God Doesn't Fit In A Box

Transcript

Welcome And A Love Of History

0:01

All right. So today, before we jump into the passage we're going to talk about, one of the things about me, my name's Cameron, by the way, if I didn't say that, I'm one of the pastors here. Before I felt called into ministry, one of the things I really wanted, I felt like I wanted to do with my life was become a history teacher. And actually a middle school history teacher, which some of you goes, why would you want to do that, right? But I uh love history. I love learning about history. You know, sometimes I listen to other people talk about all these really um uh like podcasts they're listening to that are like, oh, all about these really important things. I'm like, I'm just learning about a bunch of history stuff sometimes. Like learn about this crazy things happening, you know, 500 years ago or whatever that no one really cares about. So I love this stuff. But one of the things I'm struck by when I think about history and kind of our modern world is just how much human history has changed and how much the ideas and the perspectives change. Uh by things that felt like obvious in other periods of time that feel just insane right now. So,

How Common Sense Keeps Changing

1:05

for example, if you grew up in the ancient world, you might have believed that the earth was flat, right? And if you just kept sailing, you would go right over the side of the cliff. Or if you grew up in the 2020s, you might believe that. You know, who would have guessed? Um if you believe if you grew up more in like the medieval times, you might have known, hey, the world is round, but you would think the world was like the center of everything, and all the other planets and the sun and everything rotate around the earth. And this would just be obvious. Like everyone knew this was true. It was like a given, it was common sense. Thinking medically, for thousands of years, people believed that pretty much any problem you had could be cured by bloodletting, right? Which is like taking a little knife and like letting some of your blood drain out, or giving you some leeches to kind of suck the bad stuff out of your body. And it would drain all those bad things out, and then you would be good to go, right? And this was obvious. Like you have a fever, let's get the leeches out, let's make this happen. It was just like the normal common sense thing that you would do. Another one um I actually just read about this week or last week, was the bubonic plague, right? So the black plague, they believed, like, okay, one of the ways you warded it off was if you smelled something. So you might smell like uh flowers, carry around flowers. Well, people are dying of the black plague, and if you smell them, it keeps all the bad stuff away. But somehow they also got in their head that the same thing applied to jars of farts, flatulence. If you carried a jar of flatulence around and smelled it, that would keep the plague away, which raises so many other questions I have. Like, who's testing this? Where do you get the jars? Like, what's going on here? If you grew up in the late 1800s and you had a baby who was teething, you might give them something like this Mrs. Winslow's soothing syrup. It's the mother's friend. This was obvious, this is what you gave them. You know, it had morphine and alcohol in it, and it shut your baby up for a while. But this is what everyone did. It was common sense. Um, if you grew up in the late 1800s, you'd also believe cocaine was this wonder drug, right? If you're tired, drink some Coca-Cola with real cocaine in it. No more exhaustion. You're good to work in the factory for another 12 hours. Again, these were like obvious things that no one even questioned. Like, is this like this is just normal? Um, my dad, he grew up in Southern California, uh, but for a year he moved to Louisiana, where he went from one world to a different world where it was normal, where depending on the color of your skin, you could use certain drinking fountains or not. Right? And for him, that was weird, but for everyone around him, well, this is just normal. This is just how life is. Uh, if you grew up in the 1990s and were involved in the internet, many of the people who were like kind of creating the World Wide Web believed the internet would make the world a more beautiful, connected place. When we're all connected, there'll be no more wars or fighting, like we'll all just get along once we can talk to each other, right? That was obvious. Now, not so much. So, what is normal or common sense or obvious is constantly changing throughout human history. Uh, we tend to view our own time as like we have finally figured it all out. Like we're right. They're all idiots, but we are right. C.S. Lewis calls this chronological snobbery, where we think we're better than any other time period in human history. But the thing is, so did each of these people, each of these time periods, thought they had it all figured out, and everyone before them was dumb, and they've like they figured it out. And so for us to believe that all of our values, our beliefs, our reason kind of that exists in our broader culture is correct, um, is not just naive. It's a little bit arrogant to think that we're finally the ones who figured it all out. Usually we don't really think about it that much. We don't even question it. We just know we're right because these are the kinds of things everyone says are right. They're common sense.

The Trap Of Judging God

5:10

Now, the problem with this is that we want God to fit into our box of what makes sense. We want God to fit into like what we, how we see the world, the values that are important to us, the beliefs we have as a culture. And we want God to fit into that, and like we have an idea of how God should act. And so I hear this all the time, even in myself, and there's nothing wrong with saying this, but it reveals something underneath it. People say things like, I couldn't believe in a God who X, Y, Z. Or how could a loving God, you know, whatever, whatever, whatever. And we quickly put ourselves in the driver's seat of assuming we know better than God what he should or shouldn't be like, what he should or shouldn't do, and without even realizing it, we're often judging God on our own values and assumptions and belief systems that are like unique to our place in history and our place in the world today. Or we impose our definition of love onto God and expect him to live into that definition of this is what a loving God should do, which of course is just our assumptions of what love is, and 2026. Again, there's nothing necessarily wrong with that, but I'm just highlighting underneath some of those questions and statements is the belief that we have it figured out and that God needs to somehow fit into our box in order for him to be in the right, in order for him to be good, in order for him to be loving. Now, of course, if you see how these two things connect, the problem is how is God supposed to fit into our box when our box is constantly changing? Right? When every year, 15 years, 100 years, things change in human history about what we value, what is normal, what is common sense. Like, how is God supposed to fit into this ever-changing box that we have, like that we expect him to? And of course, the answer is he can't fit into that. It just doesn't make sense for us to expect God to fit into our own cultural assumptions about who God should be when those are constantly changing. We can't recreate God to fit into our box because it's always adapting and changing.

The Cross As Worldly Foolishness

7:31

And this is what Paul is addressing in the passage we're gonna read today in 1 Corinthians. And Mac talked about this a little bit last week. Uh, we're gonna read this passage again and kind of take a little bit of a different direction in it. So it's from 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verses 18 through 25. It goes like this. Paul's talking to the Corinthians about division and unity, and he kind of gets onto the cross here. He says, For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, so those who are not following Jesus, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate. And that's a reference to a quote in Isaiah, a kind of uh talking to the people about, like, hey, you shouldn't be questioning God, because God knows more than you do. Um, you know, a little humility here. Um, and then where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God, the world, through its wisdom, did not know him, so through worldly wisdom doesn't know God, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Right? And part of what he's talking about, the foolishness here, if you remember Mac talked last week, is like that God wins by losing. Right? The cross looks like the ultimate sham, the ultimate loss. Like, you know, we kind of see the cross as this like really beautiful thing. We even like light it up, so it looks really nice. Um, but at the time, this would be like someone dying by the electric chair or lethal injection, something like that. They're like, this is the way God wins and operates in the world. Looks like foolishness to everyone else. The Jews demand signs, and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, so those who aren't Jewish, but to those whom God has called, so those who are following God, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. So Max showed this picture last week. I'll kind of throw it up there just to visualize what's happening here. Um, that this is really nothing new, uh, where we try to fit God to fit into our boxes. So we have like the Jews would look for signs, the Greeks look for wisdom. But because the cross doesn't really fit into either of those boxes, it doesn't look like the world's version of power, doesn't look like the world's version of wisdom, they reject it. It's a stumbling block, it's foolishness because it doesn't fit into the box that they've created. It says this is what a strong, powerful, wise deity would do. Right? And so, and we've seen this all throughout. Like we talked about the Sermon on the Mount for a while. Uh, the way of the kingdom is so counter-cultural and so counterintuitive to all the things that we see in this world. Like at almost every turn, the kingdom feels like opposite of what maybe our natural flesh would do or what our culture would do. Um and so the problem was that Paul was talking to people who wanted God to fit in their box before they decided whether or not he was worth trusting and following. And our bottom line for today is God doesn't need to fit in our box to be trusted. Like we don't have to create God in our own image and so it'll work with our view of the world in order to follow God. We don't have to figure out how it all works in order to trust Him and walk step by step with Him. In fact, I would argue, of course, there's some like thinking through a decision to follow Jesus, but we can't wait till God makes complete sense to us because God is never gonna make complete sense to us in a world that is completely contrary to God's ways. Um, because more often what happens is we try to like trim off pieces of God that we don't really like or that don't fit with our modern world in order to get him to fit in that box. And what I've found is trusting God along the way often helps me understand God in a deeper way. Like in way more than I ever could all at the beginning of the journey. To be like, God, show me the whole like path that you want me on. No, it never works that way. Like you gotta take step after step, and God reveals himself, and you and you recognize God's way and the kingdom way as you take those steps. Okay,

The Modern Boxes We Build

12:17

so what we're gonna do today uh is name some, so that's the passage. We're gonna name some of the modern day wisdom and signs we look to over God. Right? As I was thinking, like, where does God, how does God want us to spend time uh thinking about this passage? I think while we are not Jewish or Greek in that same way of what they're doing, we have our own things, our own boxes that we've created that we want God to fit into. And we often lessen our view and smallin, smallin's not a word, make smaller our view of God so that he can fit into those boxes. Um, and so we're gonna talk, spend some time talking about what some of those are. Not an exhaustive list, but when we can name them and be aware of them, we can start to resist their power over us. Because most of the time, I think we're not even aware of the way our culture shapes and forms us and creates our expectation of who God should be. It just kind of does its work on us and silently, just like if your house had termites or something, you might not even know they're there, but they're eating away at the core of your house, right? And in the same way, our cultural views of the world, they're not all bad, but they can shape and form us in ways that we don't even realize is happening. So these are things I think that if you were to claim you follow Jesus, you'd probably never say out loud, like something like, Hey, I listen to social media more than scripture. You know, I just do. I think it's got some good stuff there. We would never say that, but I think subconsciously it happens where we turn to other sources before we turn to God. Where we let these other sources have too big of an influence over the way we see the world. So again, not an exhaustive list, not saying all these things are bad and we're just gonna go start a cross point commune out in the prayer trails or anything like that. But I'd encourage you, pay attention to what maybe feels a little too close to home or where you're feeling a little defensive or offended, because those are usually the times that I'm like, oh, God might be trying to get my attention about something. All

Politics And The Demand For Proof

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right, first one is politics. Don't worry, this will be about a minute. So for those of you who have been here the last few weeks, we're not gonna spend another giant politics uh sermon here, although it was all great, right? But I think you know, we can we can keep moving through some other things too. Uh we expect God to fit into our political boxes that we feel most comfortable with, right? Whether it's how we view immigration or sexuality or whatever it might be, we have these political ideologies that become more important than kingdom ideologies, and we want God to fit and fit nicely into this political box. It feels much easier to squeeze God into our political boxes than it is to allow the kingdom to determine what is important to us and leave us feeling a little politically homeless because no party or candidate really captures all of the kingdom things that God cares about. All right, end. There we go. Um, secondly, I think science and reason are like a huge part of the cultural waters we swim in. That we want to be able to explain things reasonably, we want to be able to scientifically prove things, we want data to back things up. Like, if I can't explain it or scientifically prove it, often I don't buy it, like I don't believe it. And this is something that in our post-kind of enlightenment world feels very normal that data and science would inform every decision we make and all that we do, but it's actually pretty abnormal when we look throughout human history. So it shows up in lots of ways. Uh, when it comes to praying for miracles and God's healing, like this, I'm someone, if I'm being really honest, can feel really skeptical and like I have a hard time having faith that God can do something that is beyond my understanding, right? Which ends up limiting my view of God and limiting my experience of God when I let my like just kind of how I naturally feel guide and lead that. Um, kingdom values aren't always rational and reasonable, right? Generosity is not really a rational thing to like it makes more sense to invest your money and have more money for yourself later than it is to give it away to someone, especially if they might not use it the best way. And we can come up with all these reasons why it doesn't make sense to be generous or to be loving or whatever it might be, because it doesn't fit into our box of what makes sense. And we let that kind of like guide and determine whether God's commands for us are reasonable or not, if we can make sense of them. Of course, the problem with this is we're called to live in a really counter-cultural way that often goes against common sense and reason, that doesn't always fit with modern science, right? We we follow a God who heals people even when the doctors can't figure out what happened, not the other way around. And so when we allow science and reason to form the box we fit God into, we miss out on the mystery of God and the bigness of God. And this can even happen in faith. So I have this book here. This was a book I had to read in college, in Bible college. It's called Systematic Theology. This is only page 700 here in the middle. Uh I got things like okay, the covenants between God and man, miracles, the power of the church, justification, the person of Christ, like all these theological topics that get divided up and explained away in ways that make sense to our modern brains and minds. And there's not that there's anything even wrong with a big book like this that just explains, hey, here's how God works and here's what we can learn through scripture. There's nothing wrong with it, but it often will create a smaller view of God, where we neglect the mystery of who God is, that God is actually bigger than any book we could write about him, that his ways are like more mind-bending and bigger than what we can understand. But our modern fixation on like science and reason and being able to objectively explain something, uh, especially in faith, can actually limit our view of who God is. Alright,

Psychology Wellness And Jesus’ Way

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kind of a little bit of a related one here is that I see pop up a lot, and this is something, again, I'm not saying any of this stuff is evil, but is science or psychology and brain science. Right? This is something that uh it's super helpful. All this like modern psychology and studies done on groups of people and on individuals and ways we scan people's brain and understand what's happening inside while things happen. All this is super helpful stuff, but if we're not careful, it can become the box that we expect God to fit into. That we want him to make sense with our modern view of the world and how our bodies work and how our brains work and how it works with people. The wisdom of this world that we can create, like this is what God needs to conform to our idea. So I've said this before, um, and part of the reason why this one came up is I feel like in a lot of different Christian podcasts or different YouTube videos or things, there's a lot or books, there's a lot of talk about, oh, like bringing in modern psychology and brain science and all these studies of different things, which is all great, but sometimes that can become the focus, at least in my heart. So here's an example I've shared before that I'm not necessarily proud of. But if something in God's word is backed up by like a study showing that it'll be good for me, I'm more likely to do it than if I just read it in God's word. So there's a lot of studies done around prayer and meditation and being quiet before God, right? Uh, a lot of studies done on that. It's like, hey, this is actually really beneficial for your brain and your biochemistry and all these things. I'm like, oh hey, maybe I'll try that then, right? Well, God's been saying it like my whole life, but it took me hearing it from someone else in order to even try it sometimes. Um, and that's not a good thing. I'm not saying that's great. Um what it if it what it reveals inside of me is that I have more trust sometimes in these objective like studies that are done than I do in God's word passed down from generation to generation, right? Can be like, oh, that's old. Is that really gonna be helpful? I don't know, and like kind of judge it based off of how I feel. Um, and then kind of look at these other things. It's like, oh, this makes sense. Um, and it's not such a big deal when like these studies and things can like prompt us to follow God's word. Like, that's great if it if that's what it takes for people like me to be like, hey, I'm gonna try this. Like, that's okay, that's not so bad. The problem is when God's word doesn't line up with what modern studies and psychology and brain science would say, then what are we gonna do when there's uh there are cross purposes here? So, for example, the cross-shaped life of Jesus doesn't look like the life that wellness and psychology tells us about, right? Jesus often let people take advantage of him. He let people uh tread on his alone time. When he wanted to be out alone and people needed food, he kind of gave up his boundaries in order to love and help people. Uh he stayed, modern psychology would say you need to cut people, toxic people out of your life. Well, Jesus stayed in relationship with toxic people, and one of them even betrayed him and like handed him over to be killed, right? Jesus put himself in situations that provoked extreme anxiety, and he was willing to do that for the sake of other people, right? And so the life of Jesus doesn't always just fit nicely. With what, like whatever headline or article you're gonna read on the internet or in your inbox, right? Jesus' life needs to guide us, not the life that like modern psychological wellness is telling us, hey, this is the best way to live life. All right, again, kind of related

Influencers Echo Chambers And Discernment

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to that. I think another one people get trapped into is looking to things like social media and influencers over God. Again, we'd never say that actually, because that sounds really bad to say out loud, especially if you're in a church, but they end up having too much influence over us. Um, there's like all sorts of things out there that you might listen to a podcast, you might watch a YouTube video, you might read a book, you might, all these things from people that you trust. And what can happen is you start the more you listen to someone or follow someone, the more you feel like you get to know them and you really trust what they have to say. And at first you might be a little more critical of like, hey, I want to make sure like they're saying the right things, but once you get to like know someone and trust them, then you kind of what can happen is you end up taking whatever they say uncritically and just kind of bringing it into your life and saying, like, oh well, this person said this, like it must be true, right? Um now the problem with that, uh, so this can be a good thing uh where you're learning from other voices and people. The problem though is no one should be shaping you more than God is, right? And with our modern technology, it's so easy to let so many other voices have a bigger influence in our life than the God of the universe. So you need to be able to discern what is God's wisdom, maybe through this person, and what is just some random person's opinion on the internet that probably shouldn't hold that much weight in my life. Um, a lot of people, uh, you know, you follow someone or you see someone pop up as like an ad on Facebook or YouTube or whatever, and they put a Bible verse on their opinion, and then it's like feels like, oh, maybe this is God's wisdom. It's like, no, it's just some idiot who put a Bible verse on a stupid opinion that's now gonna lead you like way off track. We need to be able to discern these things and hold them up against scripture and hold them up with other people, not just like kind of get into these crazy echo chambers where all of a sudden we believe really wacky stuff about God and the world around us and people and all of that. So we need to be careful as we're interacting on social media, as we're listening to podcasts, that no one person is having too big of an influence on our lives. Right? Even if they're Christian, even if they seem like a really nice person, in fact, that sometimes makes it harder when you're like, oh, they seem nice, they seem normal, it's all just take whatever they say. We need to be careful how we sift through those things. All right, so those are a few sources. I want to also talk about some like ideologies or philosophies that we can kind of buy into, often without even realizing it. And some of these we've talked about before, so I won't uh belabor the point, but they're so present in our culture that they form us and shape us without us even realizing it. Um,

Hustle Tolerance And Follow Your Heart

25:04

so one is the constant growth and the myth of more. Like that I'm constantly growing, I'm constantly accumulating more wealth and more stuff, and rising on the social ladder, and rising on my career ladder, and like I just say more and more and more in order to be successful. Like to have a successful life, I need to have all these things, these accomplishments. And it's like just hustling and hustling and hustling to make more and more and more. And when this drives and consumes us and guides our daily life, the problem is God's kingdom usually doesn't look like that. Right? God's kingdom is slow. God is found in the quiet, God is found on the margins, not in this, like where all the success is happening. Like Jesus, the people he spent most of his time with were the people that if you were like a social climber in the day, would be like, why are you wasting your time with those people, right? But that's where God's kingdom is. And so if we allow this kind of idea of what success is to inform us and inform our faith and inform how we like structure our life, we are gonna be wildly off course of God's kingdom. Um, because God is found in the quiet, not the hustle. And that quiet, slow, quiet kingdom work, just like what Paul's talking about, looks like foolishness to everyone around you if you start to live that way. Like, what are you doing? Why are you doing that with your money? Why are you doing that with your life? Why aren't you signing up for more things? Why aren't you, you know, getting a promotion? Whatever it might be, it looks like foolishness, um, but it might actually be God's wisdom. All right, a second kind of like philosophy or ideology is tolerance and openness, right? We live in a culture that is very like tolerance, it is like one of the biggest values in our culture. You need to be tolerant of anyone else, no matter what they do, it's their life, just let them live their life. Right? Which there's nothing, there can be good things in this. Um, in many ways, this value in our culture has helped our world look a lot more like the kingdom, and that we treat people with dignity and respect, and we're more apt to see some of the complexities of social issues, and we recognize the value and worth of every human being. So there's like good stuff here. Um the problem though is Jesus often made exclusive claims. He said things like, he didn't say, Hey, all roads lead to heaven. He said, No one comes to the Father except through me, right? Which in our culture is like an offensive statement to say something like that. And so if we're not careful, our value of tolerance, that is just like the waters we swim in, can cause us to cast aside uh God's more exclusive commands and exclusive like uh things about God. We kind of like cut them off so that they fit more neatly into the box of our world. Right? And I don't know how many times I've heard people like treat God as if he's like a bigot and he's backwards, because like, oh, well, in our modern world, none of that makes sense here, right? And there are some things that are cultural in the Bible, but there's a lot of things people want to throw out just because it doesn't feel as warm and fuzzy as we want it to right now. Or just because it feels more exclusive than our world would allow. Um, but by the way, just a reminder, all of these like criteria that we're judging God on is is he open enough? Is he tolerant enough of other people's lifestyles? It's all very conditioned by the world we live in. Right? We think we have it figured out, but it's not objective truth. It's our own cultural values that then we're judging God on. And frankly, those values are very different a hundred years ago and will be different a hundred years from now. So we can't expect God to fit into those boxes of what we think God should look like. All right, then the last one here is kind of an ideology that we see a lot of is just follow your heart, right? Let you let your feelings guide you, go where the good vibes are. You know, however, you deserve to do whatever makes you happy. Um, and this is so much a part of our culture, and we all know this, um, that if we're not careful, we actually start to believe it. That I deserve whatever is going to make me happy. Doesn't matter what God says I should be doing with my life, I deserve what will bring me the most joy and happiness, which again, by the way, is a very culturally conditioned statement. We think we know what happiness is, but we often don't know what will actually make us happy. And our idea of what happiness is is a very culturally conditioned statement. Um, you know, we when we were talking about this in our preaching team meeting, we all talked about how so many times people will come and look for godly advice when all they're really doing is they've already made a decision in their heart and they're just looking for someone to rationalize it for them. Right? They're looking for permission to do whatever it is that they want to do anyway. Right? They've already made up the mind, their mind, like in their heart, because this is what they feel like they want, and then are grasping for reasons why this is okay. I don't know if you've ever talked to someone like that where they're they're asking for advice on something, or they're telling you, and you're like, I don't know, this doesn't feel right, that doesn't really make sense. But they know this is what we want in our hearts. And we all can do this. Where we want something, something captures our imagination or our heart, and then we uh figure out ways, we do like mental gymnastics in order to get what we want and still feel good about ourselves. But the thing is, God, He does care about your feelings and your heart, but God is not like changing his commands based off of what you want out of life, right? That's not really how it works. Like we're supposed to conform to what he how he's called us to live. He doesn't conform to like what we feel like doing today, and then on changes next week, maybe he'll change his mind again, right? It's not how it works. So these boxes

Action Steps And Closing Prayer

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we kind of create for God uh feel really normal. They feel like common sense. Like everything I talked about, and some level in our culture is just like, well, duh, that's obvious. Like, of course that's the way the world works. Um, but they often look more like our culture around us than they do God's kingdom. And we use these boxes to judge God, and we want them to conform to our idea of what's reasonable. And when we do this, we have the whole thing backwards, right? Just like with my kids, who in their I recognize how limited their view of the world is, they think they have it all figured out, and they're not even teenagers yet, so I'm a little terrified. Um, and they tell me how I should parent them based off of their view of the world. And I'm like, you have no idea what you're even talking about right now, right? And I imagine that's a little bit how God feels about us sometimes. When we tell God what he needs to do, how he needs to act, the kind of values he needs to fit into. I imagine he's looking at us with all those ideas of what's right or wrong or good or bad or what we think is gonna make us happy or lead to a fulfilled life, and saying, Man, what I want to give you is so much better than what you're fighting for right now. Like what I want to give you is better than whatever box you're trying to fit me in. Again, that verse and the passage we read today, the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. The way of the kingdom, this cross-shaped life and love that Jesus embodied is better than whatever information you can find on the internet or will come through your inbox. Uh, we're gonna talk in a couple weeks about how we seek out that wisdom. Because I looked at my next passage, I'm like, wisdom again, God, what do you think I'm lacking here? Um so we're gonna talk about how we actually seek out that godly wisdom, but ultimately it boils down to we need to spend time with God. We we need to spend more time with him than we do all these other cultural forces that are shaping us. Nothing replaces that real experience with him, to learn about his wisdom firsthand day by day, to learn about his cruciform, his cross-shaped power and love day by day. Seeking after him, studying his word, listening to wise people that you actually know and you can see the fruit of their life, not just randos you found on the internet. Right? Going to God in prayer and learning from him how to live the life that you have. And if you do that, you'll see that God often calls us to do things that look foolish to the world around us. And that is okay. It is okay if your conservative friends question why you're more empathetic towards immigrants than they are. It's okay if your romantic life looks different than all your other single friends because you're not willing to sleep around because you know that's not what God wants for you. It's okay if your accountant disagrees with how much money you're giving away, because God's asking you to do that. It's okay to lose the image of success in the world in order to gain the kingdom. In Luke 9, Jesus says this what good is it for someone to gain the whole world and yet lose or forfeit their very self? Because we follow a God whose wisdom doesn't look like the world's wisdom, but who also knows us better than we know ourselves, who also wants to guide and lead us to the better life than we could ever create for our like for ourselves on our own with the world's wisdom. And at times it might feel like we're sticking out or missing out on something, but ultimately when I look at my life and how God's led me and guided me, I don't think like, man, I've missed out on so much. Even though there's a lot I don't have or whatever, because of following godly wisdom, I just feel so blessed with the life God has given me and the who He is in my life, right? It's better than anything we could create for ourselves, better than any like success we could have, better than any amount of money we could have, any of that pills in comparison towards life lived in relationship with the creator of our souls who creates us and knows us and wants to speak life into us day by day. Um, all right, so as we wrap up here, maybe you know exactly what God's wanting you to do with this. That's awesome. Um, if not, here's a few action steps. You can find all these online too, along with some of the stuff I talked about. So this first section is just like things to pray about, maybe sit with a journal. What do you look for to over godly wisdom? Where do you try to fit God in a box? How do you relate to God when his ways don't make sense? Do you resist? Do you trust? Whatever. And then lastly, spend some time instead of just thinking about the idea of wisdom, actually read some godly wisdom in the Bible. Sermon on the Mount, super practical. James, super practical. Proverbs, just like spend time in God's word reading about wisdom. And then for this next one, if you have a little more time, try to look at your life through the lens of like noticing how following the counterintuitive way of Jesus has led to abundant life. So here's what I mean by this is a lot of times in my life, when God calls me to do something that feels like counterintuitive, I might resist it, or I might be like, what, does this really make sense? But when I think back to my life, like almost creating a timeline, you get really artsy with it, put some pictures into, but of like, man, here are some of the ways God has shown up for me in ways that I didn't think he was gonna show up, or I was like, how is this ever gonna work out? And yet God made a way through it. Uh, it gives me more courage to step into whatever it is he's inviting me into today. Right? When I remember um, you know, grow like uh working at my old church in Oregon and then moving out to Wisconsin and being like, where is Wisconsin? What am I doing? And my friends are like, Why are you moving there? What's going on? I'm like, I don't know, I'm trusting God. And it's like, man, I look back and I'm like, whoa, my life is way better than I could have ever imagined it, than had I just done things my own way. And so look for some of those things that can be these things you hold on to when God's calling you to do something difficult, so you have the courage to keep trusting and following him. So let me pray for us, and then we can go and if you, before I forget, if you are a parent of a kid in middle school, especially in fourth grade right now, Drew is doing a meeting in the room kind of right over there, so at the door to the left, uh, to kind of talk about what that transition from elementary school to middle school looks like. There will be punch. I think cookies too, but I know there's punch. Um, so let me pray for us. God, thank you so much for this day. God, we thank you that your wisdom doesn't look like the world's wisdom, even if that's really hard to stomach sometimes. God, I just ask that you would help us to loosen our grasp of all the things we hold on to that are that we hold on to is too much importance in our life. God, help us to let go of things like social media and influencers and politics and our own desire just to follow our hearts and our feelings. God, help us to let go of those things so that we can grasp a hold of the kingdom life that you have for us. God, give us the courage to trust you this week in little things and in big things when we don't know how it's gonna work out, when it feels confusing, but we feel like you're leading us to do something. Just give us the courage to say yes to that. So we thank you for your love and your grace that even though we've messed it up a lot, you still provide us endless opportunities daily to realign our hearts with you and to follow you in your way. So thank you for your love. In your name we pray. Amen. All right, have a good week.