The Wisdom of God

Transcript

Wisdom Versus Knowledge

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You can have a seat. Hi, my name is Cameron. I'm one of the pastors here at Crosspoint. It's good to be here with you guys. Today we are talking about wisdom as we kind of work through 1 Corinthians chapter 2. And so I wanted to share with you one of my favorite quotes about wisdom. It is knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad. And I think it really gets at something important is that wisdom is different than knowledge. We have in our world right now access to more knowledge just at our fingertips than pretty much any person throughout all of human history. And yet, I wouldn't say our world is overflowing with wisdom right now. As a culture, we are seeing more and more that more knowledge does not equal more wisdom. And yet, also people desire wisdom and guidance for their life, for how to live, what kind of choices to make, what kind of life to build. And we're so desperate for wisdom and to know how to live rightly that we turn to all sorts of things to look for answers and to find the guidance or to find what we feel like we need in order to make the best choices. Or even if we're not looking for them, they come to us, right? Algorithms are pushing YouTube videos and TikTok videos and Facebook posts and whatever it might be to say, this is how you should live your life. Now I talked about this a few weeks ago. So if you're like interested, that go back, listen. If you're not, don't worry about it. No, just kidding. And these things are working on us in ways we often are not aware of. So you might hear a little something, be like, oh, that sounds good. Oh, I like to listen to that, or you gotta kind of get connected to a person or connected into politics or whatever it might be, and you're like, oh, this is like the answer. But what we don't often realize is how much these things aren't neutral, that they're working on us. They're either trying to sell us something or they're uh motivated by a worldview that we might not actually agree with. None of these things are neutral, and all the things we turn to form us in either positive ways or negative ways.

When Algorithms And AI Shape You

SPEAKER_00 2:15

Um, one example, as I was thinking about this, uh, is with AI right now, right? AI kind of is pitched as this like kind of neutral, like, oh it'll just pull stuff from the internet to help you out, give you what you need. Um, you know, I as a kid loved reading sci-fi, and I feel like the world we're living in is like the start of a dystopian science fiction novel, um, where things are gonna go bad at some point. Um, that's just my tinfoil hat talking, though. I don't know anything special. Um, but one of the things we see is because especially like the AI chatbots are so conversational, people get sucked in to going to them with their pro going to AI with their problems, and then taking whatever it says and kind of adapting it into their life and getting a lot of bad advice, getting a lot that tells you what you want to hear a lot of times. Um, some people have even committed suicide as talking to AI as their therapist and things go poorly. Right? Some people use it to plan their mass shootings. Like, it is not just a neutral thing, it can actually be a force for bad in the world. Right, and of course, the tech sector is like, hey, don't we'll make them better. We're just working out the kinks of these new tools that are really gonna help you in order to know how to live your life and to plan your life and to run your life for you. As if the core principle of going to an AI chatbot for wisdom to run your life is still good, as long as we can work out all the kinks. But maybe wisdom isn't something that can be quantified or datified. Uh maybe it's not just having all of the knowledge at our fingertips. Maybe wisdom is something much more personal and more mysterious and less formulaic and algorithmic. And in our passage today, we will see godly wisdom is often at odds with the wisdom that the world is peddling and trying to sell us on. But the good news is that godly wisdom is available for anyone who wants to hear it. So, what we're gonna do today is it's kind of a longer passage. So, one of the things I like to do when I'm studying a passage is I'll break it down into chunks and kind of like understand, because this is one where you read it and you're like, what is this even talking about, right? So the like break it down into chunks, kind of understand what each chunk means, and then go back and read the whole thing together with like a new understanding of what Paul's talking about here. So that's what we're gonna do, and then end talking about how do we actually seek this type of wisdom out that he's talking about, and how do we discern the Spirit's voice in a world that's full of just endless options and things we can listen to.

The Cross As God’s Wisdom

SPEAKER_00 4:53

So as we uh go to our passage, we're in 1 Corinthians chapter 2. Uh, it's part of a whole section on wisdom. Of the 28 times that Paul, the writer of 1 Corinthians, and also a bunch of other New Testament uh letters, of the 28 times he uses the word wisdom as a noun, 15, so over half of them, occur in these first two chapters of 1 Corinthians that we've been in. So he's spending a lot of time talking about wisdom. He's also, if you've been here or been reading along, he's spending a lot of time like railing against wisdom and kind of like the Corinthians loved wisdom, and he's like tearing it down, saying, like, no, this is not good. Um, he talks about how he's intentionally preached without big words or without using human wisdom to help them see the gospel more clearly. And I think what Paul is doing here in this section we're gonna read is the Corinthians might be tempted to think Paul is against wisdom, but he is gonna actually show them what he's taught, what kind of wisdom he does want them to focus on. Um, and so in the context of this whole section is looking at the cross as the wisdom of God, okay? That godly wisdom is deeply connected to the cross and Jesus' crucifixion. Uh so first, the the message of the cross that like God wins by dying. And it looks like he loses. To the world, this is foolishness. Like, why would your Messiah, your chosen one, go to a cross and die? It looks ridiculous. Um, but it's actually the wisdom of God. That's what Paul's talked about a lot in this section. Uh, but secondly, how does that idea affect every other part of our life? How does actually like the passage Katie read this morning, what does it mean practically to be crucified with Christ? That we take Jesus' crucifixion, not just as an idea, we say, hey, that sounds really great. I'd love that, but as something that we live out as well. How do we do what Jesus did when he said, pick up your cross daily and follow me? It's not just an idea we say yes to, it's a way of life that we embody, even though it looks foolish to the world around us. All right, so starting in verse six is where our section

Mature Faith And Hidden Mystery

SPEAKER_00 7:20

starts. Paula just got done saying, Hey, I didn't speak with words of wisdom when I talked to you earlier, because I wanted to make sure you understood the cross. Then he says, We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age who are coming to nothing. No, we declare God's wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. So he wants to speak wisdom. He hasn't spoken wisdom with them yet. He wants to speak wisdom, but he's gonna do it with the mature people. And mature is not for Paul those who are wise by the world standards, or those who are successful, or those who are upper class or rich. Paul wants everyone to be called into spiritual maturity. He's not trying to create more factions of like, he doesn't want the, you know, the Corinthians already struggled with this a little bit. He doesn't want them thinking, all right, so let's divide up. Who's the mature? No, not mature, immature. Oh yeah, they're definitely mature. That's not what he's wanting to do, but he's explaining the reality that there is a difference between people who are spiritually mature and not. It's not about who they are or what their world, their life looks like in the world, but about how they choose to live in relation to God. So deeper wisdom isn't just for the elite or for the upper class people, it is for anyone who wants to receive it. And and he knows, like he wants everyone to receive it, but he knows only some people will. And so, to those people who will, he wants to preach deeper wisdom to them. Uh, Paul also talks about, uh he talks a lot about the rulers of this age. Uh right, again, this is something we've seen in the section. We're gonna see it more in the passage we're reading. He is over and over and over again reminding the Corinthians that the wisdom of God is not compatible with the wisdom of this world. They are different. We can't push them together and try to come up with a nice synthesis of them. They are different things. And the rulers of this age represent for Paul, and for anyone reading this at that time, these are the people who theoretically had the best of the world's wisdom. These are the people who had access to the best advisors, like the wisest, most smart people around them. These were also the people who some people would believe, like, hey, the gods chose them to rule, so they must have some sort of special access to the gods. So Paul's point is if they couldn't see the wisdom of God and actually ended up crucifying Jesus, like why would you listen to what they have to say? Why would you listen to the wisdom they have to offer if they can't even see the most beautiful, amazing thing that's ever happened in all of human history? Why do you keep putting so much stock in human wisdom when it can't even recognize our Messiah? All right, he goes on in verse 9 to say, however, as it is written, what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived, the things God has prepared for those who love him. These are the things God has revealed to us by his spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. So he quotes an Old Testament passage, um, actually a couple and kind of mashes them together in Isaiah. But the main point being, from before time even began, God has had this plan of wanting to bless and love the people who love him. God is working on behalf of those who love him. And the world won't receive it, but to those who will receive what God has been preparing, it will be amazing. And in context, if you went back and read the passages in Isaiah, Isaiah is talking about how even at the time, the people, the people who resist God are just bringing judgment on themselves, right? Just like the rulers of this world that crucified Jesus. All right, one other thing that's kind of come up in this section and the one we just read is when he talks about like the mystery and the deep things of God. Um, you know, at this time, especially in Corinth and in the Greek world, Roman world, there's kind of this idea of like, oh, these like deep mysteries of the universe that you'd want to like discover and figure out and like the secret to unlocking everything. But when Paul uses the word mystery or talks about the deep things of God, he's actually not talking about any of that. He's talking about the cross. And you should think of mysterious or mystery more less as like, ooh, what is the secret knowledge? And more as it was something that was hidden and then now has been revealed. So it was a mystery what God was up to, what he was doing, but now the mystery has been opened for us. We see this in Colossians, on Ephesians. It was hidden, but now we can see it. Um, and so what Paul's talking about, like the deep mysteries of God, is not some like secret knowledge for the spiritually mature. Um, it's not a different message than what he's been talking about. It's the same message that Christ has been crucified, but it's not different, but it is deeper, like a deeper understanding of the crucifixion and what Jesus did and the way of Jesus that we see revealed in the crucifixion. Um next week we'll see Paul goes on to talk about like he uses an analogy of like milk versus solid food. So it's like, hey, like you, you as a as you grow, you need to like get more solid food and learn how you know how to do this, how to eat something more substantial. But it's all still the gospel. It's not some like extra thing you add on or like something different than the gospel. The gospel is preached in more or less depth based on the audience and who he's talking to. So to the immature, it'll be one message, but to the mature, he can go deeper into the gospel. Uh, I like to think of it as I was trying to think of an analogy for this. It's like if you were to ask someone, what do you do for work, right? Um sometimes I ask someone and they say, I'm an engineer, and that's what they say to someone who looks like they know nothing about engineering, right? And that's helpful. It gives me a box for who they are and what they do. But if they were talking to another engineer, they might go give this like the same answer, but in much more depth around what type of engineering they do or what kinds of things they do related to uh the extent of my knowledge of engineering, because I'll just stop. Um but you would go deeper based off of who you're talking to, but it's still the same thing, it's not a different message, and that's what's happening here. To those that are mature, Paul wants to speak deep wisdom to them, but it's not a new message, it's how does the way of Jesus, how does this cross-shaped life uh work itself out in every part of our life? And this totally lines up with my experience. For me, as I've grown in faith, right? I became a Christian when I was in middle school at some point. Um, and so I've been following Jesus for a long time. And one of the things I've noticed is a lot of the things that like Jesus is working on me in my life right now are things I knew all those years ago. It's just knowing them in a deeper way, or working them out in more like ways than maybe I was before, or learning to like, you know, like right now, I'm trying to learn how to sit in quiet with God and pray. Well, I was working on prayer back when I was like in high school, right? Um, and how to sit with God and how to receive his love. And it's got, I've grown over time, but it's the same thing, just going deeper and deeper and deeper into the depths of my soul. Right? Just like uh it's gardening season. So if you've planted plants, you know you want, if you water your plants, you want to water them so the water goes down deep down to the roots, not just kind of spray some water on the top, right? And in the same way, God's truth, the gospel, needs to seep down into the roots of our soul and therefore affecting every part of our life. So that's kind of what Paul's talking about. He's gonna transition to talk about how we get that, what he's talking about, which is through the spirit.

The Spirit As Our Translator

SPEAKER_00 15:48

And he says this for who knows a person's thoughts except their own spirit within them. So it's just like an analogy he's using that, like, you can't know what I'm thinking unless I tell you what I'm thinking. Like, I know what I'm thinking, but you can't know that. Um, in the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the spirit of God. So, like, the same way with God, you have the spirit of God, and that's that's who knows God. Uh, what we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom, but in words taught by the spirit, explaining spiritual realities with spirit-taught words. So, this um, you know, analogy here that like we, in order to know what God thinks, to know what God wants, we need to have access to the spirit. And instead of it being something we have to like communicate, we have to like go to a temple to talk to God, we've actually been given the spirit. So each and every one of us, if you're following Jesus, has the Spirit of God living within you and can know and understand the very thoughts of God. We can understand the heart of God through the spirit. Uh, kind of like a translator, right? If you're in a foreign country and needing to talk to people, uh, you might have a translator with you who helps you understand what's going on in the same way that's what the spirit is for us. Which is great news that this deep wisdom, this thing that people have wanted for ages, we now have ready access to. Now we still need to learn how to listen to the spirit and understand what God is saying to us. And but the Holy Spirit wants to teach us how to live godly lives and how to live out this wisdom that God has called us into. The bad news though is that we often trade that, we trade the spirit-taught words for the words of the world and just take worldly wisdom and kind of bring it into our life and our heart, and it crowds out the work of the spirit in our life. And so Paul is reminding them, again, over and over, like, you need to not be looking to the world for wisdom. When you do that, you're missing out on what God wants to do in your life. All right, he goes on in verse 14 to says to say the person without the spirit does not accept the things that come from the spirit of God, but considers them foolishness. So if you don't have the spirit, you don't accept what the spirit is saying. It looks foolish. And cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the spirit, right? They don't have the translator that helps them understand God. The person with the spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments. So the world cannot understand spiritual wisdom. That those without the spirit are not fit to judge spiritual things, is what Paul is saying. They can't understand them, but they also consider them foolish. And I think for Paul there's a little bit of sass going on here, too. I think the implication is like, hey, if you think what I'm writing to you is foolish right now, maybe you're not as spiritual as you think you are, right? Which is a little judo move on Paul's part. Um, but no, Paul isn't accusing the Corinthians of not having the spirit. He's saying you're living like the world. You're living as if you don't have the spirit. But I think he's touching on something really important here and that I've seen in my own life so much, and that's that those who aren't following Jesus on a fundamental level can't really understand what the way of Jesus is and why you're making the decisions you make, and why the values you hold you hold so strongly. Right? You can't understand the world cannot understand the beauty and power of a way of life that is upside down from the rest of the world. A life marked by loving enemies instead of division and polarization, a sexual ethic that looks nothing like the world around us, wasting time reading and praying and going to church and doing all these spiritual practices. Like I remember when um I felt called into vocational ministry, sort of like kind of change what I was doing to become a pastor. And my dad, who's like, you know, church he'd say is not really his thing, he's it's like good for the world. So it's good you do that. But he's like, hey, that sounds nice. Maybe you should have a good backup plan, though, right? Um remember talking to some of my friends who said, um, hey, uh, you know, you're not gonna make a lot of money. I think maybe you should like rethink this. Like, let that be more of a volunteer thing in your life. It's like, man, it revealed to me like we are just on different operating systems right now. I'm not worried about how much money I'm going to make or not make, like I'm responding to what God is wanting to do in my life. So because the world cannot judge spiritual wisdom or cannot understand it, it can also not judge it. We shouldn't let the world judge how we are living out the way of Jesus when it is often going to be countercultural and look foolish and be looked down upon anyway. Um, the those without the spirit can't even understand godly wisdom, right? They don't have the translator. Uh, one quote I read in a commentary said, the profane person cannot understand holiness, but the holy person can understand the depths of evil. So, because we kind of live in both worlds, if you're following Jesus, you can see and judge uh like both ways of life and different thoughts, but if you're only living outside the kingdom of God, you can't even really judge or understand what's going on in the kingdom. Right in the Corinthians, of course, we're very caught up in this. Caught up in wanting to not look foolish to the world, caught up in wanting to jive everything with human wisdom around them. Then Paul ends this section in verse 16 by saying this. Uh, he quotes another scripture. He says, For who is known the mind of the living? Lord, so as to instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ. So he quotes in Isaiah 40, and it's the section talking about how big and transcendent and awesome God is, that he's the one who like made the islands and weighs mountains and does all these things that we like can't even wrap our heads around. He's so much bigger than all the concerns and values of the world, and it would be ridiculous to think that that God is under human judgment, right, to decide whether he's good or not, or wise or not. So that's kind of what Isaiah's talking about. Paul's point in quoting this is don't let mere humans with their worldly wisdom, who can't even understand the ways of God, stand in judgment over the God of the universe. How can we even know the ways of God in order to judge him? But, he kind of uh wraps up here right after the quote, uh, because of the spirit, actually we can understand God's thoughts. Even though he's fully like transcendent and far away and bigger than everything, because of the spirit, we can understand the mind of Christ. God's wisdom is no longer foreign to us, something we just can't even like wrap our head around. We can understand God's ways, not to judge him, but so that we can know him and live them out. Right? Something past generations, like we can't take for granted in this age of God's kingdom, but past generations would have killed for this opportunity to know the mind of Christ, right? And we have that because of the Spirit. All right, so that's that's the passage. I'm gonna read it all together one more time, um, now that we kind of understand the chunks, and then jump into how do we live this out? What does this mean for us today? So he says, We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age who are coming to nothing. No, we declare God's wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written, what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived, the things God has prepared for those who love him. These are the things God has revealed to us by his spirit. The spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with spirit-taught words. The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, but considers them foolishness and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments. For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.

Three Sources For Hearing God

SPEAKER_00 25:41

And so our bottom line for today is the wisdom of God can only be discerned through the Spirit of God. And so I want to end here talking about how do we practically listen to the Spirit in our lives. It's like one of those churchy things we can say a lot, but if you don't have a lot of experience with it, you might be like, yeah, I have no idea what that actually means. Um so as I was trying to think of how to explain this, I think there are three sources that we can go to for godly wisdom. Of course, there's more than that, but these are like three big ones. Like if you're just starting out, like, hey, I want to like follow God, I want to allow him to speak into my life, here are three essential ones you need in your life in order to hear the Spirit. One is Scripture. Okay, so the Bible. Like these are God's words given to us so that we know how to live and so that we know who God is. And so the words themselves in Scripture are super important and the ideas contained in Scripture. They give us a picture of who God is. That isn't just based on whatever I feel or whatever other people tell me, but a picture of who God says He is. They give us guidelines and clarity around what it looks like to live in God's kingdom. Um, last year we spent a lot of time in the Sermon on the Mount, right? And that was all like Jesus just laying out like, here is what the kingdom of God is. Here is how you live in the kingdom of, here's how you make decisions, here's how you love people in the kingdom of God. Now, of course, if you open up the Bible for the first time, there's some complexity around how what do we do with some of the things that feel really cultural or how do we understand them, all of that. But broadly, the Bible gives us a way to live regardless of how I feel about that truth, regardless of the wisdom of what our culture is saying, it gives us something like outside of time that speaks into our life. So knowing the right facts and theology about God is super important if you're gonna listen to the Spirit. Because otherwise, like your mind can go in all sorts of crazy directions, or you can find all sorts of crazies on YouTube that might tell you this is what God says. You need to be grounded in scripture to know like who who God says He is. You know, if you're not reading about Christ, it's really hard to have the mind of Christ. It's gonna be really hard to live the way God has called you to. But there's like a second piece of scripture, and that is I think that while the words and the ideas and the theology is all super important, I've also noticed that in my own life, when I am looking for wisdom from God, when I if I'm reading scripture and I'm opening up the Bible every day to read God's word, even when like the passage is maybe talking about something else, or I didn't like have a preconceived notion of like this is what I'm gonna study to understand this thing or answer this question I have about my life. God meets us in scripture when we read it prayerfully, when we open it up and we open up our hearts to God as we read. God is uniquely chosen to meet us in a special way in scripture. Unlike any other book, unlike any other podcast you could listen to, God chooses to meet us in the act of reading his word. And so when you read in an open way, God speaks to you, and often like very like uh mysterious, or like, whoa, that felt like I would have never guessed that this is what God wanted to say to me, but as I read it prayerfully, like God speaks clearly through scripture. Not every time, but a lot of times. All right, the second kind of uh category of or source that you might go to for wisdom is other people. So other people in your own life, right? Like friends, uh mentors you might have. Uh, you know, just this last spring, Megan and I hosted a group at our house, and it was like one of the huge benefits was just hearing other people open up about their life with God and talk about the things they're wrestling with, the things they're struggling with, the ways that they experience God. Like through other personalities, it's like, man, I feel like I heard God speak to me so so much just hearing other people talk about their life with God. Um, so there's other people like that you actually see and know, but you can also in our world find all sorts of other sources from other people. There's like books and podcasts you can listen to, right? Like uh I think if you have something really specific you're struggling with or needing God's wisdom and like finding a book written by someone you trust, that's a great way to just get some of someone's best thinking about something you need to learn about. Um, even Katie was telling me, uh, she let me borrow this book as I was looking this week, and I didn't read it, but it looked really good when I kind of skimmed it. Um, a book called How to Hear from God. So if you're like, man, I don't even know where to start with this, that book, if it's bad, blame Katie. But that book seemed great about giving lots of practical, like, how do I actually hear from God in prayer? Um, you know, I found it's important to have like a good combination. If I'm just reading books, books are awesome. But if I'm not actually interacting with real people who know me, who know like my personality, who know my life situation, like I'm missing something. And just like if I only talk to my friends about my spiritual life, but I'm never like listening or reading from someone who has gone further in a in a deep way, like I'm also missing out on something. See a good combination. But for what we're talking about, listening to the spirit's voice, the most important one is prayer. Because that is when you, whether you're listening to someone else in a sermon or whatever, or you're reading scripture, prayer is like the filter when we're in touch with the spirit that helps us know how what do we do with this? What do we listen to, what do we not listen to? The spirit helps us translate truth into our life. And the awesome thing is, is that the Holy Spirit is in each and every one of us and yet is working in us in different ways, right? And knows me more deeply than I know myself, and so can help lead me and guide me into God's wisdom. Right? So we do this by praying, by listening, right? There's a lot of times that my prayer, if I'm like trying to hear God's voice, is just quietness and trying to listen to what God is saying. Or I like to journal because that keeps me from getting too distracted because I have to like write and keep going. Um, of being honest with God about what's going on inside of me and allowing God to speak to it. Uh, learning to discern what voices inside of me are just like my sinful self wanting things versus what are good desires God has put inside of me, versus what is the Holy Spirit trying to speak to me through all of that. And it's really hard to explain, like out loud, because it's not like a formula you can follow. Like it's a lot easier to explain, hey, here's how you study a Bible passage than it is to say, here's how you listen to the still small voice of God in your life, right? Because it's different for all of us, and it takes time to learn how to do that. It can't happen overnight, and so it takes time, but it's also a skill to learn how do I hear and discern God's voice in my life? How do I hear the spirit whispering to me in a situation or as I read something or as something is happening? And so it's a skill to practice, uh, not something I think a lot of times we treat hearing from God as like a switch we turn on when we want to. So like most of the time we just live our life however we want to. And then it's like, oh, hey, there's this big thing happening. I kind of need God's wisdom. Flip the switch, be like, all right, God, I'm ready, tell me what to do. Okay, flip the switch off and keep living life the way we want to. And when we do that, it's a lot harder to hear God's voice in those moments when we feel like we need it, because we're used to listening to our own voice all the time. Right? That is what our ear is tuned to, is what I want and what I think I should do, or what other people are wanting me to do. And so what we need to do is shift from think shift it from thinking of like this is something I do when a big situation comes or a big decision is coming, but a daily practice that I live out. I think of it like uh if you have a foreign language you're trying to learn. Right? If you only practice a few times a year, you are not gonna be very fluent. Right? What helps you be fluent in understanding a language is by using it every single day. And so listening to the spirit in the big things starts by listening in the small things. Discernment is actually a skill to practice in the small, everyday parts of life that feel insignificant, that feel like they don't really matter compared to like, do I marry this person or not? Do I take this job or not? Like, feels like there's a lot of small things that feel like they don't matter, but they do, and they help us learn how to hear God's voice for those other things as well. Right? How do I love the people around me? How do I deal with my kids when they're frustrating me? How do I prioritize my day? How do I spend my money? How do I spend my free time? Right? When you're daily asking God these types of questions, um, and you're listening to his voice for direction, then when bigger things come along, you are like tuned in to God's voice to know how to hear it, how to differentiate it from whatever's inside of you, whatever other voices you hear, uh, you know how to hear the voice of the Spirit. Now, of course, these all need to like work together, okay? They're all important because sometimes my thoughts and feelings are actually not Jesus-like, they're very sinful. But when I have scripture, I can hold it up and be like, oh no, this is not right. This is not what God has called me to do. Right? Or sometimes, again, some crazy person on YouTube is talking about God's will for your life, and you can hold it up to scripture or talk to other people in your life and be like, yeah, I don't know, or listen to your own heart and be like, yeah, I don't know. This doesn't feel right to me. This doesn't feel like what the Spirit is saying. Um, sometimes people might even speak truth. Like I was reminded of about a year ago, I went on a sabbatical, which was awesome. So, like this extended time away to connect with my family, to connect with God, to just like rest and recharge. And I remember asking Mac for advice because he had done it like five years ago or five years before. And a lot of his advice was great. And a lot of, and some of it though, I was like, oh, we are very different people. Like he's very disciplined and organized. And I'm like, this would be terrible advice for me. Um, and so listening to the spirit as we're talking and as I'm thinking about it helps me know, like, ooh, what is for me? What is God not wanting me to take from this conversation? Or how is God wanting me to maybe hear this and then like understand how that might apply to my life, right? And so as we listen to the spirit, as we read scripture, as we talk to other people, these things all work together to help us more deeply and confidently understand God's wisdom and God's will for our life.

Practice Discernment With Small Steps

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All right, all that might sound really difficult, but I also want to encourage you to not overcomplicate it, okay? So part of learning how to hear God's voice is practicing listening, but part of it is also like practicing responding and then seeing like, hey, was that God telling me to do that or not? Like, we tend to want the whole plan. Like, God, give me a hundred percent certainty on what I'm supposed to do or lay out the plan for me so I know where I'm going. But what I found is often God does not do that, at least for me. And so instead of trying to be a hundred percent sure of what God's calling you to do before you take a step, try being 80% sure and just taking a step and then seeing, like, hey, was that God or not leading me into that? Now, unless God's telling you to sell everything you have or make a big life decision, you know, this is not legal advice uh coming from CrossPoint or anything like that. But I even think of like when we moved to Wisconsin, you know, like whatever how almost 10 years ago or whatever, nine and a half years ago, um, I was probably like 90% sure this is where God wanted us to be. Like, I wasn't a hundred percent sure. I was like, I think this is what God's saying. I feel pretty confident, but like, who knows? We might get here and I'd be like, whoa, that was a huge mistake. What have I done, right? And it wasn't. And so part of how you learn to hear God's voice is by taking those steps and then reflecting, being like, was that God or not? Um, two other exam, or one other example. Uh, you know, I this was like probably a few months ago, maybe over the winter time. I on Wednesdays we can work off site, so I was gonna go work a coffee shop. I was like, I don't know where to go. And for some reason I felt like God may be saying, like, go to roots. And I was like, oh, I like roots. I was like, that was weird though. Is that actually God? And I started to think about it as I'm driving. I was like 50% sure God was nudging me. So I was like, there's literally nothing to lose by me going to Roots instead of this other coffee shop. And I get there and I had like two or three really significant conversations. I was like, well, I guess that was God leading me. That was kind of weird, but that experience helped me learn how to discern God's voice, just like it, the still small voice inside of me. Sometimes I do that, and I'm like, well, that was a huge mistake. That was not God. So now I learned that's not how God's voice sounds to me. But over the years of doing that, you get to hone in and understand and listen for how God speaks to you. And the only way we do that is by practicing, listening to the Spirit, and responding.

Action Questions And Community Challenge

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So as we wrap up here, uh a couple action steps, some prayer questions. You know, where are you seeking godly wisdom? Are there any areas of your life you probably should be? Maybe you just don't even give God access to your career or your personal time or whatever it might be. And then which of those three sources would you say is like the weakest for you? Where you maybe you need to like grow in a little more? And then there's a practice uh for each of those uh that you can lean into if there's one you want to grow into. So all that can be found online to go check out later if you want to this week. Um we have uh coffee hour and some Father's Day stuff out there. So let me pray for us, and then we can go out and enjoy some community time in the lobby connecting with other people. You know, before I uh pray, actually, I know I saw the shuffling happen. Uh sorry to freak you out or to lie there. Um one of the things I see a lot is people you know go to community time or coffee hour and you grab your thing and then you kind of stand there. And you're like, oh man, I really don't want to talk to anyone. But you kind of do too, but you want someone else to come talk to you. So if you're standing alone, like go just insert yourself into a conversation, be like, hey, my name's so-and-so, or just like go talk to someone. If you see someone standing there looking like they're not sure what to do, just go introduce yourself, right? Um, if you get introduced too, don't take it too personally that you stood there awkwardly and didn't know what to do, right? Um, but let's make this a time where we can really like connect and get to know people and just welcome people, especially those of you who are more introverted. Like sometimes it takes taking that step uh to feel connected in a community. So let me pray for us. Uh God, we thank you so much uh for your love and your grace, and that even though your love looks nothing like the world's love, um, God, I just ask that you would help us to let it seep deep into our bones and into our hearts so that we could embody this different way of living in the world around us. So we could point more and more people to you, so we could love more and more people the way you want them to be loved. And God, give us the courage to do that. That even when the things you call us to do don't line up with what worldly wisdom is or what good advice is from the world's perspective, God, give us the courage to take those steps and to follow you. God, as we uh connect over coffee hour, just help us to connect, find the right people to talk to, um, help us to grow deeper as a community as we spend this time together. So we thank you for your love and your grace. And it's in your name we pray. Amen. Thanks.