But our series is entitled Life Hacks. You see it up on the screen here today. It's entitled Life Hacks. And Life Hacks, let's talk a little bit about that for just a moment by way of introduction. Life Hacks is nothing.
That is new to you. We all are looking for the different life hacks in life. I mean, a life hack, if you aren't familiar with the term, a life hack is just a simple tool or a simple trick that you have found or come across that helps your life become more productive. It could be a budgeting tip, it could be something with your kids, it could be something just around your house that you do. It can be a number of things.
But over the last, I would say, 10 years, this idea of life hacks has just really been a coined term that you can see. In fact, you can Google, don't do it right now, but you could Google life hacks of 2026, and you're going to get just thousands of results and people trying to make your life more productive. And I mean, just in fact, this has been several months ago. I went into our kitchen and I went into our kitchen and I was. I opened up our freezer and in our freezer was a plate and on the plate was one of those rectangular, like cooked tostinos pizzas.
You know what I'm talking about? And it's completely cooked, but for whatever reason, it is in our freezer. And I'm just like, what in the world?
So I call, I'm like, who made a pizza and put in the freezer? Like, what are we doing? And my daughter walks in and she said, I put it in the freezer because it was too hot when it got out of the oven and I wanted it to cool down as fast as possible. And she literally said this to me. She said, Dad, that's my life hack for you here today.
And so this is a coined term. And I thought, by way of just introduction, before we jump into God's word and look at some life hacks from Proverbs, I was just going to mention a couple of these. These will help you. These are good life hacks that we found. And so the first one is, if you have, how many of you have a son that plays baseball?
Okay. You know what I'm talking about. The worst thing about having a kid that plays baseball is when the coach says that the color pants that you're going to be having this season is the color white. You hate that because they get so dirty. And so here's what I'll tell you: if your kid's pants look like that, okay, and if you have a baseball son or daughter, you understand exactly what I'm talking about.
And so, you know, when my son was little, he started playing baseball. We could never get the pants white. It was terrible. And we didn't want him going out there and look, you know, silly with dirty pants on because the looks of an athlete is as much important as what they do, right? And so you want them to look good.
And so what we started doing years ago, seriously, we have a little pressure washer and we take it outside and that's what we do. Forget the washing machine when it comes to these.
So, parents, that's a good life hack for you today. Here's one from my wife. My wife told me this, and I'll show you this one if you can go to the next slide here today. And if you're shredding chicken, she started doing Doing this a while back. She uses mixers and it shreds perfectly, and we're always eating chicken.
And so that's the one that she submitted here today. And so, if you're kind of like, okay, these life hacks are normal, whatever, I'll give you one that if you're from my generation, You can relate to. When I was a kid, this is what a life hack from 25 to 30 years ago would have looked like if you were a video gamer. I'll show you this. Do you remember this?
So, if your video games or Nintendo wasn't working, then here's what I will tell you: you just take that thing right out of your console and you blow as hard as you possibly can. You get a little spit in there, and all the air that you could blow into it, you put it back in there, and it would work again. I tell you, I Googled that yesterday to find this picture. And here's what I'll tell you, there were all these articles trying to prove this theory wrong. I didn't open up one of them because I don't believe any of them, all right?
But these are some practical life hacks that we use in life from time to time that hopefully can make our life more productive, make our life more efficient. And over the next eight weeks, we are going to look at the book of Proverbs. And we are going to look at this book, and we are going to look at what we are going to call life hacks. for your life. In fact, every single one of us, we need these.
And so I really want you over the next eight weeks to lean in as hard as you can to our services because this is practical stuff for you that you are going to learn about things like Solomon's writing about. Wisdom he's writing about Finances. He's writing about relationships. He writes about our tongue and our words. He writes about success.
He writes about the workplace. He writes about parenting. He writes about all these things. And he gives you principles that will help you that we are going to call life acts from the book of Proverbs. If you have your Bible, you can go ahead and join me.
We're going to be in Proverbs chapter number one. And before we dive into our series, I want to give you just a few things about the book of Proverbs that will help you as we interpret the book, as we work through this together. These will help you because the book of Proverbs was written by me and by the name of Solomon. And in fact, without going into a lot of detail and bore you with some of this, Solomon wrote for sure the first 24 chapters of the book of Proverbs, or chapter 25 through like, I don't remember, it was like 29 or something like that. A man by the name of Hezekiah, he actually wrote some of the Proverbs from Solomon.
And then after him, towards the end of the book, was some guys like Limwell and some other names that wrote some of those. But the book was primarily written by a man by the name of Solomon. He wrote, Solomon, you would know his story. He was the king of Israel, third king of Israel. He reigned for like 40 years, and he reigned for a long time.
And when he became a king, he was a teenager. And which should scare any of us. Anybody, how many of you have a teenager in your home right now?
Okay, you have a teenager. All right, I'm right there with you. Could you imagine your teenager running the country?
Now, some of you might be thinking, hey, listen, they might do as well as some of the people in office today. I don't know. But here's what I'm telling you: is this, is that, you know, Solomon during this day, he became the king of Israel. He became the king of Israel as a teenage boy. And God told him because God anointed him and God put him there, and he had the opportunity to ask God for anything.
Now, as a king, you could ask God for protection from your enemies, right? That'd be a good one. He could ask God for success. That'd be a good one. He could ask God for prosperity.
For popularity, he can ask God for anything. And Solomon said, God give me wisdom. And so God grants Solomon wisdom. And so Solomon, as many would say, is the wisest man ever. And when he was king, he wrote.
the book of Proverbs. And he wrote all of these Proverbs down. And that's what we're going to look at today. But before we interpret it, you have to know a few things about the book of Proverbs because you could be left confused. If you don't know how to interpret this, this book is what we would call, you know, the scripture can be put into a bunch of different genres.
And the book of Proverbs is from a genre of scripture that we would call and label as the wisdom literature. And so, what that means is that this book is super practical, and the way that you interpret it is very, very important because you'll be left confused if you don't interpret it the right way.
So, I'm going to give you a few things before we dive in. First, the book of Proverbs is practical, it is not theoretical.
So, for many of you, if you're the type of person that you love to dive deep into the deepest layers of theology, the book of Proverbs is probably not going to do that for you. If you're the type that likes to debate doctrines of the faith and stuff like that, the book of Proverbs is not like that. In fact, most people are probably not accustomed to debating the deepest doctrines and theology found in scripture. They're asking, like, how do I be a better citizen? How do I be a better dad?
Or how do I, you know, be a better employee? Or how do I get along with this person when we don't see eye to eye on anything? And how do I, you know, budget my money and things like that?
Well, the book of Proverbs speaks to all those things. And so when you're interpreting this, you got to understand it's not a theoretical book. It's a practical book with wisdom for you. The second one, and this is probably the most important because I don't want you to get confused as we look at some stuff. in this series.
The book of Proverbs. is about what I'm gonna call truisms. Not necessarily guarantees. What I mean by that is this. The book of Proverbs is going to give you a ton of practical applications and wisdom for life.
But here's what it's basically saying, that if you apply the principles found in the chapters of the book of Proverbs, your life, generally speaking, will go better if you apply these principles than if you don't. But I don't want to call them guarantees. And here's why. One of the most famous verses in the book of Proverbs is found in chapter 22, verse 6, and here's what it will say. It's train up a child.
In the way he or she should go, and when he or she is old, she will not depart, or he will not depart from it.
Now, is that a truism, or is that a guaranteed promise? And that's what I'm trying to say because here's what I'm telling you. You all probably know somebody who raised their kids. To love God with all of their heart, they raised their kids around the local church, around God's word, and they did a pretty good job at it. And then, when their kid got old enough to make their own decisions, they ran from the church, they ran from God.
You probably know a story like that. In fact, you might be that story, and you're asking questions like, Man, isn't that what? Here's what I'm telling you: the book of Proverbs is about truisms, not necessarily guarantees. That doesn't mean if your child didn't turn out, doesn't mean that God's word is untrue. It doesn't mean that you're a bad, terrible parent.
It just means that that was a truism, but not necessarily a full guarantee. I mean, there's other things in the book of Proverbs that says stuff like this. Like, hey, if you double what you save, then you're going to get double the reward on the other side. And for some of you, you've been saving money a long time and you don't see the other side of that promise. And you're thinking, wait a second, does that mean God's word's not true?
I did everything his word told me to do when I saved. And it said that, you know, you'd get double the reward after that and that kind of thing. Listen, when you interpret the book of Proverbs, you have to understand this is about truism, meaning that if you apply the principles, generally speaking, your life's going to be better as a result. Number three is this, the book of Proverbs, it's about principles. Not methods.
So if if you're looking For like a three-step Like thing to be a better parent. Or you're looking for, like, hey, I need five steps to become a better husband or a better spouse or whatever. Then listen, you're going to be frustrated sometimes because here's what the book of Proverbs is: it's a book about principles. Your method might look different than my method because methods can change all the time. But here's what he's saying.
If you would take the principles found in the book of Proverbs, then generally speaking, your life will be better. In whatever you are trying to apply those in, whether that be the workplace, whether that be in your school, whether that be in your family, whether that be with your children, whether that be in your marriage relationship, whether that be wherever in your community. If you apply these, life will be better for you. And so in Proverbs chapter 1. We're going to look at this idea, the idea of wisdom.
That's why we sang about it. And everything today. And here's life hack number one. All right. Life hack number one, if you're taking notes here today, is this.
Is that we must get heavenly wisdom. Before we make Daily Decisions. Let me say that again. We must get heavenly wisdom. Before we make daily decisions, let's all say this life hack together out loud, okay?
If you're an introvert in here, don't get nervous, okay? I know you're probably thinking, man, I don't wanna say it. Nobody's gonna single you out. Let's all say it together. Here we go.
Get heavenly wisdom. before making daily decisions. The book of Proverbs talks about this here, and um. He talks about wisdom. I'll read eight verses here today, and then we'll slowly unpack those a little bit here today.
Here's what Solomon, as he's writing, he says this: verse 1. The Proverbs of Solomon The son of David, king of Israel. To know wisdom. And instruction to perceive the words of understanding. to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity, verse four, to give subtlety to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.
A wise man will hear. and will increase learning. And a man of understanding shall attain Unto wise counsels. To understand a proverb. And the interpretation, the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.
Verse 7. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. But fools despise wisdom and instruction. My son. Hear the instruction of thy father, and And forsake not the law.
Of thy of thy mother.
So life hack number one. Get heavenly wisdom before making daily decisions. I wanna look at that. And so, first, if you take notes, I wanna look at the description. of heavenly wisdom.
The description of heavenly wisdom.
Now, the... Wisdom. And you have to understand this as we talk about wisdom. Wisdom is different than knowledge. And wisdom is different than understanding.
You know, those three words are used throughout the book of Proverbs.
So the word knowledge. It's found 39 times in the book. Understanding. It's found 35 times in the book, and the word wisdom is found over 50 times in the book of Proverbs.
So, what's the difference? If wisdom, and we all need wisdom, right? Every single one of us, and that's what we're talking about. We need wisdom. There's some things in life, if you're like me, how many of you love when things are just black and white, very crystal clear?
You love that, right? And for many of us, that's what we're looking for in life. And in a relationship with God, we're really good when everything is crystal clear. And what we're desiring in a relationship with God is like a letter in the mail that tells us exactly what to do. Or what you're praying for is that God would send an airplane by your house like they do at the beach with a long message on it, but hanging to the airplane and attached, saying, This is what you need to do.
But how many of you realize that sometimes that's not the way our Lord works? He doesn't always work. That somebody has mail in here. You've got mail. I just heard it.
And so, okay, that was.
Some things that pop in my head. I heard a computer in here. But here's what I'm telling you: is this: we all understand that there's some moments. In between Where it's not crystal clear. It's not black or white.
And what we are called to do is use wisdom to make the best decision. Things like: what college do I go to? Do I Homeschool my kids. Do I send them to public school or do I send them to Christian school? Like, those are real decisions that we have to make.
And I mean, it's not crystal clear one way, or how about do I marry this person? Or do I date this person? Right? There's these things that we have in life. Do I watch this?
Do I listen to this? Do I, there's all sorts of issues that are in the middle. Do I hang out with this person? Do I go there? Do I drink this?
Do I take this? Do I go there? Do I eat this? Do I whatever? There's these things in the middle that you're kind of like, hey, what do I need to do?
How do I handle this? And what God does is sometimes He doesn't make it crystal clear one way or the other. What He's doing is He's allowing you in the middle to make decisions. Based on heavenly wisdom.
So, if wisdom, heavenly wisdom, is different than understanding and it's different than knowledge, how do we know the difference? Here's how. Knowledge is the accumulation of information.
Okay. Understanding Is the interpretation of it.
So, if knowledge is the accumulation of information, and understanding is the interpretation of the information that you've accumulated. Wisdom is the application.
So, when we talk about heavenly wisdom, wisdom is the application of the wisdom or of the knowledge. That we have received. And here's why, and here's how we know this to be true. We all know somebody, right? That is super smart.
But when it comes to decision making, They're foolish. You ever met somebody that's super smart but lacks common sense?
Okay, don't look to your neighbor. Don't point to your children. All right? But you know what I'm saying? We got the book smarts, we got all the information, but yet we lack the application.
Here's what I'm going to tell you, and this is really the problem in our world today. We the problem in our society It's not a lack of information. Right? We live in the information age. Like, we can Find things out faster and quicker than ever before.
I mean, you can literally come up to me after this service, you can ask me. Anything under the sun. And I don't know a whole lot. But here's what I will tell you. I have a device.
In my pocket with an app. Called Chat GPT? That can literally provide the answer to whatever you're probably asking. You say, why are you saying that? Here's what I want you to understand.
In churches, in families, in society, the issue in our world is not a lack of information. We have plenty of information. We know a whole lot. Here's the problem. It's a lack of application.
It's a lack of Wisdom. You see, wisdom Is like this heavenly wisdom that we're talking about. It's like insights. That help you. Realize that your today is connected to tomorrow.
If you're a young person in here, you need to understand this. Wisdom is understanding. That your decisions that you make today, as small as you think they are, will impact your tomorrow. I say it this way a lot of times: is that the decisions that you make today impact the story that you tell about your life tomorrow. And so, whatever decision you're making today, you got to realize, and using wisdom, heavenly wisdom, you realize that your today is connected to your tomorrow.
And therefore, heavenly wisdom exerts this exercise in your life that you realize that I'm going to make a good decision so that my tomorrow is better off because of the wisdom that I exerted today. Wisdom is like a guide for your life. It is a skill. You're not born with it. You're not born with wisdom.
Here's why I believe that to be true. The word wisdom in the book of Proverbs, it's actually the same word. Hebrew word. that is used in Exodus chapter 35. For the word that talks about the person that has a skill in crafting the tabernacle, which was God's temporary dwelling place, the word for skill in that is the same word that we have in the book of Proverbs for wisdom.
You say, what does that tell us? Wisdom is a skill. It's something that over the course of time you learn from the Lord. And here in Proverbs 1, from what we read just a moment ago, here we learn some things about wisdom. I'll run through these rather quickly.
Verse number 2, if you look back at our text in chapter 1, it says this: to know wisdom and instruction to perceive the words of understanding. When we try to define heavenly wisdom, here's what I'll say: heavenly wisdom is, number one, correction. And understanding.
So in verse 2, the word instruction... It can be translated discipline. In other words, and this is going to make a few of you uncomfortable, wisdom is the ability. To be disciplined. Wisdom is the ability to admit.
You're wrong. Wisdom can take corrective criticism. Think about it. When somebody comes to you and they give you healthy feedback about something in your life. Or they correct you about something.
What is your natural tendency? If your natural tendency is to get defensive and put up the boundaries and stuff like that, listen, then the Bible would say that that's not heavenly wisdom. That's actually the life of a fool because heavenly wisdom says that we can handle instruction, we can handle discipline, we can handle correction.
So, in other words, you can be warned. Heavenly wisdom can be warned about going in the wrong direction. It can be rebuked when needed. Heavenly wisdom can be corrected when wrong, and we will respond. In a growing learning spirit.
as a result. Get heavenly wisdom. Number two, he defines heavenly wisdom. Verse 3, if you look back at our text, to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity. Say, what's he trying to say there?
Heavenly wisdom. is also righteousness. Is also righteousness. Here's how we know that. He used some descriptive words here: justice.
It literally can be translated righteousness. Specifically, it was meaning in speech and in ethics. The word judgment, it's actually a legal term. It means deciding a legal case. In other words, what Solomon means here when he mentions the word judgment, he's saying that heavenly wisdom has the ability to listen to the evidence of whatever decision you're trying to make and judge what is the best and right decision for you in that moment.
This is why we're summarizing it: that wisdom, heavenly wisdom, it's righteousness. It's the ability to see and know what is best for you or what is right for you. The next one is found in verse 4. Look back at it. It says, to give subtlety to the simple.
To the young man, knowledge and discretion. Heavenly wisdom is discernment. When he says subtlety to the simple, here's what I'm telling you: that's prudence. That's discernment. It has the ability, heavenly wisdom has the ability to look at a situation and determine what is best for you.
Listen, and young person, listen up to this. It's not always black and white in your life. It's not always crystal clear what you're supposed to do. When I was a youth pastor, I used to have students come to me all the time asking me, like, hey, what college should I go to? Tell me, and who should I marry?
And all this kind of stuff and everything. And I would always tell them, listen, I can't be the Holy Spirit in your life, but here's what I can tell you: seek heavenly wisdom that allows you to look at that situation and make the best decision for your life. Heavenly wisdom is listening and learning. In verses five and six, look back at it. A wise man will hear and will increase learning, and a man of understanding shall attain into wise counsel to understand a proverb and the interpretation, the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.
Here's what I'm telling you: this: Heavenly wisdom is listening. You know what? In our society, we assume that the wisest person in every room is the one who talks the most. We assume that the wisest person is always the one with the microphone. The wisest person is always the teacher.
The wisest person is always the person that is talking more than they're listening. And here's what Solomon's saying. He's like, no, no, no, no, no. He's saying heavenly wisdom, that wisdom that is from above, Is actually so different than that. It's actually, it listens.
Heavenly wisdom listens more than it speaks. You see, wisdom, heavenly wisdom, is understanding that you have something to learn. And that you have an area in your life that you can personally grow in. And by the way, that's every single one of us. That's what heavenly wisdom is.
And so, if that's the description of heavenly wisdom, then, like, where does it come from? I want to look at the source. Like, where does this heavenly wisdom come from?
Well, we've been talking about heavenly wisdom. And so if you're talking about it and you're calling it heavenly wisdom, you have to understand there's a flip side to it. There is earthly wisdom. There's two types of wisdom in our world today, earthly wisdom and heavenly wisdom. And what we should strive after is heavenly wisdom.
And in order to do that and discern which one's which, We have to look at what earthly wisdom is. You see, we value earthly wisdom in our society today. We look at people that are financially well off and we just assume that they have achieved what Solomon has told us to achieve. We look and admire those people, people that are successful, people that have ran businesses, people that have had a startup business, and it booms. And we look at successful people in the workplace, and we look at people when their kids have turned out what we would deem as perfect, and we just assume that they have it all together and that they have achieved.
Listen, here's what I want you to know. And by the way, if you've been successful, I'm not at all hating on that. That's a good thing. But here's what I will tell you: sometimes people can still be successful by earthly standards, but they have achieved success from earthly wisdom, not necessarily heavenly wisdom. And there's a difference.
You say, how do you know the difference?
Well, you can't know the difference in somebody else, but you can know the difference in you. Here's what I would tell you is that earthly wisdom I believe. is based off of an internal foundation. of selfish ambition and personal gain.
So, in other words, if the reason you want the promotion is personal gain and selfish ambition, you probably have earthly wisdom. Or, if the reason that you want to be at the top of the ladder of whatever company that you serve in, there's nothing wrong with that. That's a good thing, and I hope God leads you to be successful. But here's what I'm saying: if the ambition and the motive is selfish ambition and personal gain, then you probably are being led by earthly wisdom and not necessarily heavenly wisdom.
Solomon would say that heavenly wisdom actually is far superior to earthly wisdom. James chapter 3 talks about it. James 3, we don't have time to go there, but it'll be up on the screen. I'll read this rather quickly. James says this, who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you?
Let him show out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom.
So James is asking about this idea of wisdom. How do you find wisdom? How do you attain wisdom? Where does wisdom come from? And he goes on in verse 14.
And he says this: But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, which is nobody at Union Grove, I get that, glory not and lie not against the truth. Verse 15: This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly.
So he's talking about this earthly wisdom, sensual and devilish, verse 16. Or where envying and strife is, there's confusion in every evil word, verse 17. But the wisdom that is from above, so he's going to describe it again, kind of taking what Solomon just told us, and he's going to expound upon it. He said, the wisdom that you and I need to be searching for, it's first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, without hypocrisy, verse 18. And the fruit of righteousness is sown.
in peace of them that make peace.
So, if earthly wisdom is driven by selfish ambition. and personal gain, then heavenly wisdom has to be polar opposite of that. That's what James is saying. James is saying that heavenly wisdom, and I'm going to summarize this really quick, so you're welcome to write this down. If you want these notes afterwards, I'd be happy to give them to you because I'm going to say this really quick.
But heavenly wisdom from James, here's what it tells us, and I'm going to rapid-fire these: heavenly wisdom leads to good conduct. That's what he's saying in verse 13. Um Oops. Listen, we all know a smart person without common sense, right? Right?
You know somebody like that. Here's what James and what Proverbs is saying: A smart person without common sense is like a spiritual person who knows God's word but lives a worldly life. Same person, same thing. Say amen.
Somebody has all the book smarts in the world, but they have no common sense. That's just like somebody who knows the Bible, grown up in church their whole life, and goes out of here and lives a worldly life during the week. That's what he's saying. Heavenly wisdom leads to good conduct. Heavenly wisdom, verses 14 and 16, heavenly wisdom thinks of others.
Heavenly wisdom, the wisdom we should try to achieve, it does not boast, it does not brag. It does not envy what others have. Heavenly wisdom, in fact, put others first. And heavenly wisdom gets happy when somebody else succeeds. When somebody else wins, when somebody else gets recognition for something, heavenly wisdom has the ability to be able to be happy for that person and not just be about themselves that they didn't get recognized.
That's what he's saying in verses 14 through 16. Verses 17 and 18 of James 3: heavenly wisdom produces fruit. The fruit of the Spirit. He goes on, he says, Heavenly wisdom is pure. In other words, heavenly wisdom is not tainted by evil.
Heavenly wisdom is peaceable. In other words, heavenly wisdom seeks to strive for peace. It doesn't look for trouble. It doesn't look for division. It doesn't look for ways to disrupt the unity.
It tries to live at peace and harmony with the people around it. Heavenly wisdom is gentle. It is not harmful. It is kind. It is not angry.
It is gentle. When things don't go its way, heavenly wisdom responds in a calm, gentle way. It doesn't lose its mind. If you look at your life, when something doesn't go your way, do you just go nuts and go crazy and yell, and your tone changes, and everything about you? The point is heavenly wisdom is gentle.
The heavenly wisdom is easy to be entreated. James 3 says, in other words, it tries to be reasonable. Heavenly wisdom does not try to win an argument. Think about your relationship with your spouse. When you guys are in a, let's just call them what it is, a heated argument.
You ever have those? Anyone in here? Your pastor's never had one with his wife, okay? That's a joke. But here's what I'm telling you is when that happens, here's the thing.
Heavenly wisdom doesn't try to win the argument. It doesn't try to prove that they're right. Heavenly wisdom seeks resolution above proving they're right. Heavenly wisdom is full of mercy. Mercy, you know what that is.
It's not giving what someone deserves, it's withholding judgment.
So heavenly wisdom. Actually, it looks when somebody has wronged them and they extend something they don't deserve, like forgiveness and love in the midst of that. Earthly wisdom would say justice needs to be served to this person who wronged you. Heavenly wisdom is full of mercy. It's quick to overlook.
It's quick to forgive. Heavenly wisdom doesn't hold grudges. Heavenly wisdom, according to James 3, leads to good fruit, godliness, the fruit of the Spirit. Heavenly wisdom doesn't have partiality. In other words, heavenly wisdom is genuine, and heavenly wisdom treats people equally.
Heavenly wisdom does not look to status. It doesn't look to wealth to determine how they treat people. They treat people based on the fact that they were made in the image of God. Heavenly wisdom is without hypocrisy. In other words, it's genuine.
Heavenly wisdom. Is when you look the same on Tuesday as how you look on Sunday morning. Heavenly wisdom is when your private life matches your public life. And you all we all know people that live two lives. And they're hypocrites.
That's earthly wisdom. Heavenly wisdom is without hypocrisy. And heavenly wisdom seeks to sow peace.
So that's the description. That's a lot of content. I get that. And some of you are overloaded with that and everything.
Some of you are nudging the person next to you. You need that and stuff. And here's what I'm going to tell you: is this.
So where does all that come from? If there's a difference between earthly wisdom and heavenly, where does it come from?
Well, the Bible talks about it. Real quickly. Colossians 2.3. Says this, in whom, Jesus, are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Here's what Our Bible teaches.
That wisdom, heavenly wisdom. It's found in Jesus. 1 Corinthians 1.20. Says it this way, where is the wise? Where is the scribe?
Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish? The wisdom of this world. Here's the point. Say, where does this come from?
Where is this? I need this. Here's the point: it's the gospel message in Proverbs. Remember, everything points to him. Here's where it is.
When you were born into this world, you were born into sin. In other words, the only type of wisdom you could muster up in and of yourself is earthly wisdom. That's the only good I can do on my very best day. I can only. You know, receive and accumulate and live our earthly wisdom.
I could never get heavenly wisdom.
So, God noticed that people like you and me could not get heavenly wisdom in and of themselves.
So, what God did was He loved you in spite of you. Of your sin, he sent his son Jesus. Jesus came and he lived on this earth. You say, why is that significant for me? Here's what Jesus was.
For the time he lived here, and obviously he's God, so he is always this way. He's 100% wisdom. He's 100% heavenly wisdom. He's 100% full righteousness and holiness. And so, what he did by dying on a cross for you, he died on a cross, and all of our earthly wisdom that was in us.
It was nailed to him on a cross. Why?
So that through trusting in his perfect sacrifice for you and for me, you could now, not through anything in you, but through Christ that lives in you, you can live out this heavenly wisdom. You say, oh, now I can be wise.
Well, no, it's not you. It's the power that works inside of us. It's the righteousness of Jesus. It's the wisdom of Jesus. It's the holiness of Jesus that is inside of you at the moment you trusted in Jesus as your Savior and you gave your life to him.
It's in you. And what he's saying is, you can live with heavenly wisdom. You can be led by heavenly wisdom if you allow the wisdom that was imputed. and placed into your life by Christ. You can live a life.
of heavenly wisdom. Listen, every one of us need wisdom, right? You need wisdom. I need wisdom. We need wisdom for...
Young person, if you're a student, you need wisdom for how to handle the problems at your school. You need wisdom to handle gossip at your school. You need wisdom to handle your friend groups at your school. You need wisdom to handle clicks at your school. You need wisdom to handle those things.
And then, adult, you need wisdom in your family. You need wisdom with your children. You need wisdom at your job. With your employer. With your decision-making, with your career path, whatever it is, we all need it, every single one of us.
And so as we close today, here's the question I want you to ask yourself. What kind of wisdom? has been shaping my life. Life. That's the question.
What kind of wisdom? has been shaping My life. Is your decision-making being shaped by earthly wisdom? Personal ambition. and self-centered gain.
Or Is your life being shaped? by heavenly wisdom. By peace. And love. And gentleness.
Humility, patience. Being still. Listening. and responding in love. Or Are you living a life of pride all about yourself?
All about comparison. and all about What kind of wisdom has been shaping your life?
