The Decision Maker's Toolbox

Lesson Transcript

Good evening. Just give me a second here. Set something up here. All right. Now, I know that when I was younger, and even now that I'm older, I really like when somebody shows up with a bag that's closed up because you might guess, maybe, what could be in there, but you're just not sure. Well, good evening. Thank you, Wendell, for the introduction.

I think it was 20 years ago this week that I attended my last Bible school here, and our pastor, Lynn Martin, was teaching, and I was attending part-time because there were so many people from where I work that wanted to go to Bible school that the bosses said, "Either one of you can go full-time or several of you can go part-time." So we agreed to go part-time.

And I went in the morning, the first two days, and we met for chorus practice on Tuesday evening and got word that Lynn had been taken to the hospital with an aneurysm, and he died that night or the next morning early. And that was the end of Bible school. And so my last year was bittersweet. But anyhow, I thought you might find that interesting. Well, I want to thank all of you for your prayers and for your support. I want to talk a little bit about some tools here. I'm an auto repair technician.

That's what I do to earn my living. And I work with tools all day, every day. And having the right tools makes the difference between a job going well or it turning into a disaster. If you've got the right tools and things don't go well, you have more opportunities to recover. And so I'm going to show you a couple of tools here, and we'll see what we can find in here. Here's a tool that I use really often. It's a 19-millimeter socket. A lot of wheels are held on with a 19-millimeter nut.

When I got this socket, you can't really see it now. It was solid black, and now it's getting pretty shiny because it's gotten a lot of use. I don't know if it'll stand up there or not. Everyone has tools that they use, don't they? How many of you use tools every day? Okay. Let's see if we can let's see if we can help you. Maybe some of you are more familiar with that kind of a tool or maybe even this kind of a tool. They're both tools, aren't they?

And if you work in the kitchen, you won't get much done without tools, will you? Now, how many of you think you work with tools every day? Well, we're getting there. If you work in an office job, you still have tools, right? Because you've got your telephone and you've got your computer. They're tools. And so we can't get much done without tools. It just doesn't happen. Those tools aren't very expensive, but I have some more in here that are a little bit more expensive.

And so if you lose one, it's always a disappointment. There's a car running around up and down this road out here that has my 12-millimeter socket and three-inch extension unless it fell out. But tonight, I want to talk about the decision-maker's toolbox, and that'll be the title. Making decisions is a big part of life. We make them every day, don't we? The internet tells me that we make 35,000 decisions a day, but the skeptic sites say that that's not verifiable.

So I don't know how many decisions we make every day. A lot of decisions you make aren't going to be very conscious. When I walked up here, I didn't really think very much about where I was going to place my feet. It was subconscious, but every step was a choice that I made. They do say that we make about 226 decisions a day just about food. So I thought that was interesting. If we make 226 decisions about food, then we do make a lot of decisions.

And some of a lot of those decisions, like where I placed my feet, were pretty insignificant. But if there had been something on the floor, I could have tripped if I wouldn't have walked carefully. There's a cord right underneath me right now, and that has me just a little bit worried. I don't want to get tangled up in it. So the choices that we make, though, they eventually shape who we are. And we heard a little bit about that already this evening in the devotional.

Learning to make good decisions is an essential skill, and it doesn't happen by accident. The path of least resistance leads to poor choices. Proverbs talks about how when we're a child, we're foolish. And as we get training, the foolishness leaves. And so if you just go with what the default is, it's not going to be very good. And so, like we said with jobs, there's tools that can help you make good choices, good decisions.

And so my goal for this message is to talk about some tools that you can use to make good decisions. And what if there were tools that could help you make a good decision every time? How much would you be willing to pay for a tool or a set of tools that would help you make a good decision every single time? I mean, probably in this bag, there's, I don't know, $300 or $400 worth of tools in there, and that's nothing.

I know people in my trade who have toolboxes that are worth $25,000, and they've got another $50,000 or more of tools in them. I'm a far cry from that. My tool budget is pretty small. But how much would you be willing to pay for a tool that would give you that would help you make the right choice? And does even something like that exist? Well, I'm pleased to inform you tonight that there is a set of tools that can help you, and it is going to cost you something.

We may not be able to put a price tag on it like you can put a price tag on some of these things in dollars and cents, $8.50 maybe. You can't put a price like that on these tools, but they will cost you something. So the first tool I want to talk about is wisdom. And I'm going to represent wisdom with this tool here. It's a light. It's fairly bright. This one was fairly inexpensive. I think you can get them at Harbor Freight on sale for maybe less than 20 bucks, but it bats more than it's worth.

I think I was thinking about what tool I use the most every day. I think this is it right here. I have two of them, actually, because that way, when the battery gets dead on this one, I can turn the other one on and use it. But every job I do almost needs light, and it just really helps. I don't do very good work in the dark, and probably none of the rest of you do either. And so I just want to, even though this isn't a very certain allegory, just imagine that wisdom illuminates things like this light does.

And there it's got three settings on it. So I'm going to talk about wisdom a little bit here, and you can open up your Bibles to Proverbs. I'm going to base a lot of my thoughts on Proverbs 3 and maybe a few thoughts from chapter 4. Proverbs 3. And I'm going to read I'm not going to take these in order that they're given in the chapter, but I'm going to read verses 13 through 17.

"Happy is the man who finds wisdom, and the man who gains understanding, for her proceeds are better than the profits of silver, and her gain than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies, and all the things you may desire cannot compare with her. Length of days is in her right hand, and her left hand riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace." So in these verses, we find out that happy or blessed is the man who finds wisdom.

And you can't put a price tag on wisdom, can you? Because it says that it's worth more than all the silver, all the gold, and all the gems that you can find. Now, if you would find a tool like that, it was worth that much. If I had a tool that much sitting in the bottom of my tool bag or in my toolbox at work, I'd be a pretty happy fella. You could do almost anything with it, probably. And that's the worth of wisdom. Proverbs 4, verse 7 says, "Wisdom is the principal thing.

Therefore, get wisdom, and in all you're getting, get understanding." The Nat translation says, "Wisdom is supreme. You can't get anything any better than wisdom." Well, why? Why is wisdom so worth so much? And I want to talk just a little bit about what wisdom is. And John Martin always tells us here in our church that wisdom is what you would do if you knew all the facts. Well, it's impossible for us to know all the facts, isn't it?

Your brain's an amazing thing, but there's no way that you can know all of the contingencies. And so if you want to get that, then you need to have a relationship with somebody who does know all the facts. And who would that be? It would be Jesus and God because they know all the facts. And why do they know all the facts? Because they created the world and everything that's in it. And I have a quote here from Craig Bartholomew and Michael Goheen, and they define wisdom.

"Wisdom is the discovery of the order of creation found in both nature and society, and it implies a willingness to live in conformity with that order as it is discovered. God's wisdom is manifested in the order that he has established in the creation.

True human wisdom is manifested in recognizing and conforming to that order." So what they're saying is we see God's wisdom in how the world's created, in his system of morality, in how he's made our social structure, and all of the things that go along with the creation. The creation's an amazing thing. If you start to delve into the particulars of it, it blows your mind. In our small group last month, they asked us to come and share something amazing about the creation.

And I just did a little bit of research about the eye. And the eye, it doesn't look like much, but it's the most complex organ in your body after the brain. It has like 20 million different parts to it. It moves the fastest of any of your muscles, and it responds in less than a second. Like if something flies at you, your eye shuts. You move your eye around. You know that you see upside down, and your brain flips the image. It's just incredible. And we are told that these things just happen to be.

That's not wisdom, if you think that, by the way. So that we can see God, and we can see how wise and how wonderful he is. And human wisdom is based on recognizing who God is and how to live in the framework that God has made for us. And so wisdom takes this understanding of God and his creation and informs us how to make a good decision that we won't regret. And if you make a really good decision, that decision will be a good decision now. It'll be a good decision when you're 30, 40, 50, 80, if you live that long.

And you'll look back in eternity, and you'll say, "That was a good decision. I made a good choice." And those are the kinds of decisions that I hope all of us can make. I want to make those kinds of decisions. And so wisdom asks questions like when we're trying to make a decision, it's going to ask a question like, "Is this going to glorify God, what I'm about to do? Is it loving my neighbor, what I'm getting ready to do?

Is this going to help me get closer to God, or is it going to push me away?" And there's some other questions. That's not an exhaustive list. And those questions are really important for us to ask and to answer honestly. And I'm just going to give you a couple of illustrations from my own experience. So at the beginning of 2025, I had a little accident at work, and this is a freak accident. I told you I'm an auto mechanic, and so I opened people's hoods all day long, thousands of times.

I have never hurt myself trying to open someone's hood. But I think it was January the 3rd, right back after the holiday, I opened somebody's hood, and I sprained this knuckle. It swelled up and got black and blue. And well, I mean, a sprained ankle, you just sort of grin and bear it and maybe wrap it up, and after a while, it gets better, right? So I didn't do anything about this. And after about six weeks, I realized I can't get my finger straight anymore. And that's the way it still is. It's crooked.

So I went to the doctor, and they gave me some anti-inflammatories. They said, "Maybe it'll straighten out if the swelling goes down." So two weeks later, no, it still wasn't any better. So they sent me to an orthopedic fella, and he said, "Oh, no. If you had only come right away, I could have helped you, but I can't help you now because that's the way it's healed." So he recommended physical therapy, and that didn't do anything either, really. And so it was a poor choice.

I should have got it checked out right away. And if I would have known all of the facts, I would have known that if I had exercised it properly, maybe it would still be straight. And that doesn't necessarily glorify or not glorify God or get me closer to God or push me away, but it is an example of possibly a life-changing thing that I could have spared myself if I would have known all the facts.

And also, if I would have asked for some help sooner, and I think a few people did say that I should go and get it checked out, maybe I could have spared that. So sort of a poor choice. It's not too bad, but my hand does not have the dexterity that it had a year and three months ago. And I don't know that it'll ever quite come back, but I can do pretty much everything I want to without any trouble. Now, maybe an example of a good choice, at least I think this is a good choice.

I don't know, 10 or so years ago, I made the decision that I was not going to get on social media. And that's been an excellent choice for me. I have not subjected myself to the flaming that goes on there, and I haven't maybe connected with a few people, but I have not been influenced by it directly, at least. And so maybe you've made a different choice, and that's fine. I don't know that it's wrong to be on social media, but I challenge you to ask those questions.

Is my involvement in social media going to glorify God? Is what I'm posting and what I'm reading loving my neighbor? Is this moving me closer to God or further away? And if the answer to any of those questions is negative, you should consider whether it's wise for you to continue. Well, how do you get wisdom? My dad told me, and he read Proverbs to us over and over and over again when I was growing up.

And he said, "Well, it's the fear of the Lord." Well, when I was this high, that just didn't make much sense to me. What does that mean, the fear of the Lord? I mean, I'm scared of God. He's big, but I'm not sure that's what they're talking about. So how do you get wisdom? James says, "If anyone lacks wisdom, ask." And he said, "God gives it without any partiality." So the first thing you have to do is you have to want it, and you have to ask for it.

Proverbs recommends searching for it like you would a hidden treasure. If it became known in Shepherdsburg that there was a bar of gold buried out here, we would have hundreds or thousands of people out there digging up that whole area trying to find it. Because $25,000 or whatever, $150,000 or whatever, a bar of gold's worth these days, it would be well worth your time to go out there and find it, wouldn't it? And wisdom, we already said, it's the most valuable thing.

So look for it like you would a hidden treasure. And it does begin with the fear of the Lord. And I think this is realizing the awesomeness of who God is, how big he is, how wonderful, how amazing, how redemptive he is, and how small I am, and how limited I am, and how frail I am. And I think we'll wrap up wisdom. Now, in chapter three, verses three and four, it says, and this is another tool that we use to make good decisions, he says, "Let not mercy and truth forsake you. Bind them around your neck.

Write them on the tablet of your heart. And so find favor and high esteem in the sight of God and man." And so maybe mercy and truth, I don't know, we can't really represent it with this, but I would say this is probably the second tool that I use the most. You can see it's quite worn. It's got a 10-millimeter socket on it. If you worked on cars, you know that's the one that you get out of your toolbox the most, hands down. And it's pretty worn because I've actually managed to keep from losing that one for a while.

I really like this tool. Probably the funnest tool I have to use. Makes a little bit of noise, gets those fasteners in and out fast. So mercy and truth. And in a way, mercy and truth seem a little opposed to each other, don't they? Just a little bit. Because truth is reality. It's what's real. And oftentimes, truth calls for justice, right? We know what's true. Sometimes it's not good, and we want justice. And sometimes if I focus on, you can hold a really hard line, and we should not compromise on truth.

But he links it with mercy. Mercy's not getting what you deserve, right? We're not giving it. And so this truth is sort of balanced in a way by mercy. And he says, "Don't let these two things get away from you. Tie them on you." I don't know. We don't do this as much anymore, but you know I had a camera one time, and you'd put these things on a strap around your neck. Now we just stick them in our pockets.

And I think in ancient history, people did use to put things on a cord around their neck if they didn't want to lose them. But even more than that, he wants us to write them on our heart. How do you write something on your heart? I can write something on my hand. It doesn't stay there very long, usually. But to write on your heart, it's down inside there somewhere, right? And so when you do that, it becomes part of your being, part of who you are. Have this truth stamped into your heart. Can't get rid of it.

That's what we want. And mercy. And it talks about Jesus. In John 1:14, it says, "Now the Word became flesh and took up residence among us. We saw his glory, the glory of the one and only, full of grace and truth, who came from the Father." And I don't know, grace and mercy seem to be somewhat related. I know they're not a direct. It's not direct. There's some differences there. But Jesus epitomized someone who had that stamped into his heart. It was part of his being.

When John gave the apostle John gave his little bio of Jesus right there that I read to you, that was the thing that stood out. A man that totally uncompromising in the truth, and yet was gracious and kind. And that verse is sort of my life challenge. If somebody would stand up here at the end of my life and say, "That man was full of grace and truth or mercy and truth," I would feel like I had accomplished my goal to be known as someone who has those things, who's able to use the truth in a beautiful way.

So make sure that you don't lose mercy and truth any more than I want to lose my 10-millimeter socket because it's an essential tool. If I lose that, I'll have to call a parts store and get another one sent out right away because I won't hardly be able to work. All right, now humility. I want to talk about humility a little bit. I have another couple other tools here to. This is a humble tool. They've made a ratchet for many years. It's not new. It's not snazzy, but it works. Gets the job done.

Pretty dependable there. And I don't like to use that one as much because it's a lot harder work. Sometimes you can't move it very much to get each turn of the bolt. That impacts a lot faster, a lot more fun. Squeeze a trigger, boom, it comes out. But sometimes we need a humble tool. And I think that humility is so essential to making good decisions. And this also comes from Proverbs 3:7-8, "Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and depart from evil.

It will be health to your flesh and strength to your bones." And so many times we estimate ourself better than we really are. And this is a warning. Don't be wise in your own estimation, but fear the Lord and turn from evil. And that's probably a pretty good antidote. When we, as I talked about, the fear of the Lord is recognizing how big and wonderful he is and where I am in the picture. When I look at God and who he is, it puts me in the right place.

So humility is a realistic realization of who I am, and this includes my strengths and weaknesses. Often we need help to see these things, and we should welcome it. I'm not a very good judge of where I am, and you probably aren't a very good judge of where you are either. But I hope that you have friends, mentors that can help you to see who you are so that you're not out of your weight class, as they say. And we see this in the New Testament as well.

Romans 12:3 says, "For by the grace given to me, I say to every one of you not to think more highly of yourself than you ought to think, but to think with sober discernment as God has distributed to each of you a measure of faith." And one of my favorite quotes about humility, and I've shared this before, and I'm going to keep on, "Humility does not mean thinking less of yourself than of other people, nor does it mean having a low opinion of your own gifts.

It means freedom from thinking about yourself at all." So we're going to take me, and we're going to push him off to the side, and we're not going to think very much about him. We're going to think about God, and we're going to think about others. And humility is also so important because James 4:6 says, "But he gives greater grace.

Therefore it says, God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble." And that's a quote from Proverbs 3:34, which says, "Surely he scorns the scornful, but gives grace to the humble." And if God is opposing you, you're not going to make good progress in your life. It's going to be like hitting a block wall, and you're going to be done. And when you turn over here, God will be here opposing you.

And you turn over here, and you try to go backwards, and you're going to be stuck until you finally come to the realization of who you are, and you humble yourself before God, and then you will be able to make progress. Now, the last tool that I want to talk about is discernment. And there's probably other tools that you could talk about for the decision maker's toolbox, but this is discernment. Now, my specialty in our shop is doing diagnostics. And so I use these tools a lot. This is a voltmeter, a meter.

It does more than just read voltage. You can read resistance, and you can find out what the duty cycle of a circuit is. You could find out how much amps it draws. It's really handy. I need to be able to do all those things in my job. And this is another tool that I really like to use. It's a test light.

It's a basic tool, a humble tool, if you please, because all it's got is this point, and it has this clamp that's in bad shape because I shut the door, a car door on it, and sort of bent it back into shape, and it has a light bulb in there. And if that light bulb lights up, you got power. If it doesn't light up, you don't have power. And so these are tools that help me discern what's wrong with a car. Very handy.

I couldn't do my job without them, and you're not going to make a good decision without having discernment. And discernment is high on the priority list of the writer of Proverbs. The notes in that Bible say that wisdom is the first purpose for the book, and discernment is the second purpose. And here's what they say about it. It's designated the second purpose of the book to compare and to make proper evaluation of the sayings of the wise.

The term to discern refers to the ability to make distinctions between things. And then they go on into some more textual criticism. But basically, it means it's the ability to discern between moral options. Is A or B the right choice? So I think that discernment is the capability to see cause and effect. If I drop this, it's going to fall. We know that because we know that that's how gravity works, cause and effect. It's going to happen every time.

If we get up on Artemis II and we drop this, it won't hit the ground because they don't have the strong influence of gravity that we have. But here, that's going to be the effect every time. And we know that. We learn that when we're two years old, if we drop something, it's going to fall and hit our toe. So that's really basic cause and effect. But other causes and effects are a little harder. And so discernment is to be able to predict what will be the results of a given course of action.

And this is a super important tool. Probably, I don't know. I was going to say that this tool sort of combines all the other ones, and I think it does. But it's something that we gain by study, experience, and by asking for advice or counsel. Trevin Wax says, "You don't make big decisions alone. You invite older believers, pastors, professors, parents, and friends who know you well to speak into your life. Discernment grows in community, not in isolation.

You look up to God and around to others." And I really want that to come home to you. Discernment grows in community, not in isolation. If you're out there all by yourself, who are you going to ask for advice? Who's going to be able to tell you who you really are? It's going to be very difficult. But if you have friends and mentors, parents, you can get help with discernment. And that's training you to be a discerning person when you see other people doing it.

And so one of the things that can help you to acquire discernment is to study history. History is super important because knowledge of the past can teach us how to evaluate the present. And coupled with wisdom, understanding how creation works will give us the ability to make right choices. So that's just super important, I think. And so the other thing I wanted to talk about, I have some more tools in here. This is what's making the bag really heavy. And these are some other things I use pretty often.

So many plastic clips on a car. This thing digs them out, takes them out, hopefully without breaking them. You need to get a door panel off. This is your friend here. And sometimes you got to be able to see around the corner. Need a mirror. You got a different kind of a flashlight here. This is a black light. You can see that without shining it in anybody's eyes. You can put dye in your AC refrigerant, and you can use this to help you see it. And it's a lot different than this light, isn't it?

They have totally different purposes. If you want to see in the dark, this one's not going to help you too much. And so I think the other thing when we think about these tools is important to use the right tool for the job, isn't it? You know, I can get a ten millimeter socket and put on this bad boy too. And if I try to tighten up a little bolt like this, what do you think's going to happen? It's going to twist it off because it's the wrong tool for the job.

But if you want to take a wheel off and you put this 19 millimeter socket on, you're good to go. I can go out here and take half your wheels off. It won't have a problem with that. It'd be better if we jack the car up first. And then I got one more tool. This is my tool. This isn't my wife's. You all probably know what that is, a seam ripper. No, you don't generally have to unstitch things in cars, but it cuts through electrical tape pretty good and helps you get into wire bundles to fix broken wires.

So that's just some of the tools I use all the time, and I'm so happy about that. If I don't have tools, I'm not very much good. Sheldon's vehicle left him sit on Sunday morning, and I'm sure that I probably have the skill to figure out what was wrong with it. I never did find out what was wrong with it, but I didn't have any tools. We turned the headlights on, and we were pretty sure the battery wasn't dead, but I could have proved it with this.

You know, we could have looked up in there and seen better if we'd had one of these. You got to have the right tools for the job. Otherwise, you're helpless. So those are the tools. Now I want to talk just a little bit, wrapping this up. I want to talk about the path because we referred to it already in some of the verses that I read. Where was the first one I read? In Proverbs 3:17, it says that wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. And a path. Well, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Let me read Proverbs 3:5 and 6. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths. Now, all modern translations translate that he will make your paths straight. And I like that better because straight paths are sure. So the Bible talks a lot about paths, and I think it's a good metaphor to describe life.

Each choice that we make is a step down a path, and the kind of decisions that we make determine the destination that we're going to reach, and they also determine who we are going to be. And Jesus was really concerned about this too in some of the prophecies concerning him. In Isaiah 40:4, it says, "Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill brought low. The crooked places shall be made straight, and the rough places smooth." And so we see this equality, this straightening. C.S.

Lewis, in his Space Trilogy, he refers to the people who are doing wrong as bent. They're not straight. They're bent. And that's just so true. I love that metaphor, bent. And so many times I've been bent, and God has had to straighten me, and he's had more success than I've had with my finger.

Micah 6:8 says, "He has shown you, O man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God." You know, that sort of sums up most of those tools that I talked about, doesn't it? To do justly, to love the truth, to love mercy, and to be humble. And then I want to read a passage from Proverbs 4:11 to 19. I have taught you in the way of wisdom. I have led you in right paths.

When you walk, your steps will not be hindered, and when you run, you will not stumble. Take firm hold of instruction. Do not let go. Keep her, for she is your life. Do not enter the path of the wicked, and do not walk in the way of evil. Avoid it. Do not travel on it. Turn away from it and pass on, for they do not sleep unless they have done evil, and their sleep is taken away unless they make someone fall. For they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence.

But the path of the just is like the shining sun that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day. The way of the wicked is like darkness. They do not know what makes them stumble. And so when we make wise choices, it gives us freedom. Did you see that? When you walk, your steps aren't going to be held back. Did you ever take a walk in brush, and it was really hard to take the next step because there was a vine around your foot, and then you'd take the next one, and oh, there's a bramble, and that hurts.

You don't make very good progress. Some of you fellows have probably gone hunting, and you've gotten stuck in those kinds of things. Can't wait to get out. Well, when you're walking with wisdom, that's not going to be the case. Those obstructions are going to be cleared away. And when you run and you're going as fast as you can, you're not going to fall over because you've made good choices. But he contrasts that with the path of the wicked.

And you can see he says they can't sleep until they've done something wrong, until they've hurt somebody. It's awful. And they eat bread gained from wickedness and drink wine obtained from violence. They've made this wrong part of who they are. And see, that's the thing. When you make choices that tend towards the wrong, it also becomes part of you. And instead of truth being engraved in your heart, you've got falsehood and evil. And finally, they're so blind that they don't even know why they stumbled.

They can't figure it out. Do you see that in the world today? I see it all over the place. People have no idea why they are where they are. They have no idea how they have addictions. They have no idea where their money's gone or what's happened to their family. They don't know why. What happened to their marriage? They don't know. And it's heartbreaking. But as we make wise choices, the opposite happens.

And he says that the path of the righteous is like the bright morning light growing brighter and brighter until the day's full, till you don't need this guy anymore, because when it's bright and sunny, you don't need a flashlight, do you? You can see. And we'll be in God's presence with his light. And it says there's no shadows with him.

And so my prayer for all of you is that you will use the tools in the decision maker's toolbox to become wise people who are full of mercy and truth and who make good decisions confidently and whose path is bright as the day. Does anybody have anything they would like to share?