Leon Fontaine - The Two Kinds of Wisdom
Today, I want to talk about two kinds of wisdom. Two kinds of wisdom. A lot of people think they are unique and free thinkers. That, you know, they're their own man. They're their own woman. But today, so many people are simply seduced by popular culture. And popular culture stops us, prevents us from thinking for ourselves. Edward T. Hall, a professor of anthropology says, "Man has put himself in his own zoo. He has so simplified his life and stereo-typed his responses that he may as well be in a cage". The natural act of thinking is completely modified by culture. We only literally use a small fraction of our mental capabilities. This ability to think and the rest, culture just tells us what to do in most situations. Cultural anthropology which is sometimes called social anthropology is the study of human behavior as influenced by other people and by the culture. In fact, they know by studying our babies and children as they grow up that they begin to be totally in cultured.
And so it's impossible to avoid the influence of the culture. But we can become aware of it and we can begin to resist its seduction. Its ability to stop us from thinking and from being all that we can. God has designed you and gifted use so amazingly that within you are more gifts, more abilities, than you could ever fulfill in your lifetime. A 100 years of going full bore and you won't touch because you're made with an eternal spirit. You are so stunning, so amazing. But now culture has already decided, you know, what you should do, what you should look like, what you shouldn't reach for, what you should reach for, how do you look at something and not look at something. And it literally caps us and it just makes us all beige, vanilla.
In Romans 12:2, it says, don't let the world around you squeeze you into its mold, its thinking, its culture till you are just marinated and your thinking is a very shallow limited thing that just solves a few problems that exist as you walk your life out in the culture that you are living in. I want to help you with a few thoughts. In, one of the first, we're going to start with is this. People do not like being wrong. People hate being wrong. And so they will hang on to their own opinion even when they know it's wrong, because their identity can't handle being wrong. And if you and I are going to become wise the way the Bible talks about wisdom. Then we have to become so secure in our identity that it has nothing to do with being right or wrong on any given topic. But your identity is secure because God values you and God loves you.
I've watched people and I have to do this myself. You know, if I think I know something and somebody wants to disagree with me. You have to make a decision to want to listen. The Bible says a fool rages, loses it when you disagree. I've watched two empty minds argue. You know, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And they don't listen to the other person because while they're talking they're forming their own argument. And your brain is not amazing enough to really listen to them and learn if you're going to begin to build this lawyer-like argument in your head from the data they're just sending at you. And it's this useless argument. But if you listen, really listen, one of the keys to wisdom is you like being rebuked.
Now that word rebuke there doesn't mean people just cussing you out. It literally means somebody with a different opinion. The Bible says a wise man, he likes it. So when someone walks up to you and you begin a conversation and you all believe everything the same, everything's the same. You don't disagree at all. What a boring conversation. Good job! Good job! Heard all that before. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, let me repeat to you what you already believe. Like, really? We used to love disagreement. We used to love, "What do you think"? When someone walks up to you and they've got a different opinion, lean forward and go, "Really? Okay, tell me why". 'Cause even if you know what you believe about that, why wouldn't you care about knowing what they believe? Are you so important you don't care what anybody else believes?
If you value someone and you love someone, see, you don't even know them if you just valued people. And you say, "Talk to me. Why would you think that"? Oh, my, do you grow in your ability to lead. Because you can't lead, if you don't, all you can lead is people like you. And you're a small percentage of the world. So to listen to people on how they think and how they process and why they think and why they process and what makes them upset with you or happy with you. And just to listen. Listening to understand someone is one of the greatest compliments that you could ever give somebody. Listen, married couples, one of the sexiest things you can do is focus on your spouse and lean forward and want to understand.
Now, you can disagree with every analogy and point they make about the relationship or you. But you'd be naive to not want to know how they think. What a stupid thing to try to make a marriage work and not even know how that person thinks. Knowledge, it doesn't come down to right or wrong. It's like the four men standing around an elephant. One in the front, one in the back, and two on the sides. And they're both, all four trying to describe to each other what an elephant is. So only two that are going to agree. That's a two on the side. The guy at the back and the guy at the front, they're not even going to have the same description. But all are actually correct in this instant.
You can climb a mountain from the north side, the east side, the south side, the west side. You can tunnel up from below. You come down by helicopter. There's so many ways to look at that mountain and describe it. But we are, we are literally down to this one little myopic way you look at things. And if we do not, just get excited about expanding. I'm going to become so secure in who I am, but I want to know what you think. Yeah, talk to me. And if that person gets passionate. Cool. Who cares. What's it to you? Wisdom is so crucial. Only people who are secure in their identity will want to know what others believe.
Now one of the problems now that we have in growing in wisdom is self-centeredness. Could be, I actually cannot differentiate the difference between pride and selfishness. They are so open in wrapped together. That if you are self-centered, self-absorbed, self-aggrandizing, self-promoting. You know, it's just self-motivated. Just put whatever word you want there as a suffix. Then pride will be your problem. It doesn't matter how much you act or look. They are so together. And so it is impossible for you to grow and develop wisdom because this self-centered, self-focused means you're right. You have to be right. Your identity is built around being right.
Anybody thinks you're wrong, and sometimes parents can raise kids in such a way that if they do something wrong, it's just too brutal, or if they say something wrong, they can't have an opinion. And they think that the way they raise them when they were 3, is the way they're going to raise them when they're 12. Listen, a child is designed to become more independent every year of their life. That's not disobedient. That's independent. There's a big difference. And some parents want to just control. Oh, my, you've got a mess that's just waiting to happen.
And so parents who are Christians, they'll just try to manipulate and in force and you can't do that. You can, you literally have to manage them in whatever area they can't manage. But as they grow this mismanaged person, comes to manage and manage their life more and more. You've got to teach them wisdom. You've got to admire their thinking and engage them in their thinking and listen to how they think, or so many kids will never go home when they grow up. You know why? Because they're not, they are not prize, celebrated. The way they think. The way they look at things is not something that their parents want to know. Which is this is the way it is according to their religion... And I hate religion because religion doesn't allow the unique autonomy of every individual person to know Jesus, to know the Word, and to rise up and be incredible for Him.
If we can have a church like that, your kids will never leave. They'll want to come back. They'll want to go to your house because everyone knows. I'm unique. I'm made significant. And there's ways that I think. And even if they're wrong, if I am admired for my ability to at least share these ideas where we can get a robust conversation going. Man, that's an ally family. James 3:14-18, says, "And by all means, don't brag about being wise and good if you are bitter and jealous and selfish, that is the worst sort of lie. For jealousy and selfishness are not God's kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, inspired by the devil. For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there will be disorder and every other kind of evil".
It's interesting people will often ask me. What do you think this is happening? And your mind can't reason out. Why some leader is doing something? Or why some situation is going? You go, "What in the world's happening"? if you can't put a finger on, you can't figure out why, and it's evil and it's bad. Then there's a really good chance that behind it is the kingdom of darkness. Because Jesus said that there's a kingdom of darkness, and that the enemy is here to steal, kill, and destroy. But Jesus, I come that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly. So when you have a selfish person, and this is an amazing study in leadership.
Go back through history and find out how many leaders for their own selfish ambition, their insecure little identities need everybody bowing and doing whatever they say. And what happens? I mean, history is littered with deaths and horrible things as millions of people die, an entire countries disappear. Literally if you go back far enough, you'll actually find entire people groups that have just disappeared. And so there is a wisdom. Okay, that is just a natural wisdom. And if you start becoming self-centered, self-focused, you will open up a door to the enemy. Because selfishness is the very beginning of evil. Ain't that interesting? Now then it says, verse 17, "But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure, full of quiet gentleness. Then it is peace-loving and courteous. It allows discussion and is willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and good deeds. It is wholehearted and straightforward and sincere. And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of goodness".
Those two verses is how you'll judge people and leaders, as to is there a wisdom here? Is the wisdom that they have a wisdom from above? Because people can begin to talk and the wisdom that the world has is very shallow and complex. But people because they can't understand they think, "Whoa, that guy's deep". Now, he doesn't understand what he just said. Now the word of God is incredibly deep and simple. Now, the word simple doesn't at all mean what we take that to mean. It literally means that the wisdom of God, you'll just absorb it. You'll be able to follow it. And you can, true wisdom takes the complex and begins to simplify it. So you can understand. So that you can use it.
You know, there's a game at the fair and the kids often want to play it. And you get this baton with a wire to this machine and a great big round bat, and it's called the mole game or something like that. Where they got all 9 holes and there's mole. And this mole, you don't know which hole the mole's going to stick its head up but your job is to hit it. The second it comes to stick his head up. Bam, bam, bam, bam. And then it'll keep track of how many times you could hit the mole back down. That's what people are afraid of when they stick their head up and have a free thinking thought, their own opinion. Somebody else is sure to take a whack at you. Blog about you. They'll try to woke you. They'll begin to dish you, lie about you, backstab you, question your motives, make you look arrogant, and everything else because they can't stand this individuality.
This free thinking ability to rise up because it makes them question their own vanilla. Their own beige living that just conforms. And I'm not talking about us being conformed to the Word of God, the presence of God. That's not what I'm talking about. Somebody will go and say, "I'm done with church. That's just such a bunch of con". No. Be very careful because the Bible is uniquely different. It is written for you and this book will guide you, lead you, and show you how to be you. The cry of every child growing up, every teenager dealing with the stress of trying to conform to every other teenager or not being accepted is I just wanna be me. I just want to be me. I want to be significantly me. I want to be loved for me.
And as they conform and put on a mask for who they are not, they no longer believe anybody loves them because that's not them. They know you're in love with this conforming cultural mask that they put on. And they know that if they get married and this mask begins to erode and fall off, and they see the real you. You're never going to love me. And people who are have, who are impossible to build relationships with because they don't know how to love. That there's a deeper problem. They don't know how to love themselves 'cause you can only love others as you love yourself.
So this thing about wisdom is so crucial. In Proverbs 24:3-7, did you know that whether or not you are prosperous, your home becomes amazing, your family becomes amazing, what you're building and business and career and finances are all tied to this thing called wisdom. Everyone will need miracles somewhere in life. But you'll need fewer if you use wisdom. God can bless you with an amazing husband but your lack of wisdom can make that one mess. He's blessed you. What you're doing with the blessing? You need wisdom. He can bless you with an amazing job that could be the platform of every gift and ability within you using that platform to rise up and prosper and finance the gospel and your family and the educations and all that's going on. But if you do not walk in wisdom, wisdom is the principle thing.
In Proverbs 24:3, it says, "Skillful and Godly wisdom". It says, "Through skillful and Godly wisdom is a house, a life, a home, a family built, and by understanding, which is a part of wisdom, it is established on a sound and good foundation. By knowledge shall its chambers of every area be filled with precious and pleasant riches". Think about what it's saying here, all right? If you will develop wisdom and never stop, your bedroom will be pretty precious. If you continue to develop wisdom, your office and all your accounts and finances become very blessed. Your family room where you guys hang and have fun becomes very blessed. Wow! That means since Jesus, that Jesus who is our wisdom. He is in your spirit.
And as you begin to renew your mind with the Word, you'll begin to find yourself sense and know that I get why everyone flows that way. But kingdom culture begins to rise out of your spirit and you begin to love those who don't love you back. You begin to walk in a way where people who used to be able to antagonize you and wreck your day. And you'd go home so ticked off your wife couldn't handle you. The kids couldn't handle. The dog didn't want to sit on your lap because one person at work can wreck your day so bad. But as you develop wisdom and you grow in wisdom and you understand how to operate in the function and to grow and to increase and fill your life with every room in your house is filled with pleasant riches.
People lose the power because you rise up with wisdom, establishing your self-worth, establishing your identity. So that as you grow, you can just succeed. Every level of success, okay, is going to attack your identity worse. What do you mean? It does, that's not a bad thing. I'm just saying that the Word of God will build you with wisdom. So that as you lead three people on the job and you learn how to do that. And then you got to lead three supervisors with ten people each on the job and do that. And then you got to lead multiple companies with hundreds of people and you got to figure out a way to have all of these things. As you increase and succeed in life, there's pressures that mean nothing if you grow in wisdom. We need to think bigger. We need, you know, every person God ever used, He had to get them think bigger.
Moses, He had to speak to him from a burning bush. Abraham, count the stars. That's how many, that's how much your lineage is going to be. Oh, I don't have a kid now. I'm 90. Yeah, tough. I mean, let me impact you. He literally ever, the twelve disciples took them three and half years to get their mind around. You twelve going to go take the world. And they took out the then known world with Christianity and it became a force that's exploding today till two billion people profess to be Christians. Whether or not they are, they professed to be. And the greatest countries on the planet have these Christian, Judeo-Christian laws. It's how they form these countries.
Let's make a decision. We haven't received the spirit of the world. That we want to walk in this wisdom. And as you begin, I'm going to close with this thought. All of the wisdom of the universe is in your human spirit. I don't know how we did that but He's within you. And the only thing stopping this wisdom from flowing out of you is to renew the mind. Don't conform to the culture of this world, the limitations of this world. Don't conform to everybody else in your line of work, on your area of giftedness. And instead as you begin to renew your mind, your mind, and the Bible says, it says, "Renew your mind and you will be transformed". Not educated, transformed. Now, you can learn. I mean, the way to learn something in the world with our five senses is just by habit, repetition. Repetitions is an incredible teacher. But now in the spirit realm, Holy Spirit's better.
And so it's important to develop your five senses and whatever sciences or people skills, etcetera, that you need based upon your giftedness if you can. But you have access to the Spirit of God. Now, that does not come through your five senses. It is a sixth sense. Some call it faith. Some call it a perception. It's this ability to just know. It's a knowing. It's, when you learn something which comes by revelation by from the spirit man. It's not a line upon line. It is a lifting of the veil. It's an Apok lypsis. It's just like, you know, pray for the spirit of wisdom and revelation. It didn't say pray for the spirit of wisdom and repetition. Did you get that? Pray for the spirit of wisdom and revelation. A revelation is when something comes to you one day and you kind of go, "Oh, my Word. I got it". And this epiphany takes place. When Holy Spirit's on the inside of you, it's revelation that steers you. And you begin to see who you are and what you can do and what's on the inside of you and the opportunities are ahead of you. In a way that you could never have learned with just the five senses that are going before you, life.
Let me speak to the teenagers for a minute. Kids that are listening to me today. Don't look at religion. It sucks. Don't look at the mistakes we've made as your parents and grandparents. Recognize this Jesus loves you more than your mom, more than your dad. That this Jesus has a plan for you, and your mom and dad will want you to stand on their shoulders and go further than anything you could ever do before. My goal is to make sure that in my lifetime, every child and grandchild and great grandchild and great, great grandchild I ever get a chance to influence is going to be able to go further, better, bigger, than me. And that every person because I'm a pastor and I'm called to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. That I'm hoping every one of you do better than me at everything I do period because that's my job.