95-55 – Wisdom Breakers – Hindrances to Wisdom

This sermon is Part 2 of the series "Wisdom Breakers" by Dr. Chuck Betters.

Wisdom Breakers is a study of the book of James. James tells us that as long as our faith is weak and if our faith is wavering, then we can never possess wisdom. When God calls us to fulfill his purpose, HE does not rescind that calling. Often times we can distracted or sidetracked with living out our mission. My identity in Christ is directly related to whether I understand what it means to be a bond servant of Jesus Christ. This is how James identifies himself in the opening of this book. Dr. Betters is about to explain that if we understand that our identity in Christ is that of bond servants to him, that is when we become a threat to the powers of Satan. Because then our identity is clear and we can serve the Lord to our fullest.

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Welcome to In His Grip with Dr. Chuck F. Betters, produced by Mark Inc. Ministries. Each In His Grip message is designed to help turn your hearts toward Jesus and equip you to walk by faith. Let's join Dr. Betters as he preaches today's message.

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That is what we have come this morning to do, Lord, to exalt you for who you are. Thank you for this very special time of worship that we've had thus far. Thank you that we can come into your presence with broken hearts, with open hands, with trembling hearts. Thank you, that we can come with our frustrations and our anxieties and our worries, our broken relationships, our strained marriages. Thank you, Lord, that we can come into your presence with thanksgiving in our hearts to give you praise. We know, Lord, that you know our hearts and that you examine our hearts, and that already you have begun that process this morning. Thank you for examining us carefully today. Help us as we continue to be examined and to explore these wonderful truths that are so clearly apparent in your word. And so bless us as we open the scriptures, as we look for application to our lives, and we'll give you the praise, the honor, and the glory in Jesus' name. Amen. This week was two years. In fact, even as I stand here this morning, two years ago, almost to the hour, uh, I was laying my hand on my son's casket, and we were singing at the grave site. Glorify thy name and all the earth. And we hope and pray that as these two years have passed, that we have glorified him in your presence, that you have seen in us and in our family not some sort of phoniness or plasticity, but real honest struggles and dealings with the issues of faith that can become very cliched. We hope that uh, as I have said over the years, the rubber meets the road when you go through pain and affliction. And uh what we have in the past considered to be painful, to be afflicting, we realized was nothing compared to what we have to experience now. We have the joy next Sunday of baptizing our little grandson, who is named after his uncle, who is now with the Lord. And so there are joys that come and there are cursings that come, there are blessings, there are struggles, there are trials, but all of them are designed to bring in us Christian maturity. It's interesting that in the past two Sundays I have made a couple of statements, and I want to show you how dangerous it is to make statements of faith. Two weeks ago, I stood up here and told you of an experience that I had where I test myself by going to the cemetery. I'm not a cemetery person, so when I do it, it's very rare. But I use it as a measuring stick of how well the healing is taking place. And I said something two weeks ago. I didn't know it at the time, but my wife sat in the pew and cringed when I said it. She had obviously greater insight than I did. I said that uh I really felt a peace that day, and that for the first time in nearly two years, I felt as though I had turned a corner. You remember me saying that? That I was releasing my son, and that for the first time I really felt like there was peace coming. The next three days were hell on earth. I cannot even begin to tell you what kind of a counterattack was launched at that point. Suffice it to say that I found myself remembering again and again and again what I had said that Sunday. It was like Satan kept throwing it up, saying, You said this, but I say this. And the next three days were torture. Last week, again, I made a statement. We talked about James chapter one, and the title of that message was Pain is Your Friend. Remember that? That we have to learn to examine our pain as a friend, that it is the means by which God brings us into an awareness of who He is and teaches us our absolute dependence upon Him. Sunday afternoon, three of my dear brothers in the Lord from this church and myself went to the Phillies game. And uh we spent a wonderful afternoon in fellowship together, and about the sixth inning of the game, I began to get a headache. Now, I suffer from headaches all the time. Ever since I can remember, I have had headaches. By midnight, I was in the most excruciating pain I have ever been in in my life. I threw up 12 times. I explained to my wife that when I had my hip replacement, that the most intense level of pain of surgery was five times less than this pain that I had. And for the next three days, I was in that pain. Not to the degree that I was Sunday and Monday. Even today, now we're seven days later, as I'm standing here in front of you, my head is still throbbing. And it's as though Satan said once again, you like pain, we'll give you some pain. The beauty of it all is that it's filtered through God's hands first. Satan just doesn't have blind permission to do whatever he wants to do. All of our pain, whether it be emotional two weeks ago, or physical last week, or spiritual, which is what I expect is going to happen this week, is filtered through a sovereign God's hands first. Last week we looked at the first four verses where this pastor James, who seems to be out of touch with the harsh realities of the suffering of the diaspora Christians, those who had been disseminated through significant trial, were facing some severe testings. And James, who is the bishop or the leader of the Christian church, somewhat comfortable in Jerusalem, makes this intriguing statement in verse 2, after he lays the foundation of calling himself a bond slave in verse 1, he says, consider it pure joy. My brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, you don't know how many times from Sunday afternoon until even this morning, I think you can even maybe hear it in my voice. There's a cloud in my body right now. You don't know how many times I repeated, Chuck, consider this joy, consider this joy. And in the other ear I was hearing Satan say, your God is deserting you. And uh I have tried to be honest with you in the past two years to a risky point where I know that things I say can be interpreted a thousand different ways when you walk out of here. Can I summarize for you what I believe the Lord is doing in my life, and that I believe is for your benefit that he is doing these things? One, I believe he is teaching me to be real in my faith and not plastic. That I think God is sick and tired of plastic Christianity. Christians are never supposed to doubt, and if they are hurting, they're never supposed to show it. And if they have questions, they're never supposed to express them. We are supposed to appear as though we walk around with peace and joy and contentment when our hearts are fractured and wounded and broken. I have tried to be real. You have been my family, our support. You've allowed me the luxury of preaching to you from weakness, while preaching to you at times from strength. And you have loved us either way. Now I know that there are times I make statements up here that maybe cause you to worry a little bit about what's he doing or what's he up to. There's no hidden agenda. I'm being as honest with you as I possibly know how to be. God is teaching me some very important lessons about wisdom. And, you know, when you're a young pastor and you're starting out in ministry, you tend to think that the world is at your fingertips and you know it all. And I honestly admit there were times in my experience as a pastor where because someone wasn't, quote, as spiritual as I was, that they knew less than I did or do. Maybe because I was theologically trained, and he or she was just some little old lady or little old man on the back row of the church, that they had nothing to offer me. Early on in the ministry, I think that mindset of pride was there. But as I review 27 years of ministry, again and again and again, God keeps chopping me down, chopping me down, chopping me down. And I would be a very foolish pastor if in the teaching of those lessons or the learning of those lessons, I didn't teach them also to you. So what you see is what you get. All the warts, all the inconsistencies, and all the failures. What I have tried to do is show you how God has directed me back to his word. And yes, I wrestle with that word, and I struggle with that word, and that word at times becomes unbearable. There are times I want to just close up the Bible and throw it away and say, I don't want to hear that anymore. I already know that's true. I don't want to believe that. I don't want to have faith, I don't want to trust you. And there are times when that word so clearly speaks to my heart that that struggle, that wrestling match that goes on all week, the product of that is what you get on Sunday mornings. It's where I have come to. So it's filtered first through my experience, and then I seek to teach it to you. I think you have been very responsive to that. If your personal cards and letters and messages to me have said anything, they have said it is so good and so refreshing to hear about a Christianity that's practical, a Christianity that tells me where I am, a Christianity that helps me to deal with some of the frustrations and some of the pain and some of the heartache that I'm going through. Maybe you haven't lost a son, maybe you haven't lost a spouse. But I know that God gives us suffering as a friend, and to each of you is a lot. To each of you is a designated lot of suffering that you will have to endure. All of it, all of it is designed to bring you humbly before the foot of the cross and bow before a sovereign God and say to him, I submit. Now we fight that, we struggle with that. In fact, when you look at these first four verses, you almost want to grab James around the throat and say, Man, get real. Count it pure joy, my brothers. Not if you face, but whenever you face trials of a variety of kinds. And here's the reason: because you know, you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that, the end product of perseverance, so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. And we talked the last time we were together about the use of that word tellos, T-E-L-O-S, which speaks of or references a purpose in our sufferings, that God does not simply allow us to suffer without a purpose in mind. There was a reason we have gone through and are going through what we're experiencing now. There's a reason you have that bad doctor's report. There's a reason you lost that job. There's a reason that marriage is hurting. There's a reason you're in physical pain. There's a reason you're emotionally collapsing. There's a reason you are spiritually depressed. There is a reason why you're going through what you're going through. If you are submitted as duolos, bondservant, yielding your rights and saying to God, you and you alone are what matters. You are sovereign in my life. I bow before you. When you do that, telos begins to take shape. Purpose begins to take shape. This side of eternity, you may never know the full purpose. But every day as you begin to march through and experience pain, you're able to say, God, you are doing something in my life. And it's reaching toward a purpose. I must persevere because your desire, your plan is that I become complete, not lacking anything for which I was created. In fact, the word that he uses there for that completeness is referencing what was allotted to us at creation. When God created Adam and Eve, he created them to have perfect fellowship, perfect intimacy with him. No pain, no sorrow, no tears, no death, no struggles, but a perfect intimacy with God in the garden. But they fell and they lost what God had planned for them to have. Now, James is telling us that the telos, the purpose of my sufferings, is to cause me to yearn for that which will one day complete me, when I will be restored into God's communion of intimacy for which I was created, that because sin has fallen on the human race, and because I am born of a sinful nature, and that I am totally depraved and wicked, I can never experience to its fullness in this life. But the suffering becomes the testing ground, the springboard by which I grow dependent upon that kind of hope that one day he will make sense of all of it. This is what James is talking about. That's how you can take pain and suffering and grief, whether it be physical or emotional or spiritual, bow at the foot of the cross and say, God, you are one day going to restore to me all that I was called to be in and experience in you. Until that day I must suffer. Now notice what the purpose of the suffering is maturity and completeness, not lacking anything. But then notice verse 5. Right after he says, God's desire and God's design is that you lack nothing, he says in verse 5, but if any of you lack wisdom, if any of you lack wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously, who gives generously to all without finding fault. I have that underlined in my journal, because there's plenty of fault he could find in me. But when you bow and say, God, I don't have any wisdom. I don't have any wisdom. I'm lacking wisdom. In the ensuing examination of my spirit, God promises to give me that wisdom without finding fault in me. That includes all of the times I've shaken my fist in his face, I've questioned his sovereignty, I've questioned his love, I've questioned the validity of his word, I've questioned the integrity of his character, and all of those things, God says, if you bow before the cross and yield to my sovereignty and claim your ignorance of wisdom and seek it and ask for it in faith, without wavering, I will give it to you without criticizing, without finding fault. Now there's a loving father, there's a loving God. He says, I'll give it to you freely. I believe God is calling us to see pain as our friend. Count it pure joy, car, where we get the word grace from, where we get the word joy from. Count it all joy, count it an act of grace. I gotta tell you something. There are times where I've learned how to do that very well, and there are times when I'm not so good at it, and the reason is because I'm a control person. I like to be in control of my own emotions, my own happiness. And the moment we say we're submitting to a sovereign God, what we're saying is, God, my well-being and my pleasure and my circumstances and my relationships are now in your hands, and I yield that control, I can't change a thing, but you can. Now, the reason we don't do that is because to one degree or another, we are all control freaks. If I am going to be healed, Lord, I have to produce my own healing. That smacks in the face of what it means to be a bond slave. That's how James introduces himself. Pain can become a friend only after I see its purpose. Only after I take the long view, only after I understand the objective, that is completeness, for I am incomplete now. The objective of lacking nothing physically, emotionally, and spiritually. One day I will lack nothing. Pain has to be viewed from the top. Of Mount Perspective. You can't view pain from the valley. You have to view it from the top of Mount Perspective. I told you of a prayer that I wrote asking God to enable me to take the long view of pain so that in my life I may begin to grasp the telos, the purpose for this world. I said, Lord, help me to endure my circumstances with hope that one day it's all going to make sense. One day you will physically, emotionally, and spiritually complete me, so that I will lack none of the things that I currently do. Until that day, Lord, teach me to see pain as a grace builder, for I am your bondservant. No sooner did I say amen to that than I was attacked with probably the most intense pain I've ever been in in my life. Not if you're tried, when you're tried. Knowing that the trials are going to come in a variety of shapes and sizes, some minor, some major, some easy to bear, some almost impossible to bear. But knowing this, God is going to filter it through his hands and complete a purpose. We ended that message with, believe it or not, an Arabic proverb, which is so clearly definitive of this passage. Sunshine only creates only a desert. Now, let's talk about wisdom. James 1, beginning with verse 5. If any of you lacks wisdom, anybody qualify here? I qualify. You know what wisdom is? I want to give you a definition. I believe is a working definition of wisdom. Now, wisdom is going to demand some stability in your life. Wisdom is going to demand that you see your circumstances from a different perspective, from the top of Mount Perspective, if you will. Wisdom, or sophros in the Greek, wisdom is the knowledge of how to regulate my relationship with God. Think about that a minute. How to respond in godliness to God when God does something I don't understand. Wisdom is the knowledge of how to regulate my relationship with God, especially when God does something I neither understand, comprehend, or like. When either circumstances break down, relationships break down, or my intimacy with Christ breaks down, and I don't know how to respond. Wisdom, which is what I lack, says I am going to be given a knowledge of how to regulate my responses to God. Because remember what we said earlier? All of what comes to us in the form of suffering is filtered through God's hands first. So ultimately, you have to come back to God and you have to say, God, you allowed this to happen in my life for a telos, for a purpose. Now, Lord, teach me how to respond and to regulate my actions on that basis. Wisdom views life from God's perspective. How to respond in godliness when God does something that I don't understand and I don't like. Notice what he says there in verse 5. If any of you lacks wisdom, here's what you do: ask God. Sound simple? Present imperative verb, which means keep on asking God. Moment by moment, second by second. You see, we are fluid people. We don't stand still. In any given day, I will have experiences both in circumstances as I relate to my circumstances and in relationships as I relate to my relationships that are manifold, perhaps even thousands. How do I regulate my response to those circumstances or those relationships when I don't understand what's going on? He says, ask God. You know what's implied in that is a praying without ceasing. It's an attitude of prayer, it's an attitude of communion. Look, if you're into praying, spot prayers, if you're into praying emergency kit prayers, band-aid prayers, pie in the sky prayers, don't even bother thinking about the word wisdom. You'll never have it. If the only time you pray, if the only time you commune with God is when you're in trouble, if the only time you commune with God is when you want something, if you do not have a mindset of prayer that takes you through any given day, consistently asking Him for wisdom pertaining to your circumstances and your relationships with other people, if you do not have that mindset, consistently praying throughout the course of the day, but only pray in emergency situations, you will never have wisdom. You'll always be down in the valley looking at somebody else at the top of the mountain who does have wisdom. And if you are going through life pain-free with no testing and no trial and no temptation, you'll never experience the blessings of wisdom. Never. That's why pain is your friend. Verse 5: if you lack wisdom, number one, ask God, who gives generously to all without criticism or finding fault, and it will be given him. But then he says this but when he asks, he must believe and not doubt. So we are to ask, but we are to ask in faith. We are not to waver. This is the key. This is the secret. We are to ask in faith to believe in the promises of God one day and to doubt them the next day in a pattern of inconsistency is to attempt to approach God on the basis of human control, failing to understand that without faith it is impossible to please God. You see, I must regulate my relationship to God, but that relationship is doomed to failure. If I am an ebb and flow Christian, tied in one day, tied out the next, like the waves of the sea, driven by the wind and tossed. Wisdom demands a stability of prayer life. That's where the asking is. A stability of faith. But now here's the point. I don't know about you, but even making those statements makes me feel a little guilty. Make you feel a little guilty? You know why? I'll tell you why. Because there are many times that my faith is weak. Maybe not ebb and flow type weak, but maybe it is. But weak nonetheless. James is telling us, don't think that you'll ever have perspective. You'll never have wisdom. As long as you waver, as long as your faith is weak, you'll never have wisdom. You'll never be able to put the puzzle parts together and bow in submission to God and say that all things work together for good to them who love God. You'll never be able to do that. So clearly the question becomes if that's true, if unstable, weak, inconsistent faith is the roadblock to me understanding and gaining perspective from God and having wisdom and knowledge as to how I am to regulate my responses to God's intervention in my life. If weak faith is the problem, then what I need to understand is what are the things? What are the things that cause me to have weak faith? These are probably the most important principles you're going to hear in this message. And I'm going to take my remaining time and I am going to give you an opportunity to put down in writing things that you're going to need. If you don't need them already because of the pain you're going through now, you will need them someday when you go through intense pain. Maybe you'll be able to come back to your journal and recall this sermon because I'm going to tell you these are some of the most important principles you're ever going to learn concerning the roadblocks or the hindrances to wisdom. The reason I don't have wisdom is because I have weak faith. And the reason I have weak faith is because of these principles. And I want to give them to you. I probably won't finish them today, probably finish them next week. But let's see how far we can go. Here is number one. One of the main reasons our faith becomes weak is because we have concluded that the pain is too great. The pain is too great. You know, in essence, what we're saying? Take your Bibles, please. Go over to 1 Corinthians and look with me at chapter 10. A very familiar passage. You've heard this passage before. It's marked in yellow in my Bible. Maybe yellow for cowardiceness, I don't know, but it's there. What we're saying is, God, you lied to me. You lied to me. Because First Corinthians chapter 10, verse 13 is not true. God said, no temptation. What's that first word in verse 13? No temptation has seized you. Now notice the aspect of suddenness. Notice the dimension of surprise. You weren't expecting this invasion. No temptation has seized you. That isn't common to all men. Now I'll put it in my own language. I'm not the only father who's lost a child. Non-Christian people lose children all the time. I have been amazed at how many articles I'm reading in the paper about parents losing children. I wondered if those same numbers of people were losing children prior to when we lost our son. Or was I that dense and did not sense their pain that much? So there are common experiences, there are common tragedies, there are common temptations. What's the first word of verse 13? No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. What's the next word? And God is faithful. But the pain's too great. Hindrance to wisdom. Faith breaks down the moment we say, this pain is too great. God, you are not faithful. He will not let you be tempted. Remember what we said about all trials and testings are filtered through his hand first. Nothing comes to your life as a Christian that isn't without a purpose. He says, No temptation has suddenly come on you that isn't common to all men. God is faithful, he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. Boy, you don't know how many times I've claimed that verse in the past two years. This is unbearable. But when you are tempted, not if, when, when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out. Now notice what he doesn't say. He doesn't say that the way out is to remove the temptation. Take this away. This pain's too great. It's too horrible. Take it away. I can't tolerate it anymore. You've given me more than I can handle. Breakdown of faith, breakdown of wisdom. Notice he doesn't say that the way of escape is to remove the trial. He says, No, that's not the way I work. You're going to have to walk through the trial, and what I will do is provide the way of escape, the light at the end of the tunnel, for you to walk through it and stand up under it. You're going to have to walk through this. There is no way of escape except to walk through it, and I'm going to walk you through it. What do we say? We say that the pain is just too great. Breakdown of faith, breakdown of wisdom. The moment you begin to see the circumstances in your life as so painful that God has forsaken you is the moment you lose perspective. The moment your faith breaks down and you are on your way to one of the greatest tragedies you'll ever experience spiritually. I know because I've been there. Number two. Turn to Colossians chapter 3. I want you to look with me at verse 15. Let me read the scripture, then I'll give you the principle. Colossians 3, 15. Let the peace of Christ umpire, rule, arbitrate, rule in your hearts. Well, that involves, by the way, if peace of Christ has to rule on something, if the peace of Christ has to arbitrate something, that implies what? That there is a conflict. There's a conflict in my heart. There's an emerging conflict in my heart that says, Lord, this pain is too great, you have forsaken me, and on the other hand, but God is faithful, he will never leave you. There's the conflict. He says, Now let the peace of Christ be the final arbiter. Since as members of one body you were called to peace. God wants you to have peace. You say, How can I have peace when my pants are on fire? How can I have peace when Satan has thrown gasoline all over me and lit the match? And Lord, you permitted it. You allowed it. What kind of peace are you talking about here? Watch. And be thankful. You ever notice how countercultural our faith is? Be thankful. That my body's on fire. Be thankful? Well, how am I supposed to be thankful? Well, here it is. Next verse. Let the word of Christ dwell, habitat, set up tabernacle. Let the word of Christ tabernacle in you richly. Now watch this. As you teach and admonish one another with all, there's that word again, wisdom. And as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude, there's the word gratitude, thankfulness, in your hearts to God. Hindrance to wisdom, hindrance to faith, blocking the pathway to wisdom is failure to allow the word of Christ to make its dwelling. In other words, refusing to be comforted by the promises of God. Some well-meaning Christian comes up to you and says, But haven't you read this scripture? And you say what? I don't want to hear it. Some preacher preaches and he says something that impacts you. I don't want to hear it. Somebody comes along and opens up the worshiping dimension of our experience before God that we need to sing to one another, encourage one another, help one another by both privately and publicly worshiping God. Turn the sadness into a song. Turn the fire of pain into a doxology of praise. Take what is going on and say, Lord, your name be glorified. That's what I did with the headache. I said, Lord, this is incredible pain. I've never had anything like it in my life. There's a reason this is happening, and I know why. The counterattack has been launched because I opened up my big mouth on Sunday morning and told everybody this was what was going to happen. Pain is your friend. But Lord, you be praised through this. Don't allow me to take it out on the people closest to me. If you've chosen for me to suffer this, then let me suffer it. Let me glorify you through it. Seven days later, my head's still pounding. To God be the glory. Take the pain and turn it into a doxology. Give gratitude. And then he says, verse 17, whatever you do, whether in word or deed, whatever you say or do, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father through him. Number three. Faith breaks down and wisdom is lost. Whenever there is an unconfessed, known or unknown sin in my life that has ruptured my relationship with God. You know, we don't like to talk about our private lives. We don't like to talk about what goes on behind closed doors or what goes on in secret. Husbands often do not tell their wives what they're experiencing in the way of temptations. Maybe they're afraid of what she's going to say or think. Wives are often afraid to tell their husbands likewise. Children find it difficult to confide in their parents. Parents are afraid to hear what their children might be going through. You know why children are so unwise? Because they haven't learned the power dynamic behind sin. They don't know its full impact and the consequences of a ruptured relationship with God. Unknown sin is no excuse. You say, wait a minute, if I don't know that I'm sinning, how is it sin? Ask God to reveal to you even your unknown sins. Known sin is even worse. Known sin, which is a known violation where you know that what you're doing is wrong is so offensive to God that He has no choice but to discipline you. And while we're in the heat of discipline, it is very difficult to have wisdom. You know, if you have a fractured relationship with someone, it taints everything else that happens, doesn't it? If you have a fractured relationship, if you are carrying a grudge towards someone, if there's a violation or a rift in your relationship with someone, doesn't it affect everything else in terms of that relationship? I mean, how do you go out and party with that person? How do you go out and greet that person in church? How do you sit together, as Chuck said this morning, how do you sit with somebody you can't even look at, you can't even stand, and worship God? How can a marriage be so destroyed from within? And somehow or another, in the secretness of your home, you think that God doesn't see, and yet you come to church, put on the plastic smile, praise God, and expect Him to bless, and He doesn't, and you want to know why? Because the relationship with God has been ruptured by unconfessed sin. 1 John 1 9 says, if we confess our sins, you know what the word confess there means? To agree with God. He's not talking to non-believers in 1 John 1 9, friends. You don't want to use that verse to lead somebody to Christ. That verse is not talking about non-Christians, it's talking about believers. It's talking about you who are sitting here right now harboring known and unknown sin in your life, and you want to know why you don't have perspective, why you don't have wisdom. He's talking to believers, and he says, if you confess your sins, the word confess there means to agree with God. That means prior to confessing, you don't agree with God. In fact, what you may have done and more than likely have done is you have not only rationalized that the sin, which is a wrong, has now become a right, but now what you do with rationalizing the wrong is you begin to criticize those who point it out to you. You following me? We not only rationalize that what we did that was wrong has now become right, but we criticize those who tell us that that wrong is wrong. We find fault in the preacher, or find fault in the church, or find fault in the husband, or find fault in the child, or find fault with the employer, or find fault with the neighbor. Anything but to blame ourselves and to agree with God. He says, but if you confess your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive the sin, to cleanse us from that unrighteousness, and inevitably to restore what was ruptured back to wholeness. How can we ever read the mind of God when our relationship to Him is ruptured by unconfessed sin? The pain is too great, the pain is too great, the disciplines are too inconsistent, the relationship with God has been ruptured due to unconfessed sin. Let me give you a fourth one as we close. The fourth one is this you know what breaks down faith? Pride. Who is in control? Who is in control? I'm a control freak. My kids will tell you that. I came by it naturally. Both of my parents are control people. My mom's sitting right here. She probably will deny it. But she's a control person just like I am. I'm very much like her. When I give an assignment to somebody to put together something in the house, last night we were moving bedroom furniture, or Chuck and Dan were moving the furniture, and they were both laughing, and I knew why they were laughing because I asked them to do it, and then I stood there and told them how to do it. That's what my mother does. She does the same thing, same identical thing. Who's in control? We can laugh at that, but boy, I'll tell you, expand that and extend that into your walk with God. You know what happens? You get into some very serious shouting matches with God. No, Lord, I'm in control. No, Chuck, I'm in control. No, Lord, I'm in control. No, Chuck, I'm in control. No, Lord, I'm in control. No response, Lord? How come you didn't say Chuck? I'm in control. Lord? Lord? Hello? Lord? Where are you, Lord? See, the problem is, I'm all the way down the road saying, Lord, I'm in control. And he's all the way back here waiting for me to come back. And he'll say, go ahead. Enjoy yourself, control freak. Oh, you know what I'm talking about, don't you? Enjoy yourself, control freak. When you're ready, I'll be right where I was when you left me. Let's close with this scripture. First Peter chapter five. Who's in control? First Peter chapter five. Look with me at verse five. Young men, he's not talking about age-wise, he's talking about maturity-wise. Here's an old spokesman who was quite prone to wander. Many times Peter found himself down the road arguing with God, and God was nowhere to be found. And suddenly he turns around and says, Lord, where are you? And the Lord signals him, I'm right where I was when you left me. So wise Peter could say, young men, in the same way, be submissive to those who are elder or older. Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another. Why? Because God, literal translation, treats as an enemy the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Now, which of the two do you want to be? Humble yourselves, therefore, under, not on top of, not beside, not in control of, but under God's mighty hand, so that he may exalt you, lift you up in due time. We have a problem with those last three words. What lift it up right now, Lord? Well, Chuck, how long did it take you to drift? Months. Well, it might take you months to be lifted up. Casting all your anxiety on him. How much of it? All of it. Why? Because he could care two licks for you. Right? Who cares for you like Christ cares for you? You know there's only one person I know of whose heart is more broken over our tragedy than ours is, and that's God's. When Jesus faced death, he wept. He wept in its presence because death grieves the heart of God. Humble yourself under his mighty hand. And he'll exalt you. He'll give you wisdom in due time. Cast all your care on him because he cares for you. Hindrances to wisdom. Faith destroyers. We've looked at four of them. We've got a bunch more to go, but you'll have to wait until next week. Let's pray. Lord, you are so good to us, and we deserve so little. Your faith never fails, ours always fails. So teach us how to depend on the faith of Christ. Teach us, Lord, how to have wisdom, to learn what the roadblocks are, to learn what the faith destroyers are. Pride. Belief that the pain is too great. Unconfessed sin that has ruptured our relationship with you. Failure to allow the word to habitat, to indwell, to tabernacle in us in worship. Lord, over the next week or so, may these truths become very evident to these your people who have sat so patiently and listened.

SPEAKER_02 54:36

Now may the grace of God, the love of our Lord and our Savior, Jesus the Christ, the very presence, person, and power of his Holy Spirit abide with each of you now until Christ comes again and forevermore. And all God's people said.