Let me have you turn to the book of Proverbs. We are going to take a diversion from 1 Peter, at least this week. And Proverbs, you can start in chapter 4. I want to address something twice this week I've had one by text one by telephone a believer who is having difficulty and both of them said the same thing we just don't know what to do and you know preachers get that a lot sometimes and you don't you know that we don't have a magic wand to wave over problems and make them go away Most of the time we don't know what to tell them what to do other than to pray for God's wisdom and listen to the Word of God. So I want to talk tonight on how do you acquire God's wisdom and how can we be sure it is God's wisdom in any situation in your life. In the book of Proverbs we're given advice concerning wisdom. even to the degree of a commandment. Chapter 4 verse 5, get wisdom, get understanding, forget it not, neither decline from the words of my mouth. And then in verse 7, wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom, with all I getting, get understanding. Proverbs 16 verse 16 says this, how much better is it to get wisdom than gold? And get understanding rather to be chosen than silver. And in chapter 17 verse 16, wherefore there is a price in the hand of a fool to get wisdom, seeing he hath no heart to it. That verse tells you that the fool doesn't have a heart for wisdom. He doesn't want wisdom. So I want to give you some thoughts tonight on getting God's wisdom. Sad to say, there are many times in our lives we don't filter our talk, we don't filter our thoughts, we don't filter our activities or our decisions through God's wisdom. Many times we act too fast. Sad for the believer because God has promised to give us all the wisdom we need to face any situation in our life. Sad in most of us that we respond to situations by winging it and just hope we're right rather than going to God and say, okay, Lord, what do you want me to do? How do we acquire God's wisdom? Let me give you five thoughts, okay? This is not a very long message, just five thoughts. Number one, desire wisdom with all your might. You've got to want it. It's not going to be written in the sky. You've got to go after it. Listen to this, Proverbs 4 verse 8, exalt or praise or lift up and the pronoun is her meaning wisdom with the context, and she shall promote thee. It's the same word as exalt. She shall bring thee honor. She will bring you glory when thou dost embrace her. And the phrase embrace, an interesting word, it means to store up. In other words, you get God's wisdom, you get enough of it, and you store it up in your mind or your heart, and maybe it's scripture, you've memorized it, and it's there for another day. You don't use it for today, but there's a situation coming up, you'll use it later. But you gotta want it. Do you remember when you guys Saw the girl of your dreams? None of you are smiling. You must hate the person next to you or something. You remember that? You did everything you could to get her attention. And then she finally caught you. You know how they work. When I saw my wife at that Halloween activity laying there, I purposed in my mind I'm going to do everything and anything to meet her and to get her to love me. Well, I got her to meet me. And I think she still loves me. You gotta want it, folks. You gotta go after it. You know, in here it says, cry out for wisdom. It's the word that's used for the banshee cry, the wailing cry, the cry that It's almost like the cry of a wild animal when they want something. Proverbs 2 and verse 4 says this, if thou seekest her, and that word seekest means to seek with purpose. Not just to, it's not hide and seek, it's to seek for a purpose. if you seek wisdom that way as silver and searches for her as for hidden treasure. And the word searches is, it means to devise a strategic plan to acquire something. Why would we do that? Because we would value wisdom. Why don't we do that? Because we don't think we need it. Why do we sidestep God and His Word when we have a decision to make? Because we think we can handle it on our own. And we're all guilty of that. It's called man's pride. Desire wisdom with all of your heart. It's a command. Get it! Secondly, Since wisdom is found in the Word of God, we must apply ourselves in studying meditation on the Word of God. Listen to Psalm 19. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The word simple is the word, the Hebrew word, which means that person that floats through life and lets every circumstance just take him like the current. It makes wise those kind of folks. It's in the Word of God. You've got to apply the Scriptures. What's that imply? It implies you've got to be in the Scriptures. And then it implies the Scriptures have got to get in us. Desire wisdom with all your heart. Apply the Word of God on a daily basis. Thirdly, we need to pray for wisdom. In 1 Kings chapter 3, we have the story of God talking to Solomon, and he said, Solomon, you can have anything you want, what do you want? And Solomon said, I want understanding. And God said this in chapter 3 verse 11, and God said to him, because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life, neither has asked for riches for thyself, nor has asked for the life of thine enemies, but thou hast asked for thyself understanding to discern judgment. The word understanding is in the causal, it's a hyphal tense, and it means to cause, to understand, to the point of being able to teach somebody else. Have you ever been in a class where the teacher didn't know what he was talking about? Boring, isn't it? You ever been in a class where the teacher loves the class and loves what he's doing and loves what he's teaching about, and instead of it being just a humdrum class where you wonder if he really believes it, he is really into it? That's this word. It causes, and Solomon said, God, I want the understanding that causes me to be able to teach somebody else. And then that phrase discern means to see through or beyond the present day. So this wisdom that we're asking for isn't just for today, it's for us to store up and use at a later time. And as we acquire it day by day by day by day, it grows in our life so that when the problems in life come, we don't cave. We can deal with those problems. And the word judgment there means to decide or make a decision. So here's what he's saying. God, I want to understand to the point of being able to teach, to see beyond the present day so that I can make right decisions. Do you realize something, folks? Probably, and this is just a guess, is over all the years that I pastored, all the years I was in youth work, I would have to say maybe 75% of Christians could not discern the will of God for their life. They just don't know. They wouldn't, I have this little phrase, they wouldn't know the will of God if it jumped out of a bowl of soup and bit them in the face. They just wouldn't. That's sad. Especially when the Bible says, this is the will of God, walk ye in it. Pray for wisdom. Solomon was not born a man of wisdom, but God made him a man of wisdom. I'll give you the example of Daniel. In Daniel chapter 2, Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, for wisdom and might are his. So what's Daniel saying? I don't have the wisdom. God has wisdom. Verse 30 of chapter 2 says this, but as for me the secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any living but for their sakes that shall make known the interpretation to the king and that thou mightest know the thoughts of thine heart. What's he saying? Daniel's saying to the king, wait a minute, I can't give you the interpretation. God can. Because wisdom is of God. Folks, we can't answer spiritual questions without the wisdom of God. How are we going to answer our kids when they ask some spiritual question? And you know what happens after a period of time when mom and dad can't answer the questions, they go somewhere else to get their answers. And you don't know what the people are telling them. Verse 23 of chapter 2 of Daniel says, Daniel's thanking the Lord. He says, I thank thee and praise thee, O thou God of my fathers, who has given me wisdom and might. What did he say in chapter 2 verse 20? That wisdom and might are his. And now he's saying, thank you Lord for giving me wisdom and might. Paul said this in his prayer for the church at Colossae, for this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you and desire that you might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. He prayed for the church at Ephesus and he said that God, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. James said it this way, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not. And the phrase liberally means he spreads it out. How many of you eaten at buffet 88? You've eaten there. Come on. How many wish you were there right now? Yeah. Buffet 88 spreads it out for you. 88 different things on the menu. I've seen some of you there. I saw one member carrying two plates and they were mounds. I won't mention who that was. And abraideth not, God holds nothing back. You can have wisdom for every situation. Talked to a pastor last night on the phone, it was late. Problem there in that church. He says, what do I do? I said, well, to be honest with you, since I don't know your people, I don't know what to tell you. I do know God has an easy answer. And God will give you that answer. Go to the Lord, stay on your face before God until you get the answer. Jacob didn't know what to do. He wrestled with the Lord all night, finally got the answer. There is an answer to every situation. Pray for wisdom. Number four, and this is, it's in the Bible, so I'm gonna give it to you. Moses wrote it. Think frequently about the shortness of your life. Now, my grandmother passed away 99 years old, 364 days. She missed her 100th birthday by 12 hours. My mother passed away at 90. My dad passed away at 92 or 91. I go to the doctor and he looks at me and he actually sent a series of tests back to the lab and said, redo these. He says, because no one that looks like you can be in this good of shape. Think frequently about imminent death. Psalm 90 verse 12, so teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom. I'm telling you folks, nothing will sober our thoughts and clear our minds as does the meditation on the shortness of life and imminent death. All the trivial things that we think are so important just disappear. Meditations on such purge our thinking of the triviality of life. And number five, Build a better relationship with Jesus. Jesus was confronted by the Pharisees in Matthew chapter 12, asking him, they said, Jesus, give us a sign. We want to see a sign. Prove yourself. And Jesus says, I'm not going to give you a sign because you've already got two. And then he goes into his, Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days, three nights. And there's a greater Jonah in front of you. And then he said this when it came to Solomon. In chapter 12, verse 42, the queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment in this generation and shall condemn it. For she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. And Jesus says, and behold, a greater than Solomon is here. So Pharisees, you've got your two signs. She came to hear the wisdom of Solomon. But there's a greater than Solomon here. What an understatement. Solomon spoke God's wisdom. But Jesus Christ is wisdom. Build a better relationship with him. First Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 24, But unto him who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God, Verse 30 of that same chapter, "...but of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption." You see, others speak of Jesus as being, or others speak of the truth, but Jesus is the truth. And others speak of pointing the way, but Jesus is the way. Others have given promises, but the Bible says all the promises of God are in him. Let me close with this. The book of Colossae or Colossians carries the theme of being complete in Christ. In chapter 2 and verse 3, Paul says concerning Jesus, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Now, remember that first verse I quoted? Let me find it here. Proverbs 2 and verse 4, if you seek her, if you go after her with purpose as silver and searcheth her, strategically try to find her as for hidden treasures. Paul says to the church at Colossae, in whom, that's Christ, are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. So when you pursue wisdom, understand you're pursuing Christ. You're pursuing a greater, deeper relationship with Him. And Paul tells the church that to know and to build that relationship with Jesus is to find the treasures of wisdom and knowledge that will help you make decisions of every day of your life. Don't neglect it. So how do we acquire God's wisdom? Seek it with all your heart. Apply the scriptures to your life, of every, every area of your life. Pray for wisdom. Think often of your own death, so that you can clear your mind of the triviality of life. And build a better relationship with Jesus. Acquire, you know what? I think that's exactly what Peter was trying to tell those people in 1 Peter. That when you're suffering and you're going through difficulty, seek wisdom. Learn how to live. Learn how to decide. And make those right decisions. Folks, let me tell you something. If we as parents and grandparents could get our kids to understand that truth, how many problems would they miss? How many problems would they identify and circumvent? May God help us. Let's stand together. Father, thank you for your goodness. Thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to be in your house tonight. We pray, Lord, that you would give us wisdom. God help us. Oh, Lord, we cry for it. We ask you to allow your spirit to be our teacher, to take the word of God and the principles of scripture, to renovate our minds with it. that we may understand your perfect will, that we may pursue it with all of our heart, that you might put a driving force in us to walk with God and to better our relationship with Jesus Christ. God help us. Time is short. May Lord you bless our people and give Calvary Baptist Church members who are full of the hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge. We'll thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. God bless you.