It Is Time to Grow-Up

Last Week Recap (7 things) 1 Cor 1:10- 2:5.

Christ is not divided

and hero worship only serves to divide the church. It is ok to have your favorite teachers because they help you understand the gospel in a unique way but remember that none of them died for you and you were not baptized in the name of no one else but Christ.

The Gospel Needs no gimmicks

Paul stresses that his purpose is to preach the gospel and he did not do that through eloquence or gimmicks or even wisdom as the Greeks would define it. To do so would be to remove the offensiveness of the Cross. The Cross is supposed to be offensive.

The Cross is the wisdom and the power of God

to those who are saved but foolishness to those who are perishing.

God exalted foolishness

He took the foolish things and turned them into wisdom. And the wise things he did turned them into foolishness.

God called you

When you were called you were not all of that by human standards, yet God chose you. Not by any personal worth of yours so that you may not boast. All your boasting must be in the Lord

Paul did not use wise and persuasive arguments.

He came with the Spirit’s power so that faith would be grounded in God and not in human wisdom.

The unity of Riverside is not found in Riverside but in the Cross

My Assignment is to take us through the passages of 1 Corinthians 2:6-16.

1 Corinthians 2:6–7 (ESV)

6 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. 7 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory.

So, Paul, in a roundabout way just finished calling these people childish. He was not as direct as he was with the Galatians (3:1).

The “we” refers to the apostles…

Although he did not come with wisdom as the world defines It, he did come with wisdom but this wisdom can only be accepted by those who are mature.

The writer of Hebrews is engaged in really deep theological themes as he is explaining how Jesus’ priesthood is after the order of Melchizedek and there is so much more that he wants to show on this matter:

Hebrews 5:11–14 (ESV)

11 About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, 13 for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. 14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

You cannot get saved today and next year you just got saved and five years from then you still just got saved.

You have to continue to study and pray, and practice righteousness by remaining in Christ, working out your salvation through the practices of the “one another’s.”

Be at peace with one another (Mk 9:50)

Don’t grumble with one another (Jn 6:43)

Be of the same mind with one another (Ro 12:6, 15:5)

Accept one another (Ro 15:7)

Be devoted to one another (Ro 12:10)

Greet one another with a kiss (1 Pe 5:14)

Be patient with one another (Eph 4:2)

Be kind and tender with one another (Eph 4:32)

Forgive one another (Co 3:13)

Confess your sins to one another (Ja 5:16)

Love one another (Jn 13:34, 15:12, 17; Ro 13:8; 1Th 3:12, 4:9; 1 Pt 1:22.

Falling too short on the “one another’s” tend to be a good indication that you are not growing in your faith, and you must grow, the church must grow continually. How long?

Ephesians 4:13 (ESV)

13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,

There is a wisdom from God that requires Spiritual maturity in order to understand it and receive it…

1 Corinthians 2:8 (ESV)

8 None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

Neither Jew nor Gentile had the concept of the wisdom of God in the things He was doing, mainly the cross. Because of the their unregenerate hearts they all participated in the conspiracy

1 Corinthians 2:9–10 (ESV)

9 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”—

10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.

The plan of salvation has been revealed to whom? To the apostles, preachers or even prophets.

1 Corinthians 2:11 (ESV)

11 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.

If no one can know the thoughts of another person, how much more the thoughts of God.

Only the Spirit of God knows the thoughts of God, the plans of God.

1 Corinthians 2:12–13 (ESV)

12 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. 13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

It is a waste of time to talk about spiritual things to unspiritual people. Paul is writing to the Corinthians in hopes of imparting some spiritual truths but what he is finding is children. (Jassy story).

So he now has to take take to take them into a spiritual plane so he can uncover for them the mysteries of God… You see…

1 Corinthians 2:14 (ESV)

14 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.

By their quarreling about dumb issues they were showing themselves not to be spiritual therefore incapable of receiving and discerning spiritual instructions.

1 Corinthians 2:15 (ESV)

15 The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.

On the other hand, a person possessing the Spirit and guided by Him is able to evaluate and apply all the things that the Spirit reveals.

And the spiritual man or woman can only be judged by God, they cannot be judged by unregenerate people or even worldly Christians (oxymoron)... why?

1 Corinthians 2:16 (ESV)

16 “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

We who are believers, mature, who are growing in grace. We have the mind of Christ.

Luke 24:45 (ESV)

45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures,