Summary of Hear and discern
Preamble
Brent starts by discussing the stat that says we make about 35,000 decisions a day. Most of these decisions are trivial. The decision about our breakfast. The decision which armpit to start putting deodorant on first. If 10% of our decisions were moral decisions would mean we need to make 3,500 tough decisions a day. And these 3,500 decisions would mean we are also faced with a choice to be closer with God or move away from God. In a year we have 1.2 million opportunities to draw closer to God (or further away).
Knowledge vs. Wisdom
Knowledge is knowing facts, circumstances, and understanding pros and cons. Wisdom is the right use of knowledge; the ability to make good decisions.
James 1:5 – Ask for wisdom
If you don’t know what you’re doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. (Message). Basically, ask God when we don’t know! When the Bible covers the topic of wisdom it describes wisdom as the ability to understand what God wants in the situation. If we are ever in a situation and we don’t know how God wants us to react, we must turn to him and ask.
Humbling ourselves before God
God has not downloaded all the answers to life into our brains because he wants us to humble ourselves while asking for help. We must admit we aren’t know-it-alls. Pride is deadly in our relationships with God. Pride is like bad breath, everyone knows you have it except you. Pride stops us from turning to God for wisdom.
Are you a know-it-all?
Brent challenges the audience to think about our own pride issue. What areas of our lives are we know-it-alls? What areas of our lives do we refuse to ask for wisdom. Because: (a) we think we know the answer, (b) we don’t want to know God’s wisdom because we are complacent, (c) we are afraid that we aren’t worthy of God’s wisdom and that he’ll judge us instead.
We don’t need to be “better” to come to God
God accepts us as we are! We do not need to be “better” than we currently are in order to come to God for salvation. We don’t need to make things better in our life before we come to God. No! God accepts us in our current state. We can ask God for wisdom right now.
Asking for wisdom vs. asking for an answer
James 1:5 isn’t, “If you don’t know the answer, pray to the Father. He loves to give answers.” Brent uses the analogy of a parent not “spoon feeding” answers to a child for too long. Brent explains that a parent’s role is not to simply explain everything to a growing child but instead to teach the child how to make good decisions. We should stop asking God for the answers and instead ask for wisdom!
About this Message Series
This is a message in a series called Hear & Obey. This series was started in January 2017.
About the Speaker
Brent is the lead pastor here at SouthRidge. He and his wife Pam were part of the original church plant.