In this week's podcast, we kick off a new series, "Under The Sun," where we tackle some of life's hard questions.
Questions about relationships: the call to be peacemakers and to live in covenant communities of love.
Questions about our minds: our relationship with our feelings, our anxiety and the call to rest.
Questions about what forms identity: our relationship with ourselves as God’s image.
Questions about purpose: our relationship with our work and how we outwork the creativity of God in the earth in our time.
Today's episode, "It's Not What You Know," addresses the question of where we go for answers and how to live wisely.
Sermon Notes:
Question: when was the last time you thought “I just don’t know what to do?”
I have questions about relationships: the call to be peacemakers and to live in covenant communities of love
I have questions about our minds: our relationship with our feelings, our anxiety and the call to rest
I have questions about what forms identity: our relationship with ourselves as God’s image
I have questions about purpose: our relationship with our work and how we outwork the creativity of God in the earth in our time
Proverbs 4:1-9
Hear, O sons, a father’s instruction,
and be attentive, that you may gain[a] insight,
for I give you good precepts;
do not forsake my teaching.
When I was a son with my father,
tender, the only one in the sight of my mother,
he taught me and said to me,
“Let your heart hold fast my words;
keep my commandments, and live.
Get wisdom; get insight;
do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth.
Do not forsake her, and she will keep you;
love her, and she will guard you.
The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom,
and whatever you get, get insight.
Prize her highly, and she will exalt you;
she will honour you if you embrace her.
She will place on your head a graceful garland;
she will bestow on you a beautiful crown.”
a/ Seek wisdom
b/ Wisdom runs along generational lines
c/ Seeking wisdom is positive and involves all of life
James 1:2-8
Count it all joy, my brothers,[b] when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
d/ We can ask God for wisdom
e/ God is generous
f/ God uses our trials to build wisdom in us
g/ In a strange way, hardship is a gift
“Wisdom is not what you know… but who you know”
