Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript: Proverbs 8-9 on Teachability

Today I’ll be preaching through Proverbs chapter 8 and the first part of Proverbs chapter 9. So we’ll read through verse 9 of Proverbs chapter 8. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. Proverbs 8:1-9.

“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. To you, oh men I call, and my voice is to the sons of men. Oh you simple ones, understand prudence. And you fools be of an understanding heart. Listen. For I will speak of excellent things, and from the opening of my lips will come right things, for my mouth shall speak truth. Wickedness is an abomination to my lips. All the words of my mouth are with righteousness. Nothing crooked or perverse is in them. They are all plain to him who understands and right to those who find knowledge.”

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your most holy word. And we pray, Lord God, that we would attend to the voice of wisdom today and always. Help us, Father, to mature in our teachability through the application of your word. Bring us that word, Lord God, with good news in a but also show us our correct response. Show us, Lord God, where we should alter our course to more properly honor you, to know you, to delight in our relationship with you and one another. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

The two opening songs—two songs of praise after the forgiveness of sins—sort of shows what I want to do with this sermon today. I want to set our course on this new year, produce a commitment hopefully in the context of today’s sermon to increase in our teachability before God. I had originally intended the sermon title to be “Are You Teachable?” But one of the most important things I think I’ve learned over the last few years is that the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ is what the preaching of the word is all about.

The good news is not some sort of standard or Y in the road that you can ultimately take one way or the other way that emphasizes your choice one way or the other. But the proclamation of the good news is the gifts that Jesus has given to us through his work through calling us into his presence.

We’re kind of going retrograde motion just a bit here. We’re going back to my talk on the gift of discipleship at the center of the 21st chapter of John where Jesus commissions Peter to feed his sheep. And I made a very fleeting point in that sermon that the implication of that for us since God has given us this gift of discipleship is that we should be disciple. We should be teachable. And at the time I was not happy with the scant amount of time I spent on that. So I wanted to return to that theme at the beginning of the year.

And so this is the first topical sermon after our celebration of Epiphany last Sunday. And so today I wanted to talk about this—kind of the beginning of our year, the opening of the year and then the need to be teachable—that God would grant us his word as we’re teachable to it in the context of our year that opens up in front of us.

So what I’m going to do here is I’m just going to go slowly through Proverbs chapter 8 into the middle of verse chapter nine. The structure of Proverbs is that the first nine chapters are a long introduction to then the formal proverbs of Solomon that begin in chapter 10 verse one and those are the more proverb-like set of sayings begin there and go on for most of the rest of the book until the last two chapters.

So we don’t really have the proverbs specifically laid out in front of us here. This is an introduction to grab our attention for nine chapters. God grabs our attention opening our ears wider and wider so that when the proverbs start to flow from the mouth of Solomon we’ll understand them. But into them and learn from them.

And the way this introduction both opens and closes is with wisdom personified as a woman crying out in chapter 2 and crying out in chapters 8 and nine. Specifically, as that introduction comes to its conclusion on either side of 8 and 9 where wisdom is crying out, there’s another woman crying out as well. And we’ll talk about that in a little bit—Dame Folly, so to speak. Folly also personified as a woman also cries out. And there’s a contrast given to us there.

So, really chapters 8 going into the middle of verse 9 is this kind of climactic part of the introduction to the proverbs to grab our attention that we might be teachable. So, it seemed appropriate here that the proper response to God’s giving us teachable hearts to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ is desire to mature in our teachableness by focusing and by attending to this section of Proverbs. That its full purpose is to gain our attention and to create a teachable spirit and heart in the context of who we are.

One other thing I wanted to mention—having nothing to do with today’s sermon, but two points I probably should have made last week on the magi and its gifts and I made probably in passing. But, as the magi are seen coming and constituting a new priesthood in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, as we look at that priestly perspective on the gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh that were came together in Levitical system at the altar of incense.

What we see here is a very typical pattern of covenantal renewal with gentile sponsorship. Remember that the tabernacle itself and the articles of furniture of the tabernacle were built largely with gentile sponsorship. And by that I mean the Egyptians gave a great amount of wealth to the Israelites as they came out of Egypt. The mixed multitude of Egyptians also came with wealth and that wealth was used to construct the tabernacle.

And so we could track this right through the covenantal periods of the Old Testament. But there always seems to be this gentile sponsorship by way of gifts to constitute the new temple. And so this gift, this visit of the god-fearing Gentiles to Jesus, bringing the gifts that symbolically represent that the temple is now changed, the true temple has come, worship will be changed in terms of its way. This also was rather consistent with Old Testament patterns.

And then secondly, the fact that the Gentiles bring these gifts certainly means a change of priesthood and a change the way worship will occur. And that’s what I stressed last week. But it also means that there’s a degree of continuity with the past. Right? If what Christ will accomplish as the great high priest and if the worship is now focused around him as the true temple of which the Old Testament was a prefigurement and if that worship is kind of set up in our minds as we begin to read the gospel accounts through these gifts that correlate back to the Old Testament tabernacle and temple.

Then we’re showing that a change of priesthood definitely occurs. Jesus is a Melchizedekian priest, not a Levitical priest. But we’re also being told that new priesthood has a degree of continuity from the old covenant. So if we understand how gold, frankincense, and myrrh were used at the altar of incense, it informs us about what this new system of worship will be. Change of priesthood, change of law, but it’s not complete discontinuity in the law of worship. It builds upon what’s been given us in the past.

So the magi are also a link certainly telling us that a new worship will now happen but they’re also a link telling us that this new worship will occur in the context of Old Testament patterns that have been developed already coming up to that and in the context of that worship as we said over and over is this gift-giving that God gives to his people and discipleship is the gift that we want to talk about today our proper response is to be good disciples right and so we want to learn to be teachable and I just have some most of these are very brief points.

But going straight through the text from Proverbs 1 through the middle of chapter 9 and just some observations.

## First: Wisdom is Readily Available

So first we read in the first three verses, “Does not wisdom cry out and understanding without 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.”

And so what wisdom tells us here is that she is readily available. Being teachable, maturing in our teachability presupposes the availability of wisdom. Wisdom is in the high places. Wisdom is not hidden away here. The idea is that wisdom is out there at all times. So as we look forward to this new year, we look for opportunities where we can become, where we, if we are teachable, will mature our understanding of God and his ways. Wisdom is readily available. Even the difficulties and trials that we run into should be seen as opportunities to learn and to be teachable.

So this morning already, you know, well, Elder W., I think he also left out the call in response. I think we missed that, too. I addressed Drew by his last name, Ryan. Stumbled over that. You see, these are, if we have a teachable heart, we recognize what God is doing. He’s maturing us. He’s causing us not to be lifted up. He’s causing us to be humble before him.

And to be teachable means, first and foremost, to be humble before God, looking for the opportunities that we have where wisdom is crying out. So wisdom cries out to us and when we have that perspective then we know that this teachable spirit is to accompany our lives as it be a characteristic of our whole lives. And so there is this looking for wisdom in the context of all the circumstances of our life.

You know, Job went through trials and tribulations and we know what that was about. We know that sometimes that occurs so that the angels might observe the faithfulness of men who are suffering for really no particular cause other than that God wants to show them off how faithful a servant they are to the angels. Now that’s kind of the perspective of Job. Now there’s other stuff going on no doubt but our lives that we live in this new year are on display before God and the angels and the angels want to see if when difficulties and trials and tribulations occur, what will our response be? To pull back or to be teachable and look for God’s instruction to us in the midst of those trials and tribulations. Will we walk in paths, well-established paths of teachability? If we’re teachable in the easy times, and when the tough times come, we’ll find ourselves looking for what God is teaching us in those times as well.

In the in the Old Testament, the term is used that we’re to walk in the ruts of righteousness. You know, we’re out there in those snow filled streets, and if you were driving in some places where I was driving this week, you wanted to stay in the ruts, right? The ruts of righteousness, the ruts that were in the middle of the road, maybe one lane only. That’s where God wants us to stay. And to stay in the ruts of righteousness means staying teachable and pliable to what God is doing in our lives in the context of all of our circumstances.

Wisdom cries out. It’s readily available.

## Second: Wisdom is Universal

Secondly, being teachable presupposes the universality of the availability of wisdom. I said that really poorly, but the point is this that after wisdom declares itself as openly available, goes on in verse four to say that she calls to all men.

Verse four: “To you, oh men I call, and my voice is to the sons of men. Oh you simple ones, understand prudence and you fools, be of an understanding heart. Listen, for I will speak of excellent things.”

So the second thing we’re told here is not just that wisdom is readily available, but that wisdom is available to simple people, to all men, even to those who are somewhat foolhardy in what they do. I think this is quite important. Some people may have given up on their teachability by the time they become adults. But God says that he has prepared a year in front of you with teachable opportunities for you to guide you into an ever-increasing knowledge of wisdom. And even if you are not the brightest, sharpest tool in the shed, as they say, it makes no difference. Wisdom is not a matter of intellectual attainment in terms of being able to memorize all kinds of stuff. It’s got nothing to do with that. Wisdom is available to simple ones. Wisdom is how to live your life correctly in response to God’s providence in your life and to mature. To be teachable is something that all men are called to be universally.

And so this gives us hope. We have hope that as we move into this new year, we can learn things from God. Whether we’re simple, whether we’ve acted somewhat foolishly, whether we think that our circumstances are ones in which wisdom is not to be found, wisdom is readily available. And wisdom is readily available to all men. The simple, the foolish, the one who lacks understanding, the wise and the teachers.

The very introduction to the book of Proverbs, the very opening verses of it in Proverbs chapter 1, we read that these are the proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel, to know wisdom and instruction, to perceive the words of understanding, to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, judgment, and equity, to give prudence to the simple, to the young men knowledge and discretion, A wise man will hear and increase learning and a man of understanding will attain wise counsel.

This is important because as we look at the book of Proverbs, it’s certainly primarily written to teenagers. And I suppose that the young people in our in our congregation, you know, puberty prior to marriage, you’re the ones I most want to address with this sermon because that’s you’re the target audience of the book of Proverbs. You’re the first audience. You have an you have a tendency to be unteachable at this stage of your life. And the wisdom you do learn when you go off to college, you tend to become puffed up with that wisdom. That’s just the way men are. And so, Proverbs over and over and over again addresses the teens of a congregation by urging them to being teachable, to being humble, to not be puffed up, to continue to listen to your parents when they don’t know as much as your instructors at your school.

So, that’s the target audience. But, so I want to encourage those who are young or are simple or of little understanding that wisdom is readily available to you. Teachability is supposed to be your character attribute in direct response to God’s gift of discipleship to you. He’s called you as a disciple.

But I also want to say that to the older ones because Proverbs also says that the wise will hear and gain understanding. People who are of wise years, the older gray-heads in the congregation and they are wise. I mean young people want to look to those people as teachers. We have knowledge. We know things about you that you would be embarrassed to know that we know. Teen people, we observe things differently. We have a breadth of experience and knowledge based upon the word of God and its application to our lives who have been faithful to Christ for 20 or 30 years. We know things that you do not know and we observe things in you that you don’t understand that we observe. We’re wise. But for us to stop being teachable because we think we’ve attained to some degree of wisdom is absolute folly.

Because this text tells us that wisdom also cries out to the wise and the truly wise will hear and understand the need to be teachable and as a result of that will mature in their teachability as well. So wisdom is available to the simple but wisdom is also available to the elderly.

Parents: what’s the best way to teach your children to be teachable? It’s probably not by haranguing them about it by demanding it of them. Well, you know, you’ve got to do that. Obviously, the text does that for us. But probably the best way you can teach your children to be teachable for many years of their life is to model teachability in front of them. To be teachable yourself, to look for new things to learn, ways to develop as a Christian. Parents modeling teachability to their children produce teachable children. By and large, children become like their parents whether they want to or not. And so, the best way we can model teachability is to recognize that this sermon is not just geared to the young people to get them to be in a proper state of learning from what God teaches them this year, but rather it’s geared toward us as well.

Titus 1:9: Titus is encouraged to hold fast the faithful words—the elder rather, to hold fast faithful words as he has been taught. Elders of the church should be those that have been taught and are continuing to learn, who are teachable as they approach how they’re going to guide and direct the church of Jesus Christ. The wise will become still wiser. We are all exhorted in 2 Peter 3:18 to grow in the grace of the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

And in fact, John writes in his second epistle in verse 21, “I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it and that no lie is of the truth.” It assumes that you have learned things. You know the truth. But you also will continue to learn and to grow in your understanding of God and his ways.

So teachability and wisdom rather is readily available in every circumstance of life. And teachability is readily available whether you’re young or old. We’re all encouraged to remain disciples of Jesus Christ by continuing to learn of him.

## Third: Teachability Requires Listening

Third, and this is probably the most important point of the day, being teachable means listening, not just hearing.

So after Wisdom says I’m crying out in the streets and in the main places and I’m crying out to everybody, verse six, wisdom says: “Listen for I will speak of excellent things and from the opening of my lips shall come right things from my mouth will speak truth.”

So what does it mean to be teachable? Well, it means right away as our attention is being grabbed by this section of Proverbs, it means we’re supposed to have big ears. The Hebrew term is *Shema* Israel—*shama*—big ears. I know some of our parents use them. They want to get their kids’ attention. *Shama*, listen right now. Open up the ears. And that’s what wisdom is saying here to us. The way to be teachable, the teachable spirit is the spirit that has wide open ears to hear.

Now, if you’re going to hear things, if you’re going to listen to things, not just hear the audible ways, but really listen to what people are saying, you got to do just that. It means you’re listening to audible voices. Now, I know and this point before, but clearly God kind of instructs us as we read the scriptures in that way. But to listen is what wisdom encourages us to do. And we’re to listen to other people. Okay? Being teachable looks for opportunities, particularly in the context of other people in the home, in the school, the workplace, whatever. Looks for opportunities where God is teaching us things that we need to know through other people.

James chapter 1: James says, “My beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.” There’s a good model of teachability. Close your mouth, open your ears. How well do you listen in the context of conversations with other people?

Titus 2:9 is some parents’ favorite verse. “Urge bondservants to be subject to their own masters in everything, to be well pleasing, not argumentative.” The word means literally, not contradicting, not talking again. More literally, servants are urged to be good workers, not talking again. The boss says, “Do thus and such.” And nine times out of 10, when he says jump, you should say, “How high.” You shouldn’t be argumentative. You shouldn’t talk back and enter into some extended conversation with those who are functional superiors to you. Now, sometimes you have things to important things to say, and that’s okay. But more often than not, you should be ones who listen to what your superiors are saying.

The younger people in this congregation, when any adult or older person addresses you, you should be those who immediately go into listening mode. Not immediately going into replying back mode and not immediately going into seal off the ears and be quiet mode. There’s a difference between hearing and listening in that sense.

To be teachable means to stop when people are dressing you and not to just be polite and let them hear them out, but everything goes right past your ears, but to take into you what that person is saying, to take into you what that person is saying and not to answer back. You see, this is the sin of fallen men. This is what we’re to put away is answering back a desire to talk as opposed to listen.

Now, we’re to listen clearly to the instruction of wisdom by attending in its first application to the study of God’s word. And I said this a couple of weeks ago. I’ll say it again now. We have scant opportunities to learn about the word of God from other people. Now, we hope that’s not always the way it is. We hope that in days to come there’ll be lots of very well-developed curriculum that teaches us the scriptures that can be used by homeschoolers and private schoolers alike. But the fact right now is that we know very little about the Bible. And it’s very difficult to transmit what you don’t know.

This church provides opportunity through the Sunday school program to bring instruction in the word of God. We should if we are teachable people, if we want to learn more about what God’s word tells us, then we need to go where that instruction is going on. You know the old saying, you know, why do you rob banks? Well, that’s because that’s where the money is, right? Well, you come to places like Sunday school or certainly you prepare your heart to hear the sermon through being well rested, proper attitude, confessing sin, etc. You do that because that’s where the instruction of the word is focused. It’s focused there. That goes on in other places, goes on in educational facilities. It goes on at home schools. But you know, adults particularly, your knowledge of the scriptures should be growing, right? You should want to increase your knowledge. You should want to continue to grow in grace. And what that means is being teachable and attending to the instruction of the word of God.

And that means being present as much as you can be when formal instruction of the word goes on. This means, you know, desire to attend conferences and stuff that are appropriate. I think it means for most people, you know, getting to bed an hour earlier Saturday nights so you can come an hour earlier Sunday and attend to knowledge of the scriptures. This is what you know what better place to be than a place that offers instruction of the scriptures from a perspective that you are here because you like.

Now it could be that the Sunday school classes are not are substandard or not boring or you want something different. Great. If there’s anything the CE team and the elders want, it’s more input on what kind of classes we should be offering, particularly adults. We want to do that. It is our heart’s desire and intent to provide instruction in the word that’s applicable to your lives. We want to help you be teachable by being good teachers as a church. Tell us that if you don’t come because the class is boring, you’re not learning anything, you’re not increasing your knowledge in scripture and its application to your life tell us that you know maybe we can change things.

But the scriptures tell us that the heart of teachability here after wisdom gets our attention by saying I’m everywhere I’m crying out to you and I’m particularly in the place. I’m particularly calling out to every last one of you even if you might be simple or no understanding or think yourself really wise. I’m calling out to you. Then it says here’s what you got to do. You got to listen. You got to open your ears. You got to be more anxious to hear than to speak. You see, you want to be anxious to readjust what you think about particular things.

You want to ask yourself: am I exposing myself to instruction of the word of God? And then beyond that formal instruction, when you’re in casual conversations with other people, are you looking for opportunities to mature in your knowledge and obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ? That’s I think what we’re supposed to do. We’re supposed to actively going about saying, “Where’s the Lord crying out today. What’s coming through this person’s discussion with me? What is there in this discussion that I like? What are you?”

When you enter into discussions with other Christians particularly—explicitly discussions about the scriptures and their application to their your life—do you are you combative in those conversations? Is your primary desire to just hold the ground where you’re at and not change your view? Or are you one who is trying to mature in your knowledge and able then to receive instruction from people other than yourself? You go into conversation, how good of a listener are you?

And if you don’t know and you’re married, probably the best person you can ask about that is your wife or your husband. Ask them, “How teachable am I? What have you tried to get me to see that I didn’t even listen to, let alone listen to and reject?” Teachability: young people, when you have conversations, even casual conversations with your parents, with other adults, are you looking for opportunities to learn and mature? Or are you just thinking, “Well, I’ve heard it before and I’m okay and I’m on my track and my deal.” Do you got your own agenda going on or is your agenda being adjusted as God brings the voice of Jesus Christ speaking through other people into your life?

If the idea of wisdom is to listen to audible voices, it immediately puts the teachability in the context of community and a community that exercises itself with proper communication one to the other. It is amazing but true that the simplest concept that we should enter into these discussions over the application of the faith of the teachable spirit. The failure on people’s part to do that over the last couple of years in relationship to what’s become known as this Auburn Avenue theology. The failure to just be teachable and desire to mature and grow in our knowledge of Christ. This has produced and it’s continued to produce even worse schisms and divisions in the body of Christ.

Why? Well, there’s several reasons. You know, you don’t like people to pull at the frayed edges of your sweater because it may come apart, right? You know, you got a sweet kids wear this to your parents. Hopefully, you got a little thread hanging on. You just don’t pull on it because then the whole thing starts to unravel. And so, there are people whose system—whose theological system—is so intact and in place that if anybody starts saying, “Well, yeah, but gee, sometimes when God says people are justified. It doesn’t mean what the Westminster Confession says about it. It means some kind of declaration by God that they’re associated with the group. And yet, gee, what are we going to do with all these verses that says that baptism regenerates us? What are we going to do about that?”

Well, if your system is so intact, you know, it has these little threads and people start to pull at them. You may just want to cut that off. You see, but that’s God’s way of maturing a people. You know, the Westminster Confession and Standards happened after a whole—I don’t know how many years—probably at least these 50, 60 years where all kinds of confessions and catechisms are being written. All kinds of them, maybe a hundred years. It was never meant to be the end of development of systematic theology. It had its particular usefulness in place and it does still today.

But what men that we know and appreciate and love are trying to say is, well, you know, it doesn’t address everything. And we love it. We adhere to what it says, but it but there’s more to what the scriptures teach about the covenant justification. And now we’re learning more about how to interpret Paul correctly in the New Testament than what we received from the fathers 3400 years ago. The church as a whole has to be teachable. It has to enter into these discussions with a desire to understand the other person’s point of view and to talk things through with an affirmation that we’re on each other’s side. And instead, what seems to be happening in so many of these conversations is that, you know, the frayed edges are being picked at.

Now, the end result of that will be that the system improves. You know, there’s an old book by Thomas Kuhn, *The Nature of Scientific Revolution*. You know, scientific theories are put in place and they’re good and proper and then some stuff starts happening where clearly they’re not adequate to meet the new observations that are made and then somebody comes along, a bright boy, with a new way of looking at things, building on the past, but kind of a new paradigm for how things actually work. And that is resisted very strongly by the scientific community because they have an established tradition that they’re maintaining.

People are inevitably religious. I saw a show on C-SPAN a couple of days ago about Foucault who was the one who invented the Foucault pendulum. You might have seen it—a pendulum that swings and it demonstrates that the earth is actually rotating. And the Catholic Church when it persecuted Galileo and found him guilty they said well if we have a demonstration the earth is actually spinning and rotating we won’t prosecute him. Well, nobody gave him one. And so 200 years later, Foucault’s pendulum becomes the proof that the earth is rotating. The Catholic Church says, “Yeah, you’re right. You proved it.” And then they left the conviction of Galileo about, I don’t know, 20 years ago or something.

Well, what’s interesting about the story is that Foucault was not a trained mathematician nor a trained scientist and was not part of the Academy of Scientists. And well after the Catholic Church accepted his proof, the Academy of Science was still not accepting his proof and not allowing him into the academy. It took Napoleon III setting up a huge Foucault pendulum at the Pantheon in Paris and then insisting—being the tyrant that he was—that they let him in to let him into the Academy of Sciences. People have a tendency to protect and guard what their existing paradigm is.

Beyond that, what I’m trying to say is people have a tendency to not be teachable. In our old man, our tendency is not to want to enter into discussions and come up with new ways of thinking about particular things. The scriptures call us to enter into such discussions. They call us to have a humility about what we know that opens us up to hear instructions for other people.

We face a similar issue in our own church, right? We have ongoing discussions about should we start a Christian school that are now going on. And you know, if all everybody does is just defend their own turf, we’re going nowhere. And it could have big negative consequences for our church. But if we’re all teachable properly—so in the context of looking for what God would teach us in these discussions and we don’t just sit on existing ideas that feel threatened by these concepts—then we can mature and move along.

Teachability is an absolutely critical thing. It’s critical to your walk with Christ. Obviously, that’s the main point of today’s talk, but it’s also critical in terms of the maturation of a people, maturation of theological systems, confessions and creeds, maturations of a community, that’s trying to think through at least and have an open discussion about what is other alternative ways to educate our children. Let’s think about those things and talk about them.

You know, the Auburn Avenue guys, they’re not insisting that they know anything. They’re saying, “Gee, it looks like scriptures sort of assert this and this seems tied to this idea of the covenant. Let’s talk about these things.” They’re the teachable ones. There’s no doubt in my mind. And the people that are condemning them publicly are saying, “Oh, no. We cannot talk about this thing. Why? Why is that?” Well, I think that part of that is pride. Part of the reason we don’t listen to other people is simple pride. We don’t want to give up our positions.

But part of it, too, I think, is fear because, like I said, we’re afraid the sweater will unravel if now everything that we know and love about the reformed faith will go away. There’s a fearfulness. Fear isn’t usually a very proper motivating factor, you know, and let’s take it down to the very simple level.

Why do you not listen and attempt to learn from people that God puts in your sphere of influence? Well, part of it is you’re puffed up. What’s that pagan boss going to be able to tell me that’s going to make me more understanding of how God works in the world? Well, God works through all kinds of ways to affect his purpose in your life. Part of it is pride, but part of it is fear. Part of it is that if we enter into a conversation and try to learn from somebody else, we have to—well, it will be helpful to us if we know that the person we’re interacting with has our own well-being at heart.

If we assert our love to one another, it’s going to increase our teachability from each other—is my point. If we know entering into a conversation that this person actually has my well-being at heart, then we’re going to be more open to what that person has to say. It’s the old thing again, right? It’s Adam and Eve in the garden. God is the Lord God. He’s sovereign, not us. And if we’re prideful, we’re really stupid because God says that there’s all kinds of things that we don’t know. And when we enter into conversations, if we’re unteachable in that sense, because we think we know so much, then we’re rejecting the sovereign God who knows all things.

And if on the other hand, we fail to become teachable because of lack of an understand or lack of belief in the love of these people around us, then we’re not acknowledging the sovereign God who is our father, who has brought those very people alongside of us to help mature and train us.

How are you at listening? Think about it this last week. How open were you? Or how fixed were you in your conversations with other people, with your wives, with your husbands, with your children, with your parents when they spoke to you? Did you try to learn wisdom? Or did you simply reject what they said out of hand?

The scriptures say we should evaluate how well we listen. A teachable spirit is a spirit that listens. What prevents that of course is the spirit of pride and of fear—drives away our teachability.

Now we have to talk to the other side of this. There are some things that we do want to argue with. There are some things where we do want to go into combat mode and people are attacking the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ with the truths of scripture. We certainly do want to object to those. And on your outline I’ve got Proverbs 8:13-18. It should be Proverbs 9:13-18.

And what happens here is the woman who is folly is also crying out to people. Proverbs 9:13: “The woman of folly is boisterous. She is naive, knows nothing. She sits at the doorway of her house on a seat by the high places of the city, calling to those who pass by, who are making their path straight. Whoever is naive, let him turn in here. And to him who lacks understanding, she says, ‘Stolen water is sweet and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. But he does not know that the dead are that her guests are in the depths of sheol.’”

So there is a proper place to be careful and not teachable. You know, we don’t want to be teachable when the person who’s tempting us to infidelity to the Lord Jesus Christ is speaking. But that is very rare in the occurrences of our lives. The common situation of what you’ll go through this week is wisdom crying out to you, desiring to be heard, and commanding you to listen to who she is.

Jesus Christ says in Luke 6:40: “A disciple is not above his master, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher.” Okay? A disciple is not above his master, but when you’re perfectly trained, you’ll be like your teacher. Who are your teachers?

Proverbs—this is the big story, right? You want to be taught by Lady Wisdom, not be taught by those who are foolish and have fallen. But the point is, you have to have teachers and your teachers will determine what you turn out like.

Post-puberty, pre-marriage young people, young men and women in our congregation today, you’ll be like your teachers. Choose your teachers wisely and acknowledge that in the providence of God, according to wisdom shouting at you page after page of Proverbs, one of the most important—the most important—teachers you still have are your parents. And it is the height of folly to not listen to your parents. It’s your temptation. That’s why Proverbs says it over and over and over again. Listen to your father. Obey the laws of your mother. Your tendency now is to not be like that.

Young people, think of what you’ve been like as you’ve been home from school or sitting around the house at Christmas time and engaging in conversations with friends, talking with your family. Have you been teachable? Have you had ears wide open to hear things that are useful and valuable from your parents? Or have you cut those conversations off. Did you make opportunity when you were at home, not just to see your other friends, but to expose yourself again to the wisdom of your parents?

You’ll be like those that teach you. Everybody has teachers, and you become like those who teach you. The real important part of teachability is opening our ears to receive instruction from God through our teachers. Okay?

So, that’s the biggest way you can evaluate that. Are you a talker? You talk too quickly or in a meeting, are you always anxious to give your point of view or are you listening? Now, listening too much is bad, too. You know, that can be fearful. You just sit and listen. You never say anything. You don’t teach anybody else. You don’t ask the proper questions because you don’t want to indicate a lack of knowledge because then people won’t think highly of you, right? You don’t want to ask the wrong questions.

Well, that’s, you know, that’s what Elder W., Elder S., myself, and Brad and John, God trains us all the time in forgetting about that pride thing. We stand up in front of you and make mistakes of plenty and we know more of them than you know. God trains us that way. Don’t let false humility that is fearful of asking questions about stuff that you don’t know keep you from being teachable—keep you from opening your mouths.

But God says evaluate yourself in this particular way. Are you anxious to speak? Are your ears wide open? What did you learn this week? That’s another way to put it. If the weeks are filled with opportunities to mature in your wisdom before Christ. What did you learn this week? How did your character change, grow, and mature? What important conversation did you have with someone? What did you listen to as your parents or young people spoke? They can instruct us as well. What did you learn this week?

God says that he wants us to be teachable, to seek and advance in wisdom.

## Fourth: Living Righteously in Community

Being teachable fourth means living righteously in community. “My mouth will speak truth. Wickedness is an abomination to my lips. All the words of my mouth are with righteousness. All the words of my mouth are accompanied by righteousness. Now in the proverbs, righteousness, if you do a study of that term in the proverbs, it means proper actions in community.

To be righteous is to serve other people, to do what’s right in relationship to others. We don’t think of righteousness in terms of our own moral state, what we do when nobody else is around. But in the Proverbs, righteousness is what you do if other people are around. Okay? It’s whether you’re upright or not in community. All the words of my mouth are with righteousness. Nothing crooked or perverse is in them. They are all plain to him who understands and right to those who find knowledge.

Knowledge has this ethical component. We’ve said this before, no real news here, but a reminder that in order to attain wisdom and knowledge, it’s not just keeping a notebook and blogging data. It’s doing things in a righteous way. If you’re righteous, then if you’re living right in community, your knowledge of who God is—who has always linked his word to his righteousness—and wisdom will increase. So it’s tied to proper actions in community.

## Fifth: Rightly Valuing Wisdom

Fifth, being teachable means rightly valuing wisdom. So we said it’s available. It’s out there. It means listening. And now we have more motivation given to us in terms of why we should attain to wisdom.

“Receive my instruction and not silver. Knowledge rather than choice gold. For wisdom is better than rubies. And all the things one may desire cannot be compared with her.”

So we want to properly evaluate the importance of teachability. To be teachable, to seek wisdom this week is more important than seeking silver and gold and economic gain. Wisdom should be rightly valued.

## Sixth: Proper Fear of the Lord

Sixth, being teachable requires a proper fear of the Lord. And it goes on to talk about this.

“I wisdom dwell with prudence and find out knowledge and discretion. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil. Pride and arrogance in the evil way and the perverse mouth. I hate counsel is mine and sound judgment. I am understanding. I have strength.”

So there’s this relationship between wise and being properly having a proper reverence and fear and respect for the Lord God. The fear of the Lord of course is the beginning of wisdom. A fear of the Lord means that God’s judgments are in the context of the earth. We’re to reverence his knowledge and the way that he works to bring knowledge to us, which is through listening to the words of other people. And we’re to understand that if we don’t attain to wisdom, if we don’t listen to him, that God will discipline us and correct us. And we’re to have a proper fear of his chastisements.

## Seventh: The Path to Political Dominion

Seventh, being teachable is the path to political dominion. Next week, I’m going to talk about abortion again and our responsibilities to seek the peace of the city in which we live or to seek to exercise rule in the civil authority. Well, how does it happen?

“By me kings reign and rulers decree justice. By me, prince rule and nobles all the judges of the earth.”

So wisdom is related to political dominion. How are we to have political dominion? How are we to be the head and not the tail in the context of our culture? By being wise, by being teachable. You see, there’s this relationship between how well you listen this week as God brings maturation into your life. And then the end result of that is an establishment in rule that God gives to his people. How do we affect a political rule. It’s not ultimately through political action programs through voting. Rather, it’s through the attainment of wisdom. Now, that finds its way into particular actions in the civil sphere. But here, clearly, wisdom is given to us as the path of civil dominion.

## Eighth: Actively Pursuing Wisdom

Eighth, being teachable means actively pursuing wisdom.

“I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently will find me.”

We’ve talked about diligence in terms of vocation. This is diligence in terms of trying to seek wisdom. This is diligence that says how can I find wisdom today, this week, this month. It means establishing as a commitment at the beginning of the new year much more importantly than I would like to do X in terms of my finances. I would like to do Y in terms of my health. Much more importantly, if wisdom is far above wealth and if wisdom is the thing that produces political rule in the context of a nation. If it has that kind of high value, then clearly this follows right on that our job and goal is to diligently seek after wisdom. That’s being teachable. Having a teachable spirit means actively pursuing the wisdom of God through the mechanisms that he has put in place.

And that mechanism, the primary one, is listening to other people, hearing people speak, thinking what they’re saying, dialoguing in a Christian way. This is the attainment of wisdom. It should be a goal. Is it a goal for you young people particularly? Again, as you go about seeking in instruction in particular vocations or tasks of study, do you understand your need to diligently seek wisdom across the board in terms of the maturation of your relationship to Christ?

Well, sure you do. Right now, will it be a priority this year? Will you put yourself in the way of places of instruction? I, you know, I don’t know. I guess I’m kind of different, but you know, for the life of me, I cannot understand why R.J. and he was lecturing to a group of 10 or 15 people on Sunday mornings year after year after year. And I knew, you know, the difficulties of that situation as well as anybody. But still to not for young people not to seek out the wisdom available from that man while he walked this earth was folly. And you know, I don’t understand how it is that you can go to a church as wonderful as Christ Church is and not avail yourself of the teaching opportunities that are presented there.

Now, it’s like our Sunday school program. Maybe there’s deficiencies in it. Communicate them. You’ve got tremendous men over there in Moscow to avail yourself of. And yet, it seems like the attendance at their Sunday school classes is quite low. I don’t get that. To me, this says you’re supposed to stride diligently ly after wisdom. Put yourself in the way of solid biblical instruction. And then beyond that, put yourself in the way of other people. Desire community. Desire to hear what your parents say, your brothers and sisters say, your children say, your friends say. Desire to get together and discuss things of the Lord. Diligently seek after wisdom. If you don’t do that, then you are not exercising the teachability that Christ has granted you by bringing you into a discipleship relationship with him.

## Ninth: Economic Dominion

Ninth. Being teachable leads to economic dominion.

“Riches and honor are with me. Enduring riches and righteousness. My fruit is better than gold, yay, than fine gold, and my revenue than choice silver. I traverse the way of righteousness in the midst of the paths of justice. That I may cause those who love me to inherit wealth that I may fill their treasure.”

So wisdom actually produces not just as higher value than economic blessing, but it actually produces those blessings as well. Jesus said it simply, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who recognize their poverty in spirit, who desire to be fed through the word of Christ directly through instruction in scripture, indirectly through the voice of those that we can learn and mature from. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

The meek are those who are broken to harness. A wild horse broken to harness is now teachable. He’s ready to be taught. You see, the first thing is the fear of the Lord—the master being broken to harness. But the meek are those who being broken to harness continue to mature and learn to do more things under the tutelage of the one who rides them. Blessed are the meek. They shall inherit the world.

## Tenth: Growing in Joy of the Lord

Being teachable means growing in one’s joy of the Lord. And now this text is difficult, but I think that the overall point is not verses 22 and following.

“The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his way before his works of old. I have been established from everlasting from the beginning, before there was ever an earth, when there was no depths, I was brought forth. When there were no foundations abounding with water, before the mountains were settled, before the hills, I was brought forth. While as yet he had not made the earth or the fields or the primeval dust of the world, when he prepared the heavens, I was there. When he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he established the clouds above, when he strengthened the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit so that the waters would not transgress his command. When he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him as a master craftsman. I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him, rejoicing in his inhabited world. And my delight was with the sons of men.”

Too deep. This is John sort of text, not a Peter text of, you know, clear instruction. This is a John text that wants us to marvel at wisdom in its place. In the context of the intertrinitarian relationship, there is wisdom at the core of those relationships. Some people think it’s a personification of Christ, drawing the illusion between this text and John 1, where in the beginning was the Word, the Word is with God, and the Word was God. I’m not sure about that, but wisdom certainly describes the relationship that exists in the context of the Trinity. The delight and joy of being in relationship, learning, we might say, sharing, giving, and receiving in the context of community.

Wisdom is our joy in life. Wisdom is to interact properly with the Lord God who brings us into this joy of delighting ultimately in the Lord Jesus Christ. The scriptures tell us that wisdom is a thing to be delighted and joyed in. It should not be a task, a burdensome task to an end that will eventually will no longer need to attain to wisdom. No, it’s something to be delighted in and to be rejoiced in as well.

Being teachable means is growing in one’s joy of the Lord ultimately as follows on the last point. Hosea 6 says, “Come and let us return to the Lord for he is torn but he will heal us. He is stricken but he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us. On the third day he will raise us up that we may live in his sight. Let us know, let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord that we may live in his sight. That we may rejoice in our knowledge of the Holy One of Israel. That we might delight and rejoice in our knowledge of Christ.”

May we attain to this through having teachable spirits because ultimately the knowledge that we gain and the wisdom we gain is the knowledge of the inner trinitarian relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Being teachable means growing in one’s joy of the Lord. That’s what that text teaches us as a correct application of chapter 8 verses 22 and following.

## Eleventh: Having Life Itself

Eleventh, being teachable means having life itself. And this is what the text goes on to say in verses 32 and following.

“Now therefore, listen to me, my children. Blessed are those who keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise. Do not disdain it. Blessed is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, watching at the posts of my doors. For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord. But he who sins against me wrongs his own soul. All those who hate me love death.”

Now, that last verse is a verse that we take out of context. We say, “All those that hate God love death. There’s truth to that. We’ll talk about that more next week as we consider abortion as a direct outworking of this. But in its immediate context, what it’s saying is those who hate me—not God, but wisdom, right? All those who reject wisdom have rejected life itself and move in terms of death and they wrong their own soul.

To be teachable is not some sort of option for the disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. To be teachable is life itself. And to resist teachability, to stiffen ourselves up against correction and instruction from others is to move not in terms of life but to love death itself.

## Twelfth: Union with Wisdom

Twelfth, being teachable embraces union with wisdom. Verses 1 to 5 of chapter 9.

“Wisdom has built her house. She has hewed out her seven pillars. She has slaughtered her meat. She has mixed her wine. She has furnished her table. She has sent out her maidens. She calls out from the highest places of the city. Whoever is simple, let him turn and hear. As for him who lacks understanding, she says to him, ‘Come. Eat of my bread, drink of the wine I have mixed.’”

Wisdom embraces us to union with her and union in the context of the Trinity in our relationship to that Trinity. This table is the representation of what we just read and it cries out today to those who are simple, to those who need life, to recognize there is no life apart from the wisdom that exists in the context of the Trinity. When we come to the table, we come affirming our teachability. Being taught means acting in union with wisdom.

## Thirteenth: Acting Upon Knowledge

Thirteenth, being teachable means acting upon the knowledge we learn. The text goes on to say: “Forsake foolishness and live go in the way of righteousness.”

Not enough just to hear, but it’s important to make course corrections to our lives as a result of the hearing of counsel of wisdom. James 1:22 says, “Prove yourselves doers of the word and not merely hearers who delude themselves.”

So to hear and to take that advice, add to your central questions in this sermon. How well do you listen? How well do you then act on the advice and counsel of your wife, your husband, your parents, your friends, etc.? How many course corrections have you made this past year as a direct result of seeking out people that could mentor you, guide you, and train you as a direct result of being teachable and seeking diligently wisdom through the application of other people’s words to your ears? How many course corrections have you made?

## Fourteenth: Loving Appropriate Rebukes

Fourteenth. Being teachable means loving appropriate rebukes.

I’ve got a whole host of scriptures there for you. I’ll let you look them up by yourself, but it’s amazing to me. Remember we said how interesting it was that John’s gospel, the last thing Jesus essentially does at the end of John’s gospel is to rebuke Peter or at least to speak to him sternly. That’s the conclusion of it. The conclusion of the book of Joshua right before the final farewell speech of Joshua are these rebukes you know, that men give to one another and the hearing of rebuke and a correction of course as a result of rebukes.

The scriptures say, not only are you to be teachable and seek out information, but it is supposed to be a regular pattern of the Christian community to rebuke one another. Leviticus 19 says, don’t hate your neighbor in your heart. Rebuke him. And then it goes on to say in its direct context, love your neighbor as yourself. The center of Leviticus is the law section in chapter 19. And the center of the law section of Leviticus is the command to love your neighbor. And the immediate application of what that means practically in Leviticus is to not hate your neighbor in your heart. To not slander him to other people, but to rebuke him. To rebuke one another is the essence of loving one another according to Leviticus 19.

Now, we’re commanded to our weakness. We all tend to give compliments to one another, but we don’t correct each other very often. And so God says, “Do that because if there’s something amiss in your appropriate rebuke. If you don’t engage that, what you’re going to do is you’re going to think less of that person. You’re going to hate him in your heart or you’re going to go talk to your neighbor about what you know your brother or sister did wrong in the Lord. And the text tells us don’t do that. Rebuke.”

Now, if we’re going to rebuke one another as part of how we’re to love each other, then it means we’re going to have to learn to receive rebukes from one another, right? And if you go through these scriptures that I’ve given you here, you’ll see over and over again that the wise man loves rebukes. It’s great. He says, you know, the rebuke is a great thing. The wise men will learn from it. It’s not good to rebuke a fool. He’s not going to learn anything. But rebuke the wise men that the scriptures tell us, he will love your rebukes. And as a result, he who listens for reproof, Proverbs 15 says, acquires understanding.

To grow in wisdom, to be teachable, is to be able to hear and to desire actually the rebuke, the strong words from a brother, that we’re erring in the way that we’re going. And this text tells us that as well.

“He who corrects a scoffer gets shame for himself. He who rebukes a wicked man only harms himself. Do not correct a scoffer lest he hate you. Rebuke a wise man and he will tolerate you. No, he will listen to you. No, rebuke a wise man, he will love you. You want to be wise? Learn to take a rebuke correctly, an appropriate rebuke. Learn to be thankful for such things. Give instruction to a wise man, he will be still wiser. Teach a just man, he will increase in learning.”

Are you wise or are you foolish? Do you take rebukes correctly? Do you attempt course corrections in your life? Do you seek out diligently the wisdom that will result in you hearing rebukes on your head from other people? That’s what the Bible says teachability is. It’s to hear appropriate rebukes.

## Fifteenth: The Ultimate Reward

And then finally, the last point: this entire section of Proverbs concludes with the well: “Seeing that the result of this through the Lord’s beginning of wisdom—knowledge of the Holy One is understanding for by me your days will be multiplied years of life will be added to you if you are wise you are wise for yourself and if you scoff you will bear it alone.”

What does that mean—weird verse at the end of this whole section? I think what it means is that there is a proper self-interest to being teachable there’s a proper desire to be honored to be matured and you will get that if you’re wise. If you’re wise it will actually be useful for you by yourself. Okay? So, there’s a proper self-interest to being teachable. And again, the scriptures assert this in other places as well.

In Proverbs 13:13, the one who despises the word will be in debt to it, but the one who fears the commandment will be rewarded and appealed to self-interest. Again in verse 18 of chapter 13, “Poverty and shame will come to him who neglects discipline. But he who regards reproof, again that reproof stuff, regards reproof will be honored.”

We’re afraid of repoofs and rebukes because we think it’s going to dishonor us. But God says it’s the way you grow and mature. And it’s the way you become that dominion man, the man with financial success, the man who has influence in the context of the world, the man who is delighting in relationship with Christ. All these things come by properly receiving reproof and as a result becoming honored.

Proverbs 15:32 says, “He who neglects discipline, he who’s not teachable despises himself. But he who listens to reprove acquires understanding.” It is in your own self-interest to seek after wisdom and to be teachable.

Last verse, Proverbs 12:1: “Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.” Stupid. That’s what it says in most translations. He who hates reproof is stupid.

May the Lord God grant that we aren’t stupid this year. May God grant us to be teachable in our spirit. Not just today, not just hearing the word of God preached, not just maybe making a new commitment to put ourselves in the way of instruction in Sunday school, but may God grant us the desire to be teachable, the desire to hear from our parents words of wisdom, the desire to hear from our children words that may improve our wisdom and cause us to be yet wiser.

May God grant us the ability to give proper rebukes and reproof to one another. And may he grant us the assurance of each other’s love that allows us to hear those rebukes and to then profit in wisdom. May God as a result of all of this fulfill his great promises that we will inherit the world. That we are indeed called to be the tail or the head rather and not the tail. We are called to rule in the context of the world and exercise stewardship over it. And the way to get there is teachability. The way to get there is to listen, challenging ourselves with our own positions, listening to people that we know love us, and will add beauty and knowledge and honor and instruction to who we are.

May God grant us this year a commitment to be teachable to the Lord Jesus Christ as he ministers to us from one another.

Let’s pray. Father, we do pray that you would forgive us for denying who we are in Christ all too often. We know that you have created us after the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. You have given us, Lord God, a position of being disciples of his. You have granted us teachability and desire for wisdom. Forgive us for all too often choking that off. And grant us this year, Lord God, as we look at these thorny issues of theology or of practical application in terms of educational endeavors this church may undergo.

As we look at the small things of life and the big things this year, may we be teachable. May we, Lord God, be those who are indeed quick to listen, slow to speak, and may you grant us, Lord God, increased understanding and effectiveness for you. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.