The Real God - The Wisdom Of God, Part 1

What is the biggest challenge that you're facing in your life right now? What relationship?

What circumstance? What is so confusing and so difficult that you just need God's wisdom to know what to do? Well, today we're going to teach you about how to get that wisdom.

Stay with me. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Chip's our Bible teacher on this international discipleship program, and I'm Dave Drury. We're in Chip's series, The Real God, talking about seven key characteristics that describe who God really is.

The first three characteristics we studied were God's goodness, His sovereignty, and His holiness. Now, if you missed them, you can catch up anytime with the Chip Ingram app. In this program, we dig into God's wisdom. And I can tell you, we're barely going to scratch the surface. But what Chip shares about God's wisdom is guaranteed to change the way you think about Him and your circumstances forever. So let's get going.

Here's Chip with his message from the book of Romans, chapter 11. I'm going to ask you to go to a little bit different place with me, all right? Put your pencil down.

I want you to lean back. And I want you to, in your mind, think of the most difficult, stressful area of your life. Okay? I want you to think of an area of your life that not only is difficult and hard, and maybe it's a relationship, or maybe it's work, or maybe it's a health issue that you can't get resolved, or maybe it's an aging parent, or maybe it's something with one of your kids. But I want you to think about something that is not only difficult for you, but it's difficult to understand. I mean, something that, in your heart of hearts, you wouldn't want to say this, but if you could reverently say it to God, you would say, God, I'm walking with you the best that I can, and I know your will is good, and I know you'll never give me more than I can take, but these circumstances sure don't feel like you're a good God. These feelings and these struggles and this barrier, whatever it is, I don't understand why a good, loving God, I know I don't have to, but I just don't understand why a good and loving God would have this situation in my life.

Okay? So just reflect for a minute. Let me give you just a minute to bring the picture into your mind, and for some it will come very quickly. What is it, put another way, that if God could remove it in an instant, that's what you would want him to remove?

Have you got it? Feel free to keep your eyes closed and kind of lean back and think of this perplexing, difficult, maybe even very stressful issue that you can't get unraveled, and as you do, I'd like you to listen to some words. To believe actively that our Heavenly Father constantly spreads around us providential circumstances that work for our present good and our everlasting well-being brings to the soul a veritable benediction. Most of us go through life praying a little, planning a little, jockeying for position, hoping but never being quite certain of anything, and always secretly afraid that we will miss the way. This is a tragic waste of truth, and it never gives rest to your heart.

There is a better way. It is to repudiate our own wisdom and to take instead the infinite wisdom of God. Our insistence upon seeing ahead is natural enough, but it is a real hindrance to our spiritual progress. God has charged himself with full responsibility for our eternal happiness, and he stands ready to take over the management of our lives the moment we turn in faith to him. Before you open your eyes, let me repeat that.

I want you to think of the situation. I want you to think that you can't understand why is God allowed it, and I want you to listen one more time. God has charged himself with the full responsibility for our eternal happiness, and he stands ready. That means this moment. He stands ready to take over the management of our lives the moment we turn in faith to him.

That's a quote by A.W. Tozer on the wisdom of God, and I will never forget the circumstances that led to me learning what the wisdom of God is all about. A classical definition of the wisdom of God is that God brings about the best possible results for the most possible people in the best possible way.

I mean, that's the idea. He's going to bring the best results by the best means for the most people for the longest time, and that sounds like a nice theological definition and great wisdom of God. Share experience where that truth saved my life. I was in seminary at the time, and I had a conviction that my wife, I had two small kids that were twins that were about six years old, and then I had an 18-month-old little boy, so we had three kids, and my conviction was my wife should be home and be able to nurture our children, and so I was going to seminary full-time, and I was working full-time, a straight commissioned job. It's the only thing I could do to make enough money just to make it through, and I went three years straight through, and so I was up about 4.30 or 5 every day and went to a donut shop and studied Greek for about two or three hours, went to a carpool, went and went to classes, and every moment I wasn't in a class, I was reading a book or studying or doing something, got the carpool, came home, played with my family for about an hour and a half, went to work from about 6.30 to 11 at night, got up 4.30, did the same thing for three years, and on the side we did a little ministry because you had to have an outlet, and the good news was the ministry started to just multiply and flourish. The bad news, it was just more and more stress, and then it was a straight commissioned job, and the company I was working for went through some major problems, and so my income disappeared.

I've been going on about four hours to five hours sleep for three years straight. I'm working full-time. I'm going to school full-time. My wife has two small children and a toddler. I am dead broke. I do not have money to pay my bills. The stress is over the level that I've ever experienced in my life. I'm discouraged, depressed, completely out of it, and I'm sitting in a seminary class thinking, okay, I almost went King James in my mind.

Is this how thou treats thy servants? I mean, I was a school teacher. I was a basketball coach.

I liked what I did. God said he wanted me to go to seminary. I went to seminary.

I've done it for three years. I've taken all this Greek and all this Hebrew, and I'm working full-time, and now I don't have any money. I got my rent due. We haven't bought meat or groceries in 15 days.

We've taken the $7 that we put with the little co-op, and we've been eating fruits and vegetables for 15 days, and my wife has been baking bread from the whole wheat flour that she has left. I can't pay my bills, and I'm just to where I'm thinking, this is what it looks like to get rewarded when you, quote, sell out for God. I want to be in your service.

I want to learn your word, and I'm ready to cash in, at least Christian service. I thought, I know enough now. I can never leave the Lord, but this being a pastor and preparing for ministry, and I was sitting in a classroom, a theology class, and just sort of staring, and it was a room much like this with a couple hundred students, and it was a big class, and it was a very famous professor, and I don't... Have you ever been in one of those zones where... I looked up, and someone tapped me on the shoulder, and it was the professor, and the class was empty, and I didn't hear anybody leave, and I wasn't asleep. I was just so numb, and I was sitting there thinking, I think I'm going to quit seminary. I can't do this, and the seminary professor was one in theology.

He was a very thin man and had wire rimmed glasses, and he tapped me on the shoulder, and he gave me a little comment. He just very discerning said, Chip, whatever you do, don't make any major decisions in the next 48 hours. Go home and get a good night's sleep.

Take a day off. Eat a good meal, and I'll see you Monday, and I just remember, often he would say things in class, and I wouldn't even write them down, but he said them in such a way that I just remembered them, and I sat there in the stupor trying to decide whether to quit school, cash it all in, and out of the blue comes this definition of God's wisdom. God brings about the best possible ends by the best possible means for the most possible people for the longest possible time, and that definition was rattling in my brain, and I just thought to myself, okay, what if I believe that? I mean, what if I just hypothetically, God, I'm not saying I do, but just hypothetically, because I don't really want to give up my anger and my resentment and my depression and my pity party, but in case I wanted to, what if I believe that just for a couple seconds? What if I believe that you do bring about the best possible ends, and the way you do it is by the best possible means, and people, I'm telling you, I'm sure there was sin in my life.

I just didn't know of any. Man, I'm getting up. I'm meeting with God. I'm reading the Bible and studying the languages. I'm involved in ministry.

I'm loving my life. I mean, as far as I know, there's nothing between me and God, so it's not a sin issue, and then I began to think, well, if I believed it, I'm not saying I do, but if I believed it, it would mean that if you are good and gracious and sovereign, it would mean that these present circumstances were allowed by a good God who's in absolute control of the universe, and that if there was an easier or kinder or gentler way to produce in me and through me what you wanted to produce, it would be different circumstances, but if I believe, hypothetically, of course, that you were all wise, then the fact that the company shut down, I don't have a job, I don't have any money, I'm absolutely exhausted, I'm discouraged, depressed, and I don't see how I'm gonna make it through tomorrow, let alone today, that this actually could be from the hand of a good, sovereign God that knows all things actual and possible, and therefore, what needs to happen in me from your eternal, all wise, loving and good perspective is exactly the circumstances that I'm living with, but here's the problem. It's hard to trust in the wisdom of God if you don't know what it is. If someone would have said, what's the wisdom of God to me probably before I went to seminary, I would say, it means he's real smart.

I mean, he must be the smartest guy, right? But wisdom is not smartness. Wisdom is not IQ. Wisdom is something quite different than what we think, and so in our time, here's what I wanna do. I wanna define what the wisdom of God is. I want to reveal how God has shown us his wisdom, and then I wanna look at how do we respond to that wisdom so that here's the goal. You can rest and you can trust in the wisdom of God in the very area that you were thinking about.

So that's the game plan. Let's define the wisdom of God. It is a attribute of God whereby he produces the best possible results by the best possible means.

That's by Berkhof. He's a German theologian. That's just a classical theological definition of the wisdom of God. Webster says it's the quality of being wise. It's the power of judging rightly. It's following the soundest course of action based on knowledge, experience, and understanding. Now this is interesting. Catch this. The root words to wisdom have the idea of the ability to see and to know.

You need to see. In other words, wisdom is kind of life savvy. It's not IQ. It's not intelligence.

It's not what you do on a test. Wisdom is understanding how life works and then living your life in a way that cooperates with how God has designed life to work to bring about the best possible results in relationships and in decisions and in parenting and in marriage and in singleness and all that God has for us. But it involves the people that you go to for wise counsel. They have two abilities. One, they can see either by experience or knowledge of the scriptures or insight or giftedness.

They can kind of see some things you can't see. And second, they have knowledge. And they take that knowledge and they take what they can see and they help you make good decisions.

That's what wisdom is all about. So the wisest person on the face of the earth is someone who can what? See everything from beginning to end, who knows everything, who has all power. In fact, Dr. Ryrie at Dallas Seminary, I love his definition of the omniscience of God. God knows all things actual and possible.

Short, brief, and unbelievably accurate. God not only knows all things, He knows all things actual and all things that are even possible. And say, where do you get that? Don't you remember the little passage when Jesus was being attacked by the Pharisees and people were rejecting Him? And He said, I'm telling you, if Sodom and Gomorrah would have heard the message that you just heard, they would have repented. Wait a second.

You mean you know how people would have responded hypothetically in another time frame hundreds of years earlier? Yes, He's God. God knows all things actual and all things possible. He sees all things. He has all power. He is eternal. He's outside of time.

He lives in the current now. He knows the beginning from the end and the end from the beginning. And so since He sees all things and knows all things, He's all wise and can give us the greatest and best direction.

In fact, the Scripture says at 1 Timothy 1.17, now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God be honor and glory forever and ever, amen. Or my favorite passage on the wisdom of God is Romans 11.33, oh the depths of the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable are His judgments and His past beyond tracing or finding out. God's wisdom, what He orchestrates. Here's what you've got to understand. How things appear so often in your life. How things so often appear in history. God has a silver thread. He's doing things that we can't see and you don't see God's wisdom until you see it over here. So much of life is like that. So much of what He's doing in your life, it just, I mean Joseph is thinking, this doesn't look good, this doesn't look good, this doesn't look good, this doesn't look good, this doesn't look good.

And then you turn it over and what? He has woven a man into a position of the second highest power in the known world to accomplish a goal and a task. But he didn't see the wisdom of God.

All he saw was the knots and the strings on the back of the tapestry as God was weaving his life through a series of circumstances, none of which he would have chosen. All of which he needed, not only personally but for the purposes God would fulfill. Notice, I like, it says in the holy scriptures, wisdom when used of God and good men always carries the strong moral connotation. It's conceived as being pure, loving and good. Wisdom among other things is the ability to devise perfect ends and to achieve those ends by the most perfect means.

I'm back to quoting Tozer, can you tell? Wisdom is the ability to devise, not good, perfect ends and to achieve those ends, how? By perfect means. What if God is perfectly orchestrating a perfect end for your life and what if even in this naughty, yucky circumstances that seem so unbearable, they're actually his perfect means to accomplish his perfect end in you?

Would that change your perspective in how you deal with life? He goes on to say, it sees the end from the beginning so there can be no need to guess or conjecture. Wisdom sees everything in focus, each in proper relationship to all and is thus able to work toward predestined goals with flawless precision. Let me give you an illustration that has helped me so much. This is a picture and then we'll look at how God has revealed his wisdom. Are you ready for this picture? It's a dramatic picture.

Try and really let the color of your mind and the cinema scope just begin to really gravitate into this picture. I want you to imagine there's a railroad tracks coming right across here and there's a nice little hill that goes up and on it is a small house where the railroad track man lives. You come across the tracks and there's some gravel and you go up and then there's some steps and over here is a little booth. The railroad track man's job is he has a lever and the trains come and his job is to push the lever at the right time so that the tracks slide over so the trains, some trains go off to the north and some trains will go off to the south. As they come through he gets radio wires and he hears what's going to happen but it's an old fashioned time so he must flick the switch to change the tracks.

That's his job. He lives on the little hill and he has a cute little wife and they have a beautiful little four and a half year old. He is over doing his job and his little boy is running down the hill papa papa papa daddy daddy daddy.

Can you visualize him? He's coming down the hill and he sees his daddy doing his job and often he would bring daddy his lunch and they would have good times together. As he runs and comes across he trips on the track and as he trips on the track his little tiny foot gets wedged underneath the track and as you and I would look down about 500 yards there is a train coming at a very high speed. There's not enough time for daddy to come down from his post and pull his little boy off that track. He now has a decision to make about what is wisest, what is best, what should he do and he has option number one is that as the train is coming down the track he could switch it but if he switch it because the track that it's on it would jolt that track and probably 400 to 500 people would go to their death.

It's coming at a very high speed. Or he could leave it as it is and as it is he will watch a freight train filled with passengers go right over the top of his side. If he asked you what's the wisest thing to do what would you tell him? I didn't say the moral thing to do. I didn't say what he wanted to do. I didn't even say the sacrificial thing to do. What's the wisest thing to do in this situation? And I would suggest that we as Christians most of us would come up with an answer like this if we were given this in a small group and we would discuss it together and come up with the noble and righteous answer that the wisest thing to do though painful and sacrificial of this father will get to experience something like God the father must have experienced and he should not kill the 450 or 500 people but he should watch his son die.

Now that may be the most loving and sacrificial and noble thing to do. I didn't say that. I said what's the wisest thing to do?

It's a difference because wisdom has to do with what? The best possible results for the most possible people for the longest possible time right? Can you say to yourself well I mean this is it 500 people versus one let the kid die. Wait a second what if the kid is the next Billy Graham? If he's the next Billy Graham would it be better for 500 people to die in a train wreck and possibly millions of people to spend eternity in heaven? Which would be the wisest?

Which would be the greatest benefit long term? Or what if this little boy has in his DNA he will find the cure to HIV? Would it be better for 500 to live? Or to have a million people or millions of people or to stop a plague that's going worldwide?

Or well stop stop stop maybe that's not right. What if there's a person on the train and they have the cure for cancer and they will discover it two years from now? Or what if the next Billy Graham is on that train? Do you see how complicated it gets?

See all of a sudden wait a second we're not talking about a train in 500 or one. Unless you know all things actual and possible unless you can see the beginning from the end. Every one of our lives is like a huge bolter that's dropped into a pond and there are ripples and you make a decision today and that affects children and grandchildren and friends and workers and everyone's making all these decisions and they're happening with all these people all over the world and in colliding these ripples of your decisions and my decisions and corporations decisions and military decisions. Who in the world can know all things actual? The only person that can make a wise decision about what should happen in this situation is someone who knows everything someone who sees everything both now and on into the future and in eternity and only that person can see and know to make the wisest decision.

And my suggestion is we don't have a clue of what the wisest thing is to do. Now think of that think of the logic you've just gone through and now think of some things where we say how could God let that plane go down? How could God let that seven year old boy die of cancer at his age? I don't understand how God could. You see God is a good God. There is limited evil. He does work all things according to his will for the good of those who are called and who love him and he knows the beginning from the end and he knows the implications of every decision of every relationship of every human being for all eternity in an omnipresent present now with all the implications and he is all wise and his decisions and his decrees and his will is orchestrated for people not just in view of his sovereignty not just in view of his power not just in view of his love and compassion or in his goodness and desire to bless but it's filtered through his wisdom which means he brings about the best possible ends by the best possible means for the most possible people for the longest possible time. Tozer summarizes by saying this all God's acts are done in perfect wisdom first for his own glory and then for the highest good of the greatest number for the longest time and all his acts are as pure as they are wise. Isn't that great? And they are as good as they are pure. Not only could his acts not be done better a better way to do them could not be imagined.

Can I suggest something? That's true in your life. I mean if you're in blatant sin and I certainly have had times where I have been so there's consequences to our sin and we often blame God for them but if you're not in blatant sin and as far as you know you're walking with God you're trying to be the man the woman that he wants you to be and you have certain things in your life that you're saying God I don't understand this isn't fair this is hard please take it away I'm praying I'm praying I'm praying and nothing changes could it be?

Could it be? That the all wise God of the universe is actually drawing you toward a perfect end by means of perfect methodology to produce in you and through you beyond and better what you could ever dream. See that's how you rest in the wisdom of God. But when you come to understand that this isn't something this is not a concept this is God. The God that you pray to this is what he's like. Well let's talk about how has he revealed his wisdom?

I mean if this is true this could change your life. How has God revealed his wisdom to us? One through creation. Psalm 19 verses one through seven. Listen to how God has revealed that he's wise. The heavens declare the glory of God.

The skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech. Night after night they display knowledge.

There is no speech or language where their voice is heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth. Their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens he's pitched a tent for the sun which like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion like a champion rejoicing to run its course. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other.

Nothing is hidden from its heat. The creation. The ecosystem.

I mean take an electron microscope and look at the smallest things you can find and you'll see an amazing order and wisdom and balance and then take a telescope and blast it into all of the universe and we see what these planets that are in these amazing orders and gravitational pulls and balance one another. You could take our earth and just tilt it one degree or a portion of a degree and some people would freeze to death and the other people would burn to death. The oxygen of the plants, the carbon dioxide of the people. You know we as humans we mess with the environment just a little bit and man it just starts going crazy.

God in his wisdom bringing the best possible results. Why do birds fly certain places, certain times? Why do they mate the way they mate?

Why do they have certain boundaries? Why is there this balance of certain animals that eat other animals and others that don't eat other animals and so much grass and how God orchestrates weather and patterns and animals. His creation. You've been listening to the first part of Chip's message The Wisdom of God from his series The Real God.

He'll be back with his application but before he is let me give you a quick sketch of this series overall. In The Real God Chip looks at seven key attributes of God's character and explains that none of them is ever diminished or overshadowed by the others which means that God is 100% love, 100% just and 100% merciful. Kind of mind-bending when you think about it that way and why it becomes a lifelong adventure to get to know him for who he really is. A great way to learn how these attributes of God work together is to do this study with a small group of friends. So for a limited time the small group resources for The Real God are discounted because we want to do everything we can to help you get a clear accurate view of God. To place your order or to get more information on The Real God go to livingontheedge.org, tap special offers on the Chip Ingram app or give us a call at 888-333-6003.

Well Chip you've got a great application today but before you get to that you wanted a minute here what's on your mind? I want to take just a moment to talk directly to those of you that are seeking a way to be more connected to the ministry of Living on the Edge. We're in need of partners who will take a step of faith and make a monthly financial commitment to the ministry. You may be thinking that because we reach millions of people through radio and broadcast and online and ministry resources that we probably don't need the money or that we're supported by all these people. The fact is it's a very small percentage of all the people who listen or do small group resources that actually give to the ministry. We depend on and we deeply appreciate those partners who make the decision to walk with us especially with a monthly commitment.

It doesn't have to be a large amount. So let me ask you would you please pray about becoming a monthly partner? Thanks so much in advance for whatever God leads you to do. Well if Living on the Edge is ministering to you and you've not yet become a monthly partner would you think about doing that today? It takes a team to do what God called us to do and we're inviting you to help us help Christians live like Christians. You can give a gift online at livingontheedge.org or if you prefer give us a call at 888-333-6003.

App listeners just tap donate. On behalf of Chip and the staff here at Living on the Edge thank you for your prayers and your financial support. When we started today's program I ask you a question. I ask you what's the biggest challenge that you're facing right now?

Let's go back to that. What is it? You've heard some teaching on wisdom but I mean what is bugging you? What gives pressure? Where is there stress? Is it a relationship? Is it your marriage?

One of your kids? Is it the fact that you don't have a relationship and you're single? Is it finances? Is it the world situation? Is it the stock market? I don't know.

But here's what I do know. The toughest challenges that you face or I face can be revolutionized when we look at them through the lens of God's wisdom. The wisdom of God, simply put, is this. God is orchestrating events and circumstances and people in your life to produce the best possible ends by the best possible means for the most possible people.

Have you got that? He's working. He's wise. He knows what He's doing.

I want to share with you understanding God's wisdom, this concept that life isn't just haphazard. Not only is He sovereign, but if there was a better way to help you learn, if there was a better way for God's will to be worked out in your life, He would do that. You're not getting a raw deal.

You're not getting God's second best. He knows you. He loves you. He's working for your good. And the plan that you're experiencing right now is the wisdom of God. This has brought more comfort and more peace in the midst of my most difficult challenges than probably any other aspect of God's character. Now the question is, how do you tap into that wisdom?

How do you get it? That will be on our next program. Hope you'll be there. You know, a great way to get more out of every message is to use Chip's message notes while you listen. You'll get his outline, all of his scripture references, and lots of fill-ins to help you remember what you're learning. Use them personally or even with your small group. Chip's message notes are a quick download at LivingOnTheEdge.org under the broadcasts tab. App listeners, tap fill-in notes, and you're set. Well, be sure to join us next time. Until then, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.