275 years ago, Jonathan Edwards, one of the most brilliant theologians in American history, preached a sermon called "The Duty of Charity to the Poor, Explained and Enforced." The theme of the sermon was this: "Tis the most absolute and indispensable duty of a people of God to give bountifully and willingly for the supply of the wants of the needy." It's a powerful sermon, and well worth reading even today.

One of the things I really appreciate about this sermon is that he builds a solid case for why Christians should give to the poor. He says: "Where have we any command in the Bible laid down in stronger terms, and in a more peremptory urgent manner, than the command of giving to the poor?" And also:

It is not merely a commendable thing for a man to be kind and bountiful to the poor, but our bounden duty, as much a duty as it is to pray, or to attend public worship, or anything else whatever. And the neglect of it brings great guilt upon any person.

One of the most important issues in any of our lives is that of making choices. We make them every day - big ones like who to marry, what career to choose, what city to live in. But equally as significant are the everyday decisions that we make, the consequences of which add up to be just as significant as the momentous decisions.

The choices we make are going to determine our destiny. I've heard someone say that most decisions can be made by any reasonably competent person of average intelligence. But there are a small number of decisions that are life-changing. Even the small decisions end up really making a difference because we make them on such a regular basis.

When I was in high school, I looked at all the career opportunities that I could pursue. I thought about going into business, becoming a journalist, and also about teaching. But in the end I couldn't avoid the sense that I should become a pastor. There were all kinds of good and bad things that factored into that decision, but let me tell you the bad.

The bad is that I made a separation between everyday work and spiritual work. Do you get what I mean? It's like I made two lists. One one list I put ordinary secular work: business, commerce, construction, law, writing, teaching. On the second list I put things like pastoring, being a missionary, teaching in seminary - that's about it. I thought that you can do ordinary, everyday work, or you can do spiritual work that really matters.

I don't know where I came up with this view, but I know I'm not alone. If you follow this to its logical conclusion then all of you work to make a living and to support those of us who are doing important work. But nothing could be farther from the truth.

Today I want to look at what the book of Proverbs says about work. I hope that it will change the way that you think about career and vocation. I want to ask three questions:

• What does it say about work?
• Why does it say what it does?
• Finally, how does this impact what you do?

Words Matter

Let me see if you can finish a sentence that I begin. "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but..."

You're right, you got it. "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me." I don't know who ever thought of this saying, but they lied. It's not true at all. Sticks and stones will hurt your bones, but words can actually break your heart. Words matter.

Let me ask you: What's the meanest thing that anyone ever said to you? You may have heard of the person who pretended to be a 16-year-old boy on MySpace. She became "friends" with Megan Meier, age 13. After starting out nicely, the person, pretending to be a teenage boy, started sending Megan messages like, "I don't know if I want to be friends with you anymore because I've heard that you are not very nice to your friends." More messages like this came. Tragically, Megan became so upset by these messages that she took her own life. Sticks and stones can break bones, but words can break a heart. Words can kill.

I'd like to ask you to think for a minute about what you desire the most in your life. It could be anything, really: a better house, success in your career, an accomplishment, popular acclaim, marriage, children, a comfortable retirement. But for everyone here, there is something that you think about, that you're working towards, that gives your life some meaning. As someone has said, "There is woven inside each of us a desire for something more - a craving to be part of something bigger, greater, and more profound than our relatively meaningless day-to-day experience" (Paul David Tripp, A Quest for More).

I'll give you an example. Remember Rocky, the first one way back in 1976? When Adrian, his girlfriend, asked him why he trains so hard, beating up meat in the freezer and running up those stairs in Philadelphia, Rocky answers, "I just want to go 15 rounds cause then I'll know I'm not a bum." There is something in your life that you are striving towards. It gives you identity, and if you attain what you're hoping for, then you know you're not a bum.

I really don't know what I was thinking when I planned this series. Last week we talked about sex, and this week we're talking about money. I seem to be heading into all kinds of trouble. You don't get much more personal than talking about sex and money, but both are recurring themes in the book of Proverbs. That's why we're talking about them. We can't live wisely unless we learn to live wisely when it comes to our sexuality, and also with our money.

We had mice in our house a few years ago. I set out all kinds of traps. One day I went to a trap and discovered a mouse there. I took the trap over the garbage and released the trap, expecting the dead mouse to drop into the garbage pail. Instead it ran away. That dumb mouse was smart enough to play dead until it could escape. That mouse may have been smart enough to escape the first time, but I'm pretty sure I captured it again, and that time it didn't get away.

Here's what we need to know: There are some traps that we tend to fall into. These traps have been around for thousands of years. The writer of the book of Proverbs has identified some of these areas, and offers advice to us on what we need to do to avoid setting off the traps and therefore ruining our lives.

One of the areas in which there are a lot of traps is the area of money. So today I want to look at what the book of Proverbs says about money. There's no way that we can look at everything the book of Proverbs says about money. I would encourage you to do what I end up doing with each of the topics we're looking at: to read through the entire book and to select the proverbs that have to do with a particular topic.

I hope you don't feel too uncomfortable talking about sex in church. It's actually one of those topics that's talked about everywhere these days but in church, which is probably where we need to be talking about it most.

There are a couple of reasons why I'd like us to talk about it. The first reason is because it's in the Bible. This may surprise a lot of people, but the Bible isn't squeamish at all in talking about sex. This makes sense when you remember that sex was God's idea. He's the one who made it up.

As we study Proverbs, it would be impossible for us to skip over this topic. Large parts of chapters 5, 6, and 7 talk about sex. You really can't talk about how to live wisely without talking about an area that's as much a part of life as this one is, and Proverbs doesn't shy away from addressing the issue.

This leads me to the second reason I'd like to talk about it: because it is such a part of life, and one we don't always handle very well. Every year some graduates of a preaching program get together with Haddon Robinson, who's a well-known teacher on preaching. Last year someone asked him what we need to be talking about in our churches that we aren't. He said, "Pornography, which is a symptom of something else." It's available all the time in your homes, in fact anywhere that you have an Internet connection or even a cell phone.

One recent study said that 7 out of 10 men between the ages of 18-34 visit a pornographic site in a typical month. Half of the men who attended a Promise Keepers rally in 1996 admitted that they had been involved with pornography within a week of attending the event. That was 12 years ago, but I doubt the number has gone down. Pornography affects even those we think won't be affected. A third of the female readers of Today's Christian Women admitted intentionally accessing Internet porn. Half of all evangelical pastors admit to viewing pornography in the past year. Divorce lawyers are saying that it's a significant factor in their divorce cases.

Statistics are fine, but let's make it more tangible. This is an issue for a number of us here. I was actually working on this sermon when I got an email about one of my pastor friends. He and his wife were friends with another couple in the church. Somehow he got involved in a relationship with this other woman. He's resigned from the church. His wife has left him and has gone home to her parents. I saw him last year and he had everything going for him. Today he's a completely broken man who has lost almost everything.

That's why we need to discuss it: because the Bible talks about it, and because sex is part of our life, and for many of us it's a struggle. And, as we're going to see, the consequences are huge for us depending on how we handle this area.

A father passed by his son's bedroom and was astonished to see the bed nicely made up and everything neat and tidy. Then he saw an envelope propped up on the pillow. It was addressed, "Dad." With the worst premonition, he opened the envelope and read the letter with trembling hands:

Dear Dad,

It is with great regret and sorrow that I'm writing you. I had to elope with my new girlfriend because I wanted to avoid a scene with you and Mom. I've been finding real passion with Joan, and she is so nice. I knew you would not approve of her because of all her piercings, tattoos, tight motorcycle clothes, and the fact that she is so much older than I am. It's not just her passion, Dad. She really gets me.

Joan says that we are going to be very happy. She owns a trailer in the woods and has a stack of firewood—just enough for the whole winter. We share a dream of having many children.

Please don't worry, Dad. I'm 15 and I know how to take care of myself. I'm sure we'll be back to visit someday so you can get to know your grandchildren.

Your son, Chad

P.S. Dad, none of the above is true. I'm over at Tommy's house. I just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than the report card that's in my desk drawer. I love you! Call when it is safe for me to come home.

If you want to know why fathers get gray hair, that's why. Parenting - in fact, family life in general - can take it out of you, and it requires large mounts of wisdom and perspective.

We're currently studying the book of Proverbs, a book that's written to teach us wisdom, which is the skill of living well.

If you've been following along so far, you may have noticed that the book of Proverbs takes a long time before it gets to what we normally think of as proverbs. The first 9 chapters of Proverbs are kind of an introduction, and only in chapter 10 do we get to some of the short, pithy statements that we expect to read. We need to ask why the book spends so much time by way of introduction. I think the answer is that the author of Proverbs knows something about us that makes the first part of Proverbs necessary. He knows that although we want wisdom, we really won't understand what wisdom's worth. And because we don't know what wisdom's worth, we won't pursue it like we need to.

If you go to Chapters this afternoon, and wander to the self-help section, you're going to find some books that are going to teach you how to live a good life. Here's a sample:

• One book shows how "transcending our ego-based state of consciousness is not only essential to personal happiness, but also the key to ending conflict and suffering throughout the world." It tells us "how to awaken to a new state of consciousness and follow the path to a truly fulfilling existence."
• Another book offers "a five-day jump start that uses the principles in the book in a very specific, directed way to get you a fresh start on the path to optimal wellness."
• Just one other example. Another book gives a step-by-step process that will help us navigate the terrain of our best lives so we can set a new life course

These are all very popular books, and there are more. And if they're not enough, you can get magazines as well that teach you about friendship, how to look hot, how to improve every area of your life that you can think of.

There's a huge demand for wisdom, isn't there? This morning we're going to continue to look at a book of the Bible that offers wisdom so that we know how to live. Wisdom in this book means skill in living, competence in dealing with the realities of life.

And what we're going to see in this passage this morning is completely different than anything we'll find at Chapters. Proverbs 3 gives us three things we need to understand: the path to wisdom, the rewards of wisdom, and then - surprisingly, about failure.