The Wisdom of God (final Remark)

[Speaker 1] Church life fellowships cannot be more spiritual than the individuals and families that constitute them. God will even desire the godly home. These are words of restoration and instruction in righteousness from Family Tent Ministry. May you be blessed as you listen. [Speaker 2] Praise ye the Lord. Hallelujah. We thank God again that we are gathered this Monday for our discipleship class and I believe that today by the mercies of God it will be the conclusion of the wisdom of God. The topic that have continued for about four months now. I believe that today we'll be concluding on it as we look at episode 15? Technicals, please help me out. Is it episode 15 or 14? Okay. This final one, Wisdom of God, Final Remark as we conclude today. Trusting the Lord that it will be a time again in His presence to learn and to be refreshed by the mercies of God. Let us have a word of prayer as we start this evening. Precious Father, we thank You. We bless Your holy name. We give You glory. We give You honor. We give You adoration. We appreciate You for all who You are to us. We thank You for all that You are to us. We thank You for Your steadfast love. We thank You, Lord, for support, assistance, instruction in our heart, direction, strength within, strength in our inner man. Lord, for all of this we give You glory, we give You praise. For all provisions, for all mercies received. Oh Lord our God, accept our thanks in the name of Jesus Christ. Everlasting Father, King of Glory, we commit ourselves into Your hand, O Lord, as we start the meeting today. We say Lord our God, Your Spirit will work within us. Your Spirit will work among us. Your Spirit will glorify Your name. Lord, our eyes on You. We stand against everything that is contrary to Your purpose. Everything that is contrary to You. We come against every device of principalities and powers, rulers of darkness, spiritual wickedness in the heavenly places. We stand against whatever is their manifestation. We say yea, let there be light in the name of Jesus. We say the light of God shall shine. The people of God will be blessed. The Lord alone will be glorified in the name of Jesus Christ. Thank You, Eternal Father. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So we want to quickly round up with the book of James and then take what we describe today as we said today we'll be having a final remark. Final remark, final remark on the wisdom of God. So we are rounding up with the 13th episode. The 13th episode. And we tag it the wisdom of God, final remark. That is, final remark on this matter of the wisdom of God. And in doing that, we'll just quickly round up what we're looking at in the book of James about the implication of God's wisdom and then take some final remarks on this topic so that we can pray. Now, let's quickly go to the book of James where we have been considering and let's quickly conclude what we have in that book on the two type of wisdom. It says, "But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, then gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere." When we are operating the wisdom of God, there is the fruit, the implication, what will be our lifestyle. We have said it is our lifestyle last week. So what will be our lifestyle, what will be the way we handle matters, our interrelationship with people is that it will be full of mercy and then it will be full of good fruits. Good fruit is a sign of God's wisdom. What we mean by good fruit. Of course, we are talking about essentially good works. Essentially good works, good deeds. Then there is something about this wisdom is that it is not partial. One thing you will see when you're operating the wisdom of God is that your life, your interaction with people, you will not be partial. There will be impartiality. You will deal with everybody fairly. You will handle matter with justice. There will be justice and judgment in your handling of things. Then it moves ahead to say, "and sincere." And that is what I normally tell particularly young people. Every time I have opportunity to speak to young people, particularly when it comes to the matter of marital relationship, I often tell people that once your life lacks sincerity, you will never be able to have a successful marital relationship. Once your life have element of insincerity, if the way you relate to people, what you are calling wisdom, you are wise, you know what you are doing. Once that wisdom you are talking about display any form of insincerity, I want you to know one thing. It becomes—people who are not sincere, they are destroyers of relationship. That's one thing you need to know. When you are not sincere with people, or when you are not genuine, you are operating a double mind. Some people call it wisdom. "I know what I'm doing. Anyway, I will just behave as if I will do this that way. I just want to be wise. I don't want problem." You are not being wise, you are being evil. You are being evil. Sincerity is wisdom. Sincerity is wisdom. And every time we are not sincere, let me tell you what you are doing. What you are doing is that you are daily cutting short your life. You are daily cutting it short. You are daily cutting short your joy. You are daily cutting short your peace. You are daily cutting short your rest. You are daily cutting short your happiness. You are daily cutting short your fulfillment. You are daily, every time you display insincerity, you are daily cutting short your blessings. That's what most people don't know about people who are not always sincere. People who think that by being elusive they are avoiding problem. They don't see that look, being elusive is only creating greater problems for them. But you see the wisdom of God, when we operate God's type of wisdom, when we live by inspiration, you will notice that you will not practice any form of insincerity. You will be sincere and candid with people. What you are is what you are. Verse 18. Let me read New King James Version. It says, "Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace." New King James. NLT: "And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of goodness." NIV: "Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness." The Message: "You can develop a healthy robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its result only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor." I will read that in Amplified: "And the harvest of righteousness, of conformity to God's will in thought and deed, is the fruit of the seed sown in peace by those who work for and make peace in themselves and in others, that peace which means concord, agreement, and harmony between individuals with undisturbedness in a peaceful mind, free from fear and agitating passion and moral conflict." You see what I'm trying to make you see in all. You know we said that the hallmark of God's wisdom, before we began to look at the characteristics, is humility. Humility and good works. You remember? Now, when the Bible was concluding the characteristics of divine wisdom, or the wisdom of God, the Bible says one thing is that those who sow in peace, peacemakers, they will reap a harvest of goodness. What I'm trying to make you see very clearly is that once the wisdom of God is in operation, one thing that you will see in everything is peacemaking. One thing that you will see in everything, one common denominator in everything that person is doing, one thing that will move around it is making for peace. And the harvest of making for peace is a harvest of goodness. The harvest that comes with making for peace is the harvest of goodness. So the point I'm trying to make you see, where the wisdom of God is in operation, where the inspiration of God guides behavior, the Bible is trying to make us see something in summary, something in conclusion, that you will notice something. One thing will trail everything that person is doing. What is that one thing? Peace. Peace. If peace don't trail everything that you are doing, you need to check again and again. This making of peace. I pray that the Lord will bless His words in your hearts in the name of Jesus. I want us to go ahead now to bring together what I'm calling the final remark. And what I did is to just point to some very important things in this past four months that we have discussed. I want to make reference to four important things in this past four months of our meeting. I want you to lay these four important things to heart. In looking at the wisdom of God, in looking through the whole topic in this past four months, remember where we started from. We started from 1 Corinthians chapter 2 and chapter 1 where we are looking at something about the wisdom of God. Please let's go there. I want to mention four things for this four months that we have been together. Number one, please let's go to 1 Corinthians chapter 2. From verse 6. It says, "However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before for our glory. Which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." What I'm trying to make you see, please don't ever forget something. I said four things in this four months. The purpose of God's wisdom is so that you may be glorified. He said God ordained this wisdom for our glory. The purpose of God operating His wisdom, the reason why God brought His wisdom to play in our life, the reason why the Lord opened this chapter in your life, the reason why the Lord brought you to Himself, the reason why the Lord is calling your attention that look, come into My wisdom, operate My wisdom, leave the path of lack of understanding, come into God's wisdom. The simple thing, first and foremost, is actually that God planned something for your what? God planned it for your glory. In other words, if you don't operate the wisdom of God, the truth is that you will never enter into your glory. Please don't forget something very important. Romans chapter 3 verse 23. Can you remember that scripture? It's a very popular scripture. Can we go there offhand? "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." That's Romans chapter 3 verse 23. It is Romans chapter 6 verse 23 that says the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through our Lord Jesus. Talking about Romans 3:23, the Bible says "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." All sinned. And I want to use the words in that verse figuratively. All have sinned. When we sin, what did we come short of? Glory. So there was a glory. When we sinned, we came short of that glory. The glory of being with God, the glory of being like God, the glory of walking with God, the glory of not experiencing death. That was the glory. But what happened? When we sinned, what exactly did we come short of? Glory. And look at it. When you became born again, what exactly did God plan for you? Look at that 1 Corinthians chapter 2. "But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our ultimate glory, for our glory." Are you seeing something? What did we come short of? Why did God ordain His wisdom? Are you seeing something? What I'm trying to make you see is that God want you to rise and become everything that God want you to be. What happened to us was that we lost glory. And so the Bible says we speak the wisdom of God, we speak it in a mystery, and that wisdom of God, that wisdom of God, when it come to what God arranged and ordained for our life, do you see what God did? God ordained that wisdom to bring us back into what? Into glory. Four things I'm trying to show you. Number one I've showed you that without operating this wisdom, you can never be glorified. You will never be glorified. The wisdom of God was ordained for your glory. You must get that very clear. Number two. Let us move to number two. Now, it says, "which none of the rulers of this age knew; for if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written: 'Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God prepared for those who loved Him.' But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so, no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now, we have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might know the things which have been freely given to us." It say, "now, we have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might know the things which have been freely given to us. These things we speak, these things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual truth with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one." What I'm trying to bring together for you is connecting this with Genesis. Connecting this with 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Don't forget that in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, please go back to that place. He says, "these things, they are foolishness to natural men. They are foolishness to natural men because they are spiritually discerned." And in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, if you remember when we read from verse 18, it says, "for the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but for us who are being saved, it is the power of God. For as it is written: 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.' Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For the Jews request a sign, and the Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ to the Jews a stumbling block, to the Greeks foolishness, but to those of us who are called, both Jews and Greeks, what is Christ? Christ is the wisdom of God. Christ is also the power of God." See what I'm trying to make you see. The second thing I'm showing. Number one I've showed you that without operating this wisdom, you can never be glorified. Number two that I'm trying to make you see, when this wisdom don't operate in you, it is a sign that Christ is not being formed in you. When this wisdom don't operate in you, it is a sign that Christ is not being formed in you. For anybody that Christ is being formed in, I mean you are becoming more and more like Christ, the way you will know is that you will be operating, displaying this wisdom of God. This wisdom of God. The wisdom of God is the primary indicator that Christ is being formed daily in you. Number three. I said four things about this wisdom of God. I want to make four remarks and then we will pray for today and then we will close. Number three. I take you back to Genesis. That is one thing that opened up in December and that continued in January. I take you to Genesis. When we're looking at something very crucial about these two wisdom, we saw that the origin of God's wisdom is the breath of life. Inspiration. We saw that the origin of human wisdom is deception. Human beings were deceived into believing a lie. Eve was deceived. Adam disobeyed. Now I'm showing you something very crucial. That there is this that you must realize. When you don't operate the wisdom of God, then you can be very sure of this. You cannot be on the fence. Are you understanding me? You cannot be on the fence. It is either the wisdom of God or it is the other wisdom. Nobody is on the fence in this matter. If your life is not daily operating God's wisdom, your life will daily operating the other wisdom. And I don't know whether you understand what that means. Who is the origin of that wisdom? Don't forget that it is the devil. The origin of this wisdom is the devil. He deceived, and by that deception, man find themselves in other state. So what I'm trying to make you see is that as long as we don't work in the wisdom of God, it is true that our life is promoting the activities of the devil. That other wisdom is according to the image of him who deceived us. While the wisdom of God is according to the image of Him who created us. So you need to understand that when you don't operate this wisdom, the reality actually is that your life is a life that allows, that give room, that gives permission for satanic, devilish, demonic operations. We must get this very clear. And that is why you notice anywhere this wisdom of God is not operating, you start seeing all manners of the works of the flesh. Insincerity, lie, deception, not being faithful, hypocritical, behaving as if all is well when all is not well. You start seeing all kinds of things. These are things that give room for demonic activities. It was by deception of the devil that man came into this other wisdom. So if you are not fleeing it, if you are not running away from it, you need to really understand what you are doing. Number four, which is the last thing I want you to see, and with that I'm taking you to Proverbs. Proverbs chapter 2. My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ears attentive to wisdom. I take that again. My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ears attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding. Yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding. If you seek it like silver and reach for it as hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom. Who gives wisdom? The Lord, the Lord gives wisdom. And what follows it? From His mouth come knowledge and understanding. Are you seeing that? Are you getting something? What I'm trying to make you see is that as long as you don't operate this wisdom, don't forget that it is as God speak that you have this wisdom. Don't forget. We said this wisdom is based on inspiration. Do you remember? Inspiration is the breath of God. When God inspires you, you are to live by inspiration. Your word is a lamp to my feet, a light to my path. That inspiration that come by treasuring His commandment in your heart, that inspiration, the rhema, that comes from meditation, the stay with the word of God to allow it dwell in you richly to all wisdom. Are you seeing that? Word of God dwell in you richly makes you all wise. See from childhood Timothy, you have known the Holy Scripture that is able to make you wise unto salvation. What I'm trying to make you see, the spoken word of God, the written word of God come together to make up this wisdom. So out of the mouth of God comes wisdom. The inspiration of God is wisdom. What I'm trying to make you see is that when this wisdom don't operate in your life, the truth is that whatever you think you may be doing, you are foolish. Don't forget the statement we made that until God speak to you, you can never be wise. The fear of the Lord is what? It's the beginning of wisdom. You begin to become wise when you fear God. So the point I'm trying to make you see this evening is that the reality is whatever you think you are doing, anyhow you think you are managing your life, anyhow you think you are managing your sojourning on earth, the truth is that if God don't speak to you, you are a foolish man. You are a foolish man. Whatever you think you are building can never last. It is the wise man who builds to last. The foolish man cannot do that. So whatever you think you may be doing, the truth is that you are a foolish person. These are the four things I want to bring to your attention as we round up the matter of the wisdom of God today. My prayer, my prayer for you is that these things will not just be a teaching. It will not just be something you heard and you quickly forget. May it be something you pay close attention to so that you can become of it in the name of Jesus. Let us go ahead this evening to pray. Let's talk to the Lord wherever you are listening to me. Let's talk to the Lord as we round up the matter of the wisdom of God. As we round up this matter, it is the path to your glory. It is the indicator that Christ is being formed in you. It means your life will not promote demonic activities. And lastly, it is for you to know that outside this wisdom, you are foolish. Let us go ahead to pray. Let's talk to the Lord. Talk to the Lord. Lord God Almighty. What exactly are you bringing before the Lord? Lord God Almighty. Baba, Lord, our prayer is that by the working of Your mighty power, may we operate this wisdom. May we walk in this truth. May we walk in this reality. May this be our reality. In the name of Jesus. Lord, our eyes on You. Let nothing prevail against Your purposes our lives in the name of Jesus. Lord, we go forth conquering and to conquer. We walk by Your wisdom. We live by Your inspiration. We are overcomers over the devil and every strategy of hell in the name of Jesus Christ. Thank You, Eternal Father. Blessed be Your name, our God. Hallelujah to Jesus. In Jesus' name we pray. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us now and forevermore. Amen. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives and we shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever and ever. Amen. [Speaker 3] This message is coming to you from Family Tent Ministry, a Christian ministry involved in reaching the lives of singles and married through preaching and teaching of God's word, discipleship, family life enrichment, social and community development, and mission help. Our regular activities are: discipleship class every Monday 5:00 PM; adolescents and singles club every first Saturday of every month at 10:00 AM; marriage forum second Saturday of every month at 10:00 AM; family life seminars, regular school outreaches, and everyday counseling. For further counseling, you can reach us at our location, Life Camp by the first bridge, Ilere community, opposite Very Joy filling station along Ije road, Akure, Ondo state, Nigeria. You can also reach us through our social media handles, familytent@yahoo.co.uk, familytentministry01@gmail.com, www.familytentministry.org. Our phone numbers are 08033861136, 07033613848. God bless you all.