Week #3: God’s Wisdom & Ours

Presupposed Truths (Week #1)

1. God has specifically revealed Himself through His Word (Hebrews 1:1).
2. The Lordship of God over all – “He rules everything” (I Cor. 5:18)
3. God is a redeeming God, actively seeking to save through Christ.
4. God is Triune, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, redemptively active.
5. Man is sinful and must respond to God’s salvation in faith, obedience, worship, praise and service.

The Image of God

Genesis 1:26-27
What are the “communicable” & “incommunicable” attributes of God?
Genesis 2:15-16
Genesis 3:1-7
What is the irony of our first parent’s quest for knowledge?
What is wrong, broken and/or defiled in humanity?

Packer (Knowing God, pg 92) says, “His purpose was that we should love and honor him, praising
him for the wonderfully ordered complexity and variety of his world, using it according to his will, and
so enjoying both it and him. And though we have fallen, God has not abandoned his first purpose.”

Packer (Knowing God, pg 100) says, “God is at work in Christian believers to repair his ruined image”

God’s Wisdom
Job 9:4 & 12:13
What is wisdom…

According to Packer: Wisdom is the power to see, and the inclination to choose, the best and
highest goal, together with the surest means of attaining it (pg 90)
According to you?

Wisdom is not…
Education –cultural bias on “smarts” instead of common sense
“Figuring out” Biblical mysteries and/or winning intra-Christian debates

What are the two greatest commandments? Mark 12:28-31

If you did nothing else but fulfill these two commandments, how wise would you be?

Becoming Wise
1. Ask: James 1:5
2. Fear / Revere / Awe: “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”
3. Receive (aka read your Bible): 2 Timothy 3:15-17 & Luke 10:38-42
4. Trust & Obey: James 1:6-8, 4:3 & 3:13

God’s Wisdom & Human Suffering

Wisdom brings (is) life, Proverbs 3:13-18 & John 14:6 & 17:3
Human wisdom is frustrated by our finiteness; something is always beyond our control.
Why does the world say you learn from your mistakes?
Remember God’s purpose: the creation is being redeemed.
Why does the world say necessity is the mother of invention?

1
Once again, we are confronted with the wisdom of God ordering the events of a human life for a
double purpose: the individuals own personal sanctification, and the fulfilling of his appointed ministry
and service in the life of the people of God. (Packer, Knowing God, pg 97)

The two-fold purpose of suffering:

1. Suffering cleanses and/or purges.
2. Suffering teaches.

How do we respond to this?

But how are we to meet these baffling and trying situations, if we cannot for the moment see God’s
purpose in them? First, by taking them as from God, and asking ourselves what reactions to them,
and in them, the gospel of God requires of us; second, by seeking God’s face specifically about them.
(Packer, Knowing God, pg 98, emphasis added)

2 Corinthians 1:3-4
What does this passage say to us in the midst of suffering?
What does this passage say to us after we have properly come through suffering?

To live wisely, you have to be clear-sighted and realistic – ruthlessly so – in looking at life as it is
(Packer, Knowing God, pg 103)

The Image of Christ

God is at work in Christian believers to repair his ruined image. (Packer, pg 100)
2 Corinthians 3:18
Colossians 3:9-11

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Ron Smith, 302-545-9049