Finding Wisdom, Week 2

Pat Steeves · Tidal Church Moncton · January 16, 2022 · Finding Wisdom series

Pat Steeves teaches from Proverbs 9:10-11 and Romans 7 that wisdom is knowing and then doing. Starting with reverence for God, small steps and receiving the real freedom Jesus gives help us put what we know into practice.

More from Pat Steeves · The Finding Wisdom series

Topics: Faith, Purpose, Discipleship

Transcript

[0:00] How many of you have ever found yourself saying these words? I know I need to stop spending so much money online shopping. Or maybe you have said, I know that I need to stop eating Big Macs after midnight. Or I know I need to stop scrolling for hours on TikTok. But maybe for others, you've said these words, I know I need to start exercising. Or maybe I need to start reading my Bible or eating healthier. How many know this, that we know what to do, but we just fail to apply what we know?

[0:50] I don't know if this is true for you, but sometimes I just fail to have the discipline or the desire, even the energy, to do what I know I need to do. And I know that none of you wrestle with this. How many of you are our New Year's resolution people? In the chat right now, why don't you post some of your New Year's resolutions? I want to see, I can actually see the chat here right now. So I need you guys to be active. We don't have anybody here in the room. So I'm relying on you guys in the chat. You can say things like, preach it. You can throw some cheers in the chat, but let me know that you are here.

[1:35] See, here's the deal. Statistics say that right now, just in mid to late January, mid to late January, I see Victoria Roy, she's saying she's got a New Year's resolution because she wants to start a daily Bible reading. But here's the sad news. All right. The reality is that by the end of January, 80% of people, all right, who are all hyped up and energetic to start New Year's resolutions, they have already fallen by the wayside. I know that's super depressing. All right. But the reality is, is we fail to do what we know to do. Now, I know we have some parents that are watching right now, and this is the struggle for parents. If you have kids, we are forever chasing our kids around saying, you need to pick up your clothes or you need to get your dirty dishes.

[2:31] Parents, you know what I'm saying? And here's the response that we get from our kids. Here it is. I know. Right? Don't we get that? And I'm like, okay, well, if you know, then why aren't you just doing it? Right? And so I want to talk to us today and title this topic. Knowledge is knowing, but wisdom is doing. Knowledge knows, but wisdom takes knowledge and experience and does something amazing with it. I got to share this incredible story that maybe you have heard recently. It went viral not this long ago, but this 22-year-old girl named Nadia lives in Spokane, Washington.

[3:20] Nadia, if you see this video, I've reached out to you, and I hope to interview you in pre-service one day about this incredible story. But Nadia is a hockey fan. How many hockey fans do we have in the house? I know we have hockey fans, right? So she's going to see her favorite team, the Seattle Kraken, new expansion team, Seattle Kraken. She's going to the game. We're going to actually put this picture up. Here she is. She's here enjoying the game, playing the Vancouver Canucks. All right? So Nadia's hanging out. She's sitting just a few rows back from the player's bench. And so she's just checking out the game. She's all decked out. There's actually some people heckling the Vancouver Canucks. She's watching all this happening, just enjoying the moment. Somebody's saying, preach Pastor Pat, I love it.

[4:07] I love it. Keep that coming. So she's here enjoying the game. And we're talking about knowledge knows, but wisdom does. Nadia is studying medical school. She's in medical school, studying what they do and all that. And in the midst of all of the game, all the activity, she notices that one of the assistant equipment managers happens to flip down, gets this, flip down the collar of his jacket. And in that moment, she sees this, of all things, a mole on the back of his neck. And the immediate thought is, because she was studying in school, that this could be cancerous. And so in all the hype and all the excitement of the game, immediately she's tried to figure out how can I get a message to this guy?

[4:55] And she starts second guessing herself and thinking, this is crazy, like, what am I doing? She begins to take her phone out and she types a message. And in that moment, she walks down by all these people that are heckling and all this, not knowing what this guy's going to think. And he just happens, the equipment manager turns around and happens to look. She shows her phone to this guy on the other side of the glass and gives him this message that you need to get this checked out. He quickly glances and turns away. And she walks back to her seat thinking, I don't know what I just did. Like, this is so embarrassing. I don't even know. If he's ever going to see this message, he might think I'm crazy. All these things. Days go by and all of a sudden her phone blows up.

[5:45] Her phone blows up with people trying to reach out to her because what she didn't know is this guy went to get this checked out and the story goes that it was actually a cancerous mole. A malignant monoma is what it was. And so he said she saved my life by taking a chance. You see, wisdom knows, this young girl, Nadia, knew the knowledge but she acted out on what she knew, okay? And that is wisdom. I want to invite you to week two of the Finding Wisdom series. You know what? God's word, the Bible, is full of wisdom and knowledge on how we need to live our life, how we treat our neighbor, how we be healthy, how we can spend our money.

[6:33] And I pray that over these next few weeks that God is going to start speaking to us in our everyday, ordinary life where we take knowledge and we apply it to our life. Check this out. Like, how many of you guys, like, are phones? Isn't it just incredible the amount of knowledge that we have access to right here on our devices? Like, it just blows me away. If we could bring our grandparents back to today and tell them that we, like, talk to our phone and it gives us information. Like, Siri, really? Like, I rely on her, like, she's my alarm clock, she's my reminders. Like, she just gives me information when I just need to know stuff. So much knowledge. Let's just try this out. Hey, Siri?

[7:21] Yes. Hey, Siri, tell us how many people are on the planet right now. 7.8 billion people. Isn't this incredible? All right. Let's try this out. I don't know if you've ever done this. Hey, Siri, tell us a clean joke. Okay, this one is for the kids. Why do sharks live in salt water? Because pepper water makes them sneeze. So funny, Siri. Oh, Pat, by the way, Kids World Kids are the best. Kids World Kids are the best, Siri, in the chat right now. Why don't you guys give it up for our Kids World volunteers and those kids that are watching right now?

[8:07] They are absolutely incredible. I got one more. Hey, Siri. Best hockey team ever. Oh, Pat, we all know it's the Toronto Maple Leafs. So fun. You are so right, Siri. But here's the deal. Here's the deal. I see the chat just lighting up right now. Here's the deal. We have so much knowledge. And I was thinking about this the other day, that when we're talking about knowledge, that we spend a good majority of our young life gaining knowledge. We go to school for 12, you know, 13 years gaining knowledge.

[8:53] And some of you really enjoy studying and academics and you want to go on to further your career. So you continue on for maybe two years, for six years, gaining more knowledge. And as I was thinking about this message, that we don't struggle for lack of knowledge. We struggle because we can't implement what we know. And if we continue on in this, like we spend up to five hours, statistics say, just taking in information and more knowledge. And what I'm about to say might hit home, but just in a seat just like this, some of us go to church, you know, each and every week.

[9:40] And maybe we've been going for years and we hear some great messages. We are blessed with phenomenal communicators and Pastor Joel does a great job. But we hear more information and more knowledge on these Sundays. But yet we fail to apply what we know. We fail to change and make changes to our life and apply what we know. And so I want us to take a few minutes and realize that it is time for us to get wisdom. You see, catch this, knowledge knows, knowledge gains knowledge here, okay? This is what knowledge does, but wisdom takes the knowledge and gets up and does something with it.

[10:27] In the chat right now, say, let's get some knowledge. No, sorry, try that again. Say, let's get some wisdom. We've got knowledge, but it's time to get wisdom. So here's where we begin. If you're saying, okay, we need to get wisdom, how do we do that? I want us to look at Proverbs 9 verse 10 and 11. If you have a Bible, maybe on your phone, but we're gonna go to Proverbs 9 verse 10. And here's how we get wisdom. You're saying, Pat, you're saying we need wisdom. Show us how to get it. And here it is. It says, for the reverence and fear of God is the beginning. It is the starting point to wisdom.

[11:13] The reverence and fear of God is the very beginning. That is the starting point. Knowing God results in every kind of understanding. And you're saying, what does that mean? I'm gonna show you in just a minute, but I want us to check out verse 11. I love verse 11 too. I wisdom. Do you know that wisdom is a person? Wisdom will speak to us. It'll speak to me in the situation that we're in. This is just a side note, but when you read Proverbs, you will see that wisdom is a woman. When it talks about wisdom, it is a woman. I wisdom. Check this out in Proverbs. I don't know about you, but I know that women are wise.

[11:59] My wife is wise. And I know that wisdom often speaks through her, but wisdom is a person and will speak to you. Check this out. We'll make the hours of your day more profitable and the years of your life more fruitful. How many want that, right? Isn't that amazing? Now let's go back to verse 10, because I want to show you guys this. Check this out. For the reverence and fear of God is the beginning of all wisdom. Here's the deal about fear of God. I think that sometimes we have a misconception of what the fear of God is. Have you ever invited somebody to church? And I do this all the time. My kids make fun of me.

[12:44] All right, because I invite people and talk to people about church all the time. All right, but they'll say this. Go to church. If I went to church, that building would burn down. Have you ever heard somebody say that? Or if I walked into a church building, I would be struck by lightning. Or somebody says this. They say, if I was to ever go to church, people would judge me. And here's the deal. I think that sometimes we have a misunderstanding of who God is. And maybe you're new to church, and maybe you think that God is mad at you or God punishes us for making bad decisions. I want to tell you that that is not the character of who God is.

[13:31] I want you to know that when the Bible talks about the fear of God, it's talking about a reverence. It is talking about a respect. It is talking about us obeying Scripture and obeying what God's telling us to do. And I want you to catch this. It is also meaning we prioritize God. That's what having a healthy fear of God is. And maybe I could explain it this way, that I had the pleasure of, not pleasure, I had the opportunity and the blessing of being able to have a dad growing up. And not just a dad, but a great dad that loved me, that seen the best in me, and wanted to provide whatever I needed so that I could be the best that I could.

[14:21] He invested in me, encouraged me. And I want you to know that that is who God is to us. But here's the difference maker. I had such a respect for my dad because I knew he loved me and cared for me and wanted what was best for me, that when I became a teenager and had to make choices on my own, I made healthier choices because I respected him. Does that make sense? I didn't want to disappoint him. I didn't want to hurt him because I knew how much he loved me. It was that healthy fear, that healthy respect that caused me to make better decisions in my life.

[15:13] And I want to speak to somebody right now. Maybe this is the only thing you will catch out of this whole talk. But I want you to know today that God loves you, that you are worthy and that you matter. I don't know who needs to hear that, but I want you to know that that is who God is, having a healthy fear for God. Sometimes talking about, as we talk about the theme of knowledge, sometimes as Christians, you know, we can complicate things. We really can. Where we make things more difficult than they need to be when it comes to the things of God and we fill ourselves up sometimes with knowledge.

[16:03] And we don't even know what to do. And I like to think in terms of sports. And so maybe you would get this, but sometimes we get into a slump. You're like, well, what is a slump? You know, in sporting terms, it's like it's when an athlete or a player, we'll use hockey, for example, where they're just kind of on a losing streak where they lose all confidence in themselves. They can't shoot accurately. You know, they can't handle the puck. They have no confidence in what they're doing. They're kind of in a slump. And here's what a good coach does to a player that finds himself in this place. And I just want to go back to this seat here because here's what a good coach does is he doesn't say try harder and you should know better.

[16:52] But he takes a player back and he says this, he says, take me back to the beginning. Take me back to where your love for the game began. And he'll get a player to talk about, well, I remember I used to spend hours out on the ice and shooting pucks, hundreds of pucks, and playing with my friends. I would shovel off the rink and a good coach takes a player back to the beginning, back to the basics where there was a love, where there was a passion. And I just want to say this to you right now that maybe as a Christian, sometimes we get in a slump where we don't feel God.

[17:44] Maybe life has happened to us and we find ourselves disappointed or angry with God and just nothing is going right. We're confused, we're alone. I want to just speak to you right now and say, maybe it's time we go back to the beginning, back to the start of where you first fell in love with God, that first experience, that first moment that you had with God, maybe it was a conversation where a friend introduced you to the gospel. And even to go farther, remember back in the beginning where you included God into everything? You see, we're talking about the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, right in the beginning.

[18:30] Remember when all your decisions you filtered through, God, what do you want me to do? Where do you want me to go to school? Who should I date? Who should I spend my time with? And I'm speaking to somebody right now that, remember that business that you started? You made a deal with God and you said, God, if you help me start this business, God, I'll put you first and you know what? Now it's complicated and there's stress and I want to speak to you in this moment and say, it's time we get back to the basics, to the beginning, to the start of prioritizing God and when we do that, I'm telling you, we begin to open the opportunities where we start to hear from God and he begins speaking.

[19:28] We prioritize. We're talking about this month all week long. Emily Agostini, I see you, preach it. I love that, I love that. All month long, we're talking about reading Proverbs. I'm telling you this, full money back guarantee. If you start prioritizing Proverbs and read one chapter a day, God will start giving you ideas and clarity on questions to your life that comes to finances, relationship, business, it covers it all. If you continue to do that faithfully, God's wisdom will become a part of your life. How many of you guys want that working in your life? Check this out, I want us to keep going.

[20:13] I want us to go to Proverbs 11. This is so fun, this is so fun. I hope you guys are having fun. This is great. Eye wisdom will make the hours of your day more profitable and the years of your life more fruitful. How many moms that you take care of, you're raising kids and you're busy, how many of you just want your day to be more profitable? We do. I just want to share this little bit of a life hack. I just got to be honest and whatever. This little life hack, this little bit of wisdom that I was able to discover for myself is that when we begin to make goals, we're talking about new years and we make goals, but sometimes we spend more time, we picture the result of what we're going to get.

[21:07] We picture the result of what we're going to get instead of prioritizing the time to get the result. Let me explain this. When it comes to the hours of your day more profitable, when it comes time to making changes in our life, we need to oftentimes start small. Sometimes I'm going to use exercising as kind of a metaphor here, but oftentimes we will make a deal. I'm going to start exercising. I'm going to go to the gym. We get this picture of who we're going to look like. We're going to have like six-pack. We're going to be cut. We're going to be so healthy. We're going to be on the beach. It's going to be great. That's not necessarily a good starting point. Where we need to begin is we need to start prioritizing the time that's going to actually get us the result we want.

[21:58] What do I mean by that? When you want to make a change in your life, let's say exercising, instead of just getting the gym membership, instead of starting there, why don't you just start with just a small goal that almost seems laughable? For me, I started with five minutes. I started exercising five minutes for five or six days a week. But here's the deal. I began to prioritize those five minutes. It seems like a joke. People are going to make fun of me. You work out five minutes a day seriously, but you start somewhere. If you can't start with that, do you know what I heard recently? You just start by putting your spandex on or your workout outfit, and you go to that room that you're going to exercise in and don't even work out.

[22:50] You just stay there for five minutes, and you start prioritizing that time. Just start super small. I'll be honest. When I made that five-minute challenge, there were sometimes I went into that room and I just watched it for five minutes. That's all I did. But here's what happened. As I began to prioritize that time, then I got dressed, I got my stuff on, I went in that room, and I started exercising for five minutes. And it wasn't the goal that I was focused on. It was beginning that habit of prioritizing something small. I hope this is making sense to you. But whatever it is that you want to make a change, just begin prioritizing it at a very small amount.

[23:38] And as I've shared before, is after weeks, two or three weeks, do you know what I noticed? Nothing. Absolutely nothing changed. But I kept doing it. And I got to tell you, it's been almost two years now, and I won't go into it, but man, it's been absolutely incredible what I've been able to accomplish and the goals that I've been able to achieve because we prioritize. And I'm telling you, Proverbs, I, wisdom, will make the hours of your day more profitable. You'll hear podcasts, you'll hear friends, you'll read scripture, and you will get promptings to start applying things to your life and begin to make absolute real life changes.

[24:27] Are you guys with me today? All right. This is what it's all about. And I, wisdom, God wants to help us not just get more knowledge, but He wants us to be able to do something with it. Now, you say, okay, we're supposed to do this. All right. Here's the truth. Here's the truth is we often struggle. How many know that we're kind of in a war, right? Like, let me explain this. Like, there was a battle going on in the inside of us over like our own desires. And like, how many of you have ever talked to somebody and they're like, man, life is just so hard, right?

[25:20] If I just go through one more thing, I don't know if I can handle it. And the reality is, is life is hard and there is a war within us. You see, we talk about making changes and we all know that as soon as we want to make a change, there is something inside of us that fights against it. Right? And I want us to look at, I want us to look at Romans chapter seven. And apostle Paul, guy named Paul is the one who wrote this. Okay. And here's what we got to know is the apostle Paul, like if there was like a Christian hall of fame for all of like the big achievers, okay.

[26:08] In my opinion, you would have like Jesus, okay. But next you would have Paul, like he is the goat. He's the greatest of all time in the Bible. He wrote two thirds of the new Testament. Paul also, he faced persecution. He was in jail because he believed in Jesus, like physically beaten because he believed in him. And I know that we have a hard time understanding the level of that. But Paul was also beheaded because of his faith in Jesus. So here is somebody that based off of that, you can tell that he is sold out for what he believes.

[26:58] Judy Gord, I love your chat. I love it. But here we go. I want us to read. Here is this all star Christian, okay. And he's being honest in Romans seven. And he says, I don't really understand myself, for I want to do what's right, but I don't do it. How many of you feel that tension where it's like, I know what I'm supposed to do, but I don't do it. Instead, I do what I hate. Next verse, I want to do what's good, right? How many times have you said that, right? I want to do what's good, but I don't.

[27:46] I don't want to do what's wrong, but I do it anyway. Like this is the internal, this is the struggle that we all face. Is it not? Here is a guy that again, we want to talk about wisdom. We want to talk about like somebody that is following after God with all of his heart, with everything he's given his life for Jesus. And he is still struggling with this internal war and this internal battle that's on the inside of him. Next verse, I love God's law with all of my heart, but there is another power that is within me that is at war with my mind.

[28:33] There is another war that is, there is another power that's at war in my mind. This power makes me a slave to sin. Paul is telling us this, this struggle that he has going on within him. But then he goes on to say this, he says, Oh, what a miserable person I am. I don't know about you, but I can relate with that. I, I sometimes I am just such, I say those actual words. I am such a miserable person sometimes. Isn't that the way that we feel, but we have some good news. Who will free us from this life that is dominated by sin and death?

[29:22] You got to understand that there is a power at work. There is a spiritual presence at work of sin and death that is continually at work in our life and in the environment around us. But here's what, here's what I was going to say. Pastor Paul, here's what the apostle Paul says right here. Okay, we have good news. He says, thank God. The answer is in Jesus Christ, our Lord. So you see how it is in my mind. I really want to obey God's law, but because of my sinful nature, which you and I both have, I am a slave to sin.

[30:10] Here's what, here's where I want to go with this. Here's what, and I'm going to start like landing the plane. Okay, so buckle up your seatbelts and put the tray back up and all this stuff, because we're going to start landing here. Okay. Here's the deal. Our culture tells us this, okay. It sells us this line about freedom. It says, you can do whatever you want, right? Do whatever you want. You deserve to do what makes you happy, right? And I know there's all kinds of different phrases and terms that our culture uses, but that's essentially the world says you can be free, right? Do what you want. Drink what you want.

[30:55] Do drugs, whatever makes you feel good. Sleep with whoever you want, right? But here is the deal. Here's the deal. You can only do what you want until you can't anymore. What do I mean by that? Is when we do what we want, that sin nature on the inside of us takes control, and those desires that are on the inside of us that we follow, we begin to become a slave to it. And so the world says do what you want, but eventually I've noticed that you don't seem to be able to get through the day without having...

[31:51] It seems like any stressful situation that you go through seems like you can't handle it without... You can't board a plane without having... or have a meal. And what you thought was freedom to do what you wanted, it's actually flipped, and you have become a slave to it where it now controls your life. I have some good news. You were not designed to be a slave to nothing. You see, the world says it's free, but it's fake freedom.

[32:38] Maybe you want to put that in the chat, say fake freedom. But Paul says, but God, thank God, the answer is Jesus Christ. You see, the world wants to sell you freedom, but it can't deliver. Like how many of you have heard of Wish? Like you go online and Wish is like an online shopping where you can get all this stuff, but it's not real. It's not authentic, and they don't actually even necessarily deliver it on time or deliver it at all. It's fake. But here's the good news. Jesus offers us freedom, but he delivers.

[33:30] And guess what? Jesus not only delivers, but he has paid the price for our freedom. We don't have to be a slave to nothing or nobody. We can have freedom on the inside of us that the world doesn't have. And I want to tell you that this is good news. Does it mean we still wrestle and we still struggle and we still have temptation? Yes, absolutely. But Jesus has come to give us real freedom where we can walk through life with peace, with joy, with purpose, with hope. Come on, somebody.

[34:15] We still have messed up stuff going on all around us, but we have Jesus on the inside of us who has paid for it. He delivers it. All you need to do is receive Jesus today. Say, I receive this freedom in my life. I don't want to be a slave to nothing or nobody. I want to receive the freedom that's found in Jesus. You see, the world says this. As we get ready to close, the world says this. Do what you want. It's fake news. It's fake. But God says, follow me.

[35:00] That's what wisdom is. Proverbs 20 verse 1 says, wisdom is calling out into the streets for somebody to listen. And God is calling out for us. He will lead. He will guide. He'll direct your steps. He'll put people in your life to help you. He won't leave you alone, but he will say, follow me. The world says, do what feels good. You deserve it. But I'm telling you, it's fake. God says, I will give you real freedom. I hope there is somebody today that you were saying, you know what? I just want to accept this freedom that God has for me. As we close here today, as we're talking about the fear of God, the fear of God, here's the three things I want you to take home with you.

[35:58] I love this. We receive freedom in the chat. Love it. When we fear God, we reprioritize. That fear of God is the beginning. Remember, it's the basics. We go back to the basics where we put him as number one. And I know I've gone so far past our time. Here's the deal. We've gone through two years where our routines and our schedules have changed. And by default, our priorities have shifted. And maybe two years ago, God was on top of the list. But like a lot of stuff has happened. You're working from home. Maybe you lost your job. Maybe your business is thriving.

[36:47] Or maybe you're just hanging on. But regardless, things have changed. And God has fallen from the top of the list. And today I want to encourage you, let's put God back up top. Let's put him back up top and reprioritize where God is. Number two, remind. Do you know what remind is? Again, mind. What are we again reminding ourselves? I want to remind you today that you are not a slave to anybody or nothing. But I want to remind you that Jesus has given you freedom. I want you to know that you are loved today. That you are worthy.

[37:33] And that you matter. And those are the things that we need to remind ourselves every day. We have 40,000 thoughts enter our mind. And majority of them are negative thoughts. We need to be continually reminding ourselves of who we are and who God says we are. When we fear God, we reprioritize. We remind ourselves of who God says we are. And number three, when we fear God, when we fear God, it brings us back to a place of repentance.

[38:19] This isn't a popular word, but repentance. What is repentance is when we turn direction. We turn around is what repentance is. And just as I was preparing for today's message, I feel like I wonder if we could just take a moment and just begin to turn around to repent and say, God, I need to reprioritize my life. I'm going to start small and I'm just going to read one proverb a day. I'm going to start with one verse, but I'm just going to reprioritize it.

[39:08] But I don't go to bed until I read something from you. I read Proverbs 16 today. Today is January 16, Proverbs 16. I just read that this morning and there's just so much good there. But God, we repent. We turn to you. And so in this moment, maybe there's chaos in the room and there's kids and all this. But I wonder if right now you would just close your eyes. And as we're just going to kind of sing just for a moment, but you would just begin to tell God, I'm sorry.

[39:53] I've lost focus. God, I forgot who I was. I forgot who you were. And I believe my prayer is for you and for me over these next few weeks, that wisdom will begin speaking to our situations. And relationships will improve and our finances will change. And we're going to hear stories of what God is doing as wisdom begins speaking.