Paul Tripp: The Bible is the ultimate source of reliable wisdom. Why? Why is the Bible utterly reliable and utterly wise? Because it was given to us by the Creator of all things.

Kate Crowley: Welcome to Right Here, Right Now and today's program from Paul Tripp Ministries. Join us as Paul connects the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life. Now, here's Paul Tripp.

Paul Tripp: Have you ever noticed that one of the ways we try to make sense out of life is by organizing it into categories? It sort of makes life smaller; it sort of makes life understandable and organized.

We say, "Spot is a dog." We say, "Martha is a girl." We say, "Sam is a politician." We say, "God is a spirit." We talk of things being big or small or important or unimportant. We evaluate things as being trash or treasure although we don't always agree.

We think of things as being healthy or unhealthy. We consider some things to be true and some things to be false. We look at some things as expensive and other things as cheap. We carry in our heads an endless encyclopedia of organizational categories: spiritual, physical, male, female, dangerous, safe, hot, cold, biological, mechanical, artistic, philosophical, political, environmental, emotional, illegal, illogical, physiological, Eastern, Western, feminine, masculine, culture, barbaric, refined, primitive, polite, rude, legal, practical, abstract, essential, luxurious, important, unimportant, old-fashioned,

up-to-date, cool, hot, embarrassing, irrational, wise, expensive, cheap, business, leisure, personal, communal, private, public, and the list goes on.

Without ever knowing it, without ever realizing that we're doing it, we organize everything in our lives into the little boxes that we carry around in our brains. It's an amazing thing. It's an intensely human thing to do. We all do it, and it has significant influence on our lives every day. We organize the world into our own little categories.

Music: "Older Chests" by Damien Rice

Older chests reveal themselves like a crack in a wall
Starting small, and grow in time and we seem to need the help
Of someone else to mend that shelf for too many books
Read me your favorite line

Kate Crowley: This is Right Here, Right Now with Paul Tripp and today, a look at true wisdom. By the way, please let your friends know that they can join Paul here on the radio or via the website at paultrippministries.org. And remember, it's his goal to remind you every day that there really is help in Jesus Christ right here, right now.

There's also a complete list of resources available when you go online to paultrippministries.org. This includes Paul's book, War Of Words as well as his most recent blog on current issues. You don't want to miss it. That's at Paul Tripp, spelled T-R-I-P-P, paultrippministries.org.

Right now, back to the series titled, "What's So Important About the Bible Anyway?" with today's important message, "Dependent for Wisdom" as Right Here, Right Now continues.

Our Little Mental Briefcase of Categories

Paul Tripp: So we all carry around, in our little mental briefcase, our own set of organizational categories. Now sometimes we are wise enough to see that our boxes are just too little or too few; but more often than not, we are all too committed and skilled at squeezing our story into whatever boxes that we happen to be carrying around in our brains. And as we do this, we tend to fail to see how daily important and influential this interpretive function actually is.

Now, think about this with me; this is incredibly important. Life will always look like the categories that you bring to it. Life will always look like the categories that you bring to it. What I am about to say next is very important for you to hear. What you do every day will always be determined by the way you have organized your understanding of your story.

If your categories are distorted, you will end up responding to life in ways that are distorted. If your categories are inadequate, your responses to life will be inadequate. If your categories are foolish, then you will deal with life in ways that are foolish. If your categories are wrong, you will end up doing what is wrong.

The problem is even made more complicated by the fact that, as human beings, we're always in some kind of process of change. Now, God's in a state of constant unchangeableness while we are in the middle of a life of incessant change.

The Bible presents to us a life that's ever-changing--kings come, kings go; the grass fades and the flowers wither; people grow up and people die; young men become old men; people spiritually pass from death into life; one generation gives way to another; one culture gives way to another; one government gives way to another; people move from one place to another; peace gives way to war; war gives way to peace; seasons give way to seasons; years become years; fools become wise.

Think about this, everything that exists will be different in some way tomorrow. So anticipating and committing to change is an essential part of everyday life. But, we all tend to get caught up short. Life seems like it moves too fast. Life feels like we're constantly working to catch up. So making sense out of life can sort of feel like you're trying to hit a moving target while running as fast as you can.

Now, if we're ever going to figure out life, it's pretty clear that we simply and inescapably need help. We need help because, if help and aid and assistance aren't given to us, we will never be what we're supposed to be, and we'll never enthusiastically do what we're supposed to do. Where is that help to be found?

Music: "Haven't Got Time For The Pain" by Carly Simon

All those crazy nights when I cried myself to sleep
Now melodrama never makes me weep anymore
'cause I haven't got time for the pain
I haven't got room for the pain
I haven't got need for the pain
Not since I've known you
You showed me how, how to leave myself behind
How to turn down the noise in my mind
Now I haven't got time for the pain
I haven't got room for the pain
I haven't got need for the pain
Not since I've known you
I haven't got time for the pain
I haven't got room for the pain

You Were Never Designed to Figure Life Out Alone

Paul Tripp: Now here's what you need to understand and admit; you were never designed to figure life out on your own. You simply were not designed with the capacity to generate all the wisdom you need about life from within yourself. You were not created with the natural ability to independently conclude what is right and wrong or true and false all by yourself. You were never structured with the ability to individually generate all the categories that you will ever need to organize and understand life.

Yes, it is true; you are a thinker. And yes, that means that you are a functional philosopher and a functional theologian. And yes, you have an amazing ability to interpret and understand. Yes, as a human being, you have been given incredible, conceptual abilities.

But there's something that you just need to be reconciled with. You may be a thinker, and you may be an interpreter, and you may be a philosopher, but you will only be able to do these things correctly when you do them dependently.

Think of dear old Adam and Eve. There they were in the garden. They were created as adult human beings, living as perfect people, living in a perfect world, living in a perfect relationship with God. But God did not at all expect them to figure life of on their own. Why? Because God knew that He had designed them to be dependent--dependent on truth outside of themselves in order to make sense out of life. Let me say that again, "...dependent on truth from outside of themselves in order to make sense out of life."

What Adam and Eve needed is what the Bible calls 'revelation.' What does this mean? It means they needed truth that would never be discovered by research, discovery, or experience. They needed truth that could only be known because it was unfolded by God who created everything, who knows everything from origin to destiny, God who is the ultimate source of wisdom. Adam and Eve were dependent on that God finding a way to communicate to them the essential truths that they would need in order to properly make sense of the lives that they had been created to live.

So God made Adam and Eve with the ability to think, with the ability to communicate. And he gave them the amazing ability to receive spoken sounds, to receive them as intelligent concepts, to understand those concepts and to be able to apply those concepts to their daily lives. He gave them the ability to hear, to read, to think.

Why? Well we've said it already, because they needed all these abilities because they were dependent on God to tell them things that they would never ever discover on their own, things that would be absolutely essential for understanding life and properly living it.

Now if you understand Genesis 1, you will notice that immediately after God creates Adam and Eve, He begins to talk to them. Why? Because God knew who He had created. He knew that He had not created independent, self-sufficient, autonomously wise creatures. The creatures he had made were wonderful, but they weren't independent, self-sufficient, and autonomously wise. He knew that unless He told them things, they would never discover; they would not live as they were supposed to live.

Now you and I have to face the fact that we're just like Adam and Eve. Think about this, no matter what your level of intelligence, no matter how much education you were willing to endure, no matter how good you are at sort of analytical thinking or how honed your conceptual dexterity actually is, you must not think that you can make sense of life on your own.

You have to accept that you are profoundly dependent. And here's what you must always do; here's what you will always do: You will always work to make sense out of your life; and as you do, you will always submit yourself to some kind of wisdom system.

You see, we never ever come up with it all on our own. We're always in search of a wisdom system. We're always subjecting ourselves, submitting ourselves to some system of wisdom because we're in a search for understanding. No one ever figures life out on their own. All of us are in a constant search for truth, and for wisdom, and for understanding.

You do that every day, and you do it so instinctively that you don't even realize you're doing it. Your life will absolutely be shaped by where you go to find wisdom. Your life will absolutely be shaped by where you look for the answers for your deepest and most practical questions of life. You live in a world of 1,000 voices. Every one of those words, those voices, competes for your thoughts. Every one of them, every one of them, competes for your thoughts. They all say they offer you wisdom. So making sense out of life is like trying to hit a moving target as fast as we can; it really is.

So where are you going to go for wisdom? What's going to help you make sense out of your life? Where will you turn when life has left you confused? Where do you look for understanding right now?

I mean, think about this, there are conclusions you've made; there are interpretations that you've generated; there are things that you believe; there are things that you think are absolutely true, that you think are reliable, that you believe you can bank on. How do you know? How do you know what's true and what's not? How do you know what's reliable and what's not? How do you know what's wise and what's not? How do you know?

You see, you're on a quest; you're on a search; you're after wisdom. The question is where are you going to find it? What helps you understand what you can't understand by research and what you will never know by experience?

Music: "Hope For The Hopeless" Sierra

When hearts start to break
And emotions run wild
When it's all you can do
Just to paint on a smile
When tears start to flow
Down the lines on your face
You may feel there's no mercy
But don't give up on grace
There's hope for the hopeless
There is no need to fear
When all seems lost
Jesus is here
There is joy in the morning
You can find happiness
If you look to the Lord, there is hope
There is hope for the hopeless

God Has Not Left Us Alone

Paul Tripp: I've said it before, and I surely will say it again and again. I'm going to say it until it's burned in your brain. "No, God has not left us alone. Into the world of our utter dependence, into the world of our confusion, God has given us His Word. The Bible is God's revelation to us."

The Bible is God's manual for everyday life. The God who is--is a God who cares for us; and because He cares for us, He has spoken to us. And He has spoken to us in this comprehensive way in the Word of God. The Word of God really does wrap its arms around all of the experiences that a human being can have in life. The Bible really is God's personal manual for life. The Bible is where you and I are meant to find those truths that we need in order to properly live life.

But you've got to hear this; these are truths that we will never discover by research and experience. Research can be a helpful thing; experience can remind you of things and teach you things, but we need more than research. We need more than experience. We need more than discovery.

The Bible is God's gift to us as we live in the middle of the confusion of ever-changing life in a fallen world. Every day your life changes in some way. No two days are the same as one another. You're constantly living in a world of change. Here's what the Bible is--the Bible is the ultimate source of reliable wisdom. Why? Why is the Bible utterly reliable and utterly wise? Because, it was given to us by the Creator of all things. Who could possibly know more about life than the One who created it?

So it's right to ask, "Okay, what's so important about the Bible anyway? What is it that the Bible gives me?"

Well, I want to emphasize four things in the next few days with you. First of all, the Bible presents to you a real world--it's a real world--it's not a made-up or fake world.

Second, the Bible presents to you real people. You'll recognize how familiar the people of the Bible are because they're people just like us.

The Bible calls us into a relationship with a real God, not some fake deity, the creation of our own minds and our hands. No, the Bible has a real God that it presents to us.

And fourth, the Bible welcomes you to real redemption--to a life of real personal rescue and change. This is why you need to read the Bible. It's not a religious book. It's not a book about some mystical spirituality. The Bible is gritty; the Bible is honest; the Bible is an every day book about reality, and it's reliable because it was given to us by the One who made it all.

(Music Interlude)

Paul Tripp: So you and I do it every day. You and I conclude these three things: One, you conclude that your life has not worked according to your plan. You face things all the time, and you know good and well that you didn't plan them to be in your life. Second, you conclude that you have to somehow figure out your life. You're just not willing to be confused. You're not willing to live with constant mysteries. You're not willing for your life to feel out of control and irrational. You want to figure out your life. And three, you generate interpretations that you think are reliable, and you act on those interpretations in your daily situations and relationships.

Now I would ask you, "How do you know you are right? How do you know that you are not the world's biggest fool? How do you know that your thinking is accurate and your interpretations are reliable? How do you really know that the things you think you know about life are true, the things that you think about the essential issues of everyday life? How do you know that they're true? Where do you look for wisdom?"

Well, here's what I would like to say to you, "You can know; you can understand; you can be sure; you can be functionally wise. Why? Because God has revealed His wisdom in His Word, the Bible. There's a place where you can go for answers and be sure. You can be sure of what you know right here, right now."

Kate Crowley: Real truth from Paul Tripp in the series, "What's So Important About the Bible Anyway?" and today's lesson, "Dependent for Wisdom" here on Right Here, Right Now.

And if you would like to discover how important your words can be, we encourage you to pick up a copy of War Of Words by Paul Tripp. In this book, Paul digs deep into getting to the heart of your communication struggles and guides you into speaking words of grace and freedom. That's War Of Words. Just go to paultrippministries.org. That's all one word, Paul Tripp, spelled T-R-I-P-P, paultrippministries.org.

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Tomorrow, Paul continues his series titled, "What's So Important About the Bible Anyway?" I'm Kate Crowley, and be sure and join us for more hope and encouragement from paultrippministries tomorrow here on Right Here, Right Now. See you then.