Pentecost 7 What Does It Take to Be Wise?

[HKHaugan]

Pentecost 7 What Does It Take to Be Wise?

“With age comes wisdom (anon)” “We get too soon old and too late smart (German proverb)” “The fool doth think himself wise, but the wise man knoweth himself a fool (Shakespeare)” As these slide one into the other you have a sense that wisdom is an illusive quality that few gain and fewer still experience. Every so often we hear a catchy phrase or statement that garners our attention. We spend moments pondering it to keep it stored in some memorial part of the brain. Our hope is that the more we accumulate them, the more wise we become.

But there is a grievous error here. Human wisdom sounds good but it is only a person verbalizing what he longs for. True wisdom is a living quality of God and cannot be separated from Him. One of the great passages in Scripture is Isaiah 52:13-53:12 that illustrates this fact. It describes the very nature of the coming Messiah Jesus. Note how personal wisdom is. In Scripture it is never some concept apart from God but a reflection of His nature in action. Let's look at Isaiah expressing God's revelation to him.

Is.52:13: “See, my servant will act wisely...” Wisdom, this is the key to this passage. Wisdom sets the stage for the personal description that follows. If we talk about the gift of wisdom it is a spiritual gift, the flagship gift of the Holy Spirit. Wisdom is one of the qualities of God that defines His ability to always make the right decision, the right comment, the right response. He is the only One who by nature is perfect in choice and decision making. Wisdom characterizes the life of Jesus as He dealt with both His friends and enemies when they came in contact with Him. The very fact that He was spontaneous and never reluctant, hesitant or pondering before He spoke and acted, points to His wisdom as perfect and true. (To get a feel for God's wisdom, read Proverbs and Ecclesiastes for starters.)

But shift to our typical human reactions. We see quite the opposite. “Houston, we have a problem.” The problem started with Eve's looking at the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil tempted to think a bite of the fruit would give her wisdom apart from God. She did. Adam did. Bye, bye wisdom. As soon as wisdom became an 'it' in the human mind instead of a personal quality of God that can't be separated from Him, sin took its place and our responses were and are made in fear and self-serving. That little taste, that seemingly minor infraction ended up with mankind changing the meaning of wisdom to finding the best way to survive, gain power, manipulate and deceive. A wise man knows when to speak, what to say, when to keep his mouth shut, how to size up any situation, keep up appearances and make others feel good about him. This is political man in a nutshell. This is man compromised, lost and alone. There is no one lonelier than the world's wise man who may be admired but in reality lives in self induced isolation in order to maintain the illusion. He is 'horizontal man.' A man with no vertical vision.

The illusion may be seen in the constantly reappearing “Godfather” movies on television. They depict a form of humanized wisdom to such a degree that Mafia type organizations are filled with “wise guys.” They have the power to control others and 'make offers that can't be refused.' The 'mob' mentality can be seen in any group from a neighborhood gang, a PTA meeting, a college fraternity, a church council to a sophisticated corporate boardroom where entrance is arrived at through subtle and scrupulous strategies. Political correctness is the current world's wisdom weapon to silence freedom through fear. Any and all self-definitions are acceptable. Personal behavior is a matter of choice. Moral anarchy arrives justified. Freedom has become license. The new tolerance is intolerant. The new inclusiveness is exclusiveness. The new humanity is inhuman. The new freedom is fear. Pro-choice is no-choice. The new morality is immorality. The new liberalism is dictatorship. Isaiah called it when he said that you have to watch out when people call evil good and good evil (5:20).

Another aspect of human wisdom is gaining significance through some momentary encounter. You know, we brag about famous people we've met, people with whom we may have a nodding acquaintance, or people whose hand we shook at some meeting. Maybe, just maybe, their fame will rub off on me simply because I was in the same room. “I shook the hand...” The fact of proximity made me more important, significant, at least in my own mind.

Then there's the wisdom of comparison. I compare myself to people I wish I was like. That takes a lot of time and wasted energy. It's a confidence killer. What it does is to slowly erode our uniqueness as a specially created image of God who is supposed to be what God makes us not what others think we ought to be like. It immediately assumes we are inferior to the person with whom we are comparing ourselves. It's one thing to admire and respect someone who has developed their uniqueness but they are merely examples of sinners who have decided to develop what they have as talents and gifts. The example is not be like them but to develop who and what you personally are. That's the difference in being a follower of Jesus who encourages us to be like Him, someone who gave His life to His Father's will. What develops us is belief, trust and faith in God as revealed in Jesus. He is the real tree of life in the middle of the garden. No one else inspires confidence to look ahead like He does.

Return to the 'hand shaker' and reverse his goal from self to Jesus. Think of us willing to say, “Gee that's really great. Let me tell you whose hand I shook, that's right, the hand of Jesus! The moment I accepted him I knew I had shaken His hand. You know, He rose from the dead so He could shake anyone's hand who would reach out to Him. My handshake is a handshake that is a handshake of faith in Him. When I shake your hand you have shaken a hand that wants to shake yours because He shook my hand in 1969 on a dock on Martha's Vineyard.”

In Jesus came a wholly different kind of wisdom. Its substance was revealed long before in leaders like Moses and Solomon but not perfected until Jesus. Remember Moses and Solomon made tremendous blunders in their lives which God redeemed. They served as examples of humanity on the right track but derailed by sin. It would take Jesus to bring true wisdom back into play. He never slipped, tripped, dipped or flipped as He moved from person to person. He was the real thing. It was the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of wisdom (Eph.1:17) that brought Jesus into the minds of believers. He does this for us in every next moment if we are open to Him.

“He will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.” Each of these three has its own connotation. He was physically raised, lifted up and exalted. The three actions call for a spiritual parallel. It is a future tense construction pointing to the fact that Jesus is raised in a conversation, lifted up in detail and exalted as a result.

Vs.14 “Just as there were many were appalled by Him...” Just as many will accept Him as those who reject Him. His death disfigured Him, that is caused people to reject Him in disappointment and despair, that He was seen as having lost all credibility as a human leader. What He said and did died with Him.
“...so will He sprinkle many nations.” That is, His mission will be fulfilled in the hearts of those way beyond His ethnic family to the degree that kings will be in fear of the freedom His wisdom brings to people in their kingdoms. His Spirit will humble the pride of leaders in any culture. He will make them aware of things that they had neither heard nor seen and it will start with the masses.

53:1-3 This quoted by John, 12:38 and Paul, Rom.10:16. The first picks up on the rejection of Jesus by Jewish leadership and the second by Paul who quotes Isaiah bemoaning the same thus the need to preach the Word to the Gentiles. For sure, Jesus grew up in innocence. He came from an anonymous people. He was rejected and despised as less than average. He lacked the world standards of outward appearance so He had no esteem from others. These are the infirmities by worldly outlook that people try to escape or change. Idolatry is the result of giving all to accomplish those false drawbacks.

vs.4-6 Jesus bore the insults, rejection, isolation and their adjoining sorrow. He was obviously afflicted and stricken by God because He just didn't 'fit in.' We all have a hand in this in our own life's experiences and He bears our sin. On the Cross He was pierced and crushed for our participation in the fear and self-protection strategies we inflict on others either intentionally or unintentionally. From murder to subtle rejection, the spectrum of human behavior needed atonement and Jesus became the atoning sacrifice for our fallen images' transgressions. “We all like sheep have fallen astray,” gone our own way (“I Did It My Way”), human wisdom. The Cross was His way, His wisdom.

vs.7-12 Jesus' wisdom is described in detail. He was oppressed and afflicted but did not open His mouth. Led like a lamb to the slaughter and sheered without resentment or verbal complaint He submitted. He was led by the Holy Spirit and though He made no sound His faith roared and its echo would return on the third day. This was not just a physical crucifixion it was a spiritual execution conducted by the devil and his spirits of oppression, judgment, fear, anger, pride, manipulation, greed, indifference, apathy, hate and conspiracy. The devil was working on Jesus' willingness to limit Himself to a human body with the limitations of its knowledge and emotional sensitivity. From Jesus' birth he fought with all the weapons of the principalities and powers he controlled. What he could not counter was Jesus' faith, its strength and nature, in following the will of His Father. Job summed it up so well, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him (13:15).”

Here again is where our invisible nature, our spiritual nature, is the devil's target. 100% of everything we do is governed by what we can't see. This is where we are vulnerable and this is where temptation hits us hardest. You can't see the mind where reason is made. You can't see the heart where choices are weighed. You can't see the spirit where motivation is played. “What is seen is temporary. What is unseen is eternal (2Cor.4:18).” What Jesus did in His death was recover life for us through His Resurrection. Life can't be seen only experienced. Faith is the beginning of life and faith is what makes us human. Without God there is neither purpose nor identity. Human is being relational starting with God and then one another. Physical life is the seed and spiritual life is the plant. The image begins in the seed and then is given the breath of spiritual life through faith. Truth, grace and love water the plant and death is the beginning of the plant bursting into the 'Sonlight.'

In the midst of sin we are given the breath of spiritual life through faith. Jesus suffered for our sin though He had done no violence and lived a life of total honesty. His life, death and resurrection were the wisest actions in history fulfilling the perfect wisdom of God. The real issue is not about us being wise. Rather, are we allowing the Lord to be wise through us? Scripture again to the rescue, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Prov.9:10).” This means we need to start at the beginning with the Lord and His Word so that the Spirit of wisdom, the Holy Spirit, can become our wisdom in every next moment.

Jesus the Lamb of God bore the suffering for our guilt as only perfect faith could enable. Guilt was canceled and He made forgiveness possible. His Resurrection proved God's will was wisdom in action, that faith in His wisdom justifies us and the power of sin is overcome. Therefore at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father.