What kind of stoopid are you?

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. Yes, we're starting a new series today called Stupid. We're going to be looking at Proverbs today. Wisdom is personified as a female, a woman, a virtuous woman, and so is folly, by the way. But, wisdom is female. Okay? Yeah, it's fascinating. So, we are starting this study today, and I don't know if it hit you immediately when you saw this title, Stupid, but I thought of it right away, the phrase from Forrest Gump, Stupid is what stupid does. Yeah, I don't know if you remember that movie. What's fascinating about it, though, is Forrest actually is not stupid in this movie. Now, he becomes a foil. He becomes kind of a mirror for all the stupidity of those around him in one form or another, but he lives as one who is faithful, who is trustworthy, who is a true, you know, just who you'd want to be outside of his IQ. And, the people around him, like Jenny, finally comes to her senses towards the end of the movie and realizes the faithfulness and the love and the commitment that Forrest has had for her throughout her whole life. It's kind of fascinating, and you learn, sometimes, the best thing in a movie like that, and I think what we're going to do today, you learn what wisdom is by looking at its opposite first. That's what this series is all about. Okay? So, let's pray. Lord God, as we start this series, we ask that you'd wise us up, that we would find our wisdom from you, that you would teach us what it means to be wise, how we can live, how we can respond to your goodness, and how we can share that wisdom with others. Lord, we thank you for where we are here in Southwest Florida. We thank you that you've placed us in this community, but more than that, you've placed us in this community here at Thrive. Everyone belongs here, Lord God. Everyone can grow in wisdom, and we thank you for that. We pray that you would bless our time together in your word today, that you would also bless those in other Christian churches across Southwest Florida, that together we would celebrate your goodness and grace and the gospel of your truth today, and it would really impact many, many, many lives. All this we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. So, to learn about wisdom, we're going to look at its antonym, Stupid or the Fool, from the book of Proverbs. And we're going to be looking at a number of passages. You can look, actually, if you want to follow along with the notes for this, you can look at the Bible app. It's the You version. It's a free thing. And when you download it, you tap on More, and then you go to Events, and if you've got your location services on, boom, Thrive Community Church pops up right away. If you don't, you just type in the zip code, 33928, and it should be one of the first. Only during, like, 30 minutes before the service and 30 minutes after is this up. There's so many people that use this free app that they just can't keep the notes up. But if you take notes in it, you can store them for the future. It might be a wise thing to do. Okay, so we're going to be looking at a number of passages in Proverbs, because it kind of circularly goes through different themes all the way through the many chapters. So, I'm just going to be reading these together right now. You can watch them on the screen or see it on the app. How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge? For the simple are killed by their turning away, and the complacency of fools destroys them. But whoever listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease without dread of disaster. When he established the heavens, I was there. When he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of man. And now, O sons, listen to me. Blessed are those who keep my ways. The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps. A fool despises his father's instruction, but whoever heeds reproof is prudent. There is a way that seems right to man, but its end is the way to death. Strike a scoffer and the simple will learn prudence. Reprove a man of understanding and he will gain knowledge. Scoffer is the name of the arrogant haughty man who acts with arrogant pride. So what we're going to learn from these proverbs are these three things today. What stupid is, what kinds of stupid there are, and finally, how to be stupid no more. Sound good? Yeah. So what is stupid? Now, a fool, according to, I think, if you kind of do a long history all the way through and ...