6-15-2025

“TRUE WISDOM”

Text: Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

Sunday June 15, 2025 – The Holy Trinity

Trinity – Creston

       Grace, mercy, and peace is yours from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

Our text for this Holy Trinity Sunday is the Old Testament lesson form Proverbs 8 that was just proclaimed.

Let Us Pray: Dearest Jesus, send your Holy Spirit to remind us that the wisdom of the world does not recognize who you are. Remind us that the one true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the eternal and true wisdom that only you provide to save and redeem your people.  Amen.

Dear Fellow Redeemed in Christ:

Our world seeks wisdom, from the many offerings of self-help books, from the practical to the deeply philosophical.

The gradual decline of civic righteousness, built into creation by the Creator who made it all to be “very good” (Gen 1:31), has only widened the search for something true, noble, good, yet practical for everyday living.

As Christians, though, we know where true wisdom is found, and our Old Testament Reading for this Holy Trinity Sunday helps us discover it again in a most interesting setting.

A remarkable metaphor from the book of Proverbs reminds us that

In the Trinity We Encounter God’s True Way of Wisdom.

       I.   God’s wisdom is true wisdom.

A.  This is the message of the book of Proverbs and of the whole of God’s Word (9:10).

1.   Proverbs often illustrates this by personifying Wisdom as a virtuous woman (9:1–5).

2.   It should seem obvious to listen to the Creator, who put the whole operation together to work smoothly.

B.  But fallen wisdom is clever, devious. Proverbs pictures it as a deceptive woman, attracting wondering and then wandering eyes, hands, and ways (9:13–18).

C.  Still, God holds out for those who listen to his true wisdom. He wants to rejoice in humanity as the ultimate delight of his creation (Psalm 8).

       II.  Thus, true wisdom begins with understanding God.

A.  For many, this begins with the marvels of creation that “natural causes” are hard pressed to explain. God’s work is marvelous! (vv 24–31).

B.  But for the full story, we have come to know God as the triune God, three persons that are both simple and yet too complex to comprehend and explain as we attempt to in the Athanasian Creed.

1.   One perspective on the Trinity is the relationship of the three persons. A famous ancient controversy, the Arain Controversy dating back to the fourth century hinged on verse 22 of our text—used both for and against seeing God the Son as divine, coequal and coeternal with the Father. The Son says, “Before Abraham was, I am” (Jn 8:58).

2.   Another perspective on the Trinity is the work of these three persons, inseparable yet described as Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier.

C.  Our teaching on the Trinity is grounded in a proper understanding of Scripture, as the debates over 8:22 attest. We look to the whole of scripture to arrive at what is being confessed in 8:22.

1.   The Son (Second Person) is distinct from the Father yet existent from before the creation.

2.   The Son (personified in this text as God’s ultimate, true Wisdom) was present at creation, and even joined in the craftsmanship (v 30).

3.   The Son was both the delight of the Father and joined the Father in delighting in creation, especially the creation of humanity.

D.  Our teaching on the Trinity is grounded in a correct understanding of the “way” of God (see v 22).

1.   This begins with the “way” of creation, visible to all.

2.   But fallen creation will continue to falter, to follow fallen wisdom, the temptress.

3.   So the Creator came to establish a new creation, through the death of the old and a res­urrec­tion to new life. This is the primary work of God’s Son, the Redeemer, by whose resurrection God made him Lord and Messiah (Acts 2:36).

       III. And now we have God’s “Wisdom for the way.”

A.  God’s “Wisdom for the way” is—

1.   Wisdom that leads us into the way of life.

2.   Wisdom that guides us on the way of life.

B.  We have this because the Sanctifier, the Holy Spirit, the Third Per­son of the Trinity, comes to teach us all things (last week’s Pentecost Gospel, Jn 14:26). And the Spirit’s “all things” is Christ (cf Jn 15:26)!

C.  Therefore, we are, by grace—

1.   Those who know and can live by God’s true wisdom in Christ.

2.   God’s delight in Christ!

The Holy Trinity is the one feast of the church year that is explicitly about a doctrine. Now, knowing the doctrine taught in Holy Scripture is a kind of wisdom—and not knowing correct doctrine would be catastrophic for the church, as the Arian controversy showed.

But knowing the doctrine of the Trinity as Scripture teaches it is more than a wisdom of “knowing the right stuff.”

It is very practical—the way we know how all things truly operate best, how the one God set up everything to work for the good of his creatures.

Above all, that is to say, the doctrine of the Trinity is about being wise unto salvation—the way of eternal life as God has worked it for us in the saving work of his Wisdom, the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ.

Friends in Christ:

Why is it that we tend to start putting things together without looking at the instructions? Of course, when we get stuck, then we might take a look. But maybe not even then.

God’s Word is more than “instructions for life”; it is the Word of the Creator, and he delights to have us enjoy life the way he created it (Prov 8:31).  Enjoy life according to his design.

Instead, we have often chose “go it alone” and ignore the wisdom he not only put right there in the box when he packaged all this but also gave us in writing. (Bible) And yes, we do get stuck. Many people are stuck but don’t even know it.  This is the mission field before us.

God’s Word for life is first a Word for his gift of life: forgiveness for the sinful way of life and a whole new life in Christ, our Savior and Redeemer. This is his true wisdom.

God’s Word for life is also a Word for his way of life, his way of living. This, too, is his true wisdom, and we are wise to follow it.

Of course, we will fail and falter and fall, which brings us back to his gift of life:

God’s grace and forgiveness in Christ, the eternal Wisdom of God!

Amen.

Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior.  Amen.