[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] welcome to all seven of our campuses well thank you and can I just say happy Anniversary to the DC Dream Center it was to two years ago that the mayor came out and cut the ribbon and listen we are all about advancing the kingdom of God so we don't look back a whole lot around here but sometimes you just got to say look at what God has done we have an incredible dream team and then so many of you volunteer you love and serve this city and so maybe one more time let's give it up for the DC Dream Center when I was a senior in college I did something I had never done before I bought a book there was not a sign for a class by a teacher this is that book I don't know that I've ever shown it to you an 800-page biography on Albert Einstein and I think I fell in love with reading right around page 755 I think we have a picture of this I'm gonna put it up on the screen and here's what Einstein said the important thing is to not stop questioning curiosity has its own reason for existence one cannot help but be in awe when one contemplates the mysteries of eternity of life of the marvelous structure of reality is it is enough if one tries to merely comprehend a little of this mystery each day then Einstein said something that would become a mantra of mine ever since five words never lose a holy curiosity I love the juxtaposition of those two words holy curiosity and that's the title of this message this weekend wrap up a series on the book of Proverbs get wisdom thanks to our campus pastors our teaching team amazing series we've got one more download and so if you have a Bible you can turn to proverbs 25:2 and we will get there in a minute two weeks ago our family was vacationing in Keystone Colorado can I show you a picture so beautiful and and I've got to say there's a little back story to this picture there it is that's my daughter summer and check this out her fiance Austin unbelievable my daughter is getting married you pray for me there is no way that I am NOT gonna cry but beautiful beautiful picture the base elevation and Keystone's 9,000 feet but we hiked in a bike above the treeline which is about 12,000 feet absolutely breathtaking and I mean that literally we never acclimated to the elevation and here's why there's an equal amount of oxygen in the atmosphere at all elevations but there is a decrease in air pressure at higher altitudes which means we don't get as much of it so at 12,000 feet the effective oxygen percentage is 13.2% and I think that may be what triggered a flashback to my freshman year at the University of Chicago and I have taken a lot of classes and a lot of subjects but my all-time favorite was a class in immunology at the University of Chicago Hospital Center one class in particular our professor was describing the way hemoglobin facilitates aerobic respiration by transporting oxygen to the rest of the body pretty amazing the heart pumps about six liters of blood through about 60,000 miles of veins and arteries and capillaries listen the circumference of the earth 24800 73 miles that means there's enough blood vessels in your body to circle the earth twice come on turn to your neighbor and say you're amazing right now I remember walking out of that class praising God for hemoglobin we are fearfully and wonderfully made psalm 139 and it high altitude the body acclimatized us by producing more hemoglobin and so here's my point at 12,000 feet you have even more reasons to praise God long story short I walked out of that class with a conviction now I'm not sure I would have said it this way back then but here's the big idea every ology is a branch of theology in other words all truth is God's truth I think dividing things into sacred and secular is a false dichotomy so is thinking in categories like miraculous and not miraculous listen every breath we take and we take about 23,000 every day is a miracle in and of itself and I don't think anybody could have said it better than I Stine there are only two ways to live your life one is as if nothing is a miracle the other is as if everything is do I believe in miraculous healing absolutely after 40 years of asthma God healed my lungs 1148 days ago I still can't believe it but then here's the deal the healing process itself everything from blood clotting to cells regenerating to bones repairing is no less miraculous here's what I'm getting at it doesn't matter whether you're studying theology or psychology or biology one of my new favorites dendrology those Sciences reveal a dimension of who God is Romans 1:20 says it this way since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities his eternal power and his divine nature have been clearly seen being understood from what has been made now a church made a mistake 400 years ago an Italian astronomer named Galileo proposed a heliocentric solar system and the church called it heresy well what it really was was cognitive entrenchment the church got scared the church got defensive and I think the powers that be Pope Urban the eighth in particular turn allies into enemies listen science is our friend okay science is our friend Einstein said science without religion is lame religion without science is blind well one more fun fact and then we're gonna unpack this proverb during my sophomore year of college I transferred from the University of Chicago to a little Bible College in Springfield Missouri and that's where I would preach my first sermon in a homiletics class and I look back on it and and it's kind of interesting I chose an interesting text as the very first sermon that would preach its first Kings for and I'll put it up on the screen it says God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight a breath of understanding is measureless as the sand on the on the seashore he spoke 3,000 proverbs and his songs numbered a thousand and five but who's counting he described plant life from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the walls he taught about animals and birds and reptiles and fish men of all nations came to listen to Solomon's wisdom sent by all the kings of the world who had heard of his wisdom now this text is probably the tip of the iceberg but Solomon evidently was into philosophy musicology dendrology ornithology entomology herpetology ichthyology and i think there are probably a few more but I think it's fair to say that Solomon was the patron saint of holy curiosity and it was that same Solomon but then penned these words in proverbs 25:2 said this it is the glory of God to conceal a matter to search out a matter is the glory of kings here's the big idea this weekend God doesn't hide things from us God hides things for us now I don't think anyone gets any more excited than the creator when we make new discoveries about his creation sometimes we fail to give credit where credit is due we make the same mistake referenced in Romans 1:25 we exchange the truth for a lie and we worship created things rather than the Creator but that doesn't make what I'm about to say any less true listen the astronomer who charts galaxies the geneticists who Maps the human genome the oncologist who's trying to cure cancer the oceanographer explores Barrier Reef's the chemic chemist who charts molecular structures and the theologian who studies God have one thing in common all of them are simply fulfilling a very ancient instinct and we'll come back to that in the sixteenth century Francis Bacon the father of empiricism and of the scientific method he had to say this about this particular proverb and I'll actually put this on the screen so you can read it Solomon although he excelled in the glory of treasure and magnificent buildings of shipping and navigation of fame and renowned yet he maked no claim to any of those glories but only to the glory of Inquisition of truth for so we sayeth the glory of God is to conceal a thing but the glory of the King is to find it out as if according to the innocent play of children the divine Majesty took delight to hide his works in the end to have them found out and as if Kings could not obtain a greater honor than to be God's play fellows in that game I rather like that it's almost like God is playing hide and seek it's almost like this cosmic game of cat-and-mouse and it is as old as Eden long before the Great Commission there was the genesis Commission God blesses Adam and Eve and he gives him a curious command and I mean that literally and figuratively he says be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth everything outside of Eden was uncharted territory they could travel 24,000 873 miles in any direction and never see the same landscape twice and God says go fill the earth and subdue it now the amplified version says it this way use all of its vast resources in the service of God and of man in other words God Commission's us to take care of his creation it's our job to steward every square inch and that is a tremendous challenge the Amazon you've probably seen is in great jeopardy right now I think it's a soccer field and a half every minute that's getting burned down and you know sometimes out of sight out of mind it's so far away but listen the Amazon rainforest it covers about 40% of South America and check this out its produces 20% of the Earth's oxygen ok that's why it's called the planets lungs so this probably affects us more than what we think so what do we do with that what do we do with this Genesis commission well let me zoom in and then we'll zoom back out few years ago dan and chip Heath wrote a brilliant book titled decisive in that book they talked about four deal villains of decision-making one of which is called narrow framing narrow framing simply put it's the tendency to define our choices too narrowly it's thinking in either-or categories there's got to be a or b true or false black or white now there's a classic example in John 9 the disciples encounter a man born blind and they asked Jesus a question that narrow frames the situation they say rabbi who sinned this man or his parents that he was born blind so they framed the problem is a or B in their minds it's got to be one or the other but Jesus comes at this from a totally different angle he says neither this man nor his parents sinned so it's not a or B he says this happened so that the glory of God might be displayed in him now we're going to come back to that story in a little bit but but we do this all the time we narrow frame people based on political party or personality type or past mistakes we reduce them to a label we put them into a category but by boxing people in we box god out and we end up playing the blame game who sinned this man or his parents because that's the category that we think in but maybe God is working out his plans and purposes in a way that we cannot discern with a dualistic mind wisdom is not either/or dualism wisdom is both and binary Jove 11:6 true wisdom has two sides listen truth is found in the tension of opposites I'll give you a classic example the sovereignty of God and the free will of man theologians have been debating this for 2,000 years and usually end up in one to two camps right and so what happens when the unstoppable force the sovereignty of God meets the immovable object right the the free will of man you want to know no idea cuz that's past my paygrade but here's what I know for sure it's not either/or it's both hand and I think one of the ways that we box people in and box God out it is legalism I think it's adding human amendments to divine commandments and we kind of think we're doing God a favor right but but the reality is we're shooting ourselves in the foot and that's what the fat the Pharisees did with the Sabbath so let me go back to this story in John 9 jesus heals the man born blind I better footnote this real quick because remember every ology is a branch of theology listen if you don't understand a little bit of Neurology you are not going to appreciate this miracle I'll tell you why because this is not Jesus healing and astigmatism this is a man who is born blind that means there are no synaptic connections between the optic nerve the visual cortex in the brain this is synaptogenesis this is Jesus installing a synaptic pathway in a blind man's brain are you kidding me and that's why they say no one is ever heard of a miracle like this and so jesus heals this man and the Pharisees get all bent out of shape why because he does it on the Sabbath which I kind of love cuz it could have done it any day of the week just knew it'd be more fun doing on the Sabbath let's kill two birds with one stone let's heal the blind man and confront the legalism and the dualism of the Pharisees right the Pharisees couldn't conceive of a God who would violate their Sabbath rules they could not see the miracle through the trees so here's what happens with legalism it boxes God out and it boxes people in until eventually that box is so small you're the only one who can fit in it let me flip that coin I think we also box God in and thereby box people out here's what I know for sure your God is too small newsflash God does not fit within the confines of the cerebral cortex if he did he wouldn't be God and so here's the challenge in the beginning God created in His image we have been creating God in our image ever since and when we create God in our image what we end up with is a God who first of all looks a lot like us shocker but but tozer said this when we create God in our image we end up with the God who can never surprise us never astonish us never overwhelm us never transcend us why because we narrow frame God also set a low view of God as the cause of a Hunter lesser evils and a high view of God is the solution to 10,000 temporal problems and GK Chesterton said how much happier you would be how much more of you there would be if the hammer of a higher God could smash your small cosmos wouldn't that be wonderful well let me push the envelope a little further Isaiah 55 as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts declares the Lord this is ground zero this is square one this is my starting point theologically God likens the difference between our thoughts and his thoughts to the expanse of space then I'll give you the short version last time I checked the comoving distance to the universe 93 billion light years light travels 186,000 miles per second that equates about five point eight eight trillion miles per year we can't even comprehend one light year let alone 93 billion and God says it's about the difference between your thoughts and my thoughts so here's my thought your best thought on your best day it's about 93 billion light years short of how great and how good god really is everybody at all of our campuses you walked in this weekend under estimating God by 93 billion light years can we just praise God right now for that and so I think this is where holy curiosity comes into the equation like if you're into legalism your world's getting smaller and smaller God is getting smaller and smaller but I I think true spirituality true pursuit of a Creator God is fueled by this if the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom then holy curiosity is its first cousin one theologian putted this way it's not the task of Christianity to provide easy answers to every question but to make us progressively aware of mystery God is not so much the object of our knowledge as the cause of our wonder the more you know come on the more you know how much you don't know it's why I quote first Corinthians a two all the time the one who thinks he knows does not yet know as he ought to know now what does any of this have to do with following Christ I think the answer is everything I mean the word disciple in the Greek language literally means learner by definition a disciple is someone who never stops learning it's loving God with all of your mind it's cultivating a holy curiosity so how do we do that let me just share a couple of quick thoughts jesus said ask and it will be given to you seek and you will find knock and the door will be open to you for everyone who asks receives the one who seeks finds and to the one who knocks the door will be open now I think it's important to note these are present and parody verbs in other words keep asking keep seeking keep now you never get there and that's why we have this core value if you stay humble and stay hungry there's nothing God can't do in you or through you I remember coming across the study years ago by Ross Smith he found that children asked on average about 125 questions per day don't sass six so somewhere between childhood and adulthood we lose a hundred and nineteen questions per day listen and we gotta get some of those back now the estimates vary but Jesus asked a lot more questions than he answered now you know it's tough to know which questions to includ but I think asked about 307 questions in the Gospels and he was asked a hundred and eighty-three questions you want to know how many questions he answered three I think what I'm getting at is keep asking questions it may this be a church a safe place where you can ask questions with integrity with curiosity listen as soon as I'm omniscient I'll let you know but I would not hold your breath now we're getting ready to kick off a small group semester I think we'll have about 200 groups across our campuses and all of them are an incredible way to just kind of continue to ask and seek and knock but I know there may be some of you here this weekend who maybe you're curious about Christianity but you have more questions than answers Wilding first of all welcome to the club right but but the other thing I would say is we have a group that I think it's so perfectly designed for youth called alpha and I love the the motto of Alpha no question is too big too small or off the table and so keep asking keep seeking God as a reward or those who earnestly seek Him Hebrews 11:6 and then keep knocking and you know I think let me just share this little piece cuz remember this book I started reading and crazy I never stopped not a part of it I think was well I read about 3,000 books before I wrote one and two reasons for that one is that I'm I'm not naturally gifted as a writer in fact an aptitude assessment basically said whatever you do don't write and so I knew I had to reverse-engineer books by reading them if I was going to fulfill the calling to write but but I also think it was just a holy curiosity I'm pretty much interested in everything cuz again I think every ology is a branch of theology and then I started pastoring this church and I was all of 25 years old and so I you know I'd made 25 trips around the Sun didn't have a whole lot of life experience and and so I did a couple of things one let's try to hang around people who maybe you've been there and done that and so dick both kind of entered the equation and poor guy asked him a lot of questions and he patiently and wisely answered them but then I came across something that I don't share very often but it was a defining moment for me I can't remember where I found it but read that the average author about two years of life experience goes into a book now listen there's an over and an under I'm sure some books are worth far less and others are worth far more but I did the math and I thought you know what at the end of this year I'll be a year older but if I read two hundred and fifty books I'll gain five hundred years of life experience and so when people asked me how old I am sometimes I'll tell them eight thousand years old in book years and I'm having a little bit of fun with this and I want to say this I think the Bible is in a category by itself because you can put a you can't put that's eternity invading time that's heaven invading Earth that's that's the Spirit of God breathing into us in such a unique way but I think what I'm getting to is this learning is not a luxury it's the definition of discipleship is loving God with all your mind and so I think my prayer for you this weekend is pretty simple may you never lose a holy curiosity try to tie this in and not love the scene from Prince Caspian second book in The Chronicles of Narnia children encounter Aslan the lion who is the Christ figure in the book and one of the girls says Aslan you're bigger hasslein says that's because you're older little one she says not because you're bigger Aslan says I am but every year you grow you will find me bigger so it is with saying I think the more we grow the bigger God gets so just a little diagnostic question at the end of this message at the end of this series is your God getting smaller and smaller or is your God getting bigger and bigger let me close with this in Hebrew language there is no distinction between knowing and doing if you don't do it you don't know it knowing is doing doing is knowing listen the devil knows the Bible better than you do in fact he used it to tempt Jesus in the wilderness that's crazy right it's not about knowing the Bible it's about doing the Bible most of us are educated way beyond the level of our obedience already we don't need to know more or less keep learning we need to do more with what we know and so I think talking about holy curiosity looking at these proverbs I think the danger is that it can become a really heady exercise and so I want to tell you a story make a point and then we're done on Halloween night 1910 year old boy named Ike wanted to go trick-or-treating with his older brothers when his parents told him he was too young he lost his temper ran out of the house and punched an apple tree with his bare knuckles until they were bloody was sent to his room was sobbing in his pillow an hour later when his mom walked into the room sat down next to his bad and quoted the proverb proverbs 16:32 he that conquer earth his soul is greater than he that conquered the city self-control not come naturally the ight in fact he would ranked 125th out of 164 for discipline in his graduating class at West Point and as his mother bandaged his hands she told Ike that anger only injures the person who harbors it it's 76 years of age Ike would look back on his life and identify this moment this proverb as the turning point 66 years after the fact he said I've always looked back on that conversation it's one of the most valuable moments of my life now half a century later he would be elected 34th president of the United States maybe even more significant he would serve as the supreme Allied commander during Operation Overlord he would pull the trigger on d-day but long before Dwight D Eisenhower could conquer the Axis powers a ten year old boy had to conquer his soul he had to put this into proverb into practice for many many years before he was ready to do what he was destined to do I think it was General George Patton who set a good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week so let me tweet that just a little bit a good proverb violently executed now it's better than a perfect proverb executed next week now listen I hope you've read through the book of Proverbs during this series if you haven't you still can proverb a day keeps the doctor away but the goal isn't just to get through the Proverbs is to get the Proverbs through us it's putting proverbs 16:32 into practice day in and day out it's conquering your soul over sixty-six years so that when the time comes you can lead a country like solemn or like Dwight D Eisenhower I mean invite our worship teams to come and we're gonna close this weekend with a song in 1225 AD saint francis of assisi wrote a poem he was cut from Solomon's cloth he loved nature love nature's God in fact patron saint of animals in 1225 he wrote a poem titled the canticle of the creatures it's one of the first works of literature written in the Italian language according to tradition he sang it as a song on his deathbed the poem survived the music did not so in 1919 an English pastor named William Draper turned that poem into him and titled it all creatures of our God and King seems like an appropriate song for us to sing at the end of this message at the end of this series may you never lose a holy curiosity amen
