Introduction / Review:
Wise Up About Wisdom (1 Kings 3:1-28):
- You have to know you Need it. (1 Kings 3:7)
- You have to know Where to get it. (1 Kings 3:9)
James 1:5 - If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.
- You have to Apply it. (1 Kings 3:16-28)
Proverbs 18:17 - The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.
Proverbs 18:13 - If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame.
Proverbs 12:13 - An evil man is ensnared by the transgression of his lips, but the righteous escapes from trouble.
Five Principles for Making Wise Decisions in "Grey Areas": (1 Corinthians 6-8-10)
- Is it Permissible ? (1 Cor 6:12)
1 Cor 6:12 - "All things are lawful for me," but not all things are helpful. "All things are lawful for me," but I will not be dominated by anything.
- Is it Beneficial ? (1 Cor 6:12)
- Is it free from possible Addiction ? (1 Cor 6:8-10)
- Is it free from causing a brother to Stumble ? (1 Cor 8:12-13)
1 Cor 8:12-13 - Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.
- Is Glorifying to God? (1 Cor 10:31)
1 Cor 10:31 - So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
Prov 8:11 - ...wisdom is better than jewels, and all that you may desire cannot compare with her.
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:37-00:40
Open up your Bibles to 1 Kings 3.
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1 Kings 3.
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The story goes, and it's not a true story, but this man in California was walking along the beach and he found a lamp.
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You know how these stories go, right?
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He picks up the lamp and he dusts the lamp off and out comes a genie!
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And the genie says, for freeing me from my thing or whatever, I'm going to grant you one wish, whatever you want, you name it." And the man said, "All right.
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Do you know, I love Hawaii, but I am scared to death to fly.
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Can you make me a bridge that goes from California to Hawaii so when I want to go, I can just drive?" And the genie's like, "Oh, come on, man. Listen, listen.
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A request like that, that's a lot of material.
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"You've got to get the permits, you've got to get the right inspectors and the engineers in." It's a big hassle. It's just way too much.
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Your request is just too complicated.
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Is there anything else?
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Anything else at all that you might wish for?
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And the man says, "Well, you know I've been married for 16 years, and I love my wife to death, but sometimes I just can't figure her out.
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Could you grant me the ability to understand the way my wife's mind works?" And the genie said, "So that bridge, you wanted four lanes, you wanted two lanes, you wanted painted guardrails?
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If you had one wish, what would you wish for?" But do you know there was actually a time in history that that scenario actually happened for real?
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It wasn't a genie, it was the Lord.
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Showed up and said to the man who we will be focusing on today, King Solomon, he said, I'll give you whatever you want.
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Today we're going to talk about Solomon.
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He replaced his dad David, who we talked about last week, he replaced his dad David as king, And Solomon was known for his wisdom.
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He was known for his wisdom.
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What is wisdom?
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Well, to define wisdom, I think we have to sort of differentiate it between wisdom and knowledge.
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Knowledge is just knowing facts.
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Knowledge is knowing things.
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Wisdom is knowing how to apply knowledge.
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And specifically, we're talking about godly wisdom.
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Godly wisdom is knowing how to apply the Word of God to everyday living, everyday scenarios, the things that I face in my home, in my workplace.
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It's how do I take the knowledge in here and apply it?
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That's wisdom.
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The Bible speaks of applying knowledge in areas such as money, such as the way you use your mouth, marriage, the workplace, the marketplace, witnessing, forgiveness, how I spend my time, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
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The Bible speaks to all matters of living life.
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And wisdom is knowing how to apply the principles that God's laid out for us in here.
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So in your outline today, if you're taking notes, I want you to jot a couple of things down, wise up about wisdom.
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In 1 Kings 3, the first point we need to get down is this.
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You have to know you need it.
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You have to know you need it.
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We'll pick up in verse 5 here.
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It says, "A Gibeon, the Lord, appeared to Solomon in a dream by night.
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And God said," here it is, "Ask what I shall give you." like blank check, Solomon, sign it, what do you want?
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And Solomon said, "You have shown great and steadfast love "to your servant David, my father, "because he walked before you in faithfulness "and righteousness and in uprightness of heart toward you.
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"And you have kept for him this great and steadfast love "and have given him a son to sit on his throne this day.
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"And now, O Lord, my God, you have made your servant king "in place of David, my father.
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"Although I am but a little child, I do not know how to go out or come in.
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So the first thing you need to know about wisdom is you have to know you need it.
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Right? And it starts with humility.
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That's what we see from Solomon, it's humility.
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As far as wisdom goes, if you don't think you need it, or if you think you just naturally have it, then you're never going to get it.
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Okay, letter B, wise up about wisdom.
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Not only do you have to know you need it, you have to know where to get it.
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So I jumped on to verse nine.
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Solomon says, and here's what he asked for.
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God says, "Hey, ask what I shall give you." In verse nine, "Give your servant therefore "an understanding mind to govern your people "that I may discern between good and evil "for who is able to govern this, your great people." So note two things about that.
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First of all, it was a selfless request.
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I imagine for most of us, if God showed up and said, "I'll give you whatever you want," we'd be thinking, "What do I want?
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What do I want?
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What do I want?" Solomon was thinking, "What could God give me that will serve people?" That's humility, right?
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It's a selfless request.
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But the thing I really want you to note here is Solomon knew that the wisdom that he needed to govern the people, Solomon knew that could only come from God.
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That's not going to come from a seminar.
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That's not going to come from a DVD set.
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He said, "God, only you can give me the wisdom that I need." You have to get that down.
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James 1.5 says this, "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him," what?
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"Ask God." I love this.
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who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him." What a promise.
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When you get to that point, you're like, well, I know I need it, and I know God gives it.
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James says, "If you go to God after it, He has promised to give it to you." There's nobody that has ever gone to God with sincerity, saying, "God, I need wisdom," and God's turned them away.
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James makes that point so clear.
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Gives to all without reproach, and it will be given.
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It will be given.
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It only comes from God.
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Somebody would say, "Wait a second, Pastor Jeff.
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Don't we have God's Word already?
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I mean, didn't God already give us His Word?" So, yeah, He did.
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But understand that you need God's enablement to be able to apply the knowledge that's in here.
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This is full of knowledge.
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This is full of eternal truths, but you can't wisely apply this unless God enables you to do that.
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The Word won't work without the Holy Spirit empowering you to do it.
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See, every week we talk about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
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The Gospel of Jesus Christ is everything.
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That Christ died for your sins, He rose from the dead to give you eternal life.
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And part of that promise, the Bible says when you receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, God's Holy Spirit indwells you.
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And that's one of the things that God does in your life.
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His Holy Spirit works with His Word to let wisdom play out in your life.
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But you have to know where to get it.
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It only comes from God.
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Let her see.
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Okay, you have to know you need it.
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You have to know where to get it.
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Let her see you have to apply it.
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And immediately, in this account, God's Word takes us to THE story given to us to demonstrate the wisdom that Solomon asked for in action.
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Right?
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So let's look at verses 16-28.
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It says, "Then two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him.
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The one woman said, "Oh my Lord, this woman and I live in the same house, and I gave birth to a child while she was in the house.
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On the third day after I gave birth, this woman also gave birth, and we were alone.
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There was no one else with us in the house.
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Only we two were in the house." Okay, so this lady's like, "Rumi and I, we each had a baby three days apart, right?" Verse 19, "And this woman's son died in the night because she lay on him.
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She arose at midnight and took my son from beside me while your servant slept, and laid him at her breast, and laid her dead son at my breast.
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When I arose in the morning to nurse my child, behold, he was dead.
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But when I looked at him closely in the morning, behold, he was not the child that I had born.
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So do you see what happened? Horrible, horrible accident. One woman accidentally rolled over and smothered her baby. I'm sure it was freak out panic attack and she's swapped her baby out with the other one. And that mother didn't notice until morning when it would have been light and moms know their babies right?
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She would have looked at this baby like wait wait wait wait wait this this isn't "This isn't my son." But the other woman said, "No, the living child is mine and the dead child is yours." And the first said, "No, the dead child is yours and the living child is mine." Thus they spoke before the king.
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Then the king said, "The one says, this is my son that is alive and your son is dead.
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And the other says, no, but your son is dead and my son is the living one." And the king, Solomon, the king said, "Bring me a sword." So a sword was brought before the king.
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The king said, "Divide the living child in two and give half to the one and half to the other." You think the leader of this country says some shocking things.
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Then the woman whose son was alive said to the king, "Because her heart yearned for her son, "Oh my Lord, give her the living child and by no means put him to death." But the other said, "He shall be neither mine nor yours, divide him." Then the king answered and said, "Give the living child to the first woman and by no means put him to death, she is his mother." And all Israel heard of the judgment that the king had rendered and they stood in awe of the king because they perceived that the wisdom of God was in him to do justice.
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Solomon here was in a position to judge an impossible to judge scenario.
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Like why is it impossible?
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Well, the first reason is there were no witnesses, right?
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There were no witnesses.
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It's usually the first thing that happens in court proceedings.
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Where are the witnesses?
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We saw very clearly in verse 18 there were not any.
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Another reason it was hard to judge is because it was just one person's word against another, right?
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show up saying the exact same thing. Yeah, mine is the living child, hers is the dead one. And they're both just going back and forth with that.
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And the third reason it's impossible is, you know, the one woman said, "At midnight while I was sleeping, she did this." You don't know what's happening when you're sleeping. How did you know what time it was? Is that called conjecture? Is that what that's called? Okay.
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So Solomon here didn't really have much to go on.
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What you need to see from the story, what God's showing us from this story, is that Solomon used wisdom.
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He actually used principles that he later wrote down in the book of Proverbs.
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He used principles from the word of God to settle it.
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Like, well, what Proverbs did he use?
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Here's just a few off the top of my head that I jotted down.
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Wisdom that Solomon used.
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Proverbs 18.17 says, "The one who states his case first seems right until the other comes and examines him." Do you notice Solomon heard both sides of the story?
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He didn't just hear the first lady.
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He's like, "Well, obviously I know what's going." He heard both sides.
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That's wisdom.
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Proverbs 18.13 says, "If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame." We saw in verse 23, Solomon heard them out and Solomon did something very wise.
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He recapped the story.
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In verse 23, he's like, "If I'm understanding you right, here's what's happening." Proverbs 12, 13 says, "An evil man is ensnared by the transgression of his lips, but the righteous escapes from trouble." You see, liar mom got caught because of her mouth, didn't she?
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That's how Solomon was able to recognize, not only because the real mother Said, "No, give the baby to her." But liar mom got ensnared by the transgression of her lips.
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So Solomon wisely knew the real mother wouldn't let the baby die.
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She was willing to give the baby up and be reckoned a liar if it meant saving the baby.
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So she thought giving up a child is a great option from being killed.
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Giving up a child is a great option if it saves the baby from getting killed.
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That sounds like another sermon, but true nonetheless.
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Solomon knew if one went for the cut the baby in half deal, she had to be lying.
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That's a great story.
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Like, well, what about me?
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Right, like what about me?
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because it's, Pastor Jeff, that is a great story, but honestly, it's very unlikely that you are going to have to arbitrate between two prostitutes fighting over a babe.
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That is very unlikely.
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If that happens to you this week, I want you to call me.
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And I want to hear how that works out.
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But it's not a likely scenario that you're going to face.
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You say, I can't leave you with, you know, walking out the door after the closing worship.
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I can't have you walking out the door going, "Okay, now I know what to do if two prostitutes are fighting over a baby." But you will. You will face scenarios in your life that you're not going to exactly be able to point to a phrase or a verse in the Bible to say, "Here's the answer. I found it right here in black and white. You're going to face things in your own life that we're going to call today for the sake of putting a label on it, we're going to call them gray areas. Gray areas are areas in your life where there's no clear, the Bible very specifically addresses this.
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Now we're talking about gray areas, areas that are more questionable, right? Or things Things that are more like matter of preference or conviction.
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We're talking about gray areas, okay?
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We're not talking about things like, "Okay, should I steal?" No, the Bible's clear on that, right?
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Or, "Is it okay for me to murder my boss?" No, the Bible is very clear about that.
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We're talking about areas that, like I said, they don't have a book, chapter, and verse.
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We're talking about things like, "Is it okay for me to drink alcohol as a Christian?" Now we know the Bible says don't get drunk, and the Bible gives warning, but is there a...
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Can you take me to a book chapter and verse, Pastor Jeff, that says, "Thou shall not have a beer after you mow the lawn." There's not a verse like that.
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Or somebody says, "You know, I smoke cigarettes.
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Is that wrong?" There is not one verse in the Bible that says, "Smoke them if you got them." Or "Thou shalt not smoke them, whether or not thine have them." It doesn't say that.
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Is it okay for me to listen to secular music?
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You know, the Bible doesn't like address the Dave Matthews band, I'm still looking.
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But I'm pretty sure that's a no.
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Sorry, that was for one person that I know is a really big fan.
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Who's also in the family and Thanksgiving's gonna be awkward, but anyways.
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(congregation laughing)
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But the Bible doesn't specifically say that stuff, you know what I mean?
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And people ask me that all the time as a pastor.
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They ask me, "Is it okay?
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Or what does the Bible say about, or what do you think I should do about?" So what do you do?
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The question that I want us to look at today is how do you take principles from God's word in order to make the best choices?
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All right, some things are, it's black and white, right?
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God says, "This is right, this is wrong.
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You should always do this, you should never do this." Sometimes that's just not in the Bible.
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And we're like, "Look, how can I make the best choice for me, for my family.
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Well, today I want to teach you something that was taught to me a long time ago, that this is something that I still use to this day.
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It's a very simple, but a very effective way to apply wisdom from the Word of God.
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It's called the 1 Corinthians 6.8.10 principle.
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All right?
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Five principles for making wise decisions in what we're calling gray areas.
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All right?
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Now these all come, I'm gonna have the verses on the screen for you today so we're not all flipping around and so we're not distracted.
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But I'd encourage you, we have great people, like make sure these sermons are online.
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You can listen to this again, follow along with your Bible, but you can certainly follow along now if you're a fast flipper.
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But I want you to get these principles down because this is something that you can use in every arena of life, ultra applicable, all right?
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So 1 Corinthians, just to give you a little bit of an on-ramp here, the scenario that they were facing was in the marketplace, they would sell meat that was sacrificed to an idol.
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And you can imagine how the church responded to that.
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There were two camps.
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There was one camp that was like, you should never touch that.
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They were using that in pagan worship, man.
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I can't believe you're eating something that was just sacrificed to a pagan God.
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You can't touch that.
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The church should have nothing to do with that.
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And then you had this other camp that was like, look, a hamburger is just a hamburger.
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It don't matter where the cow went to church.
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You put it between buns, it tastes the same.
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The boogeyman doesn't live in the hamburger.
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So you had these two camps.
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You can understand like the Corinthian church, you know, they had a lot of unity issues.
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So the issue was, what do I do?
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What do I do?
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What do I do when I need to make a decision like that in a, "No, thus saith the Lord, it's a gray area." Well, here's what you do.
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Okay, you're going to ask yourself five questions and they're drawn from principles in 1 Corinthians.
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And here's how this works.
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With these five questions, if you can answer yes to all five questions, then green light, go for it.
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Hit the accelerator, go for it.
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But here's where as a pastor I want to say, if you answer no to any of these, or even if you answer, I'm not really sure, I would strongly urge you to pump the brakes.
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Really slow down and really examine to say, is this a wise decision?
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If you say no to any of these.
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Okay, so you got it?
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You're gonna ask yourself these five questions when you face a gray area.
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All yeses? Fantastic.
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No? Stop.
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Eh, maybe, eh...
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Really pumped them brakes hard, alright?
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So here's the five questions.
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Question number one, is it permissible?
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This comes from 1 Corinthians, actually the first three come from 1 Corinthians 6.12.
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Can we get that on the wall here?
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Paul says, "All things are lawful for me." Which was more than likely a saying that was circulating in that culture.
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All things are lawful for me.
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So the first question we have to ask ourselves, is it permissible?
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Is it lawful?
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This thing that I'm trying to evaluate, should I do it, should I not do it?
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First question, obviously, is does the Bible allow it?
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That's the first question.
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But another question you have to ask yourself, is it legal according to our laws?
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We are called, Christians, we are called to submit to the government unless the government would call us to sin.
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And in that case, we appeal to the higher authority, which is God.
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But so long as the government isn't calling us to do something sinful, unbiblical, we submit to the government.
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So the first question you have to ask yourself when you're evaluating is, is it permissible?
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Is it allowed by God?
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Is it allowed according to law?
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Ask yourself that question.
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Second question, I'm gonna go through these examples of how this works, right? Second question, same verse, "Is it beneficial?" So is it permissible? The second question is, "Is it beneficial?" Look at the next part of the verse. It says, "All things are lawful for me," look at this, "but not all things are helpful." So ask yourself, "Is it beneficial?" In other words, will this be good for me? Is there a possibility that this thing could be harmful to me in any way? Is this helpful to me in my body, in my mind, or in my spirit?
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So we ask ourselves, gray area, is it okay?
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What should I do?
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Is it permissible?
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Is it beneficial?
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Third question, same verse.
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Is it free from possible addiction?
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Look at it again.
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Is it free from possible addiction?
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All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful.
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All things are lawful for me, but I will not be dominated by anything.
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Meaning I will not put myself in a position where I'm enslaved to anything.
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We are bond servants of Jesus Christ.
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He is our master.
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I'm not going to be enslaved by anything else.
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The question is, is this thing free from getting me under its power?
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Is it free from the possibility of enslaving me?
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Okay, fourth question.
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This comes from 1 Corinthians 6.12.
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Fourth question comes from 1 Corinthians 8.12 and 13.
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And the question is, is it free from causing a brother to stumble?
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Is it free from causing a brother to stumble?
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First Corinthians 8, 12, and 13 say, "Thus, sinning against your brother and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ." Wow.
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Look what Paul says, "Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble." See, Paul knew that there were people in that culture that came out of pagan idolatry worship.
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He's like, "It's going to be a major problem for them if they see me eating that meat.
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And if it's going to be a problem for them, I'll be a vegetarian." So you have to ask yourself, "How is this going to affect others?
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Is it going to lead them into trouble?
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What if somebody sees me doing this and they copy?
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Is it something I wouldn't want my kids or kids in the church see me doing and imitating?
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Is this free from being a stumbling block to others?" And then with this question, there's people that are like, "Who cares?" The athletes that are like, they get caught doing something wrong, and they're like, "I never said I was a role model!" That is such an immature attitude.
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It's just, it's immature.
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There's nothing godly, there's nothing wise about that attitude of, "I don't care if people are watching, I don't care if it's a problem for other people that I do it." It's time to grow up in Christ, okay?
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It's time to grow up in Christ.
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Because your Christian walk isn't just about you.
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In the community, it affects other people.
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We already said back in the beginning, right?
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Wisdom starts with humility.
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Putting other people ahead of yourself, this is an act of humility.
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I'm not going to do something that's going to hurt somebody else.
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It's going to trouble somebody else.
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It is not worth it.
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Is it permissible?
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Is it beneficial?
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possible addiction? Is it free from causing a brother to stumble? The last question, this comes from 1st Corinthians 10 31, is it glorifying to God? Is it glorifying to God? That comes from 1st Corinthians 10 31 where Paul says, "Therefore whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." This thing that you're thinking about, should I do it? Am I allowed to do it? Is to do this to the glory of God. That's the 1 Corinthians 6.8.10 principle.
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Let's try it out. What do you think? My first example that I jotted down actually came from a real life example. In prison ministry one time, there was a guy that came very sincerely.
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I don't know if he ever fully received the Lord or if he... I know he was really seeking.
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I know that.
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And in all sincerity one time he said, he's like, "Pastor Jeff, is it okay for me to smoke?" I wanna know what God says about that.
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And I said, "Look, I'm not the judge.
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"You gotta live according to your convictions." But I said, "I have a little exercise we can do "to help you come to your own convictions on that." So let's examine that.
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Is it okay to smoke?
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So the first question is, is it permissible?
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Are you allowed?
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Yeah, if you're over 18, it's legal.
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Is it 18?
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It's legal.
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You're allowed.
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Okay, second question, is it beneficial?
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I kind of had the guy at that point.
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Like, I could just see him, he was like, okay, you answered my question.
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I'm like, no, we're gonna continue.
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But it's not, look, it's not beneficial.
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It's not.
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Nobody's ever gone to the doctor and been prescribed two packs a day or anything.
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It's not beneficial.
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It's just not.
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And how about number three, is it free from possible addiction? What's the answer to that? It's terribly addictive. Number four, is it free from causing a brother to stumble? I looked at it and I was like, "Eh." I don't know if anybody's really like my walk got really derailed because I saw somebody smoking a cigarette. That to me is just kind of like, "Eh." Not a hard no for me on that. That's just me. Maybe like hard no, okay, that's great.
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The last question is, is it glorifying to God?
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So you see how taking that scenario through the questions helps you to really examine, okay, now I feel a little better equipped on if this is something that I should be doing.
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How about this one?
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Another question, is it okay to look at stuff on the computer that I shouldn't look at?
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Because people love loopholes, right?
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The Bible doesn't explicitly say I shouldn't look at that stuff, right?
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Well, let's run it up the ladder here. Is it permissible?
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For me, I would argue a hard no, because the Bible is so clear.
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Warning against lust and setting no evil before our eyes.
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Legal according to the laws?
30:07-30:14
Okay, is it permissible? Someone would make an argument, Well, yeah, it's not illegal, even though I would say it's certainly unbiblical.
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But the second question is, is it beneficial?
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I've read so many articles of just the harm that comes from that in so many ways.
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The damage it does to our marriage relationships and future marriage relationships.
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Is it beneficial?
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No, nobody's life has ever benefited from looking at stuff on the computer they shouldn't.
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How about number three, is it free from possible addiction?
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What's the answer to that?
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No.
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Number four, is it free from causing your brother to stumble?
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How would that work out if somebody else from your small group walked into the room while you were logged on your computer looking at this stuff? Would it cause a brother to stumble?
30:57-31:00
It's certainly not free from that. I'd give that another hard no.
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Is it glorifying to God? Absolutely not.
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So you see how this works? I'm going to give you one more.
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Just in case there's somebody here that I didn't offend yet.
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This will surely do it for that one or two straggler.
31:16-31:18
Is it okay for me to play the slot machines?
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Well, let's run it up the ladder.
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Is it okay for a Christian?
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I'm not, or maybe we're doing that.
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I'm asking for a friend.
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Does your friend look like you?
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Is it okay for a Christian, Mr. Ambiguous Christian, is it okay for a Christian to play the slot machines running up the ladder.
31:39-31:40
Is it permissible?
31:41-31:42
Yeah, I guess it's legal.
31:42-31:45
You can go to Rivers Casino and you can play, it's legal.
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Is there an age for that?
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Do you have to be over a certain age to be able to do that?
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I'm not, you know, don't imagine there's many like 12 year olds down there, like, what's the age?
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21, okay.
31:57-32:02
So, okay, so if you're over 21, I guess it's permissible.
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But the second question is, is it beneficial?
32:06-32:06
Is it beneficial?
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Like, you're like, yeah, it'll be beneficial when I win.
32:16-32:17
Oh yeah, because that happens all the time.
32:19-32:20
Is it beneficial?
32:22-32:24
Okay, I'm gonna, I'll give you an out.
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If you got Levy on Bell money at home, if you got so much money that you're like, you know what, I know I could make $853,000 by showing up and playing half of a game, but I'm gonna stay home.
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Even then, you know I'm kidding, right?
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Even then, like what's the benefit?
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What's the benefit?
32:47-32:49
Like if I win, I'll give it to the church.
32:49-32:50
Oh, I hear that all the time.
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Like, all right, I'll have my wheelbarrow outside waiting for you to dump your money off.
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(audience laughing)
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(laughs)
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It does not happen.
33:02-33:03
Okay, is it permissible?
33:04-33:05
Yeah, if you're over 21, I guess.
33:05-33:05
Is it beneficial?
33:06-33:06
I don't see it.
33:07-33:08
How about, is it free from possible addiction?
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How about that?
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That should be a big red flag, right?
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What do you see every gambling commercial, River's Casino or what's the one in West Virginia?
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Oh, do you see the people who answered quick?
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That was a test.
33:26-33:26
I'm kidding.
33:26-33:32
But every time there's a commercial for those things, because we've all seen the commercials, all right?
33:33-33:36
What do they have the little thing at the bottom of the commercial?
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The gambling helpline.
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How bad is your product or service if every time you advertise it, you also have to advertise help if you use this service, right?
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It'd be like if Burger King was airing commercials and then they had a little blurb like, you know, have a problem with overeating?
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You know, call Curves or whatever.
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(Laughter)
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So is it free from possible addiction?
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I don't see that, but I have seen people destroy their lives with it.
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So that's a hard no.
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Is it free from causing a brother to stumble?
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I would say no.
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I would think it would cause a lot of especially immature Christians in the church to really stumble if they knew that you were going down and that's where you're spending your free time.
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Is it glorifying to God?
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To me, that would be a hard no.
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It's not glorifying to God.
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You know, because it's God's money, right?
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Is that what God wants you doing with his money?
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No, it's not.
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You can apply this to anything.
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Is it okay for me to wear jeans to church?
34:54-34:56
Is it okay for me to go tell my boss off?
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Is it okay for me to watch an R-rated movie?
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whatever, you can apply it to anything.
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Ask the Holy Spirit to convict you honestly on the choice that you believe is going to honor God.
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This is the part of the sermon where I close with a sales pitch.
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We're like, here's why you should really go after wisdom.
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But when you consider how wisdom benefits you, blesses others, and glorifies God, My question is, why wouldn't you go after that?
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Right?
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It's no wonder Solomon said this, "Wisdom is better than jewels.
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And all that you may desire cannot compare with her." Let's pray.
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Father in heaven, we are so much like Solomon in that we need wisdom.
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Yes, Father, this is an amazing account.
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It's one of the most well-known accounts from the whole Bible.
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But Father, You have maybe not put us in that situation, but You put us in situations like Solomon that just look impossible on the surface.
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You've put us in situations where we're just not sure what to do sometimes.
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And Father, I thank You for the principles that You've given us in Your Word.
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I thank You for our brothers and sisters in Christ in our small groups that can help encourage and give biblical counsel and pray for us.
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Father, we thank You that You have not left us without resources.
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Your Holy Spirit.
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Your Word.
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Father, they are our resources.
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Father, help us.
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We know that a lot of these decisions we make aren't matters of salvation.
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They aren't matters of heaven or hell, but they're matters of, "I just want to make the best choice. I want to make the most God-honoring choice." Father, give us the wisdom to know it and to do it.
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We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
Small Group Discussion
WHOLE GROUP
Read 1 Kings 3:7, 9, 16-28 (or just read the whole chapter if you want!)
Define wisdom. How is it different than knowledge? Where does wisdom come from?
Review the 1 Cor 6-8-10 Principle. What are the 5 questions to ask when seeking wisdom for a decision in a "grey area"?
Come up with "grey area" scenarios, and as a group, evaluate the scenario using the 1 Cor 6-8-10 Principle.
BREAKOUT
What "grey area" have YOU personally struggled with? How does the 1 Corinthians 6-8-10 principle help you?