FEB 23 2020 | Genesis: Behind the Curtain S1E5 | The Serpent

Sea Change Church · Genesis: Behind the Curtain · "The Serpent" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · February 23, 2020
Genesis 3:1-7
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Good morning. My name is Bucky Bateman, and I am a licensed marriage family therapist, and I get to partner with the church and do some counseling here on the counseling team. And I get to, this morning, read some scripture. So we're going to read out of Genesis 3, chapter 3, verses 1 through 7. Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, Did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden? The woman said to the serpent, We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say you must not eat from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it or you will die.

You will not certainly die, the serpent said to the woman, for God knows that when you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked.

So they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. The word of the Lord. Thanks, Bucky. Part of our counseling team, if you're looking for some marriage or family counseling, we really want to make that. We've made that a priority here. He's part of that team. He's one of our paid counselors, and we do have a scholarship fund, a grant for anybody. So if you need some scholarship for that to make that happen, just to get things right, we'd love to have you be a part of that.

Also, I hope you are enjoying seeing what's happening with the youth group. In the youth groups, it is amazing. We're baptizing about a kid a month right now, which is amazing. I love the story of Elena. She actually lives a block down the street from us and got invited. And what she said was nuts. When I was her age and I got baptized, I didn't have all that theology laid out. She was so good. And, you know, the world encourages kids to make decisions and stand up for what they believe, but rarely that decision.

And it's exciting to see it, and I'm excited to see where her life goes. And hopefully you're excited to see what's happening in a subculture here in the church and what's happening around. Let me pray, and we'll get into the word. Lord Jesus, we want to thank you, God, for your goodness, for the Ruah, the spirit of God, that counsels us, God, gives us wisdom, tells us how to live. Jesus, we want more of you today, and we want more of your blessing.

So, right upon this word, like you hovered over the waters, and take it to our hearts, that we might understand you in a deeper way. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. We are in the final week. Although I might extend this series, I'm actually really enjoying it, and so I might extend it. We'll see. It won't be next week, but I want to continue on with this Genesis series. As we've been behind the curtain of Genesis. Now, I tend to try to stay away from things that are done on a regular basis.

I guess that's the way to say it. So, the Genesis story or the narrative, we tend to preach about the story, but sometimes we miss the characters. I'm really interested about what's going on behind the scenes. And I don't want to re-preach things, if you've been in the church for a while, that you hear over and over again. But rather, look at the different characters. And so, we've been looking at the characters behind the scenes.

My daughter, Lily, goes to La Jolla High School, and she's in the drama department. And one of the things I love is when the play is over, I love going backstage. And it's just, you know, so much ruckus going on backstage. Kids are having an amazing time. Flowers are being given. You can see all the set design. Actually, the things that they use to put it together tell a lot about the actual story that was put out on the stage.

And so, we want to go behind the scenes. And we've looked at five characters. As opposed to looking at the narrative from a stage view, we're trying to go behind the scenes. And this final week, we're talking about the serpent. The serpent being Satan. And we'll talk about that because there is some discussion on, is the serpent Satan? Is, you know, is he not? Is he an animal? We'll talk a little bit about that. But I don't want to spend a lot of time highlighting the devil.

I think the devil loves that. I think he loves center stage. And what I would rather do is debunk some of the strategies that the enemy uses to cause us to walk in a direction away from life, towards death. That is always the strategy. So, as opposed to talking about all of his nuance, I'd rather talk about his plans. Because the New Testament says we're not unaware of the plans of the enemy. Which is a great verse, knowing that there are no secret plans of the enemy as long as we are following the counsel of the Holy Spirit.

That if we walk in light, God will show us what the enemy is trying to do. The thing is, is we don't often look in that direction. And so, with that said, we're going to look at the serpent today. But just quickly remind you of some of the other characters that we've had. We didn't speak about the animals. The animals are a created part of, obviously, the creation. They come from the earth, like we were from the earth.

And we've talked about this lineage of creation. That the earth was created out of nothing. The Latin word ex nihilo. It was created out of nothing, which is very cool. But then man was created out of the earth to give a connection to the earth. And we talked about that in the creation series. When we spoke about creation as an anthropomorphic being that has life that actually speaks to us. And the creation was the gospel before the Bible.

And creation still speaks of who God is. And so, creation was created from nothing, out of God's imagination. And then man was created out of the dirt. But then woman was created out of bone, which is very cool. I mean, if you have a chance to listen to last week's sermon. The cool thing is that woman was not created out of the dirt. But in the same way that God wanted us to have a connection with the creation, with the earth.

Then he also wanted us to have a connection to each other. And so, as opposed to just creating woman as a separate being out of the earth like he did with man. And he wanted man to have this unique relational connection with woman. Go back to last week. And he pulls her out of his side. And she is made of bone, which I thought is so cool. I just thought, if I'm going to be made of dirt or bone, I definitely want to be made of bone.

That's so hardcore. And it actually speaks of longevity. Because how long do bones last? But in the midst of a bone is the lifeblood, is the marrow. And so we talked about that. And so blood, and there's this, you can continue. I mean, just go follow that rabbit trail through the New Testament. About how that life is in the blood. And the blood of Jesus. And this whole thing. And women bear life. And it goes on and on.

But nonetheless, they were created. And there was this connectivity to them. And God wants us to have that. So we spoke about God. We spoke about Eve. We spoke about the garden, which is creation. And then we spoke about, today we're looking at the fruit that was within the garden. And what's really interesting here is Eve had an entire garden to choose from that would give her sustenance. But she wanted more than she was actually given.

And this is when we get into trouble. And we're going to talk today, this entire message, and hopefully to be practical. Because I really want to preach stuff that allows you to go home and have practical tools to live your life better. Even if you are not a follower of Christ and you believe that this story about the devil and everything is bunk and just made up. There is still enough in this wisdom literature to give you proper tools or I guess creative tools for living.

And so I want to look at this entire narrative. Not about who Satan is, or the serpent was, but about the bargain. And have you think about the bargains we make in our lives. All of us are making bargains in our life. And these bargains either lead to life or the bargain leads to death. Now what is interesting about the serpent is the bargain that the serpent offers, is asking, the serpent offers something for nothing.

That's what's really interesting. Every time Satan offers you something, he offers you something for nothing. There is no cost. Now I don't know if you get those, we went to financial peace here and a few years back with Matthew. If you haven't gone to it, it's amazing. We got out of debt, which has been phenomenal. So we're out of debt. If you've gotten out of debt, one of the interesting things that will happen is all of a sudden credit card companies want you back.

They're like this forlorn lover that just want you back, and they start sending you checks. And so there's all these checks. We've upped your credit limit. Like, they just keep upping the credit limit. I actually want to call and have them reduce the credit limit. But they've upped the credit limit. And then they send you these checks, and they're like, these checks are free. Like, 24 months. Zero percent. You don't pay anything for 24 months.

What is so interesting, if you read the fine print, it's always in the fine print, right? That it says that there is a transfer fee. So anything you do is 5%. FYI, it's not zero percent. It's 5%. Because they're charging you 5%. But that is not in the thing that you can see up front. It's all zero. It's actually a complete lie. They offer you something for nothing. Another instance is, we bought the mattress on the seven-year plan back when we first got married.

Never buy the mattress on the seven-year plan. By year six, you want to get rid of the mattress, and you still have another year to pay for the mattress. We'll give it to you 100 days free in your home. You've heard that one as well. They know that 40% of people will not have the wherewithal to put a 600-pound mattress on their back, to put it back on their car, and to bring it back to the store. We'll deliver it, but we ain't picking it back up.

They know this. And so they offer something for nothing. Why this is interesting is because we have to juxtapose this against God. Everything God offers costs you something. There is nothing. Even God's grace costs you something. Now, you can say that it is free, and the Bible does say that God's gift is a free gift of grace, and it is free. He gives it to you freely, but you need to receive the gift, and you need to unwrap it by being willing to, this is where the cost is, die to yourself and follow me to the cross to be crucified.

That's radical. That is not a no-cost upfront bargain. When Jesus offers you grace, when God offers you grace, there is a cost, and you must choose to accept the cost. For instance, in Jesus' life, a man comes up to him and says, I've followed every law. I'm pretty awesome. Tell me what else I need to do, because he was so good at following laws. And Jesus said, okay, well, I don't want you to, like, fast or go build a house for me, because I know you can do that.

Why don't you go give away all your money, and then come back and follow me? And it says that the man goes away sad. God, it costs something. And that is what is so interesting about the bargain. And I wouldn't even say it's a bargain with God, because it's not a bargain. But when Jesus, when God offers you something, there's always skin in the game. What does God know about that? What we have learned is that we have a culture that wants to have something for nothing, and we want it immediately.

Things cost. What is marriage? Is marriage free? No. When you get married, you have to give up your life in order to serve another person. Talking about things being for free, I was on the BBC website. I tend to hang out on the BBC website a fair amount and read their news. And so I was over there, and they had an article, and it said, the hidden benefits of polygamy. And I was like, oh, whoa, hidden benefits of polygamy.

I'm intrigued. You've got me. Okay. It's BBC. It's not crazy. So I start listening. It's actually a video, this counselor, and she's talking. And she said, you know, marriage can feel like a trap. She said, what if your partner gets sick and they start suffering? Like, you didn't sign up for that. I'm like thinking, for better or for worse, yes, you did. But nonetheless, what if your partner gets sick? Like, you don't, that's really hard to deal with.

And wouldn't it be great to have someone that you could go away with and have a really, you know, good time to get away from that suffering so you can enjoy yourself. And then you have new energy to bring back to your partner that you wouldn't have if you're being, and I'm just like, are you high? Like, what are you talking about? Like, what about commitment? Like, hey, you know what? I know you're suffering right now.

I just, I can't deal with this right now. I'll be back where I'm going to go out to dinner, you know, you know, downtown or something. And we'll be back, and I'll bring that energy back to you. No, it is this thing that you can have what you want. We live in this world. And this is what the Satan is offering to Eve. Now, back to you, before we get into the verse four right here. This idea of bargains. I want you to think about the bargains you're being offered.

You have relational bargains. You have business bargains. Even financial planners will always tell you, if you pay up cash, you will, if you pay cash up front, you will spend less money. That you're just making decisions where you have a little bit of skin in the game over and over again. And that's why credit, obviously, becomes a problem. There is some skin in the game. As you look at your bargains, I'm going to speak about three things today to help you unpack how the devil attacks you.

Number one, look at your bargains. Think about where you are bargaining, the relational bargains that you make, and what bargains you are making. Do they have any cost up front? I am very skeptical of any decision that has no cost up front. Now, this is especially true with volunteer culture at church. We have been told in a lot of meetings, you have to lower the bar. Like, people are busy. Lower the bar. Like, super low, where they don't have to show up if they don't want.

Last minute, and it's just because people are busy, you have to be super, you just let it be available. What I have found is, because I tried that for a very long time. What I have found is, when there's no cost, oftentimes, the quality of your volunteer culture really drops out through the floor. As we have seen in our culture, what are the things that are successful? You look at, like, P90X, that workout program. High cost, but high reward.

You also have to offer your volunteer something that is high reward, where they leave feeling like, that was amazing. I got to help that person. I got to be a part of that. I went down to Mexico. Joe takes these trips to Mexico. So, there's these high costs, but there also has to be this high reward. In these bargains, back to the idea of a bargain, I am very skeptical of anything in my life that comes too easy. Anything in my life that comes too easy.

So, when you were looking about the decisions that you were making in your life, I want to say the first thing that might cue you off, that might cue you to the fact that this might not be from God. It might be. Some things from God are easy on occasion. I haven't found most things that are worth it from God and have been easy for me. But, if things come too easily, and if there is no cost up front, and if there is this bargain that allows you to have the fruit now, as opposed to wait for the fruit later, it might not be from God.

That's number one. We're going to talk about bargains. Next is wisdom. How do we employ wisdom? How do you use wisdom in decision making? I find that a lot of believers don't use wisdom. They don't actually have a plan to find wisdom. They think a lot, but they don't have a plan to actually ferret out what the wisest thing to do is. Do you seek wisdom? The scripture says, don't just sit and wait for wisdom. It says, seek wisdom.

James says, if you ask for wisdom, God will give it to you. And number three is, and this is the big one, contentment. Very little sin happens if you have contentment. Very little sin follows contentment. When you are content, even when things are difficult, when you are content in your 400 square foot, you know, studio apartment, you tend to make less, they would say, I can't think of the right word, but there's decisions that you will make where you would lie or cheat to get to another place.

You tend to make decisions that will throw your values away because you're no longer content. And we live in a culture that is ramping up discontentment. What would the world look like if people were willing to accept, not in a meh, everything's okay, I don't care anymore, but what would contentment look like? So three things. The bargain, wisdom. Are you seeking out ferreting wisdom? And is there enough contentment in your life?

Let's go to verse four where we see this woman, Eve, and the husband's right with her. And I've heard people say, the man did not take his leadership role because the woman was speaking. As we have said in the first sermon, you need to listen to the whole series, that women had co-dominion with man in the garden. They were both called to rule over the garden together. And she had equal, she had just as much of a chance, I mean, opportunity and right to speak to the enemy as the man did.

The man was not called to rule over the women or to be in charge of the garden, as we can see. So he speaks to the woman. And the woman, he says, he asked her this question, or he actually puts a doubt in her mind. Let's actually go back to verse three. But did God say? Circle that. I've gotten into a lot of problems after I have followed the rabbit trail after, but did God really say? Circle that. One thing I have found is you don't need to, holiness does not need to be rationalized.

Trust. I rarely have to rationalize making a decision of holiness. When my wife and I decided to remain, you know, sexually pure before we got married, it was difficult. But I didn't have to, like, think, well, why should I do that? I didn't have to, like, rationalize it. The other things in my life that I've followed and have gone negative, oftentimes I start rationalizing things and I make decisions. Rationalization is a key.

And so the devil knows that. It is a key to walk towards death. It says, for God knows, he says, you will certainly not die. Sorry, verse three. But did God say? You must not eat from the fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not look at it or touch it or you will die. The devil says something that's somewhat true. Somewhat true. He certainly won't die. I mean, now. He knew you wouldn't die immediately because he had done this route before himself, and he didn't die immediately, but he knew he was on the road to death.

You will certainly not die. This is like the pay me later, right? And if you think about the garden, the devil offers you fruit up front. God offers you a seed. God said seeds of righteousness will become a harvest of what? Fruit of righteousness. With God, rarely do you get the fruit up front. You get to tend the garden, and the fruit is produced because you sow seeds of righteousness. Be very, as you look at these, whether it's a relationship, whether it's financial, whatever the thing is.

You have your own life. You can fill it in there. When the fruit comes first, be very wary. The fruit rarely comes first. Now, on occasion, yes, it does. But the serpent said you won't die because he knew you would later. For God knows that when you eat from it, your eyes will be open. You'll be like God, knowing good and evil. This is interesting because when they were currently children of God and they were in God's image, but what the devil was saying is you will be like God, meaning he really means you will be a God.

You will be like God, that you'll be a God too. And he was offering them wisdom that they should not have. Now, we want wisdom, but there is certain wisdom that God didn't give us. I don't want to know the wisdom of what it takes to survive in a war-torn country in Africa. I don't want that wisdom. That's wisdom that is useful, can be beneficial, but I don't want it. There's a lot of wisdom that we don't need because we're meant to live in places where that wisdom does not need to be employed.

The enemy wanted to offer a wisdom that they should not have. And when the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food, you can circle that. She had an entire garden. Let's talk about the contentment. An entire garden. I bet that garden was killer. I bet it had some awesome stuff. It was good for food. I mean, if you're an agrarian, you know, and you have an entire garden that is just producing, man didn't have to fight.

Mankind did not have to fight to have the ground produce. The ground, it just produced. They were tasked to tend a garden that produced on its own. They just had to tend. The ground did not fight against them. But I saw something else, and it looked good for food. Willing to give away a garden to have a piece of food. And then what happened? You lost the garden. Oftentimes, there is a whole garden surrounding us. But what the enemy loves to do is point at a piece of fruit.

Man, that looks amazing. That would be good. You're hungry. Look around. You're in a garden. But you give the entire thing away for a piece of fruit. May I again say that God gives you seeds. The enemy gives you fruit. Now, God gave a garden. And this doesn't always work in all analogies in the scripture. But for the most part, hopefully you hear what I'm saying. And God wants to give you a seed. A seed has a cost. A seed means you have to get out there.

And my wife's taking urban agriculture right now. She's down at San Diego City College. And she's getting an urban. Maybe she might get an urban agriculture degree. Super cool. But she's in the garden. They have a garden down there downtown. I don't know if you know that. So she goes down there. And she came home with all this lettuce the other day and all this stuff. And they have these hours. They have to go, like, pull weeds.

That's part of their thing. So every Thursday she goes for two hours and pulls weeds. But there's a whole bunch of work that comes with that. She's learning about soil and amending the soil and making all these things happen. It's so cool. God gives you something that costs. Because there is something about collaboration. There is something about the toil of working together with God to produce something. This is why there is pain in childbirth before and after the fall of mankind.

God did not say, I'm going to give you pain in childbirth, women. He said, I'm going to increase the pain. Meaning, even before the fall, there was pain. Why? Because there is something beautiful that is created through the pain. That is why you will never have an incredible relationship or marriage or friend relationship until you are able to manage your way or get through difficult times of conflict. It is actually being able to get through conflict that is the thing that shines and polishes the relationship.

And I rarely trust a relationship until we've gone through conflict together. Rarely trust. I don't look for conflict. Some people love to live in conflict. And that's the mark of their relationships. I'm not saying that. But until you have conflict and you make it together through the pain of conflict, you will never know the true measure of that friendship. And so for me, even with working with people, it's amazing.

But I love my best relationships are the people I've struggled to keep the relationship. And that's why marriage becomes more and more beautiful every time there's a conflict. Not, excuse me, we're not trying to find conflict. But every time we can manage through a difficult conflict, it gets more and more beautiful. Or at least it should. What the enemy would love to say is that conflict, you just need to bounce and go find your third, you know, your side piece like in the BBC thing or whatever to find it.

It is managing through that and through wisdom, looking at that. Well, two things I want to say just as we quickly go through this. I do want to give a couple little hypotheses that are just interesting scriptural insights before we get to these three things that I'm trying to help you with today. The bargain, seeking wisdom, and finding contentment. Those are the three. But the first is this. In college, I came up with this hypothesis that mankind was never meant to live for long in the garden.

It's probably somewhere else online. I'm sure you can find it, but it came to me anew and there are new thoughts. So I didn't make it up, but it came to me for the first time. And there was this thought and I thought to myself, God, why would you put us in the garden instead of heaven? Why didn't you create us just in heaven? Like you should have created us in heaven. And why would you put us in the garden? And were we meant to live forever in the garden?

We're like, God's in heaven. And then he has to leave and come and visit us and take walks with us during the day. Why would you do that? It doesn't make any sense. It's because it is a testing area. Because true love and true commitment has to be tested. And there is no free will. And God had to put us in a place where we could choose him. And I believe that after a certain period of time, if Adam and Eve would have decided to not take from that tree and lived in that place, that at a certain part in time, God would have said, come now into your rest and I'm going to remove you from the garden to spend eternity with me in heaven.

Because wouldn't we all agree that heaven is a better place than the garden? So one of the reasons I thought this is because the only way to get to heaven, it would seem, was for the fall of mankind. Why, after the fall, hopefully you can follow me on this, why, after the fall, a negative thing happens, do we now get an opportunity to go to heaven, a place that is better than where we were? If God did not intend to have us be tested and then to move us to that place.

This is just an insight that might be interesting to you. But I do believe that it speaks to how God wants to have relationships tested in free will. We have the free will to choose God. We have the free will in our relationships to stay committed to relationships. We have the free will to be honest in our business dealings. We have the free will. And that free will, as we make that in righteous decisions, is like tending the ground.

It is like putting a seed in the ground and then God gives a harvest of righteousness. You see, Eve chose the momentary fruit as opposed to the seeds that would lead to a harvest of righteousness. So that's the first theological hypothesis. Just an interesting insight alongside of this sermon. The other is, why was the serpent in the garden? Like, God, why? Like, wasn't the tree enough? Why put some creepy little standing on your hind legs and talking thing running around?

It is. Am I the only one that just thinks that's creepy? Yeah, some snake on hind legs. Thank God snakes can't fly. That's the one thing I've always thought. They're flying snakes. God, you did one good thing. Didn't make a flying snake. Like, so why was he there? And was the serpent actually an animal? Well, if you go to the first verses, now the serpent was more crafty than any other. No, it doesn't say other. It doesn't say any other of the wild animals.

Meaning, possibly meaning, that the serpent was not one of the animals. It says he was more crafty than any of the wild animals that the Lord God had made. Which differentiates and separates. And perhaps he was a creature that was put there that was separate than humankind. So then you would have humankind. You would have this creature or perhaps other heavenly hosts that would also be in the garden. Because Satan was originally one of the heavenly hosts.

And then you have the animals that are there. This is just to unpack the scripture so we can understand it a little bit about what's going on. If you want to understand if this was Satan or if it was not. Because some people say that this wasn't Satan. I obviously believe it is. Because in chapter 3, when he curses the snake, he says that your head is going to be crushed by Christ, basically. And that happened to Satan.

But if you go to Revelations 12. You're going to write this one down. It's not in your notes. 12, 9 through 20. It says, So the great dragon was cast out. That's cast out of heaven. The serpent of old, called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world. He was cast out where? To the earth. We see that actually, for some reason, God and his good wisdom, and it makes no sense to me. Like, why not Pluto? Wouldn't that have been way better?

Why not like, you know, some star in like Han Solo's galaxy? Like, put him off somewhere. Why put him in the midst of the fight? But nonetheless, it says in Revelations that he was actually cast out of heaven to the earth. And there's a whole bunch of interesting things. So, we also know in the book of Job, that he's still on the earth, and he basically just roams around in one place. The devil cannot be in more than one place at once.

He's not, like God, omnipresent. He can only be in one place at one time. We can do a whole bunch of things. I'd love to do a whole series of what the devil can't do, because we tend to put him into this superhero character. There's a lot of things he can't do. And he's kind of useless, as a matter of fact. But nonetheless, it says he was cast out, and he was bound. And so, we see that this creature, Satan, was put, and he's on the earth today, still trying to deceive the entire world.

And so, those are just two things that I thought were interesting to me. You know, one, the garden is a place of testing that I believe was supposed to be transitory, which I also believe in our own lives, every time we go through a testing season, that God is trying to transport you to something better. Whenever you're in a season of struggle, God is trying to perfect you in perseverance, so that perseverance, as it says in the New Testament, will lead you to hope.

So, there was a time of testing. I believe we see that. This is my own take in Genesis. But I also believe we see it in our lives today, wanting to make the scripture practical to today's living. And the second was that it was Satan, and that he was a creature. He was not an animal. But he was in the form of an animal. We still have snakes today. I can't explain that one to you. But nonetheless, out of Revelation. Now, two things before we finish.

First was the bargain. And I want to put that back in front of you. Are there bargains that you're making? Are there bargains you're willing to make? And are you having to do a lot of rationalization in that bargain making? And so, I want to really say that if you're going to cut the legs out from under the enemy's attack in your life, you need to look at the bargains. And what's easy? The easier way is usually not the godly way.

I don't know why that is. But the easier way is not usually the godlier way. Not that we have to be like first century monks, third century monks, and be, you know, beating ourselves with whips so we can have a harder way. But what is the bargain that you are being given right now? There are bargains in which you're going to take. The enemy always wants to bargain you into death. He wants to bargain you into death by offering you something that looks like life.

He is into deception. He hates the light. So, the second thing is wisdom. If you are going to undercut the enemy's plans, you need to have a plan for wisdom in your life. So many people, their wisdom comes from thinking. That make sense? Like, all they do when they have a problem, some might talk. You talk to a friend and you'll bring it up. But I find a lot of, even people I speak to, they're not looking for wisdom as much as they're looking to say something.

Like, they want to be heard, which is fine. And a lot of times I'm in a conversation with somebody as they share, and I think to myself, are they, and I'll ask them, because I try not to give unsolicited advice. I'll say, are you wanting wisdom? Are you wanting me to give a thought? Or are you just wanting to speak? And some people want to come in, and that helps. But I find that the best way to find wisdom is not to spend a ton of time in your own thoughts and a ton of time just speaking your own thoughts so other people can listen to it.

It is important. That's why we have counseling and different things like that. But there is a lot more resources in regard to ferreting out wisdom for your life than just letting it resonate in your own head, which will keep you up at night. One of the things I find is that if you start employing the avenues of wisdom God gives us, it actually releases the burden upon your mind. Don't try to constantly figure things out, even resting and, as we'll see in a moment, having contentment and giving things over.

So, as we speak about wisdom, what is interesting is that woman, in this first chapter, was wanting wisdom. That was interesting. That's a good thing. She wanted wisdom. She got the wrong kind of wisdom. Now, as we look in Scripture, I think God follows up, and he actually speaks back to the Genesis passage, which we've seen over and over again. We spoke about Christ, you know, side being pierced. Woman was taken from man's side.

We see that not a bone was broken. Woman was made from bone. And we saw that really cool, you know, this reaching back as Scripture is all tied together in this awesome, like, spider web. But as we look at wisdom, we see that wisdom in the Scripture is often seen as a woman. As you look at, actually, the Holy Spirit, a Hebrew word, ruah, not pronouncing it correctly, is actually a feminine use of the Spirit of God. It's one of the few feminine uses.

But the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, the ruah of God in this feminine, is also called, Jesus says, I will send you what? You know what he said? I will send you a counselor. I will send you a helper. Which is interesting, because Adam was sent a helper. And we spoke a couple weeks ago that that doesn't mean that she was just doing errands for Adam. She had her own mission, her own calling. But wisdom is seen as a woman.

And so we see that, especially in Proverbs 9. Proverbs 9 is super cool. Go spend some time in Proverbs 9 this week. If you don't have anywhere in your Bible, go spend some time. It speaks about the difference between wisdom and folly, both that are seen as women in this. And I'm going to give you a couple verses from it. But before I do, I want to talk about Israel. I was in Israel. And in Israel, there's this constant battle going on.

There's this religious battle going on of who is in charge and who's doing things. So the Jews have these high holy days. And when there's a high holy day going on, some of the extreme Muslim contingents there will go get a car, and they'll put a megaphone on the top, and they'll drive through. Maybe you've seen stuff like this in Mexico. And they'll drive by where all the Jewish people are worshiping, and they'll be playing all this Muslim music.

So there was a holy day while we were there in the city of David. And these cars are driving around. It's like, ah, you know, all the music going on. And it's just like, hey, we're here. I just want you to know we're here. We're not going anywhere. Now, the Muslims will have their high holy days, and then you get some, you know, very conservative Jewish people that will do the exact same thing. And you get these megaphones, these cars driving by with these giant megaphones on, just like, you know, their songs and hymns.

And it's just this constant, it's just tension in the air constantly. And it's hard to determine, because once I saw both of the cars drive by each other, and I didn't know what was happening. It was like the Jewish dude, he's got the black hat on. You know, you got the Muslim guy, and they're driving through. They're in tension. And they're calling out to try to get you to understand their cause and to follow them. Proverbs 9 says the same thing about wisdom and folly.

Both as women. Both as being seen. And I think, once again, reaching back to this Genesis story. And wisdom, women, I think, in a lot of ways, her choice is redeemed, and that God chooses to use women as the wise counsel throughout much of the Bible. Now, obviously, men are wise. We see that. Solomon's the wisest man ever. It says, listen to the teaching of your father. It is both. But there's a huge homage to women and wisdom in the scripture.

And that's one of the reasons I regularly go to my wife and ask her for counsel. Like, I just feel like my wife has this incredible counsel, and she is able to intuit some of the nuance of things that I, in my personality, just doesn't have a chance. But in Proverbs 9, 1 through 3, it says wisdom, as a woman, has built her house. She has set it up on the seven pillars. She has sent out her servants, and she calls from the highest point of the city.

So she's on the highest point of the city. So one would think that if folly was also a woman, folly's probably down in the, you know, in the streets. She's probably walking in the streets, and like, you know, and there are some analogies to that in the scripture as well. But in Proverbs 9, it says that actually she set up her house right next to wisdom. That they're both calling out at the exact same time, like the sirens in the mythological story that are calling out for the ships to come in.

And the question is, which one are you going to listen to when they're both speaking at the exact same time? You see, wisdom is very difficult to understand in silence, yet alone with somebody else barking at the same time. What does it say about folly? Folly is an unruly woman. She's simple. She knows nothing. But she sits there at the door of her house, on a seat at the highest point in the city, calling out to all those who pass by.

Like those two cars, these women are both sitting there. One has wisdom. One will lead you to life. One will lead you to death. But in order to discern it, it's going to take a lot, a lot of effort. Wisdom just doesn't come, wisdom's not free. I mean, it is. But you have to work to get it. Now, the Bible says in James that it is free, that if you ask God, he will give you wisdom. But sometimes we have to go after it.

See, the hardest things sometimes are not easy. I mean, that is obvious. But the things that are the best things are not easy to get. And so what are some ways that we can get some wisdom? One, that dusty thing on your desk, your Bible, open that on occasion and read that. It's actually amazing. That is one thing. Are you actually, you don't even have to have a plan to like go, you know, find a certain topic. Just start reading the Bible.

It will find you. The Bible will find you. And if you get into Deuteronomy and you're in some, you know, crazy blood ritual for a dove being torn during the sacrifice, skip it, go to the New Testament, find something else. Just keep seeking him. The other one is seek God. Ask God in prayer. He wants to be sought. He doesn't always just show up on occasion. So one, read your word. Two, meditate. Sit and listen. Quiet down.

The quieter you are, the better decisions you'll make. Let me say that again. The quieter you are, the better decisions you will make. Satan loves chaos and crowds and noise. Chaos, crowds, and noise. He loves that. He loves the culture that we're in right now. We can never have wisdom. We can never have thought. Another thing is counseling. Go find a wise counselor. You don't have to have a paid counselor. Go find a godly person and ask for godly counsel.

Usually it'll be something you don't want to hear. You know, the people that have been the most instrumental in my life have told me things I didn't want to hear. Told me things I didn't want to hear. When I was being discipled by Dave Chrysler in the early 1990s, when I was going to Point Loma Nazarene, I had some stuff going on in my life. And after three weeks, he said, I'm going to meet with him in his kitchen. I met with him for two years in his kitchen.

This mechanic, every, you know, going through the Bible. And after like three or four weeks, I was late. I was in my car and I got there and I walked in and he said, hey, you know, we're going through this study guide and like you were late and I saw you like filling out the homework, like in your car, out in the driveway before you came in. He's all, it's not going to work that way. If you want to meet with me, he goes, you're going to have to spend time in this.

It isn't something you figure out in your car. You need to sit with this for the week. You need to read your word. I need you to show up on time. Matter of fact, be five minutes earlier. Don't come. And I was like, whoa, this is a little harsh, you know, but that's what I needed. I got to say, that guy meant more in my life. I mean, he literally cut the cloth of my faith in his kitchen. I learned more at his kitchen table from this mechanic that could pick up an engine block from a Volkswagen on his own, had fingers like Polish sausages.

I learned more from him than I learned in all of seminary and all of Bible college together combined because I watched the godly life. Have counsel in your life. Have people that are willing to tell you things that you don't like. I think those people have been the people and then you can get through it that has really helped. But wisdom is something you're going to have to go after. Do you have a plan for wisdom? And do you have a plan to silence things that are of folly?

What are you putting yourself in front of on a regular basis? If you are constantly watching certain things that keep, you know, normalizing types of relationships or different decisions, we constantly watch it. It eventually is going to get into your heart. You cannot put yourself in front of certain types of media or whatever it is or certain things that normalize decisions that you disagree with but we keep saying yes to in our decisions with media.

It's going to get into your heart. We have to sometimes turn those things off and put ourselves in front of good things. Number one, what bargains are you making? Number two, do you have a plan for wisdom? Actually, take some time to think out a plan to find an answer. Don't spend all the time in your head. Don't spend all the time just offloading to somebody. And the final thing would be this road to sin which is oftentimes cut off by contentment.

I've rarely made a bad decision when I've lived in contentment. Sin rarely follows contentment. Let me just read this one bit right here. It says, sin often starts with a desire. Sin starts with a desire followed by a question. Did God really say? I mean, is it really? Am I really supposed to stay this way? Did God really say? Which leads to dissatisfaction. That is the curse of our culture. We are the most dissatisfied culture, I believe, and I believe we live in the most dissatisfied generation ever.

I believe people were way more satisfied years and years ago. We live in dissatisfaction and that morphs into embrace. Sin often starts with a desire followed by a question which leads to dissatisfaction and morphs into embrace. Wisdom is realization before consequence. You see, that's what wisdom is. Wisdom is realization before consequence. Very few people that I know are able to make hard and correct decisions before they hit rock bottom when they need to change.

Most people have to hit a personal bottom before they'll make a massive change in their life. It's very few people that I know who will make a change in advance of having to hit rock bottom. For some reason, we have to learn hard lessons. You don't have to learn hard lessons, by the way. Scripture talks about putting bits in your mouth. He says, don't let me put a bit in your mouth and drive you around. Matter of fact, just choose life.

You don't have to hit rock bottom. Sometimes we hit rock bottom. It's not our fault. Somebody else's choices, things happen in life. We don't live in a perfect world. But you do not have to hit rock bottom because of your choices. We oftentimes choose it. This comes from contentment. Sin rarely follows godly contentment. Here's Philippians 4, 12 and 13. And somebody said to me, I'm going a little bit long here. I'm going to close up in the next minute or two.

Somebody said to me, no one ever preaches verse 12 in Philippians 4, 12 and 13. They always preach 13. Especially athletes. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. But if you read verse 12, it would beg the question, can you lose? Like how many people lose the Super Bowl and be like, that was awesome. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. That was so odd. Isn't God good? You never hear that.

Because we're never contented. Are you content? Contentment's hard. Actually, I believe that contentment, living in contentment, is harder than living against an adversary. When you have something to be upset about, you have a reason. Living in contentment actually slows things down where you have to actually sit with yourself and actually continue to make decisions to not choose fruit but to choose seeds. Paul says this, I know what it is to be in need and I know what it is to have plenty.

I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation. Whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or want, I can do all things through Him who gives me strength. I say, contentment will take the devil out on his knees. Not saying, meh, oh, I'm just satisfied. You know, doing the things to move to that next level. Planting seeds. Not being satisfied, you know, continuing to work and to do those things necessary but contentment is different than having to have the fruit in the moment.

To having to have that desire. And I would say, if you want to take the devil out of his knees, begin to be less discontent. Especially for Generation Y and the millennials, they're being sold such a bill of goods that you have to be known. You have to sing your song, you have to dance your dance, you have to do this thing and unless you do it, then your life really doesn't have meaning. I met somebody who was in their 40s in the first service, they just turned 40 and they said, man, I didn't think this would happen to me but I've got this existential crisis and I'm asking myself, now, has my life been worth it to this point?

Have I lived? I'm like, well, you really can't do anything about it to this point so I think about it but nonetheless, and what should I do going forward and I'm stressed out? I keep thinking of this thing because this quote by Count Zisendorf and Count Zisendorf said this, he said, serve Jesus, die, and be forgotten. I thought, dude, that is exactly the way I want to live. Serve Jesus, die, be forgotten but be remembered in eternity.

There is such a desire of people to have to be known. You know, here's the thing, I have met in my career, I've met a lot of people that never make it to the place they want to go and they have to deal with it. They never have the kids they want, they never get married, they never have the job they want, their song never gets sung, their movie never, screenplay never got optioned, it never happened. But I've met a lot of people who have.

Matter of fact, I've met many people who have and what I have found is I've never found anybody that got to the top of the mountain and said, yes, I'm here. Matter of fact, the question that comes is, next mountain or you're on the down slope, you know, hey, you were good for a reason. I was reading about Gene Hackman recently and most, many of you won't even know who that is but famous actor, was in Unforgiven, Academy Awards and the whole deal.

He's 90 now, 90. And I went and read this cool thing about him and he quit acting when he was 75 and somebody wrote in the comment section, who's Gene Hackman? I was like, who's Gene Hackman? What do you mean who's Gene Hackman? He's Gene Hackman. That's who Gene Hackman is. Completely forgotten. Somebody else wrote, he's old. Like, he's 90. Yeah, he's old. Here's the thing. Most of us are going to be forgotten anyways and if you're going to be remembered, I want to be remembered in eternity.

I want to be remembered by Christ and not have to go after. As soon as you can let all that go, you can live in peace. Three things. What bargains are you making? Number two, wisdom. Do you have a plan to attack those things in your life and wisdom? And number three, can you be content? Let it go. If you're single, doesn't mean, you know, you don't get your game on, you don't look good, you know you're doing your thing, but can you be content?

Can you be content in your 400 square foot studio? Can you be content in that job that you currently have? Can you be content? Because if you can be content, you have found a secret to joy and happiness that this world is not found and there are very few people that are content. Contentment is hard. Contentment takes everything. I'm working so hard. I get home, I just get twitchy. I'm like, I got to go do something. I'm like, no I don't.

I don't. I want to do the right things and so those are the things. Bargains, wisdom and contentment. Amen? Let's stand if we would. I'm going to bless you and Chris is going to play music in the background because I've gone a little bit long and the prayer team is going to come forward if you need prayer today. We're really excited you're here and hopefully God has touched you and given you some words for life. If you want to extend your hands, I'd love to bless you if you feel comfortable and Chris, as you play, let me just pray a blessing over you.

Lord Jesus, we just cover this group, God, with your heart. We ask that you would bless them, God, with these three things. One, the ability to only make bargains with you and to ask for a bag of seeds that lead to a rich harvest of fruit. God, where are you causing them to sow? God, I pray for wisdom as well, Lord God. You just bring wisdom and that they would ask for wisdom. As James says, that he will give wisdom to those who ask and they will begin to seek and battle for wisdom.

Wisdom isn't found in circular thoughts. Lord God, we pray that wisdom would come upon us and God, we pray for contentment for those that are feeling pushed, driven, that next career choice, the next thing, discontent, never living in a moment, never enjoying a moment. They would have contentment, Lord Jesus, and that the spirit of God, the Ruah of God, which hovered over the waters, would hover over them and they would find a rich contentment in you.

God, we want more of you and more of your peace. And so God, we send this group out as an army of God's consolation, that they would be the ones that would give wisdom, that they would speak wisdom, that they would shine like the stars. And God, that they would tend the gardens that you have given them, Lord Jesus, and that they would live in a rich bounty of fruit. Thank you for the good things you're doing, God. We send them out now in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen. Amen.