God’s Wisdom is Greater than Man’s

Last week we looked at some aspects of our job description as believers.

Today we are back to looking at a premise Paul started Corinthians with - God’s wisdom verses mans.

1 Corinthians 3:16–23 CSB

16 Don’t you yourselves know that you are God’s temple and that the Spirit of God lives in you? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is holy, and that is what you are. 18 Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks he is wise in this age, let him become a fool so that he can become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, since it is written, He catches the wise in their craftiness; 20 and again, The Lord knows that the reasonings of the wise are futile. 21 So let no one boast in human leaders, for everything is yours—22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come—everything is yours, 23 and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

Verses 16 and 17 may seem a little out place but they are there to explain the seriousness of Paul’s message to the church.

Remember, the overall message of First Corinthians is UNITY.

Disunity is a direct assault on the holy place of God.

As believers, we are the dwelling place of God. We are the temple.

Not only are we the dwelling place of God but when Paul says “and that is what you are.” he is saying that the Christian community, corporately is the dwelling place of God as well.

If we behave in a manner that does damage to the church Paul is clear we are hurting the dwelling place of God.

Paul is also very clear that if you hurt the church, God will hold you accountable (Pauls says God will destroy them).

Protecting the temple requires participation, serving, giving, caring and humility.

Think about it. If you have a house and do not take the time to make necessary repairs, clean it up once in a while, pay the bills, etc… what them becomes of the house.

The same is true for our spiritual house - if we do not take care of it then it falls into disrepair. A broken down house is hard to live in.

The other part of this is that not only does our neglecting our own spiritual house hurt us but it brings down the neighborhood.

Taking care of your spiritual house helps the church stay healthy and we know how God feels about keeping the temple healthy.

You’re fooling yourself if you think you’re so smart you don’t need the church.

We have not arrived, we do not know it all.

We definitely cannot use the what the world thinks is wise to pattern our Christian life after.

Worldly wisdom is a trap.

I am not saying we shouldn’t be intelligent and educated. God gave us the ability to learn and discover things. Of course, the point was to direct us to Him but in this fallen world we twist it.

Think about things like evolution, how psychologists tell us to raise our children, and so many other things - this so called wisdom leads us away from the truth of God.

Our perspective needs to be Christ- centered.

Don’t brag on human leaders.

Don’t brag on yourself.

Everything we have, everything we are is from God… now that’s wisdom.