The Neighborhood Church, Bentonville, AR

Unfiltered Wisdom: What We'd Tell Our Younger Selves

• theneighborhood.church • Season 2025 • Episode 37

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Join Pastor Joe Liles, Tom Helmich, and Roseanne Bowlin in this candid and heartwarming podcast episode as they explore the art of wisdom. From hilarious personal stories about forgotten restaurant leftovers to profound insights about life's journey, this episode explores how we gain wisdom through experiences, failures, and faith.

Key Takeaways:

  • Wisdom is more than knowledge; it's about applying what you learn
  • Humility is the pathway from knowledge to true understanding
  • Everyone has wisdom to share, regardless of their background

Memorable Quotes:

  • "You win or you learn. You don't ever lose." - Youth Participant
  • "If you want to have an accurate worldview, you need to have a close, personal friend from the generation before yours and the generation after yours." - Tom Helmich
  • "Food is not food, food is fuel." - Pastor Joe Liles

Perfect for anyone seeking life advice, looking to understand generational perspectives, or wanting a mix of humor and heartfelt wisdom!

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Pastor Joe Liles:

Foreign Welcome to the TNC podcast. We are recorded in studio coming to you live from the worship center in the neighborhood Church, which is absolutely wonderful with the bright lights on early in the morning. I think we're all feeling the bright lights this morning. We're doing the podcast an hour earlier this morning, and so I see that we're walking in and these lights not typically in the moment of their bright, but right now, I kind of feel it like I'd like to be in a dark place sleeping. That would be wonderful. And we're here joined by podcast hosts, which are wonderful on staff here at the neighborhood church. To my I'm going to switch it up, Roseanne. To my right is the one and only pastor of care and education, Tom. Tom, Pastor. Tom, that's great. And to my left, the Director of Operations here at the neighborhood church, Roseanne, Oh, that's fantastic. We and we just were having a slight conversation before, right before we got on the podcast about email, and we were all kind of commenting on the emails that were flying this morning. And Tom, you had said that the worst thing that had happened to you previously in emails was that you always forgot the attachment

Tom Helmich:

all like a habitual thing. It's like two things I forget. I get a TO GO Box for leftovers at a restaurant, go seven out of 10 times, no, leave on the table. Seriously? Yeah, oh. Like, I gotta actively watch for that. Yeah. And I'm notorious for sending emails referencing attachment that I did not, in fact, attach. That's great. So now, like, it'll warn you, like, if you mentioned attachment, it tries to prompt you. I knew that here I need

Pastor Joe Liles:

that. Yeah, that's great. I'm notorious not for leaving my food at the restaurant, but if I'm traveling, I forget that I brought it back to the hotel and then it and then it just sits there for, like, two days, three days, whatever. And then I'm about to leave, and I'm like, I want to eat this before I get on the plane, because I saved it, because it was delicious, and then I forgot, and it just, I know, don't know where I'll eat things cold. I'm that kind of person. Oh, I eat stuff cold, yeah, not three days. Three days is okay. What's range? It's refrigerated. It's a refrigerator. We're fine. Depends on what it is to don't ask Jess, I will test anything in the fridge. And I'm like, Look, yeah, do you get sick? Not often, because my immunity is strong, because you ask stuff like that all the time. Tom, you are the cleaner of the gather building fridge. Like, if there's anything that's close to expired, like, we now put dates on every item because of you, because you will throw away anything at any point. Well, yeah.

Tom Helmich:

I mean, if it's just like for me, like, I'll push it a little more. Yeah, other people's kids,

Pastor Joe Liles:

no, you're done. Like, I've come to the gather building many times, and the whole fridge is just clear, like, whatever was in there is now

Tom Helmich:

gone. I've taken two full trash out to the truck. Yeah, I feel like you full

Pastor Joe Liles:

sleep. It like there's a rage clean. We're talking about rage cleaning. I got coming to the gather been on my OOP Tom, rage clean together, building. And I'm like, here we go. Hadn't been there in a couple weeks. There's no telling what? Yeah, well, we got the summer program going on, and so until that ends on this Friday, I'm just leaving. I'm leaving that today. Yeah, how's that summer program going? You're over at little neighbors preschool, helping out. How is the summer program going? We got kids over there rocking.

Roseann Bowlin:

It's going great. Yeah, I think next year is going to be awesome. It is. There was a start out already got interest for next year.

Pastor Joe Liles:

Oh, seriously. Okay, that's great. All right. Well, it's something that we'll build. It was organic start. It paid for itself this year, which I think is absolutely that's a good thing. So

Tom Helmich:

you mean that people are planning that stuff out, like a year out? Oh yeah, oh yeah. Parents with parents, I think yeah, kind of have to do that a little bit sometimes, because it's hard. Like, there's loads

Pastor Joe Liles:

for stuff. I told Roseanne that we should have planned it a year out, and she said, No, let's just do it like a month out. And I was a month out. And I was like, Roseanne, we need this a year out. Yeah, it sounds like it's good, it's good, but we

Roseann Bowlin:

got here, my eyes roll,

Pastor Joe Liles:

good. All right. Well, let's jump in. We are talking through our message, and we started a new series. And the new series that we're getting into is dear younger me, and it's really a wisdom based series that is talking to our younger selves and the wisdom that we would give to our younger selves. And so we asked for a lot of wisdom from the congregation. On Sunday, we got some great quips, which I would call life wisdom, right? Which was the measure twice cut once, you know, do unto others as you would do onto yourself. If you're not five minutes early, you're late. And then they stared at me, which, I don't know why that happened, but they stared at me. Chuckle. There was a chuckle. Yeah, there was a chuckle. And then I had to apologize to the whole church, like said, I'm sorry. I'm always I'm always late. Well, they

Tom Helmich:

also don't, except for food, except for, which I think is it's like, Huh? It's all about younger selves, like it's like a teenager a little, yeah, that's right, that's right, because they also don't see all the stuff going on the background. That's, oh, this is

Pastor Joe Liles:

true. I'm never late, just out of lack of desire or wanting to be on time. It's because I'm with someone else in that meeting is extended. That's 90% of what

Tom Helmich:

is question on that. So, like, you know, if you have like, an eight hour work day and your meetings, you're an hour long. You can't actually fit eight because you got transit time and walk the truck get in. It's like, how much time do you put between?

Pastor Joe Liles:

I typically don't, which is my issue. So, like, even today, I have a meeting with Roseanne after this, and I went to schedule it at 1030 which is directly following. The podcast. And I was like, and we're here together, but I was like, There's no way that we're just going to finish directly on time, and all of a sudden going to be in our meeting magically. And I was like, 15 minutes. And I said, even though we're together right now and we're going to walk into kind of our weekly update meeting after this, is that, no, we're still going to take 15 minutes. And then if

Tom Helmich:

you guys somewhere else in Bentonville traffic, oh man, which used to be, you could account 15 minutes. And now you kind of

Pastor Joe Liles:

gotta I did, I did it all. So here's how I set myself up. Wrong? I have a following lunch meeting for a new member right in downtown Rogers, right or near the promenade, and I know that's about 20 minutes away. Well, I set that 15 minutes after our meeting. And I'm like, Yeah, and I'm like, and I'm banking on the podcast is gonna finish a little bit early. Meetings gonna be fine. And at

Tom Helmich:

lunchtime, that's not a 20 minutes, 20 minutes over right now,

Pastor Joe Liles:

I know. So I'm gonna take back roads. It's gonna be great. So, yeah, go down by the wastewater, and you're gonna have to talk fast. That's 100% there. So, so still learning, right? Still trying to play. I think it's the, it's that efficiency between maximizing time and then at and then allowing enough, right? Because I don't want to have an abundance of just leftover time where I'm sitting somewhere, no, but don't, yeah, we're thinking all other

Tom Helmich:

stuff. You could get proactive stuff. Part of the issue is we need, like, three of you. We need to, like, clone,

Pastor Joe Liles:

no, you don't need there's there. Never mind. Yeah, the world does not need more. I'm, I'm aware of that myself. I've come to the understanding that the world does not need or be only one. In the end, there could be only one. What is that Highlander man that wow, that dates you. Tom. What's Highlander? That's this is a real one too. Okay? The okay side moment. If you think of Highlander as a show, what is the other show you put right next to it in the same time period? So mind you, this was be this, be late 80s, early 90s. Is that true? Yeah, late 80s, early 90s. Highlander, awesome. We had that actor with the long hair, Fabio style he was running through, and then he cut his hair, and then, great, great show. Loved it interesting, right? X

Tom Helmich:

Files, time for sale. I was thinking like the Sean Connery, like, what? Gentlemen, welcome to the rock. No, the Highlander.

Pastor Joe Liles:

Oh, you're Oh, way old. Oh, the movie, yeah, oh, my gosh, I was thinking about the TV series. You know what TV series goes next to it? Xena the warrior princess. Oh, I remember that. Yes, one of Amy's favorite shows. You are the same to me,

Tom Helmich:

Amy watched that

Pastor Joe Liles:

shows we named our first dog, Xena Warrior Princess, yeah. So it was great, all right? And you referenced Colombo yesterday. So you can't even, you can't even say anything against, anything about

Roseann Bowlin:

Highlanders. I go back into a room and go another thing, yeah, just like Colombo.

Pastor Joe Liles:

And I had no idea what you're talking about. Oh, that is so nice. No, I'm serious. I don't know. The quote is, do you know Colombo? Yeah, you did. Do you know what's, what was the quote? I'm very you're still rolling your eyes me. Can everyone hear her eye rolls? Is that's what's happened. Was,

Tom Helmich:

like, the investigator, like, that was his stick, like, an investigative thing that he did. That's just kind of how he did it. Conversation then, and he always be, Oh, and another thing. And that was, like the main thing, Zinger.

Roseann Bowlin:

Oh, okay, we got you.

Pastor Joe Liles:

Oh, nice. Okay, all right, you should watch I should watch it. Yeah, we love those kind of mystery shows. I will honor you with an episode of Colombo. Just Peter

Tom Helmich:

Falk, right? I think that's right. I'm not good with actors names, though. Yeah,

Roseann Bowlin:

I referenced Columbo to my Walmart manager, who was not from this country. Didn't know who I was talking about, yeah, yeah. And he's a lot younger than me, so,

Pastor Joe Liles:

well, I'm now referencing things that the kids have no idea about, which has definitely dated me. Like, I go back into the 90s now, what? And I'm like, the 90s is like, yesterday, right? Anything like, it's like, you have 90s, and then we're in the year 2000 right now, nothing is transferred. Like, when you say 97 like, that's three years ago, you know? And, like, I was like, That's it, right? You know, type of deal,

Tom Helmich:

I was driving somebody to the county jail, give him a ride,

Pastor Joe Liles:

because you arrested them, or because, yeah,

Tom Helmich:

no, it was not a consensual thing, taking them, taken to the county jail, and a song came on the radio, and I turned it, I was like, oh, man, because I remember being at the concert, yeah, and this guy has the audacity says, you listen to the oldie station.

Pastor Joe Liles:

You drove him faster. You encode to the

Tom Helmich:

man.

Pastor Joe Liles:

I was watching a video day on one of the social channels, right? Tick tock, Instagram, something like that. And guy gets into a car accident, right? He's driving, you can see him go, oh, and he swears right back and forth. And he gets in a car accident, and his car rolls right, and he has got a dash cam in his car rolls and and he lands upside down in the car, okay? And so, like he's upside down right. Then the radio turns out, it goes Bono, bottle, bottom. Oh,

Tom Helmich:

that like, was, like, the most chill guy ever, was ever it was great. Yeah, that's, like, the epitome of peace and chaos, yeah, yeah, it

Pastor Joe Liles:

was gold. That's great. Well, yeah, I dig that. You listen to all these that's fantastic. I think that's very hard. You, bless your heart. All right, let's, let's jump into the message. So as we're talking about wisdom, right? The series really was about kind of wisdom for our life, but we separated the identity right away in the message from a worldly wisdom and a biblical wisdom, right? And what I was drawing out of the message was this, is that I wanted people to understand that there are people in their life that have shared Wisdom with them, right? And it is from people that we gain this wisdom, right? And the same thing from God that we gain this wisdom. But as you look around it, you cannot separate learning something from someone else. You have to learn it from someone, right? And so if we're looking at biblical wisdom, it's from God, right? It's from the scriptures. If you're looking at worldly wisdom, it's from a mentor, a spiritual advisor, a therapist, right? Family member, right? There's people that are pouring into your life. And so I had everyone write down their wisdom and then share who that wisdom came from, just by relationship, not necessarily by name, but just by relationship, so they could start to equate this reality between a person that has wisdom in their life that shared it with them, so that I could bring it all back at the end of the message to say you also have wisdom to share. So it was kind of this whole wrap around in the message. So I wanted to start before we get into Scripture with where we're at and the wisdom that we have that we could potentially share with others in our life. But before we do that, we're gonna do the jingle. And it goes like this, 479-367-2285, neighborhood church. Thank you so much. That is the phone number where you can call Roseanne anytime that is our neighborhood jingle, give us a call. We love it when you don't know who to call, call the neighborhood or Ghostbusters. Now with that, let's let's get into it. Tom, can you share with our group here? Roseanne and I are looking for wisdom to learn today from you, and I would love to hear your wisdom that I could take into daily life.

Tom Helmich:

Sometimes some of my wisdom isn't always entirely appropriate. Oh, yeah,

Pastor Joe Liles:

what? I'm confused. Why would you say that, though, and legitly confused? Not that we didn't, we didn't talk about one of

Tom Helmich:

them yesterday, of you know, piece of wisdom that actually got from my oldest son, okay, that he received at camp, yeah, from a camp counselor. Oh, yeah, who was a teenager. You did, yes, that's good guys. So cuz so current would have been in like, late elementary school, early middle school, okay, this point, this high school boys that are the, the camp counselors. And I found this out. I heard about, I was, heard it adjacent. It was on a warehouse Wednesday night, and he's when he was at church, when you heard this wisdom, yes, he was at youth group. He came in to kind of help, because the kids kind of like connecting with somebody. You know, he's early 20s. He's still kind of young, but they, you know, more hip, I guess, or whatever word they use now, and they're talking about, you know, things that we have to do that we don't really necessarily like we're not wanting to do it. But sometimes you just have to kind of get, you know, get things done, and, and, and I heard him say, yeah. I remember a camp counselor telling me once, because that a jump into Lake 10 to the his Lake tanacomo, cold water, yeah. And they climb up this, this cliff, and it's real high, and they got to jump off. But once you climb up, you can't walk down. It's because kind of dangerous. So you climb up, once you're up, you got to go over. Yeah? And he's like, Ah, he was scared, you know, the camp counselor is like, Look, you got to eat a turd. Don't nibble. He's like, Oh. Then he jumped. I heard him saying this. I'm like, Yeah, I'm gonna get so many phone calls from parents.

Pastor Joe Liles:

Did he say turd? He said, he said, turd. He said, Okay, that's great. Okay,

Tom Helmich:

no phone calls from parents. No. There is some rough wisdom in that. Like, you know, if you worry about thing, and it comes back to worrying, right? If you worry about things a whole lot, then you just kind of continue worrying about it. And sometimes you just got to get it. That's like getting into the pool, you know, cold water. You know, jump in. Sometimes, got to get it done. So that's stuck in my head a lot recently. That's wisdom that I actually got from my my oldest son.

Pastor Joe Liles:

Yeah, that's great. Now, the reason I don't think you got any calls from parents is because we all believe that sexual wisdom, and we hear it, and we're like, not, not rawish, yeah, Polish, but it's not wrong either, right? Like, and we do. You said, What is the word for hip? Also, when you're talking, I don't know. Miranda, one of our millennials in the church, was hosting our worship the other day, which comes up, and she shares the vision and new neighbor, right? And different things like that. And she at one point said that she was hip, or someone was hip, or it was a hip thing to do. And the congregation kind of gave a little chuckle, like, oh, you said hip. AKA, like, hips. Not a word that we use anymore, right? I don't know what the word is nowadays, but I definitely ran with that, because I took her out of that by saying, like, well, it was a really hip thing to say. And I just kept on referencing that ran and have a great brother sister relationship in the church, which is fantastic. I think it's the Riz. Is it the Riz? Now,

Tom Helmich:

anymore, I'm at the point where I rely on urban dictionary for so much Oh,

Pastor Joe Liles:

yeah, absolutely, I can totally get that. I try to pick up any new slang. This is, this is a total dead move. Any new slang I get, like Riz, or anything else like that, or I hear something, I'll ask Kelly about it, right? And she'll give me a little bit of context any point. So I can apply that. I will apply it in front of the children. So we went to brain freeze, the snow cone place, right two days ago, and I walked up, and there's a whole bunch of families around them with the kids. And I'm just throwing out any slang terminology that I know from the teenagers right at the front and both land and kill, like, Stop, just stop. But we can do it. I

Tom Helmich:

think that's the thing is, like, when it belongs to them. It's like, like, cultural appropriation kind of thing. Oh, yeah, right, yeah. Like, if you're, like, obviously, you know, you have generational appropriation, yeah, if you're, like, responsible with credit cards and you have a mortgage and you have children, like, you shouldn't use these words or something, or it's not taking the same it's cool to them. But when we use it, it's just, I don't know, it's just we were cool at

Pastor Joe Liles:

some point. I really believe that, like, at some point, we were cool too. We thought we were, we thought we were, yeah,

Tom Helmich:

then I look back in pictures, and I had parachute pants and tight roll jeans, and he had parachute pants, like the MC Hammer parachute pants, not like MC Hammer, but like within all the little zippered pockets and

Pastor Joe Liles:

all, I just had a vision of you and an MC Hammer outfit in a dance video, dancing. And it was delightful.

Tom Helmich:

That definitely didn't happen. And if it did, it wouldn't have been the life, yeah, and

Pastor Joe Liles:

it wouldn't have been recorded, like, let's go. That's great. Roseanne, were you cool back in the day? Oh, absolutely no, because I know you're cool now. So grown into my coolness. You grown into it. Okay, that's great. Me, all right. Was in Thomas shared his wisdom. Do you have any other wisdom that? I mean, that was what you learned from your son, yeah. What was wisdom you have shared with your kids? Oh,

Tom Helmich:

so I actually got this from, I think it originated with the Rogers mayor and then went through my second to last police chief for I retired. It's if you want to have an accurate worldview, you need to have a close, personal friend from the generation before yours and the generation after yours, so they can understand a better picture, because each generation has their own kind of lens of how they view things in society that has its own biases. So if you want to really understand what's going on the world, having a good friend of the generation before yours and the generation after yours. And I'm like, that makes sense, and I got a lot of friends from the generation before mine and some associates from the generation after. A lot of I learned from my kids, but it really does kind of change your

Pastor Joe Liles:

worldview. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, that's really great. I like that a lot. Okay, Roseanne, what about you? What is some worldly wisdom that you can share and impart on all of our podcast listeners? And Tom and I specifically, Ooh, nice. Okay, I like it. That's great worldly wisdom. That's fantastic. What did you share with your kids growing up?

Roseann Bowlin:

Um, Huntsville isn't the only place to find

Pastor Joe Liles:

that's really specific. Sounds like there's trauma from there. Sounds like that might be a personal story.

Roseann Bowlin:

Um, yeah, just we were always involved in church, and, you know, it was hard, it was hard to view the world through any other lens, but that Christian. So I think my girls did a fairly good job of that. Okay, that's great.

Pastor Joe Liles:

Wow, yeah, that's a personal story. So that came out just right on the back end there. Just slide that one in, which was great. It's good. And then what wisdom were you given like when you were growing up as a child?

Roseann Bowlin:

My dad was really good about just giving us advice. I can't just pick one thing, but the the study look, look at where you're going, where you want to go, kind of set your goals and don't, don't screw up.

Pastor Joe Liles:

Sage wisdom. Sage wisdom. I'm going to take that in. I actually spent the morning reading proverbs and just taking time. This morning, I woke up early and I just, I tithed my morning. Back to God, right? I love this language that they shared at the men's breakfast of tithing your morning to God and honoring God first thing in the morning. And so I just went out and sat on the back deck, and I just opened scripture and just read through proverbs. And it was beautiful, because the first five, six chapters of Proverbs is all about wisdom, and a lot of don't screw up. Is what's King Solomon kept on saying. He's like, Don't give into it. He's like,

Tom Helmich:

they go from Proverbs to ecclesia, yeah, everything

Pastor Joe Liles:

is meaningless, right? It's fantastic. Wisdom in the Bible is great, but I now have a driver, right? Not a driver, a becoming driver, right? She wants to drive. We're not even not yet. She is trying to drive, but she only drives sparingly, once or twice a week right now, and she doesn't do bad. She does fine. She has a permit, she has her permit, right? And then she came in and she's like, Oh, I'm getting ready to take my driver's test. I'm like, No, you're not. And I was like, You're not taking your driver's test. And so I'm 1,000% comfortable with it. You were comfortable. She 16, yet, no, she's coming up, so she's 16, like, two months. And so I'm like, You're not taking that test. And so I'm way comfortable with how comfortable you are driving, right? And kind. Mean that because she's thinking she's

Tom Helmich:

just kind of walking, yeah, because there's a waiting time. Like, now it's not more complicated. It used to be, like, you get your permit, you have to have it for a certain amount of time, yeah, absolutely, yeah. You got to have it for a certain amount of time to go do the test. And then once she gets she does a test and gets her license. It's not actually good as a license until a certain amount of time after that period. You know, yeah, it's they're doing a lot better

Pastor Joe Liles:

than that. Then they just turn us figure it out. Here we go.

Roseann Bowlin:

But there's a lot of wisdom. My day, there weren't that many vehicles on the road,

Tom Helmich:

and everything was going slower.

Pastor Joe Liles:

There's a lot of wisdom that comes with a new driver. When you're sitting in the car. I've realized that everything is wisdom. And the one piece I keep on telling her, that I always reiterate, is you can always wait to turn left. You can always wait to turn like, you don't have to go, like, however much pressure you feel you don't have to go. You can always

Tom Helmich:

wait. You know, all three of my kids, the pressure of the people behind them, yeah, is what does it and like, let them rear end you. Yeah, get a new car. Yeah. You know what? Like, don't they always want to try to push, to be out in front if they're going to eat the bumper, let them do it, don't, you know? I don't know why it's always such a fear with all the Yeah, I don't remember that being an issue with me, but maybe it's just because I was a long time ago. Yeah,

Pastor Joe Liles:

right, yeah. We're now, what, 30 years into driving, right? So, so

Roseann Bowlin:

honking, the honking from

Tom Helmich:

behind the radio up a little bit,

Pastor Joe Liles:

and that's it. I have two other pieces of advice that I giving right now that I remember. One is one that I learned from a different book that I was reading, and I've carried it with and Justin I've carried it within some of our teachings. It's about understanding vocation, right, your calling and what that means. And it's just a great kind of if you understand a Venn diagram, which is the circles that overlap each other, it's where these three areas of your life overlap, and the center part is your vocation. And your vocation is really a biblical calling, right? If you want to think about that. So the first Venn diagram, the first event of that diagram, is where your heart breaks, right? So where your heart breaks is what you need to think about. And if you were to draft everything in that circle of where your heart breaks, and you know the homeless population, and you know world hunger and these type of things, and write down where your heart breaks, great, then the next one is, where does the world have need? So now you're identifying places around you that have need. Here's where the world has needs, Salvation Army, this for the love, right? You know, downtown food programs, different things like that, food banks and food pantries, right? And now you're seeing these two things get and then the part of vocation is, Where can I get paid, right? So you take, where does my heart break? Where does the world have need, and where can I get paid? And that little spot in the middle, right, where all those fit together, and it's a little tiny box because it's usually nonprofit, and that little tiny box gets paid a little bit because you love the world, but it's only a little bit, and so you take that little bit of spot right there, and that's vocation, and that's where you find and I've loved that, and I've taught that for people who are trying to figure out their purpose and figure out their path, right? I've always said that it's, you know, ministry over money, right? Don't worry about the money, because the calling will fulfill you, right? And that's really big. And then lastly, I share with my daughter, often now, because she's running cross country and I'm training also for running in a couple events, I share with her that food is not food, food is fuel. And so when you look at food, it's not if you're hungry, you're training enough to fuel, right? So you need to look at this as fuel only, right? So because she'll always be like, I don't want breakfast, I just mean, go run, right? And I was like, no, no. Like, your body needs that fuel to access the carbs, to create the energy to do these things. And so it's a hard transition to think in that way. And so yeah, so just some worldly wisdom, sage advice from three staff members at the neighborhood church that you can take back into the world. But let's jump into Scripture and look into some biblical wisdom and what that means. So Roseanne, we're gonna be in Proverbs today. Proverbs, chapter one, just a little bit of a background in Proverbs. It is written by King Solomon. King Solomon is the son of King David and Bathsheba. So that's also another story that you can go back and take a look into, because that has some non wisdom points to it right, that got a little bit lost there. King David did. And so with Bathsheba, they had Solomon. There was supposed to be another king that was coming up of one of his other sons, that other son was trying to claim the throne, to which God had revealed to the prophet Nathan that Solomon was supposed to be the king. So King David anointed Solomon before his death in order to have Solomon reign. And in Solomon, King Solomon generally known as a king that brought in peace and prosperity to Israel, built the first temple, kind of developed a lot of trade routes and trade between different nations around also leveraged relationship in order to gain influence over other nations. That's the best way to say he had 300 concubines, which means he had 300 wives, and all those were relationships leveraged for leverage to other. Nations, right? So that is part of how he expanded that empire of Israel, but generally known as the king of peace. But also did not do everything, correct? At times he walked away from God. At times he worshiped other gods, depending who he had married and what other nations he was trying to access, and everything's like that. So there are times he absolutely fell away. But what he is most known for outside of building the first temple was that in talking with God, literally one evening, God said, ask for anything and I'll granted you, because this was a godly, ordained and prophesied relationship to kingship through the line of David, he said, ask for anything and give it to you. And notably, Solomon said, I asked for wisdom. I just want wisdom in order to learn from you the things that I need to know.

Tom Helmich:

I bet at that point his life, Solomon was over 40, just based on people I met, especially male. No, I can just picture him like, I don't picture him being like 20, early 30s, like it's 40 and older, right? Little arthritis. You know, letters getting a little small, what he's trying to read because he asked

Pastor Joe Liles:

so excited to hear him preach on Sunday, like, just inferring everything he can that's not in the text. He's arthritis. Maybe

Tom Helmich:

I'm like, I just assumed about that wisdom, asking for wisdom, yeah, it's like, Oh, yeah. That's not necessarily what I wanted. When I was like, yeah, 20 years old, you know? So years old, you know, so I just

Pastor Joe Liles:

Well, and it's a great relationship, because what God responds was to the things he could have asked for. He said, Because you didn't ask for health, because you didn't ask for strength, because you didn't ask for a long life, because you didn't ask for me to take down your enemies, and you asked for wisdom, I'll grant you wisdom, but I will also grant you prosperity, and I will grant you strength, and I will grant you long life, and I'll grant you dominion over your enemies, right? So it was really interesting to think about what wisdom gives is all the things we would have asked for. So this is like the penultimate version of, like, what we can get from God on this earth. And so that's a huge part of what King Solomon is about. Is King Solomon is really part of the author of the wisdom books in Scripture. So he wrote Proverbs, he wrote Ecclesiastes. He wrote the Song of Solomon. Song of Solomon, kind of that's some chili peppers, right? If you're a reader, essentially, it's a little bit spicy, but it is a song. It's a song. It's a Song of Solomon, which is talking about love to lovers and different things like that. And then we get the book of Job, which is also wisdom, which I just found super intriguing, because the book of Job is compassion, narrative. Compassion is shared. Suffering is what literal meaning of it is in Biblical Greek, but it is a shared suffering. But I don't see it necessarily as a book of Wisdom, right? I see it as a book of poetry, which might be why it's encapsulated in there, but I see it more. I see it separated from wisdom. So it's interesting that it's classified there, but with that, it's a wonderful way to start to get into proverbs.

Tom Helmich:

Is that worried the way the Hebrew Scriptures originally grouped it?

Pastor Joe Liles:

Yes, correct, right? So you get the minor prophets, the major prophets, the Historical Books of Moses and the Pentateuch, and then you get these wisdom books. And there's really wisdom and poetry, right? That exists, right? With psalms too, and then, so that's the kind of middle narrative in the Old Testament,

Tom Helmich:

because it's there because it's different than where they group it with the like the Old Testament, like some of that, those groupings are different between, yeah, different between, yeah, the Hebrew Bible used it, and then how we group it, correct? Yeah, interesting.

Pastor Joe Liles:

Yeah, it is really interesting. So, yeah, I wanted

Tom Helmich:

more of, like, a nightmare, Scary Movie kind of thing, yeah, then a wisdom book, uh huh, but, yeah,

Pastor Joe Liles:

yeah. So, so we're gonna read into proverbs first chapter, and this is the instruction on wisdom is really what it means. And we actually get a lot through these first seven verses of Proverbs about how to access wisdom and what wisdom means when you have it, who should receive it and who shouldn't receive it. So as you listen to the Scripture, I would just invite you to kind of open your mind, take in it all, and then we're going to break it down a little bit as we go forward. So Roseanne, if you wouldn't mind kicking us off, I will

Roseann Bowlin:

proverbs one, one and two. The Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel, for learning about wisdom and instruction for understanding words of insight,

Pastor Joe Liles:

for gaining instruction in wise dealing, righteousness, justice and equity, to teach shrewdness to the simple, knowledge and prudence to the young.

Tom Helmich:

Let the wise also hear and gain in learning and the discerning acquire skill to understand a proverb and a figure, the words of the wise and their riddles, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Pastor Joe Liles:

So I want to concentrate on a couple verses right now, and it's the same thing I did on Sunday, but verse seven is what kind of captured me as I was reading the scripture, and it was the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Now it's interesting, because. Later on in chapter nine, it says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. So it's very interesting all knowledge, that's right, yeah. So it's very interesting how it kind of moves right in this because knowledge is, we take it, knowledge is separated from wisdom, right? And I shared this on Sunday, and I think it's just a good distinction to make when you're thinking about wisdom, is that knowledge? And here's just an example that I shared that I love knowledge is knowing, right? Is understanding that a tomato is a fruit, right? It's, it's book knowledge, it's book smarts, it's, it's learning, it's education. It's something that you haven't applied yet, you just have stored, right? It's so what you would read in a bathroom, right? That's just knowledge, right? Like you haven't applied it to anything. Is that where you know, I don't know, right? But you know, the bathroom books like useless knowledge for the you know, okay, all right, Roseanne is looking at me again, if you could hear, her eyes. And so with with this. So you have knowledge, tomatoes of fruit, wisdom is applying that knowledge to life. And so the wisdom of that tomatoes are fruit is that tomatoes don't go in fruit salad, right? That's the wisdom, right? And so we're applying this and saying, Oh, just because a tomato is a fruit doesn't mean it goes into fruit salad. The wisdom says, I can take a life application from my knowledge. If you're just knowledge, and you're just reading scripture and studying scripture without applying it to your life, you're just learning about God. That's it doesn't mean that you're a faithful follower of Jesus Christ. You were just learning about God. Because we're

Tom Helmich:

not called to knowledge or called to faith. Yes, right? But the idea is for knowledge to inform our faith 100% because that's the way I look at anything about the tomato and fruit salad is a good analogy. I look at it as like tools. The education, the knowledge is the tools. The wisdom is how you use the tool to build something. Yes, absolutely and not cutting a finger

Roseann Bowlin:

off, absolutely, kind of when sharing with someone, the wisdom is sharing that knowledge with someone to apply it.

Pastor Joe Liles:

I think that's 100% what we tried to move the congregation towards on Sunday, right, is, how do you apply biblical wisdom in your life? And because what we'll hear in Scripture is that wisdom is more valuable than gold or silver. Says it over and over again, right? As you read. And I took this morning to read through proverbs and kind of read through those first five or six chapters, and it says it over and over again, more valuable than gold, more valuable than gold, more valuable than silver, right? Here's so it's placing a value in our life that says wisdom is more value than the material goods of the life that you would seek, right in these things. So in your life, if we're hearing that wisdom is more valuable than that, where have you applied biblical wisdom in your life, right as you have gone through and how have you seen that come from knowledge. So take a piece of knowledge that you had and what biblical wisdom did you get from that and apply it in your life.

Tom Helmich:

That's a deep one to come up with on the fly. It's very deep, yeah, because I can look at like, where I've lacked the wisdom. Ooh,

Pastor Joe Liles:

interesting, okay, because in my youth, yeah,

Tom Helmich:

where I kind of sought knowledge, but I didn't know, because before you have the knowledge, you don't know how to apply it through, you know, The Wiz where to find the wisdom in it. You know, I mean, I, I used to kind of use the Bible, almost like, uh, those little, uh, eight balls. Oh, you'd shake up magic ball. You shake it up little thing. Like, I remember being a kid. I was probably in back then. We called it junior high, not middle school, but and trying to figure something out. And so I just, like, closed my eyes to open the Bible, and just stuck my finger to it and then read it, and it made no sense, yeah. Like the magic, like the Magic Ball, magic eight ball. But the the wisdom to to read a text and look, forget what God's trying to tell you in it. And then, actually, then actually going and doing, doing that in your life, yeah, you know, it's instead of trying to look for an answer, you know, like I treated the Bible almost like a Ouija board or a dictionary, oh, yeah, look stuff up, instead of just starting with the text and then letting that, that guide me, yeah, trying to try to drive it myself. A little too much. I guess

Pastor Joe Liles:

I love that you just reference a Ouija board, a magic eight ball, and finger pointing scripture in the text, all in this, because I

Tom Helmich:

was, like, 14 years old, and that's how I tried to, I was trying to use it, and I knew I'd been taught better than that, but I was just like, I don't, you know, understand what to do with all this, you know, eating an elephant instead of just read it and let it, you know, let it be, let's Okay, let us, let soak in and then, and then go from there.

Pastor Joe Liles:

Do you remember when we were youth, those, those hand things, a little folded paper thing, we're like, Okay, what number do you choose? One through eight, right? 12345678, okay, okay, you're going to be married when you're 25 What's your next thing? And you're like, a 271234567, you're going to have 16 kids. You're like, Oh my God, when you know what's your last number? And it's like, oh, three, and they're like, Oh, you're going to live in a mansion. You know? I was like, Oh my gosh. Is this real? That's not wisdom, that is. It's not even knowledge, even knowledge. It's not even knowledge. No. Yeah, but why? Why are we so fascinated with it? Maybe this is a good segue from knowledge to wisdom to why are we fascinated with things that help provide a direct answer for us? So like Ouija, board, eight ball, finger pointing scripture, you

Tom Helmich:

know, cutting out because, like, I like wisdom. You know, you, you gain knowledge in your youth, and then through knowledge and life experience. You know, wisdom is kind of revealed to us. You know, we obtain a little bit of wisdom through life experience. That's why not many you think of a wise person. You think of somebody that's older, you know, gray hair. I got some, some life experience, but we want to cut out all the stuff we have to endure, yeah, from the beginning until jump to the end. You know, if you look at at media, the stuff that sells the most on the movies, like the Harry Potter thing, right? It's all sudden. You just wake up one day and you realize you got all these super special powers, and you never had to practice for it. Yeah, you know, you didn't have to put in the time to train like you'd, like you do with your ridiculously long races that, like, I wouldn't run that far, that long if a bear was chasing me, like, just go ahead about, you know, but you want the end result without having to put in the word yeah to, you know, to get there. Yeah. I think that's part of the reason we try to get that we want. We're trying to jump ahead to where we're gonna be one day, right? Without having to work it out

Roseann Bowlin:

exactly, exactly we want the answers. I think for me, the answer to that question is, whenever I've changed jobs, I've always prayed about it and asked God to guide me to what he's calling me to. Yeah,

Pastor Joe Liles:

yeah. I I really think, you know, even in changing of seasons and jobs, right? What you're talking about, about how we have the time to really work on this and understand what we've been given, right? And the gifts, if you're thinking about that Harry Potter language, right? Like, you've just wake up and you have it, no, you have to train it, and you have to work through it. It's all time, right? Like, wisdom, wisdom is time. And I think what we get with the magic eight ball is we don't have to take the time. We just think we can. You know, it's the easy button from Staples, right? Like, right? You know, like easy button. Here we go. We're just gonna take this route. And I think what wisdom asks for is to spend more time with God. Wisdom says, I'm willing to devote my time to you in order to learn from you and and honestly, wisdom a lot, even in the scriptures, listen, listen, listen to the wisdom, right? You know that

Tom Helmich:

makes sense. You said that, you know, Solomon with the type between Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, which makes sense, because then all the, the all is folly thing. He ends with the, you know, the only thing worthwhile is, is putting in the work. Yeah, you know, just that idea of putting in, putting in the work to get, you know, get there and trust the process. Yeah, right, yeah, allow God to do what God's going to do in our lives. And not try to fast forward?

Pastor Joe Liles:

Yeah, it's interesting, because I don't think we can actually is, I'm processing what we're saying about time and fast forwarding and the seasons. I don't think we actually can be a witness to wisdom or see wisdom. I think wisdom might be something we always recognize, in retrospect, right, where we look, yeah, where we look back and we can see that there was wisdom there. I mean, there's times in my life when, you know, I've done something and thought, oh, maybe this will work later on, right? And if we do this now, then something will come about later on, but I'd never know, right? And so I'm entering into this thing going, well, this could be a route. This could be something, right? And and I'm gonna let this play out, and then I move forward, and then later on, something materializes, and I'm like, Oh

Tom Helmich:

yeah, that's the difference, like, wisdom, between, like, tomato as a fruit versus fruit salad is, it's that time and experience, right? It's like you don't know it, like what you say, you don't know it at the time. Like when you look back and you see what the result of something is allows you to know, not to put tomatoes in a fruit salad, right? Or, like, you know, whatever, whatever it is, somebody had to have gone into that not knowing what's going to happen. And then you see the result after the fact on the back end, to know, and that's how we learn, right? Yeah, we know that that's what's going to happen. So it's, you know, we know that's a good idea, which is, I think we more we think about the life experience aspect of it, and when we do stuff and we're like, Well, that was, that was a dumb idea. Don't do that. We try to pass that wisdom on to our kids, but sometimes they've got a new thing anyway, just so they can understand the wisdom. Yes, yeah,

Roseann Bowlin:

watch. It's hard to watch your kid, oh my gosh, make mistakes,

Tom Helmich:

especially now, because we know, like, how fast they're driving on the interstate through like, 60 whereas, like, my parents had a little more peace because they had no idea the dumb things I was doing, whereas I have a better idea of the dumb things my kids are doing. Yeah, you

Roseann Bowlin:

know, but it's so funny how my daughter's older, so she's starting to confess there

Pastor Joe Liles:

is a point when you become peers and then it's like, you're not gonna, I'm not gonna get in trouble anymore. Yeah, that's great. But

Tom Helmich:

you think about, like, when you talk about people say things, we look as like things that are, you know, wise sayings, yeah, it's always in the past. Yes, correct. It's not like anything we say right now. It's like, Oh, that's really wise. Yes, no, it's not proven yet.

Pastor Joe Liles:

No, we have. To live into it. Yeah, I think about these, the interesting thing that happens, like you said, your daughter's confessing now and being a part of that, right? My parents always thought it took steroids when I was in high school, right? My mom still thinks it right, and she's just waiting for this confession. And I'm like, Mom, I never took steroids. And I was like, she's like, I know you did. And I was like, No. I was like, I'm my peer to peer with my mom right now is like, the confession of like, it's still true that I didn't, you know. Like, like, it's right. Then she's like, but she still doesn't believe me. She's looking for this moment. I was like, No, we're there. But I look down now with Kaylee coming up, right? And I always tell her, like, if she ever says anything through, I was like, I'll always know. I was like, you can't. And it's weird, because you think about the parents who we thought we were shifting things by and then that was a parent, I'm like, I can immediately see, yeah, when you've done something that is going to cause trouble and I'm just making a decision as a parent, if I want to deal with it or not, like that, pick your pick your battles. Pick your battles. That means our parents always knew. They're just like, I don't want to deal with

Tom Helmich:

that one. Yeah, if I could go back and tell myself at 19, all the stuff that I know my parents knew I didn't think so, terrify me at 19.

Pastor Joe Liles:

Oh yeah. Well, I get to Kaylee. Now, the funny thing is, like, Jess and I, right as we talk about our kids and what they're doing and how they're like, we'll laugh, because we're like, man, we talk like, did you go through this? And she's like, I went through this. And I was like, I went through it. Was like, why don't they listen to us? And I was like, we both have been through this, and we have experience in this. And we're just like, we're just laughing to each other. Because I'm like, we can't do anymore, yeah?

Tom Helmich:

But when you go rewind, it's like, Oh, your parents probably went through that, yeah? And they told me, and I yeah, I get it now, yeah, that's part of wisdom, right? When I look back and I'm like, oh, that whole period from like, 15 to 19, yeah, so sorry about that, like I did I get it. I get it. I got it now, yeah,

Pastor Joe Liles:

one of the biggest moments that I had in my relationship with my father and my parents, right? Was when a time when we went to battle, right? Just big battle right in the living room, right? We just went, I think it's one of, like, the most pivotal points in our relationship that really formed us together, because it was that 15 to 19, where I was, I was becoming a man, and I needed to stand on my own, even though I lived in his house and I didn't have to pay for anything and everything. Was like, but I don't have to clean, you know, I was like, because I'm, I'm in college now, right? And, nope, that's not the reality. The reality was I was still under his house, and is, I'm like, my kid said I'll put him down.

Tom Helmich:

You know? It reminds me of a was gonna date myself to Bill Scott, Bill Cosby skit, oh, yeah, you're way dated back, back when he was, you know, that's like, 70s, maybe 60s, popular. He wasn't like, Persona manga non grata yet. Yeah, and it was a skit. It's talking about his kids acting. He's like, boy, I brought you into this world. I can take you out, make another one just like you like, I understand that feeling. Yeah, I get that. I get that. We're get on the back side of it. It gets a whole lot better. But, man, I look back now my parents, I'm like, Oh, I'm so sorry,

Pastor Joe Liles:

yeah. So as we think about this wisdom, where I defined wisdom on Sunday, and wisdom was really It integrates knowledge, right? So it's this application of knowledge. It's an understanding and moral insight and reverence for God. So when they talk about the fear of God, and that, you know, the fear of God is the fear of God is the beginning of knowledge. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. It wasn't fear. It isn't scary or terrifying. It was fear as an awe inspiring Right? Like you fear because you know the place you have in the kingdom. And that was a big point that I made, is that when you have wisdom with God, you understand your place in the kingdom, right? This is kind of that vocation reality, right? You understand that God is a creator of the cosmos, the heavens and the earth, you are in creation, right? You are part of that creation. Now you are co creator with God. We are beloved, so we co create with God. We still have a place in the kingdom. Then it is under God, right? And it is right. So when you understand that, you begin to have this wisdom in a really wonderful way. But if you go back into verse four and five, it says, we're going to teach shrewdness to the simple knowledge and prudence to the young. Let the wise also hear and gain and learning. So really, there's this aspect of hearing, there's this aspect of learning, stepping away from simple faith, which is only concerned with self, I'm concerned about God, and my relationship with myself, only not with relationship to the world or to others, right? And then understand that it comes back to the young right. Teach knowledge and prudence to the young, right? And so as we're thinking about this last week, I kind of went generational this last week, like worldly wisdom and biblical wisdom, and kind of started the series. Tom this coming Sunday, you're going to be talking about kind of youthful wisdom as kids get back into school and high school hits and everything else like that. But I'm wondering in our lives, was there a point of wisdom that we would have now to look back and change the decision that we made when we were young? So many, so many.

Tom Helmich:

Okay, is there a limit, like, on how I mean, so many? Yeah, but I think that's part of what where we get our wisdom of

Pastor Joe Liles:

being older from interesting wisdom, from not having wisdom. Well, because you think about it,

Tom Helmich:

you don't, you never. You don't you never. You don't learn in your successes. You learn in your

Pastor Joe Liles:

failures. Yeah. Oh, that was a wisdom from Sunday. One of the youth spoke up on Sunday, right? I offered, and they said, you win or you learn. You don't ever lose. And I was like, nice. I was like, I could take that one. I see that one often. Yeah, yeah. So a lot of decision you want to walk. Through some of those decisions that you

Tom Helmich:

would, you know. I mean, I remember, I remember thinking, I'll never use this, yeah, like math, like I, you know, and I did, I did, like a AP math, which is a, also a horrible mistake, because I wasn't good at math, but it sounded cool, and that was huge mistake, yeah, because AP math is harder than regular math, and I belonged in the regular math class, yeah, yeah. I spent so much. I had great teachers though. I mean, I was struggling so bad, but I wound up going, like, every Saturday, every other Saturday, to my my math teacher, AP, math and AP, chemistry teacher, were husband and wife, and I wound up going to their house, Oh, wow. Like on weekends just to learn, to get tutoring, to try to, you know, pass that class because I was not good at math, so I have no idea why I signed up for AP, that was, yeah, that was, that was dumb, yeah. But if I could go back and tell myself to actually pay attention, it was hard for me because I didn't do the homework. Oh, okay. Like, I just showed up and daydream the work. Then, yeah, I didn't do the work. I just showed up and daydreamed and thought, well, if I'm in, sign up for the class. I'll somehow get, like, the knowledge, like, just kind of zapped in somehow, yeah, and I didn't want to be bothered to do the work, and so I sucked at math, and continued to today to a certain degree, and then I wound up getting sent to sniper school, and everything we did was math, and I had to sit there in the hotel at night with a tutor and other cop trying to figure out how to because it was great. None of it's super cool, like on TV, it was all math, yeah? And I'm like, and then working accidents, oh, man, absolutely right. And, and so many things. And I'm like, I wish I could go back and tell myself, you're actually gonna need this. Yeah, right. Not all gonna be a calculator. Pay attention now, it's not all gonna be a computer. You're actually gonna need to do this. Just do the work. Yep, you know, just, just do the work.

Pastor Joe Liles:

That's great. What about you, Roseanne, is there anything that you would go back with the wisdom now to change when you were young?

Roseann Bowlin:

Yes, well, I was painfully, awkwardly shy. Oh, interesting. And I would go,

Pastor Joe Liles:

I would never would have known that from who you are now, 100% honest and never would have known that serious. Yeah, that is the first time you say that, and it's hard for me to believe

Tom Helmich:

he seemed like a extremely confident person. So that seems very real. Yeah, oh

Pastor Joe Liles:

yeah. No, you are confident. And at times you are very strongly confident, right? You just bring it in. And I love it. So, yeah, it's fantastic.

Roseann Bowlin:

So, but I was, I think I missed out on a lot of stuff because I was awkward and shy and, you know, I mean, I remember I had long hair and I would have it in front of my face, yeah, so that I didn't have to see anybody. Oh, interesting. Yeah, that's what David remembered about me from high school, because we went to the same high school. Yeah. And he said you always had your nose in a book and your hair curtained

Pastor Joe Liles:

and curtained. Okay, yeah, yeah. And that was intentional. You did that so you wouldn't have to, but

Roseann Bowlin:

no one took the time to break through that, yeah, and so I would go back and shake myself and break out of it yourself, yeah? Because there's no you don't gain anything from being shy. That's true. And I think that had I had that confidence back then, I wouldn't have made some of the stupid decisions I made later.

Pastor Joe Liles:

Okay, that's good. But now, where do you think your confidence comes from? Now, God, oh, okay, great. That's a great

Unknown:

answer. I can't go on my ears.

Pastor Joe Liles:

Laugh experience, yeah. I mean, lots of them, I think you do look I mean, like, Tom, you said you learn wisdom from not wisdom. I mean, like, there is a there is a moment to that where the times you didn't have wisdom, we actually learned from Well,

Tom Helmich:

you look at all the warning labels on things, there's a story warning

Pastor Joe Liles:

labels, you know what that would be a great podcast, or, like, just like a read through book, like warning labels and where they came from, right? Like, who was the person behind this warning, who was the person behind this warning, right? And what happened, and what did they do, and why does the world have to abide by it? Now, like eating Tide Pods, no one would ever considered when you made a Tide Pods, why would you ever, why would you ever eat a tide pod? Because, no,

Tom Helmich:

these, these are there because somebody did that. Yes, there's a story, yeah, you know, and they're probably died, and wisdom has come from it that we've had to broadcast to other people, yeah, through all kinds of stickers and labels and warnings on things, yeah, you know.

Pastor Joe Liles:

So if I look back on my younger years, I kind of go back to college and and I think as I look at college, there's, there's probably two things that I would have changed. And Tom and I you were talking about this briefly, you and I were before the podcast. I don't need to change anything, right? I think wonderful where I'm at now. Love where I'm at now. Don't need to change it. I would go back through all the hardships again in order to be where I'm at now, because I think that the people I've met, the family that I have, are all evidence of the wisdoms and learnings all throughout the way i. So this is really kind of a cursory glance at life, saying, like, Oh, whatever. But as I look back, it's some of the smaller things, not the major

Tom Helmich:

things, yeah. So it's not the big, the big, no, we got no regrets, but the the little,

Pastor Joe Liles:

yeah, like I would have joined choir in college earlier, like, I love to sing, and I just didn't. And I loved it, and I realized when I got back into it after a three year hiatus that I

Tom Helmich:

missed it. So why did you not start earlier?

Pastor Joe Liles:

I I was trying to do this social thing in college. I was already so I was opposite of you. I'm very social, outgoing, this flow into groups. I did not need more social, like there is a level of to which I don't need more. I don't need more. I don't need you to put me in a social environment to be social. But I thought that's what college was. So I went to be social, and I tried to insert myself in all the social environments, because that's what I had read and that's what I had seen, and that's what the movies I had watched were, is that you need to be this kind of social in college. And I'd heard the stories, and so I tried to be that social in college was not necessary. So I removed the things that were not anti social, but were maybe minority style groups in college, you know, like the theater groups and the choir groups, right? It wasn't the popular social things that were happening, but those were the affinity groups for me, that I actually truly it's right. Isn't that weird

Tom Helmich:

how we built this idea of like of image we work for these like image, things that don't fit our personality, and we don't get to being okay with that until, until later.

Pastor Joe Liles:

That's right, that's right. And so I would have gone back to choir. I would have done theater. I did theater and choir in high school, right? Loved it. Absolutely loved it. Yeah. I mean, I've been told just now we've gotten saw some Broadway shows. Like, another path of my life would have been Broadway or something like, I don't have that kind of crazy, amazing voice, but I love the acting, and I love the over the Topness, and I love that kind of portrayal, and different things like that. Yeah, I would have come back and I would have done some of those different things. One of my

Tom Helmich:

favorite series things we didn't remember. We did one on, I think it's when we were at the old building on the greatest showman. Oh,

Pastor Joe Liles:

yeah. It was fantastic. Yeah, for the movie series, I just pulled that Holly and Jones and I just sent each other a video, like, two months ago, right? Because it came back up

Tom Helmich:

on our feet on Facebook, and I'm like, Oh yeah, that was awesome, ladies

Pastor Joe Liles:

and gents, this is the moment you've waited maroon coat. Yeah, I got him started, right? I was great. We dressed up. We did everything, right? We had it all going on. Mary poppin, we think we did. Mary Poppins that time, it was musical movies

Tom Helmich:

somewhere. I've got a picture of you in Tinkerbell costume. No, you don't. We're not Tinker But Peter Pan. He said, Tinkerbell. Peter Pan, because you spray painted your legs green. Why do you have an image of me in your head, and it's pictures, like on my phone or somewhere at home, we have a digital image. You know

Pastor Joe Liles:

what I did? Spray paint my leg screen. Because I went to where the tights, and the tights ended up being so tight that they were see through, and I it's like, it's not gonna work. Paint my legs. Yeah? I just went for it. I wasn't like, I did you paint? Yeah? Yeah. I never said I'm committed. When I go in, I'm committed, yeah, the other time was I when I dyed my hair all black to be or all frost white. Yes, be Jack Frost, yep. And then made a stick with Calvin. Yeah? He helped me make a huge rod and staff. Yeah, yeah. It was really good. It was really good. So those things

Tom Helmich:

that I learned, the theater aspect totally makes sense. Yeah, it's good.

Pastor Joe Liles:

So wisdom. So the last thing I shared is that fear is the awe of God, but it helps you know your place in the kingdom. And what I shared, the final part about knowing your place in the kingdom is that if we do have wisdom, we're meant to share it, right? That's why I wanted us to share a little bit of our wisdom today is because the challenge to everyone going out was to write a piece of wisdom that they would share with others, and then to write a name next to it, who they would share that wisdom with. I think everyone should think of that. Who would you share your wisdom with and who needs it? But I mean, gets the imposter syndrome where we don't believe we have that wisdom to share, which I tried to take away on Sundays, to convince everyone that through Scripture and through our relationship with God and the testimony of our story with God, we have wisdom, we have learnings, and it's meant for the sake of the world. And so, yeah, we're taking the series forward,

Tom Helmich:

I think this point of Christian discipleship, right? We take this wisdom of faith and then share that as like a mentor for other people around us. You know, mentorship and discipleship is not all that different,

Pastor Joe Liles:

correct, correct. So that's where we're at coming in. Tom, you're up this Sunday. We're talking with the youth launch. We're talking with kids getting back to school next Tuesday, Wednesday. And so you're really leading for youthful wisdom. What would we tell our youthful selves about going back into kind of education timeframe, and what are we learning? So that difference between where they're getting a lot of knowledge right? Lot of knowledge right now, but they don't know how to apply it yet, so we're missing all the application in the right ways, but they got all the knowledge right, and they think they know everything, which is kind of incredible, that our youth know everything in the world which is really good.

Tom Helmich:

And given a few more years, and then they start realizing that they know very little. It's interesting seeing that. And then kids. Did, yeah, I remember that when I hit current humbling, I'm like, oh, here comes back around. Yeah,

Pastor Joe Liles:

maybe the difference on that, maybe the pathway from knowledge to wisdom is humbleness,

Roseann Bowlin:

humility, Oh, yeah. See, and humility, don't know what you don't

Tom Helmich:

know, right, correct? And I think humility is not something that we like, we look for or gain. It's almost like something that happens to us. We get humbled, oh yeah, you know, we get hunger,

Pastor Joe Liles:

like, Oh yeah, okay, who? I think there's something there. Oh, that's good. You apply

Roseann Bowlin:

the knowledge, and it doesn't quite turn into wisdom.

Tom Helmich:

So, yeah, have you ever heard of the dumpling, the Dunning Kruger effect? Oh, I have, but I can't recall it right now. Yeah, man, that's that life cycle, right? We're like, if imagine a subject you don't even know what's called, you've never heard of it, yeah? Like, there's just blank slate, nothing there. And then I teach you a little bit about it, yeah, now all that you know exists about that is what I taught you. Yeah? So there's a tendency to think, oh, shoot, I know so much about this. Oh, great. Because it's just a little bit, yeah, because you don't yet know what you don't know, all the rest, yeah. And so people go into new knowledge overconfident, Oh, yeah. And then they realize all they don't know, and then the confidence drops, and then they start to get life experience with it, you know, more and more experience, yeah. But then they don't give themselves credit for the experience they have, and they underestimate their, you know, their knowledge and their skills in that area, until hopefully, ideally, they come to the point where it's, it's, you know, confidence and their actual mastery of whatever. That's great thing is the wisdom that becomes that, that wisdom because a moment where you think, man, I got all this, but then you hit the part where like, Oh, I know so little about this. Yes, absolutely it is. But then we want to stick in there too long, and you leave yourself thinking that you're, you're down here. But reality is, you've got a lot more to share than you realize you do. And people will think, Well, I'm not a pastor, like, I don't have anything to share. Well, the reality is, I've got a lot, yeah, a lot to share, and they're just not giving themselves credit for it,

Pastor Joe Liles:

huh? That's great. So I'm excited to hear you preach now. I mean, if you're bringing Dunning Kruger and all these great things,

Tom Helmich:

I had thought about bringing that into that's really good, it might be part of it, yeah, that's really

Pastor Joe Liles:

good. Well, now you got wisdom, you got humbleness on the pathway, you got the Dunning Kruger. I mean, we got a hot message coming in on Sunday with Tom preaching. It's gonna be great baptism. And it's baptism Sunday, which is gonna be great. The following week is back back to school. And so we have friends and family Sunday, and then we have back to school blessing tags coming out, which is gonna be really exciting. So that's the 10th and 17th. So things are exciting. Things are kicking up as we kick into the fall. And so that is our podcast for today. And all God's people said, Amen. You

Unknown:

you.

People on this episode

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Pastor Joe Liles

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Pastor Tom Helmich

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Roseann Bowlin

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Tevo Christmann

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