Today, if you don't know my name is Gregg Hampton, one of the pastors here. If we've never met I would love to meet you
At some point maybe grab a coffee my treat and we'd love to get to know you talk about Jesus if that's something
You'd like to do as well. We are in the sixth and final week of our series called
Wisdomly lit so far. We have covered the words of Jesus. We've talked about Ecclesiastes Proverbs Job some of the Psalms and
Today we're going to be coming to the last message from the wisdom and Paul's
writings so now you may also know that
We we spread things around here a little bit
We like to give other people an opportunity to preach and to stand here and share the word
a long long time ago when we decided that we needed to do this because
Especially wanted to be a church that cares about diversity and equity and inclusion and making sure that we are trying
intentionally to be
Racially diverse we wanted to make sure that it wasn't just a white man up here talking all the time and there that was the only
Verse that ever talked about the Bible and so we have spread it around to people of different backgrounds and diversities
And so it's my great pleasure that this last six months
I've really been getting to know JC and I asked him if he wanted to preach and he's gonna be delivering his first sermon ever today
y'all
I'm looking forward to it. I'm excited
now
You you know him as JC's name is Jared charming
You may also know that Gigi his beloved wife gave birth to their very first daughter just a month ago one more round of applause for Zoe
Yeah, this is an exciting time for the Charmings, you know plenty busy I thought why not throw a sermon in there
JC was raised in Brooklyn, New York
If you were in case you were wondering which Brooklyn we were talking about 1980s
The way that he described it was that it was the height of the crack epidemic
He said at a young age
He could see the God fearing neighbors and even family members were falling into addiction
And he could see that Sunday only
That a Sunday only kind of faith was not was what was going to help him escape that in his life
Wasn't what was going to help him
Maneuver away from the dangers of the world. So he became what he described as a church kid
St. Paul's Community Baptist Church was his hangout his safe haven not just Sundays, but after school Saturday mornings
He says that safe haven is why he made it out
And it's why he takes so seriously
The Christian obligation to help other people escape their oppressive situations
He's a strong advocate for liberation theology believing as dr
James H cone has written that God is a god of the oppressed
Any of you were interested in looking at some of dr. Cone's writings. I've got a few of his books here from my personal library
If you want to borrow them, I'll let you borrow them, but I just don't lose track of I'm not a fan of the
I just don't lose track of I'm self-conscious about losing my books. So
But feel free to ask about those if you want to look at those in yours, but listen JC is your brother in Christ
He is my personal friend and I've really cherished getting to know him. Will you please give a warm welcome to JC?
As he preaches
I'm wearing this right y'all can hear me you can hear me. All right, cool. Thank you
Holy that's who you are
Angels
And earth sing the song for your honor
Because power belongs to you power belongs to you
And I can never grow tired of telling you you're worthy
There's so many ways that I
could sing of your glory I
Can never grow tired of telling you you're worthy
over and over again
So it was 2006
So it was 2006 I graduated this is a weird thing I graduated from Morehouse School of Religion
And
I escaped without ever having to preach a real sermon like literally by the hairs of my chinny chin chin, right?
Because I went to seminary to be a professor not a pastor and not a preacher
Mostly because professors can still have fun and pastors and preachers can't right?
And so I fast forward fast forward a couple decades and I see it's pastaged in here. I see pastor Jen
You and I see this guy with the baseball cap
Up here making the yoke look so easy and the burden looks so light. All right
So when the opportunity was presented for me to sermon I was like, oh god, here we go again
All right, and God was like dude, you said my will not yours be done. So, uh, I
Was like to say okay
All right, so we'll give it a shot. All right, so let's do this. Let's pray first
and then we'll read a passage of scripture and we'll get into a discussion about the wisdom of Paul to
Wrap up the wisdom literature and I'll tell you why I think it's so fitting that we're discussing Paul today fair enough
Cool most high and holy God you are the grand architect of the universe you are
Thank God, thank you for being in control. I'm so glad we're not
All I asked today is that your Holy Spirit will dwell in it. Who am I kidding?
Your Holy Spirit already dwells in this place
I just ask that your spirit will be intentional that it will make my words and that it will make our ears and
That this word will be applicable to our lives
This in your name. We pray and give thanks. I say I mean amen. I say I say but amen. All right
We're gonna be in first Corinthians
First chapter their Bible scattered everywhere. I prefer the app
Because it helps me
It helps interrupt my doom scrolling on Facebook
When you have first Corinthians first the first chapter
Verse 19. Let me hear you say yeah
If you don't have it say espera
We got it if you can and are willing would you please stand for the reading of the word
We good for it is written
I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the wise
For it is written. I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning. I will thwart
Where is the why the one who is wise?
Where is the scribe?
Where is the debater of this age has not god made foolish the wisdom of the world? Let's uh scroll down
Look down to 25 now for the foolish
The foolishness of god is wiser than men and the weakness of god is stronger than men for consider your calling brothers and sisters
Not many of you were wise according to the worldly standards. Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth
But god chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise god chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong
I love this verse right here
God chose what is low and despised in the world even things that are not to bring to nothing things that are
So that no human being might boast in the presence of god and because of him you are in christ jesus who became to us
wisdom from god righteousness and sanctification and redemption so that as it is written let the one who boasts
Boasts in the lord. Thank you for standing and reading with me
So I come from a baptist tradition
Where they title their sermons?
So I got a title for y'all today
Ready?
It just hits different
Just hits different so I told you it's really fitting that we're discussing the wisdom of paul today
The reason why it's fitting is because I have never identified with paul as much as I do in this very moment right now
Actually if i'm being honest, it's more of who he used to be that I identify with
With saul. Oh my god, what a hard
horrifying terrifying dude saul was
Right. This is a dude who persecuted christians just for believing in christ
He tortured them
For saul for saul the law was above all things
Capital l it was above compassion
the law was above love
and in the
In the early days of the christian saga saul was a big villain. He had like that doctor evil energy like
And he was good at his job
Really good at his job
If you're anything like me it helps to paint a mental picture of scripture so you could get like maybe a better understanding of what's going on
right, so
Can't you just see saul rolling around jerusalem?
2 2 3 a.m. In the morning with his homeboys his goon squad. All right, and he's looking to make a name for himself
maybe like the
King no captain of capturing christians. That's catchy, right?
He's trying to make a name for himself and I can see him kicking in doors waving the four four
Uh dragging out christians
Handcuffing them roughing them up taking them to jail
How about this maybe for the
For the newer christians the baby believers
Maybe he got some kind of sick twisted thrill out of watching them denounce their faith for their freedom
And he his home right when they said no
Yes, it was not the messiah him and his homeboys crackle
ha ha ha guys
You're not going home and you're not going to heaven
maybe for
maybe for the uh
The super christians the ones who had been believing for a while
Maybe they never even made it to jail
Y'all get what kind of dude saw was
How about this saw was no doubt the type of dude that would lead a group of ice agents into someone's home
He would kick in the door
And he would drag out a displaced family who were simply seeking asylum because their
Native village was warren torn. That's the kind of dude
That paul was
Y'all feel me
God didn't need to use all
Like why why would god use a dude like that?
All right, and then and then imagine saw turns into paul and he's now
Proclaiming the name of christ doesn't that make him a hypocrite?
After the stuff that he did after the things that saw said
Ain't no way
He ain't right
Ain't good ain't
No way
Okay, let's breathe that out that was heavy fast forward
Fast forward a couple millennia and you'll find a young jc sitting in a seminary classroom
I was
a
Fantastic seminarian eric. I was an even better
Cemeteryian though in that I went to seminary to bury my christian faith
I went there to fight
I went there to debate
I went there frankly to piss people off
with my truth
I was so wise
I took all types of courses eschatology and ontology and
Christology and soteri ology
And every other ology
Except apology because I was so shameless and proud in my foolishness
Hey gary, I didn't need to be a christian. I was a theologian
And I did not need faith. You know why?
Because I had knowledge
You should have seen me you should have seen me in action
I had mastered the art of trolling before trolling was even an art. I would sit right up front
Let me show you I would sit right up front in the classroom
Something like this
And I would wait for the professor to say anything I could find disagreement with it didn't matter whether it was the trinity
Or whether it was noah's arc
I didn't care. I was throwing intellectual grenades behind me
Right. My mission was to blow wide open the closed parts minds of all of my classmates behind me
And it didn't take long
Before when I would raise my hand and start speaking I could hear them whispering heretic
heretic
I had gotten really good at my job
So
Something happened
I wish I could say that
Yes, who appeared to me
On the way to school on martin luther king jr. Drive in the west end
All right, and a blinding light causing me to fall on my face and my hair to go white and I lost my speech
And I no it was nothing like that
Nothing like that. Although it did feel like a whirlwind actually. It was a hurricane. It was 2005
The start of my second year
In seminary and I had a presentation in a course
called ministry in a social context, right and this
Professor I consider her an ally because she usually appreciated my controversial and radical contributions to class
All right, so I was all prepared to wow everybody with my expertise and my my knowledge and research and my wisdom
All right, and I remember I I finished this presentation
with a statement
on the importance of
separating church and state
And somebody in the back
They asked my opinions on
the government's delayed relief to hurricane katrina victims
and without thought I mean
Without thought I immediately responded. I'm listen. I'm talking about the absence of thought. I went into like a Kanye West rant. Okay?
And I started with like a some old adage like
Well, God helps those who help themselves
and I doubled down I said
something like
Why are we?
Why are we relying on the government to save us?
Where is the church? How much relief has the church given to those victims?
There was a deafening hush that fell over the room
The the my colleagues that normally would shake their head in agreement when I said something was shaking their head no and they were whispering to each other
And then this one sister
This one I'll never forget this one sister. She stood up
And when she lifted her head and looked at me a flood of tears i'm talking about niagara falls in her face
and she says to me
Well what she did was she explained that she hadn't spoken to her sister and mother
It had been about a month since katrina's
fall
She didn't know if they were dead or alive
And then she went into great detail about what happened to her sister
She went into great detail about the horrors of that hurricane
Details that were reported to her by eyewitnesses friends and family that escaped barely with their lives
And she looked at me and she said
You don't know nothing about what's going on in louisiana. Although she didn't say she didn't use the word nothing
She said you're a fool you're a fool to sit there and believe everything that the news feeds you a fool
You're a fool to sit there and believe everything that the news feeds you a fool
And then she began grabbing grabbing her belongings and packing her books and she headed for the door
And right up never forget right before she stepped into the hallway
She turned around
She said you need to get your head out your butt. She didn't say butt
And then she pointed at me and took one step forward and she said I thought she was gonna come get me she said
I'm gonna get you and you better watch how you speak on people's dead loved ones
She went in the hallway
and then one by one
My colleagues and my classmates started gathering their books
Heading for the door
And discussed I could hear her weeping in the hallway. I'm still up here in front of the classroom
I could hear my classmates going out there and trying to console her. I could hear them praying for her
And then I heard her
And I heard her
She said she was just going to watch the news. I said, why are you going to go in there and tell her
Off of something that I said
See, she didn't know if her loved ones are dead or alive to her they were already dead. And what am I doing?
I'm here speaking theory
So, why do I tell this story I tell you this story not because i'm about to be some powerful preacher like paul
I let the realization that I don't know it all I let that make me silent about god
I figured if I don't know everything about god, I don't know nothing. I might as well just shut up
And besides after I learned that lesson
I can't just start speaking about compassion over knowledge and love over information, right? That'll make me a hypocrite, right?
After the things that i've done god doesn't need to use me, right?
I ain't no good
I ain't right
Ain't no way
What kind of wisdom is that what kind of wisdom was I using then?
It's the kind of wisdom
It's the kind of wisdom that says eric you failed once so you'll likely fail again. So why should you even try?
It's the kind of wisdom that says
A human being can be illegal
And if they're illegal you can treat them like a dog
And if they're illegal in america, you can treat them worse than the dog. You know why because
Doodles and pit bulls even have rights here
It's the kind of wisdom that says
Women are too stupid to make decisions about their own bodies. So might as well just take their rights away
That sound familiar to y'all
It should
Because it's pretty basic
It's common
It's worldly
and when when paul speaks about
When he speaks about wisdom he uses the greek word sophia in his letter to the church of corinth
That's the distinction he wants us to make
He wants us to make the distinction that
god's wisdom
is different
From the world's wisdom godly wisdom isn't comparable to worldly wisdom god's wisdom. Y'all ready
just
hits
different
God's wisdom just hits different
So let's let's let's take one moment here and let's think about that godly wisdom isn't comparable to worldly wisdom. Does that make sense to y'all?
Yeah, right. Is that easy easy for us all to understand godly wisdom is different from worldly wisdom
Yes, is it easy to understand? Don't get scared
Ah, y'all are smart. It's not easy to understand. I tried to trick you. It's not it's it's a complete upending of worldly wisdom
Godly wisdom is an upending of worldly wisdom godly wisdom will come in and say up is down and down is up
Left is right and right is left
Is left and right is right
The world says first god says last
The world says right god says wrong
The world says hurt god says laughs
The world says weak
And god says strong
That makes sense to you weak is strong the meek inherit the earth
Are the poor what?
Think of paul as all on the road to damascus. What is he headed to damascus to do?
He's the captain of capturing christians
He's been sent there by the high priest
To go ahead business as usual go get them christians. Let's capture them up
And then he has this conversion experience where yeshua appears to him
And then speaks to him and not only is
Saul converted
But so are his homeboys and they didn't even see yeshua. They just heard his voice
So I imagine that the conversion in saul must have been so strong that even his homies were like, whoa, this must be real
right
But what trips me out about it is
Saul has two options here conversion experience is great
But he has two options the way I see it one he can continue on the road to damascus
Is gone business as usual he can just continue making a name for himself regardless of what happened
I don't know what he could say could say to his homeboys. Maybe we shouldn't uh,
Those were some funny looking mushrooms in the desert last night. I shouldn't have eaten them
Maybe I shouldn't have drank so much wine. He could have rationalized it any way that he chose
That's one option. The other option is what he could have went to heck home
That's probably what I would have did. I would have just went home. I would have told the high priest. Hey, man
I got sick stomach was messed up
I would have laid down for about three days and tried to figure out what was going on
Dude didn't even do that
he chose
What I would say is the worst option the dumbest option
Do continues on to damascus and he decides to preach the gospel of christ
He decides to preach the gospel to christ to a group of jews
What?
If i'm gonna go to damascus and preach the gospel of christ i'm gonna preach it to the christians at least he wouldn't
He went and spoke to jews. That makes no sense to me. What does make sense is that they booed him
What makes sense to me is that they ran him out of damascus
He put his life on the line for godly wisdom man, it's a hard decision to make
How many of y'all are facing difficult decisions right now
Something is just sitting heavy in your heart and you don't know which way to go
I don't know it could be maybe
Maybe everybody you know is voting this way. I don't know they're voting up and and you feel compelled to vote down
or
Maybe your work environment is toxic
I'm talking about as soon as you get in your car and get ready to go to work
You just feel anxiety and depression just wash all over you and you know, you need to quit this job. But guess what you got bills
Or maybe your plan was to go to college
Maybe your plan was to go to college but something is whispering a different plan in your heart or or maybe
The friends that you grew up with and were so close to they're all just starting to
Go separate ways and you don't know whether to hold on to it or just let it go or maybe the doctor says to you
With this diagnosis here. You have got to use traditional medicine and there's something telling you
Maybe there's a more holistic approach. I don't know what
Difficult situation that you're facing
But what I do know is this we all share the commonality that we want to feel confident that we're making the best decisions for our lives
Amen
Amen. I told y'all i'm baptist. Amen
Thank you
But I I don't feel confident that I can make the best decisions for my life
I feel confident that god can and the only way that i'm going to be able to
Allow god to make decisions in my life is if I can distinguish
Godly wisdom from what from worldly wisdom?
So let's look at that distinction really quickly
Worldly wisdom says things like
Hey, greg if we hang out and you steal from me
You're a thief and i'd be wise to never hang out with you again
right makes sense to y'all
Godly wisdom says even a thief
A known thief who's literally being crucified on the cross even that thief can inherit the kingdom of god
and be with yeshua
after god experience
Worldly wisdom says if you look different and you talk different then we're not the same
And if we're not the same guess what I can be better than you
God's wisdom says in first corinthians 1221 the eye cannot say to the hand I have no need of you
Nor again the head to the feet I have no need of you true wisdom
Says we're all one in the body of christ
Worldly wisdom says ko worldly wisdom says if they hit you what do you do?
You hit back
right
If they hit you you hit them back
an eye for an eye
Godly wisdom in matthew 539 do not resist the one who is evil, but if anyone slaps you
If anyone slaps you on the right cheek
Turn to him also that turn my other cheek bro
He slapped me on my face and you want me to turn my other cheek
That makes sense to y'all that's easy to understand
What if it's your wife that gets smacked on the cheek? Am I supposed to tell her to turn the other cheek too godly wisdom is not
easy
Worldly wisdom says if you're an addict you'll always be an addict
Period
godly wisdom
1st corinthians 1013 no temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man
God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability
But with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it
I don't have to call myself an addict once I call myself a child of god
Thank you god
Worldly wisdom says believe it when you see it godly wisdom says faith is the substance of things
Hope for and the evidence of things yet seen and with that faith you can walk on water and you can move mountains move mountains
worldly wisdom says a promiscuous woman is a whore that should be
That should be
shamed
But a promiscuous man he a player
He should be praised
Godly wisdom says in luke 736 even a prostitute
Can sit at the feet of yeshua and wash them with her tears
I don't think we should be fooled though
worldly wisdom knows scripture too like uh that verse in proverbs
The one that says spare the rod spoil the child
Right according to worldly wisdom. What does that mean?
Spare the rod spoil the child worldly wisdom tells us that means to beat your kids
If you don't beat your kids, you're not a good parent
All right, but godly wisdom knows that shepherds never hit their sheep
Sheep are precious to them. They use the rod and the staff to guide them in the way that they should go
All right, and speaking of children
worldly wisdom says
Worldly wisdom says that a child
A child that's born without a family
Or even a name
Baby girls are born without a family
Baby girl baby girl is doomed
She's doing to a life of struggle and trouble
But godly wisdom says I have set apart a family
One who I fortify
One who i've prepared through struggles and troubles of their own so now that same baby girl
She has a beautiful name
Her name is zela
And not only that
But she receives more love and is showered with more love than many children in this country who are born to traditional families
That is godly wisdom
Worldly wisdom worldly wisdom says if your arms don't work and your legs don't work
Worldly wisdom says if your arms don't work and your legs don't work then your body is broken and so too should be your spirit
But godly wisdom led me here to the house
Where one of the clearest messages i've ever received from god came from a vessel named scott sitting in a wheelchair
Worldly wisdom says our elders our elders are wise
And children should be seen in our earth
But godly wisdom let me hear
Where I see a young man named liam
I watched this young man smile from the inside out
And it teaches me a lesson about joy
It teaches me that joy that it can't be given or taken away
It's something that comes from inside you and you know what else joy is an intentional an intentional action every day
Every single day many times a day
Godly wisdom may seem like foolishness to the world
But I got one for you
It's cool to be a fool in christ
Let's make it a bar it's cool to be a fool in christ because in christ we have more life
So let's let's get ready to get out of here two questions we need to answer okay one
How can we align ourselves with godly wisdom
And two how can we make sure that we're functioning under godly wisdom promise you we'll hit those two questions
We'll get out of here all right so one how do we align ourselves first let's remember
gods
We're going to be living in the world
How do we align ourselves first let's remember god's wisdom comes from what god experienced
All right, and we can experience god in a variety of ways
First one I recommend is communication
talk to god
prayer
Prayer is a simple conversation with the creator. Don't think of it as like this puffed up thing
Where you have to use like these big words and pontificated phrases and thou art and oh
Has thou
Okay
It's a conversation
And and and remember god knows your mind god knows your heart and god can't be tricked
But keep this in mind god cares much more about what you feel than what you say
All right, talk to god
Keep it real
Last thing about communication
Communication isn't just talking right
So if we're talking to god, we should be doing what else?
We got to listen to right
So for me it started with prayer
Once I felt a genuine connection to the creator. I then wanted to worship that creator just to say thank you
And in that god experience of worship, I then developed a deeper hunger to know more about that creator
I wanted to know what the creator did for other people
I want to know what the creator can do for me now
I wanted to know what the creator is going to do in the future. So I began studying
Scripture as well as other faith inspired works
So for me the equation was prayer worship scripture study equals god experience for you
It could be different
So some people just come to church and have a worship experience and that leads them into prayer that leads them into study
Biggest picture is god experience
Lastly how do we know how can we make sure that we are operating under god's wisdom?
Pastor greg told us when we went over solomon a few weeks back that solomon the wisest man in the world 700 wives
300 concumines
He started making worldly decisions even though he was the wisest man that had god's wisdom
So what that tells us is that we need to steward godly wisdom. You can't just be like, okay, i'm wise
Now I could say and do whatever I want. All right
Doesn't work that way or even when I was preparing for paul paul
He's telling us all these things about wisdom, right?
And i'm getting this great message from god about godly wisdom
But even paul fell victim to worldly wisdom sometimes if you look later in corinthians
He says some pretty dumb things about homosexuality some dumb things about women, right?
So we have to steward godly wisdom
The best way that we can do that is following yeshuah's example. Yeshuah gave us two commandments to check ourselves
Love god with all your heart soul and mind
And love your neighbor as you love yourself
love
He also said something I really like he said a healthy tree bears healthy fruit and I like how that leads into paul
Paul gives us a beautiful example of how we can do that
Bears healthy fruit and I like how that leads into paul paul gives us a beautiful blueprint in his letter to the galatians
That you can use
He gives us the blueprint of the fruit of the spirit
So when you're operating
When you're operating on the godly wisdom, you'll you'll grow everywhere you go
You'll grow the the fruit of love and joy
fruit of
patience and peace
Kindness gentleness goodness faithfulness
And self-control
You'll grow everywhere you go so in conclusion
Godly wisdom just hits different from worldly wisdom worldly wisdom says things like you can't
You aren't
You won't
Worldly wisdom reminds you of who you used to be to distract you from who you're meant to be
Worldly wisdom reminds you of who you used to be to distract you of who you're meant to be
Godly wisdom says you can you are and you will godly wisdom says you are better than your worst day
Worldly wisdom is common because it's based on a human experience and godly wisdom is based on a god experience
And you need to appropriately steward godly wisdom. They make sure you're not trading it for the world
You can make sure you're operating under godly wisdom by following the model of christ as well as the fruit of the spirit given to us by paul
And lastly, I have hope
I have hope that as we begin to move under godly wisdom
We'll not only begin to
Change our lives for the better but begin to change the lives of our neighbors as well
Thank you all for this talk