Today I want to talk about getting wisdom and I've been set onto this topic by the thought that many people are nearing the end of school, some permanently others just to get ready for next year. So the title of the sermon is

Get Wisdom. I believe that all men have this in common, namely that we all want to be happy. Now not all of us

agree on how to find that happiness or where it comes from but we do agree that we want it.

I think that's common ground for all humankind.

And that's not a bad thing.

That's a good thing. That's the way God made us.

Evil is not wanting to be happy. Evil is seeking and finding that happiness in the wrong places.

And goodness is seeking and finding that happiness in places that please and honor God.

I can conceive of a world in which we might be called upon to sacrifice our happiness for God's glory. But that is not the kind of world in which we live. That is not the way God has created and ordained the laws of this world.

God has established a world on the contrary in which the more we do right through faith in Christ

the happier we will be eventually. There is a connection. We don't live in a world

where we have to choose between seeking our happiness and seeking God's glory or doing right. They go together. That's the way God has created the world.

The more we choose to glorify God, the happier we are going to be in the long run. Now of course that does

not mean that there is no place for discipline or self-denial. He would come after me, let him take up his cross and follow me. If you

try to save your life, you will lose it. And if you lose your life for my sake in the

Gospels you will find it but you notice that in that text self-denial is a means to

saving our lives.

Nobody wants to lose his life, therefore stop trying to save it in this world, deny yourself,

and you will find it.

Therefore, what sets Christians apart from the world is not that we have

forsaken this universal quest for happiness. What sets us off is that we seek it and we find it in a different place than the world does.

And I think that's very important because sometimes we get confused and think that what God is really calling us to is to abandon that quest.

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