The Source of All Wisdom Various Texts

About seven years ago, when I was a sales representative for a running shoe company, I remember a conversation I had with my boss. My boss was a believer and somehow we got on the topic of knowledge and wisdom.

I remember him saying to me that wisdom is much different than knowledge. And he was right. Do you know the difference between knowledge and wisdom? Knowledge is what you know, where wisdom is what you do with what you know.

So wisdom has to do with the decisions that you make with the knowledge that you have. People who have knowledge but do not have wisdom use their knowledge wrongly. And we see this all the time in our world.

Sometimes you see a very smart person do something or say something very foolish. And you think, well, they should know better because they're smart. For example, some people consider Stephen Hawking to be the smartest person on the planet.

There's no question that Stephen Hawking is a genius and he has accomplished much. But is he wise? A few years ago, Hawking said that the laws of nature started the universe to bring it to what it is today.

But it does not take a genius to realize that laws do not create but are set up by someone. We know that that someone is God. God set these up during the first week of creation. He also said, Hawking said, that heaven is for those who are scared of the dark.

I don't know if you heard that, he said that a few years ago. But we know that God, who never lies, says that life is eternal. Titus 1, 2. And there is a heaven and a hell. So Hawking, who has a lot of knowledge, has shown himself to be foolish with these comments that he has made.

And this is what the Bible says about people like this. Ephesians 4, 17 and 18 says, People who are very smart say foolish things. Why? As this verse says, because of their hardness of heart. It's a heart issue.

My old pastor, and Terry knows this well, he says, the heart of the matter is that the heart is the matter. That's very true. They say these things because they do not know God and they do not have God's wisdom.

Over the last several weeks, we have seen the greatness of God in his attributes. And this is week 5 of our sermon series, of our 12-week sermon series on the attributes of God. As we continue the series called, The Ultimate Pursuit of Knowing God.

And this morning, we are going to look at God's wisdom. This sermon is titled, The Source of All Wisdom. And what we are going to see is that God's wisdom far surpasses the wisdom of the world. God's wisdom far surpasses the wisdom of the world.

That's our big idea this morning. God's wisdom is not the same as God knowing all things. Two weeks ago, we looked at the attribute of God being all-knowing. When we talk about God being all-knowing, we are saying he knows everything.

He knows how many rocks are in our parking lot. He knows how many H2O molecules are in the St. Croix River. He knows how many blades of grass are in our yard. He knows how many days we have lived on planet Earth.

He knows everything and he can tell you in an instant. That's God being all-knowing and that's not the same as his wisdom. When we talk about God's wisdom, we are focusing on the decisions he makes with the full knowledge that he has.

So God uses his infinite knowledge to make decisions that are always right. When God makes a decision to do something, the best result always comes from it. And not only does the best result come from it, but also the means by which it comes is also the best possible means to arrive at that result.

In numerous places, Scripture affirms that God is wise. The Apostle Paul refers to the Lord as the only wise God in Romans 16 -27. Job says that God is wise in his heart in Job 9 -4. And he says in another place that with him are wisdom and might.

He has counsel and understanding, Job 12 -13. What are some of the ways that we see God's wisdom in the world, in the Bible, and in our lives? That's what we're going to look at today. We are going to look at three ways that God's wisdom is shown.

God's Wisdom in the Natural World

The first way, and you'll see this in your outline, the first way that we see God's wisdom is in the natural world. In the natural world. Psalm 104 verse 24 says, The earth is full of your creatures. God created the universe to bring him glory.

The daily processes in the world and in the universe show the wisdom of God. In one day, and we see this every day, we have morning, we have afternoon, and we have night. Each time of the day is special for its own reasons.

The quietness of the morning, the sunshine of the afternoon, and the display of the stars in the night sky. God's wisdom is seen in this and how he designed it. We also see the yearly processes show his wisdom.

We have fall, winter, spring, and summer, and each season has its own beauty. The leaves of fall, the fresh snow on the trees in the winter, the blooming of the flowers and different plants in the spring, and the canopy of leaves on the trees in the summer, and how the sun shines through those leaves.

I love sitting in my living room in the morning and see the angle of the sun shining through the trees. It sparkles. I love that. Brienne and I really enjoy, by the way, seeing the different seasons here.

We were here in the winter, we were here in the spring, and we've been here in the summer, and we look forward to seeing the fall and seeing God's wisdom shown in all of these. We also see his wisdom in the process of how a human comes into the world, and we see how perfect God's design is.

Psalm 139, verses 13 -14,. And for you formed my inward parts, you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Only an all-wise God would be able to form a baby over a period of 40 weeks to nourish it and bring it to the delivery date.

It's something that we see. Babies are born every day, but we lose sight of how amazing it is and the wonder of it. How could this be? God designs it, and it's wonderful. One thing that was a frustration to me in October when Aletheia was born, and obviously it was a wonderful day, but the doctors and the nurses, they would talk about the process, and they would say, you know, let nature do its process.

They kept on saying nature and, you know, nature, and I was thinking, why don't we talk about the elephant in the room here? God. God is the one who set it up. Nature only does its thing because God told it to do so, and he created it.

So that was a frustration of mine, and so I'm thinking about next time, if the Lord blesses us with another child, maybe that's an open door to talk about the Lord with the people who are there because they see God's wisdom.

So we see God's wisdom in creation, and we praise him for it, and we ought to praise him for it. We see the beauty in the world, but what about the decay and the destruction that we see in the world? Some people might say, well, where's God's wisdom in that?

Well, whether it be weeds growing in the garden or the decay of buildings or air pollution, when God created the world with his perfect wisdom, none of the negative we see in the natural world was there.

Of course, Genesis 1 says that God created everything good. At the end of Genesis 1, it says that he saw it, and it was very good. There was no imperfections in the world or in the universe, none. So all of the decay we see in the world, well, why is it here?

Well, there's a clear answer in Scripture, and that is that the decay is here because of sin. Adam and Eve sinned, and the world was cursed as a result of sin. Genesis 3 .17 -18 explains that God cursed the world because of Adam's sin.

This is what the Lord said. The other day, Jeremy and I were weed whipping, and I was thinking, before Adam sinned, there was no need for weed whippers. But now there is, because of the fall. These are the things that come to my mind on any given day.

So God created a perfect world, but we see problems all around us because of sin. But we still see how intricate God's creation is, even with the effects of the fall, and the decisions he made in creation with his infinite knowledge is clearly seen.

If people ever ask you, well, what about the defects in the world? Did God do that? You have to point them to the Bible and say, well, read the Bible. The Bible tells us why there are some decay in the world, and it's because of sin.

And one day, when Jesus comes back, it will all be new again. It will all be like the original creation, with no imperfections. So this is the first way we see God's wisdom in the natural world. The second way that we see God's wisdom is in redemption.

God's Wisdom in Redemption

We're going to look at here, the Apostle Paul explains this in 1 Corinthians 1, how God's wisdom is seen in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ on the cross for the salvation of the world. 1 Corinthians 1 .24 says that Christ is the wisdom of God.

And verse 30 of 1 Corinthians 1 says that Christ became to us wisdom from God, and specifically his redemption. God's plan of redeeming the world through the death of Jesus on the cross shows his wisdom.

But the unbelieving world does not see it that way. They see the cross as foolishness. But this is why God planned that salvation would come through a bloody cross. It shows God's infinite wisdom, and the elites of the world, the people who the world loves, are put to shame by it.

God planned redemption in a way that the world would mock it. But as they would mock it, they would perish as a result. As 1 Corinthians 1 .18 says, the word of the cross is folly to who? Those who are perishing.

The cross demonstrates the power of God and the wisdom of God, 1 Corinthians 1 .24. In verse 23 of 1 Corinthians 1, the Apostle Paul says that the cross was a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles.

Have you ever wondered how is it a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles? Well, it's a stumbling block to Jews because the Jews thought the Messiah was going to come with power. They thought the Messiah was going to come and wipe out all of their enemies.

The Jews at that time were under the power of the Romans. They thought the Messiah was going to come and wipe all of these peoples out who had authority over them, and that Israel was going to become the new superpower, and that all of their enemies were going to be subject to them, not the other way around, like they experienced.

So, when Jesus came, and Jesus claims to be the Messiah, the long awaited Messiah that the Old Testament prophesied, they said, this can't be it, because he's coming in weakness. And then he dies on the cross.

He dies the most humiliating death possible. How could this be him? But what they failed to see in the Old Testament is that, yes, the Messiah is going to come with power, but he's also going to come in weakness, through his crucifixion, where he would die for the world.

And so, his first coming, he comes in weakness, as a suffering servant to die, and then when he comes again, he's going to come in power, and he's going to destroy his enemies, and he's going to establish the kingdom of God on earth.

So, that's the Jews. So, Jesus dying on the cross is a stumbling block to them. Now, the Gentiles, it's folly. If any of you know anything about Greek history, the philosophers, you think of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, they valued human wisdom a lot.

And when they look at the cross, they think, this isn't wisdom. It didn't measure up to their human standard of wisdom. But, of course, we know that human wisdom is wrong. So, you see that humans could not have planned that salvation to the world would come in this way.

We see the awesome design of God in it. We see his wisdom. I heard one author say that the news of Christ crucified was a scandal in the first century. Now, when we hear the word scandal, we automatically have a negative connotation.

But what the word scandal means is that it doesn't conform to the standards of what the people of that time are accepted by the people of that time. The cross was the place where enemies of the Roman government were executed.

And so, when they're preaching Christ crucified to people, people are thinking, well, this is Roman execution. How could this possibly be salvation for the world? The cross was an image of defeat and torture.

But in God's wisdom, he turned it around. The cross became an image of hope and salvation. Now, it's hard for us to imagine this. Because we see the cross as an image of hope and salvation. We have it up here.

We have it back here. And that's what we see it as. People have necklaces with crosses on it. But in the first century, this was a scandal. The news of Christ crucified was not accepted by the people.

And it was even hard for Christians to accept it. Because, I mean, they were people living in that world, too. And they knew what the cross represented. But we see God's wisdom in this. When unbelieving Jews and Gentiles heard people preach Christ crucified, they mocked it.

But God's power and wisdom were revealed through it. Sin is so horrible that Jesus had to die the worst death possible physically through crucifixion. There was no death like crucifixion, where someone would hang naked on a cross, be utterly humiliated, and be tortured, and suffer tremendous pain, and be spit on and mocked like he was.

But he endured it, the worst death possible. And he also endured the worst spiritual suffering possible. Jesus bore the wrath of God on the cross. He says, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And every sin that was placed on Jesus, God the Father poured out his holy wrath upon his Son so that we don't have to face it.

This was God's plan all along, that salvation would come to be in this way. We should worship God for his amazing wisdom. When the world sees his foolishness, it's God's wisdom. What is also fascinating about redemption, and we see God's wisdom, is that God saves those who are outcasts and despised in society.

1 Corinthians 1, 26 -28 says this. This is Paul talking to the Corinthians here. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to shame to nothing things that are.

So why does God choose the despised of the world? The Apostle Paul gives us the answer here. In his wisdom, he does this so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. Verse 29. In verse 29 of 1 Corinthians 1, the word boast means to put full confidence in, so that no one can put confidence in themselves.

No one can put confidence in themselves to stand before God. It is 100 the grace of God through the cross of Jesus Christ that one can stand before God and be forgiven and accepted as his child. This means that the people that the world loves, the wealthy, the attractive, the talented, the smartest, the most powerful, do not have an advantage with God.

Like so many ways in this life, those type of people have advantages, but not with God. God shows no favoritism. I heard one author say that the ground is level at the foot of the cross. Anyone can believe in Jesus, but you do not bring anything to the table in order to earn God's favor.

Even as Americans. I mean, we live in the most powerful country in the world. We bring nothing to the table as Americans. People who live in a third-world country, it's an even playing field with God.

Anyone can believe in him. In God's wisdom, God often saves the lowly, the despised, and the outcasts of society, so no one can have confidence in themselves before God. And the Corinthians, the church in Corinth that Paul's talking to, these were the outcasts of society.

And he's saying, you know, these elite people around you, they're not following Christ, but you are. And if you look at the world we live in today, people in Hollywood typically don't follow Christ. It's hard to find very many Christians in Hollywood.

It's hard to find very many Christians in academia. It's hard to find Christians in the media. The power structures of our society, and it's often the people that the world despises that are the followers of Jesus Christ.

I mean, you're a mockery to the world. Terry and I were talking this week about Ken Ham and his ministry down in Kentucky, and they just took a trip there. The world laughs at that ministry, and they think it's a joke, when in reality what they're saying is the truth.

And the elites of the world, they don't often follow Jesus, and they don't bring anything to the table. And it's pride in their heart. It's the darkness of their heart that keeps them from following God.

So in saving the lowly, we see God's wisdom. He has a reason for why he does this. It is so that people would put their full confidence in him, 100 in him, and not in themselves. And this is what 1 Corinthians 1 .31 says.

So that as it is written, Another way to say this is, So when we come to Christ, we can say, you know what? There's nothing in me that makes you have me as your child. There's nothing in me. It's only in your grace that I am your child.

This is the second way that God's wisdom is shown. His wisdom is seen in redemption, both in the cross of Jesus Christ and in the outcasts of society, the weak following him. The third way that God's wisdom is shown is his wisdom is seen in the details of our lives.

God's Wisdom in the Details of Our Lives

One of the most beautiful verses in the Bible is Romans 8 .28. And some of you may know this. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good. Then we need to ask the question, how does everything work out for good in our lives?

The simple answer is that God does everything in our lives to make us like Jesus. The verse following, Romans 8 .28, verse 29 says,. So what that means is that all the details, all the circumstances that we face in our life are done, and God plans them so that we would become more like Jesus.

This is God's plan for your life, to make you like him. God is writing your story, and he wisely plans the circumstances to make you like Christ. And the circumstances of our life vary. Some are pleasant, but sometimes they are painful.

It is often the difficult circumstances that make us more like Christ. It may be a chronic illness, a chronic physical pain that you have to endure. You may have relational conflict. It might be financial difficulties.

You may have a troubled farming season because the weather isn't cooperating. And some believers have a child who has special needs, and God uses those challenges that come with that for their good. We have some friends back in Mound, and Terry and Diane know this couple, that they have a child with special needs, and he has a rare syndrome called Prader-Willi Syndrome, and he's about three years old.

And this little boy has been such a blessing to the Mound Free Church community and to the Prader-Willi Syndrome community. God has used this child to be a light in that community where these children are going to have this for the rest of their lives.

There's no cure. And a lot of these families don't have that joy because they're thinking, well, why me? Why do I have to put up with all of these challenges that we face? And this family and this boy who's three years old who has Prader-Willi Syndrome, he's been such a light to that community, and God has used it for good.

In addition to that, he's used it for the good of the parents and to make them more like Christ. Obviously, every parent has challenges. They have more challenges because of the difficulties of dealing with the syndrome that he has.

And so you see how God has crafted that in their life. And they would say, God has used this for our good, and what a blessing this has been in our lives. And they can say, Romans 8, 28, and we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good.

They understand that the Lord has used circumstances in my own life for my good. I've told some of you that I have a mild tension in my head that's always there. And compared to many people, what many people go through, it's very small, but it has been a trial for me.

And early on, I asked the Lord to take it away, and he said no. But he has lightened it, and I'm so grateful for that. But the remnant of it is still there. But I know that the Lord is using this for my good.

And so whenever I think, okay, it'd be better not to have this, I think, well, the Lord's using it for my good, and I rejoice in that. And you can think of what you're facing in your life. The Apostle Paul had a thorn in the flesh, and he asked the Lord to take it away three times.

And what did the Lord say? My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. And the Apostle Paul accepted it, knowing that God was using it for his good, with the ultimate goal of making him more like Jesus.

Because it's often through the challenges of our life that make us grow. Not the pleasant seasons that we go through. So in his wisdom, God brings about the circumstances in your life with the goal of making you like Jesus.

Ephesians 4 .1 says, God's end goal for you is that you would be holy and blameless. And it comes through challenges. Acts 14 .22 says, through many tribulations. Psalm 34 says,. So if that's your experience, you should say, the word of God told me it was going to be this way.

And you should take heart in that and trust God through it and rejoice that he's using it for your good. And one day this present world and the whole universe will be burned up by fire. 2 Peter 3 describes it.

There will be only righteousness and no wickedness and you will be without sin. You will be like Jesus. This is what God is leading you toward if you belong to him. He wisely orders the events of your life in order to bring about the best results.

And the means he uses to do this are precisely what he sees best for you. And God's infinite wisdom in our lives ought to bring us tremendous comfort and peace. There are no accidents in our life and nothing is random, but rather the Lord wisely orders the circumstances and events of our lives.

Now all of this is true. Everything I just said is true, only if you belong to Jesus, of course. And if you're here today and you haven't trusted in Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, my desire for you is that you would do that.

And it's the desire of many here, that you would put your trust in Jesus Christ. He died on the cross for your sins. He was raised from the dead victoriously. And when you believe in Christ, when you see yourself as a sinner in need of a savior, and you put your trust in him, it's at that point that he puts you on this road of preparing you for heaven.

As a Christian, that's what your life is really about. He put you here to reach people for Christ, yes, but he's put you here to prepare you for heaven. And if you have not trusted in Christ, you can enter that road where God is preparing you for eternity.

Now, one other important point to make here is that Christians on this path to heaven find that many times they lack wisdom. Have you been in a situation where you lack wisdom? I know that I have. It happens all the time.

We are told in the book of James that if we lack wisdom, we should ask the one who has unlimited wisdom for it, James 1 .5. The way that we get God's wisdom is from his word. The Bible is a treasure chest of wisdom.

So when we pray for God to give us wisdom, what's God going to do? He's going to point us to something he has already revealed in his word that is relevant to our situation. You can see the importance of knowing our Bibles.

If we don't know his word, how is God going to direct us to what he has already revealed? The Bible has answers to all of your problems. And it's true. Sometimes you look at an index of a Bible and it has all these different topics, all these different categories, like suffering and greed and anxiety.

And then it says, okay, these are the verses that talk about that. The Bible covers everything we need for the life of faith. And so we need to go to our Bibles and God will give us wisdom through that.

We need to know how to navigate it to address these difficult circumstances that come our way. I can't tell you how many times in my life when I'm going through a certain circumstance where I'm perplexed by whatever I'm facing.

And you've experienced this too. And then God brings a verse to mind that I learned. And I'm like, oh yeah. That's what I need to do in this situation. And he does it all the time. And God has given us a mind to learn.

So once we learn the Bible, he will tell us precisely what we need to hear in those circumstances. Psalm 19 .7 says, The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.

So if we know the Bible, God's going to give us his wisdom through it. And we'll be wise people. So many people you meet in the world are not wise. They're foolish. But if you know the word of God, and you're following Jesus Christ, and you're listening to what he says to you, and you pray, and he points something out that he's already revealed to you, you are wise.

That being said, there are certain things that we go through that we will never understand in this life. What we need to do with that is to give it over to God and trust that he knows what he is doing.

Deuteronomy 29 .29 says, The secret things belong to God. Sometimes he does something and I'm like, I have no idea why I'm going through this. In that case, you just give it over to him and say, You know what?

Lord, I know you know what you're doing. I don't understand from my perspective. My limited perspective, I do not understand. But I'm going to trust you through it. 1 Peter 4 .19 says, Therefore, let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful creator while doing good.

And then this verse that I learned when I was a kid, Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.

So sometimes we won't fully understand why we face what we face in our life. But we can have full confidence that whatever he does, whether pleasant or painful, is for our good to make us like his son, his son Jesus.

This is the third way that God's wisdom is shown. It is seen in the details of our lives. So what we have seen this morning is that God's wisdom far surpasses the wisdom of the world. We have seen three ways.

His wisdom is seen in the natural world, in redemption, and in the details of our lives. In this sermon series, we have seen God's greatness shown in several of his attributes. And today we looked at his wisdom.

One thing we must understand is the difference between wisdom and knowledge that we looked at at the beginning. There are some brilliant people in the world today who have tremendous knowledge but they lack wisdom.

And don't let these people lead you astray. That's a warning that I give you right now. Don't let people lead you astray. Just because someone knows more than you doesn't mean they're going to lead you down the right path.

Because if they lack wisdom, they will lead you down the wrong path. True wisdom only comes from God. God is the only one who has full wisdom. But as his children, we can discern some of his wisdom and receive insight from him in our lives when we ask him for it.

So let us praise him. As in all of his attributes, but specifically this morning, let us praise him for his wisdom. For in all of his perfections, he is worthy of our worship. And next week will be Sermon 6 of 12 in The Ultimate Pursuit of Knowing God, our sermon series.

And we are going to look at God's beauty and his majesty. So I look forward to going through that with you. Let's pray. Father in heaven, you are a wonderful, wonderful God. You are an all-wise God. And Lord, you put to shame the wisdom of the world.

What the world calls wisdom, you call foolishness. And so Lord, I pray that Eureka Baptist Church would be a people who are full of wisdom. I pray that we would be people who have the Bible in our DNA.

Where everything we do is, we're always mindful of what you say in your word. That our aim in life would be to become more like you. Lord, you've already revealed yourself to us in your word. And so I pray that we would find you there.

And that you would make us wise. And that you would help us navigate through a very confusing world that we live in. It is confusing. But we know, Lord, that you can navigate us through it. And we ask that you will.

We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.