When I was younger, I didn’t understand these verses.
I waited and waited and waited for God. At last he looked; finally he listened. He lifted me out of the ditch, pulled me from deep mud. He stood me up on a solid rock to make sure I wouldn’t slip. He taught me how to sing the latest God-song, a praise-song to our God. More and more people are seeing this: they enter the mystery, abandoning themselves to God. Psalms 40:1-3
I thought I could somehow avoid ever needing God to rescue me. I knew I needed God to forgive me and get me into heaven. But I thought, if I was a good Christian, I could avoid all the bad stuff and not need God to rescue me. Somehow, those verses didn’t apply to me. I was going to make all the right choices and avoid pain and struggle. Then it happened. I was fired from a great job. I went home to my wife defeated and I had no answers to what we were going to do next.
As Karen prayed, she gave me those verses to read. When I read them, I was so angry. I thought to myself, how does waiting on God pay my bills due next month? I thought those verses were so dumb. I had no idea what was happening in my life and I couldn’t see what God was doing. That’s what I want to talk about today. Wisdom, spiritual warfare, and common sense.
Wisdom is how God designed life. How do we get wisdom? We respect God so much we surrender our pride and live life the way God designed it. If we don’t, scripture says, we are fools. Why? Because if you follow wisdom, it will eliminate a ton of future problems. Not all problems, but a ton of problems. And I would add that you don’t have to be a Christian for these principles to work.
Here is an example of wisdom in the area of words. Proverbs says this.
Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones. NIV Proverbs 16:24
Your own soul is nourished when you are kind; it is destroyed when you are cruel. TLB Proverbs 11:17
Your words have power. Your words can heal people and your words can forever scar people. What is interesting is that the words you use, if they are cruel, can destroy your own soul. Wisdom tells us that your words have power so be careful how you use your words. Here’s the deal. You can follow that advice and you will eliminate a ton of future relationship and personal problems. Or you can ignore wisdom. You can be prideful. You can decide you know better than God and live life the way you want. You can feel comfortable using words without thinking about them. You can criticize, be constantly negative, gossip, and pull people down. And when you do that, you are opening yourself up to a ton of relationship and personal struggles ahead. Scripture says, when that happens, don’t blame God for the mess you are in.
Proverbs says,
People ruin their lives by their own stupidity, so why does God always get blamed? MSG Proverbs 19:3
Here is what I want you to see. Wisdom is a choice we make. And if we follow wisdom as a child and all the way into adulthood, God’s ways will remove a ton of future problems. Or we can ignore wisdom. We can be prideful. We can decide we know better than God and live life the way we want. It’s your choice.
Spiritual warfare is different. Spiritual warfare is the battle we face as Christians. You have an enemy who hates God and anyone who has God in them.
Peter explained it.
Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. NLT 1 Peter 5:8
How do we protect ourselves? We walk closely with God.
God is strong, and he wants you strong. So take everything the Master has set out for you, well-made weapons of the best materials. And put them to use so you will be able to stand up to everything the Devil throws your way. This is no weekend war that we’ll walk away from and forget about in a couple of hours. This is for keeps, a life-or-death fight to the finish against the Devil and all his angels.
Be prepared. You’re up against far more than you can handle on your own. Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it’s all over but the shouting you’ll still be on your feet. Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation are more than words. Learn how to apply them. You’ll need them throughout your life. God’s Word is an indispensable weapon. In the same way, prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare. Pray hard and long. Pray for your brothers and sisters. Keep your eyes open. Keep each other’s spirits up so that no one falls behind or drops out. MSG Ephesians 6:10-18
You were born into a war between God and Satan. That simply means the world we live in clashes against God’s kingdom. We are living in the middle of that battle. We call that spiritual warfare. That includes everything from Christians being beheaded Nigeria to us battling a constant sense of defeat, discouragement, and depression and doubting every good thing God has done for us [like forgiveness, salvation, the righteousness of Jesus in us, heaven].
Here is what I want you to see, spiritual warfare we do not control. However, the closer we walk with God, it eliminates a ton of future spiritual attacks. It’s a choice. You can be connected with Jesus daily through prayer and reading the Bible. Or you can be too busy to connect with Jesus and you will be opening yourself up to being spiritually attacked and facing spiritual struggles by your enemy.
Let’s put the pieces together. Wisdom and spiritual warfare are two different things. Wisdom is a choice we make. And if we follow wisdom as a child and all the way into adulthood, God’s ways will remove a ton of future problems. Spiritual warfare we do not control. But we can make a choice to be connected with Jesus daily and it will eliminate a ton of potential spiritual attacks and spiritual struggle.
Walking with wisdom and being connected to Jesus is common sense. It’s the message Sam gave last week. Last week Sam said, ‘A wise person prepares their hearts.’ He shared that life has ups and downs and that shouldn’t be a surprise for us. We must prepare for every good and bad day coming. My favorite verse that he gave us last week was this.
Cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth. NASB Psalm 46:10
In your Bible, if you feel like you are striving through life, you should circle ‘cease striving’. That doesn’t mean we are lazy and stop working. That doesn’t mean we don’t pay our bills and check out in life. That means we stop and focus on God. We pour out our anxiety and stress on God before we start the day. We pour out our messy relationships on God before we talk to anyone about them. We cease striving and focus on God. The point of Sam’s message was, to stop striving and start surrendering. Prepare your heart for every good and bad day coming. Walk with wisdom and we walk closely with Jesus.
Who wouldn’t live like this? It’s common sense – right? Well, let’s be honest. What are the two things people struggle with? First, we struggle with surrendering our pride and living life in God’s way. Why? Because we want to live our way. And that can create a ton of self-made problems in our future lives. Second, we tend to struggle to walk closely with Jesus daily. Why? We are so comfortable; we don’t see our need for God. We are so comfortable; it becomes normal to ignore God and jump into our day. And that creates a ton of openings for spiritual attacks and spiritual struggle and our soul becoming numb to the things of God or church.
Those are choices we control. Here is what we don’t control. We don’t control other people and the world we live in. That means, that no matter how wise you are or how close to God you are, you will continue to face adversity. Why? Because we don’t control other people and the world we live in. Many Christians believe that the Christian life is a formula. They believe, “If I follow all the rules plus if I am close to God, that equals, God will bless me and I won’t have problems” – and they are wrong. Life will still have challenges. Christianity isn’t a formula. Christianity isn’t a promise of success, wealth, health, and comfort.
Remember my story. I didn’t understand this. I thought I could avoid all pain and struggle.
I need to stop here and make something very clear. If you are wise and are connected to Jesus, those choices eliminate so many self-made problems. They eliminate so many spiritual attacks and spiritual struggles. But it doesn’t eliminate all problems because you don’t control others and the world you live in.
I want to give you an understanding of life and being a Christian that you may have never heard of before. It’s what I didn’t understand. Life is messy and Jesus doesn’t remove all the mess. Jesus is about helping us through the mess. How do we know this? Let’s read how Scripture explains it in Ephesians and Hebrews.
12 For we are not fighting against human beings but against the wicked spiritual forces in the heavenly world, the rulers, authorities, and cosmic powers of this dark age. MSG Ephesians 6:12
4 In this all-out match against sin, others have suffered far worse than you, to say nothing of what Jesus went through – all that bloodshed! So don’t feel sorry for yourselves. Or have you forgotten how good parents treat children, and that God regards you as his children?
My dear child, don’t shrug off God’s discipline, but don’t be crushed by it either. It’s the child he loves that he disciplines; the child he embraces, he also corrects.
God is educating you; that’s why you must never drop out. He’s treating you as dear children. This trouble you’re in isn’t punishment; it’s training, the normal experience of children. Only irresponsible parents leave children to fend for themselves. Would you prefer an irresponsible God? We respect our own parents for training and not spoiling us, so why not embrace God’s training so we can truly live? While we were children, our parents did what seemed best to them.
But God is doing what is best for us, training us to live God’s holy best. At the time, discipline isn’t much fun. It always feels like it’s going against the grain. Later, of course, it pays off big-time, for it’s the well-trained who find themselves mature in their relationship with God. MSG Hebrews 12:4-11
Again, we don’t control others or our world. That means, in this world that we live in, we are in a struggle, a battle, against sin. And in that struggle, we can wrongly assume that our struggle is God’s punishment of us and it’s not. Jesus allows us to walk through struggle because it makes us stronger. As we walk through problems and trials, if we stay focused on God, it produces things inside of us. Things like character.
Scripture says,
3 We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. 4 And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. NLT Romans 5:3-4
How do we get things like endurance? How do we develop great character? How do we become mature Christians who have the courage to have faith in our salvation to take on anything? You get all those things as you walk through problems and trials.
Okay, let’s begin to close.
First. Be wise. Surrender your pride and walk in wisdom. It will eliminate a ton of self-made mess in your life. Money mess. Relationship mess. Emotional mess. Job mess. Your own soul mess. Etc.
Here is your challenge with wisdom. Don’t be prideful, ignore God, and experience pain from that sin and think, it’s spiritual warfare. It’s not. If you are prideful and ignore God, you are opening yourself up to self-made pain and struggle. That’s a ‘you’ problem.
Second. Be connected to Jesus. Daily pray and read your Bible. Develop your relationship with Jesus. It will absolutely empower you as you walk through life. Empower you with what you need, like grace. Love. Passion. Maturity. Etc. This will eliminate a ton of spiritual attacks and spiritual struggles and your soul becoming numb to the things of God.
Here is your challenge with spiritual warfare. Please do not believe Christianity is a formula. A formula like, if I am close to God and He likes me, my life will be perfect. And the opposite formula, if my life faces struggle, that means God has rejected me. Not at all.
Third. Be courageous. Why? Because no matter how wise you are or close to God you are, you will continue to face adversity. Why? Because you don’t control others or this world. Life is messy and Jesus doesn’t remove all the mess. Jesus is about helping us through the mess.
Let’s make this practical.
As I look back to the day I was fired, I didn’t understand what I shared with you today. I didn’t understand how wisdom, spiritual warfare, and common sense worked together. I didn’t realize it was impossible for me to avoid pain and struggle. I didn’t understand that was not something I could control. Because of this, every hard time that I walked through, I didn’t handle it well. I was a mixture of being stressed, and angry, and wondered how I failed God.
If I could go back and talk to myself at 20 and 30, I would tell me, surrender your life to God and trust God that He really does know what He is doing. Just relax.
Let’s read Psalms 40 again.
I waited and waited and waited for God. At last he looked; finally he listened. He lifted me out of the ditch, pulled me from deep mud. He stood me up on a solid rock to make sure I wouldn’t slip. He taught me how to sing the latest God-song, a praise-song to our God. More and more people are seeing this: they enter the mystery, abandoning themselves to God. Psalms 40:1-3
In my anger, I could not see what God was doing. Over the next months and months and months, the church we attended came to Karen and me and asked us to do a church plant in Northern York. I look back on those days now and I ask God to forgive me for how I responded. I feel like I can emotionally feel Psalms 40 now. That pain of waiting and waiting and waiting for God to move but it seemed like God refused to move.
I want to give you a verse today that can help us take on life.
The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the LORD. ESV Proverbs 21:31
The horse is prepared for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the LORD. NLT Proverbs 21:31
Do your best, prepare for the worst – then trust God to bring victory. MSG Proverbs 21:31
Leaving here you must understand wisdom, spiritual warfare, and common sense. Wisdom, do your part well. Spiritual warfare, walk closely with Jesus. Be courageous. Why? Because no matter how wise you are or close to God you are, you will continue to face adversity. In that struggle, trust God.
Questions. Have you surrendered your life, your pride, to God and followed wisdom? Have you decided that you know best and are comfortable making choices that are against the way God wants you to live? The struggles in your life, are they from choices you have made? Do you blame God for the choices you have made?
Are you walking closely with Jesus? Did you know one of the clear signs of spiritual warfare is that your heart becomes numb to the things of God and the church? Do you walk with a constant sense of defeat, discouragement, and depression and doubt every good thing God has done for us [like forgiveness, salvation, the righteousness of Jesus in us, heaven]?
When bad things happen in your life, how do you respond? Do you assume God is punishing you or rejecting you? Do you assume you have failed somehow? Do you assume God is with you and developing you? How are you at living life – relaxed, angry, worn down, etc.?