One Heart Church
Holy Spirit | Spirit of Wisdom | Rob Santostefano
Who's allowed to be in the house you've got this morning? So I want to welcome all those who are watching online as well. Thanks for tuning in to one heart church and pray that wherever you may be that the Holy Spirit will be speaking to you. So if you're visiting with us, we want to give you a really great warm welcome and thank you for joining us as well. So do stick around afterwards and we'll get to meet with you and have a coffee. It's great to have Stuart and Kelly Green with us from Futures Church Victor Harbour. Let's give them a hand. Pastor Stuart, I should say. So I tell you, Stuart is one of the great crop of young leaders that Futures is raising up and one of honor Futures Church, Josh and Charlotte Greenwood as their senior pastors who are doing a phenomenal job in our state building a fantastic church in various locations. But it's such an honor to have you with us today. I've known Stuart for quite a while and he's a great young man of all of God upon his life. And Kelly I knew from a little girl as well grew up in Mount Barker where we used to be in the olden days. But she was only a butter child in those days. It's great to have you with us, but I really want to speak over your life Stuart that God has called you for where you are today. And it's like don't take any prisoners, that is with the enemy. Go in, Victor Harbour needs a breakthrough. Victor Harbour needs a church that kicks some devils teeth out. So don't be scared. Don't be afraid, don't be discouraged. But do some, get some devils in some headlocks and start to bind some things when you get back there. Get up on the bluff and speak it over that place. And tear some things apart there. So I just really want to, you're not going to win by being passive. I'll let that in school. If you want to win the fight, it's going to be dirty. So can we just pray for a futures church, Victor Harbour, right now? So far that we just pray for Pastor Stuart and Kelly. Pray Lord for that church there in Victor Harbour. Lord, for the breakthroughs to happen. For the things that the enemy has planned to keep that place without a great church. To keep that place restricted, bound up and focused on all the wrong things. But Lord, I pray for a dynamic release of your power, of your spirit. Of breakthrough thoughts and ideas to come into Pastor Stuart's mind. That he may say, "I know what to do. I can see where we need to take these people." And Lord, I pray that they'll see breakthroughs in the high school. Breakthroughs into areas where there are people that are just hungry for experience of Jesus. So we pray, bless them right now in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Well, I want to continue our series on the Holy Spirit this morning. And I want to start with the Scriptures. It's Proverbs 16 verse 16. It says this, "How much better to get wisdom than gold and good judgment than silver." So I want to broaden our thinking when it comes to all things Holy Spirit. That's why we're spending so much time on this series on the Holy Spirit. Thanks, team, too. Let's give them a great hand. They will snuck out quietly. I want us to broaden our perspective when it comes to all things Holy Spirit. Because sometimes when we hear a phrase, we even hear something. Holy Spirit, we go, boom, narrow our perspective straight down to think, well, that only means this or only means that. And we deny ourselves the kind of involvement the Holy Spirit wants in every single part of our life because of the way we think towards Him. But I want to encourage you today to enlighten yourselves to broaden your perspective and expectation of how and what the Holy Spirit wants to do in your life. So broaden your understanding, we need the Holy Spirit in every part of our life. And so today my subject is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Wisdom. And I will say sometimes I think maybe the greatest thing that we need in our lives is wisdom. Because it could change everything, could change the outcome, could change a whole lot of things. So this spirit of wisdom in Proverbs that I just read, we're told to get wisdom. And so today we're going to go shopping for some wisdom who wants to do that. Let's do it. Let's pray first. Pray with me. Lord Jesus, I just pray today over every single person here today. Lord, I ask that this message may go beyond our intellect but to send into our spirit. Come down into our heart, Lord Jesus, we pray as we hear your word. As we listen to this message, I pray Lord God that it may change our hearts. Change perspectives and change the future for our lives because we've had a release of your faith in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. So it's no surprise to you if I say these things, but there are two kinds of wisdom. There is learned wisdom, that's knowledge, things we learn. And there's the gift of wisdom that comes from the Holy Spirit. And you can't learn that so much. You can't go to a classroom and learn the gift of the Spirit. It's something that you must receive, it's something that you must unwrap, it's something that you unlock in your life. Is that gift from God of the Holy Spirit that brings wisdom. One of the things about wisdom that I've found is I always get it about three months too late. I wish I had unknown that back then. And in my case, maybe not for you, maybe not for Sue up there, but for other, I don't know about your situation. But for me, I find that often when I don't walk in wisdom, it costs me a lot of money. Nearly every time, it's like I'm always, it gets cost me heaps, cost me plenty. Because I haven't had wisdom when I've needed it. But what wisdom is, it's sensible. Sorry, I better go back. So we're looking at there is learned wisdom. I'm getting ahead of myself, I'm getting too excited. And there's a gift of wisdom that comes from the Holy Spirit. So we're going to look at both of those this morning. But I want us to concentrate on the gift of wisdom that comes from the Holy Spirit. So wisdom is sensible, it's intelligent, or good judgment. Who wants a little dose of that? I mean, I think we all need a little bit of that. So it's being able to make decisions with good judgment. You know, there's nothing more frustrating when you see a person thinking, they're just making crazy decisions. And you think they say, "Why do you do that?" And you know what's even worse when you look at someone and think that person is me? Why did I buy that car? Why did I do that? And you think, "Well, I just wish I had a little bit of wisdom." So learning and knowledge don't always equal wisdom. But knowledge applied is wisdom. So when we have knowledge, that's all great, but it's not wisdom until we apply it to something, till we apply it to our living. So why did the Titanic sink? Look at this amazing -- look at that. Wow, what a great picture. That's not pixelated, is it? I needed to -- I should have put a disclaimer. I love my disclaimers. I didn't put one in today. But Joshua points out that my power points are not great. And he always says, "How do you know my dad's preaching because the power points are pixelated?" So I haven't got my glasses on, but that doesn't look too pixelated to me. Give Robbie a hand, everybody. Hey. But why did the Titanic sink on its maiden voyage, its first voyage, it got sunk. And the first answer is, "Well, it hit an iceberg." It hit an iceberg and sunk. But the behind story is they -- when building the ship, the knowledge to build ships wasn't applied. Because they had designed initially that it would have all these bulkheads and things in it so that if it did hit an iceberg, that would probably never happen. But if it were ever to randomly happen, then it wouldn't sink because it had all these separate partitions in the ship's hull or whatever. So that if it hit something and got broken, the whole lot wouldn't sink because it would only be restricted to certain areas. But because they ignored their knowledge, they didn't apply wisdom. They said, "We're going to take all that stuff out and save a lot of money and save a lot of time in the construction. We'll get this thing on the water." It only lasted one journey or didn't even get there. It got hit in its first voyage. See, they didn't get a second chance either. And sometimes when we don't apply knowledge, we may not get another chance at that. So with that ship had one chance, hit an iceberg and sunk, no second chances. But let's look at knowledge for a moment. Knowledge is learned wisdom. And that's a good thing. It's good to have learned wisdom, things that we've learned, things that we've accumulated in our mind, in our intellectual capacity about life. So Proverbs 13, 20 on that says this, walk with the wise and become wise. Walk with wise and become wise. There's a type of wisdom that comes from study and knowledge. So when we say walk with wise, it means you go to school. You go to university, you go to places where you can learn things that you want to learn about. And sometimes you can learn those things through books, through study and information. Good old Google. Teeth has been so much about everything. Who loves Google? They say it's not accurate. Yes, it is. You find anything you want. It'll tell you the right kind of thing and the angle you want to see that. It gives you the facet for you. Just keep looking. Don't like that report. Don't like that report. Well, that's the one. Proverbs 23, verse 12 says this. Commit yourself to instruction. Listen carefully to words of knowledge. So wisdom for anything can be learned. And you just need to get around the right sources, get around the right people. And read the right things and you will gain knowledge. You'll accumulate knowledge in your life for practically anything you need to know. But we've got to be aware of the imitations in life. See, knowledge wisdom has no shortcuts. There's no shortcuts. Well, I just need knowledge. I'm just going to find a quick and easy way to achieve that. See, sin entered the world from wanting a shortcut to wisdom. I'll show you that, Genesis 3, verse 6. See, the woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful. The fruit looked delicious. And she wanted the wisdom that would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. And then she gave some to her husband who was with her. And he ate it too. You see, in the pursuit of wisdom, Eve was deceived by Satan to disobey God. It's the very first way sin entered the world. She was lured in by the false claim that it would make her wise. See, that's what we see there. She was seeking wisdom. The devil said, "Hey, I can give you wisdom. Take the shortcut. Just eat this fruit and it will give you wisdom. It will make you wise." And she was lured by that false claim that it would make her wise. I want to tell you, when it comes to learned knowledge and wisdom, you can't find a shortcut. You have to learn and you have to apply yourself to learn. So there's another wisdom, though, that we can't learn in school. We can't go to a university or a college to get it. It's mentioned in the Bible as the spirit of wisdom. And that's what I want you to go after in your life is a spirit of wisdom that comes from the Holy Spirit. So if we were just boiled down, the work of the Holy Spirit, well, I can prophesy now and then. I can see some revelations in the Bible. I can worship in church and suddenly have some great moments with God because the Holy Spirit's with me. That's a great part of the Holy Spirit. But greater in all of what the Holy Spirit does in our life is being able to descend upon our thinking so that we have wisdom for things that we could have never learned. Who's in for that? I love that. See, it's a spirit of wisdom. So the spirit of wisdom from the Holy Spirit is a gift from God. It means it's a gift that God wants to give us. So here's some examples, Old Testament examples. Deuteronomy 34 verse 9 says that Joshua had the spirit of wisdom. Daniel 5 verse 14, Daniel had the spirit of wisdom. I'm emphasizing that thing spirit because I believe it is the Holy Spirit. Exodus 28 verse 3, God says he's instructed all these skilled craftsmen who I have filled with the spirit of wisdom to build the tabernacle, to build this big tent that was going to be used to worship God in the wilderness that God instructed Moses to build. And he says, I've instructed all these men with the spirit of wisdom. I think the spirit of wisdom brings creativity to your life. It brings artistry to your life. It brings creativity to write, to make music, do songs, and all kinds of creative things come when you have a spirit of wisdom working through your life. So what else have we got here? Exodus 31 verse 2 and 3. There's a man called Bezelel. I don't know if that's how you say it because they bezelel, bezelel, bezelel, this same guy. He says, I have filled him with the spirit of God. Giving him great wisdom, ability and expertise in all kinds of crafts. So here again, this guy is a gifted craftsman, but that gift is coming by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. We need that in the church. We need that in our lives personally. Exodus 35 verse 31 and 36 verse 1, it says that not only had God gifted bezelel, but it says all these other craftsmen had been gifted men with wisdom that would make things for the tabernacle. And also what I love, I didn't put the reference in because I'm male oriented. But it also talks about women who were skilled in broiding and creating fabrics and all that kind of stuff. If they were skilled, they were gifted with the spirit of wisdom on their lives too. So what I love about the Word of God and through the Bible is the spirit of God is not restrictive to gender. He's available to every person who would seek after that. And you know what? The other bit is that they used that wisdom gift that God had gave them to build the tabernacle. So here's some priority for your life. Well, I'd love to have some gift of wisdom because I want to build my business. Yay! I'd love to have the spirit of wisdom because I would love to build my profile. Yay! But the primary purpose of God wants you to be gifted with the spirit is that you may build his temple, his tabernacle. Oh, mamma mia, there it is. You see that? You see that in those people who were gifted with the spirit of wisdom was to build the tabernacle which was for God's glory. Who's getting excited? God, help me to see some wisdom things because I want to be part of that. Help me to have some wisdom because I want to build your church. I want to build the tabernacle that brings you praise. I've got one applause. Yay! Thanks everybody. You're getting it. So, wisdom's principle that we see from the Old Testament or the principle of wisdom. Deuteronomy 4 verse 6. It says, "God gave the law to Israel that they may display wisdom to the surrounding nations." God gave the law. So, the law God gave Moses in the wilderness. So, I'll give you a quick story. God said to Moses, "He's all these laws, not just the Ten Commandments or these big laws. What to eat? How to wash your clothes? How to wash your food and your hands and all this sort of stuff? What to eat? All these laws that he gave to Moses to show the people of Israel because it was wisdom for a nation to become strong. It was wisdom from God to manage people as a community that made them strong. That made them, I guess, a good society to be part of. And God gave the law to Israel that they may display wisdom to surrounding nations. So, if another nation looked at Israel, they'd say, "Wow, they're prosperous. Wow, they're blessed. Wow, they have a great military. Wow, they have great business people. Wow, look at everything that Israel does. It's so blessed and amazing because they're following the wisdom from God given to them through the law. Think, "Yeah, yippee-dee, yippee-dee, yippee-dee for them." But in Solomon's day, this is fulfilled. It says, "Kings from every nation sent their ambassadors to listen to the wisdom of Solomon." So, kings from all around the world are hearing, "Well, Israel's blessed. Israel's amazing. Let's send some ambassadors there. Let's see, find out what's going on. Let's go and send people there to see and bring back some of this wisdom." And God gave Israel the law and he gave the church the Holy Spirit to display his wisdom to the nations around us. So, we need the Holy Spirit in the church so that we can display God's wisdom through the church to the world. So, we need the Holy Spirit wisdom in the church because it's our role to display wisdom to those around us. You need the Holy Spirit in your life because people in your street need to see the wisdom in your life of how to live, how to manage through life. Proverbs 2 verse 12, it says, "Wisdom will save you from evil people and from those whose words are twisted." I just want to take a moment to talk about, because I have it in my life, is a mercy gift where you see things in... Well, I feel for that person. I'd like to help them. But there is something extra to that is those who have an overactive mercy gift. It's like they want to save everybody. They want to help her a lot. I was always on the street. I was always bringing home puppies and dogs that I found. So, this poor dog was lost. It's probably not lost. It just ran away from home for a few hours and I thought, "No, you come to my house." And my mum would say, "Stop bringing home dogs or kittens." Birds! It was my overactive mercy gift. But those who have a strong mercy gift, you've got to seek wisdom or align yourself with someone who can balance those feelings of mercy so you don't entangle yourself and everyone else's problem. So, you need to apply wisdom. There's nothing wrong with a mercy gift, but when you don't have that... you don't apply wisdom, then you'll just be like, "You'll kill yourself trying to help everyone else." And you'll get hurt. You'll get disappointed. You'll get disillusioned at all these other illusions because you haven't applied wisdom to that part of your life. So, that's an easy application where if you struggle with that, if you have a strong mercy gift, then get people around you who can balance you, who can speak into your world and say, "Hey, listen, I know you're trying to help that person and you're doing this and that well, but you need to put some boundaries around that." Because what happens is people with a lot of issues often then just transpose their issues and they become your issues. So, not only are they messed up, but they want to mess you up. And that can really damage the future of your ministry if you allow that to happen. So, you need to apply wisdom. So, wisdom is something God so wants you to have. So much so, He dedicated an entire volume of the Bible to wisdom in Proverbs. And so, Proverbs has 31 chapters, so you can read one chapter a day and give yourself some wisdom every day. Read it and study it and ask God to reveal things into your heart about how you can gain wisdom. It's the shopping cart of the Spirit. It's the book of Proverbs. So, you go shopping with that, open your Bible, open your Word and do a little bit of shopping every day. And you apply that. You don't want to be like the Titanic that had the knowledge but didn't apply the wisdom. First iceberg that hits your life and you'll go down. And I want to tell you something though, you will have a second chance with God. He'll give you a second and third and 40th and 980th. Just ask my wife. That went over to everyone's head real quick. But wisdom from the Holy Spirit is a gift that will preserve your life. I think one of the Proverbs that really just anchors in the concept of wisdom is Proverbs 3, verse 7-19. I had someone come to me after the church in the first service and saying, "God was just speaking to me this week through Proverbs 3." She says, "I couldn't believe it and then you were preaching about it. It just really blessed her heart. But she really needed wisdom and God was speaking to her through Proverbs 3." So it starts in verse 7. Don't be impressed with your own wisdom, the wisdom of knowledge, the wisdom of learning. Instead, fear the Lord and turn away from evil. Now, if you're here today and you've never made yourself right with God, you've never asked Jesus to forgive your sin and to come and dwell in your heart and be born again. You can be today, but that's where wisdom starts. The first plank of wisdom is to be right with God. It's asked Jesus to be your Lord and Savior. It's described here as the fear of God. It basically means that you respect God and say, "I'm your Lord." That's the first part of wisdom is being born again and having that relationship with God. Anyway, we'll continue, verse 8. Then you'll have healing for your body and strength for your bones. Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the best part of everything you produce. There's wisdom for life. You want to be blessed and prosperous? Honor the Lord with your wealth. That means you give to God what belongs to God. I'll do a Christian swear word for some people, tithing. Just learn to do it. You want to be blessed, you want to be wise, learn to tithe. Honor the Lord with your wealth. Then he will fill your barns with grain and your vats will overflow with good wine. So you might not have vats and barns, but you know what? He's saying, "Hey, I'll bless you. I'll bless you in your life." Verse 11, "My child, don't reject the Lord's discipline and don't be upset when he corrects you." Verse 12, "For the Lord corrects those he loves, just as the Father corrects children in whom he delights." Joyful is the person who finds wisdom, the one who gains understanding. So here's what wisdom is, verse 14 onwards. For wisdom is more profitable than silver. And her wages are better than gold. Some is more precious than rubies. Nothing you desire can compare with her. She offers you long life in her right hand and honor and riches in her left. What a great plan. You get blessing both hands. She will guide you down delightful parts, who's ever felt like you've gone down the wrong part. But when you walk with the spirit of wisdom, it takes you through delightful parts. The right parts, the best part. All the ways are satisfying. Wisdom is a tree of life to those who embrace her. Happier those who hold her tightly. By wisdom, the Lord founded the earth. By understanding he created the heavens. So this wisdom is part of this earth from the very beginnings of its foundations. God was working through wisdom. There's a great promotional advertisement for the spirit of wisdom. But God is infinitely wise. And wisdom is a gift for those who will seek it. As I said, today we're going to go shopping for some wisdom. I'm going to ask the musicians to come and join me please. But something you may not have realized is wisdom is the number one spiritual gift from the Holy Spirit. It's the first one. It's a listed first of the spiritual gifts and I believe for good reason. It's not a mistake. 1 Corinthians 12 verse 7 to 8. It says the spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. To one person the spirit gives the ability to give wise advice. That's the first gift that is listed and mentioned. Wise advice. Wisdom. So I tell you there's got to be something when we see the order of things. It's not just they gave them random order that day. I think it was because God wants us to see something that we need to understand is wisdom comes first. I wouldn't say they're graded in greatness. But I think for emphasis of importance God says he gives people with a gift of wisdom to give wise advice. It goes on in verse 11. It is the one and only spirit, the Holy Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have. See when the Holy Spirit is evident in the church it is a wise church. It is a blessed church. It is a generous church. It's a victorious church. So I've already sort of given you some ideas of where we can go shopping to get us some wisdom. But I want us to do some shopping today for the areas of wisdom that may be facing you. Where you need a little bit of wisdom for somewhere that's lacking. James 1 5 says this. If you need wisdom ask our generous God, there's an attribute of God right there. He's generous to us and he'll give it to you. He'll not rebuke you for asking. Something I've kind of discovered is the world is a complicated place. Relationships are complicated. Employment is complicated. Employing others is complicated these days. But Jesus has gifted you the Holy Spirit, the spirit of wisdom. I know it's amazing but some people have the gift to be able to uncomplicate complicated things. There's an alternative gift and some people take something so simple and they make it so complicated. They just add all this tangle to it. It's like let's mess this up. Let's make it hard. I don't want to be a person who takes complicated, makes simple things complicated. I want to get complicated things and make them simple. So the gift of the spirit, the gift of wisdom helps you to do that. It doesn't matter how complex it is, God will give you the ability to see the way through. So today, everyone here has something where you need wisdom. And maybe as a response to God saying, "God, I need your help today. I am going to ask you to stand right now wherever you are." As a posture to say, "God, I want to make a claim today over my life. And I want to pray for you." So just before I do, I want you to start to consider, start to reflect. And what are the areas that might be one big one or might be a whole lot of different areas where you need wisdom? So we need wisdom in business because you do better with the spirit of wisdom. With your children and raising a family, you do better with the spirit of wisdom. Obviously, in ministry, you do better with the spirit of wisdom. In the church, those better with the spirit of wisdom operating. In relationships, even between husbands and wives, they do better with a spirit of wisdom. In managing our finances, it's a big part of our life. We do better when we have a spirit of wisdom. In making general life decisions, you do better with the spirit of wisdom. So today, wherever and wherever and whatever you need wisdom for, the Holy Spirit has the wisdom. See, what did we just read in James? He says, "He will give you generously." He's a generous God. He's not going to say, "I'll just give them a little bit." "Well, don't do too much." He doesn't say, "Just give them a little bit." He's saying, "Give them generous dose." "Give them enough." "Give them over enough." "Give them plenty." So as we respond to this today, as you've been thinking, I want you to name that thing where you need wisdom. I want you to name that thing, or things that come to mind, that the Holy Spirit is just revealing to you. You need some wisdom here or there. And I want you to begin just to speak to the Lord. Along these lines, you say, however you want to, but Holy Spirit, I need wisdom over that thing. You insert your thing. Holy Spirit, I need your wisdom in this area. I need your wisdom in my marriage. I need your wisdom in my business. I need your wisdom with that employee. I need your wisdom with whatever it is. You put that thing in there. Whatever it is in your life, fill the blank. But I want to pray for you, but we're going to take what James said and we're going to apply that to our situation. And when we apply knowledge, it becomes wisdom. When we apply things that we've learned, knowledge, when it's applied, it becomes wise. It is wisdom. We're going to do that spiritually this morning. Let me pray for you. Lord Jesus, we just take those things. We see every single person here today, if you have a specific need or you really need a breakthrough in something, I guess they ask you to be bold, put your hand up nice and high. Just between you and God say, Lord, I'm making a demand upon you. Lord, I need your help in this area. Just put your hand up and the Holy Spirit will begin to speak and minister to you right where you are. So Father, you see these hands right across this place. Father, we just pray Holy Spirit in that area, wherever it is, whatever it is, in every single person's life here today where they need wisdom. We speak life. We speak the breakthrough. We see the way that they can see past where they're stuck. And in Jesus' name, we pray the release of wisdom over finances, over marriages, over parents with their children, over every part of our lives, in farms, in business, on fishing boats. Whatever it is, Lord God, we need wisdom. I pray, release your wisdom into our hearts. Lord, your word promises us in James. If we need wisdom, ask. And today, every single person I'm praying, you need to see for every person who's asking. And Lord, we make a claim that for the generous, we make a claim on the generous wisdom that you give. So Father, I just pray today that there'll be thoughts, there'll be insights, there'll be revelations coming into our hearts over the next few days about those things and that we will know what to do. What to do, how to do it, where to go, where to find it, whatever it is that we need. Lord, I pray in Jesus' name, Holy Spirit, do what we can't learn. Do what education can't give us. Lord, I pray right now to send the gift of wisdom over your church in Jesus' name. Amen. And amen. Just take your seats. I just want to do one more thing before we finish. I did mention earlier that the foundation of wisdom, the first point of wisdom is to be right with God. I just want to take a moment if that's you here to do anything. Well, I've never really heard that before, but I want to give you an opportunity where you can be made right with God. So Jesus said that if you'll turn to me, if you'll repent of your sins, and that's what separates us. It's always what has separated people from God, is having issues and sin. It's all those wrong things that we've done that separate us from God's righteousness. That's why Jesus came and died upon the cross, because in that sacrifice he made a way, he paid the penalty for those things. He carried upon his body, the penalty that was meant for our sin, so that we could be free. So you can be saved and born again. That's the first and best wise move that you can make today. So if you're here today and something's beating in your heart, I need to do this. It's a very private thing. It's a very powerful thing. But I want to lead you in a prayer. I don't know if we have the prayer there somewhere. Sorry, I didn't prepare. There it is. But there's a prayer on the screen. I'm going to ask and invite you. I'll ask everyone to pray this prayer for those who are doing it for the first time. But if we can pray this together, it's our way of saying, "God, I need you in my life. Jesus, I want to be a new person." And what Jesus described with this is he says, "You'll be born again." Because that old sin life will be put to death on the cross. And you gain a whole new life in the spirit, empowered by the Holy Spirit. So can we pray this together? And if you're praying it for the first time, please, I'd love to talk to you after the church. Give you some help, give you some resource to take away to help you on that new journey. So I believe there is a powerful transfer that happens when we do this with a sincere heart towards God. So are we ready to pray? Okay, let's pray this together, Church. Dear Jesus, I believe you are the Son of God who died on the cross and rose again to forgive my sins. I ask that you forgive me. I give you my life and I invite you to be my Lord and Savior. Today I am born again. I trust my future into your hands in Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Please see me if you prayed that for the first time today. Let me just finish with a word of advice. A lot of times we say, "God, I need your wisdom. I need your wisdom." But then we try and work it all out our own way. That's just destroying the wisdom that God wants you to walk in. So what God does is his ways are not like ours. So what God does is he says, "Okay, if you want to walk in wisdom, then I want you to do things differently." If you need help in your marriage, don't keep doing what you've always done. You've got to say, "Well, God, give me the wisdom to do it differently." If you need marriage with your doesn't marriage, if you need help with your children and in your home, maybe you need marriages, maybe there's some things you need to advise there. But if you need help with your family, with your children, raising your family, then you need to say, "Well, God, give me the wisdom." And I'm not going to just keep repeating the same ways I've always done things. So I need to adapt myself to the spirit's way, to the spirit wisdom, not just do things in my earthly wisdom. So that's the only advice I can leave you with today, to carry the wisdom well. Don't keep doing how you've always done life. But say, "God, I need your wisdom and I want to follow that." In Jesus' name, I'm finished, amen. (gentle music)