God's Better Wisdom

Transcript

Well, this morning we return to 1 Corinthians, our study of 1 Corinthians, and we find ourselves in chapter 2. So if you have your Bibles, I want to invite you to open them to 1 Corinthians chapter 2. And we’re going to be looking at verses 6 through 16. And if you don’t have a Bible with you, there should be a Bible in the seat in front of you. And if you don’t have a Bible at home, you’re more than welcome to take that Bible as a gift from Trinity Church. We would love for you to not only have that gift, but to use that gift. First Corinthians chapter 2, verse 6. Once you open your Bibles there, I’d like to invite you to stand as you’re able for the reading of the word of God. Yet among the mature, we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or

of the rulers of this age who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him. These things God has revealed to us through the spirit. For the spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except for the spirit of that person which is in him? So also, no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, that

we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the spirit, interpreting spiritual truth to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the spirit of God, for they are folly to him. And he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. This is the word of the Lord. Please be seated. There’s this comedy video that was released online some years ago called, This is Why Eating Healthy is Hard. It’s about a time traveling dietician who shows up in the kitchen of a couple having breakfast in 1979, and he comes from the future.

He starts by telling the husband, right as he’s about to bite into his breakfast, not to eat the eggs because they’ll give him high cholesterol. He then feels like his mission is done, and he goes back to the future, only to come back a few seconds later from a more future date, saying that he was wrong about the eggs and actually they’re fine to eat, but avoid the egg yolks and just to eat the egg whites. He then goes back into the future again and comes back from an even more future date, stopping the husband once again as he’s getting ready to take a bite, telling him next not to eat the red meat, only to change his dietary advice once again shortly after that, telling him the meat is fine, just don’t eat the bread. He then offers the reason for that, saying this is not how our Paleolithic ancestors

ate, and then he goes to visit the Paleolithic ancestors, sees that it’s all chaos back there, and he comes back to 1979, and he says, you know what? It doesn’t really matter what you eat, just exercise. And then as a much older dietician, he ends up coming back at the end of the video and turns and says, turns out it’s all genetic. Doesn’t matter whether you exercise or what you eat, I’m sorry I ruined your meal. This is meant to be a joke about the ever-changing diet fads that we constantly encounter, but more so it speaks to how we kind of dogmatically and emphatically emphasize this or that recent discovery, how we find something in science or food and health or the current technological advancement that’s right around the corner or some sociological discovery, and how we emphatically say that now we figured it out.

God’s Better Wisdom

Now humankind is on the road to progress. Now we know that this is how you do this thing or this is how you do that thing. Human wisdom, friends, is an ever-evolving thing. It’s always incomplete, it’s always growing, and sometimes it even contradicts itself. But there is a better and a truer and a more lasting wisdom that we have access to. And as we continue our study of 1 Corinthians, we come again to this topic of wisdom. After looking at wisdom through a somewhat negative lens in the preceding verses, Paul says that there is a genuine wisdom, that there is a good wisdom. But it’s not a wisdom that the world can offer. It’s not a wisdom that we can glean from the world around us or the people around us. Paul in helping the Corinthian church navigate division, in helping them navigate the culture

around them, in helping them navigate the cross of Christ, allegiance to certain leaders in the church, boasting and more, he brings their attention to this weighty topic of God’s wisdom. This thought continues from the preceding five verses where Paul contrasts earthly wisdom with God’s wisdom by saying that what’s most important about his ministry is not what he brought into it by way of knowledge or gifting or presentation, but in his proclamation of the crucified and risen Savior. That’s what matters. And so we continue our study by digging deeper into God’s better wisdom. So let’s dive into this topic by looking at God’s wisdom in verses 6 through 8 first, and then we’ll look at God’s spirit in verses 9 through 13, and then finally we’ll end with God’s mind in verses 14 through 16. First let’s take a look at God’s wisdom. In these first three verses, there’s this sharp contrast seen between man’s wisdom and

God’s wisdom. The Corinthians were in an ongoing struggle to break with the broader culture. They were really tied into it. It was woven into all that they did, into all that they thought. It found its way into the church. It found its way into impacting their broader church culture. And so there’s this ongoing struggle with this intense emphasis on the part of the Corinthians and on the part of the world around them on worldly philosophy. There is this struggle with aligning themselves with the culture’s way of analyzing what is good, what is worthwhile, what’s worth our time, what’s worth pursuing, who’s worth listening to. So Paul challenges that here. He tells them in essence that it’s one or the other. It’s either going to be God’s wisdom or it’s going to be man’s wisdom. But it’s not going to be some weird mishmash of the two.

It can’t be because God’s wisdom is not just like a little bit different. It’s not just like a remix of man’s wisdom. It’s a completely different thing. They’re worlds apart. Man’s wisdom or what Paul calls the wisdom of this age is always going to be man centered. It’s always going to focus on the person. It’s always going to focus on the subjective, the experience. And like we heard from that example of the dietary fads that are constantly changing, man’s wisdom today is not man’s wisdom tomorrow. Diets are one thing, but look through history about advice that has been given dogmatically by scientists and doctors and whoever else. It’s drastically changed sometimes to the point of being the complete opposite. What was accepted as wisdom just 30 or 40 years ago. Man’s wisdom is always about the exaltation of man. It’s about the celebration and worship of and glorying in something created.

The Corinthians valued things other than God. The Corinthians valued eloquence and intelligence and culture and philosophy over against what they should have been valuing. And this contributed pretty seriously to their overall spiritual unhealth. Friends, how do we keep ourselves from leaning on man’s wisdom? How do we watch our own hearts as we navigate the ebbs and flows of culture, the ever changing tides of what happens in the world around us and what’s right today? How do we keep ourselves from putting our trust into that which will ultimately fail us? That which won’t truly satisfy? Do we find ourselves putting too much stock into what a certain politician might say? Or the thinker of today? Or our favorite podcaster? Or our favorite artist? Have we maybe put our trust into the wisdom of this age? Are we hoping that someone or something in this world can offer us something that they

were never actually designed to offer us? With our finite understanding of what’s actually going on, do we think more about and plan more for the next promotion at work? Or the remodel that we’re planning for the home than we think about seeing our unbelieving friends and neighbors coming to faith in Christ? Do we put more stock in things that are fleeting? If we allow for the approval of the world around us to govern our decisions and for it to take prominence in our hearts, the driver of our hearts and the driver of our motives and the driver of our life ultimately might be the wisdom of this age. If the current political climate or the latest news of societal unrest occupies our thoughts more than what God calls us to and more than who He is, then we likely lean too heavily on the wisdom of this age, dear saints.

The Secret Revealed

And we’re likely in the same boat as the Corinthians were when Paul was writing them this letter. And the antidote to the wisdom of this age, the antidote to man’s wisdom is true wisdom, which is God’s wisdom. God’s wisdom is only available to genuine believers. This is what’s meant by a secret and a hidden wisdom of God. It’s for those who are mature. It’s for those who are in Christ. It’s for those for whom it was once hidden, but it is not hidden any longer. This is what Paul is talking about in Ephesians 1, 9 when he says, making known to us the mystery of His will according to His purpose which He set forth in Christ. There was a point for each of us where all of this made no sense. There was a point where for each of us, this notion of a hidden mystery, of a hidden will,

of this hidden wisdom of God was just confusing at best and sort of silly at worst. But God, in His time when He effectually called us to Himself, He opened our eyes to see the beauty of Jesus and to see ourselves as we really are. And so there’s this contrast again, and there’s this tug of war, if you will, between man’s wisdom and God’s wisdom. Those who pine for power, those who pine for position, those who pine for influence or esteem or acceptance, they don’t see God’s wisdom as wisdom. They miss the Messiah that’s right in front of them. They hear the good news, and it doesn’t sound good to them at all. And as Paul says, they ultimately will go and they will crucify the Lord of glory because He doesn’t fit within their agenda and their definition of wisdom. But those who are mature, as we see in verse 6, and as we’ll see later, spiritual, in verse

13, those people gladly receive God’s wisdom. Those people gladly take it in because they see it for what it is, because God has graciously revealed it to them. This may sound like a bit of an exclusive club, like we have kind of the stronghold on wisdom, but it’s important to understand that what mature here means is not that the believer is smarter or better or that they know more than unbelievers or that they have answers to everything. We don’t. But that they’ve been graciously given the gift of faith to see Jesus as He is. These are the people that have been born again and are being led by the Spirit of God. Thinking in terms of how the world operates, we might think of what it takes to receive wisdom as being intellectual or being a certain standard of intelligence. But that’s not the case.

The prerequisite is not intellect. The prerequisite for attaining wisdom and gaining God’s wisdom is not that we are smart enough to get it. The prerequisite is a moral prerequisite. It’s a question of what we love, what we’re longing for. And that’s the beauty of God’s free gift of salvation. Anyone can attain the gift. Anyone. Anyone can have access to this wisdom. Any background, any socioeconomic status, any age, just keep going down that list. Last week, Pastor Tom has focused on this, that it’s any age group. And so, as we’re sitting here listening to this, and if you’ve got kiddos to your left or right, kids, this is available to you. You can be wiser than people much, much older than you. And not because you’re necessarily smarter than them or you have more experience than them, but because God reveals Himself to people by His grace.

Not by how smart they are, or how tall they are, or how old they are, or how much they’ve accomplished in this life, but because He’s gracious and He’s loving. And He gives this gift freely, by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The wisdom that would lead us to see Christ as who He is can only come from God. This isn’t something that we can discover. This isn’t something that we can develop in ourselves. I mean, do you really think that a person can come to this understanding of, oh, I know how I can be saved from my sin? I have to believe in a Jewish man who died 2,000 years ago, and then his couple hundred apostles or disciples said that he was resurrected a few days later. That’s the logical thing, right? It’s His work. It’s His wisdom, given and implemented in His way.

When Jesus asks His disciples in Matthew 16, who do you say that I am? Peter correctly says, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus’ response tells us everything we need to know about how this wisdom is obtained. Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. It comes from above. And where do we get access most directly to God’s wisdom? Most specifically? Right here. Saints, we have God’s wisdom. If you grew up around Christianity, you have it everywhere. You have it in your phone. You have it on your computer. You have a little Bible in your car. You have like 14 Bibles around your house. If you’re like Greg, maybe 400. And we have it constantly around us in every translation. And if you’re bilingual in multiple languages.

And if you studied Greek or Hebrew, then you got the originals. And if you didn’t, just go to BibleHub.com and you can see the Greek translation or the Hebrew translation. It’ll break it all down for you. We have access to it constantly. The wisdom that not only influences things in a positive direction, but the wisdom that changes the world. We have access to it everywhere. God reveals His wisdom to us. He reveals His mind to us in His Word. He allows us to delve into His wisdom by leading us with His Spirit. His Spirit who leads us and who helps us and who reveals His truths to us. God in His wisdom communicated His truth through the writing of the Bible. By inspiring the writers of the Bible with His Spirit. All 66 books of the Old and the New Testament. He then goes on to protect it against all odds.

God’s Spirit

When Christianity was an underdog religion, hated and trying to be squashed, He protects it. He keeps it going. He translates it into multiple languages. And then He gets it to us. And not only does He get it to us, He then fills us with His Spirit and He enables us to not only hear these truths, but to understand them. Friends, how wonderful is that? Have we gotten used to that? That we have the Helper, that we have the Word, that we have Jesus. What grace is this? This brings us to our second point, saints. God’s Spirit. And we see this in verses 9 through 13. I’ll just, I’ll reread these verses real quick. But as it is written, what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him. These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit.

For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the Spirit of that person which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the Spirit of this world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual. Paul has been stressing the fact that it’s not on his own authority that he speaks. And it’s not on his own ability that he relies. Just like in our first point where God’s wisdom was contrasted by man’s wisdom, here God’s Spirit is contrasted by man’s Spirit. It’s not man’s gospel. It’s not Paul’s message, but this good news comes from the Spirit of God.

Because it doesn’t come from man or philosophy or something new or interesting in the culture, and because the source of that message is good and pure, that means it’s trustworthy and it’s reliable. And the source is trustworthy. And those who have this Spirit ultimately will be drawn to it. They’ll recognize it. They’ll see it for what it is. They’ll hear it, and their hearts will leap for joy because of what they’re hearing and what they’re coming across. And what Paul is saying, in essence, is that the Spirit in you will recognize the Spirit inspiring these words and bringing them alive on the pages of Scripture. He’s saying, like will know like, or real recognize real. Pastor Thomas has been having an influence on me. Practically, this will mean that the Spirit of God living in the Christian will guide that person to recognize the truth that God wants them to.

He will bring it alive before you. You’ll be reading the same passage of Scripture that you’ve read hundreds of times, and all of a sudden, it’s like it’s brand new. You’ve never seen it before, and you’re just like, whoa, I can’t believe I’ve never seen this before. I’ve taught Bible studies on this book. Because the Spirit acts not only in his own time, but in his own way specific to you. Because he loves you, and he’s there to help you, because you are his child if you are born again. God will illuminate and draw us and open things up for us through the preaching of his word, through his gospel at work, and through his people also filled by his Spirit ministering to us. The Spirit of God acts in many different ways, unique to the ways that he needs you to become more like Jesus, so that he can use you for his glory and for his purposes.

Just remember John 14, 26, but the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Those are the words of Jesus to his disciples. And do you remember what else he said? It’s better for you that I leave. Now I don’t know about you, but if Jesus was standing right here, I think that’s like the ideal situation. That’s the ideal way to navigate life. Like Jesus and me just kind of trekking, going through life together. But he’s saying it’s better for you that I leave and that the Spirit comes and fills you and illuminates the word to you and guides you in the way that you are to go and guides you in the exact person, towards the exact person that he needs you to go towards so

that you can be that person that God has ordained to speak truth into their life. It’s better. The Spirit of God is the bridge between the mind of God in all of its beauty, in all of its magnitude, and human beings. Friends, do you ask the Spirit of God to reveal his truth to you? To illumine the truths of his word? As you sit with your Bible, as you sit reading the word of God, as you sit under the preaching of the word of God, do you cry out, Spirit, please help? Please open things up for me. Please help me to get rid of the things that are standing in the way of me growing in Christ-likeness. Please help me to get rid of the things that cause me to cling to this culture. Please help me to get rid of the distractions in my life that pull me away from you and

towards lesser wisdoms. Is part of your prayer life crying out to the third person of the Trinity, asking for him to lead you and to help you? Or are you still not utilizing this wonderful help that God has graciously provided for his children? If we don’t, then like the Corinthians, we may be in danger of relying on lesser wisdom and the ever-shifting spirit of this age, or worse yet, we’re in danger of falling into sin and then maybe even deceiving ourselves into not needing to repent of that sin. We need the Spirit, saints. We need for him to act in us. We need for him to fill us. We need for him to guide us. We need for him to open his word. Without it, we’re in danger. As we consider what it means to be led by the Spirit, to be informed by and filled by

him, don’t miss this citation that Paul makes in verse 9, what no eye has seen nor ear heard nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him. This verse references both Isaiah 64.4 and Isaiah 65.17, and it promises a future glory, new heavens and a new earth. Does the Spirit in you, dear saint, make you long for and yearn for glory for a time of no pain or no sin or no loss? Now there’s definitely a present reality here in these verses. There’s definitely something that points to the here and now being opened up to us. But this also should speak to the people of God about the future for us, this glory that’s promised to us. It should keep us in the suspense of wanting to be useful for the glory of God and for the good of people around us here, but also constantly looking forward, constantly longing

for that time when we won’t be tempted by sin, when we won’t be losing friends and loved ones, when we won’t be feeling pain and suffering. This is a constant struggle for the believers that we want to live our lives maximally for the glory of God here, but at the same time, we’re always looking forward. Now friend, if I were to ask you, how would you describe a spiritual or a Spirit-filled person, I think we’d hear several different answers. Is this a person who talks about spiritual things? Is this a person who maybe experiences supernatural things on a regular basis? Our text seems to be telling us that a spiritual person is somebody who accepts the message of the cross and is filled with the Holy Spirit and led by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of Christ gives the Christian the mind of Christ to believe in the death, burial,

and resurrection of Christ. That’s a Spirit-filled person. How that fleshes out, it ranges from person to person because we’re all gifted differently, we’re all wired differently, God gives us each different opportunities, He opens different doors for each of us in our daily lives. But the essence of what a spiritual person is this, it’s a person who has completely and totally given themselves over to the work of Christ, led by His Spirit. The Spirit who was there from the beginning, who knows the very mind of God in the same way a person knows their own mind, which is what Paul is talking about in verse 11, is the same one that God has graciously given to us, to dwell permanently in us. And this then changes how we think, this then changes how we live, this changes how we worship, or at least it should, right?

And then in verse 13, Paul returns to this topic of the insufficiency and the inadequacy of human wisdom in doing what God calls us to, to achieve what God is actually after. It’s not possible apart from God acting, it’s not possible on our own, it’s not possible for me to kind of MacGyver the situation to make it work. Getting the gospel to people is not about methodology. Seeing people get saved is not about saying the exact right thing at the exact right time. If it was, that’s the approach we’d be given in Scripture, we’d be given a playbook for just do steps one through ten and then boom, person gets saved. We should definitely be trying to remove unnecessary obstacles from people being able to hear the truth of God and from people being able to see his people loving and serving them, but the gospel message can’t change.

God’s Mind

It’s inherently weighty. It makes people uncomfortable. Why? Because unregenerate people don’t see him as they ought to. The unregenerate mind can’t comprehend a savior that would die for them, but the people that God is calling to himself will hear these words. They’ll hear them as they’re meant to be heard, the words of eternal life. That then brings us to the final section, verses 14 through 16, where we’ll look at God’s mind. Let’s look at these verses one more time. These are interesting verses. The natural person does not accept the things of the spirit of God for they are folly to him and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things but is himself to be judged by no one for who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ.

These final three verses are a continuation of the thoughts that Paul presents in the preceding five verses, our previous point, speaking of the spirit of God. What being filled with God’s spirit and informed by God’s spirit do for the man or woman of God is that it gives us more and more as we grow closer to him, the mind of Christ. As we are filled with the spirit and guided by the spirit and informed by the word and surrounded by people who are also growing and serving us and being served by us, we are growing more and more into his likeness. As the mind of Christ consumes us and takes over, we do away with the wisdom of this age and the spirit of this world. The natural person of whom Paul speaks is someone who doesn’t have the Holy Spirit. This is what we see in Jude verse 19 where Jude, speaking of people who cause division,

says that they are devoid of the spirit. These are people who are not born again. These are people who have not yet been enlightened to the goodness of God in Jesus Christ. Once again in these verses we see a contrast. This time it’s between the natural person and the spiritual person. The spiritual person, as we just looked at, only comes to be that by God’s grace and by his doing because, really, are we able to learn anything about God or reality according to him apart from him himself revealing it to us, apart from him shaping our minds? And since we’re not able to do that, then again we just come to see that we become these spiritual people by the work of the spirit in us, not by anything inherent in the natural person. The natural person or the unregenerate person is unable to understand the things of God.

They don’t yet have eyes to see or ears to hear. And this can only change when God intercedes and changes the person himself. Then the deaf hear, the blind see. And beloved Christian, if you are a Christian, you know this to be true for you. That which just sounded like gibberish at one point, that which looked like just kind of a blurry image in front of you, all of a sudden comes into sharp focus and sounds like a beautiful song to you. What are these things of the spirit that the natural person does not accept? Not only do they not accept them, but Paul says these things are actually foolish to them. They’re a folly to them. What are these things? Well, let’s go back to chapter one and we’ll look at verses 18 and then verses 23 through 24. And we’ll actually, Paul himself will explain what these things are.

Verse 18, for the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. And then verses 23 and 24, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. These things that the natural person can’t accept as the gospel, it’s the word of the cross. Friends, the message is not that just that Jesus died for our sins, but the word of the cross itself functions as an indictment of human pride and human self-sufficiency because we can’t fix ourselves. Consider verse 29 of chapter one, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. That’s why if there was a way for us to reach God, we would be trying to do that and we

would be boasting in it. We wouldn’t be boasting in Jesus. We wouldn’t be relying on God. The natural person hears the good news. They hear the good news of how a sinner might be reconciled to God and they hear the call to repent. They hear the call to run from their sin and to run to Jesus and they hear of his substitutionary work on the cross and they say, foolishness. It’s silly. I can’t believe something so absurd. That’s insane. Why would that be the way to God? Why would that make sense? When Paul says at the end of verse 14 that these things are spiritually discerned, the Greek word here is actually the same word that’s translated as judge in the following verse. It’d be better understood as to judge or to assess something. So these things are spiritually judged. These things are spiritually assessed.

The natural person can understand these arguments. They can understand the arguments for Christ being God. They can understand the arguments for the Bible being inerrant. They hear the apologetic arguments and they might even say, okay, well there’s a little bit of weight to that, but they assess those arguments or they judge that claim with minds and hearts that are darkened by sin. Their assessment is defective. You see friends, just like we’ve talked about, the problem isn’t an intellectual one. The problem isn’t that they just don’t get it. Like I got it. He doesn’t get it. What’s his problem? It’s simple enough. Jesus died for my sins. It’s not an intellectual problem. It’s a spiritual problem. Every one of us in our natural state hates the word of the cross. We hated the word of the cross because it’s an indictment of me. I have to die.

I have to be done away with. I’m so bad that Jesus had to die for me. The only way for me to be reconciled to God is for a sinless and perfect man to be brutally murdered for me. That’s the only way. There’s this strange argument that’s often made about like, God loves you so much and you’re so great that even Jesus would die for you. That’s an absurd argument. You’re so sinful and I’m so sinful that the only way for me to be reconciled to God is for Jesus to die. That’s absurd to the natural person. That makes no sense until you understand just how sinful you are. And just how holy God is. And just how beautiful love is. And just how beautiful mercy and grace are. And then you just buckle under the weight of your own sin and you cry out, Lord have

mercy on me a sinner. It doesn’t make sense otherwise. The call of the gospel is incredibly offensive. And the trade-off isn’t worth it unless you really get it. Unless God shows it to you. There are things that we, when we’re unbelievers, clung to or we boasted in, but God dismisses each of these things. Just look at verses 27 through 31 of the previous chapter.

But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world. Even things that are not to bring to nothing things that are. So that no human might boast in the presence of God. And because of Him, you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption. So that as it is written, let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord

— 1 Corinthians 1

(ESV)

.

God just takes everything that we cling to. I know what’s going on, wisdom. I can figure it out myself. I can navigate life. I’m a self-made man. I pulled myself up by my bootstraps, strength. And eventually just everything buckles. Everything crumbles. The only possible boast that’s acceptable in the eyes of God is in the Lord. The only hope for any of us is that God would step in and save us Himself to open our darkened eyes, to kickstart our dead hearts so that we can see the beauty and the worth of Jesus. It doesn’t come from us. This is why Paul is imploring the Corinthians, please, for the love of God, don’t value human wisdom or speech or gifting. It doesn’t matter. I can fumble through this whole sermon. I can make very little sense. But if what makes sense is that Jesus is a great Savior and all of your trust should

be in Him, that’s a good message. That’s what Paul is trying to say to these people that are like, hmm, he did stumble a couple of times during his sermon. Paul is saying that’s absurd. Of course I stumble. I’m human. I lack eloquence. I lack wisdom. I lack insight. I’m limited. I’m finite. But he’s not. And so insofar as the message points to him, that’s what we cling to. That’s what we boast in. All Paul can offer the Corinthians and all I can offer you and all you can offer to your unbelieving friend or neighbor or coworker or relative is Christ crucified. That’s it. That’s it. This is foolishness to those who would want to wrap their minds around God. And it’s a stumbling block to those who would want to earn their way to Him. In that is God’s wisdom. It makes no sense to our minds and so we see it’s not from our minds.

Salvation comes not from people and what they can think up, but from a loving and a gracious and a kind God who calls us, who secures our faith and who keeps us until the final day. It’s His work, not ours. Verse 15 is an interesting point in this aspect of looking at the mind of God and the Spirit of God. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. Now if we were to look at this word judge in the same way as we did before, then we can say that the spiritual person, upon being saved and changed, is now in a position to rightly assess things. Then in the latter half of the verse, we take that word judge in the same way again and it would likely mean that to an unspiritual or the natural person, they cannot rightly

assess or appraise the spiritual person. They can’t really see why I love Jesus so much, why this all makes sense to me. They look at me and they say, this dude’s weird. This makes no sense. And so you just keep loving them and you keep sharing Jesus and you keep caring for them and then hopefully God opens the door and then they’re like, why are you so weird? And then, like 1 Peter 3

tells us, then we’re ready to offer a defense for the hope that is in us. I’ll tell you why I’m weird, gladly. We see this further fleshed out in verse 16 when Paul quotes from Isaiah 40 verse 13 where he basically says that the natural person cannot rightly assess the mind of God. They reject it. The believer, however, has the mind of Christ. Reading on this text in his commentary on 1 Corinthians, Paul Gardner notes that in

the Old Testament, the only possible answer to the question, who has understood the mind of Christ is God alone. The Holy Spirit knows the mind of God. Well, guess what, saints, it’s the same spirit that God graciously gave you and me. Therefore, those who have the spirit can know all that the spirit reveals. He gave us his spirit and he gave us the mind of Christ because he wants to bring us into his plan. He wants to bring us into what he’s doing. He wants for us to understand his beautiful gospel. He wants for us to go and cry it from the rooftops and to tell our friends and our neighbors that Jesus is worth our whole lives. It’s only in the mind of God within a wisdom that’s far beyond what any person can think up that the gospel truth came to be. It’s here that sinful men are reconciled to their God.

Living the Truth

It’s here that they’re made right in his eyes, made holy, able to do good works for the good of others and for his glory. That is God’s better wisdom. Amen? Isn’t this good news? Isn’t this great news? This is phenomenal news to those who belong to him, who have his mind since before the ages. Like we saw in verse 7, this is phenomenal news. The man or woman of God has Christ. We understand God’s plan for salvation and then we get to experience that salvation in every way, including the way that we get to minister to one another, the way that we get to love the people outside of this church, the way that we get to be light in darkness, the way that we get to reach people and have relationships and show Jesus to them. You know, it’s easy as Christians who are regularly taught sound doctrine, and we are

in this church, we regularly hear the preaching of the word. It’s easy for us to, you know, those who read good books or listen to podcasts or sermons during the week, to just say, God, I thank you that I’m not like them. Just like the Pharisee said in Luke 18. It’s easy for us to hear these things and just to hear about the natural person and just to say, thank you, Lord, and then just kind of brush right past it. Yes and amen. Praise God for his grace. And then we just kind of move on with life and we continue to look down on people who haven’t yet had their eyes opened. What do we do with this truth, saints? How does this actually change us? How does this actually change the way we live? How does this affect the kind of husbands or wives we are, the kind of friends we are,

the kind of parents or children we are, the kind of coworkers, how we treat our mechanics how we treat our baristas, how we spend our money, what we choose to watch? Friends, if we hear this truth and we just hear it as a good message and a good reminder and we just kind of move on and tomorrow when I go to work, I remain unchanged or this afternoon, the way that I interact with my friends or my spouse or my children. If it doesn’t change me, then this is actually a dangerous thing that can harden your heart. This can be a thing that can continue to build up knowledge and to continue to build up these ivory towers in your mind where you’re like, well, I can discern wisdom. And we need to watch our hearts. Everything that we hear, we need to humbly bring before the Lord in prayer and we need

to plead with that spirit who has revealed these things to us right now to work it in our hearts, to draw out worship, to draw out praise, to draw out a deeper relationship and a deeper connection to our God, to make me a more loving person, to make me a kinder person, to make me the kind of person that it’s evident that something is very different about me and it’s not just that I’m religious. Something is very different about me. And so as we hear these things, saints, I plead with you, pray to the spirit, ask for him to massage these things into your heart, to land them where they need to land so that you can actually become the person that God is calling you to be in Christ. Even knowing what we know, even growing in our understanding of these beautiful truths, we can still continue to stumble, beloved.

We desperately and regularly need God’s help. And so as we wrap up, I just, may God protect us and may God protect us from glorying in or clinging to anything other than the cross of Christ. May we continually be ready to give up what we consider wisdom. The things that are coming from outside of the word of God, that are coming from outside of the revelation of the spirit, may we be ready and free to give those things up, lay them at the foot of the cross and plead with the Holy Spirit to fill us with his wisdom, to give up the things that we value or exalt above him and instead to make us a spirit filled people, exercising the gifts that he has graciously gifted us, blessing one another, growing in Christ’s likeness for his glory, amen? Amen. Would you bow your heads with me, saints, and join me in prayer?

Holy Spirit, we thank you for being our helper. We thank you for the way that you lead and you love and you guide and you reveal truth to us. And we plead with you to act in Trinity Church this morning in a way that we’ve perhaps never experienced before. Stir us up to love and good deeds. Stir us up to greater worship. Stir us up to value Jesus and his gospel perhaps much more than we ever have before. Lord, you are worthy of our praise. Lord, you are worthy of our lives being given over to you for your purposes. And so we ask that you would work in us, that you would use us, and that Jesus would be known among us. We ask this in his wonderful name and for his glory, amen.