Knowing God - God is Wisdom

1 Corinthians 1-3

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SPEAKER_00 0:12

How's it going? Susie's great. How's the rest of you guys? All right. Welcome to Point Community Church. Hey, I'm glad you're here. If you don't know who I am, which is probably likely, I don't know why I said that. My name's Alex. I am normally the one who is uh gets to lead worship, but I'm blessed to have such an awesome team and uh Jada and Lannon and the rest of you guys. Thank you guys for leading us this morning. Um yes, that is I was okay with it. Um yeah, I'm Alex, and uh it's my uh it's my privilege to be able to teach you guys this morning. We are continuing, as you probably could have guessed, we are continuing our series on knowing God. Right? It's our study of who is God, what is he like, right? Not just as a theological concept, not just as a subject to be studied, but actually as a person that we can know, a person that we can have a real relationship with. And church, just to remind you guys, what we're doing is pretty, is pretty heavy because we're actually doing theology together as a church. So what theology means is the study of God. That's all it means. It's a fancy word, it just means the study of God. And really that's the business of every church, it's the business of every Christian, but that's what we've been doing together as a church. We've been studying God. We want to know Him. And as we've gone through these last several weeks together, I've really felt, as I'm sure you guys have, just the weight of how vast, how mysterious, and how wonderful, but also even challenging God is. God is Himself, He is uh beyond our comprehension, He is full of all sorts of attributes that are wonderful and glorious, and a lot that are difficult for us. And uh my heart is, and I know the heart of the rest of us here at Point, is that as we take this journey together, this journey that's bumpy, it's difficult, but worth having, that we would press into one another, that we would really press into unity together as we do this. Um we realize that we're on a journey together as God's people, but that we're a family taking it together. And I want us to take care, I want us to just take a moment to really just have sober judgment and sober minds this morning because as God's people, we have to be careful that what we're doing here at church, or just any church really, we have to be careful that we're not just playing theological games or just kind of play acting or just having an academic exercise or just posturing here, okay? It's very dangerous to turn the worship of God and the study of his word into just a mental or academic exercise because there's no fruit in it. That's what the Apostle Paul tells young Timothy in the book of 1 Timothy, um, chapter 1, he says this. The goal of our instruction, the goal of our instruction is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. Some have deviated from these and have turned aside to fruitless discussion. They want to be teachers of the law, although they don't understand what they're saying or what they're insisting on. Alright. These sermons, these lessons, these classes we go to, our life groups, encounter student ministry, anything that this church does, anything in the life of our church that is not motivated and rooted in love is ultimately fruitless. No matter how like correct it may seem, if we are not filled with love for God and for one another, it's pointless. Because it will lack the power of God's spirit in it. Think about this. We could build a cathedral here on Old San Antonio Road, which would be a little weird, it wouldn't really fit in with the community, but we could build a cathedral. We could have the nicest church building in South Austin. It'd be huge, expansive. We could have the world's most talented worship band, you could have the world's best preachers, we could have all the right programs and all the right things going on here. But if we don't have love, if we don't have love, then according to God's word, it's completely pointless, right? If I don't have love for you guys and I'm up here teaching, I might as well be speaking German, okay? Because it's pointless. And there's a verse in 1 Corinthians that you've often heard it read at weddings, but I want you as we read this together this morning to really apply it to us as a body, to us as a family, to us as a church community, because that's what I think it's referring to. If I speak human or angelic languages, but I do not have love, I'm a sounding gong or a clinging symbol. If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains, but I do not have love, I'm nothing. If I donate all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body in order to boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love does not envy, it is not boastful, is not conceited, does not act improperly, is not selfish, is not provoked, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. So, I don't know to what degree you guys get the sense of this or are aware of it, but this year at point has been really, really challenging. It's been a tough year in the life of our church body for a number of reasons. We tried to make some changes and to grow in like how are we equipping everyone in the church body to utilize our gifts? How are we calling people to really live out their Christian life to the fullest? Are we a cap to that as leadership? Like, are we just like running everything and not really allowing people to flourish? Started that, and you know, this year, just as a leadership, I mean, it's been hard. We've kind of blown it a few times communicating things. Um, there's been drama, there's been miscommunication, just to be really frank. There's been budget uh stuff that we've been struggling with. Okay, it hasn't been easy. Maybe some of you aren't aware of that, but probably a lot of y'all are, that it's been a really challenging year for us here at Point Community Church, and I'm okay with saying that. Um and I want to remind us this morning while we're here. Who are we? What is Point Community Church designed to be, right? We are a community, we are a group of people that desperately need Jesus. We need Jesus. He is our number one need and the number one focus of all that we should do here. Jesus Christ. We need to remember that if tomorrow this building was gone, it was an open field, right? If the bank account dried up completely, if everything was gone and this is a pasture, right, and we were all still here, we would be no less God's church. We would be no less Point Community Church. Because what the church is, is not a series of um programs, it's not a gathering, it's not a place, it's not a location. What the church is, is God's people. As simple and as complex as that. That's what the church is. It's God's people. If we cling to the gospel here at point, if we remember who we are, if we remember who Jesus is and what he's done for us, and we commit to loving him and loving one another, then our joy will not be able to be taken away from us, right? Other things can. Other things can go. But if we have Jesus, if we have his Holy Spirit and we have one another, we actually have all that we need. Gotta remember that Christ died. He died for us, church. He died that we would be his people, that we would be unified in our love for one another. Not that we'd be posturing or having power struggles, but that by his spirit we would be a community of people who lay down our lives, who are a community of servants to one another. God loves Point Community Church. I know it. He loves you individually, he loves us as a community. And we must, must love one another intentionally, with intention. Love is a choice most of the time. It is a feeling, yes. But we can choose as Point Community Church to commit to one another, to love one another, to be unified with one another, to fight for unity. Unity that's not just an agreement on every little thing. That's not really what God's unity is. What the kind of unity is, is agreement on a few really big things. A few really big things. Jesus says this. But seek his kingdom, and these things will be provided for you. Don't be afraid, little flock, because your father delights to give you the kingdom. God's a good father. If we seek his kingdom, he will take care of us. Alright? I don't want us to be afraid here. We have no reason to fear. We have a God, we have a Jesus who is the head of this church, and he is good to us, and he will be with us as we fight to love one another. Anyway, none of that has anything to do with God's wisdom, which is what we're talking about today. But now we're gonna dig into that. Y'all ready? Cool. Everyone is very quiet. Alright. How about this? How about this? I'm gonna begin with a quote I found this week. Alright, I really like this. I was like, okay. How do we understand wisdom? First question is you've got to understand what's the difference between intelligence or knowledge and wisdom. So I found this quote. Intelligence is knowing a tomato as a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad. Isn't that awesome? So I found that this week. I think it's really good. And we're talking about God's wisdom this morning. We're not talking about God's intelligence or knowledge, we're talking about his wisdom. So wisdom's more than just knowledge. People can be very intelligent and still be incredibly foolish. Alright? I'm gonna give you an example, not of my great intelligence, but of my foolishness. So now I was 22, which is senior in college. Okay, senior in college, I was about to get a degree, and uh I had to wash the dishes. Now, up until this point in my life, I had never washed dishes in a dishwasher. I'd hand washed dishes, I'd never used a dishwasher before, I know, I know, I know. I was 22 and I never used a dishwasher. And so I'm like, I'm gonna take initiative. What I'm gonna do is I'm going to load the dishwasher, take this dish soap, I'm gonna pour it in the dishwashing thing and start the dishwasher. Some of you guys are ahead of me. Alright, so we came back to the apartment, I don't know, 45 minutes later, and we had very clean floors. Because what had happened was the entire place was covered in bubbles. Dude, and I had to call the maintenance person, and he was like, What happened? And I was like, I'm an idiot, and it was really, really embarrassing. But I did get wiser that day, okay? I learned that there's a difference between dish soap and dishwasher soap, right? It's very important. Um another example. Um think of a guy like Stephen Hawking, right? Super smart guy. Understood all sorts of mysteries about the universe, incredibly intelligent scientist, understood most of the inner workings of like black holes, stars, time, space, all sorts of crazy stuff. And he died an atheist. Now you're saying, okay, well, he knew more about the way the universe works. He missed the forest for the trees. He didn't see that all of this complexity, all this beauty, what it does is it points us back to a creator, right? And he missed that. Incredibly intelligent, but incredibly unwise and incredibly foolish. Because wisdom is more than just knowledge, okay? What wisdom is, is it's knowledge joined with insight and action. Okay, so wisdom is knowledge with insight and action, okay? Wayne Gruden, we've been quoting him a lot this series because he has a book called Systematic Theology, which is a really good way of learning scriptures. He says this about what God's wisdom is. He says, God's wisdom means that God always chooses the best goals and the best means to those goals. So wisdom means God always chooses the best goals and the best means to those goals. It goes beyond the idea of God just knowing all things, just in his mind, just knowing knowledge, and specifies that his decisions about what he's going to do are always wise decisions. Does that make sense to you guys? You see the difference between wisdom and knowledge. Alright. So if I were to explain this to my four-year-old daughter Nora, I actually think this is a really good definition. Um I was going to say this is what it means that God is wise. It means that he knows what's best and he does what's best. God knows what's best and he does what's best. Are you all tracking with me? Great, awesome. So we've already established a few weeks ago, we studied the fact that God is all-knowing, right? God knows everything. Every little thing that is happening in the universe that will happen is and has happened. And God's all-powerful, right? He can do absolutely anything. He's not limited. There's nothing he's unable to do except go against his character. There's nothing in his power that he's unable to do. And what's so good is that this all-powerful, all-going, knowing God also is the God that has complete wisdom. So we can trust the things that he does. We can trust that his wise plans won't fail, because behind them is perfect knowledge, perfect power, and also we'll get to this later, perfect goodness. Alright? God is also perfectly good. Just a few verses out of many, many, many that we could choose that just basically affirm that God is wise, okay? Romans 16, 27. They call it it calls him the only wise God, ascribes wisdom to God. Job 12, with him are wisdom and might. Romans eleven. Oh the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments, how inscrutable his ways. For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor, who has given him a gift that he might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen. So the good news is, the good news is that as Christians, God is perfect in his wisdom, and the goals, his wise goals that he is working towards are his glory and the salvation and rescue of the church through the cross of Jesus. The wise goals that God is working towards are his glory and the salvation and rescue of his bride, his children, his people, right? So we get to rejoice as Christians. God's wise plans that are for sure going to happen involve us being rescued. They involve us being saved, right? Us being his children, right? So one thing that I like to just remember is that there was this unsolvable problem. The great tragedy of being a human being. What is it? The great tragedy of being a human being is that each one of us is broken. By being broken, what I mean is we are sinful. We make choices that oppose God. And it actually says in Scripture that people that don't, that aren't Christians, actually hate God. That's who we are. We are sinful. And God, our creator, the one we were designed to be with, the one we were designed to find our satisfaction and hope in, is a just God. He's a holy God. He's a righteous God. And what that means is He can't just ignore sin. Right? To ignore sin would be unjust. We, as human beings, could not do anything about it. We couldn't live perfect lives, right? Are you all tracking with me? Do you see how this would be a problem? How can we live with God if we're sinful and he's holy? This is the great dilemma of humankind, right? And God in his wisdom thought of a plan. He thought of a plan that we would not have thought of. He found the solution, which is that he himself, right? That God himself would come and rescue us. Not to ignore our sin, but to actually take it upon himself. That's what's so amazing about Jesus. That's what's so amazing about the cross. This was God's wise plan to rescue for himself his church. That he himself would bear the weight of sin. That perfect justice was poured out on Jesus and grace was given to us as God's children. So this reality that we're saved completely by grace through faith, not the result of anything that we did, is some crazy God wisdom. Okay, what I mean by that is it's not something that human beings, I believe, would have just come up with on our own. Okay, because if you look at every man-made religion, every system of faith, at least the vast majority that I'm aware of, this is what they tend to involve, all right? There is a certain code or set of precepts that you keep to achieve something. Now, whether it's favor from God or like be absolved of your sins, even something like Buddhism, right? There's not really a deity that you're appeasing, but if you live your life in a certain way and achieve a certain state, then you will get this reward. That's typically how human beings come up with systems of religion. We come up with systems that involve rules and regulations that we can keep, and if we keep, then there is dispensed what we want. Okay? That is not Christianity. That is not Christianity. What Christianity is, is that we were a people completely unable to improve ourselves, spiritually dead, Ephesians 2, spiritually dead, unable to be alive, and God came in and rescued us. God did away with our sin. God gave us new life, completely by his grace, favor undeserved, right?

unknown 18:21

C.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

S. Lewis says this about the fact that one of the reasons he believes that our faith is true is because it's not something we would have made up. He says, reality, in fact, is usually something you could not have guessed. That is one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It is a religion that you could not have guessed. If it offered us just the kind of universe we had always expected, I should feel we were making it up. But in fact, it is not the sort of thing anyone would have made up. It has just that strange twist about it that real things have. So salvation by grace through faith. Alright, it seems to us kind of old hat. Maybe we're familiar with that. We've believed it for a long time. But we have to remember that what Paul says in the book of Ephesians is that actually this gospel was this hidden wisdom from God, now revealed in its fullness to us in the church. That this was a mystery hidden from human beings for thousands of years, that this is God's wisdom fully revealed. All his wisdom in the gospel of Jesus. It's the pinnacle of God's plan, the pinnacle of his heart and his wisdom. The cross of Jesus. So the hard news for us, church, is that yes, God's wisdom is at work for his glory and our good. But because God's wisdom is so far above ours, right? We've talked about this verse a number of times. Isaiah 55, 9, 10. His ways are higher than our ways, his thoughts higher than our thoughts, right? His wisdom far surpasses ours. So the ways that God is wisely choosing to bring these things about, his glory and our good and our salvation and our sanctification, the ways he chooses to do this are often really confusing for us. They're often really challenging for us, and they tend to involve suffering. And I don't know about you guys, but when I'm in the middle of suffering, I don't always understand the end result. Because we can't see the future, right? God sees everything, he knows exactly what he's doing. But for us, when we're in it, we're like this, I don't get it. God, I don't get it right now. Okay? And that's just the reality. I'm gonna get more to back. More, we're gonna get back to that more later. I found it. You guys are worried about me. I got there. But before we do, it's gonna be one of the last things we talk about. But before we do that, I want to read this um scripture from 1 Corinthians, okay? And I want to encourage you, if you read along with our Bible plan here at point, um, uh, 1 Corinthians 1, 2, and 3 are all on the on the Bible reading plan this week. And the reason is, is because the first three chapters of 1 Corinthians, Paul's letter to the church at Corinth, are massively just all about God's wisdom. Alright, so if you want to read about God's wisdom, the majority of our texts this morning are coming from 1 Corinthians. And I'd really encourage you guys to read it, okay, just so you have some context with what we're talking about. So this is 1 Corinthians chapter 1. This is Paul talking. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. But it is God's power to those that are being saved, for it's written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will set aside the understanding of the experts. Where is the philosopher? Where's the scholar? Where's the debater of this age? Hasn't God made the world's wisdom foolish? For since in God's wisdom the world did not know God through wisdom, that is human wisdom, God was pleased to save those who believed through the foolishness of the message preached. For the Jews ask for signs, and the Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and the foolishness to the Gentiles. Yet To those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is God's power and God's wisdom. You see that? Christ is God's power and God's wisdom. Because God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength. Alright, so Paul makes it really clear that God's wisdom and God's gospel are absolutely foolish to the world. So the question is: if God is all-wise and all-powerful and all-knowing, what makes the message of the cross? What makes God's wisdom foolish to the world? Okay, a lot of reasons, but I thought of three. Alright, we're just going to do three. What are three reasons why the world finds God's wisdom foolish? Well, reason number one is because God's wisdom, which is the gospel, right? Which is Christ, God's wisdom is understood and received supernaturally through the new birth, being born again, the Holy Spirit and God's word. To receive God's wisdom takes God's supernatural help. We need God's help. 1 Corinthians chapter 2. The natural person, which means the person that is not a Christian, the unsaved person, does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they're folly to him, and he's not able to understand them because they're spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. We as Christians have the Holy Spirit in us. Gives us the mind of Christ. Moving on. This is 2 Corinthians 4. In their case, meaning non-believers, the God of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. There is a blindness. There's a spiritual blindness that affects the human race. And the only cure is God. The only cure is God coming down, making us new, opening our eyes, making scales fall off, like Saul, Acts chapter 9, right? We need supernatural aid because without it, we're blind. We need God to open our eyes and to open our minds. Until a man or a woman has been born again, which is what Jesus says in John chapter 3 to Nicodemus, he says that what is necessary for us is to be born again. And until we are brought from death to life, which is what Ephesians 2 says happens to us, and until we believe and become a new creation, which is what 2 Corinthians 5 says we are. Right? We are born again. Rebirth. Brought from being spiritually corpse-like, spiritually dead, to being alive, to being literally made a new type of creature, a new being. We are literally a new creation in Jesus. You are not the same as you were before. You are a new creation. Until that happens, the gospel and God's wisdom is complete foolishness. It makes no sense because, like Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2, it is spiritually discerned. We need the Holy Spirit to help us. I mean, just think about how offensive some of the things that we believe and preach are. You're saying, like, someone would be preaching the gospel, like, you're saying I need a Savior? You're saying I'm sinful and I'm hopeless. Um I'm better than my neighbor. I'm not that bad. Like, I'm a good person. People don't get it, right? You need the Spirit has to reveal that to us. The Spirit has to reveal to people their need for God and the fact that He is true and real. Now, what's amazing is that one of my favorite things about being a Christian, being a follower of Jesus, is that, yes, a huge change happens in the core of who we are when we follow Jesus, when we receive Him. We become a new creation. His Spirit comes and lives inside, gives us a new mind, new desires, a new understanding of God. And it gives us the ability to turn away from sin and to grow in our likeness to Christ. This is all possible only because the Spirit lives in us, right? 1 Corinthians 2, let's go back. These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except the Spirit of that person which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. Do you understand what that's saying? It's saying, us in Jesus who have the Holy Spirit have inside of us God, the God that comp the Holy Spirit who completely understands the mind of God the Father. We have that inside us, giving us knowledge, giving us insight, giving us peaks into God's wisdom. That is only possible because God Himself takes up residence in us as believers, makes us new. That's why Paul can say we have the mind of Christ. As believers, we have the Spirit in us. Because of that, we're able to receive the gospel and to understand, although not fully, God's wisdom. That's why Proverbs 9.10, you've heard this verse a ton. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is insight. Well, take that back. Without fear of the Lord, there is no wisdom. There is no true wisdom. It is a prerequisite to being a wise person, is to know God, to believe in him. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. So God's given us his spirit. He's given us his word, even. He's given us his word that we'd grow in wisdom and in our understanding of him and our obedience to his will. I mean, 2 Timothy says the scriptures are able to make us wise as we read the Bible, empowered by the Spirit. It makes us wise. But here's the second way. Second way, and second reason I think that the world finds God's wisdom foolish. It's because the ways of God's kingdom are opposite. They are opposed to the world's systems. The kingdom is upside down, as some people have said it. God's kingdom is completely contrary to the way of the world. 1 Corinthians 3. Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he's wise in this age, let him become a fool, that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God, for it is written, He catches the wise in their craftiness. And again, the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they're futile. So to be a follower of Jesus, to be a Christian, means to live a life that will look to the world around us like idiocy. It will look to the world around us like we're lunatics. Okay? Because God's wisdom is completely ridiculous to the world. Here's a few examples. Jesus followers, by God's Spirit, can have joy and victory and peace in the midst of some of the most painful experiences of their lives. And that makes absolutely no sense to the world. Think about if you if you lose a member of your family that you know as a Christian, and people, you know, you're talking to people and you're like, man, praise God. I'm so pumped for them because I know where they are. They're with Jesus. I'm going to see them again one day. This life is momentary. It's fleeting. I have this eternal hope. And they're like, what are you talking about? They're dead. Why aren't you sad? And you're like, they're alive. You have this spiritual wisdom that this life is not the end. It's fleeting. And waiting for us is an eternity with Christ. And that for those of us in Him, when we pass, we ultimately are sad, but we have the hope that we will be with them forever. That makes absolutely no sense to the world, right? They don't have that hope. They don't have that wisdom. Second, the gospel calls us to give sacrificially. I'm not talking about tithing, okay? I'm not talking about that, although that's great. To give sacrificially means to, when we see needs in the world around us, we meet those needs. Whether it's your neighbor who can't pay rent, whether it's your friend who can't buy groceries, whether it's somebody who needs your time or your effort or your energy, we are sacrificial people, right? We are a sacrificial people, and the reason is it's because we're following the example of our master. The most sacrificial person ever was Jesus Christ. God Himself that came down and gave up all his rights, all his riches to wash stinky feet of his disciples. Sorry, I just quoted Jesus' storybook Bible a little bit there. But how outrageous is that kind of sacrificial giving? And that's what we're called to as Jesus' church. To see needs in the world around us and to meet them with whatever we have. It's like Jesus said: if somebody asks you for your coat, give them your shirt too. Give them both. If somebody asks you to walk with them a mile, just double it. Go further. Go above and beyond because that's what I am doing for you. We reflect Christ when we do that, right? The third way. The gospel calls us to willingly give up comfort, comfortable lives, and to live on mission. And yes, that can mean comfort like to move overseas or to live on lesser means, but it can also mean walk across the street and invite your weird neighbor to dinner. A lot of us have weird neighbors. Am I the only one with weird neighbors? No. Okay, cool. That's not comfortable, right? But God calls us to be radical agents of love and compassion and mission to the world around us. Whether it's in Kyle, Texas, or just Cambodia, everywhere. We are to be radically on mission. And that means risking looking like a fool. Because part of living on mission means that we share our faith in Jesus with people, that we share the hope that we have in Christ. And when we do that, a lot of times people are going to think we're stupid. Right? This is what John Piper says. Will we be ashamed of believing what the Bible teaches when the world calls us fools? Or will we outrejoice the world not only in spite of, but because of their insults? God's wisdom is completely opposed to the world. Because the world is about self-preservation. It's about protecting myself. It's about building my kingdom. Because this is all I have. And so I need to see is what I can and make the most of it. But the wisdom of God says that this life is about dying. It's about dying to yourself every day. Because you know that you're a child and a member of a different kingdom, an eternal one. Jesus says in Matthew 16, If anyone wants to come with me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life because of me will find it. Third reason the wisdom of God is foolishness to the world is because the Christian life is a life of suffering. And it's been hinted at before in this message, but the third reason God's wisdom looks foolish is because God does not shield his children from suffering. In fact, he promises them that it will come. And sometimes it seems as if God's children suffer more. We've talked about this several times in the past few weeks, particularly in our lesson on God's sovereignty. But we have to remember that the suffering that we endure as God's children is never without a purpose, and it is never wasted. There are things that God would have us learn as his children that can only be learned through trial. I found this quote from C.S. Lewis from Mere Christianity this week, and I really like the way he puts this, so I'm going to read it for us. Imagine yourself as a living house. You're a house in this example. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps you can understand what he's doing. He's getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on. You knew that those jobs needed doing, and so you're not surprised. But presently, he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably. It does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is he up to? The explanation is that he is building quite a different house from the one you thought of. Throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage, but he is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it himself. So no one in here's life has gone or is going to go exactly the way that we think it will, right? I don't know of anybody whose plans have perfectly come to fruition. Mine haven't. No, yours haven't. No one makes it through life without hurt and scars, massive disappointments, heartaches, but the truth is God actually has something for us that's actually better than that. That's better than our comfort, rather. God knows that we need more than just an easy life. And he could have given us that. It's in his power. God could have done that. God can give us a comfortable life. But what he knows that we need more than that is to be made more like Jesus. 1 Peter, you are being protected, which I'm really glad it starts like that. You are being protected by God's power through faith for a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. You rejoice in this, though for now, for a short time you've had to struggle in various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more valuable than gold, which perishes though refined by fire, may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. So far from being a sign that God is not in control or is ignorant or even mean-spirited, far from that, our suffering is actually a sign that God is making us more like Jesus. God is allowing it to happen in His wisdom. That it's for somehow, even when we don't see it, it's for our good and his glory. So the question is, church, what the heck do we do? What do we do when life is coming at us with all its fury? When we're struggling, when we're mourning, when we're at the end of our understanding, when things don't make sense, when we are massively in pain. What can we as God's children do? The answer is we choose. We choose to trust God. We can choose to trust God, and we can ask him for more wisdom. We can actually ask God to give us more wisdom. Because he's a good dad. He listens when his children ask us for good ask him for good things. James says one. James one says this if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting. For the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord. But he is a double-minded man and stable in all his ways. So what I think that means is you can trust that when you ask God for wisdom, he will say yes. You have no reason to doubt, right? It's the people that are like doubting that aren't getting more wisdom. But he says, God gives generously to his children. Ask him in belief. We can ask God for greater wisdom and greater insight. But one caveat to that. God will give us wisdom when we ask, but often the answer to our prayers for wisdom is not the why. It's not the knowledge of the why of God's actions. That is not often the wisdom he gives. But often he gives us the voice, the gentle voice that says, I will never leave you or forsake you. I have been with you thus far, do not be afraid. And often that is the answer to our cry for wisdom. God's answer is, I'm with you. And I have never left you, and I never will. And trust that. There's a song we sing at this church, Sovereign Over Us. And the bridge says, even what the enemy means for evil, you turn it for our good, right? I know for a lot of us that's been really comforting. For a lot of us, that's really hard. Okay? Because we can see the evil around us. And to believe that is actually a choice. We have to choose that. We have to say, God, I trust that your word says this. I don't 100% see it right now. I don't know if I'm ever going to see it, but what you've told me is that you turn everything towards my good. Romans 8. Even the evil around me. The truth, Church, that God is wise, seeking good ends and using the best means, right? That truth is not a theological trump card to play on somebody who's doubting, right? And it's not a band-aid that you just slap on it. You can't just say, hey, God's all wise, right? Just do that. Just trust that. It's not that easy. I think more than just being a band-aid, I would liken it more to like a raft when you're in the ocean. And the ocean is absolutely killing you. You're coming up for breath, it's raining, the wind is blowing, and you're like, I need something to hold on to. What you don't need in that moment is advice. What you need is somebody to throw you at a life raft, okay? And this truth that God is wise and can be trusted is like a life raft in the midst of pain, in the midst of trial, in the midst of confusion. We can say, God, we don't know when this storm is going to stop, but we we can trust what you said. We can hold on to this life raft when we have nothing else to hold on to. I think we need to remember and follow the example of Jesus, okay? Think about the night before Jesus died. He's in a garden, he's in Gethsemane, and he is scared, okay? Just weeping, agonizing. Not because he's scared of the pain of the cross, although it is painful. Jesus is agonizing because he knows the next day he is literally going to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. He is going to experience something so brutal that we cannot even imagine it. Total separation from his Father that he's been with and been in unity with for eternity. And he had a choice in that moment. He said, God, if there's another way in your wisdom, another way in your plan that this cannot happen, can we do that instead? And the answer from heaven was, there is no other way. So Jesus had a choice. He was going to trust his father's wisdom or not. And he chose to trust his father's wisdom. And what that meant is the next 24 hours of his life were in just unimaginable, unimaginably painful. To be rejected by the people he created, the people he was sustaining, the people that he was in the process of dying to free. But he did it because he knew that there was joy coming after. He did it for the joy set before him. So for us, right, if we're Christians, if we're followers of Jesus, like Christ, okay, we can know the end. We know how the story ends for us. We know that we're going to die. And man, it's gonna be over. And we're going to be with our God. Pain will be done. We will see with a greater perspective what he was doing in this world. That is the end. Heaven is the end for us, church. And between here and there, sometimes all we can do is hang on to this life raft. That God, you are wise, and you're bringing me safely to port. You're bringing me home. And I don't know how you're doing it. I don't know why you're doing it this way. But I can trust that you are good. I can trust that your plans won't fail. I can trust that you are wise. And that you are holding me in the midst of the darkest times of our life. Let's pray. God, it's easy to just kind of say a trite statement that you are wise and that you always do the best thing in the best way. And it's true. God, but there are times when remembering that and believing it are extremely difficult. But God, it is no less true in the darkness than it is in the day. Help us be a people who are unshakable. Help us be a people who run to you, God, in the pain, in the trial. And remember that you are wise. You are a good father. And when we don't um always understand what you're doing, we can trust your heart, God. You're too wise to be mistaken. You're too good to be unkind. We can't trace your hand, God. We can always trust your heart. Help us be that kind of people, God. Amen. All right, church.