Oh, good morning. You guys look awesome today. What a great day. What a great day.
Well, I had an interesting week this week. I like to let everybody in. I'm like my personal life just a little bit, just a little bit, especially the funny things. So this week I had to have two procedures done.
I went to WVU. I think the worst part is the fasting that takes place prior to the procedure, because some of you know, I'm not a good faster. I know we should be able to fast. Just not like one of my spiritual gifts.
But I try. But this one I had to. I had to do it. I went in and I had to get two procedures.
They're going to do it simultaneously. I'm going to get a colonoscopy. And I won't go into what that is. Look it up if you don't know what it is.
And I had to get an endoscopy. So basically you have something going down this way and something coming up this way. And they do what they've got to do. And so they're wheeling me into the, basically, the OR and the anesthesiologist is there.
And they're walking me through the procedure. And they said, we're going to do the endoscopy first. And we'll do the colonoscopy second. I said, well, you know, I don't really care, because I'm going to be asleep.
So whatever suits you do it. The guy goes, oh, no, you'll care, because we use the same tube. I said, well, in that case, do the endoscopy first. What a week.
So they never told me. Believe it or not. I just, by faith, believe it or not, they did that one first. All right.
Well, I felt like today I just didn't think we could get off wisdom. I'm stuck on wisdom. I know we're heading into the Christmas season. So maybe it'll transition into the wise men.
And still searching for Jesus. I don't know. We sang error this morning. Did anybody catch it?
The first song we sang said there was three wise men, not biblical. Just in case you're wondering. There was wise men that brought how many gifts? And we don't know if there were three wise men or 300.
We just know there was three gifts. So just in case you were wondering, we sang error in church today. But don't hate me for it. So we've been on this series on royalty and walking out of our royal identity.
And the last several times I preached, I preached from Romans 5, 17, which we're talking about reigning in life. It says, if I want man's offense, death reigns through the one. Much more those who receive the abundance of grace in the gift of righteousness shall reign in life through the one. Big O, Jesus Christ.
And so that if death reign and death ruled because of Adam's one act of disobedience, even to a greater degree, it says much more, shall those who receive the gift of grace and the or the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness, even though greater degree will reign in life through Jesus. That because of Jesus, because he already has the victory, because he's already defeated. Colossians 2.15 says this. It says, he disarmed principalities and powers.
And he made a public spectacle of them. Literally, Jesus, he ran up the score. It was kind of like Fort Hill yesterday. I'm sorry if you're from Mount Ridge.
But it's kind of like Jesus not only defeated the enemy, but he paraded them through the streets and publicly humiliated them. I like the message translation of that verse. It says that he paraded them through the streets naked. Kind of funny.
But that's what they did. They put them in cages. They stripped them of their clothes. Sometimes cut their thumbs, their toes off, whatever.
And they would bring them through the streets. And then everybody would hurl things at them. And it was very embarrassing. And they would be led by the victorious king.
You're a victor. You are not a victim. And because Jesus was victorious, because Jesus defeated the enemy, that's why he says that we're more than conquerors. Because you're actually given a victory that you didn't get.
And you can participate in it. And so this thing of wisdom, it's super important that we learn how to live lives. And reigning in life, it's not reigning and ruling over people. Remember we said the word reign.
It means to exercise, kingly power, to exercise, kingly dominion, to exercise the highest influence. So that we're bringing the influence and the rule of Jesus into the situations of life over the strategies of the enemy, over sin, over bad habits, over sickness, over the effects of the curse, all the things that originate in the demonic realm that are sent here and contrived and orchestrated by the enemy, you literally can rule over every single one of those because of what Jesus did. This says that we reign in life through the one Jesus. It says in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 24, it says that Jesus is not only the power of God, but he's also the wisdom of God.
And then in Proverbs chapter 9, I'm sorry, 8 verse 15, it says by me, this is, if you reach after 8, it's actually wisdom speaking. Like in the third person, it says, by me, kings reign. Let's go, let's flip the next slide. It says, advice is mine, sound wisdom is mine, power is mine.
And by me, by me, by wisdom, kings reign. So if we reign in life through Jesus, and Jesus is the power and the wisdom of God, and by wisdom, kings reign, and you are royalty, and you are been made kings and priests, so that if you reign through Christ and Christ is wisdom, and by wisdom, kings reign, guess what we need to have in life to actually do it effectively. We need wisdom, and we don't need earthly wisdom. We need wisdom that's otherworldly.
We need wisdom that's from above. James says this, he says, the wisdom that descends not from above, the wisdom that's from here, he says it's earthly, it's demonic, it's selfish. So the wisdom that's rooted in the world is actually rooted in self. There's always some kind of motivation that's not motivated in the love of God, it's rooted in you.
And he says it's demonic, it's earthly. And so that we need to learn how to operate in the wisdom of God so that we can actually defeat the schemes and the devices of the enemy. Because what good would it be to use his wisdom on him? Like if I'm using worldly wisdom that's actually demonic, it's actually not gonna work to defeat him, it's actually gonna work in his favor.
So we're gonna look today at just a little bit more depth about wisdom. As Seth mentioned last week when he talked about wisdom, he talked about we need to ask. That when Solomon went to God, God says, ask me what you want. And Solomon says, hey, I'm a little kid, I'm a child at heart.
I don't know how to lead my people in, how to come in and go out and give me an understanding heart. Solomon asked for wisdom. James tells us in the book of James, it says, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God. And so in Proverbs, we looked at some things from that Solomon had written on wisdom last week and Seth kind of brought this up.
So I kind of, I really felt last week like God was leading into a message on the fear of the Lord. And so when Seth mentioned it, I thought, well, again, that's probably what it needs to be because that's what it, I just felt strongly about. So Proverbs 9, 10 says this, and who's familiar with this verse? The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
Let's all say that. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. So if you look over at Proverbs chapter one verse seven, I don't have it up there for you, but Proverbs one seven says this, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. So if we think about wisdom, remember two weeks ago, I said wisdom is this, wisdom is the right application of knowledge.
That if I'm coming, I gave you this example and Seth said, because I can't get to it, I don't have my head since you said it. Everybody remember what kind of light was named after me? A red light. So a red light is when the light turns from green to yellow and you try to go through it as it's changing from yellow to red and it's not a red light, it's a red light.
Because I did it this week. Actually, it actually was a red light, but I probably should have stopped it. But wisdom is this, knowledge, knowledge is recognizing the light's yellow. Knowledge is no, oh, the light's yellow.
Wisdom is applying the break or the gas. Depends, right? It depends what you're trying to accomplish. No, but knowledge recognizes something.
Wisdom actually applies the knowledge that I have. So if you think about that, if wisdom is the right application of knowledge, what needs to come first before you have wisdom? If I don't have knowledge, what am I going to apply? There's nothing to apply.
So if we look at Proverbs chapter one verse seven, there's two different words for beginning. So in Proverbs one seven where it says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. That word beginning is the Hebrew word that's first fruit or best. It's the word raised sheath in the Hebrew.
So if you've heard me teach on giving of first fruits, so when Solomon writes in Proverbs three, it says on the Lord with all your substance and with the first fruits of all of your increase, that's the same word as beginning. So first fruit was this, it's when they would have sheep or goats or grain or coal, whatever it is, and they would give an offering to the Lord if they had 10 of something or 100 of something or only they had the very first one and the very best one, the choicest one, was the first fruit offering. And so he says the fear of the Lord is literally the first fruit of knowledge. Let's welcome back to that minute.
Then when he talks about the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, that word beginning means origin or starting point. All right, so let's put the two together. So that knowledge, that word knowledge is actually from the Hebrew word yada, which means to know by experience. It was actually the knowing of, do you remember in Genesis where it says, Adam knew his wife Eve and she did what?
Well, she conceived and then she had a baby. Yeah, you have to conceive first and then we'll have a little biology class later. Now it's that he knew his wife. He had intercourse with his wife.
So the Hebrew word, it means to know, but not just like I know Curtis or I know Ray. It means to know, like I know Kristen, but I really know Kristen because we've had kids. And there's an intimacy that she and I have that nobody else has because you might know her, but you don't know her like I know her. And so the fear of the Lord is the first fruit of intimacy with him.
And so as I began not to pursue knowledge about God, but as I began to pursue knowledge of God, his ways, his acts, why he does what he does, who he is, how great he is, as I become intimate with him, the first fruit of that is the fear of the Lord. And then the fear of the Lord that was the first fruit of intimate knowledge now becomes the starting block or the origin of wisdom. That makes sense? Maybe not, it will.
And so as I pursue this intimacy with the Lord, as Psalms 25, 14 says this, it says, the secrets of the Lord are with those who fear him. Now, who do you share secrets with? Like, right, I'm probably, I don't wanna embarrass anybody, but I'm gonna share secrets with Kristen. She like she knows things about me that you don't know.
She knows things about me that you'll never know, let's say that, because out of intimacy, I have shared my secrets with her. Then we want to know the secret things of God without the intimacy and the relationship that goes with it. And then Kristen asked me the way to church today, not related to the message, but she says, why do we expect God to be faithful when we're not faithful? I said, well, for one, because this word says, when we are faithless, he remains faithful.
And what happens is a lot of times people fall back on scripture as an excuse not to be faithful to God, just because he will. But that's no excuse. See, then my relationship with God is a covenant relationship, which means if I screw up, he won't. If I leave, he won't.
If I mess up, he pursues me like, it's covenant. But that doesn't, covenant doesn't give me an excuse not to do my part. Like it's a two way street. But if I mess up, he's still there.
But too often we use covenant as an excuse to do what we want to do because we know God will remain faithful. Oh God, give me wisdom. Oh God, I need this. Well, how about intimacy?
How about you get intimate with me so that I can share the secrets that nobody else knows that I reserve for you, for today, so that you can live life in a way that displays me. But we just want to get out of jail card. The God's got more than a get out of jail card for you. Like don't settle for that.
So the fear of the Lord. So if you describe that, so here are a lot of people, fear of the Lord's really one of these things. It's a little hard to explain. What I want to tell you this is God does not want you to be afraid of him.
God, the fear of the Lord is not being scared of God. It's not that I'm, oh my God, it's God's God's going to invite people to church and what do they say? Oh boy, the Lord will probably strike me down if I come in there. Lightning will hit the building.
No, that's not living in the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is awe. It's where we get the word awesome. It's awe inspiring.
It's like a kid with bug eyes, like wonder. Like when they see something for the first time and they're just like mesmerized by it. The fear of the Lord is reverence. It's it's it's it's revering him and honoring him and esteeming him and giving him the honor that he's due.
It's ascribing to him like we talked about, it's ascribing to him value. It's it includes submission. It's giving up control. It's it's it's obeying.
It's yielding your life. It's all those things, but it's still kind of hard to define. So when I have a hard time defining something, I actually let the word of God define for me, the thing that I can't define. You know Jesus defined what the fear of the Lord is.
You remember when Jesus was in in the wilderness, he fasted 40 days and what? He said Satan came and tempted him. He said, Jesus was very hungry. He says if you can, he said, you know, if you're the son of God, make this stone into bread.
And Jesus said, you know, you should not live by bread alone by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Remember that? All right. So then it says this says, then the devil Luke chapter four, it said, taking him to a high mountain showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment in time.
And the devil said to him, all this authority I will give you and their glory for this has been delivered to me and I will give it to him. Whoever I wish. He didn't challenge this. The Satan had legitimate authority because it was given to him by Adam.
So when Adam sinned, remember the offense of one man? When Adam sinned, he committed treason. He actually gives the authority that was given to him by God, to have dominion of the earth. And he transfers it or hands it over to the enemy.
So when Satan says, all this authority has been given to me, Jesus didn't challenge that because that was a true statement. He says, it's up to me to give it to him, I'm out of a wish. Now Jesus came to the earth to get the authority back, but to do it through the cross. Satan is trying to give him like an easy way out.
And he says, all you have to do is bow down and worship me. And he says, it'll all be yours. And Jesus answered and said to him, get behind me Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only. You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only.
Jesus quoted from Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 13. And so when he says it is written, let's go look and see what was written. So Deuteronomy 6 13 says this. Let me just read it in context.
Because it's important, Moses says that children, he says, so it shall be when the Lord your God brings you into the land of which he swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to give you a large and beautiful cities which you did not build, houses full of all good things which you did not fill, tune out wells which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant. When you have eaten and are full, he said, you're going to get cities you didn't build, you're going to get wells that you didn't dig, you're going to have houses you didn't build, you're going to have vineyards and olive trees didn't plant, and you're going to eat and you're going to be full. And he says, beware, lest you forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage, you shall fear the Lord and serve him. So Moses is saying this, he says, hey, when you get out of the wilderness and you get into the promised land and things are good, beware.
See, when things are bad, who do people normally turn to? The Lord, right? Oh, I need help. I need, I need, I need, I need.
But he said when things are good, when you've got plants you didn't plant and you've got houses you didn't build and you've got food that you didn't grow, beware. Because that's the time when you begin to forget. You forget who brought you there and you forget who delivered you and you forget who brought you out of bondage. And he says, you shall fear the Lord your God and serve him.
So next slide, look at this. So we have Jesus quoting the Old Testament which says you shall fear the Lord your God and serve him, but Jesus says you shall do what? Worship. So one of two things is happening here.
Either Jesus misquoted scripture. I mean, he is the word, right? It's pretty hard for him to misquote it. Yeah, he's actually giving us insight and revelation into what was meant when the fear of the Lord was written.
He's actually the fear of the Lord is actually the worship of the Lord. And so we can put a lot of different words to what the fear of the Lord is, but if we boil it down to this, the fear of the Lord as Jesus said is worship. And if you look at, if you look at a couple definitions of what worship was, just even from the Old Testament and the new, if I combine them together, it says to kiss the hand of, to bow down or prostrate. I'm not gonna prostrate myself.
Okay, so I just want you to see this. When we think of worship, what's literally the first thing we normally think of? Yeah, that comes to mind, right? That's the first thing.
It's what we call top of mind awareness. It's what comes to mind first. But I want you to see from the definitions that worship is more than this. It says to kiss the hand of, to bow down to prostrate oneself.
Let me just like digress here for a minute. Men, you don't have prostrate answer. It's not pet peeve-em-mind. People say, I gotta go get my prostrate and look at it.
No, you know, that's a prostrate. Prostrate means to like lay yourself out. All right, so just, this is a little pet peeve-em. I don't wanna cover this.
Don't say that. But it says to prostrate oneself. So it's a show reverence or revere force. Sounds similar to if you're the Lord, right?
Stressing the feeling of our devotion to submit to to serve a render service. At the end of the day, worship comes from an old English word, worth ship, worth ship, which means to ascribe the highest worth to something. So that when I worship Jesus, when I worship the Lord, I'm actually ascribing to Him a worth or a value that's higher than anything else in life. And so that it's not just singing on Sunday.
It's not the preaching of the words. It's just, it's literally everything in your life. Every activity in your life is or should be an act of worship. It should be the way that you go to the grocery store.
It's the way that you get the kids ready for school in the morning. It's the way that you attend the football game. It's the way that you shop. I don't want anything.
It's the way that you interact with your spouse. Everything in my life should reveal the worth of the God that I love and serve. That's worship. So with that as a backdrop, I wanna look at this.
I wanna go back and look at Solomon. Because last week Seth talked about that what we call, I call it the ask. He said that we need a bigger ask, right? But before the ask for wisdom, there was an extravagant act of worship.
I want you to see this because the fear of the Lord, which is worship, is the starting point of wisdom. And although worship is more than just this, what Solomon did was a picture of really anything in our life where we're making a significant extravagant sacrifice to the Lord because of what he deserved. And so I want you to see this. It says this.
Before he said, I want an understanding heart, he actually sacrificed. It says, and Solomon, I want you to remember this, did what? Loved the Lord. That is so important.
Solomon loved the Lord walking in the statutes of his father. Now the king went to give in to sacrifice there. For that was the great high place. So it gave in back then, the Ark of the Covenant was still in Jerusalem, but the altar of where they sacrificed wasn't give in.
So that wasn't just A high place. It was the high place. It was where they actually still had the altar at that time. And it says for that was the great high place.
Solomon offered 1,000 burnt offering. Imagine that. Because he loved the Lord, now you just don't go out and willy-nilly offer 1,000 burnt offering. I mean, it's a process.
You have to kill the animal. You've got to drain the blood. I mean, I don't know. It could have taken days.
This just wasn't like a, I think I'll pray for 30 minutes. This was extravagant not only in the cost, but the time. He gave something up because he loved God. And so he has this extravagant act of worship that actually preceded the release of wisdom into his life.
The sad part for Solomon is this. It said, even though he started well, he didn't finish well. And that's really what I want to talk to you today about, is that don't live your life based on one experience with God. Like experiences are great.
Encounters are great. I love all that stuff. Revelation's great. Raymond words are great.
All that stuff. But sometimes we can get so stuck on a word from the past or an experience from the past that we slowly begin to drift off course. What's interesting is this. I don't have it up there.
But if you look at 1 Kings chapter of, you find 1 Kings 3. 1 Kings 3 once says, it said, Solomon made a treaty with Pharaoh, King of Egypt, and married Pharaoh's daughter. Then he brought her to the city of David until he finished building his own house, the house of the Lord, and the wall around Jerusalem. And then it says, Solomon loved the Lord.
So think about this. God had already told Solomon, do not marry women from foreign country. He married one, the daughter of Pharaoh from Egypt. Mater's wife brings her to Egypt, but he still loved God.
And he had an extravagant sacrifice. And God released wisdom. And so sometimes what happens is we think because we do one thing, God must be OK with it. I'll do another.
I'll do another. I'll do another. And a thousand wives later, guess what happened to Solomon? His heart departed from the Lord.
Look at the 1 Kings chapter 11. It says, OK, in 1 Kings 3, who did Solomon love? The Lord. It's only mentioned twice in the entire book of Kings.
With two people, it's Solomon love. The Lord and four women. That's it. You won't find any other.
It said, Solomon loved many foreign women. Besides Pharaoh's daughter, he married women from Moab, Emmon, Edom, Sidon, from the Hittites. The Lord had clearly instructed the people of Israel. You must not marry them because they will turn your hearts to the gods.
Yet Solomon and Sisto in loving them anyway. He had 700 wives of royal birth and 300 concubars. So let's just think of like this. Like the 700 were the first string and then the 300 were kind of like the bench warmers.
Like not that you'd really need bench warmers when you got 700 wives. But he's got a thousand. Now the concubars didn't have quite the same authority that the wives did, but they got in the game once in a while. So it's big.
It says he had 700 wives of royal birth, 300 concubars. In fact, they did turn his heart away from the Lord. Next slide. In Solomon's old age, they turned his heart to worship.
So here's a misnomer. The older I get, the wiser I get. Shouldn't that be true? It should be.
The more experiences I have in life, the longer I've been with the Lord, the longer I've been a Christian, I've been saved now for like 47 years. Shouldn't I be wiser today than yesterday? Shouldn't Solomon have been wiser at the end of his life than he was at the beginning, but he wasn't. The age or your length of relationship with the Lord is not a guarantee that you're gonna operate in wisdom because it says in his old age, he was actually wiser as a young man.
In his old age, they turned his heart to worship other gods instead of being completely faithful to the Lord as his father had been. There's that thing about being completely faithful. Like we think we can, well, I'll just be a little faithful. I'll do a little of this.
I'll do a little of that. But in a covenant, like I should give everything because he gave everything. Solomon worshiped Astereth, the goddess of the Sidonians, Molek, the detestable god of the Emmonites. In this way, Solomon did what was evil in the Lord's sight.
He refused to father the Lord. Look at that. Completely as his father David had done. What's amazing is this guy goes from loving the Lord and sacrificing to the Lord to actually sacrificing to gods with a little G where they sacrifice babies to.
Like he died, like we're not talking like a little mess up. Like he really, really died. It says on the Mount of Olives, Easter, Jerusalem, even built a pagan shrine for Chemmoshe, the detestable god of Moab and other from Molek, the detestable god of the Emmonites. Solomon built such shrines for all his wives.
He used for burning incense and sacrificing to their gods. The Lord was very angry with Solomon for his heart because it's hard to turn away from the Lord God of Israel. Who had? Look at that.
It's important that God put it had appeared to him. What? So God appeared to Solomon first at Gibeon when he sacrificed 1,000 for offering. But God appeared to him a second time when he dedicated the temple.
Instead the fire of God came down and said God appeared to him a second time. See, this is another thing that this tells me is this, that for one, as I have encounters with God, actually God holds me to a higher standard. But the other thing is this is just because I've had one encounter or two encounters with God, it too is not a guarantee that I'm going to continue to walk in wisdom. See, a lot of times we fall back on the encounter of yesterday, but what God wants is intimacy today.
He's looking for a relationship today. It wouldn't do me much good if I tried to be intimate with my wife based on what I did 20 years ago. Like, every day if I said, hey baby, I'm around the time I brought you flowers when we were dating. Like, she'd probably give me the Janet Jackson.
What have you done for me lately? That's probably too old for some of you, but like the old me just came out. What have you done for me lately? It said he warned Solomon specifically about worshiping other gods, but Solomon didn't listen.
Well, I had a Rama word from God. That's great. Are you living it out? See, Solomon had an encounter, had two encounters with God.
Solomon had, but actually God spoke to him. You would think if God spoke to you, honestly, that would make a difference. But it was just one slip at a time. Well, I did it with one wife.
Maybe I can do it with two. Maybe I can do it with three. Maybe I can do it with four. And somewhere between one and a thousand.
I can do it with a shift of play. It says, now the Lord said to him, since you have not kept my commandment have disobeyed my decrees, I will surely tear the kingdom away from you. Give it to one of your servants, but for the sake of your father David, I will not do this while you're still alive. I'll take the kingdom away from you.
It's to Solomon. Like he's got everything born in his favor. Chapter four tells the says that he wrote 3,000 psalms. Proverbs.
3,000. Anybody ever done that? Which tells me this? Just because I memorized scripture doesn't guarantee I'm the heart's turn to the Lord's Lord.
Like you can memorize 3,000 scriptures and be serving other gods. It says that he wrote a thousand and five psalms. I'm a worshipper. There's no way I would turn against the Lord.
He wrote a thousand and five psalms. He wrote 3,000 proverbs. He had two encounters with God. He was given supernatural wisdom.
He had rainbow words from God, but worship, shifted. And his love, shifted. And even though all those things are good and I want all those things in your life, if you abandon worship, which is the fear of the Lord, you're gonna operate in a wisdom that's not from this world, or that's from this world. You're gonna operate in a wisdom that's demonic.
You're gonna operate in wisdom that's selfish and earthly and not from God. And it says this, it says, if worshiping the Lord's the beginning of wisdom, worshiping anything other than the Lord would be what? Folishness, it's foolishness. Worshiping anything other than the Lord is what we'd call what, idolatry.
When I begin to ascribe more value to anything other than God, I actually begin to operate in foolishness. You guys remember Mr. T? But in full, right?
He actually said he got that out of the Bible. I don't know where, but you know what? It's sad to see people living in foolishness. Because, yeah, it's probably probably probably.
Because when you're living a foolish life, you're not living out the manifold wisdom of God. You're not putting it on display. You're not actually like we talked about two weeks ago, attracting people in that you have something they need, and you're not actually showing the angelic and demonic realm that God has things that he's doing through you that they never could have even imagined. When you think about that, that God has things for you to do, that even the angels don't know about.
Matter of fact, Peter says this about salvation. It says that the angels actually look into, like they look into the plan of salvation and they're like, why would God use bread? Like I'm sure Gabriel's like, huh, me, him, really God? But here God chooses to use us.
He chooses to reveal his secrets to you, the church, because he wants to put on display wisdom. It's from heaven, through you. The Romans talks about this, Paul talks about this in Romans. I just want to read through this.
So this passage in Romans, prior to, I think verses 18 through 20, talk about that within every person, is a knowledge of God. There's this innate knowledge of God that because there's an innate knowledge of God that everyone's without excuse, it says the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against those who suppress the truth and unrighteousness. So that the truth is there, it's been revealed, but it's suppressed because unsafe people are living a certain way. And actually people will use that to talk about the wrath of God.
The point Paul's making with that is because everybody already knows that, we need to preach the gospel of grace, not the gospel of wrath, because the wrath of God's already been revealed, it's just been suppressed. So we need to preach the grace of God. But then he goes on to talk about the digression of this revelation. So that even though this has been revealed, there's this digression or progression downward that people go through.
I really think it applies to even the church because even though this was written not about the church, the principle still is the same. I just want you to see this. So it says in verse 25, it says they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and served what had been created instead of the Creator. Isn't that what we do when we shift our worship?
God said to me, he said, he actually said that worship is the place of exchange, is that as I come to him in worship, as I ascribe to him value that only he deserves, there's a release into me of the secret things of God, and exchange took place. As I ascribe to anything other than God worth that he deserves, but I'm getting into something else, another exchange takes place. I give up what I already have in a return. I actually exchange it for a lie.
The Greek is actually not A lie, but V lie. This is translations of that translation. It actually is a definite article. It's like, this is the lie of all lives.
That when you actually worship anything other than God, that you actually make an exchange. You're exchanging your worship to something that doesn't deserve it in return. You're trading it in for a lie. And then you buy into it.
And it says this, let's read through it. It says, for though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God. What does glorify mean? It means to make big.
I collect pennies. I used to be able to read the dates, but now I'm getting all I need, I need a magnifying glass. So to glorify means to make bigger. And so when you get into a situation in life, do you make God bigger in the situation, or do you make the situation bigger than God?
Because a lot of times when I hear people, and it doesn't mean you can't share your problems with people, but oh my gosh, boom, the lace falling apart. Oh my life's a wreck, oh my goodness. Are you magnifying the situation? Or are you magnifying God?
It said that Abraham and Romans 4, it said that he was fully convinced that God could do what he was able. And it said that for 25 years, it said that even though he didn't receive the promise, or it said he gave glory to God. He could have walked around for 25 years saying, oh, I'm impotent, oh, Sarah's dead. I'm impotent, Sarah's dead, I'm it.
No, for 25 years he went around and said, I have a promise from God of his son. I have a promise, God's able, God's faithful. I know God didn't pass, they'll do the future. My God is great.
There's nothing possible for my God. It starts with magnifying the situation over the greatness of your God. It said and showed and they don't show gratitude. All of a sudden when I begin to magnify the situation, I begin to become a thankful.
I forget thanking God for what he's already done. Instead of thanking him, I'm complaining. After that it says they're thinking became worthless. That word thinking is actually the word imagination.
Do you know that when you begin magnifying the problem, you begin seeing it here? And the thing that you see actually becomes a reality in your life. It says that their imagination became worthless or futile. It's not going to work.
Their senseless hearts were darkened. There's no light. Like the light that God wants to bring to the situation, it's dark. Claiming to be wise, they became what?
Well, we got a lot of people in the world today claiming to be wise. It's like epic proportion. But they're really idiots. And it happens.
You begin to magnify the situation. You begin to give more honor, give more worth, give more value to the negative situation in your life. You forget to thank God for what he's done. Next thing you know, you begin to see things playing out in a bad situation.
Your heart becomes darkened. There's no light there. You can't even see the light at the end of the tunnel. And then, but you go around and tell people what they should be doing.
Maybe you need to back up a few steps. Maybe you need to magnify God. Maybe you need to thank God. Maybe you need to allow him to speak into your life a little bit.
It says they claim to be wise. They became full exchange of the glory of God for immortal God, for images resembling man, birds, four foot animals, reptiles. Let's go quickly here. It said, therefore God delivered them over in the desires of their hearts, the sexual impurities of their bodies were disregarded or degraded among themselves.
They exchanged the truth of God for a lie to worship and serve what had been created instead of the creator. Dear Eliza and Idyll is not an idol unless you worship it. Now, I brought this thing home from Peru a year or two ago and it's a little carving, isn't it? I wonder if that's an idol.
I thought, well, it can't be an idol because I don't worship it. Like an idol only becomes an idol when it's something that you worship. And see, you might say, well, I don't have images and I don't have carved images and I'm not worshiping images. And I really started thinking this week about, yeah, I don't think we do, but dear Eliza, what I think is probably becomes the biggest idol in most believers' life is their feelings.
Your feelings are a created thing. God actually created them for a reason. But when I begin to ascribe more worth and more value to the way I feel versus more worth and more value to who God is and what he's done and what he says, all of a sudden the way I feel becomes the God in my life. And I just made an exchange.
And I'm professing to be wise because I've written 3,000 Proverbs and because I've written 1,000 songs and because I've had umpteen encounters with God. But at the end of the day, because my worship gifted, I actually bought into a lie and I'm living like a fool. And the sad thing is that's how Solomon's life turned out. But the good news is yours doesn't have to.
Yours doesn't have to. And so I guess what I wanna ask you today is this, is what have I exchanged? Have I made an exchange? Have I shifted my love?
You worship what you love. There was a point in Psalms like where you love God, but then it's love shifted to women. Loving women is not wrong, trust me, really good. But when the love for a woman, the love of my feelings, the love of my job, the love of sports, all those things are good things.
Those things are great things. But when they have more value in my life than God, all of a sudden I've made an exchange in the wrong direction. God says, I want you to turn your heart back to me. I want you to ascribe worth to me.
And when you ascribe worth to me, and we become intimate again, then I'm gonna release secrets into your life that nobody else knows. And I've been holding just for you for all of eternity. Let's pray. Father, I thank you again today for the challenge of your word.
Sometimes it's not easy to deliver your word. But Lord, I know that it says in the Bible that all scripture is God breathed. That you actually breathed into the written word, that there's profit in it. There's profit in it for doctrine, for instruction, in righteousness, for correction, for teaching.
The Father, I just asked today that the word would do the job that you sent it forth to do. Lord, I believe that it never returns boy. Father, I pray that today would be the day that we would be honest with ourselves, that we would look within our own lives and just say, Holy Spirit, let me know if there's something in my life where I've shifted my worship to the created thing instead of the created. I've allowed the problem to be magnified in my life.
I've allowed a hobby to be magnified in my life. I've allowed a relationship to be magnified in my life more than you. And if the Holy Spirit reveals something to you, I want you to repent today. I want you to repent of that.
I want you to say, today's the day, I'm changing my mind. I'm exchanging my thoughts for God's thoughts. I'm gonna bring my worship to Him and serve Him only. I'm not gonna take one step and another step and another step and a thousand steps later, I'm somewhere so far off base and up in a place that God never meant me to be.
Maybe that's where you're at today.