Cutting Against the Grain: Why Life Keeps Falling Apart | Proverbs 1:1–7
Who taught you how to live?
Someone may have taught you how to read, drive, build a career, or manage money. But who taught you how to handle anger, choose whom to trust, raise a family, face regret, and live with wisdom?
In this opening message from the series Modern Problems, Ancient Wisdom, we examine Proverbs 1:1–7 and discover that life has a grain established by the God who made it. When we live according to our own instincts and wisdom, our lives begin to splinter. The problem is not simply that we need better information. Our hearts naturally resist God and insist, “I know better.”
Solomon possessed extraordinary wisdom, yet even he could not save himself from a wandering heart. We do not merely need another teacher or a better collection of advice. We need someone greater than Solomon. We need wisdom with a face.
Jesus Christ is the truly wise King who perfectly trusted the Father, died for our foolish self-rule, and rose again to give us new life. Biblical wisdom begins when we stop crowning ourselves, repent, place our faith in Jesus, and learn to live in the fear of the Lord.
You were never meant to be your own guide. Trust the One who made you.
Scripture: Proverbs 1:1–7
Series: Modern Problems, Ancient Wisdom
Key Takeaways
Life has a grain. God created life with wisdom and purpose. When we reject his design and live on our own terms, our lives begin to splinter.
Wisdom is the skill of living God’s way. Biblical wisdom is not merely knowledge. It is learning how to handle your relationships, money, words, decisions, and desires according to God’s design.
Our greatest problem is self-trust. Sin begins when we believe our instincts, feelings, and wisdom are more trustworthy than the God who made us.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. We take God seriously because he is holy, trust him because he is good, and love him because, through Christ, he is our Father.
Good advice cannot change the heart. Solomon possessed extraordinary wisdom but still wandered from God. We do not simply need better information. We need a Savior.
Wisdom has a face, and his name is Jesus. Jesus lived the wise and obedient life we failed to live, died for our foolish self-rule, and rose to give us new life.
Wisdom begins with repentance and faith. Stop crowning yourself, place your full weight on Jesus, and trust his wisdom to lead your life.
You were never meant to be your own guide. Trust the One who made you.
Closing Application
So who is teaching you how to live?
Are you building your life on your own instincts, the opinions of others, or the wisdom of the God who made you? Look honestly at the areas where your life is beginning to splinter. Your relationships, your decisions, your words, your money, your habits, or your desires may be revealing where you have been cutting against God’s design.
Do not simply leave with more information. Repent of trusting yourself, bring those areas before the Lord, and place your full weight on Jesus. Ask him to give you a heart that fears him, trusts him, and follows his wisdom.
You were never meant to be your own guide. Stop crowning yourself, trust the One who made you, and begin walking in his wisdom today.
Transcript: Pastor Rajiv Khatri
WHO TAUGHT YOU HOW TO LIVE?
Proverbs 1:1-7 | Modern Problems, Ancient Wisdom | Sermon 1 | June 14, 2026
MOVEMENT 1 — There Is a Grain to Life
[Slow from the first line. No warm-up yet. These lines are for specific people. Look up. Mean them for each one.]
There are people in this room who were never taught how to live.
Nobody sat you down. You learned money by going broke. You learned marriage by watching one fall apart. You learned to survive from adults around you were barely surviving themselves.
Others of you have every credential there is. You can run a business, manage a team, and solve problems most people cannot solve.
And you still do not know what to do with your anger. Or your child. Or why you got everything you wanted and still feel hollow.
Different lives. Same problem. None of us knows enough to be the expert on our own life.
[To the skeptic. Warm. Let them exhale.]
And if you are here this morning and you are not sure about Jesus and Christianity. I’m glad you’re here. You do not have to sign anything to listen. Just ask one honest question with me. Has the way you have been doing life actually worked?
[The question that runs the whole sermon. Ask it. Then let it sit.]
So let me ask all of us something.
Who taught you how to live?
Somebody taught you to read. Somebody taught you to drive. If you have a trade, somebody taught you that trade.
But the biggest skill of all? How to actually live. How to pick a person to marry. How to handle money when you are scared. What to do with your anger. How to make decisions. How to raise a kid when nobody raised you right.
Who taught you that?
For a lot of us, the honest answer is nobody. Or, my parents, kind of.
So we have been guessing. And a life built on guesses ends up with tear marks all over it.
[Now the humor beat lands, and it earns the woodshop story. Lighten up. The deck-and-fence line is the laugh.]
Now, I am not the guy you want teaching you to build anything. I am not handy. I can hang a picture. I can put together a crib if the little diagram is clear enough. But ask me to build a deck or put a fence around your property, and oh boy. I will mess that up. I know, because I have.
But back in middle school, I took one class that taught me something I have never forgotten. Woodshop.
Our big project that year was a key holder. A board you hang by the door, with hooks for your keys. We cut designs around the edges. We carved curved letters that spelled K-E-Y-S and nailed them on the front. In case anybody wondered what it was for.
I was proud of that thing. I can still smell the sawdust. I can still see my workbench.
But here is what I remember most. Before our teacher let us touch a single tool, he taught us one rule.
Read the grain before you cut.
Wood has a grain. Lines that run through every board in one direction. The tree grew that way. The wood carries that design inside it. You did not put it there. It is just there.
And the rule was simple. Cut with the grain, and the wood works with you. Smooth. Clean.
Cut against it, and the wood fights you. It tears. It splinters. It chips in places you never wanted.
That’s a picture of human life. Your life has a grain too. You did not put it there. And most of us have spent years cutting against it, wondering why everything keeps splintering.
That is why we are opening this book today. Proverbs. One of the oldest and richest books of wisdom in the world. Three thousand years old, and it reads like it was written about your Tuesday.
We are going to live in this book for the next few weeks. And Proverbs pulls no punches. Your money. Your mouth. Your sex life. Who you let close to you. The thing you keep going back to that you know is killing you. This book has something to say about all of it.
Hear how it starts. (Proverbs 1:1-6, NIV)
1 The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel:
2 for gaining wisdom and instruction;
for understanding words of insight;
3 for receiving instruction in prudent behavior,
doing what is right and just and fair;
4 for giving prudence to those who are simple,
knowledge and discretion to the young—
5 let the wise listen and add to their learning,
and let the discerning get guidance—
6 for understanding proverbs and parables,
the sayings and riddles of the wise.
A king wrote this. Solomon. Son of David, king of Israel. Hold on to that. It will matter later.
Then look at what the book says it is for. Wisdom. Instruction. Insight. Doing what is right and just and fair. It is like God is piling the table with everything you were never handed.
That first word. Wisdom. Let me tell you what it actually means. It is probably not what you think.
The Bible's word for wisdom is not a classroom word. It is a workshop word. It is the same word, chokmah, that titles the whole book of Proverbs. And it is the same word God uses for the craftsmen he chose to build the tabernacle, the tent where the people of Israel met with him.
Among the very first people the Bible says God filled with his Spirit were not priests or prophets. They were craftsmen. Men working wood and metal and stone, with sawdust on their arms.
That is the wisdom word.
So when the Bible says wisdom, do not picture a professor. Picture a craftsman. Somebody who can feel when the cut is going wrong.
Wisdom is mastering of understanding. Wisdom is skill. Skill at the material called your life.
And here is what Proverbs is claiming. God made the world by wisdom. Life has a design.
Money has a grain. Marriage has a grain. Friendship has a grain. Your words have a grain.
Live God's way, and yes life still gets hard. Nobody promised you easy. But now you are cutting with the grain. You are working with the world the way God actually built it.
Live against it, and things splinter.
The question is not whether you trust someone to teach you. The question is whether you will trust yourself or the God who made your life.
[sidebar] Do not misread Proverbs. This isn’t Let’s Make a Deal. This is not a deal where you obey God and he guarantees an easy, prosperous life.
Proverbs shows us how God made life to work. Usually, wisdom bears good fruit.
But we live in a world broken by sin. Sometimes you do what is right, and the wood still breaks in your hands. Job is in the Bible too.
When that happens, God is not distant from your pain. Jesus entered suffering himself. And nothing done God’s way is ever wasted. In Christ, God will make all things right in the end. [sidebar ended]
So who is this book for?
It is for the simple and the young, the people just starting out. But it is also for the wise, who are told to keep listening and keep learning.
So this book is for the beginner and the expert. The new Christian and the person who has walked with Jesus for fifty years. Nobody graduates from God's school of wisdom.
And listen to how the whole book talks.
8 Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction
and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.
Not a list of rules. A voice. My son. Listen, my son.
So when you open Proverbs, you are not picking up a rulebook. You are pulling up a stool next to a Father who wants to teach you.
Some of you never heard that voice. Nobody ever sat you down.
We are coming back to that voice. Because this book is headed somewhere. I will tell you now. It ends at a cross. Stay with me.
Because here is the thing nobody warns you about. God wrote a book this good, and laid out the grain of your whole life. And we still cut against it every single week.
Why?
MOVEMENT 2 — Why We Keep Hitting the Same Walls
[Pick up the energy. The "Why?" is still hanging. Catch it.]
Here is the strange part. We do not cut against the grain because we are stupid. We do it because something in us is sure we know better.
Guys. You ever drive somewhere new? Your wife says the GPS wants you to turn right. And something in your gut goes, no, I know this area. So you go left.
"Babe. It recalculated."
You ignore that too. Three turns later you are sitting in a parking lot you never meant to be in.
And your wife gives you the look. You know the look.
[Let the laugh land. Then turn it.]
We laugh because every one of us has done it. But church, we do that with our whole lives. We have a Maker who says, this is the way. And we say, I have got a gut feeling.
And we drive straight into the wreckage.
So where does that come from? That voice that says, I know better?
It is the oldest voice there is. Go back to the garden. The serpent comes to Eve with one promise. Eat this, and you will be like God. You won’t need anybody to tell you how to live. You will decide for yourself.
And here is the part we skip. The Bible says the fruit was desirable for gaining wisdom. The first sin was reaching for wisdom on our own terms.
Be your own teacher.
Trust your own eyes.
And the whole world began to splinter.
Sin begins when we trust our own wisdom more than God’s.
That same voice is still speaking.
[Lighter, but pointed. This is the everyday-air beat.]
It is in the songs. It is in the movies. It’s in the podcasts. It is the advice everybody hands you. Follow your heart. Trust your gut. Nobody knows you like you. You do you.
And it has gotten smarter than follow your heart. Now it says your feelings are the truest thing about you. Your pain is the final authority. Anyone who tells you that you are wrong is a threat to your peace. You heard that sermon a hundred times this week. You just did not know it was a sermon.
It sounds like freedom. It is the same lie from the garden, wearing new clothes.
And we wonder why everything keeps tearing.
[Now the affirmation. Warm. This is for the strivers in the room.]
Now hear me before you misunderstand this. The drive underneath all that is not the problem.
You wanted to survive. You wanted to provide. You wanted to protect yourself, because nobody else was going to. Some of you figured out a whole new country with no map and no one to call. Some of you have been mother and father at the same kitchen table. Some of you built something real on your own gut.
That grit can be a gift from God.
The drive may not the problem.
The driver is.
Sin says, “I will run my own life.”
[Drop into the valley. This is the bottom. Slow down.]
Let me show you how far down this goes. My brother took woodshop too. But he missed the first class. The one where the teacher shows you the machines. What you touch. What you never touch.
Second class, everybody gets to work. My brother steps up to the jointer. A jointer has a flat bed with sharp blades spinning underneath, and you push the wood across it to shave the edge smooth. He had seen one before. Figured he knew enough. So he ran it on instinct.
His hand slipped over the blades. And it took the tip of his finger off.
He missed the class. He ran on instinct. And there is no getting that back.
Most of us have a version of that story. Ours just does not show on our hands.
[The vulnerability moment. Genuine. Specific. Then broaden fast.]
Here is mine. When I first came to faith, nobody discipled me. Nobody sat me down. So I ran on instinct, all the way to India, sure I was going to save my people single-handed. Be the Moses of India.
I even tried to become like the people I wanted to reach. Changed how I talked. How I carried myself. So they would accept me, and then accept my Jesus. They saw right through it. One man said it to my face. You are only acting like us to convert us.
The trust I went there to build, my own instinct wrecked it.
God was patient with me. Over years he grew me up. But I have never forgotten what my own instincts built when I was my own teacher.
[Quicken now. This is the turn. Do not linger.]
Now some of you are pushing back. And it is fair. You are thinking, I learn plenty without any of this. Mentors. Books. Podcasts. People who do not believe in Jesus and seem to do just fine.
And you are right. A good mentor is a gift. I thank God for the people who taught me. A good book can change your year. Learn from every wise person you can find. I mean that.
But even the best of them runs out of road. Let me show you where.
A budget can tell you to stop spending. It cannot make you stop wanting what you cannot afford. A great book can tell you to be patient with your kid. It cannot reach in at 9 at night when you are exhausted and make the anger let go. The best mentor alive can tell you the right thing to do in your marriage. But most of the time, you already know.
Advice can tell you what is right.
It cannot change what you want.
Here is the second. The wisest mentor can help you make a better choice tomorrow. He has nothing to say about ten years ago. He cannot give back what you broke. He cannot undo the call you should not have made, the years you cannot get back, the person you cannot un-hurt. Advice only points forward. And some of us are carrying a weight that is all behind us.
And here is the last one.
The wisest, most successful man who ever lived knew all the right answers. And still lived like a fool.
Hear every wise saying? He said them.
If wisdom were just good information, he would have died the wisest man who ever lived.
He did not.
So hear me. Mentors are a gift. Books are a gift. Use every one of them.
But they cannot change what you want.
They cannot undo what is behind you.
And they cannot save you in the end.
You do not need a better teacher.
You need a Savior.
You need wisdom with a face.
MOVEMENT 3 — Wisdom Has a Face
[Slower. You are under this verse now, not over it. Stand with them.]
Before we read the last verse, let me be honest about my own qualifications. I went to seminary. I built companies before I ever preached. And my gut still tries to overrule God about twice a week. Ask Sarah.
So I am not reading this down at you. I am standing under it with you.
Here it is. The verse the whole book is built on. (Proverbs 1:7, NIV)
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
I know how that word lands. Fear.
That word does not mean what Florida taught you. If you are swimming out west of here and you meet a fifteen-foot alligator, you feel a kind of fear. The kind that makes you swim faster than you ever have in your life. That fear runs away from what it fears.
That is not this word.
There is another kind. I see it in my own house. My kids have never run away from me when I walk through the door. They run at me. The other day I barely got inside and Alayna screamed, Daddy, and threw herself into my arms.
But those same kids would be crushed to disappoint me. Not because I would ever hurt them. Because they love me.
That is the fear of the Lord. Not the alligator. The child in mid-air.
Love that big and respect that big, at the same time, for the same Person.
So here is what the fear of the Lord means.
You take God seriously, because he is holy.
You trust him, because he is good.
And in Christ, you love him, because he is your Father.
Hold those three together.
Holy. Good. Father.
That is the fear of the Lord.
And the verse calls it the beginning. Not kindergarten, the thing you outgrow. The foundation. The wisest person in this room stands on the fear of the Lord again tomorrow morning. You never graduate past it.
Then the verse turns. But fools despise wisdom and instruction.
The fool is not the person with no schooling. The fool is the one who looks at all of this and says, I am good. I know enough.
That is not a brains problem. It is a worship problem. And that road has an end. It does not end in a parking lot. It ends in death, in front of a holy God.
Let that land. Not a fender bender. Not a hard season. A holy God, and a life that called him a liar and ran life your own way. If that were the end of the sermon, every one of us would be in trouble. Because every one of us has done it. But it is not the end. Thank God it is not the end.
[The Solomon reveal. This pays off the wall you built earlier.]
Remember verse one? A king wrote this book. I told you to hold onto that.
Solomon. God told him to ask for anything, and he asked for wisdom. Not money. Not power. Wisdom. And God made him the wisest man who had ever lived. He wrote three thousand proverbs. He wrote the book we’re in this morning.
And here is how his story ends. (1 Kings 11:4) As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God.
Seven hundred wives. His heart turned toward other gods. He even built places of worship for idols near Jerusalem. Solomon had every word of this book, and still drifted. Not because the words were weak. Because somewhere along the way he stopped listening to the Father and started trusting the king in the mirror.
He had the words in his hands. He just stopped listening to the voice.
And if you are honest, so have you. You can have the book open and your heart somewhere else entirely.
We do not need another Solomon to give us better advice. We need someone greater than Solomon to rescue us from our foolish hearts.
And one day Jesus stood in front of a crowd and said exactly that. Something greater than Solomon is here.
Solomon wrote the book on wisdom and could not live it. Jesus did not just teach the wise life. He lived every line of it. The Spirit of wisdom rested on him. He delighted in the fear of the Lord, the very thing the rest of us run from.
Where we resisted the Father, he trusted him. Where we ran our own lives, he obeyed. Where Solomon's heart wandered, his never did.
He is the truly wise King we always needed.
And do you know what that King did for a living?
He came as a carpenter.
Here is something I want you to know about this book, Proverbs. In this very book, wisdom is not just a thing you get. Wisdom is described as a person. A person who was there beside God when the world was made, calling out in the streets, begging people to come and live. Solomon wrote that. And he could not become it. The whole book is reaching for a Wisdom that is not an idea, but a Person.
And then Wisdom walked into the world. The One who made every tree spent years in a workshop, shaping wood with his hands. And then those same hands were stretched out on a wooden cross.
At that cross, Jesus carried every foolish act of self-rule. Every time we said, “I know better.” Every time we pushed God aside and took the wheel. He stood in our place and took the judgment our sin deserved.
Think about what that means.
The wisest man who ever lived was treated like the worst fool who ever lived.
He stood in the place of people who had rejected God’s wisdom. He took the judgment our self-rule deserved.
That is not God paying you back.
That is God paying for you.
The cross looked foolish to the world. But it was the wisdom of God. Through the weakness of a crucified Savior, God was rescuing people who could never rescue themselves.
And three days later, God raised him from the dead.
Jesus is not a memory. He is alive, and by his Spirit he is present with his people.
A few minutes ago I showed you where advice runs out.
Here is where Jesus begins.
Advice can tell you what is right. Jesus changes what you want.
Advice can point you toward tomorrow. Jesus forgives what is behind you.
Advice can improve parts of your life. Jesus saves your whole life.
Wisdom is not merely a list of principles.
Wisdom has a face.
And his name is Jesus.
[The honest qualification, for the sufferer. Do not rush it.]
I’m not going to lie to you. Some of you are carrying losses that do not come back. Coming to Jesus does not grow the fingertip back. Some wreckage stays wrecked in this life.
But Jesus does more than patch your old life. He forgives your sin, cleans your record, gives you a new heart, and promises that one day he will make all things new.
Remember the voice this whole book speaks in:
“My son. Listen, my son.”
Some of you never heard that voice. No father ever sat you down. Nobody taught you how to live.
But when you come to Jesus, God receives you into his family. You are no longer left to teach yourself. You have a Father who will forgive you, lead you, and teach you.
So what do you do?
[IGNITION]
Wisdom begins when you stop trusting yourself and put your life in the hands of Jesus.
The Bible calls that repentance and faith.
Repentance means you stop crowning yourself. You turn from running your own life.
Faith means you put your full weight on Jesus. You trust his death to forgive you, his resurrection to give you life, and his wisdom to lead you.
You can do that right where you sit.
“Jesus, forgive me. Teach me. My life is yours.”
And when God brings you to repentance and faith, he does what you could never do for yourself. By his Spirit, he gives you a new heart and begins changing what you want. You are not left to change yourself. Jesus begins his work within you.
Here is the difference between you and Solomon. Solomon wrote and read this book as a king collecting wisdom. You get to read it as a child sitting with the Father of all creation. You get the Author in the room.
So tomorrow morning, before your feet hit the floor and your gut takes the wheel, ask God to teach you.
Pray:
“Lord, you built today. I did not. I am not the expert on my own life. Show me the grain. I trust You.”
That simple prayer is the fear of the Lord with work boots on.
And then open the book. One chapter of Proverbs. Not to earn anything. Not as homework. Because the Teacher who lives in you now speaks through these words to you. So open it tomorrow and go hear your Father's voice.
Whether you have been coasting, doubting, or carrying twenty years of wreckage, hear this:
You are not too far gone for Jesus.
So come to the bench.
Not to a program.
To a Person.
You do not have to clean up the wreckage first. Come with your splinters and your wrong turns, and lay your hands down.
The carpenter who built the universe stretched out his hands on the wood he made.
He died for your foolishness.
He rose to give you life.
And he has not thrown you away.
You were never meant to be your own guide.
Trust the One who made you.
Let’s pray.
Our Father,
We came in this morning sure we knew how to live, and you have shown us we have been guessing. We have cut against the grain of the lives you made, and we have the splinters to prove it.
Thank you for not leaving us to teach ourselves. Thank you that when wisdom finally came, it came with a face, and with hands, and that those hands were stretched out on a cross for fools like us. In Christ, you paid for us.
So we stop crowning ourselves. We put our weight on Jesus.
For the one here who has never heard a father's voice, be their Father now. For the one carrying twenty years of wreckage, you are not finished with them. For the one who came in doubting, thank you that you welcomed them anyway.
Teach us to live. Not from a distance, but hands over ours, at the bench, every day. Make this church the place where a whole city finally learns how to live.
We are not the experts. You are. And we are yours.
In Jesus' name, amen.