Hebrews chapter five. Hebrews chapter five. And this will be our kind of platform text and we'll be jumping around to different texts today. Let's take a, let's see, verse 11 through 14. Okay, Hebrews chapter five, verse 11 through 14. And the word of God says this, "Concerning him, we have much to say.

And it is hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God. And you have come to need milk and not solid food.

For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil." Let's take a moment to pray. All right, God, we want to thank you.

And we pray, Father Lord, at this time that as we know your truth to be powerful, Lord, we hope to be enlightened and moved by it. Lord, would you continue to work on the soil of our heart that again, as we receive, would we be eager, we would be desiring to apply it into our lives and that ultimately it would have its effect.

God, we also lift up our pastor Peter as he's speaking at a retreat, praying Lord that as the church has gathered their living way, Lord, you would minister to them with your truth through him as well. Father, we thank you. It's in Christ's name. Amen. All right. Well, I love talking with new parents, you know, parents who just recently had kids and whatnot.

Whenever there's like a major shift in your life, there's a whole series of questions and interesting things to talk about. Namely, they're always wanting to talk about tips and how to's and how do you do this and how do you do that? And one of the main things that they teach you as soon as you have a kid and everybody's like super in tuned and wanting to learn is how do you get your baby to stop crying?

Okay. Because when the baby is crying, you know, like through the day and then through the night and it's 2am, 4am and your stress level is like up to here and that means you're not sleeping, you know, and like, please help me. And what's really cool is that I don't care, I don't know if you care to know this, but the doctors give you this like, Hey, here are the five S's to pacify your baby when they're going crazy, you know?

So here they are, five S's. Okay. The first I found to be pretty hilarious. It's just to shush the baby. It's like shush. Not like that kind of shush. But when I, the first time the doctor showed us how I just like, it's chuckling inside because the doctor just basically took the baby and was like, this is how you do it.

Like all up into the baby's ear. And I was like, Whoa, whoa, whoa. But you got to let the baby hear the sound, you know? Cause you know, as they're crying and stuff, they're not going to be able to hear you. So I remember thinking like, that's hilarious. Okay.

The next one is really funny. It's called swaddling your baby. Okay. So for those of you guys who don't know, it's kind of like working at Chipotle. You basically stuff as much as you can in the blankie and then you wrap it as tight as you can so the baby can't move, you know?

And then the strong ones are like, you know, they get their arm out. It's really funny when you watch the guys do it. It's even funnier. And cause you know, they try multiple times, the baby's getting loose and baby's still crying and their stress level. Again, I'm talking about myself.

My stress level is just going through the roof, right? There's other ones. There's an S where you have to swing the baby. Okay. The guys are thinking, not shake the baby, but swing the baby, swing the baby. You know, the motions of kind of mimicking what the baby experienced through the womb and stuff like that.

There's another one which I thought was also hilarious was basically turned the baby on its side or stomach. So you take the baby, like if this was a baby, you take it by its little chin, you hold it like this and you just hold it like a football, you know?

But when you flip it over, there's this once in a while, and it doesn't work every time, but sometimes the baby just calms down rather than let's say if you're holding it upright or if you're holding it like this, you know? And then the other one is just giving the baby a pacifier to suck on the pacifier, you know?

Again, I don't know if you guys care to know all that stuff, but if you're a new parent, that stuff is like gold, you know, cause you need it. You know, you need it. Now the reason why I bring this up is because for me, I learned the five S's.

I memorized it and I can go through it with you even now, even after it's been like five years since I first used them. But the thing about it is in the moment when you're a brand new dad and your baby is crying and he's just saying, "Ahh!" and your stress level is up, you're like, "I just want you to sleep.

I don't know what's wrong." Your first question is like, "Which one of the five do I do?" Right? And so typically you just go with the one that's what you think is going to work, which for me was the "Ahh!" You know, like we were screaming into the baby's ear.

But there's always a question of what to do when, right? Well today we're going to be talking about a topic that I have been thinking about a lot, discussing with some of the brothers and I've been thinking about, which is wisdom and discretion as a Christian. And the thing about it is we will always have questions whenever you face different circumstances in your life, huge transitions in your life, major problems in your life.

There are going to be these questions. Yeah, I know various things that the scripture has taught me. You know, I've been going to church for a long time. I know the precepts and stuff like that, but what to do when, it's always a difficult thing. And this is where we as believers need to grow in wisdom, in skill of knowing when to apply what and when and how.

And God has called every single one of us to grow in this facet. First and foremost, that we should eagerly desire wisdom as a precious jewel, scripture says. But I feel the need to go over this because truthfully speaking, again, as I walk my own life I always feel this sense of like, for lack of better words, there's a lot of times I feel dumb.

I don't know what to do. And then when I talk to individuals, they're always at a loss, like what do I do? And then sometimes there's so many different contributing factors that make wisdom, making decisions, making judgment calls so tough for us, right? And I don't know if you come in this sanctuary this morning already in a situation like that where you're always thinking like, oh, what do I do?

Should I do X, Y, Z, combination of Z and Y, what should I do? For us, we have to learn and grow in the skill and ask for wisdom so that we might be able to maturely handle all these things we know we're going to encounter in our lives.

And so to give you a kind of a road map of today, we're talking about namely wisdom and discernment. We're going to first talk about what it is. What is wisdom and discernment? Why it's so incredibly important that you have it and then how do you get it? So easy three step.

First, the next couple of points I'm going to run through with you quite quickly, but I'm going to ask you this question about do you understand what discernment is? And the way I'm going to go through this is to give you some key words as you're taking notes. Okay, so this is the what is discernment.

First investigation. Uh huh. A question to you is you can write the keyword investigation, but do you know how to ask and inquire and investigate about situations, but also about truth and what the Lord's standard is? Let me ask that another way. Do you have a pattern in your life where you practice this, where you come across a situation and it's just not like, I don't want to deal with this so frustrating.

So right, we can do lots of different things. Okay, we can do lots of different things. We can shun decision. We can shun stuff that's complicated. We can block our heads, not ask because we don't want to care. We don't want to be bothered with it. Or you overcompensate.

You're like, well, I'm the man. I don't need to hear anything. I'm just going to make a decision and go. Stuff like that could happen. My question was to ask and have a time of inquiry now to evaluate ourselves. Inquiry. Do you know how to ask, to ask and discover what's going on in your life that needs a decision but also to ask the Lord, what would you have me do here?

What would be your standard here? What would be your best suggestion, command, exhortation or correction? Whatever it may be, what does the Lord say? That has to be first. And then secondly, keyword, analyze. Analyze. So if you're a good scientist, you can use other terms like first observe so you can get the data and then you've got to interpret it.

But you've got to analyze what's going on. What's the core issues here? What are the main things we have to address? What are the main people involved and who do I need to consider? The analytical part of our mind, some of us are naturally in tune with. It's just like, boom, I see it like this.

I think it's like that. And then you've already been skilled at categorizing, already interpreting. This is why it's the problem. This is the solution. No, no, no, no, no, no. There's an analytical process that goes on. Some of us like, what? But nonetheless, no matter where you are, you have to grow in your ability to analyze what's happening.

But namely, to analyze through the lens of scripture. And so let me give you some examples of this stuff. I think Jesus is an amazing teacher. He is the greatest educator because he educates by truth, by example, and such profound, profound teaching. And his methodology is awesome too. And if you notice the way he typically teaches, what does he do?

He asks questions, right? And so he kind of teaches them on this inquiry and analyzing. And he always does this thing. Some scheming Pharisee might come along like, "Hey, Jesus." Never mind. Sorry, Pharisees don't walk like that. Sorry. They're scheming, that's sly, and so I kind of walk like that, like a Golem or something.

But they're probably proper and like, "Hey, Jesus." They were like people of the law. "Jesus." And they try to trap him. What do we do with taxes? We pay Caesar? Do we give this to God? What do you do about marriage? If a husband dies, whose husband is this woman going to be?

What do you say about ... So many times for the gospel, they have questions trying to trap him and do all this thing, and you can imagine Jesus going through this process, right? The disciples ask him questions. "What does this mean? What does that mean?" And Jesus' answer and response to that typically initially is what?

What is this? Is it Caesar's? Whose image is on here? He analyzes, asks questions, and then he says, "What does the word say? Haven't you heard? Didn't you listen? Didn't you grow up in the synagogue and hear and listen to the word being preached and preached? Don't you know the precepts?" And Jesus would point strictly at them and say, "Don't ...

Haven't you gone through this process of discernment and wisdom to ask and then to analyze what's supposed to be?" And for us, the reason why I bring this up is because there is a dilemma. In the book of Hebrews, chapter 5, the passage that we first read, again, as a platform for this discussion, if you listen to the tone, is it a lot like, "Hey, guys, what's going on?" Is that the tone?

No, it's, "Hey, guys, what's going on?" It's a frustration. You should be wise. You should be at a point where you're articulating the standards of God and the wisdom of God to other people, but right now you need to learn the basics, and mainly because you guys are infantile and you're not able to tell left from right.

Sorry, that was my right and that was my left, so case in point, right? You guys aren't able to discern this side or that side, good or evil, and there's a frustration there. Likewise, even in Jesus' time, this issue of wisdom according to the word of God was something that Christ was desiring for his people to grasp.

But my point in terms of when I come to the topic of discernment, we had two key words so far, investigate, analyze. Last is judge. Sorry, that's not last, it's the third one. Judge, okay? Judge. What do I mean by that? Are you able to make biblical judgment? That is at the key, core, critical thing of the whole sermon today.

Educate yourself about how you go about your life, and whether it be parenting like I gave the example of before, because the Bible doesn't speak about how to shush your baby, but the Bible talks a lot about how to raise godly children. How you go about your careers, how you go about your schooling, how you go about church, friends.

Again, in every one of these specific circumstances of your life, how to deal with parents, how to deal with unbelievers in your family, how to deal with difficult people that you run across, how to deal with the church membership, all that kind of stuff has a question of what to do and how to do it.

Are you able to make biblical judgments? See, this generation is so far and so vile, they have completely convoluted the line between what is right and wrong. And then they act like it's a humble thing not to know. Can I encourage every single one of you? It is not humble to pretend like you don't know.

Let me explain that a little bit. If God gives you truth, it is not humble for you to act like you don't know. That's called rebellion. If God gives you direction, if God gives you verdict, if God gives you command, if God gives you precept, and you ask like, "Yeah, I heard you, but I don't know." That's not humility.

But the world wants you to think that because they're always saying like, "Who are you to judge?" But the fact of the matter is, for you as a Christian, you not only have an obligation, but you have a calling from God to exercise a capacity that is His. Exercise the kind of judgment that God exercises in your life.

Because God has granted to you both His truth, His Spirit, and His Son so that you might do it. And we have to heed that calling. Do you have a hard time deciphering what is selfish and what is not? And I ask that because, man, I had to wrestle with that a lot just recently.

Everything from disciplinary actions that happen in the church, everything from what happens in my family, everything from what makes me angry. It takes an individual who is trying to practice discretion to evaluate, "Was that thought selfish or was that thought holy?" Are you able to discern, "This is godly, this is worldly, this is righteous, this is evil, this is beneficial, this is detrimental, this will benefit my church, this will hurt my church." Are you able to practice that kind of judgment?

And if you're like me, where typically you're afraid of judgment, not the kind of judgment where you're being judged, but you're afraid of making a judgment, you're afraid of being wrong, you're afraid of whatever it may be. It's too much of a burden for you. There's many, many reasons.

Many, many reasons. But I go down this line again. So far we had investigate, analyze, judge. Last is biblical application. There are those who make an accurate judgment call. And those of you guys who are like, again, God has gifted us very differently, lots of different personalities. But there are those people who see something, boom, this is wrong, this is wrong.

Things pop out to them. And they're just like, "That's a problem, that's an issue." And when they see it, they can't ignore it. For example, when a guy has an apartment, it's filthy, but to him it's like, "What's wrong?" And other people walk in and it's like, "Dudes." Spiritually stuff like that happens.

Where some people see it, some people don't. I love those people who see it. I envy you guys because I feel like I've had to ask the Lord many times, "Help me to see better." Because I don't. But even after you see, there is a maturity that has to grow.

Because I'm going to be honest with you, early on, right when I became Christian, and then I had a pretty dramatic transformation of being super worldly, super arrogant, super fleshly, super given to pleasure. And now I'm like, "I want to be servant of God, I want to be all this stuff." But the thing is, once you see certain things, all of a sudden, even that can be exposed to your ungodly character.

So what happens? Someone might say this silly thing like, "You've got to be encouraging, you jerk." Now you might have been able to assess, you might have been able to see and analyze something, but your response and your appropriate behavior is not in keeping with the character of God.

That too has to be discerning. That too has to be discerning. So I'm going at length at this, but boiling all that down, right now we have investigation, analyzing, making a judgment, and making appropriate application. These things contribute to the idea of what the scripture would call you as wise.

Because now you've gained skill and a spiritual sight to be able to assess, to analyze, and then solve through whatever application, whatever appropriate response there should be. That is a skill in living the Christian life. That is faith in action. And the scripture says you need to be ever growing in this.

The scripture says you need to be practicing this. The scripture says you need to be wanting this for your life. You need to be wanting this more than jewels, basically more than money, more than stature, more than good name. For to be wise is a great, grand privilege of the Christian.

And so, I hope we did an okay job right now thinking through what is discretion and wisdom. Now we move to why is it so important. Why is it so important? And we have a couple points here. A, because when you're not exercising discretion in a godly manner through the Bible, you are still exercising judgment but through your flesh.

Let me repeat that. It's so important because when you're not exercising discretion and judgment through the scripture and the standard of God, you are still exercising discretion and judgment but through your flesh. Okay? So, tangible example, there have been times when I've been in conflict with certain people and then I have a hard time analyzing like, "Oh my gosh, who did wrong?

What did I say? What did she say? Like, what am I supposed to do? What's the right thing? Am I being selfish?" There's so many questions, right? Okay. In that, my flesh starts to come out. I can start getting, what, bitter, resentful. I can start wanting revenge. I can start having malice in my heart.

So guess what? If the word of God does not intervene and the spirit of God is causing you to evaluate that scenario to see clearly what is selfish, what is right, what is wrong, but then you allow yourself for that time to just go, what's going to happen is your anger is going to make decisions.

Your emotions will make decisions. Your fears will make decisions. Your anxiety will make decisions. Your hatred will make decisions. You will always make a decision in the end. So why is it so important? It's because so many times, because we're not proactively training ourselves to go through this process of investigating, analyzing, judging, and then making appropriate application, now we're simply allowing our flesh to reign.

Do you guys agree? I've seen it in myself, right? I've seen it in myself. And I see that as a problem for a lot of people as well. But what's more, scripture is very clear that when you do not practice spiritual discernment, then you will ruin yourself. You will ruin yourself.

That's letter B. You will come to ruin. Now it's one thing to be like, "Hey guys, we need to mature." And if you're not reading your Bibles and looking at the world through the lens of the scripture and you guys aren't making decisions that are wise, then you're just not maturing all that much.

Right? Which is very true. If you're not maturing in your ability to discern, "This is wrong, this is right, this is good, this is bad," then you're not maturing. But the passage in Hebrews chapter 5 does not present to us a case where the author is just like, "Oh man, I wish you guys would have matured, but we're not there yet, so let's just keep going.

It's all right." That is not the way he is presenting this case. He is presenting this case like, "Since you guys are dull of hearing, I can't talk to you." That's how he's presenting his case. And then he's frustrated. He's like, "I can't talk to you." And then he says, "Although you should have been mature enough to teach even, not to say that everybody should be a leader, but mature enough to guide somebody else, to impart this, to carry this on.

You're like a pro and you should have been able to transfer this to the next rookies or whatnot." Right? What does he say? "Hey, just keep at it, keep going." No, he says, "What you've done is, you should have been here, but you're now what? Infants. You've got nothing.

It's not like you had building blocks and then you're up here. It's been destroyed." And the best way I can talk about this is this. If you go your life without having discretion for a certain amount of time, trying to practice that discretion all of a sudden is not going to work.

Recently, our church's BBA season started. It's a really exciting time for our church. So right now I don't play. I'm really into it. So every time I get a chance, it's like, "Hey dude, how'd the draft go? Whose team are you on?" And like, "Dang, your team is stacked." And then all this kind of stuff.

There's a lot of talk. Okay? And then I played BBA before, but right now I'm not going to play. And here's the reason why. Because a couple of years ago, I took a year off from BBA, maybe two years off from BBA, but all of basketball too, because I had kids and life was busy and I just couldn't play.

So a year goes by. I'm not playing ball. I'm exercising. But then I want to go play. So I go play with all the guys that are running full court. First two minutes I feel great. Second two minutes, my lungs feel like they're burning. It's just like, "Why is it so hard to breathe?" And then maybe like 20 minutes into it, I didn't even play like three, four games or anything.

20 minutes into it, I'm playing. I'm running down. Someone else has the ball, right? My teammate has the ball. I'm running down and nobody's around me because nobody's even playing defense yet. Right? So I'm just like, "Ah!" and I go down to the floor. And everyone's like, "Oh, did you sprain your ankle?" I'm like, "I don't know what's wrong.

I can't move my calf muscle." Like down here, it was just really hard. So everybody's kind of like, "Uh, you know, what happened?" So I'm like, "I don't know. I don't know." So I'm kind of hopping off to the sideline. I think a lot of you guys are there with me.

So I'm hopping off to the sideline and then I'm like, "Oh, my other calf!" So I go to the floor and I'm like holding my calves. And then like two days later, my wife's like, "Look at your calves. They're purple all the way down from the back of my knees to my ankle.

It's just purple." And then she looked up her little bio book and was like, "You have like a third degree strain on your calves." Basically, you know, like I didn't work my calves out. So I like overstrained it and then now the capillaries burst and I'm bruising inside. Right?

So I was like, "Yeah." You know? Anyway, I share that with you because there's pretty much nothing in your life where you can take many time, like months off or you're not practicing it and then all of a sudden a major event happens like, "Dude, I need to perform right now." What can you do that with?

Even your education, you don't use some of your stuff for like a little while and it's like, "Did I even learn that? I don't remember taking a class sometimes." You know? So the fact of the matter is, the way that he's describing it is, in your discretion, you need to be engaged in this, growing in this and loving the scriptures and the wisdom of God because if you do not, it's not as you're going to stay stagnant or you're not going to grow.

You're going to decay. Do you see my point? You're going to decay. And so scripture says that this is so important for us to heed the admonition of scripture that we need to love wisdom and discernment. By way of a couple warnings, by way of a couple warnings, in Hosea chapter 4 verse 6 it says, "My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge." Because in some ways it says here, they reject knowledge or since they have forgotten the law of the Lord.

That's Hosea 4, 6. In Jeremiah chapter 5 verse 4, God calls them fools. They are fools for they do not know the way of the Lord. Right? There is this, there is this idea that for generations, the people of God have been grieving the heart of God. How? They were not exercising discretion.

They weren't careful. They weren't going to God asking like, God, is this okay? Is this right? Now, I don't know if you've become accustomed to your like corporate life and so you know, you've kind of bought into this idea that like I should be a self starter. I should be a problem solver.

I can't go to my boss every single time for every single question, you know? And so you've kind of bought into this idea that even in your life you just got to work hard, you just got to sit there, work it out, and then think about it, and then make a decision, and it's going to be okay, right?

Is that the way God has called us to behave concerning this topic? No. God has told us you're absolutely dependent on every single step of the way. You need to pray, and you need to ask, and you need to seek the wisdom of God, and you need to inquire even if it feels like, hey, it's just an issue of what do I do about this one girl I like?

What do I do about these multiple jobs and opportunities I have? What do I do about church decision? Because a lot of you guys right now are in church decision. Did you ask God and inquire of the Lord? Because that's the first step of wisdom. That's the first step of discretion.

Even if you already anticipate, what's God going to tell me? Even if in your mind, your fleshy mind, you're already anticipating like, I don't know, if I go out and ask my pastor, he's always going to say the same thing. I don't know if I do this and that.

I can already anticipate what's going to happen, even if, and even then. We need to inquire of the Lord because that is our first step towards wisdom. So I hope we've tried to rightly or I guess thoroughly address why it's so important to seek and strive for wisdom. The last, sorry, I'm going to add one more thing to that of why we need to strive for wisdom is because in as much as maybe some of us have tried so hard to insulate ourselves in the Christian community, you are always going to be attacked by falsehood.

Let me say that again, okay? No matter how much you try to protect yourself and no matter how safe you feel like you are, you are always going to be attacked by falsehood. Let me give you a wake up call to reality. We are at Berean Community Church and our reputation has been we're trying to be as biblical as possible, right?

And I love this church. I love the vision of this church. I've bought into the vision of this church. I've been a member here for 16 years or more, you know. I love this church, okay? I want to preface that because the next thing I'm going to say is kind of like, what?

Within this church, you're going to be attacked with falsehood. Within this church, maybe you'll run across people, maybe you'll run across other individuals who in certain moments are walking in the flesh. And as they walk in the flesh, they'll try to drag you down with them because that's how the flesh operates.

Misery loves company, so does sin, right? But the main point and the reason why I say that in terms of even within this church, you're going to be attacked with falsehood is because the falsehood is right here. In you, there are times in which false thoughts come up. I don't know how many times maybe someone has done something and they're like, "I feel judged by this church." Really?

Did someone come over and like, "What are you doing? Why are you doing that? Why are you wearing that? Why did you say that?" Did someone do that to you? It's like, "No." Then why? It's like, "I just feel that way." But no one's ever said anything to you, right?

It's like, "Yeah." I think you lied to yourself. That's how I respond. I think you lied to yourself. You told yourself, "That guy looked at me with judgmental eyes, therefore he judged me, and now I feel judged. I'm judged." So the only person who says, "I judged you," or "You are judged," is yourself.

That's a lie to yourself. Does that make sense? Yeah. There are lies in your own mind. There are lies in other people. This is the battle of Christian faith. We're trying to fight falsehood and truth. What is reality? Spiritual reality versus the facade of reality that we see with our physical eyes.

And this battle is going to happen no matter how safe you feel here in your home, no matter how much, again, you've protected yourself by only having good friends, good people, and how this world has tried to convince you, you can only surround yourself with people who are going to make you happy and support you and stuff like that.

Is that what the Bible says? No. Okay? No matter how much you've bought into that, you're never safe from falsehood in this life. As long as you live here on earth, you are in danger. Externally, internally, we need to practice wisdom and discernment. That's why. Okay? So now, how do we obtain this wisdom?

How do we go about seeking it? First and foremost, we need to ask for it like Solomon did. We need to ask for it like Solomon did. Please turn your Bible over to 1 Kings chapter 3. Okay? This is just a case example. Before Solomon was like, "Oh, wow, he's the wisest king of all the area," and people were like the queen of Sheba was coming around like, "Man, I've heard of your wisdom." Before he was all that, he was just a wee child.

This is what the scripture says about it, 1 Kings chapter 3. In the transition between King David and King Solomon, I'm going to read verse 10 through 14. But this is what it says. I think I lost my place again. No, this happened first service too. Sorry. Going to have to find my place here in the scripture.

Okay. Well, for the sake of context here, we'll just start reading from verse 3. It says this, "Now Solomon loved the Lord." Okay? Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statues of his father, David, except he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places. So there's a lot of things that Solomon was doing right, but there was a lot of things he was doing wrong.

"The king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, for there was a high priest." Sorry. "There was the great high place. Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on that altar. In Gibeon, the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream that night, and God said, 'Ask what you wish me to give you.'" Wow.

Okay? I just want you guys for just a moment just to imagine with me, so you can drop yourself down into the context. Okay? Just first imagining King David was known as the greatest king for the nation of Israel. He's the man after God's own heart. He's a young boy who, when he was a young boy, defeated Goliath in front of the armies of the Philistines and all this kind of stuff.

Now imagine yourself to be the successor of that man. You're just a small child. I actually don't think he's like a small, small child in this passage, but nonetheless, you're young. You don't have experience, and you're about to fulfill one of the greatest seats known to your kingdom. Okay?

And then God says, "What do you want to ask me?" That's crazy. That's just crazy. Okay? And then in verse six, it says, "Then Solomon said, 'You have shown great lovingkindness to your servant David, my father, according as he walked before you in truth and righteousness and uprightness of heart towards you.

And you have reserved for him this great lovingkindness that you have given him a son to sit on his throne as it is this day. Now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David, yet I am but a little child. I do not know how to go out or come in.

Your servant is in the midst of your people which you have chosen, a great people who are too many to be numbered or counted. So give your servant an understanding heart to judge your people, to discern," here's our term, "between good and evil. For who is able to judge this great people of yours?" That is quite challenging to me.

Because honestly, there is a question right now that is evaluating my heart. When you are in moments of dire, whatever it may be, transition, need, suffering, difficulty, whatever that may be, big moments in your life, what do you pray for? What do you pray for? Do you pray for the material blessings of money?

If I had this, if I had that, if I had this, if I had that? Is it such an easy solution? If I just had what that guy had, if I had what that girl had? Or are you searching for what the scripture says by spirit, by faith we understand that wisdom and discretion is more valuable than gold or silver and so seek for it in this way.

And when you see the response of God, it challenges hearts even more that God truly does delight in a wise man. He delights in a wise man. So verse 10, check it out. It was pleasing in the sight of the Lord that Solomon had asked this thing. God said to him, because you have asked this thing and have not asked for yourself long life, nor have asked riches for yourself, nor have asked for the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself discernment to understand justice.

Behold, I have done according to your words. Behold, I have given you a wise, discerning heart so that there have been, there has been no one like you before you nor shall one like you arise after you. I have also given you what you have not asked, both riches and honor so that there will not be any among the kings like you all your days.

If you walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and commandments as your father David walked, then I will prolong your days. That's so cool, right? What God is saying was for us, for us, right? We're taught in the New Testament very similar things. We are. My first point essentially is if you feel like you lack wisdom, you should ask.

You should ask God. You should ask God regularly, intensely, right? And sincerely, you should ask him for wisdom. Are any of you guys like me? To tell you honestly, again, for lack of better words, some days I just feel like naive. Some days I feel kind of dumb even, you know?

And sometimes when we have these team meetings or business meetings or logistics meetings and maybe someone might ask evaluative questions like, "Hey, what do we need right now?" I'm just like, "Hmm, what do you think we need right now?" Because sometimes I feel like I lack that wisdom to discern, to ask and analyze.

And then maybe sometimes, again, situations arise when people come to me and ask regularly, "Hey, Pastor Mark, what should we do?" "What do you think we should do?" Sometimes I feel naive. I don't know what to say. What does Scripture say? If you turn your Bibles over to James chapter 1, that in the New Testament, this is a command and calling for us too.

In James chapter 1, I'm going to start reading from verse 2 through 5. And it says, "Consider it all joy, my brother, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance." So the people he's talking to are experiencing a huge amount of persecution. They're experiencing difficulties in their lives that which probably you and I cannot even relate to.

Because they have, later on it'll say, the confiscation of their belongings. They had the splitting up of their family and people were being scattered all around the region. And then verse 4, "And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect, complete, lacking in nothing." But, so this is all connected, right?

"If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be what? Given to him." This is an area and field to which I feel like I've wrestled and struggled needlessly for a long time when I should have been asking God.

And were there moments in your life, whether it be decisions, again, of your personal relationships, decisions of practical jobs, schooling, whatever it may be, do you ask the Lord, "God, in these moments, my friends have opinions, I have opinions, there's things I want, there's things my parents want, there's things that everybody and anybody expects of me.

Lord grant me wisdom in this. Grant me direction and clarity." I hope, just imagine that every single one of us start to practice life that way. Can you imagine a community of believers where we're starting to become truly in the biblical sense of one mind because we're going through this process of wisdom and discernment, asking the Lord, asking the Scriptures, analyzing the situation, making a judgment call, and being strong about it.

Can you imagine what the church would be like as a whole? Right? We would be moving together in such tremendous ways. But what's more, first and foremost, we need to ask with this kind of humble heart. I find that when King Solomon is asking, you see his tone. He says this, he says, "I'm a child, okay?

I don't even know how to go in and go out." That's what he says. He says, "I don't know the going in or going out." It requires a level of that kind of humility for us to ask. There was this one time I was working as a legal specialist.

I had no background in it and I just got a job. After seminary, I just got this job and I was super thankful. It was one of the most cool times that I had. Great coworkers and stuff like that. As a legal specialist, basically I was handling all the lawsuits.

I was handling all the paperwork. I was collecting it, categorizing it. And then whenever there were signatures needed, I would take these really sensitive documents, take them over, have them signed by our president, all this kind of stuff. I was pretty young. I think I was maybe 25, 26 at the time.

So I was pretty timid. One time, we're under lawsuit by Samsung. We were an electronics company under a lawsuit by Samsung. We get these huge files. And then I had to get this document signed by the president. But then for some reason, I read VP. So I went over and I had the VP on.

I was like, "Hey, you need to sign this." And he was like, "What is this?" And I was like, "Oh, I got it sent over from the legal counsel. Can you sign it?" And he had to initial every page and then he signed it. And then I came back and the legal counsel was like, "Oh, shoot.

This is all time sensitive stuff. We can't just make regular copies of it. You have to go and contact and then have the president sign and then explain to the VP why you had him sign something he didn't know what he was signing." And I was like, "Oh, shoot." So here I am holding the thing.

And I'm not sure if you guys have ever done this where you're timid. There's fear in your heart. So you kind of go through this door and you're like, "Nope, I'm not going in there." And then you go back and forth and you go back and forth. And then you're kind of looking to see, "Maybe that guy can do it." And I bring that up because every time that we have something of a decision to make, there is always going to be an element where you want to defend and preserve yourself.

Always. That ugly head always tends to rear itself. But thankfully, King Solomon in this moment said, "You know what? I don't know. God, the truth of the matter is, right and left, I don't know. So can you please give me this wisdom?" It takes that kind of humility and willing to come before God.

And I want to encourage you, when you ask both people and God to exhibit that kind of humility so that that kind of instruction can be given you. I want to challenge those of you, if those of you are in this room who have that kind of unteachableness, you have a little bit of stubbornness, where let's say someone comes over to try to give you instructions, like, "I know what I'm doing." And especially if that person is younger, you feel like that person doesn't know as much and you're just like, "Dude, I know." If that's your typical MO, like that's how you operate, let's make sure we humble our hearts.

There are a lot of things we don't know. And even if we did know, we could always learn, right? That's the admonishment for the first wing. How to get wisdom, you ask and you ask humbly. Last point. Last point. The passages that we read made it very clear that the discretion and wisdom that God desires for us to have, it must be trained and exercised.

Okay? So the last point is this. The wisdom and discretion that we're supposed to exhibit in our lives as Christians, it must be trained and exercised. Coming back to that passage in Hebrews chapter five, I'm going to read verse 14. That passage says this, "The solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by what constant practice to distinguish good and evil." What does he say?

There is going to be a practice by which when you do it, you're going to have a better idea, better capacity to say, "That is wrong. That is right." You're going to be better skilled, maybe even quicker to come to judgment. You're going to be able to better analyze because you've been doing it.

You've had your eyes open. You've assessed stuff in your life. And so even when your own emotions come out, it's not like, "Oh, what is this emotion I have?" I know what that is. I've dealt with it before. I've trained myself to think through those emotions. Are we going to have battles of emotion, different thoughts?

Yes. But we're going to have regular training where we will address those things appropriately. I want to highlight for you an interesting passage that comes from Titus chapter 2. Titus chapter 2 verse 11. If you guys can go there. Titus chapter 2 verse 11, as he's talking about the grace of God.

He just got finished talking about how we're not saved by words, but we're saved by grace. And then here in chapter 2 verse 11 of Titus, this is what he says. He says, "For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all the people." Amen. Praise God. Okay.

But then he says, "Training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled upright godly lives in this present age." Wow. He uses the word training in terms of what the gospel and the grace of God that has come to us is supposed to do in our lives as we live in here in sanctification until the time of Christ's coming.

He says the expectation is that the gospel does not simply cause you to pacify your guilt. It does not simply cause you to sit there and feel like, "I'm okay with God." Those are all great and grand truths that I don't want to minimize. I just want to highlight that right now.

What he's saying is, this grace actually trains you. This grace actually allows you to see, to analyze, to judge, and then to make appropriate applications according to the grace of God so that you can be godly. This is what God expects of you. To practice, to exercise your capacities for discernment.

There are times in which, again, I think people sometimes have a hard time with this because it is so hard to deny ourselves. It's just so hard to fight against the desire of what I want. So many times, sometimes when I counsel individuals, I'll walk them through and I'll say, "Hey, I think," or maybe I'll start off with, "What do you think you need right now?

What is it that you think you really need?" They'll give an answer. I'm like, "Good answer." Then there's this question of, "What do you think you should do then?" They'll answer. I'm like, "Good answer. Good. Good answer." That's typically how I counsel people. I ask them questions. "What is it?

What do you think you need to do? What is the right thing? What does God say?" Then I'll ask that question. I'm like, "Okay. So are you going to do it?" It's like, "I don't know. I got to take time to think. I got to take time to process." But what you realize is, no, it's not an issue of you need to think more, you need to learn more, you need to process things more.

In terms of process things, you already know what is right, what you should do, how to do it. What's the issue? I haven't asked, "What is it you really want?" Because in that moment, what you're battling is, "I know what's right. I know I should. I know how, but that's not what I wanted." Right?

And I bring that up now in terms of the idea of training. Because if you look through every epistle, the main facet of wisdom and discernment that you need to first exercise is the discernment and wisdom in training yourself to say no to your flesh and to say yes to the spirit.

To say no to your own personal, private desires and to say yes to the desires of God. If this is what God desires, then this of what I want needs to take the back seat. Go back there. But that exercise of doing that, that requires regular practice. The more that you practice giving into your flesh, the harder it becomes to exercise those muscles of exercising wisdom and discipline.

I want to wrap up by saying this. The Lord Jesus Christ, in what he has afforded to us, we think of it in terms of many different facets of the gospel. Redemption, reconciliation. Right? But remember in the Gospel of John, as it described Christ coming down. Do you remember how it described Christ?

The light. The light of men came. Right? And what happened was that as the light of the men came, many men did not recognize it, did not concede to it. My challenge essentially today is this. When you even think about the gospel, the great privilege of what Christ has done is all of that redemption, all of that reconciliation plus more.

What is that more? He's given us light to be wise. He's given us truth to be like him, to exercise judgment, to be like him in way of both mind and heart. And so if we are not growing and desiring of this, there is a sense in which we are not becoming like Christ.

We will always be infantile. So just like the scripture says in the book of Proverbs, wisdom calls out. Wisdom is even calling you. Go seek it more than treasure. Let's take some time to pray. Father God, we want to thank you for the challenge from your scripture today. And I pray Lord that you would continue to inspire within us a desire to walk according to your pattern, the desire to be striving after the full measure of Christ.

And Lord, as we think about how our Lord and Savior was so wise, so truthful, I pray we would be the same. God, we confess that there are many times that we go through the ups and downs of life in such a kind of nebulous way. A lot of times we feel lost.

But I pray Father God that as those who have such a great privilege to come to your throne, that Lord we would truly come to you asking the Lord of all wisdom to guarantee us direction and insight. And Lord, again, would you cause us to be faithful children, teachable children, wanting and desiring your instruction into our lives.

Father, we thank you. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. (crackling)