Sermon series Campfire Talks #1
Embracing Wisdom
1 Corinthians 1:18-31
Proverbs 8
Good morning- Today we start anew series I am calling Campfire Talks! Remember those times maybe as a kid that you sat around the campfire you had some great times talking about all kinds of things…some important and some silly stuff but it was fun. It was healthy! If you have never experienced it, you should try it, don’t live at the campfire…that is not healthy.
Prayer-
All of us like good stories. Stories with a happy ending are best.
No one really enjoys hearing about someone’s misfortunes that ruin them.
We seem to love that when bad things happen something good comes out of it.
We are saddened when bad things happen and it destroys someone or something. (At least you should)
I heard this week of a success story of a friend of the district that lost his wife to cancer a while back. I can relate to that at every level. What makes him different than me is that his wife was only 3o years old and that they were raising two small children. This past week, he announced that he is officially seeing someone special and that it is getting very serious. That Almighty God would take a tragic situation and somehow turn it to be good. That would be a story with a happy ending.
Our text this morning is Proverbs 8- it is a long chapter about wisdom-
We will not read all 30 verses at once because I don’t want to lose anyone but it is important and we will digest this proverb one bite at a time.
How do you eat an elephant? One bit at a time because otherwise it would be overwhelming!
Proverb 8:1-8 read from bible
While I was on vacation last week, I went with Pastor BW and barb to one of our Nazarene churchs and enjoyed a well done message. One of the things that stuck with me was his showing us just how far we have come in the last 20 years of innovation and knowledge.
In a study he found that since the beginning of time up to 2003 we used 5 Exabytes of storage for knowledge.
If you take all the information known to man at that time to 2003, it could fit on 5 Exabytes of storage.
I had to dig how much that was- that is one million Gigabytes.
That is one Trillion Megabytes. Today, every two days, we use over 5 Exabytes of storage for knowledge.
What does that say to us?
It says that there is more information out there today than at any time of the history of the world but that does not mean that we are smarter than any time of the history of the world.
Knowledge is one thing, wisdom is another.
We have knowledge- pure do with it what you want information. Useless information to life saving information. It is knowledge.
We have wisdom, take what you have gone through and you learned a lesson that could make you a better person and you used for the good of your life. Learned lesson, retain it and use to better your life- that would be wisdom.
We have wisdom given to us from God- From His Word, spoken to us from God’s servants with His anointing.
Living life from God’s perspective.
Where we allow the creator of the universe, the savior of your soul if you are a believer to give you words of life from His Word.
The wisdom that He gives not only gives you (Smarts) knowledge, not only (good sense) wisdom to use for this life, but Godly wisdom not only allows you a good life here but allows us to be home with Him for eternity.
Worldly wisdom- I am going to preach
Let’s give everyone a trophy so no one feels bad… it is a competition with a design to have a winner and a loser.
The winner should learn to be humble and grateful and thank God.
The loser should learn a life lesson that everything doesn’t always go your way and you must understand and deal with it.
One group worked harder to get the trophy, they don’t get the recognition they should and someone who really didn’t put enough effort gets a trophy for just for participating. (just come out)
You think that sounds strange but that is how the world is responding to the things of God-
God you are such a loving God… I know what you said in your word is to follow and obey, to trust and put effort into our relationship with you but I want to be the one who is satisfied to get a participation trophy instead of having a relationship with you that is centered on what you have done for us.
(V2) - “On the heights along the way, where the paths meet, she takes her stand” Who? Godly wisdom! Where the paths meet, the road splits, where the world seems to turn and go in the wrong direction of where God is leading, wisdom follows God.
Steven Hawking, one of the smartest men on the planet concerning the black hole and the vast knowledge of physics- but he did not believe in God- in all his wisdom, he could not find God.
In 2018 he was quoted as saying…“There is no God. No one directs the universe,” he writes in “Brief Answers to the Big Questions.” “For centuries, it was believed that disabled people like me were living under a curse that was inflicted by God,” he adds. “I prefer to think that everything can be explained another way, by the laws of nature.” He did not blame God for his disease, he felt he just got a bad deal and wanted no part in God.
Albert Einstein-says: “The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.”
At best Einstein was a deist- “one who believes that if there is a God that God does not concern himself with the everyday life and problems of man.”
Albert Einstein
“I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings."
Einstein believed the problem of God was the "most difficult in the world"—a question that could not be answered "simply with yes or no".
Every one of us has faced or will face that split in the road where we have to make a decision on which direction we will travel-
I see in the world today several groups of people- taken right out of scripture-
1 Corinthians 1:20- “Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.”
Wise people come to Jesus and ask for forgiveness and want and desire a relationship with Him and foolish people do not want to be bothered. They tell him no by word or by their actions.
God chose the cross to reach a dying world- The cross to a roman citizen was for criminals and one that had no appeal to save them.
“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.”
It is open to everyone, Jews and Gentiles- that is everyone!
What man calls wisdom God calls foolishness, what you call weakness, God calls the power of God.
Think about this-
Until you know and understand that you are a sinner in need of a savior, it is not just the murderers and sex offenders. We all fall short of the glory of God.
Until we know we are sinners, we will not feel like we need a savior.
This is where a good portion of people are today, they don’t feel they need a savior because there are so many people worse than they are.
I will destroy the wisdom of the (worldly) wise. I will expose it for what it is- foolishness!
Line item (use hand motions)
Those that are perishing……………………….……….those who are saved.
Road to destruction…………………………………..……Road to salvation.
Unwise……………………………………………………..………………wise
Foolish worldly wisdom……………...Godly wisdom which is power of God
Paul’s understanding of wisdom was more than book smart- it was a condition of the heart.
To the Jew, the heart was more than just the organ in your body pumping blood, it was the center of everything that you are.
Natural worldly wisdom says
“God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.” Luke 18:11
The way I see God’s word here…there are two kinds of people-
Those that are saved and those who are not.
One is wise and one is foolish.
After that I leave judgment in the hands of God because there are a whole lot of factors that God has to deal with and above my pay grade.
Difference between wisdom and knowledge
Wisdom and knowledge, both recurring themes in the Bible, are related but not synonymous.
The dictionary defines wisdom as “the ability to discern or judge what is true, right, or lasting.”
Knowledge, on the other hand, is “information gained through experience, reasoning, or acquaintance.”
Knowledge can exist without wisdom, but not the other way around. One can be knowledgeable without being wise.
Wisdom is supreme—so get wisdom. And whatever else you get, get understanding,” says Proverbs 4:7.
The Bible talks a lot about gaining wisdom.
The book of Proverbs contrasts the wise and the foolish and tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10).
So we get wisdom when we learn to live in the (reverence) fear of the Lord.
The fear of God is respecting Him, obeying Him, submitting to His discipline, and worshiping Him.
Those who fear the Lord have a conscious awareness that their loving heavenly Father is watching and they desire to please Him.
We find the wisdom of God in His written Word.
Following God’s testimonies has a way of “making wise the simple” (Psalm 19:7).
We become wise when we study the Word and apply it to our lives: “Your commands are always with me and make me wiser than my enemies”
We also develop wisdom when we learn from our mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes, but the difference between the wise and the foolish is that wise people learn their lessons and don’t repeat the sin. Fools rush back in over and over, puzzled as to why they keep getting the same results. Proverbs 26:11
Wisdom involves seeing life from God’s perspective and acting accordingly.
Book of James
James 1:5 promises that…”when we need wisdom, we need only ask of God, and He will give it to us. But we must ask in faith with plans to obey (verse 6).
Many people want God’s wisdom, but then they want to weigh it against their own understanding and decide for themselves whether or not they will follow it.
Godly wisdom is foolishness to this world.
Close-
As I wrap this up, stay with me…
Who is the smartest person you know?
Who is the wisest? Are they the same person?
You see age is not the factor- there are young people who are very foolish but wise.
There are a lot of older people who are wise and successful but spiritually they are fools.
Proverb 8 is Solomon telling us who want to be wise in God’s eyes to not make the same mistakes he made and learn from the word of God and the Holy Spirit.
I have made some foolish mistakes in my life- and so I you!
I am sure that many times some looked at me and said what are you doing!
I take a bow because I heeded the call in my life, I am grateful for 30 years of blessed marriage to Becky but that doesn’t mean I have always had godly wisdom- that comes from asking the Lord and doing what He says!
“You should be praying for wisdom- godly wisdom.
Let’s pray together and ask the Lord for wisdom and guidance in our lives.
Prayer-
