Follow God's Wisdom | Jud Wilhite

are so excited for the rest of this weekend. We want to give a quick shout out to all the men and women watching through our partnership with God Behind Bars. We are so glad that you're joining us. We love you and we're glad that you're here. Yes, we are just so grateful for you guys. Well, if you want to follow along with the teaching notes, you can find all of that in our central church app. But let's welcome out Pastor Judd as we kick off a brand new series. Alright. Good to see you guys today. Thank you so much for being with us. Big shout out to our central family locations who are joining us today. We want to welcome our central Summerlin family, central Aleante, Kingman, Sunrise Mountain. Thank you guys for being with us. Anybody like me and you look back over your life and you realize you've made a lot of mistakes? I've made a lot of mistakes. And some of them kind of come under the umbrella of it seemed like a good idea at the time. You know, seemed like a good idea at the time. Like when I was in high school and I was so bored out of my mind in Algebra I and I remember the high school teacher left the room and so I just happened to casually walk up by his desk and I saw that the grade book was open and there was my name and I had blanks where all the assignments I hadn't turned in yet were and so I just gave myself all A's. Seemed like a good idea at the time. And I didn't get caught believe it or not. I got passed. Algebra I, the problem came in the second semester when I didn't get that opportunity again and then I bombed and had to go to summer school. Come on, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Not so much. Or that time when I took my first car, just got my license, had my buddies in the car, we're out on some country roads, I'm showing it up and I'm like let's see how fast it will go in reverse. So I throw it in reverse, floor it and end up in the ditch y'all. I mean it seemed like a good idea at the time and it's not just high school mistakes. I could go on and on and on. I was thinking like one time years ago I invested money in what turned out to be a Ponzi scheme. Seemed like a good idea at the time. I remember once I was trying to fix our ceiling fan and rather than go flip the fuse at the fuse box, I thought I don't can just skip that step. I'm just going to like do it right here in the moment and I electrocuted myself. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Or one of my favorites was the time my beautiful wife came in and this flowing black and white dress and I looked up at her and without thinking I just said you look like a whale. And then I tried to explain,

I mean like Shamu, it's Sea World, black and white. I was talking about colors and that didn't even seem like a good idea at the time. That was just dumb. Just plain dumb. But we all have moments where we think God seemed like a good idea at the time but it became a really difficult situation. And I think that's the story of life. Life is hard. It's complicated. We want better for our families. We want to make good decisions. We want to reach our potential, see our families, reach their potential. We want our kids to have more and do better than we had and that we experienced in our lives. But if you're anything like me a lot of times when it just is up to you you make decisions that don't always turn out so well. And I think that's why we need so desperately what we're going to be talking about today which is wisdom. In fact when people ask me like hey John what can I pray for you? Almost always over the years I have one prayer request and it's heartfelt it's not a cop out. Like I genuinely mean it. Somebody says hey what can I pray for you? I say pray for wisdom. Pray for wisdom. Why? Because I'm the guy that just told you all the things I did growing up. I need wisdom, right? I need the ability to make wise God honoring decisions for myself, for our church family, for others. Like I need wisdom but we all need wisdom. In fact more than a new podcast to listen to, more than a new life coach, more than some strategic initiative. I believe what we need and what the world desperately needs now is biblical wisdom to help them navigate the complexity of life today. And the good news we're going to see today is God wants to share his wisdom with people. It's not hidden. In fact God's wisdom is the key that really opens every door in your life. wrong, good from bad, you know, better from good. It gives you the wisdom and the insight to navigate those situations. And so we're in this teaching series we're kicking off today called Make Your Life Count. How many of you want to make your life count? Come on. We all want to make our lives count and here's the thing we have less life in front of us than we had yesterday. The clock is on and we're gonna look at some ways that we can make our lives count. We're gonna do that by going back to First and Second Kings and First and Second Chronicles. We're gonna look at some of the kings of Israel because what's interesting about the kings of Israel is they often get like a one-sentence Yelp review at the end of their life. It's like this king, he did bad, he did evil in the eyes of the Lord, right? Or this king walked with the Lord and did good in the eyes of the Lord. And

so they get this kind of one-sentence Yelp review and we get to see like were they good or not good? Did they make their life count or not so much and we're gonna learn some principles for our lives. But the first one I want to look at with you today is King Solomon. And King Solomon was the third king of Israel. He was the son of David. He ruled in Israel at a time. Everybody would pretty much say was the golden age of Israel. A time of prosperity and wealth and amazing global influence. And Solomon had this sort of pivotal moment in his life when he was a teenager. God came to him in a dream. And in this dream God said, "Ask whatever you want and I will give it." Now can somebody, can you imagine like God comes to you and he's like, "Yo bro, ask whatever you want. It's yours. What do you say?" A lot of people will be like, "Money. I want a lot of money." Some people say like, "Fame. I want fame." Some people say like, "I want healing." Or maybe they think about a family member or a friend like, "This is the thing I want more than anything else." But you know what Solomon did? Even though he was only somewhere between the ages of like 15 to 20, he was young. Solomon said, "I want wisdom. I want wisdom." And this really pleased God. Look at this. First Kings, chapter 3, beginning in verse 10. I'm going to read this. Help me out when we get to the red word. It says, "The Lord was what pleased that Solomon had asked for wisdom." So God replied, "Because you've asked for wisdom in governing my people with justice and have not asked for a long life or wealth or the death of your enemies." Hello. Keeping it real. The Bible's always keeping it real man. I will give you what you asked for. I will give you a wise and understanding heart such as no one else has had or ever will have. And I will also give you what you did not ask for. Riches and fame. No other king in all the world will be compared to you for the rest of your life. Dang. If you ever get that moment, ask for wisdom. You know what I'm saying? Ask for wisdom. So God gave him tremendous wisdom which led to Israel's golden age. But he also gave him everything else that he didn't ask for in his life. And I don't think it's just a promise for Solomon. I think it's a principle for all of us that if we seek wisdom, get wisdom, and walk in wisdom, it will open opportunities for us, influence for us, and impact for us in

our lives. So how do we get wisdom and how do we live with wisdom? Well first, ask God for wisdom. Ask God for wisdom. You know my dad, he had some sayings. Maybe you heard some of these when you were growing up as well. If I came to my dad and if I asked him for a couple bucks, he would say this, hey, money doesn't grow on what? Trees. Right? My dad was like a small business owner. He knew the value of a dollar. He's always like money doesn't grow on trees. Right? You know another statement he would say sometimes is, hey, if it seems too good to be true, what? It is. I think back to my Ponzi scheme experience, you know, and like like I'm just telling you I'm super sensitive to this stuff today. Ever since then I've been like, yeah, no, no, no. If it seems too good to be true, run, right? Another one that my dad would say is, hey, you need to show up early. You know the early bird gets the gets the worm. That's right. The early bird gets the worm. Now these are like common sense sayings, right? Like these are these are things that we throw around in our culture and we need some more common sense in our culture, amen? Like we we need some common sense in our culture, but common sense is a little different than just like biblical wisdom, right? Because even common sense can can seem if you really think about it like, okay, so the early bird It gets the worm, but what does the early worm get? Like, does that mean the worm that slept in, drank coffee, didn't roll out till 10 o'clock? He gets to live another day, but the early worm got the bird. You know? Like, I don't know. But biblical wisdom is different. It's not just cultural common sense, it's God's wisdom on how life actually works. And he gave it in prose to Solomon. That's King's chapter 10, beginning in verse 23, he says, "So King Solomon became richer and wiser than any other king on earth. People from every nation came to consult him and to hear the wisdom what God had given him." This was wisdom God had given him.

And so, what does that wisdom look like? Well, if you read through the Bible, you can see wisdom showing up in several different ways. Like, if you have mastery of a craft or a talent in the Bible, there's places where it's called wisdom, right, when you know how the natural world works, that's wisdom. When you're skilled at combining people with resources and getting things done, that's wisdom. When you can sift truths from lies and good from bad and make good judgments, that's wisdom. It's not just about what you know, but how well you can apply what you know to make real change and progress. That's wisdom. And Solomon had, in fact, one of the early scenes in Solomon's reign, it's interesting these two women come in and they both come before him as king. And they're hysterical. And these two women say, "We were living in the same house and we both had a baby three days apart from each other and then one of the babies died in the night." And this one mom who's speaking says, "And then she swapped her baby for my baby and took my baby and is saying it's hers." Now what do you do with that? So Solomon says, "Somebody bring me a sword." Does they bring a sword? He says, "Cut the baby in half. Give one half to one mom and the other half to the other mom." In a different time, y'all, everybody's looking at me like, "What?" "Hey, the Bible's hardcore." And so this one mom is hysterical. She's like, "No, no, no, don't kill the child. Don't kill the child." She's like, "Just give the child to her. Okay, I take it all back.

Give the child to her. Let her raise the child." It was the other mom who was like, "Yeah, that sounds good." And Solomon knew immediately the real mom is the mom that was willing to give up her child for her child to live. And so he says, "Give the baby to that mom and let her raise it." What is that? It's wisdom, right? It's wisdom. The ability to discern. Now here's the thing. Solomon not only had tremendous wisdom, he wrote a large portion of a book in the Bible called Proverbs, which are wisdom sayings in the Bible. Now not all the Proverbs are by Solomon, and Proverbs are not promises. Those are different things. Proverbs are principles for our lives. In other words, a Proverb is saying, "Hey, generally this is how things work in life." If you do this, generally this is what will happen. It's not a promise that every time you do this, every time this will happen, but generally this is how things go. And so I want to just break down some of Solomon's wisdom, some of the Proverbs in the Bible, a few of my favorites, and let's talk about them for a minute because wisdom is available. In fact, the Bible talks about wisdom as a woman standing in a street corner that's very busy. It's like a crossroads. There are people walking all around her, and it says she's crying out. She's like crying out with wisdom, but the Bible says the people are distracted. They're all looking around. They're not paying any attention. Today we would say they're all looking at their phones.

Like here's wisdom, calling out, waiting to be heard, but everybody's looking down at their phones. And so God's wisdom is available. It's out there. It's in the Bible. It's accessible, and we can tap into it in our lives. Here's a Proverb, 22.6. This is direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it. Now that's a principle for our lives. It's not a promise. We'll tell you that I have known incredible parents who had kids lose their way. And I have known terrible parents that had amazing kids. Go figure, right? But for the most part, most of the time, to the parents in the room today, you should be tattooing this in your heart. Like your job right now is to raise your children in the right path, God's path, the biblical path in the Can I tell you, when I look back over all the years with my kids, you know, I'm sure we made a ton of mistakes. We did make a ton of mistakes. We dropped the ball in any number of ways. But what we tried to do was model being in church, the importance of church, dragging them to church sometimes, making sure they came to church, making sure they learned when they were in church and took those things home with them throughout the week. And when I look back at their lives, I think that was simply one of the most powerful things we can do. Let me just say a word to parents here today. It is so hard to raise your children on the right path today. Everything is coming against you in doing that. There are phones and all the things on their phones. Let's just call it out, sports.

Sports is becoming a full-time gig. Look, I had a friend that was in town because her high school or middle school age son is traveling all across the country to play in different sporting events just in a sporting league. I'm all for sports, but not at the expense of church and raising your kids in the right path and the way they should go. You got to prioritize it. Because look, if you come to church once every six weeks, you come to church -- let's go back, I'm not done yet. Let's go back up here. If you go to church once every six weeks, if you come to church once every two months and you don't really pour into your kids spiritually, you don't really do much beyond that, you're kidding yourself if you think that's really going to make that much of a difference with everything else coming at them in their lives. Just a thought. All right, next proverb, here we go. Pride goes before destruction and haughtiness before a fall. In other words, as soon as you think you're all that, as soon as you think you can't fall, as soon as you think your stuff doesn't stink, as soon as you think, like you can't learn from anybody else you got here on your own and you'll keep going on your own. Watch out. Watch out. Because it's that pride that goes before a fall. Here's another proverb for us. A gentle answer turns away wrath. Come on, somebody. But a harsh word stirs up anger. We need this word in our culture right now. There's a lot of anger flying around. And sometimes the most counter-cultural, counter-intuitive thing you can do in a moment is answer with kindness. I don't mean water down the truth of God's word. I just mean be kind about it. I've seen this again and again in my own life.

I've had people come up to me in anger, red-faced, enraged, letting me have it over whatever thing. And I've seen in that moment if I will stay calm and answer kindly, it just changes their whole demeanor. They almost don't even know how to handle it. Because I didn't respond to the anger with anger. Right? Here's another proverb. The generous will prosper. Those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed. Now if you're going to lay something over our culture today, you might say the greedy will prosper. Right? The whole idea is you got to get more, fight for more, hang on to more. More is going to make you happy. More is going to keep you together. The Bible's counter-intuitive here. It's not even really common sense here. It's saying, no, when you're generous. When you take care of your neighbors, when you're generous to your family, when you give back to God through your church, when you're generous with others, you will prosper you because God ultimately will prosper you. Those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed. You want to be refreshed, you want to be prosperous, commit your life to being generous. Here's another proverb. Fear of the Lord is the foundation or the beginning of wisdom. This is where it all starts. Fear of the Lord, not terror of the Lord, but fear and recognition and submission to the Lord. It's the foundation of wisdom. It's the beginning of everything else in our lives. In fact, I did a quick little study in Proverbs of what wisdom will do for us if we live it out in our lives. Check it out. Wisdom makes the simple-minded clever. How many wants to be clever? I'm pretty simple-minded, but I wouldn't mind being clever.

Come on, somebody. Wisdom does this. Look, look, look, it gives knowledge and purpose to the young. Where are my young people? Where are my young people? Any young people here today? You want to be older? You want to be older than your parents think you are right now? You want to be older than the adults in the room think you are right now? Lean into wisdom because it gives you a sense of knowledge and purpose. Somebody's like, "Yes." Look, it helps you avoid the traps that want to steal your life. It helps you avoid disaster. Wisdom will fill you with joy. It'll make you safe, the Bible says. Wisdom will watch over you. Wisdom will save you from evil people. Wisdom will give you a long and satisfying life. Wisdom will bring you honor and respect. Wisdom will guide you down a delightful path. Wisdom, it says, will make you happy. Who wants to be happy? Wisdom, the Bible says, will ultimately lead to happiness. It will give you rest, it will open you up to God's favor. It will multiply your days and add years to your life. See, wisdom isn't about how much you know, it's about how well you live. So if you want your life to be longer, better, filled with good decisions, ask God for wisdom. The Bible says in James it says that we can ask God for wisdom.

We don't have it because we don't ask. We should be asking God for wisdom. Can I just encourage you every day this week to make it a part of your prayer requests? To wake up and yeah, you pray for breakthrough in your life. You may pray for a career breakthrough. You may pray for a dating breakthrough. You may pray for a marriage upgrade, even though you're already in the marriage, God upgrade me. He'll upgrade them, do a miracle in their life. Okay, I get it, right? But also pray for wisdom because wisdom is the key that opens every good door in our lives. Ask God for wisdom. Then here's another thought, walk in wisdom. Walk in wisdom. You ever notice it like book smarts are not the same as life smarts. Look, you can be a PhD and be a fool, right? And you can have no education at all and be wise. Look at this far side cartoon. Here's this kid, Midvale school for the gifted. He's got his big book, but the door says pull and he's pushing. Wisdom is about how we live our lives. It's not about like how much book knowledge we have. It's how well we apply it and walk in it in our lives. And Solomon, well, he started off so well and he was given amazing wisdom. And the country grew, it thrived.

God fulfilled his word to him. There was wealth, there was success. But you know, success in and of itself can be really dangerous. And the more wealthy he got and the more comfortable he got and the more established he became, he began to drift. In fact, Solomon, well, God had commanded that the kings of Israel, first of all, they weren't to take multiple wives. Secondly, most of them did. Secondly, they weren't to marry foreign women because the temptation was it could lead to the worshiping of foreign gods. OK? Solomon went about as far as you could go the other direction in that. He had 700 wives and 300 concubines. Now somebody-- it's-- look. [LAUGHTER] OK, it wasn't about a lot of what we think it's about today. These were political arrangements. This was politics. This is how you kept peace with your neighbors. This was how you-- but God, he forbade it because he was concerned that it would lead to the worship of other gods and to trusting human means rather than trusting him. Solomon did it anyway. And in the later years of his life, he began to worship other gods. He lost his way.

In other words, the foundation of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. And that very foundation, one of the wisest men on the planet, that's what he forfeited, the foundation. And so 1 Kings, chapter 11, verse 9 says this, "The Lord was very angry with Solomon for his heart had what? Turned away. His heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, like not everybody gets this. Hello. He had appeared to him twice. He had warned Solomon specifically about worshiping other gods. But Solomon did not listen to the Lord's command. So now the Lord said to him, "Since you have not kept my covenant and have disobeyed my decrees, I will surely tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your servants." So Solomon, he drifted. He went his own way. He made mistakes and failed. And in the end, his record is a pretty mixed record. God gave him tremendous wisdom. And when he was young, he started out with so much promise. And I just went back to that chapter where it's talking about the early days of Solomon and pulled out a few things that jump out at me about Solomon and his attitude and his life to inspire The first thing you see in Solomon's life is this,

that he was grateful. And can I just tell you one of the most powerful things you can do if you want to live with wisdom in your life today is wake up every day and give thanks to God for who he is and for what he's done in your life. Be grateful. Be grateful. The second thing you see in Solomon's life is he was humble. And I would just say stay humble. Stay humble. Remember that God is God and we are not. That none of us are above him and his laws and his principles that were all called to serve him, humble yourself before God. And in the early days of Solomon's reign, he would basically ask for help. He would say, I'm young, I don't know. He would get wisdom, he would have counselors come around to me. Why do you only do that when you're young? Listen, I want to be the kind of leader that's always bringing people around the table saying, you know what, I may be old now, but I don't understand this young stuff. Somebody tell me what I'm missing. Somebody help me see the things I'm not seeing. Humble yourself before God and before others. And that will help you keep a heart of wisdom. Third thing I see in Solomon's life is that he was helpful. Stay helpful. Solomon was focused on others early on. Not himself, not his comfort, not his reign.

He was focused on how do I lead God's people in the best way for their good and for the glory of God. When you make life about others, when you keep it about serving others and helping others, it will always help keep things in perspective for you. So stay humble, stay helpful in your life, and submit to God and walk in the wisdom that he's given you. This last week I watched a podcast episode with a guy that was very influential in my life a very long time ago. When I was in graduate school, this guy was a theology professor. He was one of the smartest people, maybe the smartest person I've ever known. Probably has a photographic memory, like close, if not truly a photographic memory. Unbelievable intelligence, PhD in theology from the University of Chicago, grew up in Belgium, speaks multiple languages, as well as like Greek, Hebrew. I mean, the guy was amazing. And I spent a lot of time with him in my years in graduate school, in his office, asking him questions, getting recommendations for what to read, bringing all my stuff to him, basically, emotionally throwing up on him. And then, he kind of took me under his wing. I went to his house, I met his family, like I would go over to his house, and these conversations will go late into the night. He was amazing with me, and God used him

in a key pivotal moment in my life to really grow my faith and stretch my faith in a powerful way. Well, I heard, after I was already a pastor at Central many years ago, that he had retired from teaching theology for 40 years and Bible for 40 years, he retired. But then I heard, after he retired, he ended up renouncing his faith and walking away from his church and turning his back on Christianity. And when I first heard it, I was like, kind of like you. Like, oh, and then I remember my first thought was, he'll be bad. 'Cause he knows too much, he's just so phenomenally smart. He's educated in very secular universities for multiple years in his life. He's got all these doubts he wrestles with, but he'll be back. Sure enough, I watched him on this podcast, and it was kind of amazing because he tells his story of how he kind of stepped back from God and faith and church. He had too many doubts, too many questions, too many things he could never resolve in his mind. And then his wife got ALS, which is a terrible disease that takes the ability for you to control your muscles. And over 22 months, he cared for his wife at home. I mean, he helped keep her from falling. He cleaned her up, he would bathe her, he would have to take a suction tube

and suction out her throat. He would feed her like all the things that you do when you're the caregiver of somebody in that situation. And he said, in the middle of all this, he hadn't prayed in years, he hadn't been to church in years. He said, he's in the shower washing his wife's feet. And he has this like spiritual experience. And he suddenly just hits him like, there's no way that if there's no way, the story of Jesus washing the disciples' feet was false. He's like nobody in their right mind would have expected a Messiah to come to the world, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and to wash somebody's feet. But that's the story and that's the story that's gone all over the world. You could never make that up. He's like washing her feet. And he said, then later, like he sat down at his computer right after that another email from another friend who was going through a lot of health problems and he said tears were coming down his face and without even realizing what he was doing he just started to pray for them because he didn't know what else to do. And he said at the end of that moment he thought there has to be a God. There is somebody that I'm praying to right now. And then his next thought he said was I got to get to church. I have to worship. And so he goes to church not his original church. He was keeping his head down but he goes in and he begins to worship and he gets back on a spiritual pathway but this is how he described it when I heard him interviewed recently. He said I don't think anybody who knew me would think I'm an arrogant guy and everybody who knew him would know that even though he was probably the smartest person I ever knew he was incredibly

humble and kind. He says I don't think anybody who knew me would ever say I'm an arrogant guy but in my heart of hearts I had questions that no one could answer and I was the Lord of my own little existence. I had to be humbled in serving my wife to dare to say there's things that I do not know and are not for me to know. He said there are questions that I have learned I can live with but there are answers in the Bible and from God that I cannot live without. Friends if you ask me that's wisdom. There are questions I've learned I can live with but there are answers in the Bible and from God that I cannot live without. So now he's returned to faith he's returned to church he's returned to teaching like God's using his life and his story in a powerful way. And wisdom says I don't just need to know things and be really smart. Wisdom says I need to surrender my life to God the fear of the Lord that's the beginning of wisdom. Yes there may be questions that I do not know the answers to right but there's so much that God has revealed that I don't want to live without. And when I follow him and surrender to him it is the key that opens every door. We should pray for wisdom and put God first and walk in wisdom because listen God is over everything right. God's over money he's over success he's over comfort intelligence your doubts your fears your expectations he's over suffering he's over politics he's over the economy he's over your past he's over your future he's over AI come on somebody he's over gas prices he's over whatever they're trying to scare us with this week he's over your mind he's over your bodies over your heart he's over your soul he's over everything and that means that he can do anything. And when we walk with him and surrender to him he will show up and move in our lives. So how do we get wisdom so that we can live well first ask for wisdom. It is a hidden it's standing on the street corner calling out it's in the word of God in the Bible right there ready to be discovered and then walk in wisdom revere the Lord that's the foundation of wisdom don't just follow your heart or follow the trends follow God he knows how things really work and God's wisdom is the key that opens every door in your life. I can I tell you when you get to the New Testament there's several passages where the Apostle Paul makes some amazing statements and they're all along these lines that Jesus Christ is the power and the wisdom of God. In Colossians he says that basically in Christ the wisdom of God as make it has made itself known and so for us in our lives following Christ and surrendering to him that's the beginning you experience

the wisdom of God through faith maybe you're here today and maybe you haven't surrendered your life to Jesus I want to give you that opportunity to come to him to place your faith and trust in him to ask him to move and work in your life with all of you bow your heads and close your eyes if you'd like to become a follower of Jesus today you can begin that journey by repeating a simple prayer after me to say dear God I thank you for loving me thank you for sending Jesus into the world I believe he died on the cross for my sins I believe you rose again forgive me for my sins give me the gift of eternal life and help me face the challenges that I'm up against God I surrender my life to you in Christ's name and friends with every head bowed and every eye closed if that's your prayer it's your commitment today I want to ask you to just slip your hand in the air in our partnership with God Behind Bars, slip your hand in the air. Acknowledge you're going to follow Him, surrender to Him, trust Him, seek His wisdom. God, I thank you for each person just reaching out to you today. And I pray you move powerfully to you, guide, protect, lead, heal, do an amazing work as they trust you. In Jesus' name, Amen. Amen. I'm going to ask you to please be seated for just a moment. If you made a spiritual commitment, in just a moment, I want to encourage you to come down front. I've got some amazing team members down here. We'd love to give you a journal, how to follow Jesus, a real guide to help you over the coming days and weeks begin to grow in your faith. So please come down and see them. And if you need prayer in your life, I know we've already prayed for people in our services, but if you need prayer and you're going through some things and just really want to bring that prayer request to God, you can also come down front here on either side. We'd be honored to pray for you and with you. Whatever your kind of decision you need to make today, please come down and let us know. Would all of you stand together with me?