Spiritual Gifts: Wisdom

Have you ever had someone in your life that you thought was really wise? So wise in fact that you said something like this, “Boy, when I am his age, I pray that I am half as wise as him!” For me, that person is my grandpa. I remember sitting down with him at the age of 10 and having conversations about how a person’s upbringing affects the way we do things as an adult, how to grow a garden, make homemade maple syrup, and the genealogical history of the family. But reflecting back now, probably what made him the wisest, was how to take what God had revealed to us and apply it to our lives to grow in Christ.

Today we are going to be talking about the Spiritual Gift of Wisdom. This week and the two weeks after this, we are going to be talking about 3 gifts are very closely related as a matter of fact. This week is wisdom, next week is knowledge, followed by distinguishing of spirits, or discernment. They are so much alike, that many don’t quite know the difference between them. So, as is my custom, let’s define them first, to see if we can pinpoint the differences.

First, wisdom is a noun, defined as “the ability to detect inner qualities and relationships.” Knowledge is a noun defined as “the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association.” Discernment is a noun defined as “the quality of being able to grasp and comprehend what is obscure.” Keep these definitions in front of you as we read the following Scripture. It is 1 Kings 3:4-15. I know your bulletin says 16-28, but first we need to read 4-15. We’ll read 16-28 in a minute. So, open those Bibles up to 1 Kings 3:4 and we’ll read through to verse 15.

4 The king went to Gibeon to offer sacrifices, for that was the most important high place, and Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on that altar. 5 At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon during the night in a dream, and God said, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.”
6 Solomon answered, “You have shown great kindness to your servant, my father David, because he was faithful to you and righteous and upright in heart. You have continued this great kindness to him and have given him a son to sit on his throne this very day.
7 “Now, O LORD my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. 8 Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. 9 So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?”
10 The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. 11 So God said to him, “Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administering justice, 12 I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be. 13 Moreover, I will give you what you have not asked for—both riches and honor—so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings. 14 And if you walk in my ways and obey my statutes and commands as David your father did, I will give you a long life.” 15 Then Solomon awoke—and he realized it had been a dream.

Now, keep your finger there or bookmark the page, because we’ll be back to finish. So, God said that he’d give you whatever you asked for. What would you ask for? Well, Solomon asked for a discerning heart to govern and administer justice. Of all the things to ask for, he asked for wisdom! This is where the definitions come in handy. We said that discernment is used to detect something that is obscure, in this case, administering justice…which happens to be the quality defined in wisdom. Solomon says here that he is only a child, now this does not mean he is a literal child. What he is getting at is that he is young and inexperienced in government and he needs help. It is widely believed that Solomon was around the age of 20ish when he took over the throne of Israel. So, he was young, inexperienced and needed help governing the great people of Israel.

God, pleased that Solomon asked for wisdom and discernment, gave him that, riches and honor…exactly what he did not ask for. Not to say that he always does that, but this time with Solomon he did.

We keep hearing the words wisdom and discernment going together like bread and butter, spaghetti and meatballs, or peanut butter and jelly. I want to take a brief moment to set apart what it is exactly each of these things is used for.

First, knowledge is understanding. Simply put, if we have knowledge, we have understanding; sometimes in all areas, sometimes in certain areas. We’ll get more into knowledge next week.

Second, discernment is perception. It is the special ability to hear the voice of God. No, not literally a voice; I have this gift and it is so hard to explain how it happens, but it is a strong feeling, a movement of conscience, a voice in your head (such as a thought), an ability to perceive dreams and explain them, a strong feeling to do something or go a certain direction. That is the voice of God; discernment is the ability to perceive it and understand it. Now, the gift we’ll be talking about in a couple weeks is discernment of spirits, which we will get into the whole subject a little more then.

Finally, we have wisdom. Wisdom simply put is the application of knowledge and discernment. It is possible to have discernment without wisdom, knowledge without wisdom, but you cannot have wisdom without knowledge and discernment. They are a package deal. Wisdom puts the two together in order to form the application of the voice of God and the understanding of something.

For instance, this story in 1 Kings 3:16-28. Once again, let’s go back to the bookmarked page where we left off and read from verse 16-28.

16 Now two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. 17 One of them said, “My lord, this woman and I live in the same house. I had a baby while she was there with me. 18 The third day after my child was born, this woman also had a baby. We were alone; there was no one in the house but the two of us.
19 “During the night this woman’s son died because she lay on him. 20 So she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from my side while I your servant was asleep. She put him by her breast and put her dead son by my breast. 21 The next morning, I got up to nurse my son—and he was dead! But when I looked at him closely in the morning light, I saw that it wasn’t the son I had borne.”
22 The other woman said, “No! The living one is my son; the dead one is yours.”
But the first one insisted, “No! The dead one is yours; the living one is mine.“And so they argued before the king.
23 The king said, “This one says, ‘My son is alive and your son is dead,’ while that one says, ‘No! Your son is dead and mine is alive.’ ”
24 Then the king said, “Bring me a sword.” So they brought a sword for the king. 25 He then gave an order: “Cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other.”
26 The woman whose son was alive was filled with compassion for her son and said to the king, “Please, my lord, give her the living baby! Don’t kill him!”
But the other said, “Neither I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two!”
27 Then the king gave his ruling: “Give the living baby to the first woman. Do not kill him; she is his mother.”
28 When all Israel heard the verdict the king had given, they held the king in awe, because they saw that he had wisdom from God to administer justice.

Wisdom in action! Wow, it is amazing to see Solomon actually put the wisdom to use. I cannot believe he actually was gonna take a sword to that baby…but then again, it was only a move to discover the correct mother. He was not going to literally cut the baby in half. He knew the real mother would not be able to stand it. Solomon is still today regarded as one of the wisest, if not the wisest person in history. There are even non-Christians who admit this. Solomon had wisdom to administer justice to the people. Now, this area was specific in which he had wisdom, but as we see from the Proverbs, Solomon had wisdom in much more than just administering justice. If you’ve never read through the proverbs, read through it. You’ll find nuggets of wisdom in what Solomon (and others) say.

So now that we know what wisdom is, the question now is, do you have that gift? Do you have an ability to apply understanding and perception to everyday life? Wisdom is not necessarily a quality associated with advanced age. As with Solomon, he was “wise beyond his years” as the saying goes. Some children have been described as “wise old souls”. It is very possible to have wisdom without being over the age of 50.

This week, I was having issues with what Scripture to choose. You see, I had one Scripture picked out, unfortunately, when I came to in later in the week, I had written what I thought was the wrong verses down. As I studied, I kept getting the feeling that both were important and needed to be in my study this week. Then, I went through, studied, and gained the knowledge I needed to from them in order to write and preach the sermon. Unfortunately, I was having a hard time figuring out which verses I was going to use for today. I could not figure it out. You see, I had the discernment of which verses I needed to use, I had the knowledge of the verses, but what I lacked was the wisdom to apply them both to the sermon I was writing. And then it hit me. I realized that I needed to go through the first set of verses, then the second to accomplish what I needed to get at. At last I had been given the wisdom to know where everything belonged.

On the other side of the coin, I was to give a word of caution to the wise, forgive the pun, be careful with wisdom. Philippe Quinault once said, “It is not wise to be wiser than is necessary.” Solomon had wisdom well beyond anything anyone had ever seen before. The trouble is, he still fell away from God. In verse 14, God tells Solomon, “14 And if you walk in my ways and obey my statutes and commands as David your father did, I will give you a long life.” He had God’s promise, and yet he walked away from it. By the end of Solomon’s reign and life, he had taken wives that God warned him not to, built Asherah poles, worshiped other Gods because of the wives he took. Guard against your wisdom because even a gift from God can be a tool the devil uses against you. True Godly wisdom always works in humility and servant hood.

I know that it is difficult to actually take a step back and reflect on whether or not you have this gift. Wisdom can be applied in many different situations. You can have wisdom in life experience, a trade or craft, in God’s word, ethics, business, finance, any one of these things and more.

Wisdom is not something that God grants lightly. Those who have it have a big responsibility to share what they have been granted. Spiritual gifts are not intended to kept to yourself. If you do that, it could be taken away as easily as it was given. If you have a gift, share it. Do not be afraid to share what God has given, because more than anything you are an asset to everyone around you, Christian or non-Christian. If you have the gift of Wisdom, I want to encourage you to use it within the church, in evangelism, in governing church business, in VBS or kids ministries, or anywhere you feel that God is leading you.

Wisdom is a gift. However, repeatedly I have heard so many Christians say this about wisdom; “You know, out of all the things I’ve done in my life, the wisest decision I made was to give my life to Christ.” I’ve heard it on Emmaus walks, Bible studies, counseling, or just fellowshipping with friends. Repeatedly, they did not know everything there is to know about giving their life over, they hesitated because they wanted to know more, they didn’t think they knew enough yet to gain salvation. Well, I want to let you in on a little secret. You never know enough. The depths of the grace that God showed us on the cross we can never truly fully understand. Even if you think you don’t know enough, you don’t have enough wisdom, I want to tell you that you have enough wisdom to walk forward and give you life to Christ. I guarantee it’ll be the best decision you ever make.

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