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Today's reading is from 2 Chronicles 9, verses 1 to 9 and verse 12.

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When the Queen of Sheba heard of Solomon's fame, she came to Jerusalem to

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test him with hard questions.

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Arriving with a very great caravan, with camels carrying spices, large quantities

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of gold, and precious stones, she came to Solomon and talked with him about all she

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had on her mind. Solomon answered all her questions.

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Nothing was too hard for him to explain to her.

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When the Queen of Sheba saw the wisdom of Solomon, as well as the palace he had

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built, the food on his table, the seating of his officials, the attending servants

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in their robes, the cup bearers in their robes, and the burnt offerings that he

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made at the temple of the Lord, she was overwhelmed.

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She said to the King,

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The report I heard in my own country about your achievements and your wisdom

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is true. But I did not believe what they said until I came and saw with my own

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eyes. Indeed, not even half the greatness of your wisdom was told me.

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You have far exceeded the report I heard. How happy your people must be.

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How happy your officials who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom.

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Praise be to the Lord your God, who is delighted in you and placed you on his

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throne as King to rule for the Lord your God. Because of the love of your God for

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Israel and his desire to uphold them forever, he has made you King over them

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to maintain justice and righteousness.

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Then she gave the King 120 talents of gold, large quantities of spices, and

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precious stones. There had never been such spices as those the Queen of Sheba

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gave to King Solomon. King Solomon gave the Queen of Sheba all she desired and

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asked for. He gave her more than she had brought to him. Then she left and

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returned with her retinue to her own country. The word of the Lord.

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Hey, I'm going to start by asking you a question and here's the question. Who is

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the smartest person that you know? Would you take just 20 seconds, turn to the

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person beside you, answer this question. Who is the smartest person you know? Go.

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Okay, okay. Now I have another question for you. I want you to answer this one.

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Not who is the smartest person you know, but who is the wisest person that you

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know? Okay. Now again, take 20 seconds and tell that to the person beside you.

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I'm not hearing a great deal of chit chat about this, but I'm going to assume

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you've come up to answer these questions. Let me ask you this question. How many

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of you was the smartest person the same as the wisest person? Just a show of

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hands. Yeah, see, hardly any. It's hardly any, which actually proves something

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really important and that is that we understand that there is a difference

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between being really smart and being really wise. And that's the difference

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between being really wise. If you were to ask me the question of who's the

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smartest person I know, I'd probably say someone like my brother John, my

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younger brother John, which is a hard pill for me to swallow because when I

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was growing up, I was always a couple years older than him, always a couple

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steps ahead of him, always a couple grades ahead of him. I could win every

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argument. I was just smarter. I knew more, but then he started reading books and I

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never read books, right? And so he slowly started to get smarter and smarter and

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I did and pretty soon I realized, oh my goodness, I cannot argue this guy

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anymore. He's smarter than me and it's true, he is smarter than me. He went off

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to become an engineer and to this day, he's one of the smartest people that I

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know. Now, one of the wisest people I know, that'd be something probably a

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little different. My brother's name is John, but there's another guy named John

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who was a professor at the seminary that I went to. And when I met him, I

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found that he seemed like a wise fellow, but over the years we continued to meet,

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we continued to chat and have these check-ins. In some ways, he became like an

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unofficial mentor to me throughout the years. And the thing about him that I

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found was that not only had he been through more of life than me and

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kind of experienced more things and just had been like a step ahead of me in

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life, but he had this deep appreciation for the scriptures and for his faith

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that kind of impacted pretty much all that he did in his life. And so, I really

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got a sense from him whenever I sat down and talked to him that there was wisdom

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there, that there was wisdom behind his words. Not only that, but he had this

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wonderful Welsh accent that makes everything that he says sounds like

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wisdom. So, my point is this though, there is a big difference between being smart

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and being wise. They're not the same thing. Now, if I asked you this question,

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if you could choose between being wise or being smart, which one would you pick?

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How many of you would choose to be smart? How many of you would choose to be wise?

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Ah, you see, that's the thing. We all know that wisdom is so important because

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wisdom is the thing that helps us make right decisions when we need to make

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them to help us choose the right course of action. And there's so many times in

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life where we need help making the right decisions. Let's say, for example, you're

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a parent and you're here today. You need wisdom. You need wisdom to figure out,

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you know, how to raise kids, you know, when do you put them to bed, what do you

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feed them, how much screen time should they have, how do you discipline them?

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You need wisdom. Or let's say you're married, you're in a relationship, you

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need wisdom in a relationship. How do you treat each other? How do you forgive

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each other? How do you solve problems together in a marriage or in a

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relationship? You need wisdom. We need wisdom when it comes to our careers in

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your workplace. You need wisdom to know, you know, do we sign the contract or not?

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Do we hire this person or not? Do we fire this person or not? There's a lot of

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wisdom needed there. Financially, we need wisdom. How much money should we be

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saving? How much should we be spending and giving and investing and so on and so

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forth? People need wisdom. People go looking for wisdom. Sometimes, though,

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when they go looking for wisdom, they actually come across other things that

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aren't exactly wisdom, although they look like wisdom. So, for example, one thing

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that we sometimes confuse wisdom for is information, right? We think that maybe if

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we just get enough smarts, we get enough degrees that we'll become wise. We go to

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university and there is a connection, I think, between the information in our

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heads and the wisdom in our lives, but they're not the same thing. Secondly,

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sometimes we mistake wisdom for imitation. So we find someone or we get to

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know somebody who's wise and we say, I'm going to do what they do and I'm going

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to act like they act and therefore I will also be wiser. And I think there's

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some truth to that. Really important to have mentors in your life, but it's not

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the same thing as wisdom. And then thirdly, there's an old saying that says

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with experience comes wisdom or with age comes wisdom. And that is certainly true

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to a point, but it does not guarantee that you're going to be wiser just

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because you're getting older or having more experience. So what is wisdom and

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how do we get it? Today I want to suggest to you that the secret to wisdom is

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found no further than your household coffee maker. I have a love affair with

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coffee. I measure my life in scoops of coffee. There's every cup of coffee I

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have is just a big hug in a mug, I think. And you know, I know they say you can't

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buy happiness, but you can buy a coffee, right? And coffee is both the next best

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thing to happiness. So this is a good old-fashioned drip coffee maker. Now I

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know some of you make coffee and you've got fancy schmancy tessimo or an espresso

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machines and those are good, nothing against those. Or some of you have like

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the hand crafting, you know, the delonghi, you know, all the steam and the

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pressure and you like to make your own cappuccino at home, that's cool too.

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Or some of you are like the purists of coffee and so you have one of those

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Chem-X kind of brewing systems where you carefully pour just the right amount of

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water over just the right amount of grains and that's all good too. But

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today I want to talk to you about the workhorse of the coffee industry, the

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good old-fashioned percolator, the drip coffee maker. I think it probably goes

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without saying we all know how one of these works, but let's just say, you know,

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that you've been hiding under a rock for the last 200 years and you don't know.

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What you do is inside your drip coffee maker you've got a basket and inside the

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basket there is a filter, that's right, there's a filter and what you're going to

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do is you're going to take some coffee grounds, I stole these from Liz Leek's

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personal supply in the office, and you pour some of those coffee grounds into

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the filter, perfect, and then after that you're going to take water, good

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old-fashioned tap water, and you pour it into the coffee reservoir, then you're

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going to simply just close the lid, hit the start button, and if this were plugged

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in you would start to hear this gurgling noise, this beautiful, beautiful

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noise, and here's why, here's what's happening. Oh, better get the pot under

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there, because the coffee machine is heating up the water in the reservoir,

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pushing it up through a little pipe that then sprinkles it out, drip, drip, drip,

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drip, over top of the basket, over top of the filter containing the coffee, and

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that water is about to be magically transformed into something just like

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liquid gold, what happens is that water as it drips and sifts and percolates and

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soaks through the coffee, it picks up the color of the coffee, it picks up the

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aroma of the coffee, and most importantly it picks up the flavor of the coffee,

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and eventually you start to see this tap, tap, drip, drip, tap, tap, the coffee now

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is coming back into the caraf, into the pot, you can smell it, you can see it, it

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is a sight to behold, ladies and gentlemen. Now that is not a bad picture

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of wisdom, by the way, because how do we get wisdom? Well, wisdom is brewed in us

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in kind of a similar way, whenever we take our decisions, whenever we take our

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ideas, whenever we take our lives, our lives, and we filter them through God's

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truth, when we filter them through a life lived with God, whenever we take our

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whole lives and we filter them through God, we pick up the flavor, we pick up

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the aroma, we pick up God's wisdom as part of that percolating process, if we

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are the water, then God's truth is the coffee, and wisdom occurs the more we

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pour ourselves through God's truth, the more we pour our life through God's life,

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then slowly drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, guess what happens? Wisdom starts to be

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brewing and forming in us. Now this isn't something, I'm not making this up, you

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might say, oh, that's a great analogy, but the Bible has been telling us this for

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thousands of years, for the Lord God gives wisdom from his mouth, God's word

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is where we find wisdom, and that's where knowledge comes from and

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understanding comes from, and the more that you can soak your life in God's

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word, the wiser you're going to be. Or how about this one from Psalm 19, that

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the law of the Lord, you can read scriptures there, the scriptures of the

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Lord are perfect, they revive the soul, the testimony of the Lord sure makes

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wise the simple. So even if you would call yourself an uneducated person, or

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you're not an intellectual type of person, or you might even call

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yourself a simple person, you too can be made wise by soaking yourself, by

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filtering your life through God's truth. Now, when we talk about the Bible, when

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we talk about wisdom, we have got to talk about this guy, this is Solomon.

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Solomon was the third king of Israel, he was the son of David and Bathsheba, and

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he lived about 1000 BC, and he was an amazing king for the most part. He

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actually presided over Israel during a time of great prosperity, a time of great

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expansion, a time where there's a lot of great building projects going on, but

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Solomon, when Solomon first became king, he was aware, he did not know what he

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was doing. And so he says, he prays this prayer to God, he says, God, I am like

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just a little child here, I do not know how to carry out these duties. So give

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me a wise and discerning heart to govern your people and distinguish between

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what is right and what is wrong. And God was so pleased with Solomon's request

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here, that God says, I will do what you have asked. Yeah, I will give you a wise

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and discerning heart so there will never have been anyone like you, nor will

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there ever be. And ever since, Solomon became known as the wisest person, maybe

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the wisest person in the Bible, the wisest person ever. But how did it work?

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How did Solomon get so wise? Did God just like download a whole bunch of

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information into Solomon's head in that moment, and then he just knew everything?

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No, no, that's not how it works. I think this is how it worked. Instead of filling

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Solomon's mind, what God did is he changed Solomon's heart. He gave Solomon

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a love for God and a deep love for God's word, which meant that from then on, as

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Solomon went through life, whenever he was faced with a problem, whenever he had

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a decision to make, he would take that decision, take that problem, and he would

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soak it through God's law, he would soak it through God's word, he would let it

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percolate and steep in God's truth and in who God was. So much so that when

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Solomon made his decisions, they had picked up the aroma, they had picked up

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the flavor, and they had picked up the color of God's wisdom. So that when

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Solomon made these decisions, the whole world looked and said, wow, how

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incredibly wise is that? But it wasn't magic. He was just soaking his life in

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the life of God and picking up that wisdom, which God has for all of us.

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That's my point here today, is this is, there's nothing magical about this.

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Solomon just loved to study the Scriptures. He loved to dwell in God's

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presence, and that's what made him wise. For example, in one of the most

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important speeches that Solomon ever made, he said this, he said, let's turn

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our hearts to God and walk in obedience to him and keep the commands, decrees,

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and laws that he gave our ancestors. Let's be fully committed. Let's fully

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steep, fully brew ourselves in God's presence and live by his decrees and

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commands. You see, this was the high point of Solomon's wisdom. It was all

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because he was constantly bringing his life into contact with God's truth and

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God's life. And it's interesting to say that toward the end of his life and

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toward the end of his reign, Solomon stopped doing this. He stopped turning to

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God. He walked away from God. He turned his back on the word of God, and as a

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result, he faced all sorts of consequences and made bad decisions that

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affected him spiritually, that affected the whole nation. But the point has been

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made. Point has been made. Solomon shows us the secret of brewing wisdom. You

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take your life. You take your life and you just let that soak in God's truth

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until your heart gets changed, until your mind gets changed, until you get

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changed. And you too pick up the aroma and the color and the flavor of God's

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wisdom, and people will look to you and say, yeah, that person's got a lot of

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wisdom. You know, what they just said was pretty wise. It's something that each and

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every one of us can learn to do just by learning how to brew our lives and

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filter our lives through God's word. The trouble is many of us do not do this.

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Many of us instead, when it comes to making decisions in our lives, we don't

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filter our life through God's word and God's truth. We filter it through

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other things. Can you imagine, for example, if instead of putting coffee

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into this filter, I put something like salt in there or cheese curds, or what

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if I put raw ground beef in there and I close it up and I hit brew? I'll tell

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you, something would come out. Something would come out of there. I wouldn't want

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to drink it. It would probably kill you if you drank it. The same is true of

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wisdom. Many of us, when we go about our lives, we make decisions. And the thing

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that we're filtering our decisions through is not God's truth. It's something

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else, you know, the many cultural influences that are out there. We say,

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those are the things I'm going to allow me to make the decisions in my life,

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right? Or we turn to a celebrity or to an influencer and we say, that person is

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going to help me make the best decisions in my life. Or we turn to some political

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party or political ideology, conservative, liberal, Republican, Democrat,

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and we say, I'm with them. Whatever they say is how I'm going to make my decisions

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in my life. Or maybe we just go with our heart. We go with our gut. However I'm

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feeling in the moment, that is going to be the thing that helps me make the

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decisions in my life. But that is not what wise people do. That is not what

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Solomon did. That once only when we consistently filter our decisions and

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our experiences and thoughts through the truth of God's word, that we start to

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brew up something truly special, rich and full-bodied wisdom of our own. I want to

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show you a little story. We just read it about how that aroma of God's wisdom

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followed Solomon wherever he went. The story starts telling us that the queen

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of Sheba had heard about Solomon's fame. And I think you could read there, heard

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about Solomon's wisdom. Now Sheba was located kind of at the southern part of

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the Nile region in Egypt. And it's interesting to note that during Solomon's

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reign, because he was such a successful king for the period of time, Israel had

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actually developed a fleet of ships. And those ships would go around the

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surrounding world there and trade. And these ships would go for years at a

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time and come back. Which is interesting because Israel never really had a strong

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presence on the seas and on the waterways, but under Solomon they did. And

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apparently what had happened is these boats had made their ways up to Sheba.

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And then rumor of Solomon's wisdom began to spread among the people of Sheba. And

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the queen of Sheba heard about Solomon's wisdom and she said, I got to get down

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there. I got to see what that's all about. I got to go check it out. Now a lot of

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people think actually what she wanted to do was come down and check him out. Right?

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There is some evidence that maybe the queen of Sheba and Solomon had a little

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thing going on, a little romantic intrigue to the story. There's even rumors

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out there that they may have even had a child together. You're gonna have to go

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home and Google that for yourself. I'm not gonna spoil all that intrigue for

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you. But what's important is this, is that the queen of Sheba came with all these

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questions to test Solomon and what she found was that nothing was too hard for

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him to explain. In fact, when she saw Solomon's wisdom, we are told that she

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was overwhelmed. Now the Hebrew word for overwhelmed there can actually also mean

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fainted. Right? So what some people think that actually this is where the romance

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come from, that she actually swooned, swooned over Solomon's wisdom. Oh

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Solomon, you're so wise. I can barely stay awake. Oh catch me, catch me as I'm

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falling. Right? Was that what was going on? Maybe. Who knows? Who knows? But this is

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what we know for sure, that the wisest person that she ever knew was totally

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eye-opening for her. Now the thing is she understood that Solomon's wisdom was

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different than other wisdom she had seen before. Yes, Solomon had been places and

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experienced things and he had picked up things in his travels and learned lots

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of information. But she says, no, no. The report I heard about your wisdom is true.

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She says, praise be to the Lord your God. She was not a follower of Solomon's God.

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She did not know Yahweh and yet she knew in that moment there's something

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different about this guy's wisdom. His wisdom is coming from the Lord his God. I

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know his secret now. Right? He is filtering his life and his decisions

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through this God of his and that is what is making him wise. It wasn't magic. Even

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Solomon would would go on to tell the secret of his wisdom. He would say the

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fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And that again means we too can

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access this wisdom in our own lives. We face decisions. We too need to filter

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that through who God's revealed himself to be. I want to share with you one story

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of how Solomon did this and I'll try to go quick because I know I don't want to

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go too long here but but there was this one instance when these two ladies came

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to Solomon and they had a great big problem. You see one there was one baby

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between them and they were fighting over whose baby this was. Apparently what had

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happened these two women were living in the same house and they both had babies

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and one of the babies died. I think maybe it died in the night and this

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suspicion was that actually one of the mothers got up and switched the babies

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when she realized that her baby had died but who knows whether that was true.

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Anyways both women came in and were like this is my baby and the other woman was

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like no this is my baby and they brought it to Solomon. They said Solomon you're

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so wise you're gonna have to figure this one out. Whose baby is it? Now Solomon he

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takes one look at the situation and he says okay I know how to figure out who

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the mother is. Cut the child in half and that way each of you can have part of

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them. Now you might say what the heck that does not sound like wisdom at all

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that sounds like barbarism but of course Solomon was never gonna cut the child in

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half instead what he was doing was something incredibly wise. You see he knew

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he knew that one of these women would represent the heart and love of God. You

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see because Solomon had spent so much time in God's presence in God's word he

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knew that God as a parent as God as a father would do anything for his

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children. He would sacrifice anything for his kids and he knew that one of these

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women would do the same. The true mother would do the same because that's what

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sacrificial love looks like. He learned that in his study of the scriptures and

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in the study of God's life. Now he knew that one of these women was going to be

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willing to sacrifice in the same way that God gave himself and sacrificed for

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his own people and that's exactly what happens. He makes this proposition and

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and the lady who represents the truth the lady who represents the way God

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works she is willing to give that child up in order to save that child's life.

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Please don't kill my son. The baby's mother screamed your majesty I love him

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very much but give him to her just don't kill him. Love. He learned about God's

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love he learned about the love of a parent and that enabled him to say this

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is the child's mother the one who loved with such a sacrificial love give the

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baby to her. We stand in awe of that but there's nothing magical about it. It just

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came through his deep percolation in the life and word of God. If you don't do

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that you don't gain wisdom instead you become what the Bible calls a fool.

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Alright the wise heart yes receives God's commandments but a babbling fool

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will come to ruin or Solomon said elsewhere he said respect and obey the

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Lord this is the beginning of wisdom but a fool rejects such knowledge. So as we

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head out of this place today and we go about seeking wisdom for all the things

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in our own lives I want to just give you a few warnings. Watch out for types of

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wisdom that actually aren't the real thing or what I want to call you call

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some poor substitutes for wisdom or some bad Java bad cuppa that looks like

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wisdom but it isn't wisdom. Let me let me give you an example let's say you wake

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up in the morning you're excited for your morning coffee and you go and it

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looks really good and you pour yourself a cup of it and then you you put it to

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your mouth and you take one sip and you're like oh my gosh that is horrible

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it is bitter it is bad. I'm gonna tell you so much of the wisdom that the world

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is offering it looks really good it appears from the outside to be wisdom

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but it is bad and it is bitter it's compromised so many of the sources of

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wisdom in our world are just cultural influences and misinformation it'll

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leave a bad taste in your mouth if you follow those sources of wisdom and it

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won't guide you in the right direction so watch out for bitter coffee also be

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on your guard against really expensive coffee right if you there are some

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restaurants here in streetsville that you can spend eight dollars on getting a

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very top-notch cup of coffee with a real hefty price tag and you'll probably then

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taste it afterwards and say yeah it's good coffee but but I think that you

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know I don't know what all the fuss was about I want to say don't be fooled by

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wisdom that is all dressed up with eloquence and snobbery and is like

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arrogant and say oh you can't possibly know anything you're uneducated or you

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don't have nearly as many degrees as I do so you can't possibly have the

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wisdom that I have don't believe it don't believe it wisdom is not expensive

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like that it is available for everyone is simply found by dwelling in God's

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truth beware of expensive coffee also beware of weak coffee some people do

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read the Bible to find God's wisdom but what happens is then once they get out

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into the world they actually feel the pressure of the people around them and

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they kind of water down that wisdom or they're they're nervous or what other

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people would say if they made that decision and so they water it down and

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pretty soon that potent cup of coffee has become so watered down and weak and

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diluted you're trying to please so many people that it's actually not strong

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enough anymore to make a real difference in your life so watch out for weak coffee

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watch out for old coffee we've all had this situation where that coffee is

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sitting there in the coffee machine all day long and we think I might still be

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good and you go and you pour yourself a cup but nah it's cold and it's nasty and

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it's like stale just like old coffee sometimes we rely on old methods oh

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I've always done it this way before a mom and dad used to do it that way and

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sometimes we think that the old ways are the wise ways sometimes that's true but

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that's not always true instead wisdom like good coffee needs to be fresh we

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can't just reheat old ideas over and over again expect them to be effective

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we we need to continually seek new understanding and new wisdom from God

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and from God's Word and from God's Spirit as we go through our lives as we

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apply it to our lives so be aware of the old coffee it's got to be fresh wisdom

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and finally instant coffee let's be honest yes it's quick and it's convenient

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and it'll do in a pinch but it is never as satisfying as a freshly brewed cup I

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want to say that there's a lot of wisdom out there that is quick fix wisdom you

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know read this and it'll answer your question and a lot of this quick fix

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wisdom and advice is just it's made without deep reflection on God's Word at

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all we reach for easy answers no depth no richness to the wisdom that we can get

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if we would just brew wisdom over time by abiding in God's Word true wisdom

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requires patience requires a willingness to let God's Word percolate in your life

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over time that's why some of the wisest people out there are the oldest they

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just had more time to grow in wisdom but but just because you're old doesn't mean

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you're wise and just because you're young doesn't mean you're a fool what

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matters most of all is are you bringing your life into contact with God's life

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and God's Word we actually if we do this right could possibly become even wiser

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than Solomon sounds like a shocking statement but the truth is we actually

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have access to a source of wisdom that Solomon never had and that is Jesus

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Christ you see Solomon he filtered his life through the commands of God and

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through the Word of God that he had the laws of God but we can filter our life

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through that plus the life and teachings of Jesus Christ Jesus who was the

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ultimate and final revelation of who God is Jesus shows us how to live Jesus

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shows us how to love and if I follow me Jesus we can make wise decisions beyond

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compare in fact Jesus once said everyone who hears my words and puts them into

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practice that is a wise person that is a wise man who builds his house on rock

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see we've got the full story we've got the full story of God's love revealed to

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us in Jesus Christ and that gives us the opportunity to be even wiser than

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Solomon so you want to brew up some wisdom tell you what read your Bible day

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by day by day you know what will happen drip drip drip slowly you will pick up

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the flavor and the color and the aroma of who God is you want to grow in wisdom

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then develop a prayer life with God day by day drip drip drip and slowly over

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time you will draw close to God and you will start to to think and and love like

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a god love you'll be changed by God you want to develop wisdom in your life then

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then come and worship at church Sunday by Sunday or day by day and drip drip

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drip you will grow in love with God and you will grasp more and more of who God

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is drip by drip you'll become a wise person someone who can make wise

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decisions so let's leave here today and let's start the brewing process today

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about running our lives through God's life it's a beautiful thing a beautiful

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cup of wisdom awaits thank be to God amen