Matthew 23:1-4
Pastor Tim Nguyen
Our interactions with people are really important. It doesn’t just keep us from being lonely but talking, listening and communicating in general is a huge source of gaining information and truths. We’re in a really weird place and time with information and truth. We’re in a climate where everybody has their own truths and they’re supposed to be all equal. For example, if I thought the Earth was flat, you’re not allowed to offend my beliefs. Or, we’re in a time where truth is distorted and there are terms like “gaslighting” where people make others question their belief system and worldview. We’re in a time where we can completely ignore and CANCEL their career because of some dirt we found on them 20 years ago.
What do we do with this? Do we follow people blindly? Do we gaslight others? Do we cancel people? No. We should do what is most beneficial for us and God’s Kingdom. And that is to learn and gain wisdom from our interaction with others. Wisdom is rare, but Jesus in our passage today gives us the tools to gain wisdom from any interaction you have.
So our focus question today is,
HOW CAN WE GAIN WISDOM FROM OTHERS?
And our answer to that is that we gain wisdom from others by learning from their:
- Truths
- Mistakes
Today, we are starting a new sermon series, and it’s called Taking out the Trash. Over the next few weeks, we will be looking at Jesus confronting the religious leaders of his day and as it turns out, there’s a lot of wisdom to be found during this interaction. So we’re going to try our best to learn from Jesus’ words as hard as they are to hear, so that we can be effective in our lives and our God-given mission.