Welcome to Waymaker Church! We are so excited to have you join us today! We exist to Encounter, Live for, and Advance the Kingdom of God!

The book of Proverbs is well-known as the book of wisdom. Solomon, the wisest of kings, used these writings to help people from all walks of life move to a higher level of intelligence, understanding, and more than that… discernment.

The book of Proverbs is life changing, and it has even influenced my own behavior and beliefs. As one studies, you can find yourself able to utilize the principles that you learn over the years personally and professionally to help people.

With God as his clear guiding principle, it's evident that Solomon had a multidimensional approach to wisdom. The book of Proverbs is often used to challenge us as we grow in wisdom and knowledge. Solomon brilliantly used short stories, analogies, and impactful words, but his writing serves the purpose to make us wiser.

As an author, Solomon understood the need to express the importance of character before explaining the fear of the Lord as a gateway for knowledge.
Wow. How powerful is that? This is the journey Solomon is inviting us into as readers.
He is inviting us to clearly and thoroughly understand the fear of the Lord.

As Christians, it can sometimes be easy to view God as baby Jesus in a manger, the nice guy who healed people, or the sacrificial Jesus who died for our sins. Jesus is all of those things; however, we should also be recognizing him as our Lord of Lords and King of Kings, and the Almighty God.

In this verse, Solomon wasn't inviting us to know a democratic God who we vote on based on his ideas and obey when we want to. So, how do we get, and more importantly, maintain the fear of the Lord, which is the prerequisite to ongoing wisdom, discernment, and protection from bad relationships?

Who do you choose to serve? God or the things of this world?

Proverbs 1:7 begins with declaring, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.”

According to Strong’s Concordance, the word ‘fear’, is the Hebrew word, ‘Yirah’ (H3374) which means: “fear (of God), respect, and reverence”.

The reverential fear and respect of God is the beginning or the starting point of knowledge.
-Before you begin anything — seek God.
-Before you start a career — seek God.
-Before you begin a business or start a new venture — choose to seek God.
-Choose to revere God’s Word and He will direct your pathway. Prov 3:5-6

When you choose to exalt and revere God, you’re placing more weight and authority in His Way of doing things.

When you establish your foundation in God, you’re literally placing your hope, confidence and trust in Him.

The beginning of success begins with your reverential fear, honor and respect of God’s Blueprint — His Word.

Think about it, Strong’s Concordance states that the Hebrew word for ‘knowledge’ is ‘daath‘ (H1847) which means: “Skill, discernment, understanding and wisdom”.
The starting point of your talent, skill, gift, discernment and ability starts and ends with God at the focal point.
The word, “knowledge”, in this context, alludes to the “comprehensive understanding of a matter.”

In other words — wisdom.
James 1:5 states,
5 If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.

In order to ask for wisdom, understanding, skill and insight you must start with having a reverential fear of God — He is the starting point and His Word is true.

So again... how do we get, and more importantly, maintain the fear of the Lord, which is the prerequisite to ongoing wisdom, discernment, and protection from bad relationships?

1) Accept and Believe
Computer Class (if/then logic)
-IF “Type 1”, THEN “Yes”
-IF “Type 0”, THEN “No”
---Simple coding that is used behind the scenes that makes your word documents, google searches, etc. make sense to the computer to computate the correct response.

Even 1000’s of years ago, Solomon understood this..

The NKJV says, ( Proverbs 2:1 NKJV)
1 My son, if you receive my words, And treasure my commands within you,

There is such importance in that statement.
- When you accept something, it means that you understand that it is truth. Ask any psychologist, and you will quickly know this can work in both directions.
---If someone believes they are worthless for whatever reason they tell themselves, then he or she will accept this as truth. They will also make relationships and personal decisions based upon their feeling of worthlessness and beliefs about themselves.
---On the other hand, if an individual believes they are worthy, then they make choices based upon this belief.
-What we accept and believe are always correlated to the choices we make in our lives.

In this verse, Solomon asks us to fully and unequivocally accept God's Word. And we should—the Word of God is truth! Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth and the life" (John 14:6).
-As a believer, I accept God's Word as truth. It's how we get started on this journey of fearing the Lord. God's Word must have the first say AND the final word—not emotions, people's beliefs, or how society tells us to act.
- If we accept God's Word as truth, it becomes the way we filter our thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors.
-This is crucial because When we truly accept and understand God's word as truth for our lives and decisions, we take the first of several steps in obtaining or actualizing the fear of God in our lives and mature.

2) Store Up
What does "storing up" mean to you?
-When I think of this term, I see an image in my head of people gathering items, labeling them, organizing them, and packing them up.
-Every year my family gets decorations out of storage, and we bring them out for the Christmas season. After Christmas is over, we then take all of the decorations and carefully store them away for next year.
-Those who have moved or reorganized your home know the importance of effectively accomplishing the storing process; we buy, utilize, label, store, and maybe reuse or redistribute in some manner during this time.

Solomon recognized the correlation between the fear of the Lord and storing His commandments in our hearts. There are many ways to store up the Word of God inside of you. It may be meditating, memorizing, or journaling about the Word of God. Regardless of how you do this, it's important to recognize that storing and understanding the fear of the Lord go hand in hand.
-The "within you" part of this scripture is also significant. Solomon knew if we were in some manner regenerating these precious commands (notice it's not just suggestions or ideas), then these commandments would influence our day-to-day lives. This "storing up" process plays a key part for believers who are growing toward the fear of God.
-"Storing up" isn't just reading or believing in God's Word. It means that we are studying it, writing it down, organizing it, repeating it, maybe even memorizing it, so that we have His Word in our heart. The more often we do this, the more we are putting the words of God into our hearts regularly.

As believers, it can be easy to fall into a routine where you're reading or skimming through the Word quickly without gathering the fruit the Bible holds.
-These biblical commandments must become part of navigating our lives. They become our world view and help us discern the lies of the secular world from the truth of the Bible. These commandments give us clarity in decisions and relationships.

As we store God's Word in our heart, we are engraving these beliefs into our hearts as our moral code.
-I have seen an endless amount of people who have completely shifted their lifestyles for the better after storing the biblical commandments and principles the Word offers us.
-Ask a psychologist, what people store and put into their body spiritually, mentally, and physically shows by their disciplines and fruit.

The discipline of storing God's Word in our heart leads us to the fear of the Lord.
-Be real for a moment… As followers and believers of Christ, wouldn't it be an honor to be His student and take notes from the all-powerful God who created us?

3) Turn Your Ear
This bodes a serious question… who are you listening to?
-Remember when we talked about Solomon's cause and effect, and if/then in his teachings?
-Well, he continues with this if/then logic as he moves us toward the foundation of wisdom in fearing the Lord.
---As believers, we have learned that we are supposed to believe God's Word and store it in our hearts.
---Now, we are going to talk about turning our ear to wisdom.

Our humanity creates patterns in our lives. Its amazing how often Christ followers express the belief that magical or made-up ideas will compensate for years or decades of irresponsibility. They want God to go against His own principle of sowing and reaping—whether it's about consequences or blessings.
-There is always a cause to the effect and an effect to the cause.
---Do the right things, usually get the right outflow.
---Do the wrong things, eventually you’ll get the outflow of doing wrong.

Solomon wants us to be careful about what we are listening to and absorbing.
-What we hear, we imagine, we weigh, we dialogue with, and may actually come to accept as truth.
-People who are watching propaganda of any kind (health, wealth, politics, etc.) will believe whatever it is if they repetitively hear it.
-It's not about just listening, but receiving.
-If you engross yourself in anything, you will become an evangelist for it, good or bad.

In Proverbs 2:2, Solomon tells us to disciple our ears to wisdom.
-How do we do this as Christians?
-Let me offer some suggestions.
---As believers in Jesus Christ, we can go to church regularly and hear the word of God, which can build our faith.
---We can watch Christian television regularly.
---We can listen to audiobooks or podcasts on any Christian subject we desire to learn more about.
---We can participate in various forms of social media and converse with fellow believers on Christian forums.
---We can listen to Christian radio.
---There are so many different ways to advance our Christian walk through these various outlets.
-However, there are many tempestuous forms of communication and entertainment in the secular world as well. T
---The secular world has all of the same outlets and inroads to provide their "golden narrative" to your ear, which can soak into your heart.
- The question I want to ask you is who is getting your ear time?
---Only you can evaluate this for yourself. Does your ear hear more of God's Word or the world's secular narrative?

Solomon's advice to attain the fear of God is to have discipline toward the things of God and be less focused on what the world says.
-I want to be clear: throughout your Christian walk you will hear secular values and you will hear worldly things.
-An important question to ask yourself is, who has your ears attention most of the time?
---Who or what are you intentionally listening to?
---These answers can help you decide if you are turning your ear to wisdom.

4) Apply Your Heart
Proverbs 2:2 NKJV
2 So that you incline your ear to wisdom, And apply your heart to understanding;

Solomon uses an important conjunction in Proverbs 2:2 - “AND”.
-Why is this word so critical to understand? It highlights that "just listening" does not make one wise, or even fear God.
-We must understand and apply these commandments in our heart.
---Our heart is the place where you are all in.
---Our heart is where we make vows and covenants.
---We love and commit from our hearts.
---Usually, the heart leads our mind, will, and emotions in good or bad relationships or choices.

Solomon is advising that if we genuinely want the fear of God to be in our lives, we must be all in.
-Our heart needs to be in a position to truly seek out God and His Word and apply the principles we learn. James “Be Ye Doers…”
-We shouldn't just be listening but implementing these commandments.
---For instance, you could hear one hundred messages from pastor on topics like tithing, loving others, or serving;
---however, listening to these sermons alone doesn’t make us more generous, obedient, loving, or serving.
---But, when we apply our heart to the biblical principles we learn, we begin to practice the lessons the spirit of God is teaching us.

In our pursuit of wisdom, we are not learning facts; instead, we are learning the nature, personality, and thoughts of God—just as you would in an intimate relationship.
-God shares his heart as we listen.
-When we apply what He has spoken, whether it be large or small, we show He is listened to, heard, and respected by us.

Applying what God is speaking to us prepares us for the fear of God (that reverential awe and honor) because it puts us in a relationship of “Yes, Father, I am listening and will do all you say.”
-The lesson and application God may give you can be in any area or relationship in your life.
-So, if we genuinely desire the fear of God, we must be willing to apply what He is teaching to prepare us to learn even more!

All your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your strength…

5) Cry out to God
a. Solomon adds to the process of growing in the fear of the Lord by adding an “AND” in verse 3

What do you think of when you hear the part of the verse that says "crying aloud"?
-Some of you may think of physical or emotional pain. Others may think of the feelings of misery or anguish.
-Here, I believe it is sincerely crying out in desperation for the fear of God and the wisdom he can offer us.
---It's not just asking God, "Can you please do this for me?"
---It is pleading with your heart and soul for God to hear your prayers and give you something.
-Many times, crying out can be in the unfolding of a traumatic event.
---An example of crying out could be if someone you are close to gets a disease that could be fatal without a miracle, and you cry out for God to heal this person you love.

This is the disposition of the heart that will inherit the fear of the Lord—to stay in a process where you desperately want more wisdom, guidance, and insight into your relationship with God.
-When was the last time you cried out to God?
-Unfortunately, rarely in our culture do we stay desperate. It's circumstantial at best.
-However, if we genuinely desire the fear of God and remain in a desperate place for more of God's wisdom, we can inherently expect the fear of the Lord.

Jesus captures an important concept in Luke 6:21 when he says, "Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied."
-to stay in this mindset; we must be aware that we are hungry for His love and wisdom. We must stay in need for more of Him.
-We must remain in our daily disciplines.
---We have talked about the disciplines of storing up His Word in our hearts,
---turning our ears to wisdom,
---applying our heart to understanding,
--- and now crying out to God for more of His mature wisdom in our lives.
- We need to humble ourselves so that we may stay desperate for His wisdom, revelations, and love.

The soul that cries out for wisdom is heard. God is not holding back. He gives to those who truly want His insight and understanding.
-Crying out to God has so many applications in godliness, the way we behave in personal relationships, in relationships in business, or even in just being better followers of Christ.
-This discipline, to those that embrace it, can put you on the path to fear God.

Conclusion
Solomon continues to add to his list of the if/then statements that result in the fear of the Lord. Proverbs 2:4-5 is his last if/then statement. (NKJV)

He concludes the ideas with this...
-It's our intentionality and our continued discipline that is necessary to gain the fear of God.
• The knowledge and fear of the Lord are not a weekend treasure hunt, but rather a lifelong disposition.

So, where do we look? As believers, we look in the Word of God. We read, study, research, obey, and let the Word speak to us.

I love that Solomon tells us how to look for it—look for it like it's silver or treasure. It's necessary to look for it because it has great value. Look for it because when you find it, it will change your life.
• Explorers and treasure hunters go through the arduous task of looking for treasure to get rich, to change their life, to have the resources to live out their dreams.

Over time, you’ll learn to love seeking God for wisdom; you’ll love when he shares a revelation, whether it is about his Word, how people operate, relationships, or business principles.

Overall, we are supposed to seek continually. We know all the riches are found in Christ Jesus. He is so willing to share Himself with us.

Because of His goodness, our reasonable response should be to prioritize our "seeking Him" time over our social media and entertainment time. Seeking the secular world does not hold any fruit or promise.

Throughout this message, we have evaluated the principles and disciplines to step into that awe and reverential fear of God:
1. Accept And Believe
2. Store up His commands in your heart
3. Turn Your Ear towards Him
4. Apply Your heart towards Him
5. Cry out to Him

Through these disciplines, we are given a great promise: the fear of the Lord and the knowledge of God.

I hope this encourages you that anyone who follows this understanding can have the fear of God. The fear of God has so many promises connected to it. You truly do find a treasure if you find the fear of God.