The Wisdom Of God, Part 2

Whether you look at the stars, or whether you look at a microscope, or whether you look at the human body, the creation screams! If this is the effect, can you fathom, can you fathom the wisdom and the knowledge and the creativity of the designer, God?

And do you think He is going to take less energy and less effort and the wisdom of designing your life that is made for eternity as He is the ecosystem? If He gives that much energy to keeping the balance in certain ways at certain times in certain seasons, and the moon does this and that causes the tides to do this. Don’t you think you are more important than the lilies of the field? Don’t you think you matter more than the creation that screams? The most intelligent, wise Being of all time, the Creator of the world is behind it. That’s how wise He is.

The second way He reveals it is through what is called providence. And that’s not necessarily such a big spiritual word, it’s just that He orchestrates life.

Listen to Psalm 33:10 and 11, “The Lord foils the plans of the nations; He thwarts the purposes of the peoples. But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of His heart through all generations.”

See, God in His wisdom, foils the plans of nations. He is all-wise. A Hitler gets up and says, “This is the way the world is going to be! We are going to be this super race!” He destroys a whole population of Jews and God goes, “Gone.” Stalin says, “This is what is going to happen.” Idi Amin says this. Every nation, the Medo-Persians, every nation, what do they do? Mankind, in his evilness, has plans and they make these audacious statements of how they are going to rule the world and how they make statues of themselves. God foils the plans of the nations. He is not just sovereign in His wisdom and in His providence, but the plans of the Lord, the prophetic purposes of God, in His wisdom, His plans go forward.

God is revealing. He does it through nations and providence and through creation.

And the classic, the greatest, the most wonderful is through redemption. Turn in your Bibles if you will to 1 Corinthians chapter 2 verses 6 through 10. Paul is explaining this great message of wisdom and it is the wisdom of redemption. It’s what God has done through the purposes of Christ.

And picking it up in verse 6 he says, “We do,” he says, talking about human wisdom and he’s talking about spiritual wisdom, he says, “We do, however speak a message of wisdom among the spiritually mature, but not the wisdom of this age or the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we speak of God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.”

Think of that. God destined for our glory before time began. There is a wisdom, there is a secret, there is a plan, there is something that God is orchestrating. A perfect ends by perfect means that He has been orchestrating since the foundation of the earth, to fulfill the purposes for every human being.

And He goes on to say, “None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would have not crucified the Lord of glory. However, it is written: ‘No eye has seen, nor ear heard, no mind has conceived’ – what God has prepared for those who love Him – but God has revealed to us by His Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.”

And what he is talking about here is redemption. He is talking about the secret wisdom of the redemption, God’s plan. And that big word redemption, literally just means to purchase back, to buy back. Probably no one has ever heard of S&H Green Stamps, right? Yes! I love you all.

You know what I did as a kid? In the grocery store back then, instead of these swipe cards, you would get these green stamps and you got these books. And if you were the youngest child in the family, hello, that’s me, you got to lick all the stamps.

And then you would put so many books together, right? And you took the green stamp books to the redemption center! They are buying them back. What does it mean? So you take your five books and you leave with a whole set of dishes. All redemption is is the purchase price for something.

And the great wisdom of God is the redemption of Christ coming to purchase you for God, for a relationship with Him, both now and forever and ever and ever. And that is the secret that he is talking about.

But it’s a great paradox because it looked like a complete failure. What I want you to see is this is God’s plan and here is the plan, okay? Here is a lost world, there has been a coup, a rebellion. They rebelled against the Most High God, the King, the Creator, the Sovereign that we have talked about.

From the foundations of the earth, God giving the possibility of choosing, knew this would come, and so the second person of the Trinity, Christ, says, “I will go. I will save the people.” And so, the coup has happened, sin has occurred, Christ comes.

Now listen to the wisdom of God. He is born of a teenage girl in a stall. Can you imagine what the demons were thinking? Well, you know what? I don’t know what God is up to but this doesn’t look like a very good plan. And then He is going to be raised by a carpenter. Well, that’s not exactly the upper elite of Jewish culture.

And then, finally, He grows up, lives a perfect life, and then He is going to choose people because He brings – what? The best possible plans by the best possible means for the most possible people. So, He chooses a bunch of blue-collar guys to get the job done.

Peter, John, James, a couple of fishermen, a crook – Matthew, a zealot, a couple of whackos, “Should we call down thunder on them, Lord?” I mean, “Guys, would you just cool it?” And you look at the guys that He chose – why? The wisdom of God. Who gets the credit when regular guys like us, ordinary people like us follow Christ, are redeemed, get transformed, and then change the world? God does.

See, God is always working toward purposes that we rarely understand. But if we don’t understand the big plan of redemption and understand that’s His purposes behind His wisdom, we will get lost. Can you imagine how much of a failure it looked like?

Try to visualize yourself being there and you were a follower, you were Peter or one of the Marys and you cared and you loved Him and you thought He was the hope of the world and you’re looking up at a cross and He is hanging there and He is dying and He says, “It’s finished,” and He is dead! And you’re thinking, This is a fine mess You got us into! I left my home, I left my job, I have been ridiculed, I have been kicked out of the synagogue. And He’s dead.

And you could almost, in the invisible world, seeing the demons going, “Ah hah, hah, hah, ha! Ah hah, hah, ha! He’s dead! See?”

God’s wisdom is foolishness unto man. But what happened? When He died on the cross, He purchased you. Redemption is He paid the price for your sin. Between Friday night and Sunday when He rose, he went to – what? The old creed says, “What does it mean that He ascended except that He descended to the lower parts of the earth,” and He proclaimed to the invisible world, “Death is defeated! Satan is defeated, sin has been rendered powerless. I am the victor.” And then He comes out of the grave!

And what seemed absolutely ridiculous, it seemed foolish and ridiculous, was the wise plan of God. And, see, it is in redemption that we see that God takes the things that the world so esteems and He is always about turning them upside down.

Listen to J.I. Packer. I love his quote on this, “God’s almighty wisdom is always active, and never fails. All His works of creation and providence and grace display it, and until we can see it in them we just are not seeing them straight. But we cannot recognize God’s wisdom unless we know the end for which He is working. God’s wisdom is not, and never was, pledged to keep a fallen world happy, or to make ungodliness comfortable. Not even to Christians has He promised a trouble-free life; rather the reverse. He has other ends in view for life in this world than simply to make it easy for everyone. What is He after, then?”

See, you’ll never understand the wisdom of God until you understand the ends, is what he is saying. So, what is God after? What is He after in the world? What is He after in the culture? What is He after in the society? What is He after in you? What is He after in me?

Packer goes on to say, “What is His goal? What is His aim? He plans that a great host of mankind should come to love and honor Him. His ultimate objective is to bring them to a state in which they please Him entirely and praise Him adequately, and He and they rejoice continually in the knowledge of each other’s love – men rejoicing in the saving love of God, set upon them from all eternity, and God rejoicing in the responsive love of men, drawn out of them by grace through the gospel.”

So, let’s wrap this up with some specific action steps to respond to His wisdom.

How must we respond to the wisdom of God? Very simply, we must learn to live wisely. We must learn to live wisely. Ephesians 5:15 to 17, what does he say? He says, “Don’t be unwise, don’t walk as unwise, but as wise, and understand the will of the Lord.”

He said, “For the days are evil; you are living in dark times.” He says, “Don’t be unwise, but be wise, live wisely, live according to God’s plan so that you can rest and so you can trust.” So, there is a command, not only that we be wise, but that we live in a way that reflects that we are trusting God. He wants us to rest, He wants us to understand: This is how I have designed life.

And really practically, God says, “This is how you can learn, this is how to do relationships, this is how to handle your money, this is how to make decisions, this is how to walk by faith, this is how to fulfill your purpose for Me.”

And if you will discover the way of wisdom and follow it, then all those promises of Scripture about love, joy, peace, patience, goodness – the fruit of the Spirit and the rewards of that life are what God wants for you. But you don’t get that living in an unwise manner.

And so, second, not only must we learn to live wisely, it begins, then how do you get it? It begins with reverencing God. Reverencing God. Proverbs 1:7 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; but fools despise wisdom and discipline.” Job 28:28 says, “And he said to them, ‘The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding.’”

So, how do you learn to live wisely? The first step is it begins with reverence for God. To have the fear of God. The fear of the Lord, essentially, is: I am going to choose to do life God’s way. I’m afraid for the consequences and I’m afraid for what it will do to my relationship with my heavenly Father and what it says to Him in light of all that He has done for me. I want to live with a healthy, wholesome fear of God.

Third, it requires growing or receiving His Word. There is no way to live wisely without the manual that teaches us how to live wisely. Psalm 119: 97 through 100 says, “Oh, how I love Your Law! I meditate on it all day long. Your commands make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever with me. I have more insight than all my teachers, for I meditate on Your statutes. I have more understanding than the elders, for I obey Your precepts.”

2 Timothy 3:15 through 17 says, “All Scripture, all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correction, and training in righteousness” – why? “so that the man of God might be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

I’m not talking about reading the Bible or even being in a Bible study. I’m talking about receiving the Word. It’s not just knowing the right thing. It’s putting it into practice. Knowing the Bible never changed anyone. It is applying what you know of the Bible that brings life change. And so, to live wisely begins with reverence, it means receiving the Word.

And then it requires asking for it specifically. James 1:5, “But if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all men generously and without reproach. But when he asks, let him ask in faith, without any doubting, for the man who doubts is like a wave in the sea, tossed here and there.”

This is an airtight promise. And the wisdom here is you don’t know what to do about a decision, you don’t know what to do about this relationship, you don’t know what to do about your finances, you don’t know what to do about a wayward child. You don’t know what to do, “Should I take this job or that job? Should I take the promotion? Should I move or not move? What do You want me to do?”

Don’t you have a lot of those things in your life? I do! You know what this passage says? It comes out of the context of enduring suffering. It’s written to a group of people that have been dispersed and they have lost their families and lost their jobs and they have been disowned and they have been told, “Consider it all joy when you encounter various trials and you know this testing of your faith? Tell you what, hang in there! Endure! And God will use it to develop your character.”

But in the midst of your pain and your suffering, if you don’t know how to handle it, if any man lack wisdom, let him ask. God promises, a hundred percent of the time, to show you exactly what to do if you will come and ask. And wisdom is not, Don’t make me smart in this. Will You show me what it looks like to follow Your way and Your will in this situation? That’s what wisdom is! That’s what you are asking. Show me what it looks like to do what You want me to do in this situation.

Now, here’s the condition. That little, “Let him ask without any doubting,” that phrase there does not mean an intellectual doubt or that’s not honest doubts about one verse in the Bible. This is a picture of a person who is coming to God, but they are coming, literally, we get our word schizophrenia, double-minded, doubting, double-minded.

It has the idea of someone who comes to God and says, “Should I date this person or this person? Should I take this job or that job? Should I do this with my money or this with my money? Should I move here or move there? God, I want You to show me exactly what You want me to do, so I can take it under consideration. I would really like You to show me exactly what You want me to do and I’ll tell You what, I’ll think about that and if it’s what I want, I just might do it. And if I don’t, I just might not.”

That’s the doubting of the double-minded man. You want to know how to get God’s wisdom in areas where you’re not sure what to do?

Here’s a word picture. Whatever that area is, you imagine a blank check and on the top of that check where you write it out to someone, you imagine, I need to know what God wants me to do, or, I have this big decision about this or this or this or that, and then what you do is you write on the bottom of the check where you sign your name, you sign your name. And then you take that check and you walk over in your mind’s heart, and it’s the throne room of God, and you take it and you shove it under the door. There is light coming out from under the door. And you signed your name and He fills out the top.

And what you are saying is, Lord, whatever You show me, in advance, whatever You show me, I’m committed to doing. If You will show me, I will do it, one hundred percent. If You say, “Break off the relationship,” I will. If You say, “Move,” I’ll move. If You say, “Confront this situation,” I’ll confront it. If You say, “Quit this job,” I’ll quit this job. Whatever You tell me to do, I will do. I have signed my name on the bottom of the check, I put it under the door of heaven and now, Lord, You promised that You will give wisdom to anyone who asks, without reproach.

Even if the reason I am here is because I have messed up in the past, these are some consequences of my sin, and I really feel bad about asking You what to do because I’m here because I really know I messed up, that phrase is, He will come without reproach. God will not give wisdom and say, “I was wondering when you were going to come and you really did mess up and you’re getting what you deserve.”

The passage says just the opposite. God will say, “I’m glad you came. And I’m not here to condemn you. You understand what you have done wrong. You have come with an honest heart and you have repented. And now you need to know what to do and I want you to know, whenever any one of My children come and they are willing to do whatever I show them, if you will ask Me, I guarantee, one hundred percent of the time, I will show you exactly what to do.”

And so about ninety-eight percent of the will of God in these kind of areas is being willing to do what He says. And if you’re willing to do, in advance, He will show you.

If we are going to respond to God’s wisdom, we must learn to live wisely and that begins with reverence for God, it grows with receiving His Word, it requires asking for it specifically.

And finally, we must learn to trust completely.

Trust that all that comes our way is from the hand of a good and loving God who, knowing all things actual and possible, is exerting His unlimited power to execute the best possible outcomes, by the best possible means, to fulfill the highest possible purposes.