Dear young people, I am grateful for this opportunity to speak to you. It is so great to have this camp. I wish I had had some­thing like it when I was young. God has been pleased to bless this camp with the Holy Spirit’s saving work in the past, and we are praying that He would do so again.

You have noticed that the camp theme for this year is wisdom. Wisdom is a very comprehensive thing. Over the course of this camp, various speakers will address how wisdom relates to your spiritual life, to your friends and romantic lives, to your words and how you talk to each other, to your calling as students and workers, and to the rich rewards of walking in God’s ways.

Have you ever made a fool of yourself? I have, and I know the sinking feeling of saying to myself, “Why didn’t I handle that situation differently?” A lack of wisdom can bring disgrace and a lot of pain. On the other hand, it is a joy to act wisely in trials and so be useful to God and to other people. As young people, you can serve God well and have great influence for good. Think of Daniel, carried away into exile when he was young, forced to go to school in a pagan land, but quickly elevated to an important post of duty in the Babylonian king­dom. He glorified God “in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation” (Phil 2:15). What distinguished Daniel from other men? God had given him wisdom.¹

What is wisdom? Let’s think about it for a moment before I offer a definition. Wisdom requires knowledge, but it’s more than just information. Wisdom involves practical knowledge, or skill. We say that someone has wisdom when he skillfully applies knowledge to accomplish a worthwhile goal, using the best means, such as the wisdom to rule a people with justice and equity (Prov. 8:15).² But it’s more than just the skill to accom­plish goals. It’s a deep and insightful knowledge (Prov. 20:5) concerning the ways of God and man. Wisdom looks past what is happening to see why it is happening so that we can make sense out of life.³ It sees the big picture and gives us a “world­view,”⁴ a God-centered perspective on all of life (Prov. 1:7). It provides answers to the big questions and guidelines for how to act and speak in specific situations. This perspective offers us more than an abstract philosophy; wisdom gives us charac­ter and leads us to live well (Prov. 8:32-26).⁵ To become wise, wisdom must enter into our hearts and direct us away from evil to the right paths (Prov. 2:9-12; 23:19). One Bible scholar says,

A person could memorize the book of Proverbs and still lack wisdom if it did not affect his heart, which informs behavior.⁶

We might define wisdom like this: Wisdom is the experien­tial and practical knowledge of God and of ourselve that guides us in living a truly good life in Christ Jesus.⁷ Proverbs 9:10 tells us that the core of wisdom is an experiential knowledge of God: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy (or the Holy One) is understanding.” The Psalms say that when God makes us “to know wisdom” in our hearts, then we also know ourselves, especially our sin and the shortness of our lives (Ps. 51:6; 90:12). Psalm 34:11-14 reminds us that God-fearing wisdom guides us by Christ Jesus in the good life – both in the sense of the happy or blessed life and the upright or righteous life:

Come, ye children, hearken unto me: I will teach you the fear of the LORD.
What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may see good?
Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile. Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.

So we may say that wisdom is the practical knowledge of God and of ourselves that guides us in living the good life. Do you see the difference between wisdom and mere head-knowledge? You can have certain pieces of information in your mind and write down all the right answers on the test but still have no wisdom at all – and your foolish and destructive way of life will show it.

Today I will speak to you about the source of wisdom. We will look at, first, wisdom lost; second, wisdom revealed; and third, wisdom pursued. In speaking of wisdom lost we aim to know ourselves. The second point, wisdom revealed, is the knowledge of God. We will spend most of our time on the third point as I talk about practical ways to pursue wisdom.

Wisdom Lost⤒🔗

The first truth we must see about wisdom is that it no longer belongs to us by nature. In our tragic fall in Adam, we lost it, squandered it, and threw it away. Now wisdom is rarer than diamonds, though the earth is full of cheap, plastic counter­feits. Mankind is not a source of wisdom.

1. You are not wise (and neither am I). Psalm 94:11 says, “The LORD knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity,” or emptiness, like a puff of air. If you think that you are wise, then you are foolish and near to being in a hopeless condition. Proverbs 26:12 says, “Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? There is more hope of a fool than of him.”
   
   The problem is not just that we lack wisdom. By nature we are packed full of foolishness. We are born with an inclination to folly, and as we develop, we acquire a lot of foolish ideas, ten­dencies, and habits along the way. Like balloons full of air we think we are really something until reality comes along like a pin and deflates us. We don’t need anyone to teach us foolish­ness; we are born that way. Proverbs 22:15 says, “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child.” It’s not just in our hearts but “bound” or tied there. Foolishness is woven into the fabric of our thoughts and feelings, as part of our fallen nature.⁸
    
2. God made mankind wise but we became fools. Wisdom is an attribute of God, and God made man in His image (Gen. 1:26), part of which was the wisdom to rule the world well (Gen. 1:28; 2:20). But mankind fell from that noble estate. Romans 1:21-22 tells us that even though the sparkling signs of God’s eternal power and essential deity are all around us in the uni­verse He made, “when (fallen men) knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.”
   
   At the heart of this foolishness is the way we trade God for the things He made (Rom. 1:25). God gave us eyes to see how beautiful He is and to walk in the light of His glory, but man gouged out his own eyes and now we stumble like blind men, unable to see God’s loveliness and to know what is really good and right. Oh, how humble we should be over our foolishness!
    
3. We love foolishness and hate wisdom. This is the appalling reality of our sin. Wisdom calls out to us, “How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?” (Prov. 1:22). Sin cannot truly satisfy us, but we love our sins and cling to them. The sin­ner “feedeth on ashes” (Isa. 44:20), but his heart is so deceived that he “drinketh iniquity like water” (Job 15:16). Imagine going over to a grill and swallowing mouthful after mouthful of ashes, all the while talking about how refreshing it is. People would think you are insane. But that is what we do with sin and fool­ishness: “the mouth of fools feedeth on foolishness” (Prov. 15:14).
    
4. Don’t trust your heart. Proverbs 28:26 says, “He that trust­eth in his own heart is a fool.” Will you trust in a heart that is not only lacking in wisdom but bitterly opposed to wisdom? Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 3:18, “Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.” In other words, the first step towards becoming wise is acknowledging that you are foolish. Wisdom begins when we see that we are not wise.⁹

If there is to be any wisdom in us, it must come from outside of us. It must come from God. Our wisdom is lost. Therefore, God’s wisdom must be revealed.

Wisdom Revealed←⤒🔗

I almost called this point “wisdom discovered.” But we did not discover wisdom nor are we able to discover wisdom. Men can dig a hole seven-and-a-half miles into the earth. Our telescopes can view galaxies 1.3 billion light-years away. We have all this technology, but we cannot find true wisdom. Wisdom belongs to God, and He has revealed it to men (Job 28).

1. The only wise God has spoken. Proverbs 2:6 says, “For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.” While God does not have a body or a literal mouth, He does communicate with people in words. The most fundamental assertion of the Bible is, “Thus saith the LORD” – over four hundred times in the Scriptures. The fact that God speaks changes everything. Today we are constantly bombarded with skepticism. The moment a Christian makes a claim to absolute truth about God or morality, he gets slammed as arro­gant and ignorant. The Christian worldview, however, has a very reasonable reply: God has spoken. We don’t know everything, but whatever God has spoken we can know with absolute, unshakable certainty. That is a rock-solid foundation for wisdom.
    
2. God’s wisdom to us is His Son. Christ does not merely bring us God’s Word. He is “the Word” (John 1:1). God’s truth is not impersonal; it is a person. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). Paul wrote, “In (Him) are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3).
   
   God’s wisdom especially shines in the one place no one expected to find it: at the cross when Jesus died in agony, for­saken by God and men. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1:23-24, “But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” For those whom God calls, He opens their eyes to see that God’s wise plan reached its climax when God placed the curse against lawbreakers upon His righteous Son so that sinners would receive His blessing by faith (Gal. 3:13-14).
   
   Ralph Robinson said, “As (the doctrine of the salvation of man by Christ crucified) is a doctrine of rich and glorious grace, so it is a doctrine of deep wisdom.”¹⁰ What profound, unsearchable wisdom! God takes human nature; mercy and justice are both satisfied; salvation is a free gift to us yet mer­ited by Christ; the creditor pays the debt owed to Him; life is brought out of death; the sinner is made righteous by the righteousness of another; we are healed by His wounds.
   
   No matter how much learning and education you may have, your great need is to know Jesus Christ in a saving way. Nothing else is worth boasting about except that you know the Lord (Jer. 9:23-24). When you fill out job applications, you write down your qualifications and make yourself look as good as possible. But when you put in your application for wisdom, the only qualification you need is to be a “lost sinner trusting in Jesus Christ alone.” You can go to God with no words in your mouth except, “I need Jesus, and I need His wisdom for my life.” When God gives you Christ, He effectively hands you His debit card and PIN number so that you can withdraw from God’s account all the wisdom that you need whenever you need it (James 1:5).
    
3. Christ’s wisdom is found in the Holy Scriptures. Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 3:15, “And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” O young people, what a great opportunity you have to receive God’s wisdom while you are still young! Do not waste this precious time of your lives. Imag­ine that you are going on a three-month trip, and for the next 48 hours you can load your iPod with any files you want: audio, visual, or text. Whatever you load, that’s what you will have for the rest of your trip. Wouldn’t you be careful what you put on there?
   
   Dear young people, right now you are loading your minds with memory files. What you load into your brains in your youth you will carry with you for the rest of your lives. You will continue to learn, but what you put in your mind now will be playing in your minds for the rest of your life. I know adults in their forties and fifties that grieve over how they filled their minds with worthless trash when they were teenagers. They still remember songs and movies and books they read in their youth. How it breaks their hearts that they now carry in their memories so much garbage when they could have biblical truth that helps them to think on whatever is true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous, and praiseworthy (Phil. 4:8). “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom” (Col. 3:16).
    
4. God puts the Bible’s wisdom into us by the Holy Spirit. We need the Holy Spirit to make the most basic confession of the new convert that Jesus is Lord (1 Cor. 12:3). Wisdom cries out in Proverbs 1:23, “Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my Spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.” We need God the Father to give us yet more of the Spirit’s “wis­dom and revelation” if we will grow in our “knowledge of him” and of the “hope and power He has for us in Christ” (Eph. 1:17-20). Only the Holy Spirit can overcome our natural resistance against wisdom and put the light of Christ inside our hearts to guide us. Wisdom is a gift from God through His Spirit.¹¹ Therefore, pray, pray, pray! Make prayer for God’s Spirit to fill you as much a part of your life as breathing. Constantly pray, “Father, fill me with the Spirit of wisdom and understanding.”

Wisdom Pursued←⤒🔗

Practically speaking, how do we build on the foundation that has been laid? If we accept that we have lost all wisdom, but affirm that God has revealed wisdom in the word of Christ, then how should we proceed to move away from a life of self-destructive folly to a life of God-honoring wisdom? Let me share several principles about the pursuit of wisdom, all taken from Proverbs 3.

1. Learning starts with trust. Proverbs 3:5a says, “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart.” You don’t have wisdom until you trust in God through Jesus Christ. Your wisdom will only grow as your faith grows towards Christ. The Scriptures “are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15, emphasis mine).
   
   What is trust? It is, first of all, listening. The Bible speaks of “the hearing of faith” (Gal. 3:2, 5). Trusting God arises primarily from hearing God’s Word (Rom. 10:17), though not all hearing produces faith. The Word comes to us inviting us to, “Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live” (Isa. 55:3).
   
   Second, faith is also leaning, as the remainder of Proverbs 3:5 implies. “Leaning unto our own understanding” is set in contrast to “trusting in the Lord.” We are to lean our all on God and His Word, not on our own view of things.
   
   Third, faith is resting. William Ames said, “Faith is the rest­ing of the heart on God.”¹² As 2 Chronicles 14:11 says, those who know they have “no power” pray in faith, “Help us, O LORD our God; for we rest on thee.” It is placing the full weight and burden of our sins and our needs upon His almighty shoulders.
   
   Fourth, faith is receiving. John 1:12 identifies “them that believe on his name” as those who “received” Christ. This is not a mere prayer asking Jesus into your heart. It is a desiring and receiving Christ for all that He is as a revealing prophet, a reconciling priest, and ruling king. It is a spiritual eating and drinking to take Christ into ourselves as our spiritual bread, our living water, our all-satisfying life.
   
   Finally, faith is embracing. Faith, as the Puritans so often said, is “closing with Christ.” Or, as Luther put it, faith embraces Christ the way a ring embraces its diamond.
   
   Do you have this listening, leaning, resting, receiving, and embracing faith towards Christ? Are you exercising it so that it grows just as your muscles grow stronger through exercise? This is the only pathway to pursue wisdom. Without faith in Christ nothing else I say will be of help to you.
    
2. Don’t build your life on your brains. Proverbs 3:5b says, “Lean not unto thine own understanding.” You must choose: will you trust in your views and opinions, or in God’s wisdom? The first step in following Christ is to deny yourself (Luke 9:23).
   
   Leaning or depending on your own understanding can take different forms. It may be that you excel in school and you secretly use your book smarts to make yourself out to be a god on the throne of your heart. You whisper to yourself that you are superior to others. You say that your good grades will take you places. You will have all that you need. If so, then you are still a fool, leaning on the broken reed of your own understanding. God determines your future, not your intelligence, and God honors those who humble themselves and glorify Him.
   
   It may be that you do not rely on book smarts, but on people smarts. You may not do as well as others in school, but you secretly despise those that do. You know how to get what you want, you say to yourself. You are clever. Perhaps you tell lies and cheat and then boast of how you pulled one over on your teacher or your friends. Maybe you just do enough to get by, telling yourself that all that work is a waste of time. Again, I say to you that if this is you then you are a fool, leaning on your own understanding. God sees everything, and He will judge you by the secrets you think are hidden in the dark.
   
   Once more, maybe you lean on street smarts. You know how to manipulate people to get what you want, all the while staying cool and popular. People look up to you and you love it. You’re in the in-crowd, perhaps the leader of it. It has become your iden­tity. My friend, you are a fool because you are leaning on your own popularity, your own understanding. Human popularity is always fleeting. Consider Hollywood stars or spor ts heroes – a few years in the glow of popularity, and then, their bubble bursts.
   
   Finally, maybe you lean on stubborn smarts. You’re stub­born and rebellious. People warn you that you are wasting your life but you won’t listen to their advice. They just make you mad. You’re right and they’ve no business telling you what to do. You don’t care what they say; this is your life. You think you’re the captain of your destiny and master of your fate. In the background of your thoughts drums this refrain, “I’m no fool. I know what’s best for me.” But you are a fool. God says to you, “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Prov. 16:25).
   
   Whatever form your self-reliance takes, God says to you, “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding.” Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength; blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord (Jer. 17:5-8).
    
3. Aim your whole life at knowing God. We read in Proverbs 3:6a, “In all thy ways acknowledge him.” Literally the text says, “In all your ways, know Him.” For this is our wisdom: “the knowledge of God,” “the knowledge of the holy” (Prov. 2:5; 9:10). Make your whole life a quest to know God, in Christ Jesus (1 Cor. 2:2). Seek Him from beginning to end, in every place and at every time. He is always there, so walk before Him in holiness, trust His promises, and seek His face.¹³
   
   Wisdom does not come upon us like a lightning bolt. It is a process of learning and growing one day at a time, enduring trials, profiting from affliction, being chastened by the Lord, being taught of God. If you go back to the well of the Bible to drink of Christ each day, then by God’s grace you will grow wiser with each passing year. If you weave meditation on the Scriptures into everything you do, then God’s wisdom will enrich your soul. William Bates said of gospel wisdom, “Other knowledge enlightens the understanding, without changing the heart, but this inspires us with the love of God, with the hatred of sin, and makes us truly better.”¹⁴
   
   Therefore surround yourself with people and things that help you to know God. Read the old writers like the Reformers and Puritans. Spend time with people who have walked with God for decades and stored up a treasure of wisdom. Put limits on how much time you will spend on Facebook and texting. When you have free time, ask yourself, “What can I do that will help me to know the Lord?” Don’t just ask, “Is this okay for me as a Chris­tian?” Ask, “Will it bring me closer to God? Will it strengthen my faith? Will it help me to grow in grace?”
    
4. Cultivate godly optimism. Proverbs 3:6b promises that if you seek to know God in all that you do, “he shall direct thy paths.” “Direct” in this case means to make straight or smooth.¹⁵ It’s like taking an old country road full of bumps and potholes that wanders left and right and turning it into smooth and straight highway. It’s not that God makes everything easy for us, but that He goes with us, leads us, and gives us strength and joy. Psalm 23:1-3 says, “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.”
   
   Wisdom is not gloom and doom. It is walking in the light of God’s Word, and trusting in God’s goodness and mercy. Cultivate the expectation that if you walk with God, then God will walk with you. He will bless you. Even your sorrows will turn to blessings. Even in the valley of the shadow of death, you will not need to fear, because He will be with you to protect and comfort you. In the end He will save you from all evil and bring you to dwell in His house forever, and all the way there you will experience His goodness and mercy.
    
5. Walk humbly in the light of God’s holiness. Proverbs 3:7 com­mands, “Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil.” Think often about how small and sinful you are and how great and righteous God is. Picture yourself as a tiny little person living at the foot of an awe-inspiring moun­tain – the mountain of God’s perfect righteousness (Ps. 36:6). Be wary of how you praise yourself in your own mind; crucify all self-flattery. Don’t compare yourself to other people; compare yourself to the holy law of God, as embodied in the life of His incarnate Son, Jesus Christ.
   
   Let any sin or evil in your life be a cause of deep sorrow and repentance. Let any goodness or skill or usefulness become a cause for humble thanksgiving to God. “For who maketh thee to differ from another? And what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?” (1 Cor. 4:7).
    
6. Seek true healing in reverence and repentance. Proverbs 3:8 promises, “It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones.” We live in a time when people run after healing and therapy. Doctors, physical therapists, chiropractors, counselors, and psychiatrists all labor in various ways to bring healing to our bodies and minds. Often they do help us in our suffering, at least to some extent. But God is reminding us that deep and lasting healing only comes with humility, fearing God, and turning from sin. Christ said that He is a true “physician” and His medicine is “repentance” (Luke 5:31-32). His healing goes deeper into the soul than any human counselor can reach. He can bring order to the chaos of your mind and peace to your troubled heart. Christ’s healing will ultimately extend to our whole soul and body. We will share in His happiness when the King says to each of His faithful servants, “enter thou into the joy of thy lord” (Matt. 25:21).
    
7. Worship God with your money. Proverbs 3:9-10 teaches us, “Honour the LORD with thy substance, and with the first fruits of all thine increase: so shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.” It may sur­prise you that I would mention money here, since we think of wisdom as a matter of the mind. But Jesus said in Matthew 6 that if you live for treasures on earth, then your eyes will be darkened and your whole life enveloped in darkness. If you use your money to gain treasures in heaven, then you will see clearly and your life will be full of light (Matt. 6:19-24). If you have a job you should tithe ten percent of your income to your church, and consider how you might give offerings above and beyond that to support the work of the gospel and mercy ministries. Denying a desire to become rich for selfish reasons will liberate you from “many foolish and hurtful lusts” (1 Tim. 6:9) to receive divine wisdom.
    
8. Submit to your heavenly Father’s discipline. Proverbs 3:11-12 says, “My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction: for whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delight­eth.” You will advance much more quickly in wisdom if you receive God’s discipline with quiet submission. Whether it is loneliness, or betrayal by a close friend, or problems in school, or difficulty finding a job, or sexual frustration, or a broken home, or an injury or disease, trust that you are in the Father’s training school of holiness. You are working out in God’s gym and the rule of no pain, no gain applies. Be patient and endure hardship. Hebrews 12:11 says, “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.” So when sorrows come, pray, “Father, please let this pain yield good fruit in me: use it to make me holy!”

Conclusion: the Riches of God’s Wisdom←⤒🔗

When God revealed His wisdom to a world perishing in folly, He opened up the treasure chest of heaven.

Proverbs 3:13-15 says,

Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that better understanding. For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her.

Perhaps you have discovered how useful money can be. How hard would you be willing to work if you could earn a thousand dollars a day? What lengths would you be willing to go to in order to get a job like that? But I tell you the truth, a thousand dollars a day is mere pennies compared to God’s wisdom. Psalm 119:72 says, “The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver.” For real wisdom is knowing God and knowing ourselves in a way that guides us in living the good life, the wisdom that makes us wise unto salvation.

Therefore, seek wisdom like silver and gold (Prov. 2:4). If you would work long hours or do hard things for big money, then should you be lazy and half-hearted in pursuing wisdom? This is the quest of a lifetime. Put your heart into it. Give it your time. Give it your best.

Start treasuring up wisdom now while you are young. Remember your Creator in the days of your youth. If you store it up when you are young, it will come back to you when you are old. My mother died recently at age 92. Her memory of her adult life was mostly gone, even memories of her husband of over five decades. A few weeks before she died, I read to my mother from the Book of Revelation where the Lord says, “I am Alpha and Omega.” As I read it, I thought sadly to myself that she won’t understand this. I asked her what it meant. She said, “Does that mean Jesus Christ is the first and the last, and always there for us?” She had learned that when she was a child. Just before she died, she was still benefitting from the wisdom she had gained as a young person. Seek wisdom from God, dear young people; in doing so, you will plant seeds by God’s grace that will bear fruit decades from now, and to all eternity.