Untitled Sermon (4)

Introduction

Data suggests that 340 billion words are published in the US per year. In 2022, 200 billion tweets were posted on the platform formerly known as Twitter. There are 1279 newspapers publishing daily. The number goes north of 5000 when you factor in newspapers that don’t publish an edition daily.

We live in a world that is flush with information, ideas, and worldviews. Whether you know it or not, every piece of information and media you ingest is trying to teach you something. It’s trying to persuade you of a certain worldview or outlook on reality. It’s trying to impart wisdom to you.

But this is a not a phenomenon that is specific to our information age. Worldviews and thought systems and ways of wisdom have always been competing with one another for your attention and devotion.

It should come as no surprise then that the apostle Paul found the Corinthian church 2000 years ago on the wrong side of this competition.

The Corinthian church was being taught and persuaded predominantly by human wisdom. So Paul writes to this church to warn them and rebuke them for this error, and remind them that the way of true wisdom is the way of divine wisdom.

This has been Paul’s focus from chapter 1 up until this point, and we find ourselves this morning in the midst of Paul’s summary of what he has taught so far. It’s punchy, it’s concise, and it’s packed with meaning. So let’s take a look at this text.

Human Folly

Paul says in verse 18 that if anyone thinks he is wise in this age, he must become foolish, so that he may become wise.

Paul presents here a fascinating dichotomy. True wisdom consists in what the secular world would call foolish.

If you would acquire true wisdom, you must become foolish. What does Paul mean by this? Simply that in order to attain true wisdom, one must think things and do things that the watching world perceives as foolish.

Let me give you an example. The concept of exceptional American individualism, the Clint Eastwood complex, tells us that we are autonomous, independent beings that master our own fates. Strength of body and mind is a virtue and ought to be pursued at all costs. But what does the Bible say?

5 Trust in Yahweh with all your heart

And do not lean on your own understanding. [1]

A world-wise person trusts their own understanding. A world-foolish person looks outside themselves for their strength and wisdom. This is foolish to the world because this demonstrates weakness. To the world, a weak person is a foolish person.

If a person today has ambitions of wisdom, Paul has a clear piece of counsel: abandon what all the voices out there in the world tell you is wise. True wisdom is counterintuitive. It cuts across the grain of the common intellectual threads of the day. This has been true since the dawn of time. True wisdom has always consisted not so much in the fads of the day but in the timeless wisdom given to us by God Himself.

If you’re here this morning, wondering what it means to walk wisely in this world, Paul has a message for you: stop looking for wisdom in the latest pop psychology self-help books, in the latest TikTok trends, on daytime TV or on the hottest new podcast. I’m going to take this a step further: stop looking for wisdom in the public-school classrooms, in the state university lecture halls, and in our nation’s state capitols. None of those things and none of those places will provide true wisdom. In fact, you must think and do things that the authors and the influencers and the podcast hosts and the teachers and the professors and the senators think are stupid, or even better, think and do what all those people think is wrong.

Christian, if you would be wise this morning, you must cut across the grain of the culture. I’m not telling you this morning that you need to become edgy and punk rock and ride a skateboard. What I am telling you, and what I believe Paul is telling you, is to approach with a critical suspicion the information and the worldview being presented to you by the pagan culture in which we live.

Christians should be the last people to “follow the science.” Christians should be the last people to “listen to the experts.” I am not saying that empirical deductions and scientific evaluations are of no value and should be ignored. God is Lord over the natural realm and therefore all true scientific inquiry can and indeed will always lead us to a truer knowledge of Him and His wisdom. What I am saying is that any action, attitude, or idea that is being peddled and promoted by a Godless culture ought to be scrutinized, criticized, and analyzed by the Christian before accepting it as an accurate representation of the truth.

Mark my words, and many of us in the room have lived this, you will be mocked, and you will be scorned if you do this. But Paul is clear. The path of wisdom for the Christian requires it.

But perhaps you’re here this morning and you’re not a Christian. I urge you to be honest with yourself this morning. Are you really satisfied with the wisdom and philosophy and worldview that our culture has to offer? Has it gotten you everything you want out of life? And most importantly, will it get you over the threshold of death and into eternity? Let me be clear with you this morning: no human wisdom, no human methods, no human course of action will satisfy you in this life or the life to come. It will not save you. It will not deliver you from the universal human fate we all face: death.You can follow the science, and you will still die. You can immerse yourself in the new Stoicism, and you will still die. You can invest all your time, energy, and resources in the campaigns of political candidates, and you will still die, and so will they.

The wisdom of man inevitably leads to death, no matter how clever it may seem, which is why God calls it foolish.

Only God’s wisdom brings life. Blessed are those who keep His ways. Do not neglect this wisdom, for he who finds it, finds life, and obtains favor from God.

Divine Wisdom

In verse 19 Paul brings God and His divine wisdom into the equation.

Paul has already examined this theme of the absolute opposition of God’s wisdom to divine wisdom.

Here in verses 18 and 19, we can see that God calls human wisdom foolish, and humans call God’s wisdom foolish. From both sides of this sophistic battlefield, there is no ground given.

Paul is tying together his opening three chapters by bringing his readers all the way back to where he began in 1:18-25, placing a foolish gospel of a foolish Messiah in direct opposition to the culturally accepted wisdom of the day.

Paul is telling us that human wisdom is foolishness before God in two ways here.

First, it’s foolish because it’s often the opposite of God’s wisdom.

Human wisdom says to do everything in your power to preserve your life. Take more supplements, avoid more danger, do whatever it takes to stop yourself from aging and dying. But divine wisdom says if anyone would gain his life, first he must lose it.[2]

Human wisdom says that human beings are nothing special, and in fact human beings are a blight on the natural world, causing pollution, global warming, and harming nature in general. Divine wisdom says that humans are made in the image of God and are therefore supremely special, the crown jewel of the natural world, created and destined to rule over it.[3]

Human wisdom says my body, my choice. Divine wisdom says you are not your own, but were bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body.[4]

Human wisdom says that the only things that are real in the universe are those that can be observed, measured, and repeated. Divine wisdom says that there is both a visible and an invisible world, and we must be familiar with both.

But there is another way that human wisdom is foolishness before God, and this is what we might call relative foolishness, in other words, human wisdom might be on the right track from time to time, but divine wisdom is so far beyond human wisdom that in comparison, the human wisdom looks like foolishness.

Human wisdom says “Level 5 leaders look out the window to apportion credit outside themselves when things go well (and if they cannot find a specific person or event to give credit to, they credit good luck). At the same time, they look in the mirror to apportion responsibility, never blaming bad luck when things go poorly.”[5]

Divine wisdom says to human wisdom here: good on you! You’re on the right track. Humility and others-centeredness is the way. But luck didn’t get you where you are. Divine wisdom escalates human wisdom and says that yes, we labor, and we work, and we strive, but we do so according to the working of God, who works in us in power.[6]Divine wisdom affirms human wisdom in this case, but also sharpens and clarifies it. We are right to say that our work alone did not get us where we are. But neither did luck. God did that.

Human wisdom says don’t follow your dreams and don’t follow your heart. That’s bad advice. Instead, work really hard to become really good at something, and you will have the “skill leverage” and “career capital” to live the life you’ve always dreamed of.[7]

Divine wisdom says that’s great. Your heart is deceitful above all things.[8]If you follow it, you’ll fall off a cliff. Divine wisdom also says hard work is great, in fact it even says, if you don’t work hard, you shouldn’t get handouts from others.[9]But again, divine wisdom sharpens and clarifies human wisdom that might be on the right track. In this case, human wisdom says that we should work really hard to become really good at something so we can have a good life. Divine wisdom sharpens and clarifies by saying that we should work really hard to become really good at something for the glory of God, rather than for men.[10]

Human wisdom says that to be an eminently qualified human, you must check your ego and operate with a high degree of humility, understanding that you are part of something greater than yourself and your own personal interests.[11]

Divine wisdom says that humility and the interests of others are certainly areas on which we should focus, but again, there is a sharpening and clarifying effect. Human wisdom says that humility serves the purpose of the mission, whatever the mission may be. Divine wisdom says that humility follows the example of Christ, who did not regard His divine nature a thing to be held onto, but emptied Himself, became like a slave, and took on human nature with all its infirmities. But more than that, Jesus humbled Himself all the way to the point of death. And then what happened? God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name above all names, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, and every tongue confess that He is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.[12]Humility for the sake of the mission is great. Humility for the sake of the glory of God makes all other types of humility look foolish by comparison.

Whether by opposition or escalation, it is clear that divine wisdom far outclasses human wisdom in every way.

But I don’t want you to take my word for it, and Paul doesn’t want you to take his word for it either, which is why Paul continues with two Old Testament citations that undergird and prove his point.

First, we see this phrase “He is the one who catches the wise in their craftiness.” This comes from Job 5:13, right in the middle of the first discourse of Eliphaz the Temanite, one of Job’s friends who comes to comfort him in his calamity.

Now there’s some irony to Paul’s citation of Eliphaz here. Eliphaz and Job’s two other friends are classic examples of human wisdom in the Old Testament. They have some good ideas about God and about how He’s dealing with Job and about why God has allowed or caused all this evil to come upon Job. The problem is, they’re always just a little off. They always try a little too hard to empirically explain a God who cannot be fully comprehend or fathomed by human minds.

So, Paul is really doing two things by quoting Eliphaz. First, he’s telling us that God has both a higher quantity and a higher quality of wisdom than men. That’s the basic meaning. But he also gives us an example of that reality by reminding us of Eliphaz, who meant well, but missed the point, simply because he relied too much on his own five senses experience of God and not on how God had revealed Himself. Thirdly, he reminds us that even within human wisdom there is truth to be found. Yes, Eliphaz wasn’t 100% right 100% of the time. But he’s exactly right here, and so Paul sets the example for us in how to think critically about the wisdom we receive, and then categorize it appropriately.

Likewise, Paul’s use of Psalm 94 in the second citation in verse 20 lends further support to this same concept: while human wisdom has some value, in comparison to the infinite mind of God, human wisdom is useless.

To summarize, in comparison to God’s wisdom, human wisdom is foolish. So, we acknowledge human contribution. We acknowledge natural theology. We utilize it in its proper place. But we know that in the ultimate sense, apart from an infusion of divine wisdom, human wisdom will always fail. It will ultimately be rendered useless.

Satanic Deception

As we close now, I want to return to the very first phrase of verse 18. You may recall that I skipped over it at the beginning of my message. That was intentional, because I believe that Paul is trying to tie his argument in these verses to something much bigger than any of us might suspect.

Paul uses the word deceive here. In the Greek, the root word is apate. In Paul’s own Bible, the first place he would have read this word is in Genesis 3:14, where Eve says to God “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

This cross-reference is not lost on Paul. In fact, I would wager it’s intentional. The entire thrust of Paul’s argument, indeed his plea before the Corinthian church, is that they would not fall prey to the original sin of Adam and Eve. That they would not be deceived by the crafty reasonings of some lesser being.

Adam and Eve were deceived because they lost sight of the divine wisdom of God’s own self-revelation. Paul believed that the Corinthians were dangerously close to losing that same sight in their day, and it takes no stretch of the imagination to see that our world has been deceived because we have lost sight of the divine wisdom of God’s self-revelation.

A choice is therefore laid before you this morning. Will you choose the path of folly and deception and human wisdom? Solomon said that this path goes down to death and leads you straight to hell. It looks really good but will leave you disease-ridden and dead along the side of the path.

But there’s another way. Will you choose the path of wisdom this morning? Solomon said this path leads to life, peace, faithfulness and truth. It will lead you to favor with God and with men.

There are two paths, two choices, and the right one is clear. I beg you, I plead with you this morning to leave behind the path of folly and deception and death and take the first step on the path of wisdom and life and joy and peace.

But Solomon tells us more. Not only is wisdom a path to be walked, but it’s also actually a relationship to be entered into. Repeatedly Solomon describes wisdom in terms of a good woman, a wife who is worthy to be married to. Our relationship with divine wisdom ought to be like a marriage relationship – committed and close.

For the one who relates to wisdom this way finds better profit than silver and better produce than gold, an incomparably precious treasure. Wisdom yields length of days, riches, and glory. The path of wisdom is a pleasant and peaceful path.

But for Solomon, wisdom isn’t just a path, and it isn’t just something to be committed to as a marriage. For Solomon, wisdom is also a person, a person who says this:

4 “To you, O men, I call,

And my voice is to the sons of men.

5 “O simple ones, understand prudence;

And, O fools, understand a heart of wisdom.

6 “Listen, for I will speak noble things;

And the opening of my lips will reveal upright things.

7 “For my mouth will utter truth;

And wickedness is an abomination to my lips.

8 “All the words of my mouth are in righteousness;

There is nothing twisted or crooked in them.

9 “They are all straightforward to him who understands,

And right to those who find knowledge.

10 “Take my discipline and not silver,

And knowledge rather than choicest fine gold.

11 “For wisdom is better than pearls;

And all desirable things cannot compare with her.

12 “I, wisdom, dwell with prudence,

And I find knowledge and discretion.

13 “The fear of Yahweh is to hate evil;

Pride and arrogance and the evil way

And the mouth of perverted words, I hate.

14 “Counsel is mine and sound wisdom;

I am understanding, might is mine.

15 “By me kings reign,

And rulers mark out righteousness.

16 “By me princes rule, and nobles,

All who judge rightly.

17 “I love those who love me;

And those who earnestly seek me will find me.

18 “Riches and glory are with me,

Enduring wealth and righteousness.

19 “My fruit is better than fine gold, even pure gold,

And my produce better than choice silver.

20 “I walk in the path of righteousness,

In the midst of the pathways of justice,

21 To give those who love me an inheritance of wealth,

That I may fill their treasuries.

22 “Yahweh possessed me at the beginning of His way,

Before His deeds of old.

23 “From everlasting I was installed,

From the beginning, from the earliest times of the earth.

24 “When there were no depths I was brought forth,

When there were no springs heavy with water.

25 “Before the mountains were settled,

Before the hills I was brought forth;

26 While He had not yet made the earth and the fields outside,

Nor the first dust of the world.

27 “When He established the heavens, I was there,

When He marked out a circle on the face of the deep,

28 When He made firm the skies above,

When the springs of the deep became strong,

29 When He set for the sea its boundary

So that the water would not pass over His command,

When He marked out the foundations of the earth;

30 Then I was beside Him, as a master workman;

And I was a daily delight,

Rejoicing always before Him,

31 Rejoicing in the world, His earth,

My delight is in the sons of men. [13]

For Solomon, wisdom is a person. And the description of what that person was doing during the creation of the world is eerily similar to what the apostle John tells us that someone was doing during creation:

Jn 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2 He was in the beginning with God.

3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.

4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.

5 And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it. [14]

14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. [15]

Friends, Solomon and John both tell us with equal clarity: wisdom is a person. And if you’ve been paying attention in the early chapters of 1 Corinthians, not only is wisdom a person, but wisdom also has a name: Jesus Christ the Wisdom of God, 1 Corinthians 1:24 and 30.

The wisdom of God is superior to the wisdom of men. But God’s wisdom isn’t facts you learn in a book. It’s a person that you receive by faith and enter into a marriage relationship with, for Christ our Wisdom is also Christ our Bridegroom, according to Ephesians 5.

So, there’s just a single question to answer today: which path will you choose? Which person will you choose? Christ our Wisdom beckons you: come, eat of His bread, drink of the wine He has mixed. Forsake your folly and live. Step into the way of wisdom.

Closing Prayer

Father, we ask that you would continually open our eyes to the foolishness of human wisdom. May we not trust in our own understanding or in the understanding of men, but in all our ways may we acknowledge you. Make our paths straight.

Christ, you are our Wisdom. Wed yourself to us as a bridegroom to His bride, and cause us to walk in your ways.

Spirit of Wisdom, help us choose the wisdom of God every day.

We love you and praise you, Father, Son, and Spirit. Amen.

Thank you for joining us for worship today. If you have any spiritual need, I am available at the front to speak with you and pray with you. Elder Ron Christanelli is in the back, and is also available to speak with you and pray with you.

As we depart now, may the words of the apostle be on our minds and hearts:

33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!

34 For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, OR WHO BECAME HIS COUNSELOR?

35 Or WHO HAS FIRST GIVEN TO HIM THAT IT MIGHT BE REPAID TO HIM?

36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen. [16]

[1] Legacy Standard Bible (Three Sixteen Publishing, 2022), Pr 3:5. [2]Matthew 16:25-26 [3]Genesis 1:27-31 [4]1 Corinthians 6:19-20 [5]Jim Collins, Good to Great, pg 35 [6]Colossians 1:29 [7]Cal Newport, So Good They Can’t Ignore You [8]Jeremiah 17:9 [9]1 Thessalonians 3:10 [10]Colossians 3:23 [11]Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, Extreme Ownership [12]Philippians 2:1-11 [13] Legacy Standard Bible (Three Sixteen Publishing, 2022), Pr 8:4–31. [14] Legacy Standard Bible (Three Sixteen Publishing, 2022), Jn 1:1–5. [15] Legacy Standard Bible (Three Sixteen Publishing, 2022), Jn 1:14. [16] Legacy Standard Bible (Three Sixteen Publishing, 2022), Ro 11:33–36.