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.
Claude Hickman: Hey, Sandals Church. Welcome back. This week, we're talking about how to make wise decisions. And here's what I've learned is that wise people do one thing. They listen to the people who've been where they wanna go.
Alright? Let me say that again. Wise people listen to the people who've been where they want to go. Those people are either gonna tell you how to get there or they're gonna warn you not to go there at all. And I know something about going places.
I some of you know this, man. I lead a ministry called the traveling team. We're a mission organization, and we've spoken to half a 1000000 college students around the US over the last 20 years. But my wife and I, we spent the first 6 years of marriage traveling to 49 of the 50 states. Everywhere we'd been, we had never been there before.
You know, we were always strangers, and what was so difficult about that is we had to ask people who'd been to these places, how do we do everything? We felt helpless. You know? We felt like idiots everywhere we went. It was super humbling.
You know? People are always like, oh, don't go there. You know? Like, oh, don't stay there. Don't eat there.
And it was like everywhere we went, we didn't fit anywhere. You know? We were either 2 country or 2 city. We go to New York, and they treat us like we're Amish because we don't know how to use the metro, which nobody knows how to use the metro. Amen?
That thing is by the devil. And then we would go to, like, Montana, and they thought we were from the future. You know? So, like, we just never fit. We all we always had to ask people, you know, and it built our character.
Right? But the last place we went was Hawaii. We went to Honolulu. We had 5 campuses there. And, you know, people love to tell you what to do in Hawaii.
But one of my friends grabbed our team and he said, hey. Listen, guys. I wanna just warn you. The riptide like, have you ever heard of riptide? You know, riptide is very dangerous in Hawaii, and you need to be careful.
In fact, you can't swim out of it. If you realize you're in a riptide, you have to turn. He told us how to, like, swim sideways out of riptide. Well, a couple months later, we're in Honolulu, we're in Hanauma Bay. My wife's out, snorkeling.
You know I'm not there because I can't swim. So, she's out there by herself snorkeling. And then she wasn't that far out and she realized I can't swim in. I'm not going anywhere. And she had like the flippers and everything.
And so she runs, I'm caught in riptide, but she remembers Blake Brewer's advice to us. And she turns and she finds a way to swim out of the riptide. Saved her life. We found out she was pregnant right before that. So, she actually was carrying Aidan.
It saved their life. Like his advice was a gift to us. I'll never be able to repay it. I was telling my friend, you know, what happened? And he said, well, you know why Blake told you that, don't you?
I said, no. He said, because his dad last year was caught in a riptide and was pulled out and drowned. I said, where were they? He said, Hanauma Bay. They had literally been to the place we were going.
Let me tell you something, man. Advice has value. Advice has incredible value. You don't wanna learn things the hard way. You don't wanna learn from hindsight.
2 weeks ago, we talked about hindsight being 2020. You don't want hindsight. That's called regret. Right? The the money's already gone.
The relationship's already gone. Proverbs 13 says God has a better way. Wise people think before they act. Alright? That's important.
Wise people think, they get advice, they get counsel, they listen before they do something, before they act. Fools don't even brag about their they brag about the foolishness. What God is talking about, we want, foresight, not hindsight. We want foresight. And God's wisdom is saying to us, we need to learn from the people who've been there before.
This is why I love the Bible. Because in the Bible, I find an army of people. I find an army of counselors. A lot of people think the Bible are just rules. The Bible has stories of people's failure.
You know, the reason the vision for our church is to be real is because the Bible is real about people's failure, about people's sin. Other people pay the price and it's a gift to you. But you might say, well, Clyde, why would I wanna look to such an old book for wisdom about my life, right? And I'll tell you why. It's because you're an unknown territory.
We as a population, as humanity, we're an unknown territory. No one has ever been where we're going in the 21st century. Elon Musk hasn't been there before. Your grandparents haven't been there before because the world is changing so rapidly. And here's what I mean.
The world, you know, medicine is changing rapidly. Technology is changing so rapidly. I meet college students who start a degree as a freshman that's obsolete by the time they're a senior. How do you plan for that? How do you get wisdom for that?
Right? Techno, where is safe is changing. What is true is changing. A friend of mine, Jason Mandrick said this. He said, Claude, the world is changing so rapidly that long term planning has become virtually impossible.
You can no longer learn from your grandparents what to do. We have to teach our kids how to think. Does that make sense? And this is why the Bible is so important. When the world is changing so rapidly, you need something, some wisdom that's lasted through some change.
Right? Show me a science book that's lasted for 2000 years. You know? Show me a TikTok that's gonna be true for 2000 years. And the Bible's not outdated.
It's undated. It's timeless because its author is. And listen to me, the Bible is full of hindsight so that your future can be full of wisdom. Now, Proverbs says the fools don't think before they act. We act and then we say, oh shoot, what happened?
Then we try to figure out the consequences, or we just trust our gut. That's my favorite. Like your gut's full of Taco Bell, not wisdom. Don't trust your gut. But at the end of the day, man, we would rather, like sometimes we'd rather die than ask people for help, ask people for advice.
Earlier this year, there's a guy named Darren. He's from Florida. He was in one of those little, you know, mini planes, 3 people in the plane. The pilot turns and goes, hey guys, I don't feel so well. And then passes out mid flight.
And this is like a medical emergency. And Darren's sitting right next to him. And the plane starts diving. Now, this isn't a funny story, but I just wanna tell you like, after this, you can't complain about any flights anymore, okay? You just can't.
Like if you get the middle seat, that's too bad. They lose your bag, I'm sorry. If your emotional support peacock didn't get its vegan meal or whatever, if you have a pilot at the beginning and the end, it was a good trip, okay? But they start diving 3000 feet in 16 seconds, and Darren has no experience at all, but he looks and he's like, if I do nothing, we die. And so he reaches out.
He gets the guy out. He reached he grabs the stick, which that's not what it's called, but he doesn't know. He grabs the stick, somehow levels them out right over the Atlantic. And they're now they're just floating, you know? And I wanna pause in the story right here because I think this is where a lot of us are.
You're not flying. You're just floating. But Darren knows what? There's a crash in the future. Just because he's doing this with the stick doesn't mean he's surviving.
There's a crash in his future. He has to figure his way out of this. And his wife's at home 6 months pregnant. He goes, I thought about my wife. I prayed to God, said, God, I can't die today.
And then he did something that I think is amazing. He figured out how to use the radio and he called for help. And listen, if you don't think this is a miracle, he got on the other side in Florida, a retired flight instructor, someone with wisdom, someone that knew what to do. He you think he listened. Right?
You think he did? And this dude MacGyvers this plane in, like, 2 hours later without a scratch. Alright? So don't say men can't listen to advice. They just need to be nose diving, you know, for it.
So this is the first thing I want you to know is wise decisions start with asking for help before you crash. And so number 1 is this, I must build a habit of seeking advice from trustworthy people. Matthew 15 says this, without counsel, this is one of my favorite verses, without counsel plans fail, but with many advisors, they succeed. Some of us, we wait till we're in a nose dive before we ask. And man, I don't, you know, we don't ask because sometimes it's embarrassing.
We feel like it's weak. Maybe we feel like failure. You think smart people just are born with all the answers. That's not true. You know, I remember when our kids were young, they would just ask like 300 questions a day and you're almost drives you crazy.
But we tried to encourage them because, you know, the world's gonna squash that out of them by the time they're a teenager. But we would tell them, you know what? Yeah. Keep asking because we want you to be teachable. That was a word that we use in our home.
We want you to be teachable. I said, I want you to be a lifelong learner. You know, I wonder what would happen if you redefined getting advice as success. That that is success to get advice, to get counsel. Proverbs 20 says this, Plans are established by counsel, by wise guidance, people wage war.
I get advice about anything that involves a commitment with money. I get advice about difficult conversations, marriage, parenting. We just, my wife and I met with someone like 2 weeks ago to lay out our finances. We need a financial plan, you know, and we just, it was humbling. Like I had to be real.
It wasn't much to lay out, you know, but we just said, man, we need help in this. Proverbs 12 says this, the way of a fool is right in his own eyes. But we all know people like that, right? But a wise person seeks advice. Everybody's expert sometimes on stuff.
I remember back like one week into COVID, right? I was talking to one of my friends. He'd read like one article about COVID and he was talking to me about how the genome is stable. You know? The g Claude, it's okay.
The genome is stable. And I'm like, you graduated from Arkansas. You went to you know, you got a degree in ping pong. And did you just say the genome is stable? And we kinda laughed about it.
But man, that's how people are. They get to be an expert in their own mind. They stop listening. If you're successful, listen to me for a second. Successful people, when you become successful, less people will give you advice.
Less people can give you advice. You know, sometimes you need to go to books or other people, but the less you'll ask for advice. I think it's wise. I think we all need a personal board of directors. You know, someone to look at your life and go, no, no, you can't do that.
Now we've all made bad decisions, right? Like raise your hand, you know? Don't point don't point. You might have you might be sitting by your bad decision, but probably not. We've all made bad decisions.
I love to ask people, about their first tattoo. You know why? Because it's always a bad decision, man. They're like, oh, yes. Right here, man.
Now I was laughing because I was thinking, man, what if we what if we all had to wear our bad decisions on our bodies like tattoos? Can you imagine if we had to wear all of our bad decisions? You know, you're like, oh, that's my timeshare. You know? What's that?
That's that's my credit card sleeve. You know? You got your relationships. That's probably like the face tattoo of bad decisions. Right?
We've all made bad decisions. In fact, I'm gonna give you a recipe, just so you know. I'm gonna tell you how bad decisions in my life happen. I've learned, you know, this is coming from the catalog of Claude's bad decisions. My worst decisions are usually these four things.
The first one are my isolated decisions. Like when I get alone, Proverbs 18 says this, whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire and breaks out against all sound judgment. Now I'm an only child. Don't be mad at me, but I'm used to doing what I desire. I was just alone.
That's and that's what kids do. Like, if you get kids, you know, man, when they get quiet and you can't see them, they're doing something they shouldn't do. They went AWOL. Adults are exactly the same. Adults do the same thing.
They just disappear from church, disappear from community group. You know, they go somewhere, and they don't tell anybody. Right? Like, they don't ask anybody advice. And you know why they don't ask?
Because you already know it's stupid. Right? Like you already know you're doing something you shouldn't do. And then they come back from the desert like, I don't know what happened. And like we all do.
We know you did what you wanted to do. Right? Like you just did what you desired. That's it. Proverbs 15 12 says this, a scoffer is a fool does not like to be corrected or reproved or challenged.
He will not go to the wise. Can I tell you, this is the main reason many of you are not in community groups? It's not your schedule. It's not your work. It's that you don't want to be challenged in things in your life.
You don't want someone poking around. And can I just tell you, you might feel like you're free doing life? Woo, I'm flying. Right? But there's a crash in your future and there's people who wanna protect you from that.
Now I get it, man. It's tough to let people speak into your life. Like it's not fun. And you know, you're gonna get good people to speak into your life. Like, the only thing worse than when you make a dumb decision is when you got that friend, right, who likes to come along afterward and tell you, man, here's all the steps you should have taken to, you know, like, nothing makes me wanna punch somebody in the face in the name of Jesus one time, but I can't do it.
You know? You're like, thank you. You know? Or you break up with somebody and then afterward, your friend's like, oh, yeah. They were toxic.
You're like, bro, what kind of friend? You know, you figure out who your real friends are. Like, what kind of friend are you? Remind me not to let you walk behind me. You know?
When we were in Oklahoma, my wife discipled this girl named Emily. She was, she's brilliant. Love Jesus, Fulbright Scholar. On the weekends, she was always like the designated driver in her sorority though, man, because she was just reliable. So she's always cleaning out puke out of her car and stuff.
Because if you know anything about fraternity, sorority, that's family. You know what I mean? Those are sis, like even at your stupidest, they're still family. And they had a sophomore in the sorority 1 year, and this girl was dating a guy who was just not the right guy for her. Other girls tried to tell her.
Her parents tried to intervene. Her parents was like, man, we don't want you with this guy because he's not good. And this girl got so angry with her parents that she grabbed this boy and they were driving to Tulsa to elope. And all the girls at sorority started texting Emily and like, man, it's too late. It's too late.
She's going to elope with this dude. It's too late. And Emily was at our house and she sat down and she goes, you know what though? She said, it's actually not too late. And then she did something.
And can I tell you, I don't even see this happen in the church sometimes? But she said, I'm gonna call her and I'm gonna try to save her life. Listen, That's what real community looks like. That's what real love, real family looks like. And you don't get community like that coming to church 5 times a year, staring at the back of somebody's head for 45 minutes.
You get friends like that sitting in living rooms, letting people know you. Proverbs 15 says this, the ear that listens to life giving reproof. There's people that can save your life. If you do that, you'll dwell among the wise. But whoever ignores instruction despises himself.
But he who listens to reproof gains intelligence. That girl got isolated and you noticed she got angry. That's the second way I know I'm making a bad decision is by getting emotional. Any of you guys are making emotional decisions? Oh my, the good old rebound, right?
I know it'll help this Kanye West. There's a little Pete Davidson on top. It's like, nope, that don't work, right? Proverbs 14 says this, the simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to their steps. I think about what's happened in my life.
In other words, you need to have an introspective life. Great Christians in history called it watchfulness. I need to have a watchfulness in my heart, a watchfulness of the soul. Sometimes if I'm angry, I'll just pull over and be like, man, what is going on in my heart right now? I don't wanna do something emotional that's stupid.
I watch my neighbor, he's 22 years old, owns this house, had a huge shade tree in the front yard and it's beautiful, you know? And a little branch fell out and like broke his mailbox. So next day he fixed his mailbox and then I heard a chainsaw. And you could say he overreacted. Okay?
Like we watched him chop down this entire shade tree, left a stump this tall. I know. I was like, I told my wife, I was like, now's probably not a good time to tell him paper boy to scratch his car. Right? Like he just went nuts, like chopped the whole thing down.
And he made emotional decision. Emotional decision becomes quick decisions. Anytime I'm making a quick decision, sirens better go off, right, for you. Red lights better go off. This is not good.
Proverbs 21 says the plans of the diligent lead to abundance, but everyone who's hasty comes to poverty. You know, life's not shark tank. You can slow it down. Scams, scams run on this, on your fear of missing out and your greed. You know?
That prince in Nigeria, man, he's always in a hurry for the money in that email. Proverbs 20 says this, it's a trap. It's a snare to say rashly, it's holy. And then to reflect after making your vows. I've learned to force time into some of my decisions.
You know, if I get an email I don't like, I will not respond to it till the next morning. I'll sleep on it. And you know what? Most of the time I read the email again, it's like a different email. It's a totally different email.
I have a friend that, he'll leave his credit card at home and he goes to the mall. He's like, if I really want it, I'll spend the gas money to come back and get it, which he never does. You know? But he's like, he forces time into his decisions. Proverbs 14/16 says this, the one who is wise is cautious and turns away from evil, but a fool is reckless and careless.
They don't think through things. You know, this kind of person in your life, the gaslight's always on in their car. You know, that's probably some of you right now. Gaslight's on in the parking lot right now. Let me tell you the most careless thing I feel like I've ever got myself into.
My wife and I, we were taking a vacation with our kids. They were babies, and we were going to Carlsbad Caverns. Some of you know that where what that is. It's like in the middle of New Mexico in the corner. And, man, they were young and and, my I had my had no service, and my phone was off.
My brain was off. Like, I'm on vacation, and we were just driving. And it's like no man's land desert. There's no, you know, radiator Springs, nothing. And we're just driving.
I'm kinda used to seeing a Starbucks, like every couple miles. And finally, man, we're driving and driving and that my gaslight goes off. And then my phone came back on and I'm like, okay, we're 50 miles from the next gas station, 40, 50 miles from the next gas station. And I was like, we should probably turn around. And I look, we're 40 miles from the last gas station.
I'm like, this is bad. Right? I mean, I don't know what happened there in New Mexico. It's this corner of just nothingness. You know?
It's like they stopped trying. You know? It's like you it's like the corner of your yard you share with your neighbor that hasn't been mowed in a 1000 years, man. They just quit. There's nothing out there, so I'm turning off the AC, you know, then you start praying.
Right? Like, out of your bad plans, you start praying. I'm like, Lord, you know, you turned water into wine. What about gas? You know?
It's a liquid. God's like, well, you don't got any water. I'm like, shoot, I don't have any water either. Like, it was really bad. And so man, y'all, we coasted into some town on like Jesus fumes, and I paid, I don't even know what I paid for gas.
Like I would have paid anything for gas. And listen, some plans fail because I failed to plan for them. Some decisions fail because we don't prepare, we don't plan. Proverbs 20 says this, the slugger, the lazy person does not plow in autumn. In other words, you gotta do the hard work in our autumn if you wanna eat, he will seek at harvest and won't find anything.
There'll be no food. Can I tell you something? I'm amazed at how overconfident some of the people I know are. Can I just be honest with you? They think they can kind of turn something in last minute that they're gonna get like Michelangelo results with crayons at midnight.
Like you can't cram harvest, right? You have to work hard ahead of time. Even this series, you guys don't know this, this teaching, all this stuff we're doing. I started planning this in June, 3 months ago. You can't cram harvest, you can't cram excellence.
But to have right plans, you need to also have right priorities. Proverbs 24 says this, prepare your work outside, get everything ready for yourself in the field, And then after that, build your house. You know, we have needs and wants, right? We have needs, but a lot of times we plan for our wants, you know, and we think about our wants, but God knows what we need. And so number 3, I want you to write this down.
I gotta build a habit of asking God for wisdom, especially in what I need, not just what I want. James 1 is such a great promise that says this, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all, and this phrase is what stuck out to me, without reproach, without shame means there's no shame in asking. You don't need to be embarrassed to ask God. It will be given to him. That's a promise.
And I realized that, man, sometimes my prayer life suffers because I'm embarrassed to ask God for stuff. I'm embarrassed to ask God for help as if he's wanting me to just figure it out out on my own. I feel I've been to counseling for this, but I realized, man, the way I see God is not good. You guys remember that movie Elf, where Buddy calls his dad at work? You know, he's like, it worked.
He's like, how'd you get this number? You know, is this an emergency? I painted a picture of a butterfly. You know, I mean, that's how we see God. I'm going to hang up now.
You know what I mean? Like, but that's not how God is. Listen, God loves you. You don't bother him. You're not annoying to him.
In fact, he promises to give us the direction we need when we need it. Proverbs 21 says this, and you have to get it from God because you can't get it other places. No wisdom, no understanding, no amount of counsel can avail against the Lord. The horse might be ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord. And listen, God's definite definition of victory is not just your happiness.
His definite definition of victory has to do with your real needs, your eternal needs. And, guys, this is why I love the bible. I go to the bible because I know I need to listen to the people who are going where I need to go. Not just where I want to go, I need to listen to the people who are going where I need to go. There's people in this book who've been through life and stayed faithful in their marriage.
There's people in this book who've been through life and kept their integrity. There's people in this book who've been through life and touched the world, like with the gospel, and they can show you how to get there too. Listen, you don't get wise advice from people who think that your happiness is the supreme purpose of your life. Plenty of people have plans for your life like that. Proverbs 19 says this, many are the plans in the mind of man, in the mind of man, but it's the purpose of the Lord that will stand.
So I ask God. I've learned to just ask God, God, is this my plan or yours? Is this building my kingdom or yours? Is this your mission? And if it's not, guess what?
I'm the one that's gotta change. I've gotta adjust my life around his wisdom. Wise decisions happen when you involve others, when you involve God, and when you're willing to change. That's the hardest one. That's why a lot of us don't like going to the doctor.
Amen. Because you know that guy's gonna tell you or that girl's gonna tell you all the things that you gotta change and you don't wanna change. We'd rather keep on suffering. 4 years ago, man, I rolled my ankle and not like the good way. I rolled it like a medial way, which it usually breaks, but luckily for me, it didn't.
I just limped on it for the next 10 months. And I thought, oh, every few weeks it would feel better and I'd be like, I'm gonna go ride again. And I just kept reinjuring my ankle And just, you know, I knew what I needed to do to fix it, but I just didn't wanna do it. I wanted to, you know, I would've had to wear one of those boots for like 3 months and I was embarrassed. You know, I felt stupid.
I'm like, I'm not gonna do that. And you know what? It was worse. I I stopped asking people. You know?
Because I don't like talking to medical medical people when they're they get all bossy. You know? You ever asked your medical friend something? They turn into like inner Jillian. You know?
They start telling you change everything, you know, like, here's your 10 exercises and stop eating sugar and don't drink coffee. And here's your tinfoil hat, you know, and you're like, woah, you know, I'm not becoming a Mormon. I just sprained my ankle. So I finally my wife took me to a friend's house and my ankle was like 50%, you know, and I was just re injuring it, suffering. My wife took me to a friend.
His wife's a nurse. We started talking about it. She brings down a boot and she didn't, she never asked me. She just said, you're gonna wear this until May 15th. It was like an ankle intervention.
You know, that's what I needed. But then listen, y'all, she said something that I needed to hear. She said, do you wanna ride again? Like, do you wanna be a 100% again for the next 10 years, for the next 20 years? Do you wanna walk in 40 years?
In other words, she could see something in my future that I couldn't see. And she showed me it was worth it. You know, Proverbs 22 says this, the prudent see danger and hides himself. In other words, they change, but the simple keep going and they suffer for it over and over and over. Can I tell you, I think some of you are stuck?
I think some of you are stuck re injuring your life with the same bad decisions. You don't get counsel, you don't have community, you don't pray, and you keep repeating the same sins, same addictions, same broken relationships, and you can't see a way out of it, can I tell you there's hope? First of all, my ankle's a 100% today. It's healed. It's a 100%.
And Jesus, I think, does more than just heal ankles. Jesus promised this. He said, behold, I make all things new. I believe God wants to repair things in your life, but certain things can only be made new when you get real with others. And I'm inviting you to to hold out your life and your choices open, to the voice of God, to the input of others.
God's wisdom can can heal you, it can fix what's broken in your life, it can fix what's broken in your past, and it can build a future for you that's remade, that's 100%. If you'll believe it, you'll see it. It's worth it. And listen, no matter what change, what storm, chaos comes, God's wisdom in our decisions can lead us all to the unbreakable life that we need. Let's pray.
Jesus, you said in your word that the wise person builds their house on a rock. And when storms come, and when change comes and when chaos comes, when pandemics come, when recessions come, when job loss come, when relationships are broken, when that stuff happens, when the storm comes, that person's house, it stands. It's unbreakable because it's built on your word. God, our decisions matter not just for our life but the lives of people around us that we love. God, our decisions matter because you wanna use us to change the world and so would you help us.
Would you help us have the courage to invite other people into our life? Would you help us have the confidence to go to you and ask you for wisdom in our life? And God our prayers that you would begin to remake our approach to decisions, a new way of thinking, God that you would rebuild our future. God that you would make all things new in our life, In us, God, in our family, in our children, and in the world, you can make it new. Give us your wisdom, God, and we pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.