Wisdom Lit - The Wisdom of Paul w/Jarred Charming

Today, if you don't know my name is Gregg Hampton, one of the pastors here. If we've never met I would love to meet you

At some point maybe grab a coffee my treat and we'd love to get to know you talk about Jesus if that's something

You'd like to do as well. We are in the sixth and final week of our series called

Wisdomly lit so far. We have covered the words of Jesus. We've talked about Ecclesiastes Proverbs Job some of the Psalms and

Today we're going to be coming to the last message from the wisdom and Paul's

writings so now you may also know that

We we spread things around here a little bit

We like to give other people an opportunity to preach and to stand here and share the word

a long long time ago when we decided that we needed to do this because

Especially wanted to be a church that cares about diversity and equity and inclusion and making sure that we are trying

intentionally to be

Racially diverse we wanted to make sure that it wasn't just a white man up here talking all the time and there that was the only

Verse that ever talked about the Bible and so we have spread it around to people of different backgrounds and diversities

And so it's my great pleasure that this last six months

I've really been getting to know JC and I asked him if he wanted to preach and he's gonna be delivering his first sermon ever today

y'all

I'm looking forward to it. I'm excited

now

You you know him as JC's name is Jared charming

You may also know that Gigi his beloved wife gave birth to their very first daughter just a month ago one more round of applause for Zoe

Yeah, this is an exciting time for the Charmings, you know plenty busy I thought why not throw a sermon in there

JC was raised in Brooklyn, New York

If you were in case you were wondering which Brooklyn we were talking about 1980s

The way that he described it was that it was the height of the crack epidemic

He said at a young age

He could see the God fearing neighbors and even family members were falling into addiction

And he could see that Sunday only

That a Sunday only kind of faith was not was what was going to help him escape that in his life

Wasn't what was going to help him

Maneuver away from the dangers of the world. So he became what he described as a church kid

St. Paul's Community Baptist Church was his hangout his safe haven not just Sundays, but after school Saturday mornings

He says that safe haven is why he made it out

And it's why he takes so seriously

The Christian obligation to help other people escape their oppressive situations

He's a strong advocate for liberation theology believing as dr

James H cone has written that God is a god of the oppressed

Any of you were interested in looking at some of dr. Cone's writings. I've got a few of his books here from my personal library

If you want to borrow them, I'll let you borrow them, but I just don't lose track of I'm not a fan of the

I just don't lose track of I'm self-conscious about losing my books. So

But feel free to ask about those if you want to look at those in yours, but listen JC is your brother in Christ

He is my personal friend and I've really cherished getting to know him. Will you please give a warm welcome to JC?

As he preaches

I'm wearing this right y'all can hear me you can hear me. All right, cool. Thank you

Holy that's who you are

Angels

And earth sing the song for your honor

Because power belongs to you power belongs to you

And I can never grow tired of telling you you're worthy

There's so many ways that I

could sing of your glory I

Can never grow tired of telling you you're worthy

over and over again

So it was 2006

So it was 2006 I graduated this is a weird thing I graduated from Morehouse School of Religion

And

I escaped without ever having to preach a real sermon like literally by the hairs of my chinny chin chin, right?

Because I went to seminary to be a professor not a pastor and not a preacher

Mostly because professors can still have fun and pastors and preachers can't right?

And so I fast forward fast forward a couple decades and I see it's pastaged in here. I see pastor Jen

You and I see this guy with the baseball cap

Up here making the yoke look so easy and the burden looks so light. All right

So when the opportunity was presented for me to sermon I was like, oh god, here we go again

All right, and God was like dude, you said my will not yours be done. So, uh, I

Was like to say okay

All right, so we'll give it a shot. All right, so let's do this. Let's pray first

and then we'll read a passage of scripture and we'll get into a discussion about the wisdom of Paul to

Wrap up the wisdom literature and I'll tell you why I think it's so fitting that we're discussing Paul today fair enough

Cool most high and holy God you are the grand architect of the universe you are

Thank God, thank you for being in control. I'm so glad we're not

All I asked today is that your Holy Spirit will dwell in it. Who am I kidding?

Your Holy Spirit already dwells in this place

I just ask that your spirit will be intentional that it will make my words and that it will make our ears and

That this word will be applicable to our lives

This in your name. We pray and give thanks. I say I mean amen. I say I say but amen. All right

We're gonna be in first Corinthians

First chapter their Bible scattered everywhere. I prefer the app

Because it helps me

It helps interrupt my doom scrolling on Facebook

When you have first Corinthians first the first chapter

Verse 19. Let me hear you say yeah

If you don't have it say espera

We got it if you can and are willing would you please stand for the reading of the word

We good for it is written

I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the wise

For it is written. I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning. I will thwart

Where is the why the one who is wise?

Where is the scribe?

Where is the debater of this age has not god made foolish the wisdom of the world? Let's uh scroll down

Look down to 25 now for the foolish

The foolishness of god is wiser than men and the weakness of god is stronger than men for consider your calling brothers and sisters

Not many of you were wise according to the worldly standards. Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth

But god chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise god chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong

I love this verse right here

God chose what is low and despised in the world even things that are not to bring to nothing things that are

So that no human being might boast in the presence of god and because of him you are in christ jesus who became to us

wisdom from god righteousness and sanctification and redemption so that as it is written let the one who boasts

Boasts in the lord. Thank you for standing and reading with me

So I come from a baptist tradition

Where they title their sermons?

So I got a title for y'all today

Ready?

It just hits different

It just hits different

Just hits different so I told you it's really fitting that we're discussing the wisdom of paul today

The reason why it's fitting is because I have never identified with paul as much as I do in this very moment right now

Actually if i'm being honest, it's more of who he used to be that I identify with

With saul. Oh my god, what a hard

horrifying terrifying dude saul was

Right. This is a dude who persecuted christians just for believing in christ

He tortured them

For saul for saul the law was above all things

Capital l it was above compassion

the law was above love

and in the

In the early days of the christian saga saul was a big villain. He had like that doctor evil energy like

And he was good at his job

Really good at his job

If you're anything like me it helps to paint a mental picture of scripture so you could get like maybe a better understanding of what's going on

right, so

Can't you just see saul rolling around jerusalem?

2 2 3 a.m. In the morning with his homeboys his goon squad. All right, and he's looking to make a name for himself

maybe like the

King no captain of capturing christians. That's catchy, right?

He's trying to make a name for himself and I can see him kicking in doors waving the four four

Uh dragging out christians

Handcuffing them roughing them up taking them to jail

How about this maybe for the

For the newer christians the baby believers

Maybe he got some kind of sick twisted thrill out of watching them denounce their faith for their freedom

And he his home right when they said no

Yes, it was not the messiah him and his homeboys crackle

ha ha ha guys

You're not going home and you're not going to heaven

maybe for

maybe for the uh

The super christians the ones who had been believing for a while

Maybe they never even made it to jail

Y'all get what kind of dude saw was

How about this saw was no doubt the type of dude that would lead a group of ice agents into someone's home

He would kick in the door

And he would drag out a displaced family who were simply seeking asylum because their

Native village was warren torn. That's the kind of dude

That paul was

Y'all feel me

God didn't need to use all

Like why why would god use a dude like that?

All right, and then and then imagine saw turns into paul and he's now

Proclaiming the name of christ doesn't that make him a hypocrite?

After the stuff that he did after the things that saw said

Ain't no way

Ain't no way

He ain't right

Ain't good ain't

No way

Okay, let's breathe that out that was heavy fast forward

Fast forward a couple millennia and you'll find a young jc sitting in a seminary classroom

I was

a

Fantastic seminarian eric. I was an even better

Cemeteryian though in that I went to seminary to bury my christian faith

I went there to fight

I went there to debate

I went there frankly to piss people off

with my truth

I was so wise

I took all types of courses eschatology and ontology and

Christology and soteri ology

And every other ology

Except apology because I was so shameless and proud in my foolishness

Hey gary, I didn't need to be a christian. I was a theologian

And I did not need faith. You know why?

Because I had knowledge

You should have seen me you should have seen me in action

I had mastered the art of trolling before trolling was even an art. I would sit right up front

Let me show you I would sit right up front in the classroom

Something like this

And I would wait for the professor to say anything I could find disagreement with it didn't matter whether it was the trinity

Or whether it was noah's arc

I didn't care. I was throwing intellectual grenades behind me

Right. My mission was to blow wide open the closed parts minds of all of my classmates behind me

And it didn't take long

Before when I would raise my hand and start speaking I could hear them whispering heretic

heretic

I had gotten really good at my job

So

Something happened

I wish I could say that

Yes, who appeared to me

On the way to school on martin luther king jr. Drive in the west end

All right, and a blinding light causing me to fall on my face and my hair to go white and I lost my speech

And I no it was nothing like that

Nothing like that. Although it did feel like a whirlwind actually. It was a hurricane. It was 2005

The start of my second year

In seminary and I had a presentation in a course

called ministry in a social context, right and this

Professor I consider her an ally because she usually appreciated my controversial and radical contributions to class

All right, so I was all prepared to wow everybody with my expertise and my my knowledge and research and my wisdom

All right, and I remember I I finished this presentation

with a statement

on the importance of

separating church and state

And somebody in the back

They asked my opinions on

the government's delayed relief to hurricane katrina victims

and without thought I mean

Without thought I immediately responded. I'm listen. I'm talking about the absence of thought. I went into like a Kanye West rant. Okay?

And I started with like a some old adage like

Well, God helps those who help themselves

and I doubled down I said

something like

Why are we?

Why are we relying on the government to save us?

Where is the church? How much relief has the church given to those victims?

There was a deafening hush that fell over the room

The the my colleagues that normally would shake their head in agreement when I said something was shaking their head no and they were whispering to each other

And then this one sister

This one I'll never forget this one sister. She stood up

And when she lifted her head and looked at me a flood of tears i'm talking about niagara falls in her face

and she says to me

Well what she did was she explained that she hadn't spoken to her sister and mother

It had been about a month since katrina's

fall

She didn't know if they were dead or alive

And then she went into great detail about what happened to her sister

She went into great detail about the horrors of that hurricane

Details that were reported to her by eyewitnesses friends and family that escaped barely with their lives

And she looked at me and she said

You don't know nothing about what's going on in louisiana. Although she didn't say she didn't use the word nothing

She said you're a fool you're a fool to sit there and believe everything that the news feeds you a fool

You're a fool to sit there and believe everything that the news feeds you a fool

And then she began grabbing grabbing her belongings and packing her books and she headed for the door

And right up never forget right before she stepped into the hallway

She turned around

She said you need to get your head out your butt. She didn't say butt

And then she pointed at me and took one step forward and she said I thought she was gonna come get me she said

I'm gonna get you and you better watch how you speak on people's dead loved ones

She went in the hallway

and then one by one

My colleagues and my classmates started gathering their books

Heading for the door

And discussed I could hear her weeping in the hallway. I'm still up here in front of the classroom

I could hear my classmates going out there and trying to console her. I could hear them praying for her

And then I heard her

And I heard her

She said she was just going to watch the news. I said, why are you going to go in there and tell her

Off of something that I said

See, she didn't know if her loved ones are dead or alive to her they were already dead. And what am I doing?

I'm here speaking theory

So, why do I tell this story I tell you this story not because i'm about to be some powerful preacher like paul

I let the realization that I don't know it all I let that make me silent about god

I figured if I don't know everything about god, I don't know nothing. I might as well just shut up

And besides after I learned that lesson

I can't just start speaking about compassion over knowledge and love over information, right? That'll make me a hypocrite, right?

After the things that i've done god doesn't need to use me, right?

I ain't no good

I ain't right

Ain't no way

What kind of wisdom is that what kind of wisdom was I using then?

It's the kind of wisdom

It's the kind of wisdom that says eric you failed once so you'll likely fail again. So why should you even try?

It's the kind of wisdom that says

A human being can be illegal

And if they're illegal you can treat them like a dog

And if they're illegal in america, you can treat them worse than the dog. You know why because

Doodles and pit bulls even have rights here

It's the kind of wisdom that says

Women are too stupid to make decisions about their own bodies. So might as well just take their rights away

That sound familiar to y'all

It should

Because it's pretty basic

It's common

It's worldly

and when when paul speaks about

When he speaks about wisdom he uses the greek word sophia in his letter to the church of corinth

That's the distinction he wants us to make

He wants us to make the distinction that

god's wisdom

is different

From the world's wisdom godly wisdom isn't comparable to worldly wisdom god's wisdom. Y'all ready

just

hits

different

God's wisdom just hits different

So let's let's let's take one moment here and let's think about that godly wisdom isn't comparable to worldly wisdom. Does that make sense to y'all?

Yeah, right. Is that easy easy for us all to understand godly wisdom is different from worldly wisdom

Yes, is it easy to understand? Don't get scared

Ah, y'all are smart. It's not easy to understand. I tried to trick you. It's not it's it's a complete upending of worldly wisdom

Godly wisdom is an upending of worldly wisdom godly wisdom will come in and say up is down and down is up

Left is right and right is left

Is left and right is right

The world says first god says last

The world says right god says wrong

The world says hurt god says laughs

The world says weak

And god says strong

That makes sense to you weak is strong the meek inherit the earth

Are the poor what?

Think of paul as all on the road to damascus. What is he headed to damascus to do?

He's the captain of capturing christians

He's been sent there by the high priest

To go ahead business as usual go get them christians. Let's capture them up

And then he has this conversion experience where yeshua appears to him

And then speaks to him and not only is

Saul converted

But so are his homeboys and they didn't even see yeshua. They just heard his voice

So I imagine that the conversion in saul must have been so strong that even his homies were like, whoa, this must be real

right

But what trips me out about it is

Saul has two options here conversion experience is great

But he has two options the way I see it one he can continue on the road to damascus

Is gone business as usual he can just continue making a name for himself regardless of what happened

I don't know what he could say could say to his homeboys. Maybe we shouldn't uh,

Those were some funny looking mushrooms in the desert last night. I shouldn't have eaten them

Maybe I shouldn't have drank so much wine. He could have rationalized it any way that he chose

That's one option. The other option is what he could have went to heck home

That's probably what I would have did. I would have just went home. I would have told the high priest. Hey, man

I got sick stomach was messed up

I would have laid down for about three days and tried to figure out what was going on

Dude didn't even do that

he chose

What I would say is the worst option the dumbest option

Do continues on to damascus and he decides to preach the gospel of christ

He decides to preach the gospel to christ to a group of jews

What?

If i'm gonna go to damascus and preach the gospel of christ i'm gonna preach it to the christians at least he wouldn't

He went and spoke to jews. That makes no sense to me. What does make sense is that they booed him

What makes sense to me is that they ran him out of damascus

He put his life on the line for godly wisdom man, it's a hard decision to make

How many of y'all are facing difficult decisions right now

Something is just sitting heavy in your heart and you don't know which way to go

I don't know it could be maybe

Maybe everybody you know is voting this way. I don't know they're voting up and and you feel compelled to vote down

or

Maybe your work environment is toxic

I'm talking about as soon as you get in your car and get ready to go to work

You just feel anxiety and depression just wash all over you and you know, you need to quit this job. But guess what you got bills

Or maybe your plan was to go to college

Maybe your plan was to go to college but something is whispering a different plan in your heart or or maybe

The friends that you grew up with and were so close to they're all just starting to

Go separate ways and you don't know whether to hold on to it or just let it go or maybe the doctor says to you

With this diagnosis here. You have got to use traditional medicine and there's something telling you

Maybe there's a more holistic approach. I don't know what

Difficult situation that you're facing

But what I do know is this we all share the commonality that we want to feel confident that we're making the best decisions for our lives

Amen

Amen. I told y'all i'm baptist. Amen

Thank you

But I I don't feel confident that I can make the best decisions for my life

I feel confident that god can and the only way that i'm going to be able to

Allow god to make decisions in my life is if I can distinguish

Godly wisdom from what from worldly wisdom?

So let's look at that distinction really quickly

Worldly wisdom says things like

Hey, greg if we hang out and you steal from me

You're a thief and i'd be wise to never hang out with you again

right makes sense to y'all

Godly wisdom says even a thief

A known thief who's literally being crucified on the cross even that thief can inherit the kingdom of god

and be with yeshua

after god experience

Worldly wisdom says if you look different and you talk different then we're not the same

And if we're not the same guess what I can be better than you

God's wisdom says in first corinthians 1221 the eye cannot say to the hand I have no need of you

Nor again the head to the feet I have no need of you true wisdom

Says we're all one in the body of christ

Worldly wisdom says ko worldly wisdom says if they hit you what do you do?

You hit back

right

If they hit you you hit them back

an eye for an eye

Godly wisdom in matthew 539 do not resist the one who is evil, but if anyone slaps you

If anyone slaps you on the right cheek

Turn to him also that turn my other cheek bro

He slapped me on my face and you want me to turn my other cheek

That makes sense to y'all that's easy to understand

What if it's your wife that gets smacked on the cheek? Am I supposed to tell her to turn the other cheek too godly wisdom is not

easy

Worldly wisdom says if you're an addict you'll always be an addict

Period

godly wisdom

1st corinthians 1013 no temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man

God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability

But with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it

I don't have to call myself an addict once I call myself a child of god

Thank you god

Worldly wisdom says believe it when you see it godly wisdom says faith is the substance of things

Hope for and the evidence of things yet seen and with that faith you can walk on water and you can move mountains move mountains

worldly wisdom says a promiscuous woman is a whore that should be

That should be

shamed

But a promiscuous man he a player

He should be praised

Godly wisdom says in luke 736 even a prostitute

Can sit at the feet of yeshua and wash them with her tears

I don't think we should be fooled though

worldly wisdom knows scripture too like uh that verse in proverbs

The one that says spare the rod spoil the child

Right according to worldly wisdom. What does that mean?

Spare the rod spoil the child worldly wisdom tells us that means to beat your kids

If you don't beat your kids, you're not a good parent

All right, but godly wisdom knows that shepherds never hit their sheep

Sheep are precious to them. They use the rod and the staff to guide them in the way that they should go

All right, and speaking of children

worldly wisdom says

Worldly wisdom says that a child

A child that's born without a family

Or even a name

Baby girls are born without a family

Baby girl baby girl is doomed

She's doing to a life of struggle and trouble

But godly wisdom says I have set apart a family

One who I fortify

One who i've prepared through struggles and troubles of their own so now that same baby girl

She has a beautiful name

Her name is zela

And not only that

But she receives more love and is showered with more love than many children in this country who are born to traditional families

That is godly wisdom

Worldly wisdom worldly wisdom says if your arms don't work and your legs don't work

Worldly wisdom says if your arms don't work and your legs don't work then your body is broken and so too should be your spirit

But godly wisdom led me here to the house

Where one of the clearest messages i've ever received from god came from a vessel named scott sitting in a wheelchair

Worldly wisdom says our elders our elders are wise

And children should be seen in our earth

But godly wisdom let me hear

Where I see a young man named liam

I watched this young man smile from the inside out

And it teaches me a lesson about joy

It teaches me that joy that it can't be given or taken away

It's something that comes from inside you and you know what else joy is an intentional an intentional action every day

Every single day many times a day

Godly wisdom may seem like foolishness to the world

But I got one for you

It's cool to be a fool in christ

Let's make it a bar it's cool to be a fool in christ because in christ we have more life

So let's let's get ready to get out of here two questions we need to answer okay one

How can we align ourselves with godly wisdom

And two how can we make sure that we're functioning under godly wisdom promise you we'll hit those two questions

We'll get out of here all right so one how do we align ourselves first let's remember

gods

We're going to be living in the world

We're going to be living in the world

We're going to be living in the world

How do we align ourselves first let's remember god's wisdom comes from what god experienced

All right, and we can experience god in a variety of ways

First one I recommend is communication

talk to god

prayer

Prayer is a simple conversation with the creator. Don't think of it as like this puffed up thing

Where you have to use like these big words and pontificated phrases and thou art and oh

Has thou

Okay

It's a conversation

And and and remember god knows your mind god knows your heart and god can't be tricked

But keep this in mind god cares much more about what you feel than what you say

All right, talk to god

Keep it real

Last thing about communication

Communication isn't just talking right

So if we're talking to god, we should be doing what else?

We got to listen to right

So for me it started with prayer

Once I felt a genuine connection to the creator. I then wanted to worship that creator just to say thank you

And in that god experience of worship, I then developed a deeper hunger to know more about that creator

I wanted to know what the creator did for other people

I want to know what the creator can do for me now

I wanted to know what the creator is going to do in the future. So I began studying

Scripture as well as other faith inspired works

So for me the equation was prayer worship scripture study equals god experience for you

It could be different

So some people just come to church and have a worship experience and that leads them into prayer that leads them into study

Biggest picture is god experience

Lastly how do we know how can we make sure that we are operating under god's wisdom?

Pastor greg told us when we went over solomon a few weeks back that solomon the wisest man in the world 700 wives

300 concumines

He started making worldly decisions even though he was the wisest man that had god's wisdom

So what that tells us is that we need to steward godly wisdom. You can't just be like, okay, i'm wise

Now I could say and do whatever I want. All right

Doesn't work that way or even when I was preparing for paul paul

He's telling us all these things about wisdom, right?

And i'm getting this great message from god about godly wisdom

But even paul fell victim to worldly wisdom sometimes if you look later in corinthians

He says some pretty dumb things about homosexuality some dumb things about women, right?

So we have to steward godly wisdom

The best way that we can do that is following yeshuah's example. Yeshuah gave us two commandments to check ourselves

Love god with all your heart soul and mind

And love your neighbor as you love yourself

love

He also said something I really like he said a healthy tree bears healthy fruit and I like how that leads into paul

Paul gives us a beautiful example of how we can do that

Bears healthy fruit and I like how that leads into paul paul gives us a beautiful blueprint in his letter to the galatians

That you can use

He gives us the blueprint of the fruit of the spirit

So when you're operating

When you're operating on the godly wisdom, you'll you'll grow everywhere you go

You'll grow the the fruit of love and joy

fruit of

patience and peace

Kindness gentleness goodness faithfulness

And self-control

You'll grow everywhere you go so in conclusion

Godly wisdom just hits different from worldly wisdom worldly wisdom says things like you can't

You aren't

You won't

Worldly wisdom reminds you of who you used to be to distract you from who you're meant to be

Worldly wisdom reminds you of who you used to be to distract you of who you're meant to be

Godly wisdom says you can you are and you will godly wisdom says you are better than your worst day

Worldly wisdom is common because it's based on a human experience and godly wisdom is based on a god experience

And you need to appropriately steward godly wisdom. They make sure you're not trading it for the world

You can make sure you're operating under godly wisdom by following the model of christ as well as the fruit of the spirit given to us by paul

You can make sure you're operating under godly wisdom by following the model of christ as well as the fruit of the spirit given to us by paul

And lastly, I have hope

I have hope that as we begin to move under godly wisdom

We'll not only begin to

Change our lives for the better but begin to change the lives of our neighbors as well

Thank you all for this talk