The Secret to Making Choices You Won’t Regret

Good morning. Welcome here.

So my message title was a secret because I want to try to get us out of a rut this morning. And sometimes when you say a word, automatically we kind of slide down into a rut, or our brains just kind of zone out because it doesn't make—it's something that just often feels very abstract. And that's my hope this morning, is to make that something that we understand a little bit better.

We're going to take a little detour from the book of Ephesians this morning. Just a couple of reasons I need to spend a little more time before I'm ready for the next section. And this is something that actually a couple of verses on down in the chapter we're going through in Ephesians, chapter 5, that probably got me thinking about this, and it's just something I've been thinking about for a lot for the last couple of months.

So we're going to start out with a picture.

It's a dog.

What's wrong with the dog?

Andrew, what's wrong with the dog? He's got a bunch of things stuck in his nose. Does any of the children know what the dog has? Pardon? Pickles. Pickles. Somebody said it?

Quills. Yeah, they're quills. What are they from? Where did he get them? From a porcupine. So among the amazing animals that God made, there's a porcupine. They're kind of about the size of a good-sized raccoon. But raccoons are fast. They can run and climb up trees fast. And porcupines aren't like that. They're really slow and they waddle along. So to make the game fair, they can't run fast, so dogs and things like that can catch up to them really easy. So to make the game fair, God made them with quills. They're like big, long toothpicks, but they're harder than toothpicks. And they have little barbs on them, so like a fish hook, so when they go in, you can't pull them out very easy.

And they can actually kind of twitch their back, and they can throw them at something like a dog that comes after them. And that's what happened to this dog. This dog saw the porcupine and thought, "Huh, here's something that's fun to chase, maybe fun to eat." And what do you think that dog is thinking?

If dogs can think thoughts? Probably some things like maybe like this. What just happened? He's probably confused. The last thing I tried to play with didn't do this. This always worked before. What went on? Why didn't anybody tell me these weren't good to eat?

And probably to sum it all up, I promise I'll never chase anything again. He's probably sitting there thinking, "If they can just somehow we can just get over this, I'll never chase a thing that runs again."

Well, it's going to take some work to pull those out. And it's probably something he'll remember for a little while.

The thing is, dogs aren't the only people who get themselves in situations where they say, "Why did I do that? If only I would have known." As people, we get ourselves in situations where we feel that way. And we sit there in despair and we think, "Why did I ever do that? If I would only have known this would have happened, I would never have—" whatever it is.

And that can be small things from losing a game of Settlers because you didn't know somebody else was planning on doing whatever, or falling off of something that goes and breaking something or getting busted up. Or it can be something you lose a friend, you hurt somebody in your family.

As adults, the consequences get bigger. It can be that you spend a night at a lousy hotel. If you would have known that this was what it was going to be when you got that $35 motel room, you wouldn't have got—you would have paid a lot more for one.

There's a story behind that.

You can end up in a traffic jam. "If I would only have known it was going to go this way, I would have taken a different route."

Or it can be relationship things, things that leave us crippled for the rest of our lives or for heavy, hard consequences that we live with for the rest of our life because of things. And when we're in those situations, we think things like, "Looking back, knowing what I know now, I would never. If I knew what I know now, I would do this. Only I had seen it coming.

If I ever get out of this mess, I'll—" whatever. "If I'd only recognized the signs."

See, experience is not always the best teacher.

It is often the most costly, and you may not survive the lessons. Whoever was driving this, I don't think he's ever going to try to beat a train across the tracks again. He's probably not going to have the chance because I don't think he came out of there alive.

But when we do live through those things, we sit there and while we're thinking about that, wouldn't it be nice if there was some way that we could know how things were going to turn out so then you could make choices so that you ended up with something good that you want instead of somewhere that you hate to death and you just would do anything to change?

What if there was someplace you could go or someone that you knew who could tell you how things would end up so you could make a choice or at least tell you things to do so that when you get up there, things would be good?

And the answer is there is.

It's called wisdom.

My goal this morning is to hopefully help.

There's lots of things in life that we don't understand, but we know how to use them. So like our cars, our smartphones, things like that. We don't understand how they work, but we know how to use them in our lives. And I hope this morning to do that for you, to share some things that I've learned, a perspective of looking or a way of thinking about wisdom that has helped me to see how important it is and just lots more ways that I can make use of it in my life so that I don't end up saying, "You know what? I wish I would have done that." Or worse, "Why in the world? What am I going to do now because of choices that have been made?"

So let's start with a definition. Wisdom, it's a noun. It's a person, place, thing, or idea. In this case, it's an idea. Wisdom is what you would do if you knew everything.

Pretty simple. So if you knew everything and you could make choices so that everything would turn out just right in your life. Well, that's pretty simple. And you're probably sitting here saying right now, saying, "That's not much of a help." Well, let's go to definition number two. Life skills requiring the two following components: knowing how things will all work out and doing what will work out best in the end.

Well, that's no fair, right? Because nobody knows how everything's going to work out. So we can't even get started because we don't even have the first piece of the puzzle, let alone the rest of it. Well, think with me a little bit. How many of you have ever used a calculator? How many of you have ever used Google Maps?

How many of you have ever watched a YouTube video to learn how to do something? How many of you have ever read reviews on a product before you bought it? Okay? So we all use things all the time. We get something else. We take advantage of something or somebody else's hard work and understanding. And we don't call it cheating to start off with that understanding without having had to do all the work to find it out, to start off and be able to make better choices because of it.

Right? So this is something that we do all the time. So just because you don't know how everything in the world is going to work out for you doesn't mean you can't access that perspective or that information. It just means that you're going to have to go outside yourself. So this actually is something we can get somewhere with this. There is hope for you.

One thing that I want to point out and highlight before we get too far here is that wisdom is knowing how everything will work out. And that means we're going to have to find out. We're going to have to learn. And then doing what will work out best in the end because that's really what's going to matter. It doesn't matter so much if you have a good time at the beginning and then you have misery or you have trouble, you have problems. So wisdom is always thinking, "Where's this going to end up?" And gathering information because the fact is that we can't all see where things are going to end up.

There are lots of people who look like things are going great in their lives. They're having a great—it's successful. In Psalms, David talks about that. He just about completely lost his footing because he looked around, and there were all kinds of people doing wicked things and having a great time, and it was going good for him. But then he stopped and thought, and he went and he listened to God and he realized, "This is short-term, and the party's going to be over, and then it's going to be—then it's going to be the master they've been serving is going to come in, he's going to pay him, and it's not going to be good."

So we often think about wisdom. We go to the book of Proverbs or the wisdom of Syriac or the wisdom of Solomon. And in Proverbs chapter 8, we are introduced to wisdom as if it was a person. And wisdom is introduced to us as a woman who is very beautiful, very attractive. She is a trustworthy companion. She will go with you through life. She will make sure that you are rewarded, that you find a place of respect in your community, that you have everything you need to live a life that at the end of your life, you can look back and say, "That was a good life."

I really think in a lot of ways, this is written to a young man, and he's kind of saying, "Marry that girl. Commit your life to her. It's work. It's hard work, but she's worth having, and she will make a world of difference in your life, the difference between life and death." So we're introduced to wisdom, this thing about understanding how things work out as if it was a person. And it starts out and it says, "Wisdom, does not wisdom cry out?" And understanding, "Lift up her voice."

Wisdom cries to us. When we look at the world that we live in and the universe, there's incredible order and design there. And it just screams to us that somebody knows how things work well and can make things in that way so that it works well. So it's something that reaches out to us. It's all around us, and it's incumbent upon us.

It's something that pushes a responsibility on us to start looking and finding out what is this thing that has planned and designed all this, and how should I work with it so that I'm part of the goodness that's there? And we know that that thing or the person that designed all that stuff is God.

Wisdom cries out, and understanding lifts up her voice. She takes her stand on the top of the high hill beside the way where the paths meet. So up a place where everybody can see—sorry, the AI picture is not that great in that perspective—but where people are choosing where they want to go.

And she's reaching out. She cries by the gates at the entry of the city, at the entrance of the door.

And this is what she says, "To you, O men, I call." So she is calling out. She's reaching out to humans. She's inviting humans to come to her and to learn and to find out how things work so that they can make choices in life that will get them to a place of reward rather than regret.

Maybe you're not a smart person. Maybe you're young, and you think, "Well, I don't know much how things work out." Well, then wisdom is just for you. You are one of the ones that she's inviting. "Oh, you simple ones, understand prudence, and you fools be of an understanding heart." Now, there's a difference between a simple person and a fool. A simple person just doesn't know much. Something that's simple, there's not very many parts there, right? So a simple person, they don't have a lot of information.

And we all start out very simple.

Now, fools are a little different. I want to go through a little illustration here to help you to see that. This is simple Sam.

Can everybody see what is simple Sam doing? He's sitting on a tree branch, but with his right hand, he's doing something.

Eva, what's he doing? He's sawing the branch off. What's going to happen to him?

He's going to fall because he's cutting off the branch that he's sitting on. But simple Sam doesn't know that. He likes the branch is the right size for him. He even has a little footrest there. And he's right-handed, right? So it goes better to cut it with this hand instead of the other hand.

That's not simple Sam's fault.

But now, Sam's dad comes out, and he hollers at him and says, "Hey, stop. That's not going to work. You need to switch sides and sit on the other side." Now, Sam has a choice. And Sam can either choose to listen to his dad or to keep on doing what he's doing. Now, we can all see this, and this is obvious. We say anybody with any sense should know this. But I wanted to pick this because there's other things in life. There's times where we cut off the branch we're sitting on, and we don't know it. And if we don't listen, we'll end up with consequences because of it.

So simple Sam, here's his dad calling out to him and trying to offer him wisdom how things will work out so Sam can make a good choice so that he doesn't have regrets. And Sam says, "I'm not going to listen to you. I like doing it this way."

You see his tongue sticking out? That was about the best way I knew how to do this.

He's not going to listen to that. He's going to do it his own way. Now, Sam is no longer simple.

Now, Sam is a fool because he has chosen—he doesn't want to listen to understanding, to wisdom about how things work and make a good choice. He's chosen to stay in his ignorance.

Now, really, the problem is Sam shouldn't have waited until he was doing it. He should reach out for wisdom before he gets there and find out how does this work. Is this a good idea? So if Sam does that and Sam says, "You know what?

I should go and ask Dad about this first."

And he goes to Dad, and Dad can give him advice. Now, Sam is wise. He's not wise because he knew it all and understood how this all worked. He's wise because he knew he didn't know, and he went to somebody who could tell him how it was going to work out so he could make a good choice and not have regrets.

And probably Sam's dad is going to say, "Yeah, let's go talk about this," right? Because his dad sees what's coming, and he wants Sam to have a good experience and be safe, and Sam can learn how to do it.

So starting out, wisdom isn't so much that we know everything to start with, but that we understand that we don't know and that we need input, and then goes and seeks for input, doesn't wait until you're in a bad place or somebody feels sorry enough for you because you're making bad choices that they come and they tell you, but goes and gets advice ahead of time, finds out from people who know how things will work out in life so they can make good choices.

And then when someone does come and say, "Hey, this is something that you should probably change because that's not going good," then they value that. A fool thinks he can figure it out for himself. He doesn't want anybody to tell him what to do because he wants to do this his own way.

And he scorns or goes—that's a scorner is someone who goes at things. He scorns correction and advice.

I think we have a black and white version and a color version of that one. So moving on. To you, O men, I call wisdom this understanding about how things work is calling out to us, and they're inviting the simple person, the person who doesn't know, as well as the person who is saying, "I don't want to do my own thing to stop before it's too late."

I, wisdom, dwell with prudence and find out in knowledge and in discretion. Those are all lots of big words. It'd be great to unpack and learn how to understand them, but we're not going to this morning. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil, pride, arrogance in the evil way, and the perverse mouth I hate. So we're lots of things about, "I'm going to do my own thing, and I'm not going to listen to anybody, and I'm going to sass back and tell them they're stupid."

And wisdom, that's not—those things don't let us find out how things work well so we can make good choices. By me, kings reign and rulers decree justice. By me, princes rule and nobles, all the judges of the earth. So when you see somebody being successful in an area, you see a king who has subjects, there's peace in the country, and the people are thriving. It's because they've learned some things about how things work.

Because when you do things the way things work, then they work. And when you do things the way they don't work, you have problems. So this is how, whether it's countries or churches or families or businesses, when you have leaders who are successful, it's because they have found out how things work well.

"I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently will find me." These are things you have to work hard for. You have to ask. You have to run after it. You have to post it on a note in front of you and work to remember it. Wisdom is not a cheap woman. Later on, it talks about the foolish woman. And she throws herself at you, and you get it all right there, and then it's over, and you've lost everything. Wisdom isn't that way. You have to work for her if you want her as a companion and a guide through your life.

You have to invite her. You have to listen to what she says because she's not going to push herself. If wisdom and wisdom coming to you through the people in your life and through God, if you don't listen to it when they try to tell you how things work, they're not going to push it on you.

And sometimes we get in places where we wonder, "Why didn't I know that?" Well, maybe it's because we didn't pay attention to some of what was said, so wisdom just kind of got quiet.

"Riches and honor are with me, lasting riches and righteousness. My fruit is better than gold, yes, than fine gold, and my revenue than choice silver. I traverse or I travel the way of righteousness in the midst of the paths of justice or fairness, being equal, treating people equally. That I may cause those who love me to inherit wealth, that I might fill their treasures." So wisdom isn't just about keeping us out of trouble, but wisdom is about showing us how things work and giving us directions so that we can actually experience a reward and blessing. We can be in a good place where instead of sitting there saying, "Why did I do that?" We can be in a place and say, "You know what?

I'm really glad I decided that."

"The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his way before his works of old." So when God created the world and God started making things, that's what God had was an understanding about how things work out well. And that's how he made everything so everything works together very well. "From the beginning, before there was ever an earth, when there were no depths, I was brought forth. When there was no foundations abounding with water, before the mountains were settled, before the hills, I was brought forth. Well as yet, he had not made the earth or the fields or the primeval or the original dust of the world.

When he prepared the heavens, I was there. When he drew a circle on the face of the deep or the ocean and said, 'This is where you stop.' When he established the clouds above, when he strengthened the foundations of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limits so that the waters could not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him as a master craftsman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him, rejoicing in his inhabited world, and my delight was with the sons of men." So this understanding about how things work comes from God. It's something that he has, and it's the way he designed the world to work.

And it's something that last part there says, "And my delight was with the sons of men." God's biggest place he wants to put wisdom or this understanding about how things work well is with us as people so that we can carry on his work and we can do the same kind of things. We can live together in the world in a way that is very good, like it was when he created everything.

"Now, because of this, listen to me, my children, for blessed are those who keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise. Make choices that follow the way things work out well in the end. And do not disdain it. Don't resent it or hate it or kind of, 'Ugh, it's this hard or this awful thing that I have to do.'" It's a good thing to be taught and to learn how things work, to have instructions. See, the problem is we can't always—if a doctor would come in here and try to explain to you how vitamin C does things to your cells to help you get over a cold, would we all understand that?

Probably very few of us would get very far with it. But we can take his instructions, and even if we don't understand it all, we can take the vitamin C and experience the health and the healing that it will bring to us when we have a cold, even if we don't understand it all, because we follow his wisdom, his understanding about how things work. And we can follow those directions and experience the benefit even if we don't understand it all. And that is so true with God's world.

There's many things that we won't even understand how good it will make things or how bad it will make things. We have to learn to follow those simple directions that tell us how to work with things so that things will work out well in the end. That's God's wisdom. "Whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord. But he who sins against me wrongs his own soul. All those who hate me love death." So when we decide we don't want to be taught how things work and to be given advice about how to work with them, we're cutting off the branch we're sitting on, and we're choosing to break a leg or worse.

Foolishness, so resenting wisdom or not seeing a need of wisdom, deciding to do things on our own without trying to find out how God has made things to work. It's its own destruction. It's kind of like God—when you tell God, "Just leave me alone," which wisdom is from God. We don't want to hear instruction. We don't want to learn. It's kind of like God says, "Okay." And then, yeah, we cut off the branch that we're sitting on. We end up just bringing things on ourselves.

So where should we find wisdom? Where should we go to find out how things work and to get instructions about how to live in a way that we can make choices so things will turn out well in the end? We don't have to be sitting there someday saying, "Why in the world did I do that?"

Instead, we can be in places where we're glad we've made the choices that we have. We're reaping a good life from it. Well, the first place is from the one who made it all. So we already talked a little bit about that, how the world—when people say, "Well, where's there evidence for God?" It's kind of like, "I wanted a challenge.

Where do I start?" Because it's just everywhere, whether it's in medicine or in how living things work or whether it's in the dirt or in the laws of gravity or math. It's everywhere. There's incredible complex design about how things work. When we, as humans, we try to figure it out, we call it science, right? And we try to look at things and say, "Ah, so this is—oh, that's doing—I bet that's doing that. Let's check it out and see." And yep, that's what does that. All right, we got that figured out. And we try to take this complex world and figure it out like that. We've figured out a few things, but we're just scratching the surface.

There's so much stuff that we don't know. And then when we do try to come up and we say, "Oh, well, we know how to make wheat grow faster," right? So we genetically modify the instructions, the DNA for the wheat, and we put some things in there to make it grow bigger and faster.

What happens? Well, now we have this big problem with GMO wheat, and there's all the health problems that it's causing. That's what happens. People, at their best, when they try to figure out the natural world and come up with a substitute, not working with it, but come up with some shortcut, often there's some sort of a repercussion.

God's wisdom is a little bit like a master chess player on a board with a gazillion pieces. So when you're playing chess, you have to think ahead, not just how this is going to happen, what's going to happen if I move this here, but then, "Oh, but then that person could do that, and that could do that, and now I don't have a guard here."

But think about a chessboard with—I don't know how many—how many is a gazillion? There's way too many to count. All these things, well, if we do make this this way, then, "Oh, it's going to make a problem over here." And then you start with this one and try to fix it, and then that makes a problem over here. But God's wisdom, God knows how it all works. And whether it's in the physical realm, the way he's made our bodies, or the world that we live in, the ground we walk on, it all works perfect, except for where man has messed it up, either by the fall or by their choice of sins.

And it's the same way in the realm of human relationships. The incredible complex wisdom and design we see when we study the world through what we call science—sorry, I missed the picture there—in human relationships, it's the same wisdom, but it's even more. I thought it would be a nice way to get Lynn and Grace back with us this morning. But the way God made us to relate together as people and as men and women and in parents to children, it's so complex. There's so many pieces, and there's so much good that it can do. But then if we don't follow God's directions for it, then there's so much horrible mess that it makes as well.

So God's understanding about how things work, we understand we need to follow that in the material realm, the realm of matter of our bodies and our health and gravity and things like that. We understand that we need to follow that and work well with it.

It's that much more in the realm of human relationships, the things we do and how we live our lives. We need to realize God knows how it works, and he made a way that it works well, and we need to follow that.

And so the Proverbs very wisely say that respect for God or the fear of the Lord is where wisdom starts. It's having respect and saying, "Wait, God made all this, and he made us and these different things that we do as humans, and I better find out from him how he made it to work."

That's wisdom. It's the simple person seeking after wisdom. The world, whether it's heathens or atheists, they have other views about this. And most of them today, most people view it that we've evolved, and we need to experiment. And actually, the way for things to get better is for us to experiment and just try things out and figure out what's going to happen next. And the world we're in is just full of chaos and problems and broken homes and people who have all kinds of PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorders. And because of the brokenness of their relationship, they don't have fathers and mothers or husbands and wives, and there's not good leaders in their lives. And the leaders that are—it's all these problems because of that.

And what the church tends to do is tends to walk a little behind them and say, "You know, everybody else is doing this, and they're making us look dumb. So let's say, you know, probably Jesus didn't really mean that. And probably it's okay to do a little bit of this." And they kind of adapt it a little bit, water it down, tame it down just a little bit, but they kind of make that normal for Christians too. And then they start having the same problems as the world. And so if we want to live a life that is a life of reward, that's the goodness that God created, we want to live as part of God's kingdom, we have to start with that we're going to first listen to what God says about how things work, and we're going to follow his directions even where we don't understand where they go because he knows how things work out well, and he knows how to lead us to a life of blessing.

When God says, "Don't do it," you can bet there's a reason why, and you don't want to find out. And when God says, "Do it," you can be sure that there's a reason why it matters and that if you do it, you will be very happy that you did, however hard it is.

So respect for God is where wisdom, understanding how things work, and being able to make good choices so we don't have regrets and instead we have reward that starts with listening to what God says about how things work. Well, where else should we find wisdom? Well, with the people who have been there, right? That's what we do with Google reviews. And we listen to the people who have bought the product, gone to the place, and we listen to what they've said about it so that we can know, "Yeah, that's where I want to go. That's a good product," or where to stay away from. The interesting thing as I was studying about this is that when we go to find out how God says things work, one of the most common instructions that he gives us is to listen to the other people in our lives that he wants to work through.

For children, that's parents. For adults, it's parents. It's leaders and authorities in their life. It's the brothers in the church. Sometimes that means people who aren't older than you. The older you get, the more you'll end up having to listen to people who are younger than you, who have experience in our following God's wisdom.

So we have this problem. People say, "Why doesn't God speak to me? I'm seeking wisdom from God about this." Maybe God is. And you're just not listening to where he's trying to talk to you from, where he said. He said, "Go here. This is where I'm going to talk to you, but it's going to be from your mom and dad. It's going to be from your big brother, big sister. It's going to be from the church leaders. It's going to be from a mentor."

And we think God's not speaking to us because we're not listening to the people in our lives that he said he wants to speak through. And so we either try to conjure up, "Yeah, I think that I got this feeling last night when I was praying, and I think God was speaking to me, and he told me to do this." We try to conjure up things because we want God to talk to us. And then we end up doing crazy stuff that happens so much among professing Christians today. And sadly, it's just a big movement among post-Antibaptist people of that kind of thing. See, God created us to live and work together as a human family.

God created us to be his image bearers, his representatives. And so God wants to be known through the people he's put here to represent us. He wants us to work together, to need, and to help each other, to make a unit of people that show his good way of things working.

Some pointers, and these are just kind of some basics that you will find all through scripture, which is God telling us how things work, some instructions about who to listen to to find understanding about how things work right so you can make good choices in your life. One is there are people who are listening to God's wisdom, right? We already talked about that. God knows how the world works. So people who are—if you're going to people to get answers or insight about how things work in your life, and they're not listening to God, you can guarantee you're going to end up with problems, right? Because they're not working with the way God made things to work.

These are people that show that they're listening to God's wisdom. So you can see it in their life that they're following God's directions, and they are becoming people like what God says people should become like. Jesus said this to the disciples at the end of the parables in Matthew 13. Matthew 13 is the chapter of parables.

And he asked them, he said, "So do y'all understand that?" And they said, "Yep, got it." Well, Jesus knew they didn't get it all. But Jesus was wise. He knew how things work. And telling them, "No, you didn't get it," that wasn't going to help. So instead, he threw him a challenge. He said, "Okay, that's great." So everyone, a scribe, everyone who studies God's word is instructed concerning the kingdom of God. He's like a householder. He's like a homesteader, let's put it that way, who goes into his treasure, his shop, his basement, and he brings out all kinds of things, both new and old.

So a picture that helped me get this was some of you know Nathan Yoder from Down at Faith Mission that works in the Ukraine a bunch. And he was over there one time, and they had this flooding problem. He needed a pump. And they said, "Well, there's this one old man. He's got all kinds of stuff like that. Go over there, and he'll get you what he needs or what you need." So this old man said, "Yeah, I've got some stuff." So he went out to his shed out back. And in there on shelves, he had all the kinds of things you need to run a homestead. And he had a couple of different pumps there.

And he said, "This one, for what you're doing, the amount of lift you need and how much water you need, this pump will work good for you." And he gave him the pump, and it worked great. And that's what Jesus said. It's like when we listen to God's word is we're like that guy. Now we have these resources, and a person who has listened to Jesus and been taught by him is going to be able to bring out of that storehouse all kinds of things to fix the problems and to help him carry out the life that he needs to live. Get your wisdom from people who you can see in their lives have accumulated resources from God about how God knows things work and know how to use those in their lives to help them to make good choices.

Listen to people who have more experience than you. So if you realize, "I don't know how this is going to work out. I need some advice.

I need somebody who does know," looking to the person who's in the same shoes as you isn't going to help, right? Don't take offense at this, but Jesus said, "Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into the ditch?" And let's water this down just a little bit. I'm not going to say that you and your friends are blind, and that applies to 43-year-olds too.

But we can't see very well, right? We don't know how things are going to turn out. So if you follow somebody who has the same problem, they don't know yet how things like that work out, you're going to fall in the ditch. You're both going to end up the same place. So find people who do know. They've been there. They have experience. They know how these things work out, and they've navigated those things well. They've learned from their experiences.

Listen to people who have more experience than you, and listen to people who are becoming or who are being something that you want to become. I didn't realize this before, but the rest of that verse about the blind leading the blind, the next verse, Jesus says, "A disciple, someone who is being trained, is not above his trainer, his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will become just like the one who's training him."

So find people that you want to be like because you're not going to get further than the person that you're following.

So think carefully about that. Where do I want to end up? Is this person the kind of person I want to be like? And we're all on a journey. But find people who have shown in their life's decisions.

They're becoming something that you value and you want to be like.

I love this quote. "Experience isn't so much what happens to a man, but what a man does with what happens to him." Often we think about wisdom. We think about owls and old men with stroking their long beards that they could tuck in their belt. And there's some truth to all that. The owl, I think, is considered wise because he listens more than he speaks. And then when he does, he asks questions. He says, "Hmm." And typically, older people should have wisdom because they've gone through a lot of stuff. They've found out. But not everybody learns from their mistakes. And just today, there was an old man. He probably was 70 years old, came in the shop, and he was asked, "How can I help you?"

And the first thing he said was something I can't repeat here. And the first thing out of his mouth identified himself as a horribly corrupt person. He didn't learn.

So make sure that you're listening to people who have learned, have made good choices in life, and have learned well and learned to listen to God through what they've experienced in life. Jesus said this: "Wisdom is justified by all her children." So wisdom, you can tell wisdom.

You can tell children of parents because they kind of act like their parents, right? Like Pierre. He likes history and stuff like that because he's like his dad and like his grandpa, right? You can tell. He doesn't need to argue and give you all kinds of reasons why he is a berceau. You can tell it, right? And so wisdom is the same way. Good understanding about how things work. That's how God made things to work. You can tell those people because they act like it. They live in a way that you can see, "Yeah, that is working out, and it's becoming like God made it to be."

Pick those kinds of people to listen to. A few notes about wisdom, and then I'm going to talk to the old people because often we talk about wisdom being for young people. "Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out."

If you want clean water, if you want good cold water, you've got to get it out of the deep well. It takes work to get it out of there. It's the same way with wisdom. Wisdom, wise people aren't going to push their wisdom on you. I don't mean they're not going to tell anybody. If you're a wise person here, don't just say, "Well, I'm not going to tell anybody until they ask." But wisdom is something we have to love and to value and to be willing to give everything for it if we want to understand how things really work and we want to make choices that work with that. We're going to have to be willing to part with everything else in our lives so that we can do that.

And so if you want to know, if you want to be spared from living a life of, "Why did I do that? What went wrong?" You're going to have to ask. You're going to have to invite understanding into your life and directions about how to work with things.

And this is something that I probably, standing up here, I wonder what the older people than me in my life think about me about this because I run into this with younger people. And let me say this: when I look at the young people in this room, as a general rule, I look at you as you are some pretty wise young people. You're making good choices. You're listening to good advice.

And I hope this message is an encouragement to you to keep doing that. But there's sometimes I'm with young people, and I'll say something or whatever, and they just laugh it off and just—and I'm like, "Do you realize?" I think this to myself. I don't say it. But I'm like, "Do you realize that I have been an adult longer than you've been alive?" They act like I just bounced off of Mars or something. I don't have a clue about anything that's going on. And then I think to myself, I think, "Maybe that's how David Berceau feels about me." Do I value when the older people—and I'm not talking about just—I'm talking about especially godly people who you can see in their life that they understand how things work, and they're becoming like someone that God has designed.

There's something I've been thinking a lot about, and if I want wisdom in my life, I'm going to have to do more asking for it.

Wisdom for adults. This is going to kind of be quick, but the older I become, the more I feel like I don't have much wisdom. The more I realize times that I don't use wisdom. I don't follow wisdom. I don't invite it in my life.

Here's some examples from my own experience, probably a lot. A lot of them are mine, and some of them are from people that I've watched. My responses. So Einstein said that insanity, the definition of insanity, is doing the same thing over and over and hoping for different results. But how often do I do that about things? I respond, whether it's to a person in my life, the same way. And last time, I know how this worked, and then they got this way or I got that way.