Video Transcript: Common-Sense Discernment

Henry - Welcome back to Christian discernment, and discernment about  relationships talking about their worldview. Today, we're gonna talk about  common sense, discernment.  

Steve - Common sense is learned thinking and behavior. In other words, you  don't get common sense generally from just reading about it. Or even, I mean,  you can get it from listening to others being teachable. But a lot of common  sense is learned through trial trial and error. You learn that, if you do this, it  hurts. If you do that it goes well, and over, you know, now sometimes it takes a  while to learn these things, right. And so we typically say someone as common  sense when they learned quickly, right, other people take a long time, and they  keep doing the same thing that hurts them, and they keep doing it over and over and over again,  

Henry - in this one, too, as ministers over the years, we've seen a lot, we have  theories, you know, philosophers theories, how did a kid get, common sense or  a kid does not get common sense. In my case, my father worked hard. My  mother was gone in the factory, and but my mother and dad believed that I  would like do well. So in a lot of ways, I learned a lot of stuff. But my parents  believed that I was sharp and smart.  

Steve - Did they also let you do stuff? Yeah. Did they spend a lot of time  rescuing you?  

Henry - No, they kept me away from the huge, like, problem, we're not gonna let we're gonna let a 10 year old play in the middle of the road, I think I got to play  in the road. I was in a small town. So I get all that, but but there was a sense of,  there's an art, to communicating to your children how to develop common  sense.  

Steve - I think, in part, you give your children responsibility, and then you let  them experience the consequences of their actions. If they take responsibility,  they get rewarded, if they drop the ball, you know, suffer the consequences of  that. But parents that are always rescuing their children. The kid never learns.  What's a good thing? What's the difference betweeen a good thing and a bad  thing?  

Henry - In confidence, to deal with failure. Let me my father and mother, my dad  failed a lot in his life but he always showed me that you learn in failure. Right?  Well, that's how you get common sense.

Steve - Very, very interesting. All right, why do we have to discern common  sense?  

Henry - That's interesting. I think in a lot of ways, common sense, is a tool. It's  almost creational. It's in us. It's from the mind, God has created in us to be able  to analyze options, and to find best options that serve God serve our self  interest and serve our spouse. Our family, right?  

Steve - I think too to reflect, you know, part of common sense is reflecting on  life. What happened here? Right? Why am I struggling in this arena of life? If  you never look back and say what happened here, you're never going to learn  from your own experience.  

Henry - But that's the first point. Why do we need to discern common sense?  Often, people are not teachable in general, and we ourselves can be  unteachable on something, there's almost like a rebellion inside of us, that has  to do with a fight, Be teachable. Right?  

Steve - And part of that is, we don't take the time to reflect. Reflection is not like  an art these days, right? The relationship between cause and effect, or get that  and that's the I guess what I'm talking about where you touch a hot stove  immediately you feel the pain. And so there's a cause I touch this. And now  there's the experience after that, and there's a cause between those two, right?  But a lot a lot of children today are being raised in a world where they can't see  cause and effect, for example, you know, iPads and computers, right? You're  touching something and you're making things happen. But you don't really see  what's going on behind this illusionary it's an illusion. And there's more and  more. So much of life is like, I think hard to understand, how this does this, right  this so if I, if I study, I get a good grade. Some kids don't have that connection,  they don't see the connection between those two. And so why do it right? Or the  connection between recognition or saving money? Understanding that if you  save the money, then you'll have the money. If you don't, then you won't. And  then this is what happens in your life, and then you're under the pressure and  you're always behind. And if you just get ahead once, you could stay ahead, the  whole time, right? Too much reliance on experts. You know, yeah, people will,  will tell you, this is how it is. But there's so many competing experts, which  expert I mean, even when you go to, for example, Amazon and you want to buy  something, there's somebody that gives it five stars, and somebody gives it one  star. So which expert are you going to listen to? It's sp confusing these days.  And so common sense says you rely on your experience, right? You know  you've been doing something. Is that going well or isn't it? So again, it's being 

able to evaluate and reflect on your own experiences, whether something's  working or not.  

Henry - I Corinthians 10:23, Everything is permissible, but not everything is  beneficial. Everything is permissible, but not everything is constructive, in a  sense, a prime common sense verse, if you just took this verse and applied it to  your experience every day. It would be teaching you common sense. 

Steve – Is this constructive? If you were to stop and go, okay, it was my day  constructive. Things I did today it constructor was my, how I treated my wife. A  lot of people in their relationship to their spouse, that they're grumpy, they're  always demanding, or they're ignoring or whatever. And then they wonder why  their marriage isn't great. But all you need to do to stop ago reflect Okay? Being  sarcastic with my wife, happy as a result of that go well, or that not go well, right. And then I learned something from that. Maybe I should stop with the sarcasm  with my wife. 

Henry - Actually, common sense mentality is good. In general, it will affect all  your discernment, right?  

Steve - Common sense in all the areas of your life, your personal life, your  relationships with others, your work, your ministry, all these areas. And again,  it's, it's learning on the job learning as you go to learning quickly. Okay, for  example, like when I first got into ministry, when I planted a church in Vancouver, I started doing outlines. Okay, no, I had to learn from experience like I had fill in  the blanks, right? And remember that in one of my sermons, way too many  blanks. Right, right. But I only realized that because after I did it a couple of  weeks, I'm looking around and I'm reflecting on this. People are is like I'm  burdening them with too many blanks, right? So then I would have to few. And  then I saw that people weren't engaged because there weren't enough, right  over I would say, maybe two, three months. But I had to reflect on it. I finally  figured out the optimal thing. The other thing I learned was, if I have a blank to  fill in, and I have you fill it in, I can't go on for 10 more minutes. Right. So people  think we're close to being done. I have two minutes. You fill in the last now? How did I learn that? I didn't learn that from reading about the learn that from being  aware and reflecting on stuff. So whether it's ministry, whether it's work, or  whether it's relationships around you, whether it's your own walk with God, it just takes a little bit of reflecting. What am I doing? What are the results of what I'm  doing?  

Henry - You know, I think that is a good matrix for so much leadership  development is Lord, I pray, Lord, help me only have to learn something once. 

Again, sometimes, sadly, I have to learn something twice or three times. But get  to that place where you put your ego out of the way. I don't know  

Steve - why do we sometimes not? Why do we resist this? I mean, why do we  have to get beaten on the head and 10 times before it will change?  

Henry - I think pride, I think there's also we don't want to change or we're not  confident to change. 

Steve - Like we'd rather keep doing the thing that doesn't work because we  know it rather than try something new that we don't know. Right?  

Henry - And we're safe and comfortable in what we know. And we will take  limited and because common sense shows us sometimes it's better to be safe.  So So in a sense, to know the difference again, you know,  

Steve - so I keep ordering the same thing from this restaurant because it's good. And I don't want to take any chances on getting it worse, right? Because that  might happen. Right? The problem is, I'm doing something that's not working  well, my marriage isn't working well. But if I change, it could even get worse,  right?  

Henry- Oh, here's an example. Let's say, there is an elephant in the room we  talked about. But if you address the elephant room, you first have to go to the  total chaos to actually hit the elephant address, right? You stay away from the  elephant in the room because you can cope at a lesser coping place. Right?  

Steve - I think that's a good word. But a lot of us spend most of our lives coping  instead of grabbing on to the best it could be. Because the best that could be,  sometimes it's harder to go to some difficulties to get there. So let's just settle for a mediocre marriage, a mediocre family, mediocre job and mediocre ministry,  rather than working towards something more, 

Henry - and we don't judge you were to pick on this, I mean, some of you live in a very abusive relationship. And that's your only option. You have  responsibilities, you have children involved, possibly. I know, in counseling, you  know, a woman will come and she is in a very abusive relationship. There are  children involved. And then anytime she tries to deal with the dolphin, elephants  in the room, it creates pain for her and her kids, and she's praying about it, and  she's hoping that the Lord will deliver her common sense is you know, that's  who I married right now. And I'm trying to figure this out a little bit. So common  sense says, you know, don't poke the bear. Right? You know, we even have 

phrases in writing. Don't poke the bear right or what are the other phrases, it'd  be interesting to think of some common sense my dad, well, Proverbs, sort of  common sense kinds of things. You listen before you speak. Why doing? What  are the two ears and one mouth. common sense type of things. So let's talk  about personally, personally, really common sense is a learned behavior, right? It's not You're not just born with it. Learned behavior. Proverbs 2:10, for wisdom  will enter your house and knowledge into your soul. Wisdom will save you from  the waves of wicked men from men with with words, whose words are perverse.  Right?  

Steve - So wisdom. You know, in some ways, wisdom comes from experience.  But it also spiritually can be revealed to you that sometimes it's not just our own  experience that teaches us wisdom. Right, God revealed something to you. That was sort of in the shadows before, right.  

Henry - So common sense applies to relationships. Who you hang around with  and why. Interesting, I Corinthians 5:9-11 I've written you in my letter not to  associate with sexually immoral people, not at all meaning people in the world  who are immoral or the greedy and swindlers, adulterers. In that case, you  would not, you would have to leave the world. But I am writing to you that you  must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother. That is sexually  immoral, greedy or an adulterer or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With  such a man, do not even eat. Now, what has this to do with common sense?  

Steve - You know, when you're talking about relational and common sense, who  you hang out with, has a lot to do with your spin on the world. Right? If you hang around with people that are always getting into trouble, I suppose who you hang around with either puts blinders on your eyes in terms of common sense, or  

enlightens you and helps you with common sense. So you hang around with  people who have no common sense. Guess what's going to happen to you?  

Henry - You know, and here's an alternative, really, in the whole world of dating.  And, you know, we've been getting into matchmaker ministers, everything and  one of the things the professor on matchmaker matchmaking talks about is the  common sense of selecting partner a partner, or to marry someone who shares  your value values because her observation in this whole process that to not do  that is called an equally yoked. The Bible calls which is common sense, right?  Don't be unequally yoked. 

Steve - I mean, it comes from the oxen pulling the cart, right? And when one is  bigger or pulling stronger than the other, the cart goes crooked, right. So that's  what happens in a relationship too if you're evenly yoked. 

Henry - So people will make major decisions about who they may spend their  life with. On very flimsy and superficial reasons and not taking common sense in there is if that's not a factor, right? So common sense in picking a spouse is  huge not just like a certain romance or her looks and didn't now, again,  somebody may say, Well, I would never do that. Well go at your own peril. No  doubt. Common sense of like at work. This is an interesting passage of Jesus  talking to his disciples. Luke 16:8-9, “The master commended the dishonest  manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more  shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light.I tell you,  use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. So if you have been trustworthy in handling  worldly wealth, wealth, who will trust you, so if you have not been trustworthy  and handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? So, again, 

Steve - a lot of us want God to bless us more than we are now blessed. I want  to make more money, right? I want to make more opportunities. We look around  and we see others who are doing better and we want, we want more. Right. But  this verse suggests, just common sense. If you're not handling what you have  right now, well, right now learning from failure, getting by learning and growing, if you're not a great steward of the money, you now have then why would God  bless you with more money? Now you have a bigger problem than you did  before, right? So common sense says, in on this principle really could be applied to almost that you be faithful with what you have. This applies to ministry too, if  some, some of you probably are a little frustrated with your ministry  opportunities, you're studying and learning, you're growing. And so you want to  be used. And you're like, frustrated that everyone in your church or everyone in  your sphere of influence isn't asking you to preach or lead Bible studies or  whatever, whoever it might be, and, and you're frustrated with it. But why don't  you just be faithful with the little piece that you have? Right, right? You know, we want sometimes I see people wanting to start a ministry and they want to write a book, and they want to start by mentoring, or coaching somebody, or studying  one little Bible study. In other words, start with what is right in front of you that  you don't need permission from someone else. You don't need the whole church on board with whatever it is that you want to do. You're just going to start small,  start small with what's in front of you, you're going to be faithful with what you  have. And then when you prove yourself genuine and trustworthy with that God  will give you more.  

Henry - I often find that the little things make the huge differences. I remember  years ago, 20 years ago, there was a guy in our church who was a very wealthy  contractor. So one time I was in the car with him, we drove by and he showed 

me a little really nice looking little house of one bedrooms so small. He said, Isn't that cute house? He was joking with me? He said, Well, when I was 22, I bought the house for $6,000. And I spent my nights there and the house was really a  teardown and everything, but it's all the money. And I went in there and I fix it  and I worked. It took care of it. And then after it's all done, and I sold it for like  $10,000 or whatever, or I don't know what the number was. made five or $6,000. And then I took that. But it was sort of like when he bought it, it was so little. You  know? He even said when I bought it people laughed at me. And they said  you're gonna buy her little shack or whatever, old old Charles whatever. He is a  little rundown, but he went in there and he said that was common sense to me.  And I learned in that thing, right. And the principal and I learned a little shed of a  house has now translated in helping me do everything I do today.  

Steve - That's why in Timothy. Paul says, if you haven't been faithful with your  own family, that who's gonna trust you with the church. Right? Right. So you  start with what you have, lead your own family. Maybe you want to be a minister, you want to plant a church, or whatever it is, well start with what's in front of you. 

Henry – The last thing is common sense in ministry. It really starts in your own  home, in your own relationship to God, if you're not even walking with God, if  you can't handle that responsibility, then how are you going to handle leading a  church? Right? So if you really reduce this, talk to just a few thoughts, so here's  some of the thoughts notes. One is being teachable quickly. That's one thought.  What else is some thoughts? Be teachable and common sense takes time. So  in other words, Rich Devos used to say, Henry, Steve you know, he said, Well,  you look back where some of your great decisions? You were asking him that  question. wasn't any one decision, it was just making a lot of good decisions.  Learning from the bad. And then learning from the bad decisions, we made  better decisions. And then they all stack up little by little by little, and there's a  passage about getting growth, dishonest growth. Making grow rather than  business gains. You know, a lot of times people want to get rich quick, are they  want to get most things done little When CLI started the first year, it was six  people, and the people in some of my friends who were in some of the schools  said six people and it really like to did anything, right, the next year 20. And then  over time now, the hundreds of 1000s of people enrolled. But everything that to  get here, and even go back, you and I, our relationship and and go back, we we  tried this, we tried this, but we learned now from there is fascinating, how?  Today, some of the things that we did the early days, come back and like you  know, we learned from it. And that relates a lot to what we're doing. So nothing  is wasted, whether it's good or bad. You can learn from either thing. 

Steve - So that's part of why people don't change is they don't want to face the  bad. They don't want to admit that they were going down the wrong trail for 20  years. But why not? After 20 years, you learned a different direction and you go  in it, it's better than going for 25 years. So don't worry about it. We all do the  wrong thing. We all go down the wrong trails. But if we can learn something from it and turn around and make a better decision, I don't regret anything that  happened in my life. Good or bad because God uses all of it. Every single thing  that happensm 

Henry_ And we could say one more thing we could say is the providence of  God, that there is a purpose to it. Through the Holy Spirit, we learn and grow  and we don't know, cast your bread upon the waters Right? Which will come  back. 

Steve - right. God has a plan and so reflect on the things that are happening  and happening in your life. And then go forward. Sounds great. Go for it.