Jesus Offers His Wisdom to Us

We've been thinking of the wisdom that the Lord wants to give us and today I want us to dig deeper into that, asking God for more and more wisdom. We remember that verse in James 1 verse 5 says, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God and he gives liberally, but I thought there's another factor in it about wisdom. If you have your Bibles, can you open it please to Proverbs chapter 8, Proverbs 8 and the first verse it says, does not wisdom call, does not understanding raise her voice? On one side, we call out and ask God, Lord, give me wisdom in my daily life. I don't know how to manage, but on the other hand, what is calling out to us? Wisdom is calling out to us. What is calling out to us? My child, listen to me. I'm here to give you that wisdom. How wonderful that we don't have to keep on asking and asking the Lord. We do, we do ask, but we have the assurance that the Lord is eager, more eager to give us that Godly wisdom. Praise God for that assurance we have. It says there that wisdom does not wisdom call. I'm reminded of a verse where Jesus said in John chapter 7 verse 37, Jesus said, if any of you thirst, let him come to me and drink and I'll give you a living water. Jesus calls out to us and says, are you thirsty, are you thirsty for that wisdom which I want to give you? Then come to me and drink and it's living water, it's that living wisdom. It's not like the wisdom of this world, it's a Godly wisdom, it's a wisdom which only I can give you and you can have as much as you want to use wisdom liberally. That's what we read in James chapter 1. If you ask and drink, he gives to us liberally and it's according to our thirst and we thirst and thirst and he keeps on giving us that living water, that water of wisdom. And while I was meditating on this chapter, Proverbs 8, I was blessed so much. So keep your Bibles open to that chapter when I share some of the things. Here we read that God calls out to us to give us wisdom, but although it says, does not wisdom raise her voice, we know it's the Lord who's calling us with that wisdom. And verse 2 it says, on the heights beside the way, that's what I was trying to speak about last time when the power went off, from the heights the Lord is speaking to us and beside the way, wherever we are walking, the Lord is wanting to speak to us at the crossroads. Are we facing any crossroads in our life, Lord, shall I do this or shall I do that? Is this the path? Is this the way I should treat my children? Is this the way I should handle this particular child or this relative or this person who's come to me for help? I'm at the crossroad and says, wisdom is calling out to us. The Lord called us and said, I'll give you the wisdom that you need. Verse 3, beside the gates in front of the town, are we allowed to take on a new job or a new project or put our child in a new school? And we are standing at the gate and say, what shall I do, Lord, I lack wisdom. In the long run, you know, is this the school or is this the curriculum that my child should choose? If we are thinking of getting that wisdom by some crooked way, like the worldly people say, don't reveal everything that you have and don't say the truth, then we are not going to get that godly wisdom. It's straightforward. The Lord wants us to be, want to be straightforward and be upright. Those are the people, that's the type of wisdom the Lord wants to give us. And it reminded me of a verse which a godly brother gave us at the time of our wedding. He said, that's a verse in Isaiah 30 verse 21. That's a very precious verse to me. I often think of that, if you want, you can turn to that. Isaiah 30 verse 21, it says, when you turn to the right or left, you will hear a voice behind you saying, this is the way, walk in it. You're stuck at a place where you should turn to the left or right. God's voice, that voice of wisdom will tell us, this is the way. It's not a voice which we can hear with our human ears, but weep down in our spirit if we are walking with the Lord. The Lord will give us that assurance and say, this is the way. And as we go along, that assurance will come with us and that peace will increase and we know, yes. I have found many, many times in our work, especially after our marriage, I found we had to take many decisions and we used to think we were perplexed, but I knew the Lord, this promise was there for us, is there still. And the Lord was going to lead us by His back, by His wisdom. But there's some wonderful things which I wanted to share about this godly wisdom. If you read some verses which follow in Proverbs 8, it says, I was, verse 22, the Lord possessed me at the beginning of His work. Ages ago, I was set up at the first, before the beginning of the earth. Wisdom was with God right from the beginning or from the very, very beginning. And there's only one person who was and is with God. We know that is our Lord Jesus Christ. So, I was so happy to hear this wisdom is talking about Jesus, the divine wisdom that we want to get. We can get only from Jesus. It's not a rule book of wisdom, which you can find in the book of Proverbs, turn here, there. If you do this, you will get this. If you don't do this, you won't get it. It's not merely a book of rules like that. It's Jesus. When we have the life of Jesus and we come to Jesus, abide in Him and hand over our lives to Him and His nature flows into us, that sap we attach to the vine and that sap flows into us and we drink of that living water. It's all along is Jesus. Wisdom is Jesus. In John chapter one, it says, the word was with God and the word was God and light was with God. When the light comes, darkness is removed. So, there's so many words which talk to us about Jesus, tell us about Jesus. This is one of those words, the word was with God, wisdom was with God. I was so happy. I said, Lord, I don't need to have a book of, this is the way to get godly wisdom and so many rules. Don't do this. Don't do that. I just come to you and I get that godly wisdom. And then I thought, that's so true. Right in the beginning, in the first book of the Bible, I can see, we can see that when God put Adam and Eve in the garden and He said, look, don't eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. That tree, that fruit of that tree, don't eat it. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is the worldly wisdom. You know what is right, what's wrong, which is the worldly way of doing it and how to handle it. What the psychologists say, what the psychiatrists say and what people, worldly wise person might say. That's the tree of the knowledge. We don't need that knowledge, but go first to the tree of life, life in Jesus. Lord, if I live in you and abide in you, then you are my wisdom. You know that in Isaiah, it says one of the names given to Jesus, about Jesus is Prince of Peace. He's a counselor. He's wisdom. He's the one who can give us the counsel. So I was so thrilled when I thought, I said, Lord, I can write down so many points about getting this wisdom and research and write down all that I've heard and make so many studies about it. And so I get information from the beautiful songs and what godly men have spoken. That's all good. That's true. Thank God we have all those things. But we come straight to the Lord, the giver of wisdom, the one who gives us the living water. And that's more than enough. I was so thrilled. I said, Lord, wisdom was there from the beginning. You were there from the beginning. I need you, Jesus. That's all I have. If I have you, then you will give me wisdom in my daily life. Like we heard last time, last week about the blind man reaching out for his skin. In the morning, as soon as we wake up, we reach out to God, Lord, this day is ahead. I've just begun this day. Please give me wisdom, how to handle my life, how to handle my children, how to speak, not to speak things which will hurt other people and unnecessary things. We're all guilty of that. But Lord, let me not speak in that way or behave in that way. Give me your wisdom for this day that I grow more and more in wisdom. The memory verse that we learned last week, it says, listen to counsel and accept discipline. Remember that memory verse? Yeah. And all the children were repeating it. And that was such a blessing. Listen to counsel and accept discipline that you may be wise the rest of your lives. The Lord wants to give us the counsel and we have to be ready to listen to him, not just listen with our ears, but from our heart, open our hearts to him and say, Lord, I want to accept that, that counsel that you want to give. Remember, I just said about the title given about Jesus, that he's a counselor. He's the one who wants to give us the counsel and we accept the discipline. Every child whom the father loves, he disciplines and corrects. We should not be discouraged when the father corrects us and disciplines us. We say, Lord, give me grace, give me the humility to accept. I was saying that only if we are humble, we can receive correction. Only if we are humble, we can receive, we can get that wisdom, which the Lord wants to give and receive the discipline of the Lord. We say, Lord, give me that wisdom, which I lack. I like that wisdom. And he says, and he gives up the wisdom, hands out that wisdom to us and we take it. But the wrapping paper is the trial. We get taken up with the trial and we say, oh, wrapping paper, what's this wrapping paper? I don't like this wrapping paper. It's so hurting, doesn't look so good, it's not at all pleasing. And the Lord says, open it, inside is wisdom. Don't look at the wrapping paper, which I sent you that the trials are there. Maybe we face loneliness, sorrow, sickness. Things are not going our way or the way we planned. Things may be dark right now, but that's just the wrapping paper. Inside is the wisdom, which the Lord wants to give us. Let's not look at the, be occupied with the wrapping paper and say, Lord, I want to use, accept it along the way, the way you give it. But I know deep down, you're going to give me the wisdom, that divine wisdom, which our counselor, our Lord Jesus wants to give us. And he wants to give us liberally. It's not just like a teaspoon of that wisdom. He wants to give plenty and as plentiful as the wisdom that he wants to give us, there may be more and more wrapping papers. Let's not be discouraged with that and say, Lord, I want to accept it. All the trials that you allow in my life, they'll all pass away. But I want to accept because I know from your loving, from my loving father's hand, you'll only give me good. It's not going to be evil. It's not going to hurt me. It will discipline me, but it's going to be for my good and I will accept it from the Lord. There's a verse in Proverbs, it says, Blessed is the man who finds wisdom. Blessed is the woman who finds that kind of wisdom. We are really blessed if we come, not be taken up with the earthly things that are happening to us, but get that wisdom which the Lord wants to give us. And how does the Lord correct us? We said, you know, I was saying about the discipline and instruction is the Lord wants to give us. He corrects us from his word. I said a little earlier, you remember Isaiah 30 verse 21, that was where it says when you turn to the right or left, you will hear a voice behind you saying, this is the way you walk in it. The Lord will tell us this is the way for you to walk. And that's why we should be very, take God's word very seriously and read and meditate and let God write his word in our hearts. And those words will come back to us in a time of need. Then he corrects us through our parents or children who are at home and who are parents. We have a duty to correct our children. And that's one of the corrections the way the Lord, young girls and young children are corrected through the parents. Then for us who are married, he corrects us through our husbands. We don't like to think of it so much because when we were younger, we could accept the correction from our parents. But as you grow older and you become and we know that we are mature and we know things and the Lord says, listen to your husband, submit to your husband. It's not so easy, but that's God's way. That's God's, God's word. And that's the principle the Lord has kept for us. And we should not despise that correction which we get from our husbands. I found it such a big help for me. Sometimes I want to write an email to somebody and then I write something and I don't like to spell it off. I mean, if it's something which I need advice, not a personal or a private thing, but I need some advice. I always look forward to the time when my husband can give some input in it. And he says, no, don't write like that or don't speak like that. I feel so relieved. OK, I'm glad that he's taken that decision. So many, many times I feel my protection, our protection is from the covering that the Lord gives us from our husbands. We should never despise it. Sometimes we go out of our boundary and we say, oh, I know it. I can do it on my own. And then we are going to dangerous areas like Eid to partake of that fruit. So I want to always remember the safety in listening to my husband. Then the Lord corrects those of us who don't have husbands, that God has given elders in the church to give us advice and counsel and the Lord has given us people above us to whom we can go to and get advice from Godly friends. And lastly, from circumstances which happen to us, we say, yes, last time this happened, I learned a lesson not to do this kind of thing again, not to go on my own, not to go on my shopping spree or whatever it is, not to do things on my own, but get the advice I want to. So getting, talking about Godly friends, I was thinking of the parable Jesus said about the wise and foolish virgins. I remember that I mentioned it last time, not going to go into details, but all of them, the virgins, that means they all belong to the Lord, ready for the Lord's coming, waiting for the Lord. And all of them had their lamps burning, that means they had an outward testimony, all of them. And all of them were ready, waiting for the Lord, but five of them didn't have enough oil and five were wise because they had an extra supply of oil. And we know how oil is obtained. And I mean, this is a lesson we've heard in our CFC churches. Oil is obtained, we get oil from crushing the seeds, olives are crushed and we get oil. Peanuts are crushed and we get peanut oil. So it comes with crushing and those crushing machines are the circumstances and the times that the Lord allows in our lives. And so it's so valuable. So why is this coming in my life? Why is this difficult thing happening all of a sudden? Why this? Why that? Why is it? I can't, am I the only one who's facing this? Dear sisters, let us remember, it's only the crushing machine, but it's valuable because we're going to collect a lot of oil and that oil is not for others to see. We say, OK, yeah, guys, look, I've got so much of oil in my cup and it's not of any use. In our hidden life, far away from what people have seen in our thought life, in our heart, when somebody says something to us and we say, we just forgive. Those are the areas, ways in which we can get a good supply of oil in our lives. So let's not waste the oil that the Lord wants to give us and keep on getting that plentiful supply of oil, because we don't know when the Lord is going to come and more trials may come in our life. The Lord sees our lives and we make sure, as if we have caught up with our testimony and say everybody should see that I'm not getting angry in this situation and I'm doing this and I'm very patient, then it's not the secret supply of oil. But if it's deep down and no one has seen and we have gone through that trial or that suffering and only between us and the Lord and there's no friend nearby to whom we can share these things, we should rejoice because we say, yeah, this is a chance for me to store some extra oil in my vessel. And we should, the way I was saying the last time how the foolish virgins, if they have taken the trouble to go and ask the wives, tell us how do you get this oil? Do you think the oil that we have will be sufficient? If they spend some time with the wives, then they could have learned the lesson and said, we need to get enough and more oil. We can't be sure. And they could have learned something from the wives. That's why it's so important for us to keep the company of the wives. And recently I saw something, I mean, something which was just happening outside my home, which I learned a big lesson from and tell you what it was. You know how it is when it starts getting cold in these countries, what happens to the birds? Just outside my window, there's a little shrub, a tree. And every day, every time I look at the tree, I see a little bird sitting there. Ever since it started getting cold, I'd see that little bird all by itself sitting there. And I used to think maybe it's lost its mate or there's some sickness or something. I wonder why it's all alone sitting on that tree. And so many times I'd come to the window and look out. Yes, that bird was there all by itself. And I thought, I wonder when it gets colder and colder, what's going to happen to this little bird sitting there? Then after a few days and it was getting colder and colder, I saw something which doesn't happen in India. There was a big fluttering of birds all over outside the window. Birds were like almost as if they were practicing. Similar birds were coming, flying up, coming to the ground, flying up and herds of them up and down, up and down. And the next morning when I looked, all the birds had gone. They're migrating to some warmer place. Then I looked, was my little bird in that bush, was it still there? It had gone. It was so wise. It joined the others and it flew away with the others, because I don't see it anymore. Maybe those birds will come back. But that little bird has gone. And I was so happy. And I thought that's how it is sometimes. Sometimes some sorrow or something negative has happened in our life and we sit all by ourselves away from the fellowship of the dear sisters who are around us. But in our hearts, we are lonely. We may be sitting in the church along with the others, but in our heart, we are far away like that little bird sitting all by itself and lonely and sad with all that negative thing. And it's getting colder and colder. But the Lord had something better planned for that little bird. For us, dear sisters, there's a church. There are godly sisters around us. We are not alone. We don't have to sit alone and think of our negative things and feel sad or sorry for ourselves. We can join with all our dear sisters and fly into the warmer place where God wants us to be. That's how when we sang that song, His Eye is on the Sparrow, I said, God, you chose the right song for today. I'm going to talk about birds. And this is what I'm doing. This is what somebody has already chosen. Megan or whoever has chosen the song, God put it into your heart to say His Eye is on the Sparrow. Yes, dear sisters, His Eye is on us. We may be like that little bird sitting by ourselves and we can't tell anybody. We don't have anyone nearby and we don't want to trouble others with our sorrows. But His Eye is on us and we have a church. We can grow together. Those who are wise will be. We want to be among the wise. We must keep the company of the wise. That's the verse I wanted to say. Proverbs 13, verse 20 says. Whoever walks or keeps company with the wise will become wise. So important, keep company with the wise, with the godly people, not with those who mock God or scoffers, as we read in Psalm 1, those who are scoffing and sinners, we keep company with them, we'll become like them. But keep company with the wise, the truly wise, godly, wise people and we will become wise. I was so blessed by that. And it says here, Ecclesiastes 9, verse 18. Wisdom is better than weapons of war. Ecclesiastes 9, 18. Wisdom is better than weapons of war. One sinner destroys much good. But if we have wisdom, it's far better. Sometimes we think some things happening in our home, it's just not right. And we think we use the weapons of war, you know, our tongue or our anger which comes out or some worldly way of handling. But when we have God's wisdom, when God gives us his wisdom, it's a far better, better than all the weapons of war that are available. I think this message has been rather haphazard, but in closing, I want to read the words of a beautiful song, which is also about birds. We know that song, When upon life's billows your tempers tossed, count your blessings, name them one by one. I think all of us know that song. I heard another song with the same tune. Let me read that, those words to you. When you pray but cannot get your answer through, when you get discouraged, know not what to do. Cease to beg and plead, but hallelujah's raise. Your petitions will ascend on wings of praise. Rise and soar into the sunlight rays, using both your wings of prayer and praise. Mount like eagles high into the sky and you'll find things look so different when you fly. So I read it again or maybe I'll print it out. When you pray and cannot get your answer through, when you get discouraged, know not what to do. Cease to beg and plead, but hallelujah's raise. Your petitions will ascend on wings of praise. Rise and soar into the sunlight rays, using both your wings. One wing is prayer and the other wing is praise. Using both your wings of prayer and praise, mount like eagles high into the sky and you'll find things look so different when you fly. So praise God. The Lord has got so much for us in giving us his wisdom. We have only reached the edge of that wisdom which God wants to give us. Let us come closer to the Lord and connect ourselves with him, abide in him, cling on to him, hold on to him and say, Lord, I'm not going to let go of you. Like Jacob said, hold on to him and say, Lord, give me more of that godly wisdom because I need it. I lack wisdom. I lack wisdom. I don't want to show off wisdom to others, but it's me, Lord. I need wisdom and make me more like you. When you walk with wise people, you'll become wise. When you walk with godly people, you'll become godly. When you walk with the Lord Jesus, you become more and more like Jesus. Praise God for such a wonderful life he's given us. I think it's 6.30, so we'll close. I just want to, because it was half past, I just want to, a few things which I underlined. Proverbs 13 verse 20 says, whoever walks with or keeps company with the wise will become wise. And then Ecclesiastes 9.18 says, wisdom is better than weapons of war. And then Proverbs 8.12 says, what things we should avoid to get wisdom? Evil and pride and bad speech. And be open to correction and listen to correction, listen to counsel. And then our memory verse, Proverbs 19.20, listen to counsel and accept the discipline. And don't forget the wrapping paper. It's only temporary. You don't need to keep the wrapping paper forever. Those trials will go away. But the Lord sends wisdom covered with that wrapping paper of trial, but don't get occupied with the trial. The Lord will see us through. We shall be close in prayer. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for this evening and thank you for your word, which is freely given to us. Thank you, Lord Jesus. You are our wisdom, Lord. We need you, Lord. We don't want wisdom, but we need you. And with you, we get everything, Lord, everything that we need. You are more than enough for us, Lord. We pray that we keep close to you, Lord, and not stray into the path of foolishness. Help us to get closer and closer to you because there's so much we want, you want to give us. We want to receive everything that you want to give us, Lord. Bless each sister here. And Lord, although there are so many interruptions, we thank you that you are there for us. And we pray that you will fill in the gaps, Lord, and speak to us and encourage us. Help us to be faithful and be good mothers, good sisters, good wives. And pleasing to you, Lord, we ask in Jesus precious name. Amen.