Sermon Summary: The Importance of Wise and Godly Counselors

On Sunday I preached from the book of Proverbs. The second half of Proverbs is sentence literature, meaning that a new theme or topic might be addressed from one sentence to the next without any warning or transition. The proverbs are not necessarily sorted by topic, but are often scattered throughout the book, which makes it difficult to preach (how often have you heard sermons preached from the book of Proverbs? I think I've only heard one sermon from Proverbs in person). One way to approach the book of Proverbs (which is what I did) is to collect proverbs based around a single theme. The theme I preached on was the importance of wise and godly counselors in living wisely (Proverbs 11:14; 12:15; 15:22; 24:5–6; 15:5; 15:31–33; 17:10; 25:11–12). 
 

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Two basic principles emerge from these Proverbs: 

1. Listening to good advisors and listening to many advisors is wise and profitable. 
2. Listening carefully to correction and instruction-- even when it is hard to hear-- is the way of wisdom. 

After unpacking these two principles, we considered: 

1. How this wisdom plays out in day-to-day life in general.
2. How we need to apply this wisdom more frequently to our lives as Christians.
3. How the gospel of Jesus Christ frees us to receive this wisdom by moving us past responses to correction of devastation and avoidance.