God Has Chosen The Foolish Things

Before I preach, just a few things. One, on behalf of the Bierbauers, though, I didn't expressly talk to them. I wanted to thank you guys for your generosity to their family and ours. It is a great blessing to us, and we do appreciate it, and we do love you all very much. And so thank you very much. We love you. Also, I'm sorry for being late this morning. We had an unforeseen need arise on the way to church this morning that required us to go back home. And so that's why I was not here. My family was not here at the beginning of the service. But we will be okay. Nothing is going on in our family that has not gone on in your family over the last couple of weeks and months. And so do pray for us as we pray for you. So this morning, we're going to take time to remember Jesus' birth. And our focus is going to be on the wisdom of God in choosing the foolish and weak things of the world instead of the strong and the wise. Which is to say, I'm not preaching from Matthew or Luke.

Or Mark or John. I'm preaching from 1 Corinthians. And so you might think, this isn't really a Christmas sermon, is it? You're not really talking about the birth of Christ. And while our text doesn't specifically talk about the birth of Christ as such, it does talk about what Christ's birth was. It was a weak thing. And in the eyes of the world, a very foolish thing. And so my hope this morning is that God will help us to choose as he chooses in our own lives. The weak things. The foolish things. because we've come to see that the wisdom of God is not the same as the wisdom of the world, and his ways are not the ways of the world, and yet his ways are good and perfect and right and true and will tend to our benefit. As I said, our text this morning is from 1 Corinthians. We'll be reading in chapter 1, verses 27 to 29. Would you please stand as we read the word of the Lord? This is the word of the Lord, and it is eternally true. God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise.

And God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised. God has chosen the things that are not, so that he may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. You and I, we live in the midst of a competition, so to speak. And that competition is between... The wisdom of the world, the strength of the world, and the wisdom of God and his strength. If I were to ask you, what is the wisdom of the world, how would you describe it? You might come up with things like, first of all, saying, well, it's finite. That means that it has a boundary. It's not limitless. It has limits. The wisdom of the world cannot know everything. The wisdom of the world is also logical or practical or pragmatic. It looks at the things around it and it says,

How can I make sense of this? With what I see, how can I fit it all together? The wisdom of the world says things like, that doesn't make any sense. Or, if I do that, I won't get what I want. This is the wisdom of the world being practical, being pragmatic. The wisdom of the world also shifts. It changes. If you were to ask what was considered conventional wisdom 50 years ago, it would be very different than what's considered conventional wisdom today. We could see that in medicine. We could see that in our finances. We could see that in economics. We could see that with relation to marriage or all kinds of things. The wisdom of the world changes on these topics. It doesn't stay the same. The wisdom of the world is also self-serving. You remember I said the wisdom of the world says, what can I get out of it? How does this affect me? That is the end game of the wisdom of the world. How does this affect me and what can I get out of it? Will I get what I want out of it?

The wisdom of the world is also proud. It looks around at other people and gives into the native desire in all of our hearts to elevate ourselves and to tear others down. I'm better than you because fill in the blank. We are better than you because fill in the blank. And finally, I would say that the wisdom of the world is sinful because the world is sinful. We might want to pick through the list I've given you and say, well, I don't know that all those things are sinful. I don't know that it's always sinful, that logic is always bad, or that practical considerations should always be ignored because they're always sinful. That's not what I'm saying. God is a God of order. We should be able to look at the things he's made and make sense of them. But our sinful nature corrupts the sense we're able to make of it. It corrupts our ability to perceive the good and the bad and the priorities that God has.

And so none of these things are free from sin. Even our own experience, a lot of times the wisdom of the world in our own lives comes from our experience. Well, I tried this and it didn't work. It doesn't work. I'm a Christian, so I should tell the truth. And so I went to work and what I did was I told the truth. I knew a guy one time who worked in a factory. And the employers came and asked the employees what they could do better. As employers. Well, this young man was foolish enough to tell them what he thought. Well, I think you guys could do better at this and that and the other. What do you think happened to him? He got to go find a new job. He got fired. Now, what lesson did he learn? Being honest doesn't always get you what you want. You and I, we have experiences just like that, where we've tried to do the right thing or the godly thing, and then we say, but it didn't work.

It didn't work or produce the thing that we wanted, and so it's not the thing I'm going to do anymore. Wives would say of their husbands, I've tried to submit to him. It doesn't soften him, so I'm not going to do it anymore. Husbands will say, I've tried being patient and kind to my wife. She doesn't follow me as a result. And the thing that the parents together will say is, we tried spanking our children, and it didn't work, so we're going to do something else. Just to name a few examples in our own homes of the sort of wisdom that the world is giving us on a daily basis. That's the wisdom of the world that springs up in our own hearts. In fact, we don't need other people to come to us and to fill our hearts and minds with the wisdom of the world. We can do that ourselves. Because by nature, we are worldly and are full of her wisdom. So that's one thing that's competing for our attention, for our devotion, for our obedience.

And the difficulty with it is this wisdom of the world is not an external pressure but an internal pressure. If you think of a young couple that's dating, and you say, when are you going to get married? But they've been dating for years, and so what's going on? And that simple, very simple question, so when are you going to get married? What's going on? What's competing? What's competing is the wisdom of God and the wisdom of the world. The wisdom of the world says, What's the rush? What's the big deal? Try the milk before you buy the cow. These are all the sorts of things that the world will say about marriage. You'd want to make sure that you're compatible. We're compatible. I can tell you, I've not met a marriage where the people would say after a few years of marriage, you know, we're compatible. We just seem to get along. We're like a hand in a glove. I haven't met them. It's not my wife and me, and it's not any of you as I've gotten to know you.

There is a certain compatibility that's necessary, but this idea that you're going to marry someone that you won't have trouble with is a bridge too far. So this is the wisdom of the world. Put off marriage until you get all of these things sorted out. Live as though you're married. Act as though you're married, but don't get married. And so the father, the grandmother, the pastor comes along, and knowing the pressure that the young couple feels, says, when are you going to get married? And in that question, all of this stuff is immediately pulled to the front of the mind. And the couple has to answer the question, well, we're going to. The wisdom of God requires that young couple to say, we are going to commit ourselves to this or we're not. Be in or be out. And that thought doesn't make any sense to an unbeliever. The vows in a marriage that say, till death separates us. Don't carry weight with them. Because they think, well, but what if my spouse does, the wisdom of God is hidden.

from the hearts of men. And we need it. We need it. In Isaiah 55, he says of the Lord, my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. Whereas the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. So you and I, we're full of the wisdom of the world by nature. All of the things that make sense, all the hedging of our bets. It's natural to us. And it's touted to us as wisdom. We don't go, oh, what a fool I am for doing these things. We think, I'm being wise and prudent by doing these things. I'm doing it the right way. To continue in the analogy of a marriage, just a second, how many couples refuse to get married because of the condition or the failure of their parents' marriage? And they say, I don't want that kind of marriage. What they fail to realize is,

what caused their parents the failure of their parents' marriage. It may well be the very thing they're doing, which is refusing to commit to each other. Not always the case, but often the case. We're much more like our parents than we care to admit or than we care to know at any given time. Only in the future do we look back and go, man, I'm just like them. I do so many things just like them. The things I didn't want to do like them, here I am doing it. And now I understand the pressures they felt when they did it. And it was wrong when they did it, and it's still wrong when I do it. The wisdom of the world, it turns out, is no good. So this is the wisdom of the world. How would we describe God's wisdom? Well, God's wisdom is infinite, meaning there's no end to it. God's wisdom is pure, and it's perfect. God never makes a mistake. His wisdom never changes. The Bible says that he is the same yesterday, today, and forever. There's something solid we can count on. We don't have to go that in five years, in 20 years,

When my grandkids are living in this messed up world, how are they going to make it? They're going to make it the same way that God's people have always made it in a sinful world because God doesn't change. Now, if they don't love him and submit to him and trust him, then they'll be without help in this world. But he doesn't change. His wisdom doesn't shift around. His wisdom is not self-serving. His wisdom is pure and not sinful. And the pinnacle of God's wisdom, the thing that is right at the top, the greatest manifestation of his wisdom is sending his son to this earth. And it doesn't make any sense to us. In Philippians, when it speaks of Jesus coming to earth, it says that he laid aside his glory. He lived in a state of perfection, in perfect harmony with his father, in perfect unity together. And he set that aside. And I ask you, which one of us would ever choose?

to do that. We can't get ourselves out of bed on a cold morning because it's uncomfortable and our blankets are warm and there's a cost. And the kid's crying and you're like, well, I just don't want to have to go do the hard thing. He left perfect glory. Doesn't make any sense to us, does it? Because we would never do that. And so he laid aside his glory and took on our flesh and came in the form of a man, a baby. Many of you have little ones at home. And I remember when we had our first little one, and it's been truer and filled out each time we've had more children. When you have a baby for the first time, when you first see your baby, you realize something about them that you didn't know. Even if you saw other people's babies, you didn't realize until you had your baby. And what is it that you realize when you have your baby? That they are completely helpless. Completely helpless.

Like, they can't, like, you have to be concerned that they can breathe. Like, that's why you don't want to have stuff in their cradles and you don't want to have clothes up near their house because they're so weak and so helpless, they can't get the things away. In fact, they don't know that that thing, that hand, is theirs. Okay? They are helpless. And your job is to care for them, to provide for them, to feed them. Everything that a baby is and has to endure is undignified. And the reason we know it's undignified is that when we reach the other end of life and we return in many ways to the weakness of a baby, it's undignified. We can't walk on our own. We can't bathe ourselves. We can't feed ourselves. That's undignified. None of us would appreciate somebody else having to come help us with those most basic things.

The only difference between an older person in that situation and a baby is the older person had their season of strength and independence, and the baby hasn't yet. But we understand when we look at the baby that there is incredible weakness here. And so when we think of Jesus coming to earth and taking on our flesh, that's how he came. That's how he came, weak and unable to care for his most basic needs. And it doesn't make any sense for us that he would be willing to come that way or that his father who loved him would send him that way. This is the wisdom of God. Just a few verses later in chapter 2 of 1 Corinthians, Paul said this. He says, we did not speak wisdom among those who are mature. I'm sorry, I read that incorrectly. We do speak wisdom among those who are mature, a wisdom, however, not of this age, nor of the rulers of this age who are passing away.

But we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages of our glory, the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood. For if they had understood it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But just as it is written, things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love them. Love him. And so you and I live in this time of competing wisdoms, these pressures that we're constantly inundated with. Some wisdom that comes naturally to us because it's in our hearts. But it's worldly wisdom, and it's perishing wisdom. It's changing wisdom. It's not reliable wisdom. It's like having a cane that you lean on, and when you put your weight on it, it breaks. And down you go. On the other hand, you've got God's wisdom. And yet his wisdom is not...

available to us. His wisdom is not just a matter of information that's to be communicated. You can come to church and you can read the Bible and you can learn who Jesus was. You can learn facts about him. But the wisdom of God in sending his son, you can't have that wisdom unless God gives it to you. He's hidden it from you. And you might say, well, that's not fair and that's not loving. And I say, that's God's prerogative. To open the eyes that he wants to open and to hide things from the eyes he doesn't want to see it. And if we get angry about it, if we get frustrated, if we think that's not right, what are you going to do about it? In the end, what are you going to do about it? You're not God's equal. I'm not his equal. We're not able to stand toe-to-toe with him and tell him what he's done wrong. In fact, the very thought that he's done things wrong is the fruit of the wisdom of this world. Creatures, people.

sitting in judgment over the God who made them. It's foolishness. You note in that passage I read from 1 Corinthians, it talked about rulers a couple of times. He says this wisdom is not of this age nor of the rulers of this age. And then again he says that this wisdom is that which none of the rulers of this age has understood. And he talks about rulers. And when I read that, I think about Americans and about me and my own heart and about you. I think we live like rulers. We're all our own rulers. That's sort of the American dream, is that you're strong enough and wealthy enough and powerful enough to just make all your own decisions and do your own things, all on your own, because you're strong enough, smart enough, wealthy enough, clever enough to accomplish it. And so to be an American is to think like a ruler, to be superior, smarter, wealthier, more powerful than everyone else. And so it's worth noting that in that passage,

It says that these rulers didn't understand because if they had understand, they wouldn't have crucified the Lord of glory. That for all their wisdom and all of their power and all their strength and all of their might, they were fools. Fools. And that's the danger that you and I face is that we would be fools in the same way that they are. Thinking more highly of ourselves than we should. Thinking we're smarter, wiser, stronger, and powerful enough to accomplish the things that we want. So what does the world do when it sees the wisdom of God? Getting married, having kids, staying married, working hard, being honest. What does the world think of those things? Well, they think of those things about what they think of the Lord who spoke them. They hate them. Those things are hated. If you get married and you have children, you will at some point become called, be a breeder. Now, that's not a fancy term. That's not a nice thing to be called, right? That's not meant to be an encouragement along the way.

And so the wisdom of God, when it's seen or the fruit of it is seen by the world, it's despised. And what that means is that if you choose God's wisdom over the world's wisdom, you will look foolish and weak to the world. You will become an idiot. You and I, we don't want to look foolish. And we don't want to be weak. Not in the face of the world's strength. We don't want to be weak. And so we're tempted to accept. Worldly wisdom instead, because it gives us at least the facade of strength and wisdom. It gives us the appearance of being reasonable. It strokes our pride. And it does make getting along in this world a little bit easier. The question you have to answer, though, is at what cost? At what cost? Paul says that the rulers of this world here in 1 Corinthians 2, he says they're passing away. And the wisdom of the world is passing away.

And so if the wisdom of the world is like that cane I mentioned earlier, how much of your weight are you going to put on it? How long will you believe that it's not going to give out and fail you when you need it, when you need strength? Another example of the wisdom of God would be the death of Jesus Christ. His death on the cross was the wisdom of God. Not just his birth, but his death. Now those who are around him, those who would be described as the worldly wise, what did they think of Jesus' death? What did they think of the man? They thought good riddance. They mocked him. They spat on him. They beat him. They cursed him. This is what they thought of him. And they thought that through their actions, they were winning. Why did Jesus die? And I'm not asking for the salvation, well, to save us from our sins. How is it that Jesus died? Did all of their hatred and all of their nastiness and all of their sin, is that what killed him?

No. Jesus died because he chose to die. In John 10, verse 18, he says, No one has taken my life from me, but I lay it down on my own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. Now, who around Jesus at that time understood that? How many times did he tell his disciples, I'm going to die? And they never understood it. Even his disciples, they didn't understand. God's wisdom. And so he says things like this, I have the initiative, the ability to lay my life down and to take it up again. And they just scratch their heads and they say, how's all that work? Why would you do that? Who would do that? Who would lay down their lives willingly? Who would die willingly? As Jesus was dying, what were they saying about him? They were scoffing and saying things like, he saved others, but he can't save himself.

He's the King of Israel. Let him come now, come down from the cross, and we will believe in him. What were they looking for him? They were looking for the strength of the world, the ability to be a self-made man and to do the things that you want to do because you have the strength in yourself to do it. And what they perceived in him was weakness because he wasn't able to do the things that they said he should be able to do. Now, was Jesus not able to do it? He was able to do it. He could have come down off the cross if he wanted to.

But they perceive the wisdom of God and the strength of God as foolishness and weakness. And that is always how the world will perceive the wisdom and strength of God. It's hidden from their eyes unless God chooses to reveal it to them. Now, what's this foolishness and this weakness meant to do? Foolishness and weakness of God, these things God has chosen. He describes in our initial passage foolish things, weak things, base things, despised things. Things that are not, all of those are in a category. Why does he choose those things? What do they do? Well, he tells us, they shame the wise. They shame them. Now, shame is something that in our society we're not supposed to use, unless you're doing what God says, and then it's okay to be shamed. But shame is something that God's not opposed to being used. And so the foolishness of God and the weak things of God, the despised things of the world, the base things of the world, those things are meant to shame all the wisdom, all the strength, all the shine, and all of the beauty that the world has to offer. Just before our passage, Paul says, the foolishness of God is wiser than men. And he says, the weakness of God is stronger than men. Do we believe that? That God's wisdom is wiser than the wisdom of men? That God's weakness is stronger than the strength of men?

You and I, we want strength and we want wisdom. And so the question is not whether we want it. I'm not here to argue whether you want it. I'm not here to talk you out of wanting it. I'm simply here to ask you, where are you going to get it? If you go to the world for their strength and you go to the world for their wisdom, what you'll get is shame. It may not be quick, but that's what will come in the end because in your pursuit, you will have forsaken God. Shame is meant to reveal the world's foolishness, okay? That's the purpose of shame. It's meant to reveal what's going on, what's really, really going on. I read an article yesterday about Sam Bankman Freed. You guys know who Sam Bankman Freed is, right? Biggest thief of all time now. Stole, what, $8 billion through the crypto exchanges that he set up? And so I read an analysis of how he did it and why he did it.

How did he do it? Well, he's very smart. His parents are both law professors, and he saw a way to make some money. Now, when I say that he stole $8 billion, what did he do with the money he stole? Well, all he did was take the money from the people unknowingly and invest it. And then his investments didn't turn out. And then he got caught because they wanted their money. Now, this is a painting with a very broad brush here. You could read and be more detailed about it. But generally speaking, he thought he was smarter than all the people that were giving their money to him. And so he took it, he invested it, and then he got caught in trouble. He got caught with out their money. Now, why did he do it? Well, I'll give you a couple of reasons. One, because he thought he could get away with it. Now, why did he think he could get away with it? Because he thought he was smarter than everybody else. Clever, more clever.

He had some special knowledge, some edge, some angle. And what we found out was he's not as smart as he thought he was. Now, he might still think that he's smart and clever and able to, you know, he just got caught at the wrong time. If he had gone on a little longer, if he'd had a little more time, he would have cleaned up the whole mess, perhaps. But to think that way is to set aside the morality of what he did and to excuse it and say, There's no judgment to be made about whether what he was doing was right or wrong. So what can we learn from Sam Bankman Freed? Cryptocurrency is a bad investment. Yeah, that's one thing you can learn, but I don't even think that's nearly the most important thing for you to learn. I think you should learn something about greed. Something about greed. Something about your own heart. That would be helpful for you to learn. I think you can learn the extent to which...

The wisdom of the world will lead you astray. Whenever we're going to do something foolish, something sinful, something wrong, we will have a rationale in our head about why it's okay or why it's necessary to do. I was having another discussion actually about Abraham. Aaron Walker asked me a question about Abraham and his wife. Now, it says in 1 Peter that Abraham's wife called him Lord. Aaron says, Well, what was that referring to? Aaron says, well, I thought it was just when, you know, he passed his wife off as his sister. Twice he did it. And we're just talking back and forth about Abram doing this thing, taking his wife, who's beautiful, and he's worried that if they find out I'm married to you, they're going to kill me. The king's going to kill me. So what I'm going to do is pass you off as my sister instead of my wife. Now, we look at that, and we just sit here, and we go, that's so wicked and wrong. But Abraham really did.

know what could happen, that his wife was beautiful and that the king was going to catch her eye, that his wife was going to catch the king's eye, and that he was going to have to deal with it somehow. And so he chose a way to deal with it. Now, what's interesting is what he chose. He chose to save his life by passing his wife off as his sister. Now, that's wicked, and that's corrupt, and that's wrong. And what Abraham did is not commendable. That was the world's wisdom. Now, this was before he had child. Decades later. We get through these situations in Abraham's life. And Abraham has a son. Against all odds, a miracle baby. He's 100, his wife's 90. Here comes Isaac. And then the Lord says to do what? Take your son, go up to the mountain, and sacrifice him to me. What's Abraham do? I mean, any of us would look at that and just go, no. There's really no discussion here. No, not going to do that.

But Abraham does. He takes his son, and he takes his servants, and they load up the firewood, and they load up each of themselves, and they take the knife, and then they head, and then he says to the servants, stay here. I'm going to go up on the mountain, and I'm going to worship with my son. They grab the wood, they grab the knife, and as they're walking up, his son says to him, Dad, we've got all the stuff for sacrificing, except the sacrifice. Like, where's the sacrifice going to come from? And can you imagine what's going on inside of Abram? Could you imagine as a father?

That situation. And what's he say? The Lord will provide. The Lord will provide. So up they went, set up the altar, the wood, his son, takes the knife. And we all cringe at the story because we're just like, I just can't even conceive of that. But he trusted God. And it's not to say that that was easy for him or something that we should be commended. The lesson in that passage is, Not for us to go do what Abraham did particularly, but to trust God the way he did. He, I believe, at some level learned his lesson from passing off his wife as his sister. He learned to trust God. He learned to appreciate the wisdom of God. Because he'd done stupid enough. He'd been faithless enough. There's often great cost, real and perceived, to following the wisdom of God.

It's not an easy thing. It's not a comfortable thing. It's not a free thing. But in the end, with Abraham, the Lord did provide. A ram caught in the thicket. Now, we might look at Abraham and think, how in the world could Abraham do that? And we're relieved. We're relieved when the ram's in the thicket. The other thing we learn from that passage is that's just a foretelling of what God would do with his own son, except there wouldn't be a ram in the thicket. He would go through with it. And that's the wisdom of God. And the fleshly part of us looks at that and says, no way, no how, never ever would I do or go along with that. But the spiritual part, the part that trusts God and that wants to serve him, though imperfectly, says, I want that. Give me more of that. Help me to seek after that. If I'll be perceived as foolish, if the world will look at me and scoff, then that's okay.

Because I want God's wisdom. And in the end, I don't want to be the one who is shamed because the wisdom of the world gave out on me at the wrong time. There's another thing that this passage tells us that the wisdom of God and the strength of God do. He says that he's doing these things so that he may nullify the things that are. This is this word nullify means to erase. It's the same word that Catholics would use for an annulment. It means to undo, to abolish, to get rid of. And so God in his work of choosing foolish things and weak things, he does it so that he can destroy and rebuild the things that are broken. This is the work of redemption. This world and all of its lusts and our own hearts full of their own lusts need to be torn down, nullified, and rebuilt. They need to be redeemed so that we can love and serve God as we should.

Now, God is at work doing this, whether we recognize it or not. He's perpetually about this work. But it does us good to be reminded that he's doing this work and that when, on occasion, we recognize it and we have to choose, like Abraham had to choose, like Joseph had to choose when he decided to go ahead and marry Mary instead of putting her away, you and I face choices just like they face choices. Will you choose the wisdom of God or will you choose the wisdom of the world? You will reap what you sow. And we do well to be reminded to stay away from our lust for strength and wisdom that comes from the world. It's easy to get it from the world. It's hard to get it from God. All you have to do is go along to get along to be thought wise in the world. But to have the wisdom of God, it has to be given to you. You can't go get it. The rich young ruler tried to get the wisdom of God.

the way that you get the wisdom of the world. He came to Jesus and said, what do I have to do to inherit eternal life? And he says, how's the law read to you? He says, I've done all that stuff. He says, okay, well, there's just one thing you lack. Go and sell all that you have. Give to the poor and come and follow me. There's a cost to it. The rich young man said, no, I'm not going to do that. That's too costly. And so we each day need to be pursuing the wisdom of God, which is foolishness to the world, and the strength of God, which is weakness to the world.

Another way of saying all of this is that a Christian lives dependent on God to provide for them. They don't have a safety net. As I was thinking about this, I thought about our Americans' view of wealth and of money and of gaining and being prosperous. It's unknown historically the way that we think about money. Which is not to say, you know, I'm talking about the way Dave Ramsey would tell you to talk about money and think about money and how to manage your money and do all that stuff. I'm not saying that stuff is bad or that that stuff is wrong or that that stuff is unbiblical. I'm only here to tell you that Christians were never afforded the luxury of even having those thoughts outside of the nation we live in. They just didn't have it. And I'm afraid that too often we look at those things and say, well, if godliness would cost me the ability to do those things, then I will leave aside godliness. And so there's a good bit of tension that we have to live in just in that arena. If you think about how you manage your money and your time and what you're working for and what you want to be left when you're gone. A rich man can build bigger barns. He can keep building bigger barns and he can keep filling bigger barns. But if he doesn't give his children a godly heritage, they will squander it all. Do you guys know what Sam Bankman Freed's bail was that was paid? $250 million.

Paid. And the thing that that man needs, you can't buy with money. And neither can you. Not for yourself and not for your kids or your grandkids. And so what we need from God is for him to provide for us our daily bread. To help us to see that depending on him will mean that we will be weak. It'll mean that we'll be thought of as fools. And so as you go to your Christmas celebrations or New Year's or back to work or wherever, you go to school. You kids, you know, the kids go to school. I remember when I was a kid and I used to go back to school after Christmas. There were two times it was really hard for a poor kid to go back to school. The first day of school and the day back from Christmas break. Why? Because all the other kids who weren't poor had all kinds of new cool stuff. They had their new Jordans and they had their new whatevers. But I didn't have those things. So I hated those days of school. Because without a word, people would look and you would know what they thought.

And what it would do is it would make you as a child ungrateful for the things that you were given. Some of you have been given great gifts in your families, a godly heritage. You may not have a lot of money, but who cares? You've been given something, and it's the wisdom of God, and so don't squander it. And when the world looks down on you and says, that's worthless, you're not keeping up. The truth is you're not, because you're not of this world. You believe in the future. eternity, and you're living for it, which means you go without the things that are going to perish in favor of the things that won't. And so to sum up, I would just simply say, our calling this Christmas season is to love God always, to love weakness and foolishness as the world reckons it, not to be ashamed of it. To the extent that you do this, you won't fit in with the world, and that's as it should be. Be patient. Be gracious. Forgive. Serve. Love your children and your spouse.

and your in-laws, and your aunts and your uncles, those who sinned against you. These are God's ways with us and ought to be our ways with others. You can't have both wisdoms. You can't have the wisdom of God and the wisdom of the world. You can't have them both. They are opposed to each other. They are at war with each other. And so as you see your choices become clear, choose the wisdom of God. Choose the wisdom of God. God is no man's debtor, and in the end, You'll not be sorry. Let's pray.