Christ Sanctuary - 1st August 2010

Dr. Bruce Waltke, a Reformed evangelical professor of Old Testament and Hebrew, at one time spoke on the subject / “What Does God Require” which as you know is a text taken from Micah 6:8

It was a very fine exposition and after his talk was over he gave opportunity for questions

One of the questions from the floor / was for an explanation concerned certain particular Hebrew words used in the original text of Micah 6. Soon as he heard the question / Dr. Waltke tipped his head back closed his eyes / and prepared to answer

Now / all his students knew / that when Dr. Waltke does that tipped his head back and closed his eyes you can be sure a brilliant answer is about to come from him

Bob Deffinbaugh / one of his students has said that when he tipped his head and closed his eyes he was mentally reading the text but he was doing more than reading the text in his head. He was mentally scrolling the Hebrew text in his mind’s eye. Now it would be such a joy / to be able to attend his classes and observe such wisdom and knowledge / from a man of God

But as mesmerising as that sight would be how much more captivating / when you remember that each day / every day / you walk and talk with One Who is totally infinite in wisdom and knowledge

The Bible clearly teaches us that God is both all-wise and infinitely wise

In many places in the Scriptures
wisdom and knowledge are mentioned together / for they go together
you can’t be wise / unless you have knowledge
upon which you make wise decisions / and affirmations

And yet having said that there is a huge difference
between knowledge and wisdom

Knowledge can be found between the covers of books
– wisdom cannot be taught / you won’t find it in a library
– it can only be garnered
from years of living personal experience

Anyone can acquire knowledge

Wisdom is knowing the right and good way
to make use the knowledge you acquire

Anyone can learn how to pick a lock / or how to hot-wire a car
but wisdom says it would be wiser not to do either of that

But the point is this / Wisdom presupposes knowledge
Without knowledge / there can be no wisdom
You can’t just be wise / and not claim to know anything
The Chinese philosopher Lao Tze said:
“He who speaks doesn’t know / He who knows doesn’t speak”
Curiously / it didn’t seem to matter to him that he had just spoken

You can’t just sit there / all quiet / all day
saying nothing while claiming to be wise
That is so Zen

Wisdom presupposes the possession of some aspects of knowledge
upon which you make wise judgements

So / to say that God is all-wise / is firstly to say that God is all-knowing

Let’s be reminded that our God is omniscient

God knows all things infinitely and perfectly

Every word / every sigh / every whisper
made by every person who ever lived
every unspoken thought in every mind
every movement /by any of the millions of insects/birds/fish/mammals
every chemical reaction going on inside every flower and tree
and plant on every continent
all of these are exhaustively comprehended by God

Spurgeon says that He knows the twists and turns of every falling leaf

There is absolutely nothing that God does not know
From the spinning of galaxies hundreds of light-years in diameter
down to the tiniest vibrations of subatomic particles
– everything in creation is known and understood by God

Isaiah says / “His understanding / no one can fathom” / Isaiah 40:28
The psalmist says / “His understanding has no limit” / Psalm 147:5
Daniel says / “He knows what lies in the darkness” / Dan. 2:22

God sees and hears everything
Ps 33:13-15 “From heaven the Lord looks down
and sees all mankind / From His dwelling place
He watches all who live on earth”

Prov. 15:3 “The eyes of the Lord are everywhere
keeping watch / on the wicked and the good”

God knows every word you speak

Ps. 139:4 “Before a word is on my tongue / you know it completely”

God knows every thought you harbour in your mind

1 Chron. 28:9 “The Lord searches every heart
and understands every motive behind the thoughts

Ps. 139:1-2 / “O Lord you have searched me and you know me
You know when I sit and when I rise
You perceive my thoughts from afar”

God knows all possible worlds

He knows all the could-have-beens
God knows all the variables that have not occurred
Jesus knew how Tyre and Sidon would have responded
had the gospel been preached to them / Matt. 11:21

God knows every sorrow / pain / heartache you go through

Rev. 2:9-10, 13 / To the Church in Smyrna / Jesus said:
“I know your afflictions and your poverty”

God knows your final spiritual state

Matt. 25:31-34, 41 / Jesus will one day sit on His throne
and from there he will divide the sheep from the goats

God knows from all eternity what shall be in all eternity

Isaiah 46:9-11 / “Remember the former things / those of long ago
I am God and there is no other
I am God and there is none like me
I make known the end from the beginning
from ancient times / what is still to come
I say: My purpose will stand and I will do all that I please
What I have said / that will bring about
What I have planned / that will I do”

The point is this / If in order to be wise / you’ve first got to have knowledge
the evidences from Scripture are irrefutable / God is all-knowing

But it is here that we take it further

God is not only all-knowing / He is also all-wise

God is the ultimate source of wisdom
Human ingenuity is not the source of wisdom
God / ultimately / is the fount of all wisdom

Solomon says / “The LORD gives wisdom
From His mouth knowledge and understanding” / Proverbs 2:6

Daniel says / “Let the name of God be blessed forever and ever
for wisdom and power belong to Him” / Daniel 2:20

And further / it is God alone is uniquely and exclusively wise

We sometimes think that God is wise
in roughly the same way as we are wise
and we imagine that the only difference
between our wisdom and God’s wisdom
is only in the degree of wisdom  / not of kind

But if that were so

then we put all of the best of human wisdom together
if we put all the sages / guru / philosophers / thinkers / scholars
then in theory at least / we could come up with something
that’s comparable to divine wisdom

But we could never pull off something like that
We could put all the world’s wisdom together
stack it up against God’s wisdom / & yet it comes nowhere close

God is not just simply more wise than us
God’s wisdom is different from ours not just in degree / but in kind

How is God wise?

We see God’s wisdom displayed in His creation

The wisdom of God can be clearly seen
from the perfection of the creatures He created

Just as an example / Let’s take a look at the cheetah
– small head / large chest / tiny waist
clearly built for sprints rather than marathons
– the cheetah’s tail nearly 3ft / looks out of proportion for the cheetah
its exceptionally long in proportion to its body
it is designed to counter-balance the animal for high-speed turns
and like centrifugal counter-weight / so minimising
the risk overbalancing and possibly deadly trip
– unlike other cats the cheetah’s claws never retract
delivering maximum traction in high-speed turns
– it’s extremely large nostril and large nasal passages
is designed for greater volume of oxygen intake
– the eyes perched abnormally high on its head
is designed for stealth stalking and for keeping prey in its sight
– all internal organs like lungs liver heart and adrenal glands
are supersized to kick its metabolism into high gear
– it’s the original prototype turbo-burner – 0 to 45 in 2.5 seconds

What wisdom / there must be behind such a creature
It could well have been
that at the evening of the sixth day of creation
God says “Let’s throw in the cheetah!  Just for good measure!”

There are of course heaps of such examples in God’s creation
we can talk of the Venus fly trap / the wings of a bat
the eyes of a hawk / the Fibonacci sequence in nature
In all these phenomena / we trace the fingerprints of God
– revealing His wisdom

And yet John Piper puts things into perspective / when he said
that “what God has made is like a toy / compared to
the complexity and depth / of Who God is”

What wisdom

So we see God’s wisdom displayed in His creation

Secondly / We see God’s wisdom displayed in His salvation
in the way He plans for human people / after they have fallen
to then be saved

The way He planned for us to be saved reveals
a masterpiece of His wisdom

If He had left it with our own wisdom to come contrive a plan
for our salvation / we would still be lost

Watson says / “We could neither have had a head to devise
nor a heart to desire” what God’s infinite wisdom did for us

Last week we explored the mercy of God
God had a heart to save us / that’s His mercy
But it takes wisdom to contrive a way to save us

What did God in His wisdom do?
He said “Let God become man”

Who would have thought of that?

Jonathan Edwards thought only the wisdom of God
could conceive of the idea of the incarnation

The Father let the Son be incarnated / put to death
and be resurrected for us / so that justice may be satisfied

We have God in His infinite wisdom comes up with a way
for us to be forgiven for our sins without violating justice

He let justice and mercy kiss each other
and through this / you and I have been saved

What wisdom / both men and angels are astonished!

But precisely it is God’s way of getting people to be saved
that’s the problem with many people
It appears to be totally absurd / and ridiculous

For God did not designed for people to be saved
through understanding some complex philosophical theory
or through intellectually grasping some complicated theorem
or through some clear steps to spiritual enlightenment

I mean / Think of the Siddhārtha Gautama / the Buddha
The Buddha / gave his followers the Eightfold Path to Enlightenment
Right View / Right Intention / Right Speech / Right Action
Right Livelihood / Right Effort
Right Mindfulness / Right Concentration

All there! In a neat package!
People want an approach like that
It would appear to make some sense to them

Or think of Hinduism
The gurus teach that moksha / salvation can be attained by
1 / karma yoga / the way of selfless good deeds
2 / bhakti yoga / the way of devotion to Gods / of whom Jesus is one
3 / jnana yoga / the way of knowledge through mental contemplation
upon reality / until the person ceases to be moved by joy and sorrow
because he is now able to transcend such distinctions

And again / people want an approach to life / that not only
made some sense to them / but one that gave them a part to play
to get themselves saved

Now / we see roughly the same thing in with the people in Jesus’ day

The Jewish people demanded supernatural proof before they will believe
Again and again / this is the demand they make to Jesus
“What signs have you got to show us?” / Mt. 12:38

The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus they said / “We want a sign”
Jesus said / “A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign
there shall no sign, but the sign of the prophet Jonah”
meaning that He would die / be buried for three days / then rise

And yet when Jesus rose from the dead
the Jewish leaders bribed the soldiers
to say that the disciples stole His body

This is why Jesus performed miracles primarily for His disciples
because miracles were only to bolster faith of believers
People who don’t already believe
will find ways to explain miracles away

The Jewish people demanded a sign
and yet they rejected the very sign needed for belief

The Greeks / on the other hand looked for philosophical wisdom
Unlike the Jews / they weren’t looking for concrete signs

They demanded abstract philosophical proofs
And the teaching that someone hanging on the cross
could be the means of one’s salvation
was simply / philosophically / untenable / as proofs

And so the Greeks too / couldn’t accept Jesus’ approach

So both the supernaturalists (empiricists) and the rationalists
found no ground for them to base their faith on

But God would give us
neither supernatural signs / nor philosophical justifications

Instead He designed a way for human people to be saved
that appeared so foolish?

He had a poor carpenter / hang there / nailed to the cross
and then He got a few weak human people / and expected them
on account of their breath alone
to preach and persuade people of the truth of His message

Now / you think about it / How is that a wise thing of God to do?

God says in His Word “faith comes by hearing” / Rm 10: I7
God has planned it in such a way that / that people are to be saved
by hearing the weak breath of a man and responding to it

It is the weak breath of a man or a woman / that converts a soul
Watson says / “It is like whispering in the ears of a dead man”

To the eyes of the world / this is utter foolishness

I mean / what could be more foolish / Paul is here saying
“We are here to present to you a way out of the human predicament
and the way out / is through believing on a man
who’s dying up there / hanging from a cross
And we are here to tell you / that on this dying man
lies the solution to all the human problems in the world”

Now doesn’t all this sound so utter ridiculous?
And that is why / again and again / people respond saying
“That’s the height of stupidity”
Is it any wonder why Richard Dawkins keeps saying 

“It’s so petty, all this talk of the resurrection”

But strange as it may sound / this / is a reflection of God’s wisdom
God reveals His wisdom through that which appears so utterly foolish

1 Corinthians 1
“Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom
but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews
and foolishness to Gentiles / but to those whom God has called
both Jews and Greeks
Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God
For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom
and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength
Brothers, think of what you were when you were called
Not many of you were wise by human standards
not many were influential; not many were of noble birth
But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise
God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong
He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things
– and the things that are not /to nullify the things that are
so that no one may boast before him

It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus / who has become for us
wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption
Therefore, as it is written: ‘“Let him who boasts boast in the Lord’”
I Cor 1: 22-31

This is the way God has chosen to save us all

No perplexing philosophical theory / No confounding theorem
But simply an old story / grounded on real historical time
and communicated to us all
through what God Himself calls / “the foolishness of preaching”

This whole approach militates against the Jews and Greeks of the day
and it militates against the modern sophisticated mind

And yet / in reality
all the complex profound philosophical / political / economic theories
of how human people could be delivered from the human predicament
have not worked

But God / in His infinite wisdom / has provided for our salvation

So / we’ve seen God’s wisdom displayed in His creation
we’ve also seen God’s wisdom displayed in His salvation

Now / thirdly / we see God’s wisdom displayed in His provision

The way God plans to provide for your future
will sometimes take a long and windy road
but in the end it will always proved to have been the wisest road

Look at the story of Joseph
Long before it happened / God already had in mind to prosper Joseph
so that even all his bigger brothers will bow before him

But God designed a long and tortuous road for him to take
in order for him to see God’s blessing
– he was is thrown into the  / sold into Egypt
unjustly accused / imprisoned / forgotten

Thomas Watson said “For God to save in an ordinary way
would not so much display his wisdom
But when he goes strangely to work
and saves in that very way in which we think he will destroy
his wisdom shines forth in a most conspicuous manner!”

God will sometimes act in a way that seems completely unreasonable
they baffle us at best / and distress us at worst
But it will always proved to be the wisest road for us to take

James and Barbara were missionaries in Nigeria in the late 1980’s
One night intruders burst into their home
A bullet sliced through James’s head
demolished an ear / an eye / and part of his brain
They left him to die in his own pool of blood
He didn’t hear the cries of his wife as the attackers raped her
Their home was ripped apart / looted
Only the children were spared

He was flown back to England and remained unconscious for nine days
as doctors fought to save his life

Two years later James and Barbara shared their story
in their tour through some churches in America

He twitched with grimace as he spoke
he couldn’t well control his facial muscles / couldn’t smile
he spoke with halting words

But not a single one of all the people who have heard them speak
could see any trace of bitterness in both husband and wife
They see only acceptance and love and forgiveness

Their ministry thrived
People who didn’t listen before / now listened intently
Through his contorted features
he spoke of relinquishment / acceptance / forgiveness and love

And because of their testimonies / many lives were transformed

God / in His wisdom / tortuously afflicted James and Barbara
that He may prosper their ministry

In His wisdom / God sometimes pulls your security from under your feet
Remember / He reduced Gideon’s army of 32,000 to 300
The Israelites thought God was plotting their downfall
In reality / He was ensuring their victory

What is He taking away from you? / What is He pruning in your life?
Something you thought was the very means of your security
that very thing / that very person / He is taking away

Will you trust His wisdom? / He is actually providing for you

To make use of Jonah / God had to first cast him into the raging sea
allowed him to be dreadfully entangled and choked by the seaweeds
and finally be swallowed
by that fearsome sea monster the Leviathan

Some of you here / you feel like you’ve been cast into the raging water
you can’t breathe / and you’re sinking
you feel you have been missed out
you are not at peace with yourself / plagued with trouble
you feel God has dealt with you most unfairly

And you are disappointed with God / perhaps even bitter with Him

Think of some difficult circumstance in your life or in your family
– something that seems to have gone wrong
– an illness / a difficult relationship
– things don’t add up / there is little money in the house
– health isn’t all that great / children playing up / trouble at work

But if we’re to believe that God is wise
we’ve got to believe that He’s got the end in sight and it’s a good one
we’ve got to believe that His purpose for us
are much higher / nobler / than we ever imagined
we’ve got to believe that He knows what is best for you
– and He’s working that out for you

And all those miseries and difficulties in our lives
are simply the roads God has to take us through to mature us

Because God is wise
the track He takes us through / has got to be good for us

How then should we live? So what am I to do?

One / Pray for wisdom

Five verses into the book of James / and James encourages us / saying
“If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously

 to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him”

When you are counselling someone / a most blessed thing to do

as you listen to the one who seeks your help / is to silently ask God for wisdom
to speak into this person’s situation

Two / Trust God’s wisdom

If I believe God is wise / it means
I can trust in Him
I can submit to Him wherever He may choose to take me
I can accept the way He wants to go with me
I can say that His way is good
even when He takes me down a difficult road

You could go to God and say to Him
“Father / You are the Only Wise God
If / in your wisdom / you know it’s best for me to through this pain
in order that I might become what You want me to become
then I will trust You and gladly go through it”

I have lived long enough to know it’s not something you do just once
When I get up tomorrow morning
and the first thing I remember the pain and struggle in my life
I’ve got to say it all over again

“Father / You are wise / and You know what is best for me
I am going to trust You that good is going to come out of this”

It is a daily confession / a daily affirmation

But it helps me gain confidence in believing
that I am safe / I am being loved / and cared for
despite the fact that all around me things are falling apart
and nothing seems to make any sense at all

“Life is hard”

Just this past week I have heard this from quite a number of people
Because life is hard and painful / we need to live wisely

Let me illustrate this

Jerry Bridges talks about reading a book which was an autobiography
of a pastor who had been a pastor of the church
that Jerry Bridges went to in his student days
Bridges was a very 17 year old then
when he entered what the Americans called the freshman class
And for four years from 17 to 21 / he tells us that for a 17 year old
Looking at a 60 years old was like looking at Methuselah
And Bridges confessed he didn’t think he profited much
from this old pastor’s ministry at that time
he remembered a few things that he said / but when he read
his autobiography / he realised what a godly man he was
and how much he had missed by not paying more attention
to what he was saying all through those four years in school

This old pastor never retired / he never saved up for retirement
he had taken Mathew 6:33 “Seek ye first the kingdom of God
and His righteousness and all these things shall be addend unto you”
literally to mean he shouldn’t receive funds from social security
shouldn’t be a part of his church’s denominational pension fund
and so on / so he never retired

Bridges gave us that background to say that in the last chapter of the book
he is in his eighties years of age and he has just been diagnosed
with bone cancer and he had told his doctor
“Don’t hold anything back Tell me exactly what the situation is”
And then he writes about what he called The Stewardship of Pain
Now you know if you haven’t already that stewardship has to do
with the privilege and responsibility that God has given to us
I grew up in a time when churches will have Stewardship Sunday
a special Sunday where we would be challenged to be stewards
of everything God has given us / stewards = managers
We were challenged about the need to be stewards of our time
our energy / our money / our talents and skills
to give these things to serve God

We need to be stewards of our time our money
we may be unfaithful stewards
but we’re all stewards of all that which God has given to us

But I have never heard of the stewardship of pain
When God gives you pain / you are to be a steward of that pain
you are to respond to that pain and to live in the midst of that pain
as a steward of God to somehow glorify God in that pain
and through that pain

This old pastor talked about how he was learning
to be a good steward of the cancer which God had given to him

Now that should put a whole dimension
on what it means to live before the wisdom of God

We all go through pain / some more than others
but we all go through the deep hurts of life
the deep disappointments of life / the dark black hole we are in
a depression / unbelieving children / illness / loneliness
failure in relationship and misunderstanding

We are not only to be holy / be faithful / be trusting

To live wisely / we are to do more than all these
We are to be a steward of that which is causing life to hurt
When you can do that / you are responding well
to the wisdom of God

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