This sermon emphasizes the importance of having a foundation of faith and love before God reveals Himself to us. It discusses the distinction between common sense and wisdom, highlighting that true wisdom comes from the heart and is revealed by God. The story of Peter recognizing Jesus as the Christ through divine revelation is used as an example of how God reveals Himself to those with the character of faith and love.

The character that God desires us to have as a foundation, before he's willing to reveal himself to us, is we must be a people who not only desire to walk in his walk in faith with him, but a people also of whom it is known that we love one another. Paul says, I thank God because everyone around knows of your faith in God, faith in the Lord, and your love for all the saints. I do not cease to give thanks for you. Therefore I pray for you, that he might grant to you, according to the riches of glory, sorry, chapter 1, that he might make himself known to you, giving to you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in knowing him. That's my prayer for you, that's my prayer for me, that God might grant to us a special spirit of wisdom and revelation. If you look back in verse 8, Paul speaks about wisdom and insight. He draws a distinction between the two. Insight, phrenosis, Greek word, is that which is common sense, that sort of thing where we should know the right from the wrong, things we learn from experience. But wisdom is not the knowing of the mind, it is the knowing of the heart. He say, I pray that the eyes of your heart might be enlightened, that the eyes of your heart might be opened to see and to know God. This is something for the inner man, it's not something for the outer man. Christian wisdom is not something you gain by reading books, not even per se by just by reading scriptures and being knowledgeable in their teaching. It is something deeper than that, it is something that has become by direct revelation of God, and he only gives that revelation to those whose character he recognizes as people of faith and people of love. I think of Peter, you remember the story of Peter, a wonderful story, how Peter is walking with the Lord. Matthew chapter 11, he reads it there. I'm sorry I gave you the wrong reference, somebody can find it as I look in my notes. Matthew 16, I'm sorry, Jesus had been with his disciples, he had seen them feed the 5000, they had heard him teach, they had seen him perform many miracles, but up to this time he had never spent any time alone with his disciples. And we read that he took his disciples and journeyed with them a day and a half's journey to the north of the country, to the regions of Caesarea Philippi. And they walk in on the slopes of Mount Hermon, and Jesus turns to his disciples and says, tell me, and I paraphrase, you've now been with me 3 years, what have you learned about me? What do you really know about me? Tell me, whom do people say that I am? The disciples said, well, some say Elias the prophet, others say that you're John the Baptist come back to life. Then Jesus said, now tell me, you who have been with me so long a time, whom do you say that I am? And Peter said, you are the Christ, you are the Messiah, you are the one we are longing for, you are God himself. And Jesus said, blessed are you Simon son of Jonah. Flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, the natural has not revealed this to you, but my Father has revealed this to you. This is the spirit of wisdom and revelation. It has not come by the natural process of intellect, Peter did not display great intellect most of his time. This has come by direct revelation of God. Blessed are you because my Father has revealed it to you. Blessed are you men and women in Cape and Ray, I trust in January 1995 that when you leave here you can truly say the Father has revealed himself to me. I find it striking that Jesus then goes on immediately and says, I say to you that though you've been called Simon, your name shall be Peter. Because the character that is there Peter, is that of the rock. The name, the character is associated with the revelation. Striking isn't it that Peter, this rock, just six months later in Pilate's kitchen crumbled at the words of a little girl.