Wisdom Matters

There was a time when families lived close to one another, worked together, knew one another, and knew they were to help one another through this life and until eternal life began. 

One of the challenges with God’s word is that many of us in this world, especially in American culture, do not live as families lived in the days of Scripture. But Paul’s words to Timothy should still be relied on as spiritual truth. Paul was teaching Timothy that Christians should honor and care for the “widows who are truly widows.”

First-century women who became Christians were often “disowned” by their Jewish families. They were socially unable to work and without a family, unable to provide for their needs and sometimes the needs of their children. A woman could be a widow because her husband had died or simply because her husband considered her “dead” to him.

Paul taught Timothy that Christians should “show godliness to their own household” and continue to care for their parents as well as others. God is pleased when his children work hard to remain a family that loves and honors one another.

Our culture still values those who “care” for their parents, but, as Christians, we will always have a higher calling as well. We are called to honor our parents and continue to “show godliness” to those in our families. That compassion and priority is “pleasing in the sight of God” and a strong witness to those around us.

Wisdom is pleasing God. Has a family member come to mind as a result of these words? Will you pray for the wisdom to know how to move your relationship forward in a way that will be pleasing to God?

This verse needs to be “studied” and not just “read” as it is translated. A God who demands to be “feared” does not seem appealing to most people. When we are able to teach them that to “fear God” means to hold him in our hearts and minds with amazing awe, they can then understand why the psalmist said, “The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him.”

Whenever we feel distanced from God or doubtful of his love and power, we need to take time to remember and trust that he has always been the God revealed to us in Scripture. We worship the same God who parted the Red Sea, raised Enoch and Lazarus, and who put breath in our lungs this morning.. 

Why does God take pleasure in the fact that we know and trust him at the deepest levels? God wants us to choose his leadership rather than follow something less. God wants us to seek his favor rather than popularity with the world. God wants us to “hope in his steadfast love” rather than depend on the imperfect love that will often be offered by people this side of heaven. 

When we place our hope in anything or anyone besides God, we are trusting something that is less than he wants for our lives. That’s why we were told to “fear” God and give him our honor, glory, respect, and trust. That right relationship to God will provide us with discernment, humility, faith, hope, and trust in the promises of God’s word.

Pleasing God is wisdom. Fearing God is the wise choice that brings pleasure to our heavenly Father because he wants us to place our hope in his “steadfast love.”

One of the most pleasant sounds in this world is the laughter of a baby. It is the sound of “pure” joy. Every eye in the room will turn toward that child, looking to see and experience what has prompted his joy.

Paul wrote Christian theology to the church in Rome. The book of Romans is one of the most important books every Christian should study to understand. In Romans 14, Paul wrote about the “kingdom of God.” That phrase can best be understood as “the place where the Lord rules as King.” Paul said that honoring God as our King is not a “matter of” customs but instead is a matter of “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”

We have so often defined our “witness” as the things we don’t do more than those things Paul said were the best indicators that a person lived with God as their King. Our witness is mostly about our “righteousness and peace and joy.” That witness emanates from the work of the Holy Spirit. He wants to lead us to serve Christ because that is the life that is “acceptable to God and approved by men.”

Our joy pleases God like the infectious laughter of a young child attracts all those gathered in the room. Joy is infectious. Righteousness, being right with God, marks a person’s life as belonging to God. And peace—unhindered trust in God’s perfection—is a powerful witness to others.

Paul taught the church, “Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men.” Pleasing God is wisdom. When he is King of your life, you will walk “right” with him, having his peace and his joy. That is a life that finds favor with God and man. We are called to pure laughter, pure joy, so that the world will want to experience whatever— or, in our case Whomever—has caused it.

Ezekiel was among those in the Northern Tribes of Israel who were taken captive by the Assyrians. During those years of captivity, he was called to bring a prophetic message to those he lived among. It was likely not a message they wanted to hear or believe, but it was God’s message.

God told Ezekiel to tell his Jewish kinsmen, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.” The Assyrians were the hated enemies of Israel. They had invaded the “promised land” and taken it as their own. They had harmed, and even killed, many of God’s children. Yet God wanted those who had been enslaved to understand that he didn’t want the Assyrians to die. Instead, God wanted them to live. God wanted the Assyrians to be changed through knowing the one true God.

Rather than condemning the enemies of Israel, God disciplined those who were supposed to live as his children with his wisdom. God told the Jewish people, “Turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?” God wanted to bless his people once again, but they would have to repent of their attitude toward their enemies.

What do the words of God to the prophet Ezekiel say to us, God’s children, today?

We cannot walk through this life choosing to honor God’s word as truth and not incur a few enemies along the way. Do we pray for those enemies with their salvation as our goal? Do we care more about their eternal lives than we do their earthly opinions or actions? 

God’s word to Ezekiel was his word for his children. He told Israel, “Turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?” God wanted his children to treat their enemies well, not wanting their deaths. Our enemies are likely on a wide path that will lead to a life without God’s blessings and could lead to their eternal death if unchanged.

God wants everyone to become his child through faith in his Son. God still needs his children to repent and understand what matters most. If God doesn’t want the death of our enemies, we shouldn’t either. 

Pleasing God is wisdom. Whom will you care about, pray for, and help? Their eternal life might be your great joy and reward as a result.

We don’t often think of ourselves as children, but God does. In fact, compared to God, we are toddlers at best! The fact that we view ourselves with the knowledge of all we have been through, learned, or studied doesn’t erase the truth that God wants us to always see ourselves as children. Why is that?

Children trust that their parents will care for them.

Children trust that their parents love them and want the best for them.

Children know where to run when afraid or hurt.

Children understand that doing wrong will likely receive discipline as a result.

Children believe their parents can do anything.

Children want to obey their parents and make them happy.

Paul reminded the Colossians, and us, that we are children called to honor and obey our earthly parents and the Lord, our perfect Father. One of the most important ways we please God is to understand that, compared to him, we are children in great need of our loving Father.

The Bible talks a lot about spiritual growth and maturing in our faith. The mistake we often make is to think that we have grown past our need for God's fatherly direction in our lives. We know more now than we did twenty years ago, but, compared to God, we are still just toddlers, if not infants!

God will always think of us as his children because he wants us to think of ourselves that way. The Lord wants to care for us, guide us, and walk with us through our lifetimes, willing to hold his hand.

Wisdom is pleasing God, our Father. A key step in pleasing the Lord is understanding that we will always be children who need to honor and obey our “parents” and, ultimately, our heavenly Father.

Do you see yourself as a soldier in the Lord’s army? The old hymn calls Christian soldiers “onward, marching as to war” and allowing the “cross of Jesus” to be carried “before” us as our banner of identification. That hymn was composed in 1865, and the image of marching into war was keenly understood in that day. 

When Paul wrote his final letter to his protégé, Timothy, he was likely writing from the Mamertine Prison in Rome. Paul had been arrested, had pleaded for the right to be tried in Rome, and was taken to that city and placed under house arrest. He wrote what we call the “Prison Epistles” at that time. But most believe Paul was released from house arrest and freed to do a fourth and final missionary journey, likely in the region of Spain.

Later, Paul would be arrested again, and this time he was sentenced to the Mamertine prison. When Paul was placed there, he knew that, apart from a miracle of the Lord, he was facing death. Paul’s circumstances make his second letter to Timothy a poignant reminder that, for those who serve Christ, sharing the gospel is “marching into war.”

We hear the phrase “culture wars” used fairly often today. American culture often seems to be divided down the middle, with both sides believing they are completely right and that makes the other side completely wrong. If opinion is our only concept of truth, our culture wars will always continue.

Paul gave Timothy some advice that every Christian should consider theirs as well. Paul said, “No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.” In other words, we know who our commanding officer is and always will be. We are to serve Christ on all sides of the culture wars. As the old hymn states, we are to follow Christ and carry his gospel message into war.

Do we see ourselves as soldiers with Christ as our commanding officer? Do we follow our “orders,” or do we pick and choose which orders we would like to follow?

Our only wise choice in our culture today is to remember Whom we are called to please. The Lord Jesus “enlisted” you when he gave you his Holy Spirit. Now, we are called to be his soldiers, carrying his message of the cross to everyone. The great hymn ends with the words, “This thro’ countless ages men and angels sing.” 

Wisdom is pleasing God. Times have changed, but the wisdom of God is eternal. His wisdom is the banner we should carry into the culture wars today.

Our human natures tend to struggle just a bit with submission. Embedded in the word is a sense that someone else is better or more important and can do a better job leading our lives than we can ourselves.

Actually, that is exactly what submission is for! We should consider submitting to God’s leadership a joy because we know his perfection can be trusted. Why then do we allow our human natures to rule us instead?

Pleasing God requires our submission, knowledge, and acceptance that God is better at running our lives than we are. This is especially true when it comes to our ministries. We want to please God, and we know the things that please him. But another factor is a key component to actually pleasing him.

Paul told the Philippians, “It is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” The key to pleasing God is submitting to his will and allowing him to work in and through our lives, to accomplish whatever is “his good pleasure.”

The biggest mistake most of us make is thinking the work of the ministry is our work instead of God’s work through us. When we think we know what God wants to do, we might fail to ask God what we should do. Submitting to God requires the understanding that, until we ask, we only think we know.

Which committee of people would decide to build a giant ark, step into a flooded river, or trust a man is their Messiah? Many of the things God will ask us to do will require our faith rather than our best ideas.

Wisdom is pleasing God. Which ideas do you need to wisely lay at God’s feet because you want him to work through you for his good pleasure?

Scripture tells us very little about Enoch. We know he is one of two men, Elijah being the other, who appears to have been taken straight to heaven without experiencing death on earth. The Enoch mentioned in Hebrews 11 may have been Noah’s great-grandfather and the father of Methuselah, the man who lived longer than any other. But the most important thing we know about Enoch was that “he was commended as having pleased God.”

Imagine being escorted from this life straight into the glory of heaven! That is a unique and amazing reward from God. Death is still considered one of the greatest fears people have, even among many Christians.

Most of the time, when the Bible says “fear not,” those words are a command. God doesn’t want us to live our lives motivated by our fears. We can’t please God if our decisions are made from our fears rather than from our confidence in the Lord’s promises.

Enoch was commended for his life and then taken straight into heaven as his great reward. The author of Hebrews talked about Enoch because he wanted his readers to remember that their promise of salvation included the promise of heaven as well.

Enoch pleased God with the way he chose to live his life, and we can too. Our reward could be the same as Enoch’s. We could be the last generation before the return of Christ. The skies could open and we could be taken to heaven having never experienced death.

Those who live with the promise of salvation are those who have placed their faith in Jesus as their Lord. On the last day we live on earth, we will be commended for our faith decision, and Jesus will usher us straight into heaven.

Wisdom is pleasing God. We don’t know when our last day on earth will arrive, but we do know that day will come. Until then, we are called to live wisely, like Enoch lived.

Hosea was a prophet to the Northern Tribes of Israel in the final days before their capture. Quite possibly, their capital city of Samaria had already fallen into the hands of the Assyrians. God used his prophet to help his people understand why he was no longer able to bless and protect them.

Hosea 4:6 is a powerful verse that speaks truth to every generation. God said, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” When people don’t know God, they don’t have his wisdom and don’t live in ways that please him. Many in the Northern Tribes of Israel had stopped caring about what pleased God and had begun to do whatever was pleasing to themselves or others.

God’s heart is clear in his word to Hosea. God told the prophet, “I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings” (Hosea 6:6). The people of ancient Israel would have said they “loved” God, but they also had affection for the false gods the culture enjoyed. Those same people would have said they had “pleased God” because they had gone to the temple and made the sacrifices for their sins that the Law required. But they also made sacrifices to the popular gods of the culture as well.

God made clear that it was “steadfast” love that he desired. God wanted the people to know him and walk with him, not just perform an act of worship that was only an act. God wanted those things because he loved them and knew what was best for their lives. The people didn’t want to know him as the one, almighty God. They gave only what they wanted to give, and their works fell short. We can’t please God without devoted love and obedience to his word.

Wisdom is pleasing God. Steadfast love for God is what produces our acts of obedience and devotion. Wisdom is knowing God in deep and profound ways and desiring to live a life he is able to bless.

Spiritual work is accomplished through spiritual strength. Spiritual strength is the result of a close personal relationship with God, a relationship anchored by our prayers. 

Paul knew how difficult it was for the early believers to live in a culture that did not appreciate or value their faith. The letter to the Colossians is one of the best books in the Bible on how to be faithful in a culture that doesn’t believe biblical truth. Paul began his letter by thanking God for the Christians in Colossae and told them of his constant prayers for them. Paul’s prayers for that ancient city teach us how we can pray for ourselves and other Christians today.

Paul prayed that God’s children would be “filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.” The early Christians didn’t own copies of God’s word, and seeking God’s will came from meeting together for worship and teaching.  They also relied on the guidance and voice of God through his Holy Spirit. Paul prayed they would be “filled” with everything they would need to walk with God’s wisdom, discernment, and understanding. 

We sometimes take for granted that we have easy access to the Bible and to God’s will. We can search for a topic on our computers and easily find plenty of verses that speak biblical truth to our thoughts and questions. Could it be that our easy access has caused us to rely more on what we choose to read rather than what God wants to speak to us through his Holy Spirit? Prayer is entering into a personal conversation with God himself. We should be careful to include God’s Holy Spirit every time we search for his word and will.

Paul prayed constantly that the Colossians would seek God for their spiritual strength. He knew what was necessary for them “to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.” Paul would pray for and encourage Christians today in those same ways.

Wisdom is pleasing God. We cannot grow spiritually without a powerful and personal prayer life. God wants to share his wisdom with his children so they can make choices he is able to guide and bless abundantly. That is the daily, moment-to-moment goal for our prayers. Our prayers are simply the conversations we are privileged to enjoy with our heavenly Father.