Walk in Wisdom
Notes
Transcript
Call to worship
Welcome everyone!
LET US STAND AND WORSHIP!
“What a beautiful Name”
Words and Music by Hillsong
PRAYER OF PRAISE FOR WHO GOD IS
Lord,
“What a beautiful Name”
Words and Music by Hillsong
“What a beautiful Name”
Words and Music by Hillsong
PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION TO OPEN OUR HEARTS
Lord,
SERMON
Introduction
This is the final sermon from this little mini series in chapter 5. And today we will be talking about what it means to walk in wisdom today.
What is wisdom?
1) Wisdom in general is:
Having an intelligence about everyday living or practical matters
Wisdom enables a person to master life
Wisdom is different from knowledge. Knowledge is knowing things, wisdom is knowing what to do with what you know.
Some people know a whole lot but it does not affect how they live because they simply have knowledge but are not wise
Wisdom is like a builder who builds a strong sturdy house that lasts a lifetime.
Biblical wisdom IS DIFFERENT
Biblical wisdom is understanding life from God’s point of view.
It is not just knowing how to live responsibly or being successful from the world’s point of view, but being successful from God’s point of view.
Biblical wisdom is to be skilled at life spiritually speaking
Understanding what it is God wants us to do and how God wants us to live
Wisdom begins when we have knowledge about God and a holy fear of God
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Wise people fear God.
Not in terror but with deep respect.
They believe Him, they trust Him, and they honor him with their lives.
The wise person then will structure their lives around God and His priorities.
Paul gives us three ways we can walk in wisdom and be wise in God’s eyes
Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise,
The word translated “be careful” is βλέπω and means to “to see carefully” or “to observe carefully”
This not talking about physical sight but spiritual sight
It is a call for us to no longer be guided by our own fleshly thoughts, ideas, or plans , BUT to walk through this world with spiritual sight
“be careful”
This is call for us to through this way in a serious way, taking the direction that we walk is in a way that glorifies God
It means that we should not blow everything off as no big deal.
This life is serious!
Take you walk with Christ seriously, to not do this is to walk unwisely
How do we do that?
1) Learn to not waste time
making the most of your time, because the days are evil.
That phrase literally says, “redeeming the time, because the days are evil”
To redeem something means “to purchase” or “to buy it”
The idea here is that we are to take advantage of every opportunity that God puts before us.
And he is not talking about worldly opportunities like financial deals or things like that
Remember he is speaking about spiritual sight, spiritual understanding
So these are spiritual opportunities that God puts before us
Wasting time
Wise people do not allow themselves to get caught up in all the things that waste their precious time
Excessive TV watching
Streaming social media on our phones
Video gaming
Watching you-tube videos
Sitting at a restaurant waiting to be served food
Standing in long checkout lines to purchase things we do not need
Excessive sleeping
Working more than one should
Spending too much time in the gym
Spending all of our free time on our hobbies
There is nothing wrong with these things in themselves
BUT THEY ARE UNPROFITABLE FOR THE KINGDOM OF GOD
“because the days are evil”
The world in which we live is full of things that lure us and steal our precious time
We do not live in a culture that focuses on God, nor on the kingdom of God, but on man himself
We do not have an hour of prayer as the apostles did
We have happy hour where drinks are buy one get one
We do not have a day set aside to worship the Lord
Nearly every business is open on Sunday competing for your time
Childrens sports teams now play on Sundays and Wednesdays, the days most churches traditionally gather for worship
Many school activity's take place on Wednesdays and Sundays
The Super Bowl is on Sunday and many churches have to have a Super Bowl party just to get people to show up
Application
If we let this world tell us how to live, we will live like fools
The days are evil
The American calendar makes no room for God
Don’t you let this evil world decide how you will spend your time
Don’t let your children tell you how you will spend their time
You be wise and you make time for God and you will never regret it
Time for all of us is limited
As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years, Or if due to strength, eighty years, Yet their pride is but labor and sorrow; For soon it is gone and we fly away.
The average span of a human life is 70-80 years and then we fly away
I think it is wise to ask ourselves here how much of God’s gift of time am I wasting
Think about this:
24 hours in a day
8 hours is spent sleeping
8 hours is spent at work
1-2 hours is spent commuting
1-2 hours spent eating, bathing, and things like that
That leaves roughly 4 hours at best of free time
What do you do with those 4 free hours?
Application
Spiritual opportunities are will present themselves if we will make time for them
One reason people become unprofitable for the Kingdom of Gods is because live a life with a full schedule
And when God brings an opportunity for them to do something that will have an eternal impact, they have to turn it down because they already have a full calendar
The wise man or woman spends his time of what is most important: eternity
It may be to share the gospel with someone
It may be an opportunity to pour into someone spiritually
It may be an opportunity to disciple someone else
It may be a chance to serve somewhere in the church or serve someone in the church
It may be something that you would never expect, but if we promise all our time for the things of this world we will miss out on what matters most
2) Understand God’s will for your life
So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
“understand what the will of the Lord is”
Most of us want to know what God wants for us on a personal level
The decisions we face
What to purchase
Where to live
What school to send our children to
How are we to understand what God wants in our lives?
We do so with our minds
God has given us a mind to thinkThe call then is to reason out for ourselves what it is God wants us to do in any given situation
Here are three questions we can ask to help us in this area
1) Will this please or displease God?
trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.
We will not be perfect in pleasing God, but we must ALWAYS make it a priority to please God with our decisions and behavior
2) Will this bring glory God?
Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
Ask yourself if what you are doing is bringing glory to God
3) Is this in line with God’s Word?
My son, if you will receive my words And treasure my commandments within you, Make your ear attentive to wisdom, Incline your heart to understanding; For if you cry for discernment, Lift your voice for understanding; If you seek her as silver And search for her as for hidden treasures; Then you will discern the fear of the Lord And discover the knowledge of God.
If we are not students of God’s Word, then we will find it difficult to know God’s will
“So then do not be foolish”
The opposite of walking in God’s will is to walk in our own will
It means to follow the desires of the flesh
It means that we follow our own hearts!
How many of you have heard the worldly lie, just trust your heart?
“The heart is desperately wicked, who can understand it”
And sometimes we do this by willful disobedience
Yes I know God wants me to do that, but I do not think that is best
It is a form of unbelief
We let the flesh guide us rather than the Spirit of wisdom or Word of wisdom
But just knowing what to do is not enough
Remember wisdom is knowledge applied
Paul doesn’t say know God’s will, he says, “understand the Lord’s will”
The term “understanding” is beyond knowing and means that we apply it
To know and NOT do is foolish
To NOT know and NOT do is ignorance
TO KNOW and TO DO is wisdom
3) Yield your life completely to the Spirit of God
And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit,
“Do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation”
Paul is giving an example of how to live a foolish life: “by getting drunk with wine”
Note that he does not say, “do not drink any wine”
Scripture never prohibits the drinking of alcohol
What Scripture does prohibit is getting drunk, or intoxicated by any substance
History:
Wine was much different back then than it is today
There were no high proof drinks like the 100 proof whiskey we have today
There was fermented grape juice
But over the years, humanity has gotten much better about distilling alcohol in order to produce drunkenness
My advice:
Stay away from it all
How much can you drink before you become intoxicated?
Officers say as little as one beer can cause someone to become too impaired to drive
Beware of modern day alcohol, “for the days are evil”
Why? “Because that is dissipation”
The word means debauchery, prodigal living
Living a life without restraint, one who loses control
The NLT says, “Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life”
In contrast to that, what should we be doing?
“but be filled with the Spirit”
The command to “be filled with the Spirit” is contrasted with the command “do not get drunk with wine”
Both involve being under the influence of something that a person yields control to
A drunken person behaves differently because he is under the control of alcohol. The alcohol changes his character and behavior, usually in evil ways.
By contrast, a person filled with the Spirit behaves differently because he is under the control of the Spirit of God, which produces the character of God in his life
Application
That is we must make it a habit to continually yield the control of our lives over to the Spirit of God
God wants continuous control over our lives but it must be given to Him by us
This is a moment by moment, day by day handing of our lives over to God regardless of how we feel about what God wants for us
And why would we do this?
For the Lord is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting And His faithfulness to all generations.
Because just like handing our lives over to alcohol produces evil results, handing our lives over to God produces good results
The Lord loves us more than we even love ourselves
And we can give Him full control, because he is for us, not against us
RESULTS OF BEING FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT
Ephesians 5:19–21 (NASB95)
speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father; and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.
The filling of the Spirit leads to joyous worship (v. 19:
People who are filled with the Spirit keep a constant song to Jesus in their hearts
They have joy which expresses itself in singing and making melody to the Lord
The filling of the Spirit leads to thankfulness
Thankfulness is an expression of faith that God is in control of all things
There is an unbelievable difference in knowing that God is in control of your life and you are not.
You no longer have to worry about consequences
You no longer have to worry about the future
It produces thanksgiving
The filling of the Spirit leads to proper relationships with other believers (v. 21)
When we are filled with the Spirit, we are willing to be subject to one another
Why? Because we are no longer leading our own lives
We no longer have the need to control every detail of our lives
We have entrusted that to God which reflects in our relationships with others
Conclusion
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. “And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. “Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. “The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.”
Here is where wisdom makes all the difference
the wise will stand
the foolish will fall
every single time
~PRAYER~
RESPONSE
PUBLIC INVITATION
“What a beautiful Name”
Words and Music by Hillsong
OFFERING
We will now worship the Lord through our tithes and offering.
BENEDICTION
Numbers 6:24-26 “The Lord bless you, and keep you; The Lord cause His face to shine on you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His face to you, And give you peace.’”