The STOOPID Proud

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. So I've said for a couple of weeks in this series, this being part three, that wisdom is really a combination in the Book of Proverbs of two realities that you live with. The first reality is to realize that God has a created order in this world. The way he has set this world up, and that I live in harmony with that, so gravity works. So half of the foolish things you saw in that video were because somehow these dudes thought they would defy gravity, right? You knew before they even did the dumb thing they did that it was not going to turn out well, okay? So there's a limitedness of human beings that way, but there's not just a physical order to the universe, there's also a moral and ethical order. And God has weaved that through from beginning to end. And when you're in harmony with God's created order, things go well. When you work against the grain, you get splinters. And that's what happens to a lot of people as well. So there's a created order in this world that we know that we're the createe, God is the creator. I think I just made up a word. We are the one created. But there's also a second part of wisdom, and that is that we see and understand the brokenness and fallenness of this world. The fact that the world doesn't always work outright, and so it's not just a quid pro quo, I do this and I get that all the time. Sometimes when I do the right thing, bad things still happen. That's part of the brokenness. So I recognize the brokenness in myself. I recognize the brokenness in relationships. I recognize the brokenness even in nature, that that happens. And growing in wisdom is growing in those two things together. We also said Proverbs is one of those books that's not supposed to be just read on your own because that would be kind of like, oh, I know it, I can get it. Do you understand how that works? That's already a know-it-all attitude is the opposite of wisdom. So it's supposed to be read in community. And that's why we emphasize here at Thrive, home huddles. Home huddles where we gather together with others and we learn from each other, we support each other, we care for each other, we love each other, and we grow from each other. So Proverbs is to be read in community and to be understood through the wisdom of other people are wiser than me. There are some really wise people in this congregation, and there's a lot to learn from each other. I learn all sorts of things from people all the time. Andy was a good example this week, just how her posture was going into the surgery, seeing her before the surgery, and seeing how she was at peace with God, knew God was in control. That's such a powerful witness, right? So this week too, by the way, I'm going to point out, we are starting another huddle on Tuesday night, not this coming Tuesday, but the Tuesday after at Corinne's place here at Estero Oaks, and Samuel is going to help facilitate it over there. So if you're interested, that's a new one starting, and you can get involved in that in like 10-ish days from now. All right. The brokenness of technology. Okay. So how do you learn wisdom? So many people say, okay, great. I want to become wise, so teach me the technique, John. Teach me the skills. What's the hack so I can just get to wisdom right away? Tell me the four steps I need to do, and if I do these things and get this skill down, I'm going to become wise, and that's the problem with the 21st century in the United States. We think wisdom is something I can kind of download, okay? Wisdom is something I can just kind of get this skill or this knowledge, and boom, automatically, I'm wise now. Doesn't work that way at all, and so when we come to the book of Proverbs, sometimes we get really frustrated because Proverbs is not going to tell you, here's the skill. You do this, and you'll become wise. Here's the technique. You follow this. This is the method to wisdom. It's not about that. Proverbs focuses on character more than skills or knowledge because character actually matters. Character matters more than any skill you can have or any knowledge you can have, and this is so contrary to our 21st century American way of thinking. In fact, I've brought this up a couple times here and almost every year in my leadership class that I teach at FGCU when I ask about character, skill, and knowledge because what is the majority of students will say a leader is someone and they describe a characteristic. They don't describe a skill. They don't describe knowledge, but they describe characteristic. Then I look at them and say, where do you learn character here at the university? All your classes are on skills and knowledge, and yet you're saying to me that a good leader is one who has good character, and that's the case. We are so focused in our society on what's your skill set, how much do you know, what degree do you...