Learning to Live Wisely — Part 1

Hey, everybody. You know, Pastor Rick Warren often says you were made by God and for God. And until you understand that, well, life will never make sense. Thank you for joining us today on Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and in our series called God's Vision for the Rest of youf Life. Today, Rick will continue in his effort to help you discover the unique purpose and vision that the Lord has for your life. Right now, here's Pastor Rick with part of a message called Learning to Live Wisely.

If God were to say to you, I'll give you anything you want in life, just name one thing, I'll give that to you. What would your answer be? I'd like fewer problems. I'd like to get married. I'd like to get out of debt. I'd like to. To have no more conflict than my relationship. I doubt you would ask for what Solomon asked for. This question was actually asked by God to a guy in the Bible. God comes to Solomon one day. Solomon was the son of David, the king of Israel. And later, Solomon became king. And God asked Solomon one day, what would you like in life, Solomon, I'll give you anything you ask for in life. Name one thing, and I'll give it to you. Solomon did not ask for wealth. He didn't ask for fame. He didn't ask for comfort. He didn't ask for pleasure. He said, God, I want you to give me wisdom. I want you to make me the wisest man in the world. Now, Wisdom, really? I mean, if God had asked me, what's the one thing you want in life, I don't think I would have asked for wisdom. I doubt you would either. That might be on my list, but it certainly wouldn't be number one. But Solomon, out of all the things he could ask God for, says God, more than anything else, I want you to make me wise. God was so impressed with this request, so touched by Solomon's request, he said, solomon, I'm gonna grant it. And I'm not only gonna give you wisdom, you're not only gonna be the wisest man in the world. I'm gonna also make you the wealthiest man in the world, the most famous man in the world, the most powerful man in the world of your day. I'm gonna give you everything that everybody else wants, too. Because you asked wisely. We don't understand how important wisdom is. We don't realize that it is the key to literally everything else that you want in life. Notice on your outline, the Bible says this. Proverbs, chapter 8, verse 11. Wisdom is more precious than rubies. Nothing else you could ever want is as valuable. Are you kidding me? Nothing else I could ever want is as valuable as wisdom. It says it's more precious than rubies. I don't really know the value of rubies, so I had to look it up this week. Highest quality Rubies are worth 10 times what diamonds are worth 10 times. Let me put this in perspective. A gram of gold is worth about 50 bucks. Specifically, a gram of gold is worth $53 today. A gram of rubies would be worth about $50,000. That is exponentially more valuable than gold or diamonds. And God is saying, wisdom is far more valuable to your life than you could possibly imagine. And if you will get wisdom in your life, it will bless you in every other area of your life. This is what you need to want more than anything else. The Bible says this. Proverbs 4. 7. Getting wisdom is the most important thing you can do. Really? Really. I mean, I wouldn't have thought that. I wouldn't think that getting wisdom was the most important thing I could do in life, but you might circle that. The most important thing you can do is to get wisdom. Now, what is wisdom? Wisdom is seeing things from God's point of view. It's not knowledge. You can get knowledge a lot of places. You can go to college, you can. You can go to school, you can get all kinds of degrees, and you can get a lot of knowledge. But a person can be knowledgeable and not wise. A person can be educated and not wise. Wisdom and knowledge are two different things. A lot of educated people are actually fools. And a lot of foolish people or uneducated people are actually quite wise. Because wisdom is seeing life from God's point of view. And it says, of all the things in life, getting wisdom is the most important thing you can do. What I want us to do this weekend is two things. Look at. Why is wisdom so important to me? Why is it the most important thing that I should want? Why should it be the number one goal of my life? To get wisdom? Why is that the most important thing? And then second, we're gonna look at how to get it. Now, fortunately, Solomon, the wisest man, wrote a book about it. It's called the Book of Proverbs. It's in the middle of your Bible. If you take the Bible and you open it right in the middle, you come to the Book of Proverbs. And the Book of Proverbs is the book on how to live wisely. There are 31 chapters in the Book of Proverbs. That means if you read a chapter a day, you would go through the book of Proverbs once a month. I know many, many businessmen who make a practice to read a chapter a day of Proverbs. It is so jam packed full of practical wisdom on life, relationships, business, money, time, anything like that. They read a chapter a day and they go through the book once a month. Let me read to you the introduction to the Book of Proverbs to explain how important wisdom is. It's here on the screen. Watch this. Chapter one, verse one. These are the proverbs of Solomon, David's son, king of Israel. The purpose of these proverbs is to teach people wisdom and discipline and to help them understand wise sayings. Through these problems, people will receive instruction and discipline, good conduct and doing what is right, just and fair. These proverbs will make the simple minded clever. And it means if you're dumb, it'll make you smart. These will give knowledge and purpose to young people. If you're a young adult, you're a teenager, you should be devouring the book of Proverbs. It will give you purpose and knowledge. Let those who are wise listen to these proverbs and become even wiser. And let those who understand receive guidance by exploring the depth of meaning in these proverbs, these parables, these wise sayings, and these riddles. Now, over and over and over again in the Bible, God stresses the importance of wisdom. He says it's the number one thing you need to want in life. It should be your number one goal. Because if you get wisdom and it's gonna affect every other thing in your life for the better, for the good. Proverbs, chapter 9, verse 12 says this. If you become wise, you'll be the one to benefit. Circle that word. Benefit. You'll be the one. Brings personal benefit to you, wisdom does. But if you scorn wisdom, you'll be the one to suffer. Why? Because all of the problems in your life come from a lack of wisdom. All of the problems in your life come from making foolish decisions. The reason you have financial problems is because you make foolish financial decisions. The reason you have relational problems is because you make foolish relational decisions. You don't make wise decisions. There's a verse in the Bible that says there's a way that seems right to man, to women, to human beings. There's a way that seems right to us, but it ends in death, it ends in destruction. It ends in a dead end. In other words, I make decisions with my money that I think seem the right thing to do, but they're foolish decisions and I get in trouble. There are things that I do in relationships that I think are the right thing to do. In my relationships, I, and they seem right to me, but they're wrong, they're not wise. And so I have dead ends in my relationships. There are career moves that I make that seem to be right to me, but they're wrong. They're foolish decisions because I lack wisdom. I keep running up against dead ends. So if I fill my life with wisdom, then I'm gonna benefit from it. I'm gonna be wiser and, and I'm gonna have fewer problems and I'm gonna have more success in my life. Now, the book of Proverbs lists all kinds of reasons or benefits why wisdom ought to be the number one goal of your life. I'm gonna just give you 18 of those reasons, 18 benefits. I've listed the verses there in your outline and I'm not even gonna comment on these. They're pretty self explanatory. I'm just gonna read them through very quickly. And I want you to circle each of the 18 benefits to your life if you become a wiser person. So let me read them quickly. You circle the benefits. Proverbs 24:14. Wisdom is good for the soul. Circle that. Good for the soul. Get wisdom and you'll have a bright future. Circle that. So you're gonna have. It'll be good for the soul. You'll have a bright future. Now you wanna succeed in life, look at what the Bible says. Proverbs 19:8. Those who get wisdom, do themselves a favor. And those who love learning will succeed. Circle will succeed. You wanna be a success in life? It's real simple. Get wise, wise up, learn wisdom. The more wisdom you have, the more successful you'll be in life. Proverbs 8:4. Treasure wisdom and it will make you great. Circle that. Hold onto it and it will bring you honor. Circle that. So in the first few verses we see, wisdom is good for your soul. It'll give you a bright future. It'll cause you to succeed, it'll make you great, and it'll give you honor. Now everybody look up here. How many of you would say, I don't have enough time to get everything I need to do done in my life. How many of you would say that? That's a wisdom problem. The next verse says, this wisdom will multiply your days and add years to your life. What's he saying there? It'll multiply your days when you are Wise. The wiser you are, the wiser you manage your time. And the better you manage your time, the more you're gonna have of it. The reason why you don't have enough time to get it done is you make foolish decisions. You make unwise decisions with your time. The wiser you become, the more time you're gonna have. Wisdom is a time management issue, and time management is a wisdom issue. Not only that, it says it will add years to your life. That's a flat out promise of God. God says if you live wisely, you're gonna live longer. Now you got my attention. Okay, now you got my attention. It's gonna cause success. It's gonna make me great. It's gonna bring honor. It's gonna multiply my time. It's gonna give me more, extend my life. I'm interested in wisdom. Next verse. Proverbs 24. 5. Wise people have great power. Circle that. The more wisdom you have, the more power you have in your life. Proverbs 3:35. Wise people will gain an honorable reputation. Circle that. The wiser you are, the more people are gonna like you. The more people are gonna love you. The more popular you're gonna be, the more your reputation is gonna be honored. And you have a good reputation, because you're not foolish. You're not a fool. You're wise. Now, how many of you would like this year to be better than last year? Can I see your hands? Yeah, I think that's unanimous. That's a wisdom issue. Making their life better. Look at the next verse. Wise people's lives get better and better. Why? Cause we're not making the same mistakes we made last year. If I'm wiser this year, my life is gonna be easier this year. If I'm wiser this year, my life is gonna be better this year. Cause I'm not making the same foolish mistakes. I'm not repeating the errors of the past. The wiser I get, the better my life gets year after year after year. So obviously, I don't wanna be a fool. I wanna be a wise man. I wanna be a wise woman. The next verse, Proverbs 3, 16, 18, mentions seven major benefits of getting wisdom in your life. Notice this, right? Circle them All. Wisdom offers you long life. That's the first one. As well as wealth. That's the second. Wealth is a mark of wisdom. You wise up. You use your money wisely. As well as wealth. And honor. Circle honor. Wisdom can make your life pleasant. In other words, it's not as hard. If I make Foolish decisions. Life is hard. If I make wise decision, life is pleasant, it's easier. It says wisdom can lead you safely through life. In other words, wisdom is a protection, keeps you from making mistakes. You circle that. Those who become wise are happy. You want happiness. Wise up. The wiser you get, the happier you'll be. Wisdom will give them life. In other words, true life. Now, friends, those seven benefits are so ridiculously over the top. If I didn't believe that was in the Bible, it sounds like an infomercial. I mean, if I held up a product that said, this product will give you a long life, it will make you wealthy, it will bring you honor, it will make your life pleasant and easier than before. It will lead you safely through the problems of your life, it will make you happy, and it will cause you to experience life that was meant to be lived. You'd be going, I don't believe it. It's unrealistic. But I didn't say this. God said it. God said it. And God is telling you the value of learning wisdom. This is why we're gonna do the next six weeks. If you become more wise, these things will be true in your life. One more verse. Proverbs 4:12. Nothing will stand in your way if you walk wisely. Circle that, nothing will stand in your way. In other words, you got your dream, you got your goal. Wisdom will show you how to get around all the barriers. Nothing will stand in your way, and you will not stumble. You're not gonna make as many mistakes when you run. If you are wise, do you see how important wisdom is to your life? Do you understand why wisdom should be the number one goal of your life? Do you realize how it's worth the next six weeks of your life to hear it, read it, study it, memorize, meditate on it, to learn how to live wisely. Now, like everything else, wisdom is a choice. Happiness is a choice. Being close to God is a choice. Success is a series of making wise choices. Wisdom is a choice. You gotta learn to be wise. And what I wanna do is talk to you about what the Bible says are the five ways to build wisdom into your life. Bible's very specific that if you do certain things, then you make certain choices. You will become a wiser and wiser woman. You will become a wiser and wiser man. Well, if wisdom has so many benefits to my life, why don't we live more wisely? The answer is, it's harder. It's harder. It's quite easy to make foolish decisions. It's Quite difficult to make wise decisions. We are not by nature wise people by nature. We do the dumb thing, we do the foolish thing, we do the easy thing. You don't come out of the womb by automatically being wise. Wisdom has to be learned. And until you do the five things that cause you to learn wisdom, you're not gonna learn wisdom. You can go to school for the rest of your life and not learn wisdom. You could read all kinds of books and not learn wisdom because wisdom is seeing life from God's viewpoint. So you've got to make a choice to to learn. The Bible says in Proverbs 4, verse 5, Learn to be wise. Circle the word learn. You gotta learn to be wise and develop good judgment. That's a choice. It's your choice. You don't have to learn, you don't have to develop. It's your choice. Recently I got a letter said, pastor Rick, I regret that I didn't open my life to Jesus until very late in my adult life. I regret that so much that I wasted so many years going in the wrong direction. I feel like I will never catch up. Well, you're wrong. You are never too old to learn to be wise. If you're alive, if your heart's beating, if blood is pumping through your veins, then you can learn to be wise. You're also never too young to learn to be wise. Wisdom has absolutely nothing to do with your age. You can be old and a fool. You can be young and wise. Would you agree with me it's possible to grow older without growing up? Everybody agree with that? Don't look at em. You can grow older without growing up. A lot of people grow old. Wisdom. You can be old and still be a spiritual baby. You're still walking around in spiritual diapers at 95 years of age. Or you can be a young person and you can be full of a lot of wisdom cause you're doing the things that make you wise. How do I learn to be wise? Well, the Bible says in the book of Proverbs you do five things. And just for fun, I decided to put these five things in acrostic. L, E, A, R, N. These are the five things you must learn to do in order to learn wisdom. Let's look at them. Number one, the first thing if I wanna be wise is I must. The L in learn stands for I must listen to God's word every day. I must listen to God's word every day. Not just listen to the radio, not just listen to television, not just listen and read what's on the Internet. I gotta listen to God's word every day because that's where the wisdom comes from. Proverbs chapter 1, verse 7 says this. Start with God. The first step. Start with God. The first step in learning is bowing down to God. The Bible says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Why? Cause it comes from God. Let me show you the next verse. Proverbs 2, 6. It is the Lord who gives wisdom. From him comes knowledge and direction. You don't get it from television. You don't get it from the Internet. You don't get it from magazines. Wisdom comes from God. Question. How many of you believe everything you read in the newspaper? Of course none of us do. How many of you believe everything you hear on the radio or watch on television? No. How many of you believe everything you read on the Internet? You don't. How many of you believe everything God says is true in his word? Question. Why do we spend more time reading and listening to what we don't believe and what we do? Tell me the logic of that one. Okay. There are a lot of things in life you can read about. They don't build your wisdom. They just keep you pretty much about the same. You gotta start with the Word. Now the Bible says this. Proverbs 15, verse 14. A wise person is hungry, hungry for truth, while the fool feeds on trash. You gotta print that verse out and tape it to your television. You're gonna either feed on truth or you're gonna feed on trash. And whatever you fill your mind with is what's gonna come out. Garbage in, garbage out. If you wanna be wise, you gotta feed on truth every day, not feed on trash every day. Now you remember a year ago when we did 40 days in the Word and I talked about. There are three kinds of things you can fill your mind with. You can fill your mind with poison. You can fill your mind with junk food. Or you can fill your mind with health food. Three kinds of reading material or content. Poison is stuff that poisons your system. It's bad for you. It takes you down. Pornography is poisonous. You know, we worry about air pollution. You should worry more about your mind pollution. What you allow in your mind is far more important than what you breathe because this is the computer that runs your life. We worry about making sure my water is pure. I gotta have pure water. You should worry more about the pure content that goes into your mind. Some people are so open minded, their brains fall out. You know, they let anything. It's like a railroad going through them. And say, you know, you know, they say, well, I can watch that stuff. It just doesn't bother me anymore. That's the problem. You have become so desensitized to evil, it doesn't bother you anymore. You can watch a rape on a movie, it doesn't bother you. If that didn't bother you, you got a problem. You have become desensitized to evil. If you can watch a rape and it doesn't bother you. And when you can watch stuff that is vulgar, profane, blasphemous, evil, vile, abusive, and it doesn't bother you and you can read it, you have a problem. You have become a fool. Wise people protect their mind. They put on the helmet of salvation. They put. They don't just let anything into their mind. That's poison. You keep it out.

Hey, thanks so much for listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. I hope you were as blessed as I was from today's show. And now here's Rick to tell you about today's offer.

I know many of you use the Daily Hope Devotionals as part of your regular Bible study and so I want to share some exciting news. We've put 365 of the best devotionals into a brand new book that we're calling the Daily Hope Purpose, Peace and Promise for Every Day. This devotional book is designed with clear, practical biblical teaching to help you make knowing God your number one priority. And what does that mean for you each day? It means you'll be able to conquer your fears and overcome temptations. You'll be able to let go of your worries and to shake off stress. And by starting your day focused on God, you'll be prepared to face any conflict as you build healthy relationships within your family, your neighborhood and at work. This book is a great way to share the hope you have in Jesus with your friends and co workers and relatives. I hope you'll get a copy for everyone you know.

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