Wisdom for the Road | Youth Sermon (February 2, 2022)

Intro

Tonight we’re talking about how your destination in life is determined by your decisions, and your decisions are impacted by the quality of the voices you listen to.

In other words, where you end up in life — what kind of person you become, what kind of things you end up doing in life, how satisfied and fulfilled you are, how joyful you are — are being determined right now by the decisions you make day after day. And the decisions you make day after day are being guided by someone or something — whether that’s your friends, your feelings, your cravings, Google, TikTok, your parents, the Bible, or whatever else.

Your destination in life is determined by your decisions, and your decisions are impacted by the quality of the voices you listen to.

Which means that if you want to end up in the right place, becoming the right kind of person, you better make sure you’re listening to the right voices.

Two Stories to Illustrate this Point

1. Driving in the Mountains

Driving to Boone a few weekends ago, right after a big snow

It’s dark, everything’s frozen, covered in snow, but roads are plowed

Airbnb is on the other side of the mountain from Boone, somewhere off the beaten path

I had no idea where I was. I’m putting my faith 100% in Google Maps, trusting the direction she’s giving me

She takes me on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Great, I think. These would be beautiful scenes if it was daytime.

Little did I know - and apparently, little did Google know - that they don’t plow or treat the Parkway. So it’s completely iced over and covered with fresh snow.

Once we’re on it, there’s no turning around

We went around curves literally praying that our car would stay on the road and not slide off the side of the mountain.

Thankfully, we made it safely and lived to tell the tale.

The next day, the owner of the Airbnb was talking to us and we told him we took the Parkway the night before and he was shocked.

“I won’t even drive the Parkway right now,” he said.

He gave us new directions to follow on our way home, so that we avoided the fear and possible danger of the Parkway. We were able to drive the whole way without ever getting on an icy road.

2. Duck Hunting in Middle School

When I was in middle school, 7th or 8th grade, I was playing at my friend Matt’s house. Our other friend, Graham, was with us. He lived across the street. We could all walk to each others’ houses.

We were bored on a Saturday and were looking for something to do, when Graham made an incredible discovery in Matt’s garage:

A hunting bow, complete with a quiver of arrows!

“Let’s go hunting!” Graham said.

Matt’s house backed up to a pond, and on the pond we frequently saw ducks.

And so we made the fateful decision to go duck hunting with a bow and arrow.

Graham got in the boat with the bow and arrow. Matt rowed the boat around the pond. I ran around the pond and scared the ducks back onto the water.

Over and over Graham shot and missed, so we’d recover the arrow and tried again.

Finally, I corralled the ducks between some reeds and a dock behind a person’s house. Matt rowed the boat up close. Graham got up on the shore, snuck around, and pulled back the bow. He aimed, fired, and shot a duck right in the back behind the wings!

Now, I was never a hunter. And I realized why in that moment. I felt horrible. The poor duck was not dead — just mortally wounded, flapping around and going crazy in the water with an arrow sticking out of its back.

So Matt, being the kind humanitarian he is, jumped into the water, pulled out a pocket knife, and started hacking away at the duck trying to put it out of his misery.

I can replay the scene in my brain. It’s like a sick parody of a slasher movie.

Finally, the duck gives up.

I’m standing on the shore, not sure how to process what just happened, when Matt looks past me from the water at the house above me. His eyes got big, and he pointed.

I turn around, and in the window of the glass sliding doors is a little girl, white as a ghost, crying hysterically.

We ran as fast as we could out of there, each to our own homes, leaving our trophy kill behind!

Later that night, my mom got a call from the family who lived at that house. As it turns out, we hadn’t just killed a duck. Nor had we happened to unfortunately just killed a duck in front of a little girl. We had apparently managed to kill a pet duck, and that pet duck happened to belong to the little girl in the window. And the little girl in the window happened to be standing there to watch the entire horror movie of her duck’s murder, right before her eyes.

Let’s just say I’m not proud of this moment in young middle school Gray’s life!

Bring the Stories Home

These stories are just two examples of times in my life when my direction in life was almost sabotaged by the poor quality of voices that guided me.

On the way to the mountains, I listed to Google Maps. It had lots of information that was in many cases accurate. But what it could not give me in the time I needed it most was wisdom, insight. I needed a person with more experience and wisdom to help guide me the right direction, so that I could safely find my way to my desired destination.

In my duck hunting escapade, I listed to Matt and Graham. They were friends who I had fun with and who I didn’t want to disappoint, so I often went along with their ideas. But listening to their guidance for “how to have fun on a boring Saturday” cost me a lot of grief — and cost a family their pet duck!

There are two voices middle and high school students are prone to listen to over any other, and that is your phone and your friends.

While I love technology, and while I think your friends probably aren’t awful human beings, neither of them have the level of wisdom necessary to guide you to become the kind of person who experiences full, abundant life in Jesus.

The quality of the voices guiding you impact the decisions you make, and the decisions you make determine your ultimate destination.

The Example of Solomon

There’s a man in the Bible, a man who was King over Israel many thousands of years ago, who is said to have been the wisest man who ever lived. His name was Solomon.

Solomon regularly worshiped God and sought to obey God. One story in particular shows how Solomon approached his life and pursued wisdom.

It’s a great example for us tonight.

1 Kings 3 (ESV)

5 At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and God said, “Ask what I shall give you.”

6 And Solomon said, “You have shown great and steadfast love to your servant David my father, because he walked before you in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart toward you. And you have kept for him this great and steadfast love and have given him a son to sit on his throne this day. 7 And now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of David my father, although I am but a little child. I do not know how to go out or come in. 8 And your servant is in the midst of your people whom you have chosen, a great people, too many to be numbered or counted for multitude. 9 Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people?”

10 It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this.

11 And God said to him, “Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches or the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right, 12 behold, I now do according to your word. Behold, I give you a wise and discerning mind, so that none like you has been before you and none like you shall arise after you.

Can you imagine God giving you a blank check, asking you, “What shall I give you?”

What would you say?

You see, when money is no option, and you can really get whatever you want, you realize what’s really most important to you.

For Solomon, it wasn’t riches or women or fame or glory — even though he struggled plenty in his lifetime with all of these things, and made many mistakes. It wasn’t even “to have a good and happy life.”

No, for Solomon, he humbly asked for wisdom. For direction. For God to give him the ability not just to know the right information, but to know how to live and apply that information to his life.

To discern between good and evil. To know the difference between right and wrong.

And you know what God does when he hears that prayer?

He says yes.

Every time.

It pleased the Lord that Solomon asked this. And he gave him what he asked for.

The good news for you and me tonight is that God promises to answer us the same way when we pray for wisdom like Solomon.

James 1:5 “5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.”

How God Gives Wisdom

God primarily gives us wisdom in these ways:

The Bible — His Words, the game-plan for a life that honors Him

Wise Counsel — Pastors and leaders, Godly mentors and friends

The Holy Spirit — conviction of right and wrong in your conscience

All three of these — the Bible, wise counsel from mentor and friends, and the Holy Spirit — give insight, information, and direction for living your life.

Here’s the thing about wisdom, though: If you don’t yield to it — if you don’t surrender to it — then it’s worthless.

If I would have listened to Vito’s directions for leaving the mountain safely, but said, “Nah, Google’s got this today,” instead, choosing to submit to my phone rather than wise counsel, I might have slid off the mountain!

If I would have listened to the Holy Spirit bearing on my conscience, that small gut feeling that this isn’t right, when Matt and Graham suggested duck hunting as a fun Saturday afternoon activity, I would have prevented a little girl from a long life of counseling having witnessed the murder of her pet duck. Instead, I submitted — I yielded, surrendered — to the voices of my friends.

The key to going in the right direction in your life, to making the right decisions on the right path now, is to seek wisdom from the right source, and to actually submit to it.

The voices you listen to impact your decisions, and your decisions determine your destination.

The only source of wisdom that is worth going to is God Himself. Why? Because God’s voice is the wisest voice of all.

He created the world. He created you. He knows all about your life, your past, your future, and your needs.

He knows more than you do about what’s best for you!

When you go to God seeking wisdom, he always says Yes!

But there’s one condition to receiving the wisdom that comes from God:

You must submit to him.

Fully.

With everything.

Bring it home

Maybe tonight you’re in need of direction.

Maybe you’re struggling with people at school — how to deal with friends who are pressuring you into things you know are wrong, how to make friends when you’re lonely or feel like an outsider, how to stand up to bullies.

Maybe you’re navigating a relationship with a boy or girl that is complicated, or you’re living in the wake of a bad decision you made in a relationship and trying to figure out what to do next

Maybe you’re trying to figure out how to walk through a hard dynamic with your parents or step-parents.

Or maybe you have questions about faith, how to live as a follower of Jesus in a world that makes following Jesus extremely difficult.

Wherever you’re at, understand this: you’re submitting to someone or something as the guiding wisdom for your life. You’re making decisions based on that input. And your decisions today, and day after day, are determining your destination — who you are becoming and where you are going in life.

Direction doesn’t begin with a search for direction.

Direction begins with submission.

Will you submit to a voice that will lead you astray?

Or will you submit to the voice that will always lead you in the way everlasting, for His glory and your good?

Let’s pray.