Most of us know we’re supposed to be faithful. What we don’t know is why it’s actually the better deal — or how to want it when the counterfeit looks so good. Proverbs 5 answers both questions. This sermon works through the anatomy of sexual temptation, the total cost of folly, and the only thing with enough power to reorient desire at the root: the astonishing, undeserved faithfulness of Christ to his unfaithful people.

Everything in Christianity hinges on a risen Christ. Which raises the most important question any of us can ask: where do we find him? On the road to Emmaus, Jesus himself answers — and his answer is more ordinary, more accessible, and more glorious than we might expect.

Most people know these as the shortest verse in the Bible. But John 11 isn't the only place Jesus wept. On Palm Sunday, surrounded by crowds shouting hosanna, Jesus crested the Mount of Olives — and wept over Jerusalem. Not for himself. Not for what he was about to suffer. He wept for his killers. In those tears we find something remarkable: the heart of God toward sinners, and the only reason judgment doesn't await us now.

There's a question people have been wrestling with since Eden — if knowing what is right isn't enough to make us do it, what is? Proverbs 4 sets two roads before us with urgent clarity, charges us to guard our hearts above everything else, and then leaves us staring at a problem we cannot solve ourselves. But the text doesn't leave us there. This sermon traces the arc from wisdom received, to wisdom walked, to the only thing that makes either one possible — a new heart that only God can give.

Wisdom loves. That's not just a nice sentiment — it's the claim of Proverbs 3:27-35. Wisdom shows itself not in what you know but in how you treat the people around you. In this sermon we look at what that looks like on the ground — in the ordinary moments when we have it in our power to do good, and the deeper reason we so often don't. At the root of every scheme, every withheld kindness, every manufactured conflict is a heart curved inward by sin — needy, grasping, convinced it has to take what it can get. But the gospel changes everything. The one who had every right to take gave instead — and in him, the scarcity that drives our grasping has been answered. You are not a desperate person. He has filled your empty hands.

A fish without the ability to swim can't access its world's goodness or avoid its dangers. We're in the same position without wisdom. Proverbs 3:13–26 shows us what wisdom actually is, what it gives, and what it protects — and why the answer to all three is ultimately a person, not a principle.

Where do you find real joy, and what do you really need to be okay?

In Philippians 4:4–13, Paul exposes the lies that can fester beneath anxiety and jealousy. If someone else is ahead, we feel behind. If we could just hold it all together, nothing would fall apart. If we had a little more, we would finally be settled.

Paul offers something better. Joy in the Lord. Peace that guards the heart. A mind shaped by truth. Contentment learned in every season through Christ who strengthens us.

What does God actually feel toward you? Proverbs 3 says He delights in His children. When wisdom sees that grace, it frees us to trust the Lord with all our hearts and walk in faithful obedience — not to earn sonship, but because we already have it in Christ.