OLD SCHOOL WIDSOM | Week 1 | Full Service

Well, the truth is we are kinda going Sherlock Holmes here in this new series is we're gonna try to track down what is wisdom.

And we're gonna be in the book of Proverbs, which is if you've been reading through the Bible in the year with the rest of us, you'll be in the book of Proverbs now. And and we're gonna discover what wisdom is. And some of us when you think what you think wisdom is, you might discover today that it's not what you think it is. However, we could probably determine what it's not. So let's eliminate something.

And and and what I was looking at, I find this hilarious. Go Google it sometime. Have you ever googled and looked at pictures of why women live longer than men? There's you'll you'll find these pictures and I just thought I'd show you because this is obviously what wisdom is not.

And and I got one here. It's like, that's not wise. A ladder leaned up against the side. And and and the reason I show this, if you look at it, there's a remarkable amount of ladder involvement in being stupid. Truth is look up the death rate of people on ladders in The United States

and start if you're gonna get on a ladder this week, stay frosty, man. Because there's a lot of death and missed lost fingers because of rings getting caught on them, by the way. Little public service announcement. Take the ring off or get the get the cheapy rubber band one like this, so if you lose it, you can buy another one for $4.99.

Alright. This next one. This is doesn't even seem dangerous to me. I just put on there because it's confusing to me.

That's kinda stupid to sit there like that. But my question is how did he get there in the first place? I don't understand it, so I thought I'd pass on the confusion to you. This next one is is a classic one. That's not a good idea. You know what I'd love? I'd love if this person just kept taking pictures

and and and we saw what happened like three seconds from then. But here's what's weird. If you look close, this is even worse. There's two guys that are gonna catch it. There's three guys upstairs throwing it down.

And someone says, I'm not even gonna help. I'm gonna take a picture. That's probably dad. Mom would freak out. That that's gotta be a dad that's like, oh, I gotta catch this. Maybe they're not dumb. Maybe these guys upstairs don't like these guys.

So they talked him into doing it. I don't know. And then this final one is one of my favorites of all time. Cletus and his two cousins

decided to get in the above ground, but they're like, we're hungry, let's pull out the George Foreman grill and plug it in, but we don't even wanna get out of the water, so what are we gonna do? Well, Cletus, just just float the power strip on my flip flops. That'll work.

That's not wise. Not wise. There's one more. It's a more recent one. It's a video. I can't even describe it. You just have to watch it. Watch this.

Now did you catch that there is a a human being in that giant hamster ball?

I I got so many questions. Like, that Tesla hit them at, 60 miles an hour. My question is, was that their first attempt, or did they start small? 10 miles an hour, lame. Twenty, thirty, okay. And then the guy finally says, let's open this Tesla up and see what it has.

Boom. And the hardest part is like, even if he's not mangled from impact, how's he getting down?

Whatever wisdom is, we know that isn't it. You know why? Because Proverbs four:seven says this, Getting wisdom is the wisest thing you can do. And whatever else you do, develop good judgment.

That ain't good judgment. So we know that isn't it. But what is it? What are we gonna look at? We're gonna be in these Proverbs and we're gonna see what wisdom is.

And the reality is what we're gonna see today is kind of an overview. We're gonna be in chapter one. Look at a few of these this first part of Proverbs. We're gonna we're gonna see as an overview of what we should be learning each week when we study Proverbs

and that is this the big idea today is live skillfully not willfully wisdom. We're going to see is being skillful Willful is when you're like, hey, I'm gonna just do what I want to do anyways. It's when you take God's word as just advice

and and you're just like I'm gonna still decide what I'm gonna do with my life. That's the opposite of wisdom as we'll see. You can't live this willful life that even if you come to church if you pick and choose how you're gonna listen to God, you are not being wise as we'll see. Well, first of all before I jump in, want to define a few thirds. What is Proverbs and really what does the wisdom the word wisdom that's talked hundreds of times in this book what it's all about. What does it mean? Well first, what is a proverb a proverb is a saying a short sentence of wisdom. There was lots of wisdom literature in this era when Solomon was putting this together. He wrote most of it The middle of it is compiled some other wise statements and it comes back to Solomon again.

But what a proverb was was these short sayings of wisdom and there was there was the rest of the world tried to do this too. But we're gonna see by the end of this message. The biblical Proverbs are set apart. They're not the same as self help.

We'll see in the second point. I'm gonna make is that there is something about the biblical Proverbs that make it not just self help just learning how to be smart. That's not really what it is because the word wisdom itself that's used in the Bible biblical Proverbs. Literally means skillful skillful in which actually

means to acquire and apply God's word to the decisions and activities of daily life. See that word skillful was the word used back then is it's like we think of wisdom is going to college to get more knowledge at least that's what girls do. Right

guys go to Jupiter to get more stupider. I think it is but but that's not what is if you thought about wisdom wisdom in the education sense would be a trade school. Wisdom is not about just learning how things work and getting information. Wisdom is getting knowledge and applying it to your everyday life.

So when the Bible says we need the wisest thing we can do wise.

It's how to be skillful like they would learn skill like you got to be a hunter you would go out and hey, this is a bow. This is there but you're more like hands on learning. What is the tensile strength? What do you need to do? What angles you need to do? You didn't study the math and science buying this is a bow and you know, what is the percentage of angle? What is this you literally learned how it worked

and you applied it. So what we're gonna see in the series what you got to understand bottom line is what wisdom is is not knowing the Bible. It's showing the Bible. It's it's it's when you acquire you got to study God's word. You got to read it and know what it says to acquire it.

But if you don't apply it, you're not wise. And if you don't apply it in everyday practical activities, it's why guys have you come here like there's some soapbox things. See keep saying if you're a follower of Christ, you're going to do this

because the Bible says this is the wise thing to do. This is how to apply God's word and if you don't bottom line the throw punch of the day for many of us that I hope the Holy Spirit talks to you about there are things, you know, God's word says you should be doing and you're not doing it. You are not wise. I

don't care how much Bible, you know matter of fact wisdom from the God's point of view. There are people some of the smartest people in the planet are the least wise people in all of existence because it's wisdom is taking this understanding of truth and putting it into your everyday life in practical ways

Not in theoretical ways, not in feelings, not in in in in, you know, thoughts and prayers, but actually doing. And so what does that look like then? How does that work? We're gonna look at the first seven verses of Proverbs one

where Solomon kind of lays out what's the whole point. And I think there's two points. If I'm gonna live skillfully, not willfully. I'm gonna live wisdom.

Then I need to do the live these two ways and the first one we'll see in the first six verses. It says these are the Proverbs of Solomon David's son King of Israel. Their purpose is to teach people wisdom and discipline to help them understand the insights of the wise.

Then he kind of repeats himself. Their purpose is to teach people to live disciplined and successful lives. Success by God's standards. What life was meant to be. To help them do what is right and just and fair. These proverbs will give insight to the simple.

Knowledge and discernment to the young. Let the wise listen to these proverbs and become even wiser. We're gonna see that when you apply what this point is that as you get wise, it's easier to get wiser. And you'll either get why the wise get wiser, the dumb get dumber. That's kind of what it's like.

And it says let those with understanding receive guidance by exploring the meaning of these Proverbs and parables the words of the wise and the riddles meaning you got to study them but let them study you and

then learn to apply them to your life. So in there is what this is all saying can be summed up in verse two and what it's really saying is if I'm going live skillfully the way of wisdom not just knowledge but true wisdom acquired and Applied understanding of truth. Then I have to live faithfully.

I'm gonna have to live faithfully. What do I mean to live faithfully means I'm going to continue to do this. I'm going to be faithful in how I choose to live and that's really verse to kind of summarize this and he uses two words of what does living faithfully look like and it's that word discipline and understanding

help them understand the insights of the wise it's and then it then that comes down and then when it says disciplined again, it then uses successful for understanding then when it comes down again and says knowledge and and it talks about this discipline it talks about discernment. That's really further

understandings of the same words receive guidance and and what it's saying is is we need to have discipline and discernment to live faithfully discipline and understanding this discernment.

So what are those two words really mean because when we hear those the reason we struggle is today's age and in the way you were raised in the culture. We're in you might have a very different understanding of what these words mean when like when you hear discipline a lot of us in this room think punishment.

Because that's what discipline was in your life. If

you were disciplined, it was usually punishment. Well, what's the difference discipline is meant to correct a course is meant to develop character. It's meant be some I'll explain a little bit more in a minute punishment is more about the person doling out the punches more of I am paying you back.

I am getting revenge and retribution and I'm going to exact payment to feel better and make you feel bad. It's why if you're a parent you never ever ever discipline why you're angry. So some of you like, but I'm a Bruce Banner parent. I'm always angry. Well, then you need to learn to not Hulk out why you're angry then

because when you do that, have not accomplished the goal of discipline. You've only made yourself look Petty. You might have created scared kids that are been abused that yeah, they'll do what you say, but there's no relationship and they didn't learn anything from that. Discipline is different

discipline is meant to correct course discipline of a parent because this is really what it's saying God disciplines us in the same way that we should be as parents and children is discipline is meant to course correct you in a safer way than how learning it out there.

So I will make discipline involves making you uncomfortable. It might involve taking some it might involve some things that that are painful to the person and you don't like it, but it's meant to do it in a safe way in an understandable way where you're pairing the discipline with the discipline you want them to learn

because doing it that way is a lot safer than you never learning this and getting out in the real world and learning the hard way because the hard way is often the dangerous way. In other words discipline if you look it up is both a verb and a noun and we need it in verb form in order to develop it as noun form

meaning what discipline truly is what discipline of a parent should be which is this is for free to take this notes and apply it to your own. But it's also what God's trying to do with us is discipline is is an action done for you in order to develop and have a attribute flow from you.

It's an action done for you. So an outsider provides discipline in order for it to develop your character where now you are a disciplined person is now the noun now discipline flows from me. In other words discipline is tended to create a self disciplined person.

You've been disciplined enough that you can you do this you respond faithful living to God's Word real wisdom is going to apply something. Said last week you need to do hard things.

You need to choose to trust the authority of God in order to do something that you don't necessarily understand because when a kid doesn't know it, guess what? They either don't understand the benefit to it. They don't see the other side or they just don't want to do it because they're lazy or tired or scared.

And that's what discipline is is to get them to do it. God provides discipline in our lives in the hopes that we develop the character that we choose discipline. And

then here's the thing when you choose to be a disciplined person, which is I'm gonna do the thing God wants me to do because think about it. When you meet someone isn't a

a person that constantly has to be disciplined is not a role model for you. But think about it. Some of the people you look up to the most is, man, they are the most disciplined person I know. My wife gets up at five a. M. Every day.

She reads her Bible first and prays for about an hour, then she works out. And guess what? She was never a consistent vibrator or a workout or she'd work out, but she naturally was beautiful. Didn't have to try that hard. So she would, you know, I feel like I'm in bad shape. I'm gonna go run for about a week and then fine. But then she learned as you go. She's like I need discipline in my life and she just chose it.

Now she just does it. It's become a part of who she is. And some of you are really mad at her because I told you that about her. Because you both admire and hate the disciplined person, especially if you're not. I'm drawn to that. I wish I was that. I hate you for it. That's really the goal of discipline.

And what he's saying is we need to choose discipline, choose to accept God's discipline, and then choose to live out discipline in our lives. And we need to do it consistent enough to get to understanding. That word for understanding and discernment is you will live faithfully when you live disciplined

long enough and consistently enough to experience discernment or understanding because that word for understanding literally means the ability to grasp the truth not only with insight, but discernment.

And what that means is you get to the other side. You're not just doing it to do it because you're supposed to do it and you don't want to be disciplined or you believe it's good for you or you've been told this is right, but you don't like, think about it. When you try to be disciplined in your life, when you first start doing it, it's all about the discipline. You don't experience any of the good stuff. It's just hard.

That's the most dangerous time when it comes to anything. Working out, anything. Like like like when you first start, when you start, I need to lose weight. You start eating good, you work out, you're tired, you're hungry, and you're still fat. And you're not in good shape because it doesn't happen instantly.

So the problem is you do it for a month, your schedule's harder, you're getting up earlier, you're doing all this and you don't feel anything.

And that is the most time when people quit. That's why when I used to go to the gym, I finally have my own gym at my house because I got sick of it. You go to the gym every January till about February to early March. The resolute were there. The gym's packed all the time, and you just gotta wait them out because you know what? They're gonna do it just long enough to hate it, but not long enough to get to the discernment side and then you quit.

And the problem with that is your start stop. You look like someone trying to learn how to drive a stick shift car. I said that last service and I realized a lot of young people don't know what a stick shift car is. Google it. Get some knowledge. But and when you try to start, you pop in the clutches like

you know, you like you look stupid. And you're like, it's not fun to drive a six shift car when you don't know how to drive it. I miss having a stick when you know how to drive it. They're actually kind of fun. But at first it's bad. So think about it. We do that with our Christian walk.

How many of us have tried discipline, but we didn't do it long enough to get to understanding What understanding meant is, I get it. I understand why. I had this problem with math.

It wasn't that I struggled with that. I had advanced placement math from sixth grade through high school. So I had algebra in sixth grade algebra two in seventh grade. I had Geometry in eighth grade. I took trigonometry

my freshman year. I took pre calc my sophomore year, I took calculus as a junior in high school, and then I finished math. I graduated from math. I don't even think they had created the next level of math. But here's the thing. I stopped understanding any of it by geometry. Trigonometry, PreCalc and Calc,

took them. I can't even tell you what they are. But I didn't fail. I had the discipline. I was a good student. I was smart. So what I do is I'd look at the example problem. I would see how it worked. Just not understand it. I go, okay. I'd mimic it. I'd take my information

and plug it into this formula and I'd get the right answer. But I didn't even understand the question. I didn't understand the point of it. I have no clue how any of that works still to this day. I I have no understanding. Matter of fact, I if the rest of the world was like me with math and and didn't understand calculus,

I I don't think we'd have these buildings. Maybe. I don't know. Does it take calculus to build a building? I don't know what it is. So

I actually looked it up last night after making that joke. I go, what is it? I don't know. And it described, like, it's the ability to to to to to to kind of evaluate change in an in an variables of change in an environment. I read that. It didn't even closely remotely trigger me remembering any of it.

I go, I don't think I took calculus. I don't remember this at all.

And I could not wait to stop doing math.

You might not be wise even though you love Jesus and you come to church because you won't step out in discipline and do the hard thing long enough

to see the blessing on the other side.

That's why the most common time for people to quit serving is within the first month or so because you feel the hardened how hard it is the discomfort of how you had to change some things to do what God asked you to do, but you have not experienced the blessing that everyone who's done it for a long time does.

It's the same with money. All right. I'll start giving this guy keeps saying I should give you do it and it is hard. Life doesn't get instantly easier just because you obey God. It literally gets harder.

But that's the problem. Some of us in this room are not living wise because you're like, start and stop, start and stop, start and stop. You feel guilty, you get motivated, you do it. You do it for a little while, then you fade

because you need to be disciplined. You may be faithful. That's why my point is faithful because faithfulness is discipline done long enough to get discernment.

It's like the spiritual version of working out long enough to where people start to say you're good. You've been working out. Other people will notice it before you. And then when you start to feel better and look better and you're you go get your blood work at the doctor. He says, good job. You're healthier. Okay.

Now this is easier. Do you stick it out and do the tough thing God's asked you to do long enough to get discernment? That's what faithfulness is and

then that fuels more. That's why the wising you just get wise and it says the wise get wiser Cause when you do that a few times, you start to face those scary moments with more trust now. Oh, man. I don't really want to do this. This is scary. This is hard. But you know what? I thought the same thing about that and look how that turned out. I thought the same thing about that. That's why the wise get wiser and the foolish stay foolisher.

It's we need faithfulness. But the world's wisdom kind of says those same things. There's something that separates

the world's wisdom from God's wisdom that really gives us successful lives as it says here success in the eyes of why God created us and it will not work. You will not stay faithful and the faithfulness won't even matter in the same way because you won't be faithful to the right things without verse seven.

What verse seven says is the secret sauce matter of fact, it's repeated multiple times to this and the book ends with the same concept. This is the key to all of it. It says fear of the Lord is the foundation of true knowledge, but fools

despise wisdom and discipline notice. It says discipline with wisdom. The reason we despise wisdom is because we do not like discipline. I

won't do the hard thing. I don't like it. So I never get wise. So I end up despising wisdom matter of fact what it means despise is half the time if you're not going to have the discipline and you're not going to do it. You're going to make fun of those who do

or you're having your reasons why what I just said about if you're a Christian you go to church, you're going get really blessed when you serve and you give financially and you plug in and you stay consistently. You're here. You don't just like, I'm going to like this way. And you come to church when you want and you're not here.

You're not gonna see the the wisdom of that and you're gonna send your mind. You're like, oh, I think I agree with that intellectually, but you don't know my situation. I just can't do what God wants me to do. And so you'll despise wisdom. You'll make your excuses. And usually what it comes out to is you get mad at me.

When I didn't do anything but tell you what God says, if you want to be successful and have a wonderful life and really get to the side of blessing of what he created you for, instead of living like the world that come but only you're a worldly person that just shows up at church, you wanna be mad at me

because that's what fools do. And as this great theologian once said, mister t, I pity the fool. It's getting too serious. I had to back it off there. Especially because when you see this fear of the Lord, this is the scary point. To live skillfully, must live faithfully, but it won't work unless I live fearfully.

Fearfully. I thought we're not gonna be afraid. It says fear the Lord. That's the beginning. That's the core to it all. This is another key one that I think when we hear fear the Lord you hear fear or fearfully. We

do a very different definition in our heads in our heart when you hear that because and it really comes back to the way we were probably raised when you hear fear the Lord you hear be scared of the Lord. Especially if you had terrible parents that disciplined and anger they punished

It was control. It was force. It wasn't love. It wasn't helping you get self discipline. It was you're annoying me do what I want you to do. There was no training up. It was just stop being a bother. So when you hear fear, that's how they generate was this scared. The fear of the Lord is not scared.

The fear of the Lord because scared fear makes you run away and hide. Fear of the Lord will make you run to God. Scared makes you run away. Adam and Eve, they sinned.

Why did they sin? The first sin that now we all have was they believed a lie that God was holding out on them. So what do they need to do? Don't trust God. Live willfully.

Do your own thing. And then if God says, hey, we're supposed to do this, but their answer was, but I need this too. So I can't really listen to God. How many of you that's your argument for not serving, not sharing, not giving, not trusting God? You have an argument that says, I can't do that because so I gotta do it this way. That's the original sin lived out again. You are being willful.

But then when you get called out, feel scared. Like they got scared. God said and wanted to come talk to him. They were scared. Why were they scared of God? They shouldn't have been scared of him. The reason they're scared is they already believed a lie about him. They believe that he's unfair unrealistic

trying to tell me to do something. So their wrong view of God make them wanna run from God, which is actually they're kinda clueless on that. Because think about it. That's not fear of the Lord. That's disrespect and a misunderstanding of Lord. That's the opposite of fear of the Lord.

David, King David on the other hand, when he messed up big time, he writes a Psalm about what it means. He goes, where am I gonna go? Like Adam and Eve actually thought they can hide from God. Some of think, I come here, I can ignore God, and he's not gonna notice.

He notices. So you wanna hide from him. But David who messed up when he was convicted by it, he would say, where am I gonna go? If I go to the tallest mountain, you're there. If I go to the depth of sea, you're there. Wherever I go, God's already there.

So what he said is, so I go to you, God. Because you are God of the universe. You're ruler of all. You get it. You know it. You know me. You know this. Why would I run from you when I've messed up? I will run to you. That's what repentance is.

But if you have the wrong view of God, you don't trust me, you don't have the fear of the Lord. I'm gonna truly define it here in a sec. If you don't have that fear of the Lord, you will have the wrong impression of who God is. And you will get angry, you'll get scared, you'll do anything you can to hide out.

And when you hide, you have no fear of the Lord.

You're the opposite. So what does the fear of Lord literally mean? To the Israelites, they knew what this term meant. It meant this. Fear of the Lord means recognition that the universe has a creator and a ruler and that I'm not him and that the response is to bow before in surrender and worship.

Key is the bow. It's like what you got to realize is I have surrendered to the fact that there is a God. I'm not God. Therefore, I bow down to that God, which means I surrender the right to be willful and rule. I will trust the leader, the true king.

I will allow him. And so if you got a true ruler or a king, if there is a God who is God and you're not God, he asks you to do something that doesn't make any sense to you, fear of the Lord means I know he understands this more than me. He knows me more than I do. He knows that. Anything short of that is you are actually trying to replace him because you think you know more than him.

When you fight with it, well, God doesn't you don't know my situation. See, you usually take it out on me or the person that's giving you the truth. But in the end, you're really taking it out. You're really hiding from God because you're scared.

And you're like, what do I need to do to make him like me even if I keep doing what I wanna do? That's a disrespect. That is not fear for the Lord. If you come to church and you go, okay, I'll listen to that part of God's word, but I'm gonna ignore that.

If you have the right to decide what you're gonna do or not do in the relationship with God, who's king? Who's on the throne? Who's driving the car? You are. You are. You are not having the fear of the Lord.

You're not coming to like I had a one pastor tell me, hey. The the thing that changed my life is when I realized there was a God and I wasn't him.

But you understand what does that mean? That means if you're willful, you're the one that ultimately you take God as a consultant like we said a few weeks ago, and you listen to his word. Well, I I I'm not gonna do that. And here's why I can't because of this when you say I'm not because I can't you're basically saying God can't and God doesn't understand. I know more than God and God doesn't have the power to make this work.

That is absolute not fear of the Lord. You have become king. In the last I checked, thrones are single cedars. You both can't be sitting on the throne of the there's two things that really, really are meant to be one seat only, thrones and toilets. Nobody wants a two seater toilet at all.

And if you do, you need to go to the prayer room and seek counsel because something's not right with you. So fear of the Lord is this

bottom line. It's I care more about what God wants than what I want and I trust more of what God knows than I know and I will step into fear that God's called me to because I know he has the power to make this work and he knows how he built me. He knows how this ends. He is the creator of the universe. I am not. I will surrender. See, a lot of us, you surrender to Jesus as savior, but you refuse to surrender to him as Lord.

And the truth is, in scripture, it says if you play that out long enough, the book of James insinuates, if you live your whole life as Jesus just the guy who died so I can go to heaven, but you never surrender to him as Lord, it insinuates you might not actually be a Christian at all.

Fear the Lord. I need to live fearfully. That's the only way it'll ever work. It'll draw you to God, not away from him. So as you as you look at these these two points faithfully and fearfully in order to live skillfully. The truth is the book of Proverbs already mentioned three of four choices.

That everyone in this room right now is one of these four. It's a path. It's also who we are at this moment and you got to make a decision of what you're going to do with that. It's already mentioned three of them, but there's four types of people sitting in this room right now

and you got to decide which one you're at are because then based on that you can now try to move towards wisdom and you are either the simple.

It doesn't mean you're stupid simple is more like it's like the parent child. It's more like you just don't know what you don't know. So you need to acquire the understanding in order to apply some of your new to church. You're like this all new to me. It's like I would tell you that what you need to acquire first is understand the love that Jesus has for you that there is a God you're not him. We sinned against him and rebelled but Jesus came and made things right by dying for you. That's how much he loves you. So if he would die for you, you should probably trust him how to live.

And I think you need to understand how to say yes and step into his love first. We need to live from his love not for it. And if you don't understand you've never done that. I will challenge you to go to the prayer room when we're done and tell someone you need to tell me how to how to have Jesus

be in my life. What do I need to do? How do I become a Christian? That's if you're the simple that'd be the first step. What you do is whenever you acquire the knowledge of God's word every time I preach a sermon and I challenge you with something if you apply it to your life, you've become wise

if you choose to ignore it, you've become one of the other two and usually you start here and move to here you become the fool. As I said The fool is not stupid either. The fool is a person who is dense. That doesn't mean stupid either thick headed. Almost every friend, group, and family has at least one of these.

And if you can't figure out who's the dense one, guess what? Everyone else knows who it is. But the best way to describe the fool is you're careless and self satisfied.

The reason you will stay a fool and not apply God's word is because you feel good where you're at your life seems to be working and and you hate instruction because you're self confident you talk without thinking and you mock sin a little bit in the way most of the Christian fools the fools that stay in church

the sin you mock is not the bad things. It's almost always the good things we're supposed to do.

Like I said broken record serving of your time giving of your finances sharing your faith being on mission with God. Those aren't optional. The book of James says, if you know the right thing you're supposed to do and don't do it, that is sin just like doing the wrong thing.

So there's a lot of us in this room that are Christian fools. You're living like a fool. And it's usually because you feel self satisfied you think what's working for me now. Well, like I've my favorite soapbox sir point is in the book of Proverbs. It's repeated six times if God keeps saying the same thing. If over

and over it's an important thing throughout Proverbs that keeps saying there's a way that seems right to man but the end it leads to death.

He's saying is you're playing the fool because your life seems to be working and you don't understand why God would want you to sacrifice and do this or you feel like you can't because you don't want to trust God and you think your way is working. But what God is saying is not punishment.

He's not coming to kill you. He's saying your life will only end up with death at the end. You're gonna go down that road feeling self satisfied and you might get all the way in your life and realize you wasted your life.

And you know what you're gonna find out when you stand before God and judgment someday and he evaluates what you did even if you're saved is like you're gonna be really disappointed and not out of punishment, but out of what you missed.

It's not about what you're gonna get. The death at the end is what you missed out on. You only had death because you never experienced life because you wouldn't surrender to God. You wouldn't fear the Lord, and you wouldn't live in discipline long enough to get discernment,

and you fight it, and you fight it, and you fight it, and you are a fool. And you're never gonna find what you're looking for down that road. You just aren't. You just aren't. Are you the fool right now? Move towards

the wisdom. Because if you stay as the fool very long, some people go right to this, but I've noticed people that stay the fool in church long enough become the mocker. What's the mocker? The mocker is someone that literally mocks God's wisdom, usually

by getting mad at me. Some of the stuff I just challenge you to, you don't want to do it. You think you have a better answer as to why God has said you don't have to listen to him. And you think you know more than me, so you think you're not mocking God. You think you're mocking, you're mad at me.

The truth is if you can't show me scripturally why you don't have to do what God said to do, and you're gonna be mad at me and blame me, you're a fool and a mocker. And you're just mocking God. And you reason mockers mock God is because God's wisdom is too high for you. You don't get it. You don't understand it.

So you won't trust it. You just refuse. You know what it says. You know what it is. And it's not like I'm afraid, like a lot of the fools like, I don't think I can step out and trust God with my money, my time, my this, whatever it is. You're more fearful

because and that's usually a lack of trust of God's power and what he really wants for you. Mockers go, I know exactly what it is, and I just don't wanna do it, and I refuse to do it, and I think you're stupid, and I think I know better than God.

Usually won't say you think you know better than God. Usually you come up with some sideways argument as to why it works. But mockers, it does not end well for mockers. And my fear on mocking is I believe we have invited in and too much of Christianity in The United States is a bunch of mocking Christians,

which I believe in the end a lot of mocking Christians aren't Christians anyways. I mean, the most hardcore example I'd say is sexuality and identity. God's word is clear where we get our identity.

Identity politics, people trying to find their ending, all this stuff that's going around there. God already told us what our identity is. And it is not in your sexuality. It's not in your preferences. It's and you don't get to pick it. You don't get to say this is my identity. That's not how it works. And God created

sex and relationships and marriage to be an illustration of who he is. So if you distort what he created it to be, you're distorting who he is, and we are stuck in a lie. That if you struggle with this and you're wanting to get mad at me, you have been lied to and you are buying the lie, and now you're mocking

the sovereignty, the holiness of who the creator of the universe is, who says, my universe, my rules. And there's a reason he created things the way he did it. And

now we have a bunch of Christians that are like, well, the world all says it's this way. And you know what? If you are a mocker who comes to church, it's because you don't understand. You're like, why would God be so mean? Why would he let someone suffer like that? That he created them with this identity

and then says you can't live it out that way. You know why it's tied identity?

The church never had a problem with calling out people who are sleeping with other people or living with your boyfriend or girlfriend, which I guarantee there's more of you in this room right now that are doing that than are struggling with your sexual identity.

And that is flat out against God's plan. He says, you are messy. You are distorting sex. You are distorting what a relationship is, and the relationships are supposed to point who God is. You are mocking God. And you think it's okay. So don't get, oh, yeah. The the homosexuality, all that. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. I haven't

put a ring on it, but I'm putting something in it.

Think about it.

I don't know where that came from.

It's all a distortion of how God created it. And if you say, I don't understand, you mock and you twist God's word and you get mad at me and you call me a bigot and someone that doesn't care and doesn't care about No. I care enough that if you struggle with your sexuality,

I would hope that you could come to understand this. That's not who you are. We struggle with lots of stuff because the world is distorted by sin. We distort sex.

And now the ultimate distortion is that's your your you find your identity in that. Because once you find your identity, now the enemy's got you trapped. He can trick you into mocking God by saying, well, he made me this way and there's no way and God's not nice. Checkmate. But what you're wanting from your identity,

if you find it sex, whatever you find it in, what you're hoping to get out of it, the Bible says you will not ever find what you long for in your soul down that road. You just won't. And if you can surrender to who God is and trust his word, it will be a hard path.

But I guarantee you will get to the other side and you will find a blessing you are never ever gonna find on this side. And too many churches, too many pastors say, well, I can't fight that. I'll just give in and say it's okay. That is not loving people. That is not helping people. That is not leading people.

That is the dumbest thing in the world. I will change who God is so people will sit in my seats because I'm supposed to point them to God. What am I pointing you to at that point? You know what I'm pointing you to? Yourself. And we're all sitting in our thrones. And I am warning you because mockers end poorly.

It is not a good ending for mockers. Are you mocking God right now? And if you're mad at me, I get it because if you truly are a mocker, you don't get it.

So you're mad at me right now and you have a choice and this is why I'm bold. This is why I'm gonna punch you in the throat because I love you. You might not realize it, but I do. Agreeing with you won't help you. And when I get bold like this, I've done this for thirty one years now, thirty two years.

People go one of two ways. Either they stay a mocker, which they already were, and they get mad and they yell at me and they leave.

But you know what they don't do is you don't sit here. Mockers like to gather more mockers. Get a group of grackles in here and they think you can yell at me loud enough to change my mind. You figured out that ain't happening.

So I either keep you from gathering to try to hurt this church and I become the shepherd I'm supposed to and I get rid of you wolves by scaring you off or or better yet. I've had more stories of this. People were mad at me and did that, came back years later. I have thousands of stories of people apologizing

and coming back says, God got a hold of my heart. I finally listened to you is the best thing I ever did Because you weren't listening to me. You were listening to him. But

the only way you can help someone realize a mocker is to punch you in the throat and say, this is what it means. And if you're doing it, welcome to being a mocker of God. And now I leave it up to the Holy Spirit for what you're gonna do with it. Because I believe that's what love really is.

Because that's what discipline is. You're helping to guide somebody to a better place. That's what parents are supposed to do. That's what pastors are supposed to do.

We need this. And you know why I know this? You know, I absolutely know this is because if God had not repeatedly disciplined me until I could figure this out to be disciplined. And if I have not spent thirty two years in ministry, sometimes being the fool, but still trying to learn to be wise and wisdom builds wisdom,

if I did not have that experience and why I always say we need community, if I did not have people in my life that challenged me with God's word in my life, we would not be sitting in this room right now having this conversation. You know why? I didn't want to plant this church. I was already in ministry.

I was suffering for Jesus in Orange County looking at the ocean. And the problem was I spent seven years there and I completely couldn't afford it for the first six and a half. I wasn't rich, but I finally got stable. I could afford my house payment. I had a home and two kids. I was comfortable,

but I was serving God. I was in ministry. There was nothing wrong. I wasn't rebelling against God. But then my wife said, you know what's next? I think we should plant a church.

I'm like, that's dumb. I don't want to do that. I don't think I'm gifted for it. And I I the real reason was that's too hard. I barely just got financially stable, and I'm gonna go to no salary and start something that I don't know how to do.

I was afraid, and I didn't wanna do it. I was like, no way. But in my heart, I knew if my wife brought this up, that had to be the Holy Spirit. Because there is no way on earth she would ever do something that aggressive.

I knew that it had to be God. And I also had a friend of mine, a mentor of mine that had been trying to tell me, are wired. I think your next move is you need to start a church. We need more churches. We your gifts would be best used if you did this. And I kept saying no. No. No. No. I even came out after my wife said we planned a church and I was golfing with my mentor right at this golf course called Trilogy. I'm looking around and it started eating me. I go, hey, is there any churches coming in here? And he goes, I go, well, not yet, but we need to get one. He goes, well, who's moving in here? And he goes, people like you. And I go, we need to get a church here then. And he goes, yeah. And he winked at me.

That's why he brought me here to golf. I was like, what? No. I don't wanna do it. And you know why I didn't wanna do it? That's too hard.

I can't figure out how to work. How am I gonna support my family if I give that way? How am I gonna live through the time I don't have the ability? And for flat out, I just don't wanna work that hard. Sound familiar to some of you with the stuff I've asked us to do as the church?

If I made the same choice you did, we wouldn't be here. But I listened to those voices as begrudgingly as I wanted to. I finally surrendered. I'm not God, and I'm trusting the people in my life. And the Holy Spirit is speaking to me through his word. And then I got to this point of, I can't not do this. Even if it fails,

I think I should just go do it. Even if it fails, there might be something I need to learn in that.

And guess what? It was hard. It was harder than I thought. Financially, it was a train wreck. It was so I had to cash out all the retirement I had and spend it all, still don't have a back in there. It was hard. I sacrificed.

And then part of the hardness was stupid. My wife and I and all that had another baby. Why would we do that? It's like we're drowning. Hand us a baby. It's okay.

It was the hardest thing I ever did. You think, oh, then it got easy. No. Was just talking to our executive pastor. It's harder now. I work harder now than I did twenty one years ago. I

just wasn't accustomed to the hard work then. It was different and hard and scary. But now that I look back, I'm like, oh, man. What was I whining about? That was easy. I become the old man. Back in my day. I'm yelling at myself. I didn't know what hard was. It's stressful. It's exhausting.

I don't like challenging mockers. I really don't. I like to be liked. I only do it because I feel like God wants me to out of love. I don't like to do it. I don't like to pick a fight. I'm a lover, not a fighter, but don't fight with me because I'm also a fighter.

I've had sleepless nights. It's been exhausting. It's been tiring. It's been stressful. And the bigger we get, like, have a hiccup financially. We need to build an $18,000,000 building. We have a 122 staff people. We have a budget to do all the ministry do that is about $11,000,000

a year. And you know what? And the staff only amount for 4% of the man hours it takes to do this church. 96% of the man hours it takes to actually do all the ministry comes from you, from volunteers.

Think about the pressure on if we don't do what we're called to do. It hasn't gotten any easier. It's gotten harder. Like, well, you're you're making a really good case for me to wanna trust God here, Bill. But here's what's different. God has given me the discernment on the other side.

I pulled in here. Every time I pull in here, I thank God. And this morning, especially I cried. I was thinking about this. I pulled in like, what are all these cars doing here? And I was, oh, middle school camp. Six buses over there. 300 middle schoolers just went to camp.

And they're gonna come back, many of them having just found Jesus, but all of them are gonna be different when they get back. Because this church exists because not just me, but because you because God brought you. You brought your kids you serve those of you that give that sacrifice.

You are just as much a part of everything we do here and I said I just think I thank you that I get to do this. And it's the hardest thing I've ever done. And it's not getting any easier. I'm getting older. It seems harder now just to get out of bed in the morning.

But I see the blessing.

That's the blessing of wisdom, to live skillfully, not willfully. Because that is what old school wisdom is all about. Father God, thank you, Lord. Thank you that you do love us enough to discipline us, to challenge us to live faithfully and fearfully because we deserve to fear you, to respect you, to have holy awe before you.

Because you are God, we're not, and yet you love us and care about us so much. So God, I pray that everyone in this room, including myself, everyone watching online would choose the way of wisdom. Speak to us about what that looks like today

and give us the clarity and the courage to do it. I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.

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