Here we are in part five of this series we’ve titled: Fool Proof. And a few weeks ago when we began this series we said there was one question we need to ask of every decision, every opportunity, every invitation that comes your way. What we said was that this one question has the ability to fool proof your marriage, fool proof your finances, fool proof your career, fool proof your life. We called this the best question of all, and I want you to say it with me: What is the wise thing to do?
In light of my past experience, current circumstances and future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing to do?
This morning we’re going to take a little bit of a detour and ask this question: What happens if you really are committed to doing the wise thing, but you don’t know what the wise thing is? What if you’re at a point where you’re willing to say, “God, I really do want to do the wise thing, I’m ready to quit pretending, to quit playing games, I’m ready to quit deceiving myself and to quit doing what everybody else is doing, and asking where’s the line instead of asking, what is the wise thing to do? I really do want to know what the wise thing to do is, but I don’t know what the wise thing to do is in this particular relationship. I don’t know what the wise thing to do is in this particular arena of my finances. I don’t know what the wise thing is to do professionally. I don’t know what the wise thing to do is in light of what’s going on in my marriage. I’m going to ask the question, but I’m not sure what the wise thing to do is.
I think there are two main areas where most of us struggle with figuring out what the wise thing to do is: The first is in arenas where there’s a lot of emotion. Emotion is like a fog in the decision-making process.
It can be a positive emotion like, “I’m in love.” I mean, love is a fog, isn’t it? “Five bedrooms.” “No money down.” There are all kinds of emotions that impact and fog our decision making process. And when there’s a lot of high emotion it’s difficult to see straight and make wise decisions. It’s difficult to know what the wise thing to do is.
It can be a negative emotion as well. You’re really, really angry, or you’re jealous, or you’re very, very resentful, you’re not getting your way, and suddenly you find yourself about to make a decision, and even in those moments when you realize there’s all this stuff, uugghh, going on inside of you and you know you need to ask, what is the wise thing to do, but in that fog of emotion, it is very difficult to see straight. It’s very difficult to discern, what is the wise thing to do.
In fact, I bet this, I bet your greatest regret, whether it was a night, or a season of life, or a marriage, or a weekend or a spring break or whatever it might be, I bet your greatest regret has to do with decisions you made when there was a lot of emotion. It might have been anger. It might have been lust. It might have been somebody who was trying to sell you something and they pressured you into something. See, your greatest regret, and mine, were unwise decisions that we made when our emotions were swirling around and we just couldn’t see straight.
A second environment where I have a hard time discerning what the wise thing to do is, and maybe you can relate to this, it’s when I’m asked to make a decision within a realm that I don’t really have enough expertise to make a decision in. Maybe it’s a lack of education, training or experience.
Maybe it’s because I’m the leader or I’m the father, or whatever the situation is, I’m asked to make a decision and I just don’t have the background or the education or the experience to make a wise decision.
If you’re a leader, if you own your own company or you’re a manager you understand this, when you’re the point person you feel as if, “I’m supposed to know, and whether I know or not I need to at least look like I know. And I need to say something intelligent,” so you ask them to give you a minute and you run to a back room and say, “Oh God, I don’t know what to do!”
But you’re supposed to know. You’re the manager, you’re supposed to know. You’re the dad, you’re supposed to know. You’re the president, you’re the head of the student body, whatever, you’re supposed to know. But when you don’t have the experience or the expertise or whatever, how do you make a wise decision in those realms where there’s a lot of emotion or where you don’t have the expertise you need?
I want to tell you a secret this morning. This is the secret of all wise people. Every wise person you know, knows this secret. In fact, this is how they became wise. In fact, when I tell you this secret you are going to realize that they weren’t as wise as you thought they were. But they sure seem to be wise, because here’s what every wise person knows: Wise people know when they don’t know, and they’re not afraid to go to those who know. Wise people know when they don’t know. That is they don’t deceive themselves, they don’t pretend, they don’t act like they’re smarter than they are. Wise people know when they’ve reached the end of their knowledge. Wise people know when there’s too much emotion. Wise people know when they don’t know and they are courageous enough, they’re not afraid, and oohh, that takes a lot of security to say, “I’m in charge, and I have no idea. I’m your father, and I don’t know either. I’m your mother, we need to think about this. I’m in charge, I’m the manager, I’m whatever.
Wise people know when they don’t know and they are not afraid to go to those who know. Every wise person you know, the people you consider wise, you talk to them and they’ll probably say it in a different way, but here’s what they know: Every wise person knows when they reach the end, when it’s not a good time to make a decision, when they don’t know and they are not afraid to go to people who know. Wise people seek wise council.
Now that’s not intuitive, because you think, “If they’re wise then they don’t need wise counsel.” That’s wrong. They get counsel, that’s why they are wise.
The most amazing insights into the Bible is that the wisest person in the whole Bible, other than Jesus, the wisest man who ever lived was a king named Solomon. And God gave him the gift of wisdom. He had more wisdom than anyone who had ever lived. He was the wisest man in the world. And the wisest man who ever lived had more to say about seeking counsel than anyone else who wrote in the Bible.
Now you would think that the wisest man would say nothing about seeking counsel. Why would the wisest man in the world say so much about seeking counsel? Because, he’s the wisest man in the world. Because wise people know when they don’t know, and they’re not afraid to go to those who know.
Let me just throw a few of these verses up on the screen. A wise man will hear and increase in learning (that is, they will listen), and a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel. Proverbs 1:5. Now you say, “Wait a minute, they are a man of understanding or a woman of understanding, why would they aquire wise counsel?” How do you think they became a man or a woman of understanding? That even with all they know, they are not afraid to increase what they know by asking other people. Look at this second one.
The way of a fool is right in his own eyes (that is, “I don’t need anyone telling me what to do. I’ve got it all figured out. I’m 18, I’m a freshman in college, I just graduated from college, I own my own company) The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man (no age, no matter what age) is he who listens to counsel. Proverbs 12:15. In other words, this is what characterizes wise people. A wise person never gets so wise that they don’t need counsel. A wise person is always listening out for wise counsel. That’s how they became wise.
Wise men and women know when they don’t know and they’re not afraid to go to those who know.
Now let me tell you why this is so important and we’re going to look at an Old Testament story that illustrates this in a minute found in Genesis 41. You can go ahead and find it, put your handout in there or something and we’ll come back to it in a minute, but here’s why this is so important. These few insights could possibly change your whole perspective on getting counsel. Here’s the deal, I’m going to make three statements:
First: The decisions, in fact I would say many or most, many or most of the decisions that you make privately and independently, that is the decisions you made in the quietness of your own heart, independent of any outside advice, the decisions you make privately or independently will later on become public knowledge, right? You privately decide to buy a house, before long everybody knows where you live. You privately and independently decide to lease a car, everybody knows what you drive. You privately and independently decide to ask here out, before long everybody knows you’ve asked her out. You privately and independently decided to take this new job, before long everybody knows you have a new job. Most of the decisions we make privately and independently eventually become public knowledge, right?
Secondly, and this is the tricky one, most, or at least many, of the decisions you make privately and independently are judged by the people around you. I don’t know if this is just me, but Liz and I talk about our friends…. We do. We just lost some of our friends with that statement…but we hear stuff and say, “Did you know that he just asked her out? Did you know that they’re moving? Did you see their new house? Did you see, did you know? Maybe it’s just us but we talk about the decisions our friends make. Don’t you?
And isn’t it true, and maybe we’re not supposed to do this, but it’s just human nature, but isn’t it true that in some way, shape, or form you pass judgement on the decisions that your friends make. “I can’t believe she’s doing that. I can’t believe he’s marrying her. I can’t believe they’re splitting up. I can’t believe…. I mean I know we’re not supposed to judge, but isn’t it true, and if you’re a teenager you do this all the time, at every area of life, don’t we pass judgment on the decisions that people around us make? I don’t mean we’re negative or critical, but we do this.
Well, the same is true of you. You have a public. It may be 20 or 200 people, but people are constantly passing judgment on the decisions you make privately and independently.
Third statement: For many of us, the decisions that we make privately and independently are not only known by the public, not only judged by the public, but the decisions that we make privately and independently effect other people. As a pastor, every decision I make about Hub City effects a lot of people. I can make it privately and independently, but the effects are felt publicaly. Every decision that I make as a father in our home, I may make it privately or independently, but the effects are felt by at least four other people. The decisions that you make privately and independently, the effects or the results of those decisions are felt publicly.
So here’s the question: If your decisions, as you’re trying to discern what’s the wise thing to do in a certain relationship, what’s the wise thing to do financially, what’s the wise thing to do professionally, what’s the wise thing to do here, if the results of those decisions are number one, going to be known publicly; number 2, are going to be judged publicly; and number three, are going to effect other people, then why not get other people in on the decision making process before the decision is made because it’s not going to be a secret after the decision is made?
That just makes sense. This is how wise people end up making so many wise decisions. Because they do not make big decisions independent of counsel. And there’s a hesitancy about this, I understand that. You say, “It’s really none of their business.” Let me just give you a big clue, it will become their business, because they’re going to know, and they’re going to judge and they might even be effected. You say, “But it’s still none of their business.” That’s irrelevant. They are going to know. They are going to judge. They might even be impacted. Since that’s a reality, wouldn’t it make sense to involve wise people in on the front end of the decision making process? Because what is done privately and independently eventually becomes known and is judged publicly. See, wise people know when they don’t know, and they are not afraid, they are secure enough to go to people who know.
There are so many stories in the Bible about people who sought advice or got advice. Some got bad advice, some got good advice. I mean, there’s so much you could say about this, but this morning we’re going to look at a familiar Old Testament story in Genesis 41.
And it’s the story about a guy named Joseph. He lived 1900 years before Jesus. This is 1900 BC. Joseph was the son of a guy named Jacob. And just to give you kind of a big picuture, there was Abraham, who was the father of the Jewish nation, and he had a son named Isaac, and Isaac had a son named Jacob and Jacob had a bunch of sons and one of them was named Joseph. Well, Joseph gets sold by his brothers into slavery in Egypt. He spends some time in the house of this guy named Potiphar, who was the captain of the whole Egyptian army. While serving there he gets accused of trying to rape Potiphar’s wife. He didn’t do it. He was innocent, but she accused him and he was put in prison in Egypt.
Now when we get to this story, Joseph has been in prison about 10 years. He’s 30 years old and he’s in jail when this story begins. This is an incredible story about listening to and seeking wise counsel. And for all the men here today, this really slaps right up against our ego and pride issues. Because one of the reasons we’ve made some really dumb decisions men, is because we would not listen. We would not listen to our wives. We would not listen to people who didn’t have the same expertise as we thought they should have in order for us to listen to them. We get ourselves into trouble because we’re not wise enough to know what we don’t know, and even when we know what we don’t know we’re too afraid, we’re too proud to ask the people who know.
Here’s an amazing story about a king who had enough sense and security to listen to the most unlikely source of wisdom imaginable. So here’s what happens: Pharoah, who is in charge of Egypt, the power center of that part of the world, Pharoah has a dream. Now you tell me, those of you who know anything about Egyptian history, Pharaoh was considered a what? – A god. He was considered a god. He was thought to have eternal life. He did not have to keep the law, he was the law. I mean, at 9:00 in the morning if something was illegal it was illegal. At 10:30, if Pharaoh changed his mind, they erased that law and wrote a new one. He was just the law in motion.
And when you were in the presence of Pharaoh you were very, very careful because if Pharaoh was having a bad day, that could be your last day. He just had that much power. His word was law because he was thought to be related to the sun god so he was god.
Now, 1900 BC, around that time, Pharaoh has a dream. And he dreams something that he thinks has significance so he asks the people around him, “Hey can you interpret the dream?” They all sheepishly said, “Uh uh.” But he wants to know the interpretation of the dream and there’s this guy that serves Pharaoh his wine who says to him, “you know what, you may not remember this, but I was in prison for a while when you were mad at me, and while I was there I ran into a Jewish lad, and he interpreted a dream for me, in fact he predicted that you would restore me to this position.”
And Pharaoh says, “Let’s find him.” So Pharaoh sends the people down into the dungeon to find this Jewish boy, who’s now 30 years old because he’s been there so long. They shave him, they dress him up and they get all the prison smell off of him and bring him, in a presentable way, to Pharaoh.
Now you’ve got to understand. Joseph isn’t even from their country. They’ve never met before. And Pharaoh says to Joseph, “Hey, what was his name again? Joseph? Hey Joseph, here’s my dream.” And the idea is, I’m going to tell you my dream and you interpret it and then you’re out of here, back to prison.
So he tells Joseph the dream and Joseph interprets the dream. And the interpretation of the dream was this: “Oh Pharaoh, may Pharaoh live forever, there are going to be seven incredible years of plenty in the land of Egypt. You’re going to have so much grain and such good crops you’re going to have extra. After those seven years there’s going to be seven years of famine. Everything is going to die. And everybody who hasn’t saved grain from the seven previous years, they will die as well.”
So Joseph interprets this dream. That’s all he’s there for. And at that point, Joseph should shut his mouth, turn around and head down the hall. But Joseph does an unthinkable thing that could have cost him his life. Joseph decides to give some advice to Pharaoh/god/the law in motion/the most powerful man in the world. And that’s where this story picks up. And we can’t fully understand these circumstances, but this was way out there for anyone to do. And look what Joseph does, verse 33 of chapter 41.
Joseph’s just finished interpreting this dream for Pharaoh and here’s where Joseph’s supposed to make his exit but he keeps going: And now (dun-dun-du-nah. And now for a little editorial comment on the dream interpretation. I’m not finished yet.) And now, let Pharaoh (Now, no-one’s ever said that before to Pharaoh. No one’s ever told Pharaoh, “Now let me tell you what I think you should do. After all, I’ve been in prison for 10 years. I’m not even from this country. We’ve only known each other for 20 minutes. You’re the most powerful man in the world. You think you’re god. Let me tell you what you ought to do.) Now let Pharaoh look for a discerning and wise man and put him in charge of the land of Egypt
Implication: Pharaoh, this job’s too big for you. You’re going to have to find somebody else to take over. I know you’re supposedly god, and I saw you’re building out there, it’s neat and all. But I’m telling you what Pharaoh, because I’m a Jewish guy from a different country and I’ve been in prison for ten years, this job’s too big for you.
Can you imagine? I mean, isn’t it true, especially men, isn’t it true, doesn’t something, when somebody starts to tell you your business, let me tell you, when someone who doesn’t understand or work in my world starts to tell me how I ought to be starting a church, oohh, the walls start to go up.
Isn’t it true, in your business, especially if somebody doesn’t know your business, if somebody starts telling you what you need to do, or how you can improve, ooohhh. How about if somebody tells you how to raise your kids, how to discipline your kids? “You know, I realize I’m 16 years old, and I’ve never had kids, but I am your babysitter, and I’ve got a few suggestions.” Aren’t you open, “Oh yeah, tell me.” Isn’t it true, when somebody comes into our realm and they start speaking into our profession, into our world, into where we have authority to tell us what to do, don’t the walls just go up?
This is unbelievable, Pharaoh, for whatever reason, decides to listen to what Joseph has to say. He says, verse 34, Let Pharaoh appoint commissioners over the land to take a fifth of the harvest of Egypt during the seven years of abundance. They should collect all the food of these good years that are coming and store up the grain under the authority of pharaoh, to be kept in the cities for food.
This is brilliant, if you’re in business you need to go back and read this in detail, but he gives them this unbelievable plan and the plan is this: Over the next 7 years take 20% of everything that you get and store it. Every year you store a fifth of it. You keep storing it and storing it and storing it. And Joseph tells pharaoh, I want you to store it in your name. In other words, pharaoh, you claim authority, this grain belongs, not to the nation, this grain belongs to you.
Verse 36: This food should be held in reserve for the country, to be used during the seven years of famine that will come upon Egypt, so that the country may not be ruined by the famine (In other words, during the good years save 20% and then when the bad years come, not only will you be fine, but you’ll be the only nation around that’s fine.) The plan seemed good to pharaoh and all of his officials. You’ve got to understand, all of the officials are kind of looking at each other going, I can’t believe that pharaoh is listening to this guy an allowing this to go on. So Pharaoh asked them, “Can we find anyone like this man, one in whom is the spirit of God?” Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Since God has made all of this known to you, there is no one so discerning and wise as you. You shall be in charge of my palace, and all my people are to submit to your orders. Only with respect to the throne will I be greater than you.” So Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I hereby put you in charge of the whole land of Egypt. (Pause) Then Pharaoh took a signet ring from his finger and put it on Joseph’s finger. He dressed him in robes of fine linen and put a gold chain around his neck.
See, I would have thrown him out. “Fine, fine, fine. I know, you’re an economic genius. I’m so sure you can tell me how to run the whole nation.” But Pharaoh listened. Wise people know when they don’t know, and they are not afraid to find and listen to people who know. Wise people know when they are hearing what’s true, wise people aren’t afraid of hearing what’s true, and they don’t discount the source because they know truth when they hear it.
This plan was so brilliant, I just want to take a few seconds to tell you the details of the story. Seven years of plenty come so now Pharaoh owns 20% of all the grain, so when seven bad years came and all the people in Egypt were out of grain and guess who owns all the grain? Pharaoh. So all the people in Egypt have to come to Pharaoh to buy grain, not from the nation, but from Pharaoh himself. So at the end of the seven years Pharaoh is not only in charge of everything in Egypt, he owns everything and everybody in Egypt. It’s unbelievable. He owns all their cattle, all their land. He personally owns it all. And not only that, the surrounding nations had to come to Egypt to buy grain, so without ever firing a shot Pharaoh basically takes control of all the economies of all the surrounding nations. Unbelievable! Because he knew what he didn’t know, and he didn’t discount the source and he took the advice of a foreigner who was a slave in his own dungeon.
Three things I want us to pull from this story:
Number 1: No one is so successful that he or she no longer needs wise counsel. No one is so wise, no one is so successful that they no longer need wise counsel. Nobody. Solomon wasn’t too wise to listen. Pharaoh wasn’t to powerful to listen. If Pharaoh needed it, if Solomon needed it, then I need it and you need it. No matter how successful you are. No matter how educated you are. No matter how much smarter or how much greater your IQ is. No matter how much you own or how powerful you are. Nobody ever gets to the place where they don’t need wise counsel.
And the temptation is to think, once I’m here, I am the wise counsel, people must come to me, I am the source of all things. No one, no one, no one, because every wise person knows the end, every wise person knows the limit, every wise person knows when they don’t know and they are not afraid to find the people who know.
Number 2: You will never reach your full potential without utilizing the wisdom of others. You will never reach your full potential without utilizing the wisdom of others. You just won’t. You know when we think we will? When we’re 16, and we think we will when we’re 17, and we think we will when we’re college freshmen because now we’re so much smarter than our parents, we knew we were smarter, but now we’re in college and they just haven’t been exposed to what we’ve been exposed to. You know when else we think we will? When we don’t have kids yet, but we know how to parent. Or when our kids aren’t teenagers yet, but we know we’re going to have it together when they become teenagers.
And there’s something in all of us, in some realm, and is certain areas of life where we think all we need to know is what we already know and that we’re beyond getting the counsel of other people. Here’s the deal: You may do well, but you will never reach your full potential without outside input. Tiger Woods has a coach, and I be he’s a better golfer than his coach. But he knows you don’t reach your full potential without outside input. Every professional athlete knows that. But somehow, when it comes to parenting, somehow when it comes to running our business, somehow when it comes to our spiritual life, somehow when it comes to our dating relationships, somehow when it comes to our marriages, somehow we think, “I can be all I need to be, I don’t need anybody to tell me what to do.” But every wise person knows when they don’t know and they are not afraid to go to the people who know. You’ll never reach your full potential without going outside of what you know.
The third one is this: Wise counsel may come from unlikely sources. Wise counsel may come from very unlikely sources, and here’s the temptation: The temptation is to say, “Well, if I’m here financially, or I’m here in terms of success, or I’m here in terms of being a parent, or I’m here, then the only people I can go to for wise counsel have to be ahead of me, above me or beyond me. They have to be peers who have excelled more than I have. And that is absolutely wrong.
And if anything comes from the story of Pharaoh and Joseph is this: Pharaoh was wise enough to know that sometimes wisdom comes from unlikely sources.
Who knows the source that God wants to use to speak into your relationships, to speak into your marriage, to speak into your business, to speak into your finances. Because wise people know when they don’t know and they are wide open. They don’t think, “Well if you are going to speak into my life you’ve got to be a peer who’s a year ahead, or who’s financially ahead or professionally ahead. Hey, I’m at the end, I am wide open”
Let me tell you when I struggle with this principle. My tendency is to listen to the messenger and if there’s something in their life, or there’s something in their past, or there’s something that’s going on in their life right now, I have a tendency to use that as an excuse not to listen. After all, if they’re so smart why didn’t they? And I just by-pass that advice. Hey, if they’re so wise then I wonder why they? And I just by-pass that advice. Maybe you’re a teenager and your parents are trying to give you some advice, and you say, “well they didn’t follow that advice.” Maybe there’s someone who’s trying to speak some wisdom into your life and you allow something in their past or something in their life that you don’t agree with, you use that to discount what you know in your heart is good advice. It’s a tragic, tragic mistake.
And fortunately for Pharaoh, and for the people of Egypt and for the whole world, Pharaoh understood: It doesn’t matter how long he’s been in the dungeon, it doesn’t matter where he’s from, but there’s something wise in his counsel, so everybody, shut up and let the new guy talk.
Do not discount the unlikely sources of wisdom. Wise people know better than to do that.
Now, part of this is just commons sense, I realize that, but do you know why we push back on this? Part of the reason we push back is because we don’t really want to know what the wise thing to do is. And you’ve got to deal with that, and hopefully at the end of this series you’ll deal once and for all with that. But often times we don’t want to hear what other people have to say because we already know what they are going to say. The other reason we push back is this excuse that it’s nobody else’s business, but you just remember this: Your private, independent will become other people’s business because people know what we decide, so why not take advantage of their advice on the front end of the decision making process?
Let me ask you: Are you in the midst of an emotionally intense situation where you’re trying to figure out what the wise thing to do is? Maybe it’s love, maybe it’s anger, maybe it’s jealousy, maybe it’s something you’re about to buy; you’ve got your heart set on it, you’ve got your heart set on him, you’ve got your heart set on that. Get somebody in the mix. The emotions make it difficult oftentimes to discern what’s wise. In the middle of making a decision where you’re really just out of your league, but people expect you to know, you’re the leader, you’re the dad, you’re the mom, you’re the CEO, you’re the whatever, but people expect you to know and you feel this internal pressure: “I ought to know and if I don’t know I need to fake it and I need to confidently say here’s where we’re going and if people aren’t sure I’ll say it louder because if I say it loud enough people will say “he knows.”” But in your heart you know you don’t know. Then the smart thing to do, what wise people do, don’t pretend. Wise people know when they don’t know and they are not afraid to go to those who know.
And if you’re coming to the understanding that this really is the best question ever: What is the wise thing to do? Then when you don’t know, ask. And that doesn’t mean you lack wisdom. That is evidence of wisdom.
