now he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the spirit is because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of god that should get us excited and next verse is this before we dive into the third argument second corinthians 3 verse 17. 2 Corinthians 3, 17. Now the Lord is the Spirit.

8:14 The Holy Spirit's not an it. the Holy Spirit is God the Holy Spirit. Now the Lord is the Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Wow. The workings of the Holy Spirit leads us to our third and final argument. That's verses 16 to 18. And it is the extravagant heart of our God. Will you write that down? The extravagant heart of our God. Listen to this beginning at verse 16. The length of days is in her hand. Wisdom has the length of days in her hand. And in her left hand, riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness and all of her paths are peace. Shalom, we'll see.

9:06 She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her. And happy are all who retain her. Our God's extravagant. We're not going to get into this portion of scripture that's in the gospels, but you know it well. Do you remember the parable of the prodigal son? Did you know that in the Western church, in the Western world, we have said this for centuries? We have called that parable, the parable of the prodigal son. Did you know that's actually wrong in theology? Listen up, everybody. It doesn't say in your Bible that the prodigal son. It's technically not about the prodigal son. some of you, some of you know this. That's good.

9:53 There was the son who wanted his riches, early retirement, goes out back to the world, leaves his father, leaves his home, leaves his brother, and blows all of his money, drinking, cruising around with bubbles, and whatever, gambles it away, winds up having to work for some guy, and he winds up sleeping with the pigs because he's basically become homeless and a bum. And the other son, by the way, the other son stayed home, obeyed dad, was a great guy to a point. And then there's the dad, the father. And we all focus on the son because we can relate to the son who ran away. But it's actually the parable of the extravagant father. By the way, the prodigal son went out and lived an extravagant life and consumed it upon himself.

10:53 All the while, the father was extravagant. You say, what do you mean extravagant? First of all, the father in that parable was extravagant toward his son who was obedient. He loved his son. He took care of his son. His son had stayed home. His son had kept the farm going. And the father had blessed the son. That speaks to the keeping power of God the Father in your life. God will keep you. Now we know the prodigal son ran away, the other son. But the Bible says that when he repented, by the way, the word never appears repent in the story because the story is about repentance. The prodigal son comes to his senses, says it's better that I go back to my father. Life is better there. I'd much rather be a servant to my father than live with these pigs. and the Bible says that the dad had been looking, scanning the horizon, watching, looking.

11:46 Can you imagine that dad got up every day? Some of you are living this right now with your wayward daughter or your wayward son or your grandchildren. You get up every day hoping that the news is good, that they're not dead. Better yet, that they're coming back, and you've actually been guilty of being extravagant towards them. Maybe you were a little bit too generous and it kind of helped them get into more trouble, but that was never your heart. And you risked your extravagance to maybe turn them around because you did it in love, right? Think about it. And there's the father waiting and waiting. And he sees his son, the Bible says, coming from afar. And the extravagant love of the father turns and says, prepare a fatted calf, make everything, get a feast going, get the barbecues fired up, invite people. My son who was dead, has been found.

12:40 And the extravagant father threw an extravagant party. And then the one son who turns out to be quite legalistic and arrogant says, Hey, what's the deal, man? You bless the guy, my brother, who treated you like a bum. I've been faithful all these years. What do I get? And the father says, I'm paraphrasing. You're going to be blessed because you stayed.

13:02 It's all about the extravagant love of the father. God's extravagant. The rain we're having outside speaks of how extravagant it is. Well, what about the floods down at the beach? Jesus said, don't build your home on the beach. The clouds.

13:23 Everything. Think about it. Yes, we live in a fallen world. Yes, there's problems. Yes, people are losing their homes. We're sad about that. We don't make light of that. That's tragic. We live in a fallen world, but God is good. You and I live in a fallen world. We get sick, we have problems. God is good. The extravagant heart of God. So in researching this, I had to throw this in because it kind of relates. Do you know what ROI stands for in the financial world? I want to put this up on the screen.

13:56 Investors will talk about what's the ROI on this. What is the return on investment? Watch this. As a percentage, return on investment is a financial ratio that measures the profit generated by an investment relative to its cost. Listen to this talk. It's all good on Wall Street, but don't translate this into God Street. Key factors influencing ROI include the initial investment amount, ongoing maintenance costs, and the cash flow generated by the investment. This is true if you're operating in this economy. Are you with me? This is true. I want you to listen to the extravagant heart of our God. And as a Christian, your return on investment when it comes to your devotion to God and to his word and to your walk. It's time, church.

14:51 Look around the world. It's time for us to get serious about Jesus Christ. I think if we got serious about Jesus Christ and maybe I'm speaking to the choir here you are a very serious people and I'm grateful but if we got serious about our walk with Jesus Christ and focused on the extravagant heart of our God there might be a lot less people that are heading off into cults and weird belief systems realizing wow that Christianity that they're following look how devoted they are look how committed they are because look for us, it's not about any effort on our own. It's about us responding to the extravagant love of God. It's beautiful. Philippians chapter 4, I'm going to write small on your notes. I'm going to give you a lot of scripture. Philippians 4 verse 19, and my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Here's the thing. You and I do not know what we need, but God does because the Holy Spirit prays to the father for us. And he knows exactly what we need. Now what blows my mind in this world, God has given us even some of our wants that he didn't have to give. So what does that mean? Okay. You guys know, I've told you a million times. I'll tell you more in the future. I'm sure.

16:18 I do everything possible to feed a massive population of squirrels in our backyard. Big, beautiful squirrels. We just had three new ones come out of the nest. They're spectacular. And I don't judge me on this, but I spend almost $80 a month on massive bags of peanuts. and they just, listen, wherever they are at, they must say to themselves, why am I living in this other yard? I'm going to go back to the yard that I was born in. And even if my tail gets shaved and I look like a rat, I'm going to return to the extravagant provision of the house where I was born, where there's peanuts flowing like milk and honey. And this morning there were five of them, five of them sitting there and it was almost a circle. They were almost in a circle and they're just going like this.

17:35 And I wondered what they were thinking, but because of the sermon, I kind of knew. It's an extravagant morning. These are extravagant peanuts. That guy that comes in and out of that house, he's extravagant toward us. because listen, God in his, he not only gives us what we need, God didn't have to give me squirrels. He, look, you may be trying to kill squirrels in your yard. Just send them to my yard. I want them. Why? I just like them. I want them. Here's the deal. Here's the deal is that I can live life without them, but the goodness of God gave them to me. Do you have a little dog? Do you have a little cat? Do you have a big dog or a big cat? God gave that to you. He didn't have to do that. Think for a moment. The drop of rain that hit you on the head today, God gave you that.

18:33 He didn't have to give you that. Jesus shares his riches with us. He's extravagant. And this proverb we'll see in detail here in a moment, but these are verses that are backing up the argument. 2 Corinthians 9, verse 8 begins by saying,

19:42 Friends, first of all, nobody, I mean, this is in English. It was written in Greek originally, but that is genius, brilliant language. Do you hear that? I mean, that is plump with blessings. Wow. 1 Peter announces chapter 1 verse 3, blessed, happy be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. By the way, if Jesus Christ is not resurrected from the dead, we have no hope. I love saying that because he's resurrected from the dead. so I can offer the reverse knowing that I know the truth. Because Jesus is risen from the dead, all of God's promises are true. You can bank on it.

20:34 You can take it to the bank, so to speak. Verse four, here it comes. Extravagate God to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. Folks, you can't get more extravagant than that. That the God of the Bible says you are a lost, wretched, doomed, and damned sinner and there's no hope for you. But I've come from out of this world to you. and I gave my son to be the sacrifice for the price of sin that you've racked up in your life. My son paid that price on the cross, but that wasn't enough. On the third day, he rose again from the grave to see to it that you received all the benefits, and we'll talk about this in a moment, all the goodness that I want for you. See, God loves you, but between you and God, there's the wall of sin.

21:44 And that sin has to be removed for God to bless you in your life with salvation. You need to agree with God. Ec homologio. You need to say the same word about sin that God does so you can be saved. Jesus Christ is the eternal savior. But that doesn't do you any good until you realize that you need saving. extravagant. In God's economy, the ROI is the infinite blessings that God bestows upon his own children. So if in this world, in America anyway, you can sit down and figure out, okay, it's going to cost me this much. Listen, if it's going to cost me this much to invest in that thing, How much will it cost me to service that thing?

22:41 How's it going to affect my cash flow? Those are smart things to answer in this economy. God's economy, watch this. What's my return on investment? How much do I invest? What's it going to cost me? What did it cost you? What did it cost you to invest in the riches of eternal salvation through Jesus Christ? What was your investment?

23:08 Zip, zero, nada, nyet. Nada, nothing. Well, how much is it going to cost me to maintain? Listen, folks, some of you legalists, listen up. Well, how much is it going to cost me to service this investment? Answer, zero. Well, how does it affect my cash flow, spiritually speaking? Doesn't. You are simply, literally, but eternally, the one who receives the generous blessings and outpouring of God's love for you. And that's why if you're not a Christian, you're crazy right now. Crazy, you're crazy. To not be a follower of Jesus, you're crazy. You want to know why? Why would you reject this? Well, I don't want to be a member of the church. We don't have membership.

24:02 well, I want to keep my own money. Keep it. You think God needs it? Oh, please, Johnny, please accept me so I can get into your bank account. You think God is thinking like that? Look, if God needs your money, Johnny, we need a new God. he offers. That's why the gospel is so, can I say this this way? The gospel, though it's the good news, is very humiliating to the flesh because you can't buy it. What do I need to do to get it? Nothing. Just repent about your sins and trust in Christ's righteousness. Believe on him and you shall be saved. And so the first thing about this is, as we look at it, is that we are recipients of his goodness. Obviously, if he's extravagant, and he is, we learned from verse 16 that we are the recipients.

25:03 And that verse says length of days is in her hand, right hand. Remember the personal pronoun or her is wisdom personifying her. length of days this is the wisdom of god length of days is in her right hand and in her left hand riches and honor this gets kind of fun right now so the wisdom of god in the personification of wisdom speaking of her the the god of the bible wants wisdom to be as we've been learning your guidance system your go-to and god the holy spirit will enlighten the word to you when you read it give you understanding of the Bible when you read it. But this should generate within you more and more loving obedience when we talk about this wisdom that will lengthen your days. Mark this down if you would. It's pretty awesome. It's the fifth commandment. The fifth commandment of Exodus chapter 20 verse 12 says, honor your father and your mother that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you. Now the context, folks, is not so much the 21st century context of when this was given. This was given thousands of years ago, and it was given to the children of Israel. This is the fifth commandment of the Ten Commandments. Are you with me, everybody?

26:25 The context is believers. I have to say this in this wicked age we live in, because a young kid might say, wait, I'm the Christian in our home, and my mom and dad are a bunch of pagan, godless Thank you. demonic lunatics. And that's often the situation or some similarity to that. No, this is what the fifth commandment is saying. Honor your mother and father. If you have that kind of a situation, look for ways to honor them.

27:00 But know this. God never is saying to honor your mother and father if they entice you to sin. Never. God first. The context is the setting of believing parents, faithful parents. Honor your father and mother. Why? Well, you live a long life. What does that mean? Does that mean like mom and dad can kill me if I'm disobedient? It means if you honor the figureheads that God has placed over you in a good context, remember, not to sin, don't follow their sins, but show respect.

27:45 God is saying, how are you going to respect me if you can't respect them that are standing right in front of you? Well, you're way better than they are, God. Yes, okay, but there's going to be times when you don't understand what I'm doing in your life, and you might be tempted to accuse me of being bad. I know none of you would ever say to God, why are you doing this to me? But you know when that moment hits you? why is this happening to me? Though that's a moment when you are not understanding what God's doing, but you have to pull back from your emotion and go to default, and the default is God is an extravagant lover of my soul. He's communicated that clearly. Just because I don't understand it doesn't change his love for me. It doesn't change his love for you. But God says, obey the authority over you, in this case, mom and dad, ultimately God, and you're going to live a long life. you're not how about this he's not saying that you're going to live to be 110 he's saying you're going to live a life whatever time frame because the bible says god and we'll see this in a moment that god has numbered our days whatever time frame you've been given it's going to go well with you how about that wow that's good news look at the word length here in the hebrew language it It means to be long or elongated, continuing, enduring days, resilient.

29:07 I would throw in enduring, resilient. Notice it's speaking, alluding to the right hand, having the power to do it. Length of days. God says, you follow this, you follow my direction, and my extravagant love is going to see to it that you have enduring days, resilient days. Whatever life you've been given time frame wise, it's going to be good for you.

29:33 On a grand scale, what we want as parents for our children, God has that on a grand scale. Psalm chapter 90 verse 12. So teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Mark that verse down everybody. This is incredible. So Lord God, we ask you in Jesus name that you would teach us to number our days. What does that mean? God is not going to tell you the number of our days you know you do have a day some of you sometimes first service I must say first and third people fall asleep at first and third second no but people do I should warn you you're also on TV so when you fall asleep it doesn't look good for me or for you but know this there's just some people just and it's great because they're like this. they got the, it's like they're recovering and yes, I'm paying attention. I got it. So, but there are some people who go to church all their life and they sleep through never learning about the extravagant heart of God to wake up enough to realize that what he has for them is very, very good.

30:57 They miss it. They miss it. And you don't want to miss it. It's very important. Listen to this. Look at the book of Ephesians here, chapter two, verse four and 10. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love wherewithal he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. Look at this parenthetical insert. By grace you have been saved. Thank you. And raised us up together. Isn't that wild? Listen to that.

31:35 Raised us up together. When Jesus Christ rose again from the dead, in the mind of God, he's eternal, knowing that you would trust in the Lord when you heard the gospel. When Jesus rose from the dead, God the Father accounted that, knowing you also rose from the dead when Christ rose from the dead. even though you and I would not be born for 2,000 more years. God is eternal. He has no watch. God's not waiting for something to happen. When is that guy going to come around? He's eternal. It freaks us out. Think about it. It's wild. God doesn't have a calendar. He lives in the eternal now. There's no time there. Wow.

32:17 And so, raised us up together. It gets better. and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. That's wild because that is past tense. According to you and I, even though we're here right now, to the mind of God, God sees us already seated in heaven above.

32:39 Well, I don't know. I don't know if God loves me. Do you love Jesus? I love Jesus. Do you believe he died on the cross for your sins? Yes, I did. Do you believe he rose again from the grave? Yes, I do. do you believe? Yes, I believe, but I don't know if I have enough faith. Well, then take your Bible, go outside and burn it. Throw it away. Throw it in the trash can. Go outside, get a megaphone, denounce Jesus Christ. I could never do that. You want to know why? Because you're a Christian. You're a child of God. That's why you cannot do that. So stop feeling that way and believe him at his word when he says you're already seated in the heavenly places. We're on, we're in route. you have an address in this world it's nothing it's fallen apart it's fallen into the ocean there's an address that you and i have in jesus christ that's reserved in heaven forever and ain't it's not and it's not it's not going to go anywhere how how much can we trust that verse seven that in the ages to come aeonios post-eonios for the eons upon eons upon eons millions of years upon millions of years upon millions of years infinite eons.

33:53 Watch. That in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Verse eight. For by grace you have been saved. Notice it's past tense. Believer. It's past tense. Enter into that joy. Have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves. it is the gift of God not of works lest anyone should boast verse 10 for we are his workmanship his poem poema created in Christ Jesus for good works that is to do good things for him which God prepared before that we should walk in them is that awesome? God prepared a journey for your feet to live the length of your days from birth to end and God's saying And I already made it.

34:47 Do you guys remember slot cars? Raise your hand, please. If you remember, this is first service. A lot of old people in here. Do you remember slot cars? That was awesome. We used to go to hobby shops and race our slot cars. That car was beautiful, fun, but you have to put it on the track. The brushes have got to make connection with the electrified course, right? And then it takes off.

35:16 Remember that? God says, concerning your life, before you were ever born, I knew you. My heart is so extravagant toward you that I have a track that's been waiting, and no one else has ever driven on it before. And no one else would ever drive on it. It's a track for you. How many people die without Christ, wind up in hell, and on the day of judgment? Can you imagine? I think one of the great, great, horrible things that they're going to cry about, beyond the fact that it's really hot,

35:54 is they're going to see, can you imagine? Regret is a horrible punishment. To look and see what God had prepared for them, and they didn't accept him. and God says walk in him walk in the path Proverbs chapter 3 verse 16 where we're at right now it says in her left hand look at her left hand her left hand riches and honor it's beautiful right so think about the right hand with all of this strength and we've talked a lot over the weeks