The Folly and Shame of Hasty Conclusions

Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church

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All right, Proverbs 18 13 if one gives an answer before he hears it is his folly and shame

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This is the word of the Lord Let's pray Well, we thank you for the opportunity that we have to come to your word and to hear from you your expectations

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For us we thank you for Jesus. We thank you for what he's done for us on the cross And we know that without him we have no hope of living up to Your commands for us

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Lord we thank you for all you do pray that you bless our time here today and give us great insight Into your word and your son's name.

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I pray amen Thank you. You may be seated You know when

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I think about the book of Proverbs It's really difficult to think about a proverb that has more

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Relevance to the nature of my life and the decisions that I've made than this proverb itself

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You know so much of my life has been devoted to the task of trying to figure out how to do this and At the risk of turning the pulpit into a confessional

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I would say that the more that I look at this verse the more condemnation. I actually feel

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When you think about this one of the things that Conley said this morning was he? Pointed our minds and our attention to the

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Bible where God says that God's commandments are exceedingly broad And when I think about the nature of this verse

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Situation after situation after situation after situation comes to my mind immediately of Times where I've utterly violated this verse to my folly and to my shame

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One of the things that motivated me early on in life was the desire to be a better listener.

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I If you see the nature of the problems that you see around you see that very few people listen

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They very few people know how to have the patience to listen well There's a great many people who are tempted to give answers very very quickly to problems

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I mean in my own experience I was a young man who had a lot of questions and put a lot of thought into particular topics and one of the things

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I noticed is that people were to routinely come up to me and fix problems that They thought

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I had which I probably did have but they would try to fix those problems so quickly without doing the basic work of listening

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That in a lot of ways that those kinds of experience motivated me to try to learn how to be a better listener and part of going into biblical counseling is you're pursuing a field that is

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Supposed to excel at listening and one of the things that I've found is I pursued this field in general and then pursued these

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Responsibilities the responsibility of giving counsel and the importance of listening is that you know, there's a lot of ways that by God's grace

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He's helped me to grow in these areas and become a better listener but then I see just as many at times areas in which

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I'm failing to listen as I should and I'm motivated to keep on going because I know that that honors him too.

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You know, there's there's There's a sense when you look at a verse like this if a person gives an answer before he hears it's folly and shame

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There's obviously a sense that we're never going to be perfect at this In this life like this this should be a

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Project that we're working on that we're growing and that we're getting better at Over the course of our life that God is at work in us behind the scenes helping us to do a better job at this

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But at the same time it's a task We'll probably never be complete in this life. We'll never be complete in this life.

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We're not omniscient. We're not God We're not going to understand every situation perfectly We're gonna we're going to be tempted throughout the scope of our life to jump in and give an answer in a premature way

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That doesn't fit that's going to be characteristic of us in this life, but God by God's grace I hope we learn to grow in this and see see more clearly the nature of this kind of problem see the

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Nature of the folly and the shame that results from our failures to listen as we should and to give premature hasty Conclusions as I said,

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I mean you're living in a world obviously that It's excels at listening poorly Like you're living in a world that excels at giving hasty Conclusions, you know a lot of that's related to the social media outrage cycle to where you have famous pastors and individuals

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Who feel like they have the need to comment on every new situation that happens in the moment

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You know without a without hardly any reflection without I mean having hardly any information there's almost a demand for Christians, particularly those who are in the areas of content producing to Immediately offer thoughts and give their perspective on issues that are very distant and remove from them you know part of the internet encourages people to Meddle in in affairs that don't really belong to them at times and the comment on things that really they have very little information

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About they don't know about then I mean as you look at the church's response to a variety of social issues over the past few

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Years, you'll notice that we make the same mistakes along these lines Over and over and over again and with the prevalence of you know,

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AI technology like legitimate fake news You know Misinformation the rise of misinformation and all that.

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I mean there are real dangers that we face Particularly in our online interactions and even in our in -person interactions where we're sharing things that we

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Are being told our facts, I mean there's some there's so much danger that we have just to instantaneously Comment on things.

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So I mean you think about some of the major things that's happened over the past few years think about You know the summer of love with all the summer of love with all the writing and the looting that happened related to Michael Brown and Ferguson situations,

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I mean you have famous pastor after famous pastor Immediately parroting the stand up our hands up.

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Don't shoot narrative Commenting on the systemic nature of racism in our country and the need for police reform knowing very little about those situations at all

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I Mean you have the George Floyd situation Which is similar situation where certain facts were

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Presented to the public that many pastors thought were irrefutable proof of the nature of guilt and issuing proclamations

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Only to realize, you know a year later that there's a lot of information that was withheld from that Situation and maybe things weren't quite the same as what we thought the kovat with the kovat situation you had many many

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Pastors who were going on social media Commenting about the responsibilities of church members to in a blind way trust the medical establishment as We're ignoring general protocols for the production of vaccines

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We're refusing to hold vaccine companies liable for whatever happens as a result of these vaccines

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Even though they're very different kinds of vaccines and other vaccines and my purpose here today is not to comment on Any of these situations other than just to say that you will note in situation after situation after situation

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There is almost an expectation and a demand that is put on God's people to speak very quickly

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Very quickly about situations that may be a lot more complicated than we realize at first glance

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When you think about all the me too accusations that have happened over the course of a year every time You know

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Republican Supreme Court nominee is put forward you can imagine there's going to be any number of me too accusations that are going to Be leveled against that individual and we're told to rush to judgment almost as if it's a virtue

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We like we need to believe all women believe all accusations. I trust the victim believe the victim ignore due process

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You know, you're living in a time right now where there's a great Reversal of the expectations that we've always had as it relates to the presumption of innocence like we used to believe as a people that it would be better for a hundred guilty men to go free than to convict one innocent person and Because now you're living in a time that you know does not have a

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Christian worldview We don't believe that there is a God who made the world who will judge the world and that one day everything will be set

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Right because we've rejected that basic worldview. We demand perfect justice here and now so you're living in a time that it demands perfect justice here and now and we

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We really believe as a society that it would be better to convict a hundred innocent men

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And then to allow one guilty man to go free because we've lost track of God The point of all this is just to say that we are living in an environment that certainly expects and demands

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For the sake of justice even right demands that you quickly come to conclusions with very little

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Information that's that's the society living right now. It's it demands that you come to very quick conclusions on the basis of You know often one side of the story and very limited kind of information that it's demanding that you give an answer

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Before you hear almost as if that's a virtue in of itself and that should be troubling that should be troubling to us and if you don't

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If you only had the testimony of recent events You should realize that there's a lot of folly and shame that comes from quickly pontificating on a you know

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Recent event only to realize that you didn't have enough information to helpfully comment and a lot of the things that you're saying

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Really were unjust in the light of history But but God's Word speaks to us today

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About this topic and we should pay attention to what God has to say because the grass withers and the flower fades

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But the Word of God will stand forever And God's given us principles for how to listen in his

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Word that we would do well to pay attention to Now we think about the nature of Proverbs 18 13 if one gives an answer before he hears his folly and shame

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You know, there's a sense in which It I need you to just hear me out on this.

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There's a sense in which it's impossible to be Christlike on this topic Okay now just kind of think about what

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I'm saying for a second because I'm gonna I'm gonna qualify that significantly, but When you think about the nature of God's attributes

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God has God has what's called communicable attributes and he has what's called incommunicable attributes omniscience omniscience is an incommunicable attribute of God meaning

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I am no matter how much I Grow in my knowledge I'm not going to know things the way that God knows things

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God knows things perfectly from the beginning God doesn't learn you understand So God is not learning

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God knows things perfectly exhaustively from the beginning his knowledge isn't changing my knowledge

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It grows over time. It starts out very limited it grows But it's never going to be infinite and perfect in every respect

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That's that's not the way it actually is and now when you think about the example of Christ on this

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Christ certainly was a man of understanding and we should be men and women of understanding certainly and And there's a certainly a sense in which

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Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man, that's Luke 2 52 But in the

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Gospels one of the things that's remarkable about Jesus is that Jesus? Primarily interacts with people and you can test this out by reading the gospel

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But Jesus primarily interacts with people not by asking questions to gain understanding

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But by asking questions that reveal his already perfect understanding I mean so many of the gospel narratives are devoted to this very point if you understand what

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I mean so for instance when Jesus talks to the woman at the well in John 4 17

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Jesus asked her to go get her husband, and she said well I have no husband and Jesus said to her well You're right in saying that you have no husband for you've had five husbands

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And the one you now have is not your husband what you said is true She took from that that he must be a prophet sent from God because there's no way through the normal process of observation

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That Jesus could possibly know that she had five Husbands right so when we think about us

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Trying to learn how to give an answer before we hear and trying to follow Christ example at this point

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Well, there's no way that you're going to be given supernatural knowledge about the nature of how many husbands a person has and in fact if you try to go about doing that and making dogmatic pronouncements about things that you

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Haven't empirically verified with your own eyes in that way. You really are going to be You know shooting in the dark and engaging something closer to divination another example of Jesus doing this

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Nathanael When Jesus is calling Nathanael in John 1 48 Nathanael said to him how do you know me and Jesus answered before Philip called you when you're under the fig tree

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I saw you Nathanael answers him rabbi You are the Son of God you are the King of Israel and Jesus answered because I said to you

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I saw you under the fig tree. Do you believe you will see greater things than these? So over and over again when

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Jesus is interacting with people Jesus seems to have access to knowledge that normal human beings Don't have access to Jesus Jesus in his encounters with human beings

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Most of the encounters are demonstrating that he has the kind of understanding that is completely

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Unnatural to normal human beings. He seems to know things that he shouldn't know Just if he were solely and simply a man and so as I'm trying to say here

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There's a sense in which when we're pursuing Understanding we are pursuing being like Christ because Christ's man of understanding

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We don't have the same means of arriving at understanding that Jesus did if you understand what

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I mean So however, Jesus is figuring out that this woman had five husbands It's not through the natural process of looking and seeing and verifying.

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However, Jesus knows that Nathanael is under the fig tree It's not by information that he's getting from his eyes

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And so as creatures we are limited In our ability to be like Christ in this area and the way that we honor

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Christ in this area is Going to be devoting ourselves to asking a lot more questions and gathering a lot more data

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Than what Jesus had to gather in his incarnation if you understand what I'm saying

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So what is our passage here to saying?

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to us today Passage is saying that if if a person gives an answer before he hears

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It is folly and shame And so it do well for us as we're to consider this topic to consider what is the nature of folly

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The foolishness is is a word that is kind of going out of style I mean, it's it's not a word that we naturally use on a regular basis

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It's I mean, it's it's kind of like like many words in the Bible This is the like word foolish folly

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Fool fool is like a pejorative and we're living in a society that has basically declared Both limits every form of pejorative that you can imagine and so the idea of foolishness

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It's an idea that we understand intuitively But I've noticed in interacting with people that if I even bring up the word foolish

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Often I notice that people kind of flinch away from that word because it's a word that in many ways is unfamiliar

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To us we don't use we don't speak this language anymore We've lost a biblical anthropology at this point and we we do try to turn away from that but what is folly

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Well folly is the state of a lack of prudence or good judgment foolishness lack of sense and typically it comes in moral and intellectual varieties so Like meaning like there's a there's a category for what you might describe as moral folly

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And then there's a category that you might describe as intellectual folly Now because Elizabeth and I and my our family are new visitors to this place in particular

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There might be a great many things that we do here That you could put in the category of intellectual foolishness

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Like there might be areas that we walk we shouldn't walk in Like that are more dangerous than other areas and we have absolutely no idea that that's a foolish place to go

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Simply because we lack information to know the difference between like this is a good area. This is a bad area

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I mean, in fact, one of the things that we've noticed in being here is a lot of our sense about what is a

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Like a dangerous area and what's a non -dangerous area is triggering all in the wrong way You know

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So if you take a lot of the landscape here and you import it back to where we're from Like our spider our spider sense of danger is going off wrongly, right?

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It's like it's all it's all off We don't know what good area is what a bad area is. We don't we don't know that Like there seems to be a lot more scams here online

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Than what we're used to like it back in Alabama There's still kind of a situation of very very high trust in the areas that we're from And so here we see that there's a lot more scam dangers we don't know if we know the correct protocol at times in order to interact with Wisdom and safety procedures related to like shopping online and things like that But all

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I'm trying to say is a lot of that what you would put in the category not of moral foolishness but in intellectual foolishness

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Like meaning we simply don't know what we simply don't know There's no motive that we

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It's not just that we don't know what we don't know, but there's a standard that we're violating that God has given us

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It's just we don't know the difference between prudence at times and a lack of prudence Just due to a lack of knowledge not due to moral considerations in general

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But then when you think about the nature of moral folly God's given us his word that describes what his expectations are for us and There are things in the

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Bible that are absolutely foolish right so like if a man refuses to work He may not know that he's supposed to work

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He may not know that Like God made him to work, and he's not working and if a man doesn't work

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Then God says don't let him eat he may not know that like no one may ever told him

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Hey, you know that there's a God who made you and he created you for work, but that is a moral issue That's happening irrespective of his knowledge in other words.

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He has the law of God written on his heart He should know like he should know that he was made for work, and he's rejecting that And so there's a standard there that God has given that has

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That he is violating and so that would be the nature of moral foolishness over and against intellectual foolishness if you understand

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And when you're talking about giving an answer before we hear We're talking about the language not of intellectual foolishness

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You're talking about the language of moral foolishness you understand Like this isn't just like some

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Like the topic that we're talking about today. This is not just Well, I don't know so therefore who could have possibly know that the

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Bible gives you a standard that tells you that You need to be very careful in Giving answers to anything

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Because there might be a great many things that you don't know and in God expects you to try to do

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The work to figure out those things right so the issue is like we're firmly in the language not of intellectual foolishness with it with the

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Subject matter today. We're in the language of moral Foolishness now. Why is it foolish to give an answer before you hear?

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As I said the intro. I mean why is it foolish because you aren't God? You don't know everything exhaustively from the end like as God does

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You didn't come into the world with perfect knowledge right you don't you didn't come into the world with perfect knowledge

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You grow in knowledge of the course of your life. You start out with a very limited set of facts that you know

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Painfully limited set of facts that you know as every parent in the room can attest All of their children come with very limited knowledge

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They don't know the difference between Foolish things to do and wise things to do folly is bound up in the heart of a child

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Every parent in the room knows that they can observe that from experience, but then the thing is as you get older One of the temptations you're going to face is to think that you know more than what you do know so You know if you've had again if you've had kids for any length of time one of the things you'll realize is as they get

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A bigger vocabulary they may be absolutely convinced kids if you're in the room, and you're listening to this

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I'm talking to you right now, so pay attention like one of the temptations of being a child is to think that You know way more than what you do know right and to think that you know better than what your parents know and as parents

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We're looking at you thinking you don't know what you don't know okay? You don't know what you don't know, but there's but you're confident

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You know I mean you're obviously confident in your knowledge But the thing is as you get older and older that temptation to think you know way more than what you what you actually know

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It doesn't go away and the more proud you are The more you're going to you're going to double down on that on that temptation

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Then more that you're just going to double down on that perspective be filled with pride and arrogant and conceit and be completely and totally

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Unteachable and unwilling to listen and then what you're often going to be doing is giving Answers before you hear, but as I said, why is it foolish to give an answer before you hear because you're not

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God You don't know everything If you think about the nature of the things you actually know it's very very limited

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It's way more limited than what you think I'm just to give you some analogies about how this works

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To go into seminary I I went to Bible college before I went to seminary when I went to Bible college.

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I devoted myself to learning Greek So I I learned Greek and I learned Greek pretty well the problem was

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I had to learn Hebrew next That was the problem so then I learned Hebrew. What do you think happened?

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Greek gone the Greek was gone. Yeah, so I learned Hebrew very very well So I learned Greek very well.

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I learned Hebrew very well Greek was totally gone So then what I do I learn Greek again, and what do you think happened to the

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Hebrew? It's gone. I mean we are limited human being you could only hold so much information in your mind at one time

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And there's some people who are savants at language, and you know they can learn 10 20 languages

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I'm suspicious of how well they actually know those languages, but whatever you say about all that.

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I know that my brain can't hold You know multiple languages in in my mind at once particularly if you don't use them

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So I mean, I'm very limited and what I know I know a lot about a very narrow field of knowledge

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You understand I'm growing up in school. I learned I was very good at math. Do you know what today?

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I I don't know anything I have math intuition, but I I've it's gone.

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You know I Maybe can remember some geometry some trig The calculus

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I there was a time in my life where I thought in calculus. It's all gone. I don't know it anymore I don't know anything about it anything beyond that I yeah

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I Don't remember the formulas. I don't remember any of it right. It's all gone. It's all gone, but then you'll notice this in terms of like different Theologians who are experts in their field often.

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They're very narrow experts in their fields Like you get them outside of their Particular field of interest and they're almost bone ignorant of other fields, and I mean that's the way that life is

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That's the way life is you understand So you aren't God you you you can only hold so much information in your mind.

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Have you ever tried to memorize the Bible? and Maybe you've memorized a large section of it

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And you've got to memorize something else and that section is gone like you know like the issue is we we are finite human beings

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We don't know as much as we think we know and even you know even If you've been married for even a moment one of the things you'll realize is that you have a conversation with your spouse

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And you don't see eye -to -eye in that kind of conversation and in it And at times it's often hard to remember the things that were said even 10 seconds before right?

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So here's the thing like we are very limited in our capacity and for information. We're not God, but yet You know you we think like we're being told

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That the way to be wise is to pretend like we are Like if you think about a movie character who people put forward as like a person who's exceedingly wise you would think of someone like Sherlock Holmes, right?

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Sherlock Holmes that guy that's what it means to be wise Is to be like Sherlock Holmes where you can look at the very you know

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There's a speck of dust on his shoulder, and you can extrapolate from that like these remarkable and dramatic conclusions I don't know if you've seen the internet videos of people making fun of that kind of thing to where the guy is pretending to be

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Sherlock Holmes and You know extrapolating all this big elaborate scenario on the basis of a few relevant details that he mentioned

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And then it's all wrong. Yes. You know the actual thing was just a very simple kind of thing it had nothing to do with all

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That but that's the way that we sound like the issue is like if you think in your mind the way to be wise is

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To extrapolate from very limited amounts of information these grand narratives that you're putting upon people

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They're just going to look at you as if you're you're kind of crazy for the most part Because that isn't really the way life works, and that's not really the way wisdom works the way wisdom works

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It's not that you take a very limited information and extrapolate grand conclusions from that the way that wisdom actually works

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Is that you get more information so you can better understand the situation that you're even talking about I mean one of the things

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I do in counseling is I try to ask question after question after question after question I try to ask hours worth of questions so that I can understand the situation

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That I'm going to comment at and you know I mean there are times where I ask two hours worth of questions Before I even offer a solution, and I still don't understand the situation well enough to comment okay, because it's hard It's hard like Obviously there's no temptation.

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It's overtaking you, but what is common to man God's faithful He will not allow you to be tempted beyond your ability But with that temptation will provide a way of escape that you may bear it

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Like the problems we have are common to life you understand we all have the same kind of problems But they have unique wrinkles

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Your temptation is going to be when you're talking to someone else you're going to see some kind of similarity with their experience in your experience

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And then you're going to fill in all the details with your background your experience your impulses

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Like your personality even at times you're going to jump to grand conclusions and try to fix their problem

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And they're going to be looking at you thinking That doesn't fit it does not fit

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Because there's you know this little bit of information that if you just knew if you would just calm down for a second hold on Everything would make a little bit more sense

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But then like the issue is we're not God. You're not like you're not Sherlock Holmes God expects you to listen you know as preachers have often said

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God's given you two ears and one mouth So that means he wants you to listen twice as much as you speak, and there's probably some truth to that isn't there

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So why is it foolish to give an answer where you're here because you're not God To I mean you can't fix a problem.

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You don't understand as I said,

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I mean there's a One of the temptations that we have when we're trying to help other people is

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You think okay? Hey, I've been through grief. They're going through grief right. I know what grief is like for me

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Therefore I'm going to help you go through your grief. Well the issue is that no grief is exactly the same No one handles their grief exactly the same

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The relationship you have isn't the same kind of relationship that they have and even if it's the same kind of Relationship that they have it may not be for the same length

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Like they may have had a good relationship for that length, and you had a bad relationship with that length

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You know but then that relationship that they had is filtered by their background and by their experience and by their upbringing right and by Their personalities to some degree not that personalities are fixed and static and can't change over time, but the issue is

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There are other relationships filtering into that relationship that relationship had different struggles than your relationship might have had

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Maybe they had financial struggles your relationship didn't really have financial struggles Maybe they had struggles with children in a way that you didn't have the same kind of struggles with your choice

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So they had a different set of kids a different set of in -laws. They had different background They had different experiences that may be different socio -economic standing right they have different orientations

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They have different ways. They handle conflict all of that makes it complex now that doesn't mean that you can't like you're just Isolated individuals who aren't expected to help because you can't ever truly put yourself in another person's shoes.

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That's not what I'm trying to say I'm just trying to say that you might make a lot of assumptions Very quickly about the nature of the problem that a person is facing and then try to insert yourself into that problem

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Without having any of the information you need and then give answers to a problem that you don't understand, right?

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Do you know what they have done already to try to fix that problem that you're trying to fix

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Do you know the steps that they've taken? Already when they say hey, I've tried that before what do they mean by that?

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What is I've tried that mean you prayed about it before okay?

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What does that mean you prayed about it once You prayed about it every day you prayed about it every day with detailed notes

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You prayed about it all day long every day. You need to stop praying about it like what situation are you in?

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You don't know just because they said they prayed about it. Do you understand you have no like I assume

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When I'm talking to people on my good days I try to assume that I have no idea what they're talking about half the time

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Because I probably don't You know I example I give from time to time as example with Gavin Gavin we're gonna talk about you since you're there

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When he was young he would when he was young he Would look up at the fan

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And he would kind of point at it. You know so one day I thought well I'm gonna pick him up and I'm gonna let him Like he seems like he wants something up there so I picked him up and then he figured out what the fan he grabbed a fan string and he pulled on it right and Then it the light went off and he got excited and so he did that over and over and over and over again

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And that was fun. Okay. We had a fun encounter, so I put him down right, but then you know like the next day

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He comes into the room, and he starts fussing at the fan string right now. He said He can't talk yet.

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This is pre pre verbal so I I looked at him, and I thought all right I'm gonna be a good parent here

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Say please right say please and so he says please I pick him up he grabs the fan string

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And he goes, please please please And it dawned on me what happened okay at that point

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I thought I was teaching him to be polite what I actually taught him was the name of the fan string right

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But that stuck with me that I mean the issue is that stuck with me because that's what Communication is like even with adults you understand

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There are times in my marriage with a with Elizabeth where we are using the same words and We mean very very different things

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I mean this happened so frequently in the beginning of our marriage That I was I was so baffled by what was happening that I thought we have to address this somehow

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Because we I'm saying do this and then what's happening is so Remarkably different that you know

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I'm doing a judgment of charity. I'm doing a judge I'm saying there must be an explanation for this. I don't know what it

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I don't know what it could possibly be I thought I was so clear and what's happening is so different We're gonna figure it out, so we would so when we made certain decisions.

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We sat down and we say okay Here's what we are agreeing on I said all right you got to sign it

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I got to sign it so that we go back from here. You know if there's a hiccup or something We'll know what happened right. It's I mean there was a time where I okay

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We signed we signed like this is not just a time. This is the first time we did this She signed it.

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I signed it, and then she went out to execute the plan and she came back and told me what she did I said we signed it.

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She's like yeah, we signed it, and then I pulled it out I said, and I read it. I read it to her. I said see this is what we agreed on she said yes

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That's what we agree on I was like. What do you mean? This is what we agreed upon When I said this I mean this and she said oh,

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I thought you were meaning this you know and it's like that That's married communication. That's married communication for you, right?

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Like the issue is you don't think this like you're using words, but you don't know what those words mean at times

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And you here's the point. I mean you can't fix a problem. You don't understand Okay, like we even we use words, and we think we know what we mean by those words

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But we may be meaning remarkably different things by the words they were using

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Similarly you can't fix the problem If you don't know what the real problem is

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That's not to say that The problem you think you're fixing might not be a problem, but it may not be the real problem

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Proverbs 25 20 verse 5 says the purpose in a man's heart is like deep water

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But a man of understanding will draw it out. Let me say it again the purpose in a man's heart is like deep water

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But a man of understanding will draw it out You know that in the course of counseling

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For as many years as I've counseled One of the things to realize it one of the things I've come to realize and this is just what every biblical counsel will tell

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You like the presenting problem like the problem that people come in to talk about it's almost never the real problem

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It's never it's almost never the root problem. It's almost never about that That's just the safe thing that they're going to say you know

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But you know at times it may be like a real significant problem They need to be dealing with but this is it's almost never the root problem.

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It's almost never the real problem As I've been an elder over the years one of the things

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I find is When church members come and they talk to you about the presenting problem

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This is thing they come talk to you about almost never is that the root problem almost never is that the real problem?

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And if you're just try to address the root like the the presenting problem You're almost never going to really leave that meeting unified if you can't figure out what is behind all of it

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And what's what's the real thing so you can't you can't fix a problem if you don't know what the real

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Problem is and this is a common temptation between men and women if you

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If you've been married, you know what I mean Where a Wife will come up and talk to her talk to her husband and share the presenting problem right to share the presenting problem and then he's immediately trying to fix the presenting problem, and she's looking at you like I Don't understand what you're doing right now right now often a lady will say hey,

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I just want you to listen to me I don't want you to fix the problem, and that's not a good response I mean Nikki there's no value in just unloading all of your problems.

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It's not healing It's not therapeutic. I mean you do have to address them in a biblical way, but what's often happening is

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The woman is communicating a presenting problem And there's a root problem and the husband's trying to fix the presenting problem

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Instead of listening long enough to figure out what the root problem is you know and that's the one that really is meaningful to her

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And she may not even be able to communicate what it is what what's wrong, and if you just think that you fix

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It's like well. I'm worried about this right well stop worrying right there may be

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Some other root underneath that that if you could address it would help her to stop worrying Right it's like the answer isn't just well.

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Let me tell you all my problems and just I'll pray for you, honey It is your job as a husband try to help her

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But then you may not help her by just addressing the presenting problem You might want to figure out what is behind all that if that makes sense by listening a little bit longer

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So why is it foolish give an answer for you here? You aren't God can't fix a problem. You don't understand

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You can't fix a problem if you don't know what the real problem is and Bad advice leads to harm doesn't it so Proverbs 13 20 whoever walks with the wise

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Will become wise But the companion of fools will suffer harm

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Not only look at that not only is that saying that bad advice? Leads to harm, but it's also telling you to try to avoid

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Close friendships with people who are who routinely give you bad advice, isn't it? Proverbs 14 7 leave the presence of a fool for there you do not meet words of knowledge when you have someone who's routinely trying to insert themself into your situation and give you advice that doesn't fit and You know that if you follow that advice you've tried that advice before and it leads to bad outcome

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Do you want to be around that person? Or do you think to yourself I Would love for you to help me with my problem

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But maybe if you could ask a few more questions You might have a better understanding of what my problem actually is and may actually be a little bit more helpful to me than all

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Of that right so I mean there's there's been times in my life where I'm trying to figure out an answer to a problem and I've tried ten solutions to try to fix them

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And then I've seen ten different outcomes, and I'm searching for that 11th magic solution to the problem

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You know and then I'm asking I'm enlisting asking for help and then people will kind of give me

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One of the ten different solutions. I've already tried, and I'm and I'm just kind of looking at I'm thinking

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Well, I already tried that but they don't want to hear it. They're like just do it. It'll work. It's like walk You're right. I don't know what to do.

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I want counsel from you, but you okay Maybe if I know that you don't want to let me walk you through the ten different things

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I've tried so far to fix this, but I there are ten different things I think but the point is just to say that it's very it's very frustrating to be on the receiving end of that And I've been that person

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Many many times in my life. I mean Connelly will ask me questions sometimes And I'll send him very long voice messages that are built on like a misunderstanding

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And he has to patiently endure this you know can you imagine pray for him? And I'm aware that this is a problem, and I like I'm aware that like we like it's it's just such a

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Common temptation that we all face that we need to do Better so here's the point.

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It's just to say that if you give an answer before you hear It's foolish, and it's shameful

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So we've talked a little bit about why it's foolish because you're not God because you can't fix a problem you don't understand because You can't fix a problem if you don't know what the real problem is and because bad advice leads to harm

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But what about the shame part of it? You know shame is a significant concept in the Bible. I don't know if you're aware of this, but you can look up Shame and it's cognates, and you'll see that there's 240 occurrences of this in the

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ESV. That's a lot I mean the Bible talks a lot about shame, but you're living in a shame shameless society

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Like you're living like we used to live in more of a shame honor society and some you know

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Asian culture is more shame honor Kind of culture society than what you have here in America for the most part

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But I mean what you have here in America is just an utter shameless society You have you're living in a society that glories actively in their shame, so you think about like Like today you have ladies who are dressing like prostitutes in public

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Like wearing things that in past times you would think that people would look at that and think that they were a prostitute or something

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Like that and we we wear that almost as a badge of honor. We wear it as a badge of honor to shout our

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Abortions we we we view like our sexual identities like our sexual deviancy as badges of honor

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That we need to have pride parades about and March and Gloria right so you're living in a society that glories in their shame

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And then the church We know that there's an answer to guilt and shame in the gospel and what

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Jesus has done for us But then we can kind of unthinkingly come along and basically try to remove the concept and the usefulness of shame in every situation we find ourself in so I mean

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Christians are Very misguided in terms of how we think about shame

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To where we don't have any place for this word at all And we don't understand the utility of this word or the usefulness of it

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Shame is the experience of ignominy that comes to someone After they do something typically foolish or wrong okay, so it's the experience of ignominy obviously the first example of shame that you're gonna find in in the

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Bible is after Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil so after the Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge and good and evil the man

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They basically covered themselves because of their shame But we know in Genesis 2 25 before the fall both man and his wife were naked and were not ashamed

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So after they sinned they instantaneously have this these feelings of shame that they need to hide themselves both from each other

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Cover themselves up. They knew they were naked cover themselves up hide themselves from God, so they're hiding in trees trying to Keep God from seeing them you look at Romans 1 26

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When God gives a society over to judgment says for this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions

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For their women exchanged natural relations for those who are contrary to nature the men likewise gave up natural relations with women

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Were consumed with passion for one another men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves

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The due penalty for their error, but as I said, I mean shame is Shame is a very biblical

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Concept that we ought to learn how to Recover We need to learn how to recover shaming mechanisms in our society and that may be pretty controversial for me to say that but Just think about what

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I'm trying to say don't instantaneously just dismiss it There's shaming mechanisms in both the

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Old Testament and the New Testament That have not gone away shave shame serves a useful function

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Particularly when you're dealing with someone who is utterly shameless and glorying in their shame you understand

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So what is the difference between guilt and shame guilt is an objective reality contrary to the psychologist guilt is not false

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Guilt is not false guilt is an objective reality Okay So when you sin against God you are objectively guilty regardless of whether or not you feel shame over it

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Guilt is an objective reality you understand You're guilty So when you stand before the court if you were to go to the courtroom you commit a crime

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Jury of your peers finds you to be guilty judges pronouncing pronouncing a guilty sentence You're guilty like that.

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So what is guilty? We treat guilt and shame as synonyms at times, but like what is guilt guilt is an objective reality

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Where you are judged to be in the wrong? So there's been plenty of people who feel no guilt right feel no guilt.

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I'm using guilt In the sense of shame there they feel no guilt as they're being convicted in the court of law

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But the fact that they feel no guilt does not mean that they're not guilty because guilt is an objective reality, right?

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So what is shame? What shame is that experience of guilt? Right. That's what shame is.

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Is that feeling of guilt? The experience of enemy that comes from someone Disgrace right?

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That's what it is Now in both The New Testament and old as I said,

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I mean there's examples of God shaming people What happens with Moses and it what happens with Aaron Aaron and Miriam after they dispute with Moses?

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What happens? leprosy, right So God makes Miriam a leper

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Then Moses is pleading for her and what does God say about it in numbers 1214? Lord says to Moses if her father had but spit in her face should she not be shamed seven days

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Let her be shut outside the camp seven days and after that she may be brought in again

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God shamed Miriam for seven days put her to public disgrace for seven days where she had to go outside the camp for seven days because She was engaging in a shameless act and she need to she need to be told

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She needed to be brought like she didn't have the appropriate shame that she should have and so God put her through a public shaming

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Ritual that's designed To bring the shame that she's she didn't have you understand.

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What is the purpose of church discipline? Well in some sense the primary purpose of church discipline is to be a restorative act

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But church discipline itself is a shaming ritual to you understand. So second, that's a little

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Thessalonians 314 If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter take note of that person have nothing to do with them so that They may be ashamed right?

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Shame is a good thing. Shame is a gift of God shame is the blessing of a guilty conscience I guess

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Christians We don't need to come along and just try to remove all shame from the equation There are certain things that we can do

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They're absolutely and utterly shameful that we should experience shame from and then you need to deal with that shame by taking it to the

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Foot of the cross and dealing with it, right? But the issue is you don't deal with shame by trying to keep it from ever

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Manifesting itself you need to deal with the shame properly and there's mechanisms in the Old Testament As I said and New Testament that are designed to bring the appropriate shame

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But that isn't supposed to be a permanent fixture of your life You're not supposed to live in old in shame like for the rest of your life

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But there are times where you're dealing with people who aren't Experiencing the appropriate shame that they should be experiencing and it's your job to help them to feel the shame that they're not feeling at times

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You understand? So here's the point Answering a matter before you here.

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Not only is it foolish? But it should be utterly shameful Okay, and when you live in a time that excels at listening poorly

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We don't feel the appropriate shame that we should be feeling when we're exposing ourself as a fool

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You understand? What you should be doing when you're thinking about this passage is what you should be doing is you should be thinking about situations in your life

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Where you answered matters before they hear in the appropriate response

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You should have to those situations is a sense of deep shame

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And some of the most embarrassing Situations I could think about are times where I'm answering a matter before I hear

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I'm speaking too quickly I'm not restraining my tongue. These are this should be viewed by you as profoundly shameful

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And I'm not saying like profoundly shameful in perpetuity forever with no hope It's not like a hopeless kind of shame

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But you should view that as a shameful act and that shame should motivate you to take that act to the cross

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And deal with it there But what we shouldn't be doing is try to bury our heads in the sand and shelter ourself from that initial

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Experience of shame that shame that you experience is a gift from God given to you

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Like that tormented conscience you feel that's a gift that God gives you to help you to be more conformed

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Into the image of Christ, which should be all of our goals So what do we do with this information brothers and sisters?

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What do we do with these things? We should repent of our hasty Conclusions there seems to be nothing more natural to man than we jump to conclusions offer advice and suggestion without knowledge

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Offer quick and easy solutions to problems that we don't understand we should brothers and sisters. We should repent of these things should pray for wisdom and Understanding You know that you serve a good

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God who delights to give his children good things God can help you with this if anyone of you lacks wisdom

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Let him ask of God who gives generously to all and without reproach. He's not He's not gonna

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Condemn you for asking for help God wants you to come to him for help ask him for help

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God stands ready to give those requests. I mean so many of the things that we're tempted to pray for Are things that God in this word has never promised to do for us

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But one of the things he has promised to do is if you ask him for wisdom, he'll give it to you It's not just going to give you a little bit

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He's going to give it liberally to all without reproach if you desperately want to get better at this in this area

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God will help you. God will help you get better. You may not be perfect in this area in this life

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I'm not perfect in this area in this life. I have a long way to go in this area in this life

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But God will help you help you to grow in this area if you ask So repent pray for wisdom practice understanding

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Practice understanding one of the best habits you can get in brothers and sisters is the habit of saying This is what

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I hear you to be saying. Is this right? Can you clarify and that's not something you say and then you don't let them clarify you say it and you mean it

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You say this is what I hear you to be saying Is this what you're saying? If this is not what you're saying, please tell me what you're saying and I will listen to what you're saying

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I'm going to believe what you say what you're saying I'm going to allow you to clarify it because I actually want to understand and I don't want to jump to conclusions

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I mean, this is a this is a foreign thought to a lot of us We don't do this as we should and when you do this at times if people are not trained to hear you do that as a sincere request for Clarification that you're making they could think about that as some kind of personal attack on them

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Like no, that's not what I'm saying. You're totally misrepresenting what I'm saying. How dare you say that's what I'm saying It's like no I I'm expressing my current understanding at the moment as a fallible creature and I'm giving you an opportunity to speak into it and correct

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It so please speak into it and correct it because I want to get to the other side and get to understanding and that's a

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Process and it's not going to happen immediately and that's why I'm willing to work at it So here's what I hear you to be saying.

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Is it right? Yes, or no Feel free to clarify put it in your own words if you don't like what I'm saying, and then

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I'll try again I'll say is this what you're saying? And you know, that's that's the process of practicing trying to understand and get better at what you're doing

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So we what do we do? We repent of our hasty conclusions pray for instant wisdom and understanding practice understanding and finally

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Go to Jesus we go to Jesus with Our hasty conclusions.

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He's provided an answer So Jesus has come to die on the cross to forgive us for all our sins past present and future

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For those who are in Christ Jesus, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus God knows everything from beginning you need to grow in your wisdom and understanding

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God knows everything from beginning He knows all the ways in which you bungled this In your life in all the ways that you're gonna bungle this today and you're gonna bungle it tomorrow

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He knows all that. You know what? He sent Jesus if you're his if you're one of his elect He sent Jesus to die die for you knowing that you're gonna mess up this

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Topic probably ten times in the rest of the day and tomorrow and every other day, right? He knows all that you're not taking him by surprise and his love for you is not dependent on your performance

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You understand so take this problem to Jesus He will forgive you if you ask if we fake confess our sins

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He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanses from all unrighteousness, but I pray that as a church

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We learn to grow in this area because I know that growing in this area. I was Lord was praying

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Lord, we thank you for the opportunity that we have to Think about the great truths

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That we find in Scripture. We know that if you were to count iniquities, none of us could stand We thank you for the grace and mercy that you've shown to us in Jesus We know that you are a

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God of perfect understanding and as fallible creatures we aren't But I pray that you help us to grow in this topic to your glory and for our good.