Alright, we’re in a series called «I’m Too Smart for This.» It’s a study of the Book of Proverbs. Our mission here is to help as many people as possible live, love, and lead like Jesus so they can change the world. According to Luke 2:52, Jesus grew in wisdom, in stature, and in favor with God and man. So, being like Jesus means living with godly wisdom, and our text today is going to help us do that.
Before we jump into our lesson, we’re one church in multiple locations. Let’s welcome our New Jersey family into the room right now! Come on, go crazy for Jersey, everybody! Proverbs chapter 19, verse 21: «Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.» I want to stop the reading of Scripture there and tag a title to this text. Are you all ready for the Word today? I want to talk from this subject, family: «I’ve Got to Make Some Adjustments.» Clap your hands everywhere if you’re ready for God’s Word. I’ve got to make some adjustments.
I want to leap into this lesson today by making what you may find to be an interesting announcement. Alright, there’s a warrant for your arrest. Wait a minute, there is a wanted sign with your face on it plastered in the hallway of Heaven. An all-points bulletin has been issued on your behalf, and angelic authorities have been instructed to bring you in by any means necessary. And I want you to know, if you would give me the privilege of offering you some anointed advice, if I were you, I’d turn myself in because the one who’s after you always gets what he wants. If his hand is on your life, if he has elected and selected you, you can come now or you can come later, but if he calls you, you’re coming.
I don’t know your circumstance or situation, but I do know that Heaven wants to have a conversation with you. God wants to discuss your plans. Mark Twain is credited with communicating the following quote: «The two most important days in your life are the day you’re born and the day you find out why.» It’s one thing to know that God made us; it’s another thing to understand what we have been made for. God has hidden our fulfillment in Him and in His assignment for our life. Therefore, no matter what we make or how much we make, we will never experience fruitfulness, fulfillment, and flourishing without understanding, embracing, and unleashing our assignment.
The enemy is aware of this reality, and since he could not stop us from being born, he attempts to stop us from understanding, embracing, and unleashing why we were born. He tries to discourage, distract, and detour us from accomplishing our life’s assignment. One of the ways he does this is evident in the text we read today. Listen to Pastor: one of the greatest enemies to accomplishing our purpose is our allegiance to our own plans. I didn’t hear anybody talking back to me in this Baptist, Methodist, Episcopalian, Pentecostal, Lutheran, Presbyterian church, so I’m going to say it one more time: one of the greatest enemies to accomplishing our assignment or purpose is our allegiance to our own plans.
Pastor, where do you get it? I got it here in Proverbs. Come on, that’s what we’re studying in this season! Proverbs is a book of the Bible, most of which is attributed to Solomon. It’s a book not of promises but of truisms. It’s not prophetic declarations; it’s observations from a man named Solomon. He says, «I’ve seen a lot, I’ve lived a lot, and God has blessed me with a lot of insight and wisdom. Here is my wisdom, my observations in the form of truisms. When I step back and look at life, this is the way things generally work.» Are you here? He says, «Generally speaking, if you train up a child in the way they should go…» It’s not always a prophetic promise but a truism. Come on, because sometimes you train them right and they go left.
So, if you don’t understand that the book is full of truisms, observations, come on, it is important. He said, «Generally speaking, this is the way things go.» Proverbs is wisdom literature, found in a section of the Bible called wisdom literature, and this is important because it intends to make us more than moral; it aims to make us wise. It’s based on the revelation that I can be a child of God and not be living with godly wisdom. We live on the level of our revelation, and if the enemy can stop us from being exposed to revelation, then he can stop us from experiencing elevation.
In other words, one of the ways he keeps us down is by keeping us spiritually ignorant. Come on! And ignorance of spirituality isn’t the absence of intellect; it’s the absence of godly wisdom. That doesn’t mean there’s no information; sometimes it means there’s misinformation. The enemy specializes in misinformation campaigns, deception. He wants to deceive us so he can detour and distract us. This is why Solomon says, «When it comes to wisdom, don’t wait for it; go get it!» I felt that in my soul! They didn’t say anything to me there, but I said, that’s why Solomon said, «When it comes to wisdom, go get it! Don’t be at the mercy of someone else getting a revelation.»
