Morgan Teruel: Hey. Thanks so much for listening to Sandals Church. Our vision as a church is to be real with ourselves, God, and others. We hope you enjoy this message.
Marrisa Cervantes: For me, finding wisdom in God's word is life giving. Recently, I lost my brother. My world was completely shattered. God showed up. In the aftermath, I thought that I would not even wanna pick up the Bible.
I wouldn't want to seek God, but I had so much time where I wanted to be alone with God. When I was reading the words and the stories and especially, like, something like Proverbs, it gave me comfort. It gave me comfort, gave me hope, gave me peace, and just calmed my heart, honestly.
Claude Hickman: Hey, guys. If you're attending a campus or watching online, I just wanna welcome you back to Sandals Church. This is a great weekend to be here because we're launching a new series called Unbreakable. Basically, how do we survive and even thrive in the middle of a broken world? And, you know, when the chaos and stuff feels like it's crashing in on you, you need something in your life.
You need more something more than money. You need something more than control. God says we need wisdom. We need in the when the world is full of chaos, we need a heart that's full of wisdom. The problem is people aren't born with wisdom.
Right? That's that's the problem. And just because you're getting older, doesn't mean you're getting wiser. You know? Just go like, I love to ask my friends at work at the emergency room, you know, like, what's something you've seen lately?
Because it's always crazy, like, at the emergency room. And the the thing is people come in, and it's stuff they did to themself. You know? They're just like, I wasn't thinking. They're sawing off, you know, branches, and they will saw off the branch they're standing on.
That happens all the time. Wisdom protects you from you. You know? Like, have you ever done anything that's so stupid, you're like, I got nobody to blame but me. When I was in 6th grade, my buddy came to school, and he came he didn't have a black eye.
He had, like his face was purple. His eye was swollen shut. You know? It was one of those you couldn't, like, ignore it. You just had to be like, dude, what happened to your face?
And he's like, man, I was practicing baseball and my tee you know, the tee ball, and outside, my sister kept throwing the basketball and then, like, messing it up. My little sister kept throwing the basketball at me, and I got angry. And so next time she threw the basketball up, I decided to hit the basketball with the baseball bat. And so I learned a couple things that day. You don't hit a basketball with a baseball bat.
That's like Newton's third law of motion. Alright? But I learned a good life lesson, and that's this, that, you know, life is kinda 10% what happens to us, and it's 90% how we react to it. Our reactions a lot of times are our problems. If you go to the ER, that's called a self inflicted wound.
Okay? And and let me tell you, that's what I feel like has happened the last couple years. And and don't get me wrong, man. The last couple years, we've had a lot of chaos thrown at us. Right?
I mean, there was COVID. We didn't even have time to grieve Kobe. You know? Then there was COVID and murder hornets, you know, and war. I mean, at one point this is weird.
Right? Like, at one point, we had a guy walking around the Capitol that looked like a patriotic centaur from Chronicles of Narnia. You know? Like, that's a little weird. Even the book of Revelation is like, well, obviously, we're not gonna put that in there.
You know? We want people to believe this book. So that was a little strange, and and people lost their mind. Like, it was chaotic and it was that was you know, there was trouble, but people lost their mind. And I watched my friends inflict self inflicted wounds on them.
I watched our culture, our world. I mean, let me give you an example. We went without toilet paper for, like, 6 months. Right? That wasn't COVID's fault.
Right? That was we lacked wisdom. People quit their jobs. People quit their marriages. People quit their community.
You know, people moved all you know? And and don't get me wrong, man. Some people moved to Tennessee because they had a 5 year plan to move to Tennessee, but some people moved because their church stopped serving coffee. And I watch my friends bring trouble on themselves because they didn't have wisdom. Proverbs 19 says this, people ruin their lives by their own foolishness and then are angry at the Lord.
Isn't that our culture? You know, we turn wanna turn around and blame, you know, leaders or God or whoever. I mean, nobody goes to court and be like, your honor, I punch myself in the face. You know? God says, even that kind of wisdom is not the best wisdom.
Like, when you're a victim, you don't even learn in hindsight kind of wisdom. But to be honest, I don't want hindsight. You know, hindsight is too late. God says there's another kind of wisdom, biblical wisdom. Because I think within the last couple years, I saw a different type of person.
Even though it was chaotic and even though they went through trials, they were calm. They were anchored. You know? They didn't run to fear or to to greed. They were principled, and it was almost like even though it was chaotic, it was like they surfed the chaos.
You know, we all got splashed, and I know you had some things happen to you. We all got wet, but they didn't drown, and they walked through the fire. So you need wisdom because there's more chaos coming. There's more storms coming. And just because you've been a Christian for a long time, doesn't mean you're growing in wisdom.
I I think wisdom, hindsight wisdom is not the best wisdom. The best wisdom is the wisdom that's passed down. And and I tell my kids stories of when I failed all the time. First of all, because they love it and they laugh and it's you know, they actually listen, But I wanna pass down wisdom to them so they don't make the same mistakes. In 2006, there was a professor named Randy Posh at Carnegie Mellon, and he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
And the doctors, they actually gave him 6 months to live. And, you know, imagine what you would do. You give him 6 months to live, and what's I think is interesting is he didn't go for money or figure out his will or his inheritance. What Randy Posh did is he wrote a book, and it was called the last lecture. He passed on wisdom.
He said the best thing I can do for my kids is to pass on wisdom and record wisdom for them. You know, wisdom is an inheritance that most people didn't get. Maybe you didn't have parents or believing parents that passed down biblical wisdom to you, but here's the good news. You have a father, a perfect father, who doesn't just have 50 year wisdom or a 100 year wisdom. Your father in heaven has eternal wisdom.
And here's the best news in the world is that God wrote a book And there's a place to go for wisdom. Right next to you in your bed, there there's a there's a book. There's right next to your desk, there there are pages and pages of the wisdom of God, the heart of God. It's a window into God. And within this book, there's a book called Proverbs.
And the book of Proverbs is actually Solomon, a father, writing to his son about how to have an unbreakable life in a broken world. If you haven't read the Bible or you don't know where to start, the Proverbs is actually a great place to begin because they're so simple and you can apply them right away. You know, Proverbs won't save your soul, but it'll keep you alive. Let's let's listen to Proverbs 2. This is one of the first things Solomon says to his son.
For the Lord gives wisdom. From his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright. Where do you think God stored up this wisdom? In a book.
He stored it up for us, and it says, He is a shield to to those who walk in integrity, and this wisdom will guard your path. It guards the path of justice, and it watches over the way of the saints. Wouldn't you love to have somebody guarding your path? You know, your own private security called wisdom guarding your path. And it says, then more than that, you will have understanding of righteousness, justice, and equity in every good path.
Wisdom not only guards your life, but it guides your life, and it helps lead you to unbroken life. You know, I've been teaching my son how to drive this summer and getting him started, and, it's been hilarious, man. I only had to grab the wheel, like, 3 times, but, and it's, you know, I'm there. Like, I'm there to catch him. Wouldn't you love to have, like, wisdom just grabbing the wheel once in a while?
Just like, man, don't don't say that. Right? You know? Don't drink that. Right?
Don't buy that. Like, that's what wisdom does, but the problem is we haven't we haven't read it. We haven't gained wisdom. Proverbs 4 says this, and it's so smart of God to put this at the beginning. It says the beginning of wisdom is get wisdom.
I mean, it's sad that he has to say that, but the begin the wisest thing to do is to get wisdom. You wonder who how people get wise. Well, they get wisdom, and it says, though it costs you all that you have, get understanding. And listen, what I've seen is it's gonna cost you one way or the other to get wisdom. Our problem is a lot of times we don't change until the cost is life or death.
Now if you know me, you know this, I can't swim. Okay? I I can't swim. And, yeah, every time I tell people that, they react like they're like, oh my gosh. You know?
Like, you can't swim? Are you an idiot? You know? Like, that's like I confessed to drunk driving, you know, with a baby in the car or whatever. Like, no.
I can't swim. And I'm gonna tell you why I can't swim. Okay? It's because I grew up in Oklahoma, and we were poor. I didn't have a swimming pool.
My friends didn't have swimming pools. Our town didn't even have a swimming pool. We had to go, like, another town, and it was always, like, 80 kids in a 30 foot pool. I mean, it was chaos. You know?
There was, like, people bleeding and kissing and pooping, and you would never find somebody drowning. You know? It's like a wet mosh pit. And it was like, no. So I said no.
And my plan my new plan was don't fall in. Okay? Just don't fall in the deep end. And then we moved to California, so now I'm around water all the time. You know?
And and I had kids. And I think once I had kids, I thought, well, man, they might fall in. So you know what I did? I learned it's ugly, but now I can kinda swim. You know?
You know what I've never heard? I don't in my whole life, someone say, oh, I've never read the Bible. I've never read the New Testament. I've never heard someone respond and go, oh my gosh, are you kidding? Do you realize how much danger you're in?
You're driving drunk. I'll teach you. Nobody says that. You know why? Because we don't really believe we need it until it's too late.
And let me tell you something, you're gonna need wisdom. It's gonna cost you one way or the other. You just need it ahead of time. I want you to write this down if you're taking notes. God's word is a life or death pursuit.
And that might sound dramatic, but that's how the Bible talks about wisdom, is that wisdom is a life or death pursuit. Proverbs 8 says this, whoever and it's wisdom speaking saying, whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord, but he who fails to find me injures himself. There's your self inflicted wound. All who hate me love death. Now I know you don't love death, but you what you don't realize is that you're in the deep end right now.
Your kids are in the deep end right now. You're you're walking through a minefield and sin sin's goal is not just to slow you down, but it wants to kill you. It wants to destroy you. If you go, to a country like Afghanistan or Egypt, especially Egypt, and you walk around a city like Cairo, you'll notice eventually that people that you'll see people missing an arm. You'll see people missing a leg, missing a hand.
And that's because Egypt has 23,000,000 land mines buried in the nation of Egypt. It's 20% of the world's land mines are in Egypt. That means, a 22% of their land mass is riddled with land mines. That's like 1 in 5 steps you take in Egypt. Talking about walking on eggshells.
Alright? Now here's some tragic things about it. Somebody wrote a map where all those mines were, but it's been lost. It's been lost. And here's the other tragic thing.
You know what's underneath those areas that are riddled with landmines? You know what's underneath the ground? Water, oil, agriculture. See, wisdom is not just helping you avoid death, but it's it's the path to life. It's the map.
This is what Proverbs 14 says. The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, right? Every movie you watch is a map to the fountain of youth. You want the fountain of youth. It's right here.
It's a fountain of life that one may turn away from the snares of death. The Bible, it's in every hotel. I mean, it's the most printed, sold, smuggled, stolen book in all history, but we neglect it. Now when my dad passed away, my mom, she needed to do something therapeutic. So she joined this, writer's club in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
She began writing. And what came out of her, though, it's funny. Like, she started writing this mystery murder western novel, which is not like what she picks her grandma, you know, writing. You know, she's a office admin by day and, like, Tolkien at night. She had this whole, like, fictitious town, who murdered who, and, she started sending me chapters and chapters and chapters and pages and y'all, it was, like, thousands of pages.
Okay? Now this is my mom's book, but we're talking thousands of pages. So guess what happened? I didn't read it. You know, I tried to start, but man, it's like it's long.
And she would come visit. Here's the bad part. She'd come visit and she'd be like, we talking about something deep and she'd be like, oh, yeah. That's just like Carl in my book. And we'd we'd have to be like, what?
You know? I learned a new abbreviation. You know, it's t l d r. If somebody texts you that, you know what that means? Too long, didn't read.
Alright? And that's me all the time. If you text me and it goes off that little notification screen, I didn't see it because it's too long. Alright? And that's me all the time, but I miss important things.
Like, if it's 2 paragraphs, yeah, I definitely didn't see it. But, man, a lot of people approach the bible, and they went, it's just too long. Like and and I got a little glimpse, a little taste of heaven, you know, that day with my mom because you realize in heaven, you're gonna run into some of these people that wrote these books. Like, it's you're gonna be there a long time, and, you know, eventually, Obadiah, you know, you know, he's gonna walk up and you're like, hey, Obadiah. And he's just gonna go, you didn't read it, did you?
You're like, no. You're like, it was one chapter. You know he has to say that all the time. So I spent some money. Right?
And I bought my mom's books, 2 volumes on Amazon. I bought my mom's book and I said, you know what? I'm gonna try. Like, I'm gonna make a new effort. And so I want you to write this down.
Maybe that's how you've approached the Bible, but I wanna challenge you to stop making all these excuses and start making an effort this year. So, you know what? I need him to start making an effort to gain God's wisdom. You know, wisdom is not a promise to us as believers. You you're saved by grace through through faith in God's son, Jesus, his work on the cross.
That is a gift. That's a promise, But wisdom is not. God tells us to seek wisdom. God tells us, I mean, kings of the earth came to hear the wisdom of Solomon. God tells us to seek wisdom.
He tells us to dig for it like it's a treasure. God tells us to buy it and don't sell it. Ask for it. But not everybody has it because we tell, I tell myself things like, well, I'm not a reader. You know, a lot of guys say, well, I'm not a reader.
We'll be creative. You don't have fun with it here that God's word preached at a great church. You know, now if you have a smartphone, you can get an app and just hit a button and it will read it to you. You can listen to God's word as you work out or do whatever. My kids love something called the Bible project.
It's videos that someone has put together that explains and unpacks the major themes of every, you know, book in the Bible. Be creative. Maybe you're saying I don't have time. You know? Like, I don't have I don't have can't find time to read God's word or you know?
And and I'm not gonna give you some guilt trip about how much time you spend on Instagram, you know, and all that, but let me tell you this. The Bible's probably not as long as you think it is. Some of you you know, my my son's read the whole Harry Potter series. If you've read that whole series, you've read the Bible one and a half times. The Bible's not as long as you think it is.
My little sister was going on a road trip, and so she bought the audiobook of Count of Monte Cristo, you know, the audiobook. It's like 60 hours. You know? And I said, well, you know, the Bible's only 70. She's like, really?
I mean, it's achievable. There's some things you can't do. Like, you can't watch all the YouTube videos right now. If everybody stopped uploading videos, there's, like, a 100000 years of YouTube. You can't get to the end of that.
You're probably not gonna get to the end of Instagram, but you can finish the Bible in 3 days. Isn't that amazing? You know, that that God is infinite, but his word to us is not. So I must make time. You can make time to read and learn.
Even Jesus spent time learning God's wisdom and his word. Maybe you go to the Bible and you go, man, I it's just intimidating. Sometimes I feel like I don't understand it. And this is the best news of all. May God's there to help you.
Just like when I was teaching my son, to drive, you know, I'm right next to him in the passenger seat. And it what's funny is the first question people always ask me is, well, whose car did you take? And, honestly, I didn't think about it till you're out there. I probably would have take take my wife's car, but I took my truck. And I didn't really think about it till we're, like, dodging poles and curves.
You know? And it's a test of faith, right, to ride as a passenger. We just finished a whole series on prayer. I could've saved us a lot of time. I just put you in a car with a teenager for 30 minutes.
You've been praying. But, or if you trust you ever trust somebody with your car? You're like, okay. 10 and 2, buddy. 10 and 2.
You know? And then you're like, you know what? I'll just drive you. I was gonna quit my job anyway. I'll just drive.
Because you're invested. Right? You're invested in that car. Well, God has invested in you. Like he spent his son.
He's invested in you. He loves you, and he's there to help you. Number 3 is this, God promises to help us understand his word as we read it. Proverbs 2 says this, it's the Lord that gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. You know, I wanna teach you something I've always wanted to teach.
It's 3 kinda 3, you know, theological ideas about how God God has protected his word. And the first way, if we had a flashlight, this would be cool. You know, God has inspired his word. Like, his power came down. It wrote through these human authors, but it was God inspiring them.
Even though it was their personality, their sense of humor, their style, their time in history, it was a miracle. To have 40 authors, 1500 years, you know, 3 languages to have one message, that was God's first miracle. But God also protected his word when it was translated into languages. You know, the Bible's translated into 3,000 languages now on planet earth, and we have good translations of the bible. You know, I was at church one time with my friend and the pastor was talking for, like, 10 minutes about this Greek word, you know, Like, he did all his study on.
It means to know God. Taught for 10 minutes about means to know God. And finally, at the end of the sermon, my friend leans over. He's like, I think I'm gonna give that guy my bible. I was like, why?
He's like, because mine it would save him a lot of time. Mine just says to know god. You know? I don't know why he goes through all that work. Somebody translated it.
You know, one of the reasons I don't use a lot of Greek and Hebrew, like, when I teach is because I want you to know, you can trust your Bible. Like, you have a good translation. You might wanna get something that's easier to read, like a new living translation and IV, ESV. These are great translations. God's protected it.
But here's the third thing, and you've probably never heard this word. But if we had a flashlight, we would turn it back upward because the third way God protects his word is called illumination. As we read God's holy spirit in us, the last miracle is he helps us understand. John 16/13 says this, when the spirit of truth comes, he, God himself, the holy spirit will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will tell you what he has heard and he will tell you about the future.
You need to read lots of scripture so that the holy spirit can help you put pieces together, but you can pray and ask God to steer you into truth as you read. And what's great is, man, when you get in the word and you begin to pray, you and God start having a conversation because this book is not a dead ancient book. It's living. Hebrews 4 says this, the word of God is living and active. It's sharper than any double edged sword and it penetrates dividing soul and spirit, joint and marrow.
And here's what it says, that it can even judge your thoughts and the attitudes of your heart. When you read the Bible, all of a sudden, the Bible starts to read you. And all of a sudden, you're having a conversation with God, and he's able to give you wisdom. Now I think the last thing is we just comes down to, are we motivated? We need kind of a new motivation to read God's word.
And I'm gonna tell you what, it doesn't come from guilt. I think too many churches have tried to make people feel guilty about not reading their Bible or maybe you have. And can I just tell you a secret? Some of you aren't gonna like this. You don't have to read your Bible and no one can make you feel guilty for not reading the Bible.
You know why? Because most Christians in history did not have what you have. This is really a privilege, of the last 500 years. You know, you, you don't need wisdom to go to heaven. You just get there before the rest of us, but you don't need wisdom.
Okay? So number 4, I want you to write this down, but here's a better motivation. The life that you want, the life that you really want comes from knowing and obeying God's word. That's why you need to read. Proverbs 3 says, the last name of the father says to the son, my son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep these commandments because here's what it'll do.
Length of days years of life, it will add to you. Peace, It will add to your life. God wants to add to your life. Solomon appeals to this future picture, this preferable, you know, preferable future of peace and unbrokenness in the middle of a chaotic world. That's what God wants to give to you, but you need wisdom first.
My son, you know, he's going into high school and we we finally gave him an iPhone, made him wait longer to all his friends. You know why we waited this long? It's because we wanted him to have the wisdom to handle what we were about to give him. If I gave it to him before that, I might hurt him. You know when we're gonna let our kids drive a car?
When they have the wisdom to drive a car. Right? That's when they get it. Otherwise, they'll hurt somebody, themselves or somebody else. Maybe God can't give you the things that you want, the miracle that you pray for, the things you dream of because you don't have the wisdom yet.
And he loves you enough not to give you those things until you have the wisdom to handle them. Do you ever see an opportunity that comes up in your life and you go, man, this is an op this is a doorway into everything I want. Like, this moment is a moment I can't miss because everything I want is on the other side of this interview, this opportunity, whatever it is. You ever had one of those moments? I got to watch this happen, in the life of this kid that I discipled.
His name is Brian, and I met him when he's a freshman, and he was in my discipleship group for years. And Brian's like he grew up overseas, a missionary kid. He's an engineer, skinny, kinda awkward. You know? But he got a crush on this girl who was in my wife's bible study.
And, you know, she was mature. She's godly. She's kind. She's beaut she looks like a Disney princess, okay? And so I sat Brian down, and I did what a loving mentor would do.
I said, you got no chance. Okay? Don't even try. No way. Look look at her.
You know? Look at you. But he's like, I'm gonna ask her anyway, so he asked her. She said yes. Okay?
I was more surprised than anybody. She said yes, and I'm like, this is a big deal. Brian, this is like everything you want. You know? We're listening to Eminem, Lose Yourself.
This is your moment, your shot, dude. We're getting pumped up, And then I'm like, I realized there's a problem. I'm like, wait a minute, bro. You know, you you grew up in Russia. I'm like, have you ever been to this restaurant that you're taking him to?
He's like, no. I'm like, have you been downtown Riverside ever? He's like, no. And then I'm like, wait. Do you do you even have a car?
He's like, no. You know? And so you can't drive. I'm like, oh my gosh. We gotta have a whole new plan.
First of all, you need to borrow a car, not mine, but you go borrow a car, and then we're gonna Google. Okay? And I want you to Google and drive this map on Google. You need to study this map, you know, because that day there's gonna be a farmer's market set up or there's gonna be cleaning the streets, there's not gonna be parking, and you need to be ready. You need to learn every alley, alright, in downtown.
We're gonna practice. Like, I made him get on Google Streets and practice driving it, and here's why. Because I know when Princess Jasmine gets in the car, I'm like, your brain's not gonna work. You're gonna be driving drunk, and so listen. I'm like, listen.
But your future, like, your future is in this map. Right? You need to study this map. Now here's the cool thing. I got to tell that story at their wedding.
And first of all, I said, you know, engineers do the impossible? That's what happened. This guy did the impossible, But we have a picture of their family with their children on our fridge, and it's a beautiful picture of this future. And and what I wish I could show you is a picture of your life with wisdom 10 years from now, 20 years from now, a life that's ready for the storms that you're going to face, a life that's anchored, a life that other people come to, that you're not just blessed but you're able to bless others with wisdom to make wise decisions, wise friends that you could surf the chaos and get to the place you really want. We need a vision like that, but to get us there, God wrote a book.
In this series, we're gonna talk about 6 really practical areas of life. Invite your friends. We're gonna go through Proverbs, but listen, the only way for you to have an unbreakable life in this broken world is to get God's wisdom. Let's pray. God, the wisest thing we can do is to not store up money or more connections or more security and all those things.
God, the wisest thing we can do is to get wisdom. God, you love us and you invite us to pursue wisdom with your help. You've given us one of the greatest tools. You wrote a book. God, in front of us, in our lap, in our pocket, next to our bed, we have pages and pages of God, the wisdom of God.
Help us, Lord, start a new effort with new motivation. Help us to dig and study. And in times of chaos, God, we need this anchor. We need your wisdom. Lord, your wisdom guards us.
It guides us. It's a shelter for us to run to, not for a pain free life or even an easy life, but it leads us by your grace into the unbreakable life. So would you speak to us in the next few weeks? Give us wisdom, and it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.