This Sunday, we’re
wrapping up our series called Decision-Making
101. Our lives are the sum total of
the decisions we make. All of us can
look back over the course of our lives and think of very good decisions we
made, and see the happiness that we are experiencing because of those
decisions. For me, choosing to follow
Christ when I was a young boy, and choosing to marry the person I married, and
choosing to go into full-time vocational ministry were all great
decisions. They have set my life on a trajectory that has led to untold joy and purpose. At the same time, we can all think of
decisions we made that we’re still paying the price for, years later. “Why did I stay so long in that
relationship? Why did I trust that guy
with my money? Why did I quit that
job?” The comedian Jeff Foxworthy talks
about how tattoos are bad decisions we can’t hide. He says the girl with the cute hummingbird on
her shoulder doesn’t realize that someday that bird is going to expand and fly
south. Her future grandchildren will
ask, “Grandma, why do you have a buzzard on your back?” Wouldn’t it be great if there was a way to
always make the right decision?
Actually, there is. The Bible
says there is a skill to choosing the right path, and it’s called wisdom. There is an entire book of the Bible about
wisdom, called Proverbs. Near the beginning, it says Wisdom calls out in the street; she raises her voice in
the public squares. She cries out above the commotion; she speaks at the entrance
of the city gates: “How long, foolish ones, will you love ignorance? How
long will you mockers enjoy mocking and you fools hate knowledge?
If you
respond to my warning, then I will pour out my spirit on you and teach you my
words (Proverbs 1:20-23).
The book
of Proverbs imagines, “What if wisdom became a person?” If wisdom took on flesh and bone, she would
stand in the streets calling out, practically begging for people to come to her
and make the right decisions. She would
call us fools for not listening, because she would rather hurt our feelings than
let us keep making bad choices. Wisdom
is there for the taking. How do we come
to her? That’s what we’ve been talking
about in this series. And here’s what
we’ve said so far: If we want to be wise
people who make good decisions, we will seek first God’s Kingdom and His
righteousness. We will study His Word
daily. We will pray, seeking His will,
not our own. We will ask God to help us
understand and interpret our circumstances.
And we’ll listen to the counsel of God’s people. If you’re not currently doing those things,
Wisdom is calling you a fool. If you are
doing those things, when you have a decision to make, they will all come
together. The Bible, God’s answers to
your prayers, the way God helps you interpret your circumstances, and the
counsel you get from God’s people will all agree on what you should do. Then you’ll know which path to choose. So this Sunday, we'll talk about that final way God
speaks: Through the counsel of His people.
Proverbs 11:14 says Without guidance, people fall, but with many counselors there is
deliverance. This is a constant
refrain in the book of Proverbs, and we’ll look at several of those verses
in this message. The more wise people you have
advising you, the more likely you are to make good decisions. That’s a truth all of us can agree with. But there’s a problem. Most of us can’t afford to employ consultants
and life coaches. So most of us make our
decisions all by ourselves. Or we take
the advice of the wrong people. How can
we be sure we’ll be surrounded by wise counsel? I hope you'll be there this Sunday, to find out!
No comments:
Post a Comment