Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Christ Community Chapel is a church in Hudson, OH, that invites people to reimagine life because of Jesus. Learn more about us at ccchapel.com.
Hey everybody, good morning and welcome to Christ
Community Chapel.
My name is Joe,
I'm one of the pastors here,
and I'm really glad that you've come.
Alright,
this is the second week of our ten week
series.
We're calling More Wisdom, More Life.
We're spending ten weeks looking
in the book of Proverbs for wisdom.
So let me give you the proverb
we're going to look at this morning.
This is Proverbs chapter 13, verse 20.
Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise,
but the companion of fools will suffer
harm.
That's it.
Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise,
but the companion of fools
will suffer harm.
Alright,
let me start with a demonstration
of sorts, a prop,
and then I will give you my three points.
So come on in.
All right.
Good job, John, thanks.
Okay, this is John Merkle.
John is on our production team
and I have watched for a couple of years.
I have watched production
team members tooling around the church
hallways on this thing.
It's called a one wheel.
I think it looks cool.
I think it looks pretty easy.
And I've never tried it before,
but I was thinking about trying
it right here,
right now, for the first time.
All right.
Now, if I ask my wife her opinion
and she loves me
more than anybody, she'd be like, oh,
I don't think so.
Right?
If I ask a kid down to the skate
park, he'd be going
absolutely, I'll be there. Right?
Some of you,
some of you are waiting to take out
your phones to see if I'm going to try it.
How do I decide?
Well, the answer is wisdom.
Wisdom.
All right. Here are my three points.
What is wisdom?
Why you need wisdom.
How you get wisdom.
What is wisdom?
Why you need wisdom.
How you get wisdom first.
What is wisdom?
Wisdom is not the same thing as morality.
It's related, but it's not the same thing.
Wisdom is what you need
for the 80% of day to day decisions
that don't have to do with right
and wrong.
Morality is what God has given us
in the Bible that he is
said, this is the best thing.
This is right.
This is wrong.
He gives us very detailed instructions
about how to handle our sexuality,
about how to handle money, about how to
handle our relationships with each other.
And in some ways,
those instructions are the easy ones,
because at least we know at least,
you know,
like if you decide to exaggerate
or gossip or look at porn or whatever
you are saying,
I know the God of the universe
who created all things
says I should do this
or I shouldn't do this,
and I'm going to overrule him
and do what I want to do, right?
It seems crazy that we do it,
but those are the easy decisions
because at least we know what God wants.
The harder decisions
are the 80% of decisions
you make every day that have nothing
to do with right and wrong,
where the Bible doesn't tell us.
Should you give a smartphone
to your child?
At what age should they get a smartphone?
What school should you go to?
What should you major?
And should you stay in the job that you're
in right now, or the relationship
that you're in right now?
How do you handle your teenage daughter?
Should you take early retirement?
All those questions.
You will not find the answers in the Bible
for those you need.
Wisdom.
In the ancient world,
wisdom was defined as being able
to navigate the obstacles of life
in the best possible way.
It was considered competence
in how you deal
and navigate with reality
and what is true nowadays.
People tend to think that we can control
reality.
That I have my truth
and my truth then becomes what is real.
But that's not the way the ancient world
saw it.
It's not really the way things work.
Let me let me give you this analogy.
I have seven grandkids that range in age
from 17 years old to six months old,
and they all live around here in town,
which is great.
And sometimes
they all come over to my house,
and when they do, there's just,
you know, chaos for a while.
And the the littles
who I'll define as the two year
old, the four year
old, the nine year old, the ten year old.
Sometimes they
they will run all around the go
down in my basement
and play in my basement
for a couple of hours.
And not surprisingly, they don't
put everything back where it started.
So after they leave,
if I'm going to go down in the basement,
it doesn't matter where I think things are
or where I hope things are.
If I don't want to hit my shin
against something
or step on something,
I need to turn on a light.
Light is like wisdom,
however dim, that shows the obstacles
that you need to navigate
in order to get where you want to go.
Right?
So I go home from work and I tell my wife,
hey Karen, I got, I got a great idea
for like a sermon illustration.
It will make the sermon really memorable.
I'm going to ride a one wheel
and she says, what's a one wheel?
And I say,
it's like a motorized skateboard.
And she says, well, have you ever done it?
And I said, no, I'm going to do it
for the first time in front of everybody.
She goes on the stage
I see on the stage, she said, now,
if it's motorized,
could it shoot off the stage?
I said, yep, it can shoot off the stage.
She says, well, Joe, you have ever really
ridden a non-motorized skateboard?
What's she doing?
She's not raining on my parade.
She's trying to shed a little light in the
dark basement of a man who's forgotten.
He's 67 years old, right?
Wisdom is something all of us need, right?
To navigate what life is like in the best
possible way.
Right?
That's what wisdom is.
Now, the second point is why
we need wisdom.
This proverb is interesting.
It says this
whoever walks with the wise becomes wise,
but the companion of fools
will suffer harm.
It doesn't say whoever walks
with the wise becomes wise,
and the companion of fools becomes a fool.
It says they will suffer harm.
That's why
I like the illustration of a one wheel.
Because if I tried to ride that one wheel
right now and I'm not going to.
But if I did, it wouldn't make me a fool
in all the other areas of my life.
But I could
and probably would suffer harm.
There's a story in the Old Testament
of a man named Ray Boehm.
He became king of Israel.
His father was Solomon.
Solomon ruled in the golden era of Israel.
He was super wealthy.
He built tons of cities
and magnificent buildings and all that.
And when he died,
he gave his kingdom to his son Rabban.
Now at that time there were 12 tribes
in Israel, and they were like states,
and there were the northern states
and the northern states.
They bore the brunt of the building.
And so they sent a delegation down
to meet with Ray bone.
And they said to Ray Boehm, listen, you're
your dad worked us really hard,
and we built most of this stuff,
and we're tired.
And now we're just going to see
how you're going to handle things,
because if you will let up some,
we're good.
We'll serve you.
But if you're going to be like your dad,
then we're going to have some problems.
And so Ray Boehm said,
give me a couple of days.
And what he was saying was,
I want time to seek wisdom.
I want to know how to navigate
this particular part of life.
Right.
So he goes to his father's advisors first,
and his father's advisors say, yeah,
they're right there.
Right?
Your dad worked them really hard
and you should let up.
And if you will be their servant leader,
they will serve you forever.
And he went, okay, okay.
And then he went to friends his own age.
And he said, what do you think?
And they said, no, absolutely not.
You tell those people that that your dad
was nothing compared to you.
They're going to feel like
they were on vacation compared to how hard
you're going to work them.
You go after them,
tell them who's boss, right.
And if you're reading that
for the first time, if you've never read
that story when you're reading it,
you're going, oh, that is not good advice.
And sure enough, he takes their advice.
He goes to the to the delegation.
He tells them that they rebel.
There's a civil war the country is
split into and never is the same again.
The companion
of fools suffer harm, right?
When I was 25 years old,
I was going to buy.
I was getting ready to buy a house.
I was so excited because I was adulting
and I was going to be the man.
And so I looked at this house, liked
it, was going to buy it.
Then Karen, my wife's parents
came into town and she invited them
to take a look at the house
before we made an offer.
And so my father in law was walking
through the house and he started to notice
some things that I had not noticed,
like some of the doors
wouldn't quite shut, which I was evidently
going to have an open door policy.
So that was fine.
He he went into one room and he pulled up
the carpeting in the corner,
and the walls didn't touch the floor.
And so I went to my wife
and he said, honey,
I don't think you should buy that house,
because I think the foundation
has shifted.
It's it's a problem.
And so then Karen came to me and she said,
my dad says we shouldn't buy the house.
That was so mad.
And I was like, how dare he?
You know, I'm a man.
If I had had a couple
of friends
that were my age and I went to them
and I said, my father in law came,
he doesn't like the house
I'm going to buy. And they were.
They'd said, hey,
you should buy that house.
I'd be paying off that house today, right?
Still,
listen,
what the Bible says is you are influenced.
Wisdom is contagious.
You're influenced
either toward or away from wisdom.
There were two things
I needed to come to grips with
if I was going to grow in wisdom.
These same two things
you have to come to grips with, right?
First thing was this
my lack of knowledge about
certain subjects is staggering.
All right,
let me like my lack of knowledge about
construction is staggering, right?
The same thing is true of you.
Your lack of knowledge
in certain areas is staggering.
There are people sitting around you
that know more about certain things
than you will ever know.
And if you think that you don't need
anybody to tell you anything,
that you know all you have, all the wisdom
that you need to have right now
and there's nothing someone can help you
with, then you will never grow in wisdom.
All right.
That's the first thing.
The second thing I had to come to grips
with was this I am as wise right now
as I have ever been,
and as dumb as I ever will be.
Right you are to.
You are as wise right now
as you have ever been,
and you are as dumb as you ever will be.
And I say that because life is a path.
That's what the writer of Proverbs says.
He walks with the wise.
Life is moving. It's like a river.
So that means the questions are changing
all the time.
I used to think that someday I would
get to the place where I'd be like.
Like a like a guru.
Like I would have all wisdom
and I would know how.
But the problem is,
the questions change that I need wisdom.
Like when I was in high school,
the questions I needed wisdom with with
who are my friends going to be,
whether I should, how much should I put?
How much effort should I put into grades?
How important are those?
Should I go out for an athletic team?
Should I go to homecoming those?
And then when I get to college,
the questions change again.
What should be my major?
Should I join a fraternity
or a sorority or,
well, not me, a sorority, but you should.
What should I do as I as I date
and get serious when you get married?
And then how many children
are you going to have?
When should you have children?
How do you discipline the children?
What schools do the children go to?
Then they become
teenagers and all those questions change
and then they become adults.
And you have to learn how to be a parent
of adult children, and then how to care
and honor aging parents
and how to deal with your own aging.
This is the thing.
The reason that you need wisdom is that
it's like someone is changing the stuff
in the dark basement all the time.
And if you're going to navigate
the questions
that are in your life right now,
you will need certain people to help you.
But ten years from now,
those questions are going to be different
and you'll need somebody else.
And more wisdom, right?
So that's what wisdom is.
That's why you need wisdom.
Now the final question is
how do you get wisdom?
How do you get wisdom?
Pastor Zach kicked us off
kicked off the series last week
by looking at Proverbs chapter
three, verses five and six where it says,
trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him
and he will make your paths straight.
It's great beginning.
It shows that all of us need wisdom,
and the
the source of all wisdom is God.
And if that was the only verse
we had about wisdom,
you'd be tempted to
to look to God for every decision,
like not just
the ones that are clear in the Bible that.
But you would say, okay,
should I give my my child a smartphone?
The way I have to decide
that is, I need to pray and lean
not on my own understanding,
acknowledge God, and then just try to feel
what God wants me to do
and then assume that may
that must be the wisdom
that God has provided.
But that's not what the Bible says here.
The Bible says that sometimes
God provides wisdom in His Word.
But there's other times
where wisdom comes from other people,
and that's super important.
This is what I want you to get,
because there are a lot
of really well-meaning, sincere Christians
who either try to get all the wisdom
they're going to get from prayer,
or they use the Bible
like a magic eight ball.
And I don't want you to do that.
They say, should I take this job?
And they open it up and point
the finger and go, you most assuredly so.
You know, that's not the way
the Bible is intended to work.
So what do you do?
Right?
It's what the Bible says
you're in danger of.
There's a story about an old man
who was living out
in the country by himself,
and there was a flood that was coming.
It was raining, it was flooding,
and a four wheel Jeep drive
pulls up and says, hey,
oh, man, jump in, we'll save you.
And he says, no, that's okay.
My God will take care of me.
And then later on the
the waters keep rising
and a boat comes by and says,
oh man, the floods coming.
Why don't you jump in?
We can save you.
And he says, no,
my God will take care of me.
And finally he's up on the roof
and the waters are coming by
and the helicopter comes by, drops
a rope ladder and says, oh, man, climb
the rope ladder will save you.
And he says, no, it's okay.
My God will take care of me.
And then he dies and he goes to heaven
and he says, God, I understand.
I was counting on you to save me.
And God said,
I sent a jeep, a boat and a helicopter.
I don't know what the problem was, right?
Listen, you may be looking for wisdom
in a particular area of your life.
And you're saying, God,
I need you to show me wisdom.
And the way he wants to give you wisdom is
through a person, not through a feeling.
Right?
Because what the proverb
writer says is that wisdom is contagious.
You catch it, you understand it
by the people that you walk through
life with.
All right, so this is the thing.
How do you recognize somebody who's wise?
Let me give you three things to look for.
If you're looking for somebody who's wise,
look for who they love.
That's the first thing you look for,
who they love.
What I mean by
that is you need to find somebody that the
the Bible says that the definition of
being a fool is somebody who rejects God.
Proverbs chapter
nine, verse ten says, the fear of the Lord
is the beginning of wisdom.
So you want to find somebody who is wise.
You've got to find somebody
who knows and loves Jesus.
You can't count on wisdom to be the
the person who is a an influencer
on social media, or who's a talking head
in your favorite news show.
Look for somebody to help you
who at least knows and loves Jesus.
That's the first thing.
The second thing is not only look
for who they love, look for how they live.
When I say that,
I don't mean how they behave,
I mean how they approach life.
The people I've known in my life
who are wise have a
a serenity like a solid ness about them.
There are two things that make me dumb.
I think one is pride in the other's fear.
Like when I almost bought the house
when I was
25, I almost bought the house
because of pride.
If I had this much more pride,
I would have bought that house.
People who are wise
aren't driven by pride or fear,
and the things that the thing that deals
with pride and fear is the love of Jesus.
So people who are wise, the love of
Jesus has gone deep down inside of when.
When I'm feeling
the love of Jesus, strong in inside of me
that I'm not,
I don't have the need to inflate myself.
I don't have the need for pride.
And I'm also not nearly as afraid.
So the first thing you look for,
if you're looking for somebody
who's wise, is look for who
they love, that they love Jesus.
But the second thing is,
look that they are that they understand
the love of Jesus so deep
that it gives them
an ability, a peace and a serenity
that you're looking for.
And the third thing is
look for what they know.
Look for what they know.
Do they know the best practices of God?
Are they living generous,
sacrificial, faithful lives?
Do they
know about the area that you need
wisdom in?
If I if I'm looking for wisdom
on how to deal with the teenage daughter,
I don't want to talk to somebody who
doesn't know anything about teenage girls.
I want to find somebody
who knows something about them.
Listen, this is the truth.
You're going to need wisdom.
If not right now,
then the questions that are coming
you will not know the answer to.
And you're not going to find them
all in the Bible.
There are times when God gives you wisdom.
That's true.
But the other times he gives you people.
He gives you people
because wisdom is contagious.
And one of the great advantages
of being a part of a big church
is there are lots of people.
There are people sitting around you
right now who might have the wisdom
that you need, and you don't know it
because you're not connected.
One of the disadvantages of being a large
church is that you can slip in and out
and take advantage of certain things,
but never really get connected.
And I'm telling you, if you do that,
you're going to lose out on wisdom
according to this proverb,
because that's why we have
we are always pushing you
to get connected, to go through reimagine,
to join a circle,
get a part, become a part of a
of a Bible study of men, study
a women's study.
If you're a grandparent, come to the
grandparent huddle because you never know
when God will have the person
sitting right beside you
who has the wisdom that he wants you
to have
to navigate the world
that you are in right now,
and have the answers to the questions
you are asking right now.
Every single one of us
needs wisdom, and God has provided it
right here, right now.
Don't miss it.
What you need for wisdom is a wise,
some wise friends to walk with you
through life,
because with more wisdom comes more life.
Would you pray with me?
Father in heaven.
Thank you for the way
that you have made everything.
I know sometimes there are times when
I wish you would answer every question.
Those questions
that you have answered about morality.
I pray for every person here,
that we would not be so foolish
that we would turn our backs on
what is clear, what you tell us
clearly to do or not to do,
but also pray that you would help us to
to find the wisdom from each other
that you want us to have to connect
with each other in such a way
that we will be able to
to walk with each other
and navigate life
in the best possible way,
and to find the life
that you really want for us.
Thanks for loving us.
Thanks for giving us Jesus
and we pray this in his name.
Amen.