Wise Decision-Making: Surrendering to God's Guidance
Devotional
Sermon Summary
Sermon Clips
"So I believe that there are five critical questions that we all need to answer in life. Five critical questions. Five critical questions that we all need to answer in life. And maybe you've heard of some of these before, but just in case you haven't, I want to remind you of some of these. Number one, first critical question, how will my faith influence my life? How will my faith influence my life? Now, that means, am I going to kind of just have a Sunday faith or who I believe Jesus to be? Am I going to carry that into the other days of my life and really live out my faith, right? So how will my faith influence my life? Second question is, what will I do with my money?" [00:31:48] (44 seconds)
"And fear doesn't help you because what we often do is we catastrophize a situation and then we go, oh no, what if this happens? And oh no, what if that happens? And oh my gosh, what if this happens? And now we're all stirred up. We can't think straight. We're all emotional and fear can just really make it hard to focus in our life when we're trying to make big decisions. Second point here is information doesn't guarantee wise decision-making." [00:35:58] (29 seconds)
"Because I mean, yeah, you kind of know the wrong thing most of the time. You don't always know the right thing most of the time. And I think there's a better question to ask. And here's, here's the tool that I want to offer you. This has been super helpful for me. And it's been super helpful for a lot of you that have done this before. Here it is. What is the wise thing to do?" [00:37:52] (19 seconds)
"One gift that Andy Stanley gave to us years ago is this question right here. In light of my past experiences, current circumstances, and future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing to do? When it comes to my relationships, my career, money, health, in light of my past experiences, current circumstances, and future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing to do? What a gift he is. He gave us in decision making. I love, love that question." [00:39:06] (30 seconds)
"And what I did is I took all those notes and I took all those observations and I took all those patterns that I've kind of observed over eight years and I put them in a list and I'm calling it my eight practices for wise decision making. And so these are not necessarily, don't take my word for it. These are people that I've observed. They're not perfect people, but there are people who have made a lot of wise choices in their life. And I kind of took their playbook, their game plan of how they made those decisions. And I just wrote some notes down and I want to share them with you as a framework for how to make wise decisions." [00:40:47] (44 seconds)
"Grounded in humility, faith, and knowledge of God's purposes in scripture, genuine wisdom aligns with God's word and contradicts the opinions of the world. Worldly wisdom is based on human theories, reasonings, and pride and self-reliance that God has for us. God has a word that dismisses God. My favorite verse on this is this right here. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. Foolishness." [00:44:17] (31 seconds)
"The value of having friends and mentors and coaches that love God, it's like this. If you've a football game you understand the offensive coordinator or the defensive coordinator most likely is up in the press box and the reason that they're up in the press box is they can see the whole field they can see the whole field and they can they're on headsets and they're talking to the coaches down on the sideline and they're going hey listen next time we're running offense out on the field this linebacker has this tendency to do this on defense when we're in that formation or this safety has a tendency to creep up during this type of play so here's what we need to do or this receiver he tends to do this when he jumps off the line of scrimmage so here's what we need to do let's let's strategize and game plan around this but here's what I'm saying friends godly friends mentors and coaches they see your life sometimes from a bigger view we're in the details of our life or we don't always see the bigger picture because we are so granular in how we live and there's nothing wrong with that. That's just a thing thing." [00:46:23] (76 seconds)
"understand that pride is a problem. It's a problem. It's like what Jesus said, there's a log in our eye. It keeps us from seeing things realistically as they are. Pride is not your friend. To think more highly of yourself than you should, that's a problem. To resist advice and not ask for help, that is a problem. You don't know it all. You have a lot of blind spots and so do I. And we need help. I love this verse right here. Pride leads to disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom. When people make decisions based on pride, it leads to disgrace. That's a principle all throughout scripture." [00:48:40] (49 seconds)
"Now, here's what I know about you and I. We live fast. We live fast. But here's what I also know about us is as people, emotional people, and how we process our emotions and feelings and thoughts, although we live fast, we need time. To process the things in our life that happen to us that are significant, whether they're really good or whether they're really bad or whether they're all over the place, whether we felt like we've gained something or lost something, we need time to process. I love this verse right here. I remember the days of long ago. I meditate on all your works, God, and consider what your hands have done." [00:51:09] (47 seconds)
"God is about the long game in your life. Some of the people you're praying for, some of the things you're trying to heal from, some of the situations that you are just asking God for a miracle, God is playing the long game in your life. He's playing the long game. There is something about the time under tension in your life that God is doing in you. It cannot be done any other way. I want to say that again. There is something about time under tension that God is doing in your soul that cannot happen any other way." [00:55:02] (41 seconds)
"um we'll be around and we're trying to figure out what that means and we're not exactly sure what that means yet but here's what i know when it comes to making wise choices the biggest question we've had to really think about the biggest phrase that we've really been praying about is everything comes back to surrendering our life to jesus we don't know the future but he does and we exist for him and our goal has always been to surrender our life to jesus and allow him to use us and put us where he wanted us to be and so that's my last challenge that i'm going to give you as i know you're processing big decisions i know you have a family and you love them and you've got stresses in your life and you've got things you're trying to figure out and i just want to if you forget everything i say i just want to offer you this last piece of advice the wisest thing you can do the wisest thing you can do everything comes back to surrendering your life to jesus and allow him to use us and put us where he wanted us to be and so that's my last challenge the wisest thing you can do the wisest thing you can do is surrender your life to jesus nobody loves you more nobody's done more for you nobody has sacrificed more for you than him let me pray for you heavenly father i love this church family it's my family this is an incredible church kernersville and oak ridge and those watching online this is an incredible spiritual family that you have blessed us with the ability to be a part of for 17 years we've seen so much change we've seen you move in so many incredible ways and my heart is full by allowing you allowing me to serve at this incredible place and serving these incredible people and i just pray ultimately god for my friends that under the sound of my voice that regardless of the choices that they're trying to make right now in their life i pray that it would come back to what choice do we need to make that demonstrates we are surrendering our life to jesus what is the wise thing to do and in jesus name we pray amen" [01:05:00] (138 seconds)
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"And fear doesn't help you because what we often do is we catastrophize a situation and then we go, oh no, what if this happens? And oh no, what if that happens? And oh my gosh, what if this happens? And now we're all stirred up. We can't think straight. We're all emotional and fear can just really make it hard to focus in our life when we're trying to make big decisions. Second point here is information doesn't guarantee wise decision-making." [00:35:58] (29 seconds)
"Because I mean, yeah, you kind of know the wrong thing most of the time. You don't always know the right thing most of the time. And I think there's a better question to ask. And here's, here's the tool that I want to offer you. This has been super helpful for me. And it's been super helpful for a lot of you that have done this before. Here it is. What is the wise thing to do?" [00:37:52] (19 seconds)
"One gift that Andy Stanley gave to us years ago is this question right here. In light of my past experiences, current circumstances, and future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing to do? When it comes to my relationships, my career, money, health, in light of my past experiences, current circumstances, and future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing to do? What a gift he is. He gave us in decision making. I love, love that question." [00:39:06] (30 seconds)
"And what I did is I took all those notes and I took all those observations and I took all those patterns that I've kind of observed over eight years and I put them in a list and I'm calling it my eight practices for wise decision making. And so these are not necessarily, don't take my word for it. These are people that I've observed. They're not perfect people, but there are people who have made a lot of wise choices in their life. And I kind of took their playbook, their game plan of how they made those decisions. And I just wrote some notes down and I want to share them with you as a framework for how to make wise decisions." [00:40:47] (44 seconds)
"Grounded in humility, faith, and knowledge of God's purposes in scripture, genuine wisdom aligns with God's word and contradicts the opinions of the world. Worldly wisdom is based on human theories, reasonings, and pride and self-reliance that God has for us. God has a word that dismisses God. My favorite verse on this is this right here. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. Foolishness." [00:44:17] (31 seconds)
"The value of having friends and mentors and coaches that love God, it's like this. If you've a football game you understand the offensive coordinator or the defensive coordinator most likely is up in the press box and the reason that they're up in the press box is they can see the whole field they can see the whole field and they can they're on headsets and they're talking to the coaches down on the sideline and they're going hey listen next time we're running offense out on the field this linebacker has this tendency to do this on defense when we're in that formation or this safety has a tendency to creep up during this type of play so here's what we need to do or this receiver he tends to do this when he jumps off the line of scrimmage so here's what we need to do let's let's strategize and game plan around this but here's what I'm saying friends godly friends mentors and coaches they see your life sometimes from a bigger view we're in the details of our life or we don't always see the bigger picture because we are so granular in how we live and there's nothing wrong with that. That's just a thing thing." [00:46:23] (76 seconds)
"understand that pride is a problem. It's a problem. It's like what Jesus said, there's a log in our eye. It keeps us from seeing things realistically as they are. Pride is not your friend. To think more highly of yourself than you should, that's a problem. To resist advice and not ask for help, that is a problem. You don't know it all. You have a lot of blind spots and so do I. And we need help. I love this verse right here. Pride leads to disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom. When people make decisions based on pride, it leads to disgrace. That's a principle all throughout scripture." [00:48:40] (49 seconds)
"Now, here's what I know about you and I. We live fast. We live fast. But here's what I also know about us is as people, emotional people, and how we process our emotions and feelings and thoughts, although we live fast, we need time. To process the things in our life that happen to us that are significant, whether they're really good or whether they're really bad or whether they're all over the place, whether we felt like we've gained something or lost something, we need time to process. I love this verse right here. I remember the days of long ago. I meditate on all your works, God, and consider what your hands have done." [00:51:09] (47 seconds)
"God is about the long game in your life. Some of the people you're praying for, some of the things you're trying to heal from, some of the situations that you are just asking God for a miracle, God is playing the long game in your life. He's playing the long game. There is something about the time under tension in your life that God is doing in you. It cannot be done any other way. I want to say that again. There is something about time under tension that God is doing in your soul that cannot happen any other way." [00:55:02] (41 seconds)
"um we'll be around and we're trying to figure out what that means and we're not exactly sure what that means yet but here's what i know when it comes to making wise choices the biggest question we've had to really think about the biggest phrase that we've really been praying about is everything comes back to surrendering our life to jesus we don't know the future but he does and we exist for him and our goal has always been to surrender our life to jesus and allow him to use us and put us where he wanted us to be and so that's my last challenge that i'm going to give you as i know you're processing big decisions i know you have a family and you love them and you've got stresses in your life and you've got things you're trying to figure out and i just want to if you forget everything i say i just want to offer you this last piece of advice the wisest thing you can do the wisest thing you can do everything comes back to surrendering your life to jesus and allow him to use us and put us where he wanted us to be and so that's my last challenge the wisest thing you can do the wisest thing you can do is surrender your life to jesus nobody loves you more nobody's done more for you nobody has sacrificed more for you than him let me pray for you heavenly father i love this church family it's my family this is an incredible church kernersville and oak ridge and those watching online this is an incredible spiritual family that you have blessed us with the ability to be a part of for 17 years we've seen so much change we've seen you move in so many incredible ways and my heart is full by allowing you allowing me to serve at this incredible place and serving these incredible people and i just pray ultimately god for my friends that under the sound of my voice that regardless of the choices that they're trying to make right now in their life i pray that it would come back to what choice do we need to make that demonstrates we are surrendering our life to jesus what is the wise thing to do and in jesus name we pray amen" [01:05:00] (138 seconds)
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