Be One with Wisdom

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- Well, hey, welcome to Crossroads.

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My name is Andy and I lead Crossroads Anywhere,

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which is our community of people online

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and all over the world who call Crossroads home.

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But something you need to know about our church is that

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we are not about just staying put.

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We are about going.

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We believe that following Jesus leads to an adventurous life.

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And actually, as part of that, we're going to be joined

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by one of our incredible partners from South Africa

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who will be on stage sharing about some of

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the amazing work that our church is doing

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all the way over in South Africa.

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Now, today, we're wrapping up our deep dive

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on the topic of wisdom and how we get it

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and what godly wisdom looks like.

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And we'll be hearing from Alli about

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how wisdom actually leads to a better life.

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But before we do that, we're going to spend some time

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actually connecting with God.

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And that might sound crazy, but we believe that

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music is an incredible tool to help us connect

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with the God of the universe,

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helps us understand more of who He is

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and more of who He's made us to be.

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So use these words, use these songs, use these lyrics

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as the opening dialog

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in a conversation between you and God.

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- I had somebody come up to me a few weeks ago

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and just say, "Hey, that line in that song,

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I need to sing that more and more.

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Everything stolen and lost, He's taken it back.

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Everything in my past stolen and lost,

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everything that feels broken, my God is taking it back.

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My God's a restorer, a repairer, right?

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That's who He is. That's the work He does.

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And I know this, in a room this size, online

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or in this space with us, some of you find it easier

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this week to say those words and have that hope.

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And I know because of some of the phone calls

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I got this week that some of you have had

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one of the worst weeks of your life.

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And so to cling to that hope cost you something this week.

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But to all of us, God says, "That's who I am.

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Don't forget. When the world feels hopeless, I'm Your hope.

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I'm a repairer, a restorer,

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the one who enters the mess every single time."

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In the picture of Jesus, the picture of Jesus

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on the cross laying his life down is the perfect picture

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of reminding us who God is

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and what He does, time and time again.

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Listen to this verse from one of

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the earliest followers of Jesus, a guy named Paul.

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He writes this in 2 Corinthians.

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He says, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ,

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he's a new creation.

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The old is passed away, a new life has begun.

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And all this is from God who, through Christ,

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reconciled us to Himself."

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See, God recognizes brokenness and separation.

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And rather than pulling back, He entered in,

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because that's what He does.

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And that's what we remember in these songs.

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And then Jesus gave us an ancient practice to remember Him

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and remember that Ge's a restorer and a repairer.

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And that practice is called communion,

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where we take bread

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that represents His body broken for us,

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and juice or wine

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that represents His blood poured out for us,

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that He laid down His life that I might find life.

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And never forget it.

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So when you walked in, you found a packet.

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Maybe you were handed a packet, a little juice packet.

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If not, raise your hand and you can have mine.

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If not, raise your hand.

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We'll have some people come around, but.

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This right here is a simple common way.

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There's nothing fancy about it.

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It's a simple way for us to remember.

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Thank you, Daniel.

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It's a simple way for us to remember that our God

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is a repairer and a restorer and a redeemer.

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It's a way for me to say I don't want to forget

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and I receive Your Grace.

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Jesus said, "Do this in remembrance of me."

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And here's the thing, I don't think Jesus said,

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"Do this in remembrance of me to check a box."

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I don't think he said, "Do this in remembrance of me

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because it's the do and not a don't."

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I don't think He said it's a rule.

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I think Jesus said, 'Do this in remembrance of me,

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because the world's going to hit you

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and you need to remember that I am your hope.

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You need to remember in the brokenness

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I restore things back to how they were meant to be."

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And so He said, do this common thing,

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every time you do it and remember that

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I'm the repairer and the restorer.

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And so for some of you, you may be in here

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and you may go, "Man, I don't know Jesus.

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I don't know the story of Jesus.

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I don't follow Him or believe in Him yet."

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Wonderful. You're in the right place, right?

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You're in the right place.

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This practice is not meant to be exclusive,

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but it is meant to be sincere.

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And so by taking it, I say, "I sincerely receive

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Your whole grace that wipes me clean."

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By taking it, I say, "I receive Your sacrifice for me."

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By taking it, I say,

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"I sincerely receive You as my Savior

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and my King and I'll follow You."

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And so if you can sincerely say that,

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together we're going to take this. All right?

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So take off the first layer.

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Hold this wafer.

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Just take a deep breath.

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This is remembrance of Jesus,

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that it's His sacrifice and not ours that gives us life.

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So take His body, broken for you.

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Eat it and live.

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And you peel back the second layer, if you can.

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If you've got big thumbs. I'm sorry.

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You peel back that second layer.

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This juice represents the blood of Jesus

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poured out for you and me to give us life.

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Take and drink and live.

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You take that, you receive Him as Savior and King.

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This next song might be new for you,

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but it allows me to say,

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"Let me listen to the whole story of Jesus

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and because of that, I will no longer live for myself.

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I want to live for You." It goes like this.

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It's aspirational and saying this is what I'm aiming for.

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So in sincerity, let's lift our hands and sing.

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- How about one more time?

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Let me pray for us. God, that applause is for You.

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Because so many of us in this space have said,

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"You are my King, you are a Rescuer,

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and I give my life to You because

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You can do far more with it than I sure can.

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My hands lifted up or my voice lifted up,

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not a statement of perfection.

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A statement of abandoning myself,

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a statement of laying my life down

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because you laid Yours down.

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A statement of surrender that says,

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I know it's crazy, but when I lay my life down,

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I actually find it because You're a good King.

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I praise You this morning.

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And I pray all this because of you, Jesus. Amen. Amen.

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- Well, hey, whether you've been around Crossroads

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five minutes or five years, you need to know about

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this place that Crossroads is not a church that stays put.

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We are always doing something new,

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and honestly, always going some place new.

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I remember early on in my time at Crossroads,

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I got invited to, not just metaphorically go some place,

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but to literally go some place.

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And it took me halfway around the world

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to a place called Johannesburg, South Africa.

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And it's actually where Philip Shapiro,

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one of our amazing partners who leads an organization

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called Build The Future in South Africa.

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He's here, and I want him to tell us a little bit

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about Build The Future

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and the work you guys are doing in Johannesburg.

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- So Build The Future works with kids in communities,

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kids that can't go to a preschool for whatever reason,

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they can't afford it.

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And we feed and educate these kids

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and take them off the streets.

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- Poverty, HIV and Aids, like, unemployment,

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the unemployment rate is about 50%.

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There's just lots and lots and lots of need.

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Tell us about some of the things that you guys offer

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and tell us about what it would look like if, man,

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let's say some folks wanted to join you

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on a trip there this summer.

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- Well, trips are amazing.

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People come out and they get to do so many things with us.

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And by doing that, partnering with us so that

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when they go back, we continue with the work.

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And some of those things are meal packing.

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They get team working with the teachers and teaching the kids,

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and they also get to do some gardening,

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often some time building.

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There's some building projects that we set up this fall.

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Next year, we're hoping to get to build some schools

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with groups coming out.

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- I remember, I think it was 2014, 2015,

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I went to Johannesburg and we did the meal packing.

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We got the food ready.

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And you said on an average time,

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how many meals would you guys prepare?

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- Well, depending on what meals they offer,

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it's like a meals to go type feeding.

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It's about 11,800 meals.

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- I just remember a whole bus full.

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There was a bus that we rode in

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and there was a bus just full of food.

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And we drove out to one of these informal settlements

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where there's tens of thousands of people

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in a really, really small area where the need is really great.

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And I remember meeting these kids,

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getting to introduce myself, getting to play with them,

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getting to distribute food to thousands

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and thousands of people, and then getting to pray with them.

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I remember going into one of these small

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sort of informal homes and actually getting to pray

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with a guy who was really, really -- he was bedridden,

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suffering with with Aids and HIV.

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And sorry, he was bedridden, just suffering with HIV

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and getting to pray for him and getting to, man,

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it changed the way I think about prayer, honestly.

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It's changed the way that I think about God,

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changed the way that I look for Him to show up in dark places

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and has raised my level of faith that God wants to do

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good things even in really difficult situations.

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- Yeah, people often come to try and make a change,

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and they do in a small way, but often they'll come back

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and they actually are changed more.

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And that's exciting to see.

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- Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.

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I would say if you're interested or maybe even open

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to the idea of going some place,

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of not just staying in your comfort zone,

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not just staying put, but going some place,

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hey, you should consider it.

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It might change your life.

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And I don't think that's hyperbole.

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I'm not overselling something.

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It is one of those things that can just

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change your perspective and really, really powerful ways.

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And I'm just super thankful we've got amazing partners

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like you guys and Build The Future that we get to work with

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because you guys know more than we do.

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You've got experience, you are boots on the ground,

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you're there every day.

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So we're super thankful for you.

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- Yeah, we thank, we really appreciate Crossroads

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and all the work you do with us and it's incredible to,

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yeah, just work.

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We've been working for many years together

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and seen a lot of good and a lot of change.

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- Love it, love it.

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Well, hey, I just want you to know,

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if you give to Crossroads,

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you're not just giving to Crossroads.

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Like, I think it's really important that you know that

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you're also giving to Build The Future

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and tons of other amazing, amazing partners

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all over the world doing life saving work

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every day around the globe.

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So if you want to join the team of faithful givers

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who makes all this stuff happen, you can head to

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Crossroads.net/give for more info there.

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Now we're going to jump in to our message

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hearing from Alli Patterson

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about what wisdom can do for you.

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We all want a life that works.

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We buy books, we listen to podcasts,

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and we follow gurus who promise the secret to what we crave:

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a life full of meaning, connection, fun and adventure.

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We look to those who have done well before us

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and we ask ourselves, How can I get some of that?

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We seek knowledge and understanding,

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but we need something deeper:

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we need wisdom.

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The Bible gives us a path to wisdom

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laid out in three Old Testament books,

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often called The Wisdom Literature.

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Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Job are the roadmap

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to understanding where godly wisdom comes from

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and what God has to say about how to live our lives well.

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- Hey, everyone, good morning. My name is Alli Patterson.

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It's so good to be with you this weekend here at Crossroads.

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Thanks for spending part of a summer weekend here with me.

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And we have been in the wisdom books of the Bible

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for most of the summer so far,

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and we're going to wrap that up today.

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We've done topics like how to use your time,

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wisdom in suffering, how to handle conflict.

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I promise you, we could do every week for the rest of the year

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and we may never hit the question

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that you walked in here thinking about today.

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I have a list.

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I'm sure you have a list of just topics

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that you would love God's wisdom on

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that are swirling in your mind all the time.

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Mine are things like: Where should my son go to college?

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I've got some questions about my work.

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What's this nagging feeling I can't get rid of this week?

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Should I make this new commitment with my time?

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We always have these questions

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we would love for God to speak into.

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I personally would love it if there was

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an audible voice from heaven, or at least

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some, like, standardized checklist I could use, right?

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But God doesn't tend to work like that.

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He's actually offering us something else

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as a source for the ongoing need for wisdom in our life.

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So let me pray for us as we start here today.

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Lord, thank you for being present with us.

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I pray that you would become the source of wisdom

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for all of us as we leave here today.

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Help my words to be clear and true and helpful.

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In Jesus' name. Amen.

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Seems like whenever we get to the other side

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of one of those issues in our life

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that we need God's wisdom for,

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whether we feel like we got it or not,

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there's two more things waiting to take its place.

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And so today we're going to try to get

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all the way down to the source,

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because if we have ongoing need, then we need to know

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where is wisdom coming from on an ongoing basis,

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where does it originate, where does it start?

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And that's the question that we're going to deal with

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in the passage that we're going to look at today,

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because we need an ongoing flow.

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We're going to jump into the very end of

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the quintessential book of wisdom, the Book of Proverbs.

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Proverbs has a very clear conclusion to the book.

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And as we read this conclusion to

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the Book of Proverbs together today,

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you're going to meet someone

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whose life is really working out,

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almost like in an irritating way, working out.

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Everything is going well.

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Her husband adores her. Her work is thriving.

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And you know something is really crazy because her kids,

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they stand up and praise her in public. In public.

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Now, my daughter walked by me at the pool the other day

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and pretended that she didn't know who I was.

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I was like, "Hey, hey." I nudged my husband.

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I was like, "What was that?

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Did she just act like she didn't know who I was?"

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That never happens to this lady.

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You might know her if you've read this passage

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from Proverbs as the wife of noble character.

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And many of us have been taught that this is

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a passage written and for primarily wives.

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And in fact wives, if you have thought that, that's fine.

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It's definitely wisdom for you.

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But that's not actually why this section of Proverbs was written.

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That's not actually what it's primarily about.

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It is primarily about concluding the book in a way

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that wraps up every theme of wisdom

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that's presented in the Book of Proverbs,

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and it does it through one woman because

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wisdom is a feminine noun in the Hebrew language.

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So we get this fully embodied look

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at what wisdom is like in one life.

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Now, how do I know this?

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I know it because of the form that this passage is written in.

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Flash back to your seventh grade grammar class.

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Maybe you learned about something called an acrostic poem.

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The final part of Proverbs 31 is written as an acrostic poem.

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Now acrostic poems, they take the first letter

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and whatever's going down the page,

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if you follow the first letter, it has meaning.

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I thought I would share one with you

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that I dug out of some old papers at my house.

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I was once given this acrostic poem.

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Most of them are slightly more inspirational than this one,

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but I think we can all agree it could have been worse.

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It could have been worse.

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I'm mostly there.

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That's an acrostic poem.

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That's the form of the end of Proverbs 31,

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only the beginning of every letter,

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it goes straight down in order the Hebrew alphabet.

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We are literally reading the ABCs of Wisdom.

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It's a summation.

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And so I want you to listen and take in Proverbs 31,

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the conclusion to this book.

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And maybe it'll hit a little different today

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knowing a little bit more about it.

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- She is wisdom.

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She is being embodied as wisdom itself

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worked out in one culturally relevant life

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for the time that it was written.

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And she's pretty amazing, right?

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Like wisdom has strength. Wisdom has confidence.

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Wisdom isn't laying in bed at 3:00 in the morning

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anxiously wondering what to do.

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Wisdom has vision and always moves toward

00:35:46

success and gain and profitability.

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And I don't know about you,

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but when I first got back into that passage,

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I started thinking, Did you see how many things

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she made with her hands?

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I started thinking I should have paid

00:35:58

a little more attention in Home EC class in eighth grade.

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I was like, Hmm, maybe wisdom sews better than I do.

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You know what I was doing in eighth grade home EC class?

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I happened to sit by the refrigerator

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that was in the room

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and we found a pack of hot dogs in the refrigerator.

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I don't even know why that's funny,

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but we used to mess around with these hot dogs.

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This woman, I don't -- whatever. We were in eighth grade.

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This woman is not messing around with hot dogs.

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Her whole life is being run through wisdom,

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the wisdom of God.

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And we can see where it gets hurt and what it gets her.

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But what we don't know is how is she doing this?

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We're going to ask the question, how three times today.

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How, how, how?

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Because the third one is going to get us

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all the way to the source of this fountain of wisdom

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that's at the bottom of her life.

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In the first question, how, how is she doing this?

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We have to ask because it's all going very, very, very well.

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And as I look through that passage

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and I read it a million times,

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what I see is that wisdom begins with some kind of sight.

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She's seeing something. She's seeing something,

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and so she moves in certain directions.

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She sees things, and so she takes certain opportunities.

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She sees people and treats them a certain way.

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She sees wisdom, somehow the source of wisdom

00:37:24

has to do with giving us some kind of sight.

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Listen to some of the things that you just heard.

00:37:30

She considers a field and buys it.

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She sees something in the field.

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She sees an opportunity.

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She decides what to do with that field.

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She sees where to invest.

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She selects wool and flax. She selects it.

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She doesn't just randomly come across it.

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She sees it and chooses it, and she does it wisely.

00:37:49

And in case you're fuzzy about a distaff,

00:37:51

did anyone catch that word?

00:37:53

She puts her hands to the distaff.

00:37:55

In case you don't have one of those at home,

00:37:57

it's a piece of equipment that takes

00:38:00

that wool and flax and turns it into yarn

00:38:03

so she can make all the things that she was making.

00:38:05

So she not only sees the quality and the materials

00:38:09

and the opportunities, but she also sees

00:38:11

what she needs to turn resources into gain.

00:38:15

She sees the whole process. She can read the market.

00:38:18

She knows exactly who's coming to buy those babies,

00:38:21

seemingly before they even show up.

00:38:24

She sees in a way that we don't always see.

00:38:28

She doesn't just see what too, she sees who.

00:38:31

She sees several different whos

00:38:33

that sometimes we tend to overlook in our life.

00:38:36

Let me ask you a question:

00:38:38

Are the closest people in your life, your core,

00:38:40

your household, whoever that is, are they the first ones

00:38:43

to stand up and sing your praise?

00:38:45

Do they think that you're doing your life right?

00:38:49

Hers do.

00:38:50

Sometimes we overlook the people that are right in front of us,

00:38:54

and also question.

00:38:58

She always seems to go toward gain.

00:39:01

But then we get the one verse

00:39:02

about she opens her arms to the poor

00:39:05

and extends her hands to the needy.

00:39:08

Why is she doing that? What is she seeing?

00:39:11

What do the poor have to do with a thriving life?

00:39:14

What does wisdom see that we don't see?

00:39:18

And who doesn't want this kind of wisdom, right?

00:39:20

This would be very, very helpful for us

00:39:22

if we could have access to a source of wisdom

00:39:25

that would even tell us a tenth of what we're reading

00:39:28

in this conclusion to this book.

00:39:30

We would know what employees to hire.

00:39:33

Which ones we're going to work out for us over time

00:39:35

to benefit the business that you just started.

00:39:38

Or we could see all kinds of opportunities to build skills.

00:39:42

Maybe you need to learn a language,

00:39:44

whatever is going to be the key that opens God's will

00:39:47

for a certain part of your life.

00:39:49

We would love this.

00:39:50

Do you ever watch somebody or something

00:39:53

and wonder how are they not seeing it?

00:39:56

I realized I was doing this with a show I've been watching

00:39:59

with my kids a little bit off and on this summer.

00:40:01

Just something silly that we are entertained by.

00:40:04

It's a show called Tiny House Hunters.

00:40:07

I don't know if you've ever seen those shows

00:40:09

where they shop for different properties or houses

00:40:11

and you get to see like three different ones

00:40:13

that they go to and which one they pick.

00:40:15

Only this one is for tiny houses.

00:40:17

It's people that are drastically downsizing.

00:40:21

You know what? More power to them.

00:40:22

It makes me sweat a little bit

00:40:23

because we've got six people in my house.

00:40:25

So living in 125ft² sounds very panic inducing to me.

00:40:30

But love it, great.

00:40:32

Only every single time they walk in

00:40:36

and the first house they look at, I see the same thing.

00:40:38

My kids are like, "Mom, you need to calm down about this."

00:40:41

But every single time I'm like, "How are they not seeing this?"

00:40:44

They come in and they're looking around

00:40:46

and they're like, "You know,

00:40:50

I was really hoping for some more storage."

00:40:54

And I'm like, "It's 125ft². You didn't see that one coming?

00:40:59

Like, you didn't see that

00:41:01

you weren't going to have enough storage in this place?

00:41:03

How are you not seeing this?"

00:41:05

Sometimes we look at each other's lives

00:41:07

and we can see ways that we're not seeing clearly,

00:41:11

that we're not operating in wisdom.

00:41:14

But wisdom does give us glimpses.

00:41:17

We get these little shining, wonderful glimpses

00:41:21

of where wisdom actually is.

00:41:23

And you know what I'm talking about.

00:41:25

Sometime when something punches through and you're like,

00:41:27

"I can see it, I understand how much that's worth,

00:41:30

even if I have to be a little poorer or get hot or tired."

00:41:34

I think Greg's probably all of those things

00:41:36

in Nicaragua right now, but.

00:41:39

I thought about this when my kids were at camp.

00:41:41

We do camps here at Crossroads for our students.

00:41:44

I happen to have two high schoolers

00:41:46

and two middle schoolers right now,

00:41:48

and they all went to camp with Crossroads.

00:41:50

And I thought, I started thinking about this,

00:41:52

about I wonder if you could foresee the trajectory

00:41:56

changing nature of what takes place at that camp,

00:42:00

would we have volunteers like lining up

00:42:03

around the block to go be a part of that?

00:42:06

I believe that's what's taking place there.

00:42:08

We sent like 1600 kids to camp.

00:42:10

Only four of them were mine.

00:42:12

I don't know what percentage that is, higher than most,

00:42:14

but one of those kids, he texted me from high school camp

00:42:17

and he has a summer job

00:42:19

and gets paid through an app on his phone.

00:42:22

And he texted me from camp and he said,

00:42:24

"Hey, mom, I just wanted to let you know

00:42:26

that for the very first time I set up an account

00:42:28

and I tithed my own paycheck."

00:42:32

And I, of course, I'm happy for that.

00:42:35

But why am I happy for that?

00:42:36

I'm happy because I can see a little glimpse of

00:42:40

where that is going to go in his life.

00:42:43

I've been down that road and I can see something he can't see

00:42:47

that he is aligning himself with the nature of God

00:42:52

and the character of God and the priorities of God

00:42:54

in a way that you can't always see ahead of time.

00:42:58

And so I was so delighted with that.

00:43:00

And I just thought, man, every now and then we do,

00:43:03

we see these little glimpses of that true worth,

00:43:07

that godly wisdom.

00:43:08

And in the passage, Proverbs 31, the end of this book,

00:43:12

wisdom, the totality of wisdom is not sight.

00:43:14

There's a lot more to it, right?

00:43:16

You could break that down and you could find

00:43:18

how she's working, eager hands, strong arms,

00:43:21

you know, ready for the task.

00:43:23

There's all kinds of other things

00:43:25

about what her attitude is.

00:43:27

Maybe you caught the part at the end

00:43:29

where it says she can laugh at the days to come.

00:43:31

She's light hearted because, why?

00:43:33

Because she sees something.

00:43:36

Even the parts of wisdom that aren't really about seeing,

00:43:40

the working out of that in your life, they start.

00:43:43

And that's what we want to know: Where's the beginning?

00:43:47

And the beginning is somehow the ability

00:43:51

to see things you can't quite see.

00:43:53

A few months back, I had this in my own life.

00:43:56

I didn't really know what I was walking into at the time.

00:43:59

I just knew this part of my life is really irritating me.

00:44:04

It's not right. I can feel it, you know?

00:44:06

I was just behaving out of character.

00:44:08

Sometimes I would get super irritated.

00:44:11

Like, I'm a pretty steady person and I have these flashes

00:44:14

of like irritation and I give up and I don't want to do this.

00:44:17

Or then there would be a day

00:44:19

where something would work right.

00:44:20

And I would go, "Yes, I'm amazing at this," you know?

00:44:23

And I could just feel that it just was out of whack.

00:44:28

The aspect of my life that this was about sounds a little silly.

00:44:31

I'm talking about social media.

00:44:34

I know that sounds a little silly, like,

00:44:36

it shouldn't have the power to make me

00:44:37

respond in different ways, but I could feel that I wasn't --

00:44:43

I was missing something.

00:44:44

And so I began to ask God, like, "Hey, you know,

00:44:48

I don't really like this. I'm not enjoying it."

00:44:50

And may I just make a side note and say

00:44:52

I feel like I'm pretty reasonable with it?

00:44:54

I'm only on two channels of social media.

00:44:58

I don't feel like I'm addicted to it.

00:44:59

I do a lot of it because of my work.

00:45:02

I would have told you before, "This is fine.

00:45:05

I'm probably on the part of the spectrum

00:45:09

that's not too crazy with it."

00:45:12

But I knew I was missing something

00:45:14

by the way that I was responding to it.

00:45:16

So I came up with this little idea:

00:45:18

I'm going to take a break.

00:45:19

I thought going in, this is just about

00:45:22

me not wanting to come up with stuff because

00:45:24

social media is a monster. Right?

00:45:25

What are you going to post? What are you going to say?

00:45:28

You know? Do you have a picture for it?

00:45:30

Does it sound good? What are you going to tweet today?

00:45:32

You know, I mean, there's all kinds.

00:45:34

I just thought I was tired of coming up with things,

00:45:36

so I thought, that'll help. I'll just take a little break.

00:45:38

The algorithm is going to punish me for it.

00:45:40

I'll probably lose a bunch of followers, but I need a break.

00:45:43

I'm not going to worry about it.

00:45:44

So a little bit at a time, I realized

00:45:48

maybe this break needs to be a little longer than I thought.

00:45:51

And I decided I'm going to take the entire month of July,

00:45:54

30 days completely off of any social media.

00:45:57

And on the night of June 30th,

00:45:59

I tried to talk myself out of it.

00:46:02

Because I was like, "Well, I'm not going to see

00:46:04

all you people I enjoy seeing.

00:46:07

I like to keep up with my friends lives.

00:46:09

I'm afraid I'm going to miss something.

00:46:10

And what about all the, you know, I don't know

00:46:14

the secret to all the algorithms and who sees what,

00:46:16

but I'm pretty sure they're not going to like it.

00:46:20

Maybe I shouldn't take that long of a break."

00:46:22

But I went ahead and went for it.

00:46:23

And here we are on July 30th.

00:46:27

We are 30 days in and I haven't opened it up,

00:46:30

scrolled it or posted on it for 30 days.

00:46:34

And I'll tell you what, what I thought it was about

00:46:37

is not at all what it was about.

00:46:40

I brought my journal because I've been going into

00:46:43

about every week I would go and make some notes.

00:46:46

And I thought maybe I would share with you

00:46:50

a couple of the things that now I can see.

00:46:54

So pretty quickly,

00:46:55

I wrote this down sometime after the first week.

00:46:58

I said, "I realize I am afraid professionally.

00:47:03

It makes me feel like I'm not doing anything

00:47:06

to help the work that I want to do."

00:47:09

Now let's take a pause.

00:47:11

What's the work I want to do?

00:47:12

I would like to share the gospel with people.

00:47:14

That's my job and I love to do it.

00:47:17

I love to do it in writing and speaking,

00:47:18

and any other form I can.

00:47:20

Who opens the door for that?

00:47:23

Is it Instagram? Or is it God?

00:47:29

But here I am realizing like, "Oh my gosh,

00:47:31

I'm counting on this for something

00:47:34

I didn't realize I was counting on it for."

00:47:36

That's very interesting.

00:47:37

Now, observation number two, a couple of days later.

00:47:41

It's really obvious to me for some reason

00:47:43

that my friendships aren't as well developed as I thought.

00:47:54

- [indiscernible] - Right.

00:47:56

Couple days later, here's the next one.

00:47:59

"I have a high desire to consume content

00:48:03

and I find myself reaching for better things."

00:48:08

Even the good content, right, is at best,

00:48:11

it's good things in a bite sized way.

00:48:14

At worst, it's junk food.

00:48:15

And I realized like, Oh, I'm reading articles I want to read,

00:48:19

I'm reading books more.

00:48:20

I'm actually taking in things that are more helpful,

00:48:24

deeper, better things for me to digest, because

00:48:28

I guess that's not what I'm reaching for anymore.

00:48:33

This one was fascinating. Did not see this one coming.

00:48:37

"Social media seems to keep me away from my inner life.

00:48:41

I notice the ups and downs of my own soul a lot more."

00:48:48

We have this incredible desire to participate

00:48:53

in the lives of others, to do what we do professionally,

00:48:55

to have friends, to keep up with each other's lives.

00:48:58

And those are all awesome things.

00:49:00

Those are like a number one desires.

00:49:04

But I didn't see that this is the thing that

00:49:07

I was counting on to fulfill some of those.

00:49:10

I only left, I will make a confession,

00:49:13

I left one social media channel because

00:49:15

I only follow like ten people on it.

00:49:17

It's called BeReal. Does anyone have BeReal?

00:49:21

It's not a big deal.

00:49:22

There's a little timer that goes off

00:49:24

and you just take a picture of whatever you're doing.

00:49:27

And since I didn't have to create anything for it,

00:49:29

I thought, "No big deal."

00:49:30

All I'm friends with is like about

00:49:31

a dozen of my teenage friends, my teenagers' friends,

00:49:36

and like five people that are in their 20s

00:49:38

that work here at Crossroads.

00:49:39

That's about the extent of my BeReal community.

00:49:41

But all of a sudden I'm on BeReal and I'm like,

00:49:44

"What are they doing today?

00:49:46

You know, are they at UDF? What kind of milkshake is that?

00:49:49

Is that where they're sitting in that picture?"

00:49:51

You know, I'm like very interested in these 17 people

00:49:55

that are on BeReal because we do,

00:49:57

we have these deep desires to connect,

00:50:01

these desires to participate

00:50:03

in the life that each other is living.

00:50:06

And the question is, where do we think that's coming from?

00:50:09

What's the source of that really?

00:50:12

Is it social media? Is it something else?

00:50:14

Anyway, I thought this was just about

00:50:16

giving me a break from having to think up captions

00:50:20

and God had something else completely in mind.

00:50:23

He showed me so many things

00:50:25

and they all boiled down to one thing:

00:50:28

the desire was good and I was filling it

00:50:30

with something that was counterfeit,

00:50:32

that was counterfeit.

00:50:33

And the Book of Proverbs says this over and over

00:50:36

and over again, that to the voice of wisdom,

00:50:39

there is always a counterfeit voice.

00:50:42

And she is also embodied as a woman, and her name is Folly.

00:50:47

And we meet folly early in the Book of Proverbs.

00:50:49

And if you follow her all the way through,

00:50:51

you realize by the time you get to this conclusion,

00:50:54

we are meeting the fullness of lady wisdom,

00:50:57

and all the way through her foil is folly.

00:50:59

And guess where folly is?

00:51:00

She's always there. She's right there.

00:51:03

When you go, "I don't know what to do.

00:51:05

I don't know what to do. I need wisdom."

00:51:08

Folly is there too.

00:51:09

Listen to this in Proverbs 9.

00:51:11

I want you to hear that they both have a call.

00:51:14

I want you to listen to the words of the call of wisdom.

00:51:17

Here's what she says:

00:51:26

And we'll get to that in a second.

00:51:28

And now here's the call of lady folly.

00:51:42

The exact same call.

00:51:45

You need wisdom? You need to know what to do?

00:51:47

You don't know which way to turn?

00:51:49

You don't know where to invest?

00:51:50

You don't know which way to go?

00:51:52

"I have the answer," they both say.

00:51:54

"I know what to do. Come here. Follow me."

00:51:58

And we learn through the book of Proverbs,

00:52:00

this lady folly, she likes to hoist herself up.

00:52:03

She sits at the high points of the city.

00:52:06

She's always there.

00:52:08

You need to make a turn? Her voice is there, too.

00:52:13

And they both offer us something.

00:52:15

They both offer us fulfillment.

00:52:17

They both offer us nourishment.

00:52:19

They both offer us the answer to these God given desires

00:52:23

that our life would thrive.

00:52:24

Listen to what lady wisdom goes on to say.

00:52:39

And lady folly, she says:

00:52:57

Friends, the pursuit of wisdom that we see

00:53:03

embodied in this passage at the end of Proverbs,

00:53:08

it's a tricky business because everywhere you look

00:53:13

there is the same promise, the same fulfillment being made

00:53:16

by something that ultimately will never lead us to life.

00:53:21

I didn't know.

00:53:24

You don't see what you don't see.

00:53:26

So how do you deal with it?

00:53:27

We have to ask our how again, our how, our second how.

00:53:31

Our second how is how is she doing this?

00:53:34

How is this person pulling this off all the time?

00:53:38

What is her secret to always choosing

00:53:41

what's going to lead her to life

00:53:43

when there's these two voices constantly calling her?

00:53:46

And the answer is buried in one turn of phrase

00:53:49

at the very end of that very long passage.

00:53:51

The whole thing celebrates all the properties of wisdom.

00:53:55

And then we hear this, second to the last verse.

00:54:06

A woman who fears the Lord.

00:54:08

That's the only encapsulation that we get

00:54:10

of what exactly is going on here,

00:54:12

how she's pulling this off.

00:54:13

A woman who fears the Lord.

00:54:15

If you want to see with wisdom,

00:54:18

she's doing it through the fear of the Lord.

00:54:22

Now that phrase might feel a little old school,

00:54:24

but it's all the way through the Bible.

00:54:27

I'm going to venture a guess that your favorite sermon

00:54:30

is not entitled The Fear of the Lord.

00:54:33

It just doesn't sound pleasant to talk about, right?

00:54:36

It doesn't sound like we should have to be afraid of God.

00:54:40

So what is this?

00:54:41

What is the fear of the Lord?

00:54:42

Because it's helping her.

00:54:43

It's leading her to gain in life

00:54:46

and to relationships and thriving.

00:54:48

And the fear of the Lord through Scripture is a proper alignment.

00:54:53

That's how I would -- that's how --

00:54:54

the first thing that I would call it is a proper alignment.

00:54:57

To understand that there is a God and that we are lower.

00:55:00

We are submitted to that God, we are not Him.

00:55:04

And there's all kinds of ways that the Lord is called.

00:55:07

And it's good to know who you're dealing with, right?

00:55:10

Like, the fear of the Lord,

00:55:11

you know who you're dealing with here.

00:55:13

Here's who you're dealing with: the Lord Almighty;

00:55:16

the Lord of Angel armies' the Lord, my banner;

00:55:19

the Lord, my shepherd; the Lord who heals;

00:55:21

the Lord will provide; the Lord who sanctifies;

00:55:24

the Lord, who is there; the Lord, who is peace;

00:55:27

the Lord, my righteousness.

00:55:29

These are just a handful of the names of

00:55:31

what kind of God you're actually dealing with.

00:55:41

I think of it, personally, as being able

00:55:44

to keep eye contact with God.

00:55:46

When I think about the fear of the Lord and, like,

00:55:49

a helpful way for me to think about it in my own life,

00:55:51

my own decisions, my own everyday world, I think,

00:55:55

"Could I do this looking God straight in the face?

00:55:59

Not looking down in shame,

00:56:01

not looking away at something else for direction.

00:56:03

Could I keep my eyes locked on God?

00:56:05

What would it look like if I were

00:56:08

to keep staring Him in the face as I walk through this?

00:56:11

Would I do it differently?

00:56:13

What would cause me to look away?

00:56:15

What might I have to give up my eye contact for?"

00:56:17

I just think of it as living fully orientated to God

00:56:22

first and primary in our life.

00:56:23

That's the essence of the fear of the Lord

00:56:26

that we get in Scripture.

00:56:28

Because one day, friends, one day

00:56:31

you're going to look Him in the face.

00:56:34

And on that day, if we've lived our lives here

00:56:37

with any version, any, any ounce of the fear of the Lord,

00:56:41

there will be no need to be afraid of Him.

00:56:44

The fear of the Lord tends to bring about

00:56:46

things in our life that we can't do for ourselves.

00:56:49

The fear of the Lord is the secret of

00:56:53

the Proverbs 31 essence of wisdom,

00:56:56

but the opposite in that verse.

00:56:57

Did you catch it? The opposite sounds a lot like lady folly.

00:57:01

It said charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting.

00:57:04

Flattery, it sounds good.

00:57:06

It looks nice. It catches your eye.

00:57:09

It touches a desire you have.

00:57:13

"And just do it this way.

00:57:15

It's going to be such a better way.

00:57:17

You're going to get there faster.

00:57:18

The payoff is coming, just trust me."

00:57:23

Said in the most charming possible way

00:57:25

with the prettiest possible package,

00:57:27

but lady wisdom keeps her eyes locked on God,

00:57:30

one day at a time,

00:57:31

One issue at a time, one person at a time.

00:57:33

She's not actually figuring things out.

00:57:36

In essence, she's looking at Him.

00:57:39

Proverbs tips us off to this theme at

00:57:42

the very beginning of the book, Proverbs one,

00:57:44

just a couple of verses in. Here's what it says.

00:57:46

Maybe you've heard this before.

00:57:55

The fear of the Lord is the what? The beginning.

00:58:00

That's what we want. That's what we're after.

00:58:02

Where is it all coming from? What's the source?

00:58:05

Because we need it all the time, we need the source.

00:58:07

And Proverbs, friends,

00:58:09

Proverbs is just begging us to notice this.

00:58:12

It's just begging us to notice that

00:58:14

this is not moral check boxing.

00:58:18

This is not figuring every complexity out

00:58:21

and solving for every possibility.

00:58:23

The way to walk more deeply in wisdom every single day

00:58:26

is to embrace the fear of the Lord

00:58:28

and to live your life fully in His face.

00:58:31

And the last question, though, is how did she get that?

00:58:38

That's our last how.

00:58:40

How does the fear of the Lord

00:58:42

actually happen to be within you?

00:58:46

Because that's the final how, and we've got to know that.

00:58:51

There's only one thing that brings

00:58:53

the fear of God into someone,

00:58:54

and that is the spirit of God Himself.

00:58:57

There is a million places through the Bible

00:59:00

that connect these two things,

00:59:02

but there's a verse in Isaiah that does it just beautifully

00:59:04

that I want to share with you, it says:

00:59:18

The Spirit of the Lord implants within you

00:59:22

this fear of the Lord thing.

00:59:25

It's the calling card, if you will.

00:59:27

It's the hallmark of the very Spirit of God Himself.

00:59:30

When the Spirit of God is here, the fear of God is present.

00:59:33

It's like it is the thing that you cannot fake.

00:59:36

It is the way that you know that the Holy Spirit is present.

00:59:40

And that is really, really good news for us

00:59:42

because we have an invitation on the table.

00:59:45

We have an invitation to actually live and walk

00:59:48

in and with that Spirit of God every single day of our life.

00:59:53

This is the invite that we can actually possess

00:59:57

the Spirit of wisdom because

00:59:58

we can possess the Spirit of the Lord Himself.

01:00:01

And we get there only through Jesus.

01:00:06

Wisdom is the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

01:00:09

And when He comes to live within you,

01:00:11

when you say, like, "I believe you.

01:00:14

You're the Son of God. You died for my sins.

01:00:16

You're my Savior and I will now follow You as Lord,"

01:00:20

You actually possess the very origin of wisdom,

01:00:23

the very fount that will never run dry,

01:00:26

the very source that you need to walk through

01:00:28

every single day for the rest of your life with it.

01:00:30

You get it by receiving it.

01:00:33

You get it by declaring your faith and receiving Jesus,

01:00:37

receiving the Spirit of wisdom, receiving the Holy Spirit.

01:00:42

That is it.

01:00:43

And I just want to take a minute and acknowledge

01:00:45

this answer, it could actually be a tiny bit frustrating.

01:00:51

If you walked in here and you're like, "Hey, listen,

01:00:54

I got a thing and I need to figure this out,

01:00:57

like, toot, sweet, pronto. I need the answer, God."

01:01:02

To have somebody say, "You know what?

01:01:04

You need to walk with Jesus. That's what you need to do."

01:01:09

That's a little frustrating, right?

01:01:12

And the thing is, we say these things to God.

01:01:14

We say, "God, just give me the answer

01:01:17

and then I'll never leave you.

01:01:18

And God, just just this one time.

01:01:20

I just really need Your help."

01:01:21

And see, the thing is, the Book of James says that

01:01:24

God gives wisdom to all who ask.

01:01:27

But guess how He gives it?

01:01:29

Because He can't give it any other way,

01:01:32

the Spirit of wisdom is the Spirit of Jesus.

01:01:34

He gives it in connection to, in relationship with Christ.

01:01:41

And as we root ourselves in Him and walk with Him,

01:01:43

we begin to walk deeper and deeper in the ways of wisdom.

01:01:47

I want you to take a moment and remember that thing,

01:01:49

whatever you walked in here thinking about,

01:01:51

the looming question,

01:01:52

the one that you really want His answer on.

01:01:55

Just take a minute and think about it.

01:01:57

And I want you to consider an interaction

01:01:59

that Jesus had with a blind man.

01:02:01

This blind man walks up to Him and Jesus says,

01:02:04

"What do you want me to do for you?

01:02:06

What do you want me to do for you?"

01:02:09

And we have all places,

01:02:10

all kinds of places we can't see in our life.

01:02:12

And Jesus is asking us, "What do you want me to do for you?"

01:02:16

And the man answers really, really simply.

01:02:18

He says, "Lord, I want to see. I want to see."

01:02:25

And Jesus's answer is even more baffling.

01:02:28

He says, "Go in peace. Your faith just healed you."

01:02:35

What? I think he knew the moment that

01:02:41

the word Lord came out of that man's mouth,

01:02:44

"I'm dealing with a person of faith.

01:02:46

I'm dealing with somebody who receives Me.

01:02:48

I'm dealing with somebody who can handle all of who I am,

01:02:51

who will follow Me, who will walk with Me."

01:02:53

And he says, "Your faith, your faith is what heals you."

01:02:57

And I think it was the word Lord that told Jesus that.

01:03:03

So today we're going to do something together here.

01:03:06

If you have never received Jesus,

01:03:08

you've never called Him Lord,

01:03:10

you've never -- maybe you even believe in Him,

01:03:12

but you never thought you needed to do that.

01:03:15

You can do that right now.

01:03:16

You can begin to walk deeper and deeper with wisdom

01:03:21

in your life every day.

01:03:22

And maybe you are connected.

01:03:24

Maybe you definitely have the Spirit of wisdom inside of you.

01:03:27

You're already in a place of faith in Christ.

01:03:31

That's amazing.

01:03:32

Sometimes we just have to turn around and remember

01:03:36

I need to be connected to this voice of wisdom.

01:03:39

I need to walk in relationship

01:03:42

more closely with Jesus all the time.

01:03:45

No matter which one of those you are,

01:03:47

I just wrote a super simple prayer.

01:03:49

You don't have to pray this out loud.

01:03:50

I'm going to say it out loud.

01:03:51

If you just want to tell Jesus, "I want to see.

01:03:56

And you're my Lord."

01:03:59

We're going to pray this prayer together.

01:04:03

Jesus, You are my Savior.

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