Which Spirit Do I Trust?
Practical Church (1 Corinthians) • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Transcript
[LAUNCH VIDEO]
Announcements
Good morning. Welcome to Southern Hills Baptist Church. Thank you for joining us today.
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OCC Update
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If you are a guest with us, know that this is our weekly Family Worship service. Our children will remain with us for the entire service. We do have a nursery available for children under 4 just down the hall if you would like to use it.
Please stand as I read our Call to Worship.
Call To Worship
Bless the Lord, O my soul!
O Lord my God, you are very great!
You are clothed with splendor and majesty,
covering yourself with light as with a garment,
stretching out the heavens like a tent.
He lays the beams of his chambers on the waters;
he makes the clouds his chariot;
he rides on the wings of the wind;
he makes his messengers winds,
his ministers a flaming fire.
He set the earth on its foundations,
so that it should never be moved.
Opening Hymn
Scripture & Prayer: Dennis Gallagher, 2 Corinthians 9:6-15
Song #1
Offering & Prayer
Song #2 (Counting My Blessings)
Lord’s Supper
Please be seated.
(beat)
As we approach the holiday season, we are reminded that we, as believers, should always be thankful. We should come to the realization that our blessings that flow from God are too many to count. But it is also important for us to understand what thankfulness is. Thankfulness is not an emotion. Rather, it is a posture of heart. It is a response to God for what He alone has done for us. In that way, thankfulness is worship of the Most High God. And it can not be properly given to Him in our natural state. It is only given rightly as a response to God’s goodness, as it is enabled through His Spirit.
William Law wrote that “It is not he who prays most or fasts most, it is not he who lives most, but it is he who is always thankful to God, who receives everything as an instance of God’s goodness and has a heart always ready to praise God for it.”
We now enter into this time of communion, where we approach the Lord’s table to meet with Him. Some traditions call it the Eucharist, which means “thanksgiving.” We come to respond to God’s grace and love by offering worship in the form of thanksgiving and seeking unity with Christ and with each other. As we do this each week, we are reminded to orient our gaze and our lives on Jesus alone. He is the single point that we seek, and each week He draws us closer together as He brings us closer to Him.
We’re going to continue our reading about Jesus from the book of Mark. Today we will be in chapter 14:
And on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, his disciples said to him, “Where will you have us go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?” And he sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him, and wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says, Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ And he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready; there prepare for us.” And the disciples set out and went to the city and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover.
And when it was evening, he came with the twelve. And as they were reclining at table and eating, Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.” They began to be sorrowful and to say to him one after another, “Is it I?” He said to them, “It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the dish with me. For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.”
At this time, I am going to have our ushers come forward. If you are a follower of Jesus, in that you have accepted Him as Savior, bowed to Him as King, and been baptized in obedience to His commandment, we invite you to participate with us. In just a moment, we will pass the plates. Please take a piece of bread and a cup and hold it until we take together.
Pass
Continuing in Mark 14:
Instruction from Jesus: Read Mark 14:22-25
And as they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”
Prayer of Blessing on bread and cup
Song #3
Pastoral Prayer
World - Chinese pastors and house churches persecuted
Country-
State-
City-
SHBC-
Introduction
We are now well into our series on 1 Corinthians that we have called Practical Church. If you have your bibles with you this morning, I invite you to turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 2. We have a lot of ground to cover this morning and some of it will be pretty deep spiritual truth. So, grab your bulletins or phones and be ready to take some notes today. If you have questions, I would be happy to follow up with you in conversation this week to answer them.
Today, we will be closing 1 Corinthians chapter 2, but I want you to realize that we are still in the opening volley of Paul’s letter. He is slowly building this theology of Christ being the wisdom of God and how it should orient our lives and bring all believers to unity.
So far in the letter, we have seen Paul thank God for this group of believers in Corinth, mention his concern for their holiness and their abuse of spiritual gifts, and call them to lean on the wisdom of God alone. We discovered that this Godly wisdom is found only in Jesus—who is the physical embodiment of that wisdom—and His cross, which seems folly to humans and turns human wisdom on its head.
Last week, Pastor Atreju delved more into this “secret and hidden wisdom of God,” where he helped us understand that true wisdom can only be found in what is communicated about God by His Spirit. That God Himself is the source of wisdom. That scripture reveals the truth that stands behind all that we see in the physical realm.
Today, we are going to dig in to the spiritual truth behind the veil. We will go beyond the physical and deal with the spiritual reality behind all that we can see and taste and touch. There, we will find that there are things to be learned from the spirits of the spiritual realm, but that there is only one Spirit worth seeking after. There are also many pitfalls that come with us trusting in our own spirits, trying to navigate life on our own without any help. So, this morning, we will ask the question, “which spirit do I trust?”
[TITLE SLIDE]
As we start reading what Paul has written, we are going to jump back into last week’s passage and then continue into today’s. So, we’ll be starting in in chapter 2 verse 6, but our emphasis this morning will be on verses 11-16:
[MAIN PASSAGE SLIDE x6]
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 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 truths 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.
Paul explains to the Corinthian believers that they shouldn’t rest in their own wisdom that they have attained from the world and their experience within it. Instead, upon belief in Christ, believers have been indwelt with the Holy Spirit, who then teaches them God’s wisdom by revealing to them the mind of Christ. To disregard Godly wisdom and continue resting in their own strength would have disastrous consequences.
[POINT 1 SLIDE]
The Human Spirit (v 11a)
So, this morning, I want us to explore the truth that the Bible reveals to us about the reality of humanity and the spiritual realm. If you have never contemplated what goes on behind all that we see, you are in for quite an adventure today. For those of you who are thoughtful about it, I hope that you learn a few things that will help you put it into proper perspective. But to begin our journey, we must first understand the human spirit. Look back with me at the first half of verse 11:
[PASSAGE SLIDE]
For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him?
Here, the Greek literally says “What human knows a human but the human spirit inside of him?” In this, Paul does not mean a collective human spirit, like “what a great effort and attitude we have.” He’s not saying, “way to come together in cleaning up after the hurricane. Great human spirit!” Instead, he means to speak of an individual and personal spirit within the human being.
This brings us into what theology calls ontology. Ontology is a branch of philosophy that studies the nature of being, existence, and reality. An ontologist wants to know why we exist and what the nature of that existence is. In other words, what is a human person and why are we here? In this case, Paul is speaking of the human spirit as one part of the whole person. And that leads us to a question. What is it that makes up a human being?
We could spend the rest of the year exploring what philosophy and science have to say on the subject of personhood. Highly intelligent people have come before us and thought more deeply about this subject than we have. Some say that a person doesn’t become a person until they become conscious. Other people, with agendas to push, say that a human being isn’t a person until their heart begins beating, or until they are viable to be sustained outside of the womb.
But we are not making philosophical arguments of societal value. If we are to be people of the Word, we shouldn’t worry about what philosophy and science and death-dealers have to say. Our only focus should be on what God has revealed to us by His Spirit in the pages of scripture.
So, what does the Bible say about what makes up a person?
Some would take a reductionistic approach in saying that the human person is made up of both material and immaterial components: the body being physical, while soul and spirit being something less quantifiable and of a spiritual nature.
That kind of thinking gave rise to a dualism that was found in early Gnostic thinking. The Gnostics were heavily influenced by Hellenistic Greek thought of the separation of body and spirit—that the body was a tainted and temporary vessel, but that the soul lived on away from the body. The Church Fathers fought against this poor thinking, but it has bubbled up in the church many times over the last 2000 years. Some of this thinking has even influenced evangelicalism in the last two centuries, leading to the popular belief of the soul ditching the body to dwell in heaven forever.
But, again, that is us reducing the truth of the human being to its basest components and ignoring much of what scripture says. The truth is more complex than that. We know that we cannot fully understand the nature of our Tri-Un God. Why would we think we can fully understand the ontology of a human being?
So, let us focus on what God has revealed to us and spend no time in speculation. Scripture is clear that the human person is made up of body, spirit, and soul. This is why the church has always emphasized a bodily resurrection. A human spirit without its physical vessel is not a complete human person. Notice what Paul says to the Thessalonians as he closes his first letter:
[SCRIPTURE SLIDE]
Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul notes that it is the spirit and soul and body that make up a complete person. In fact, each and every part is to be sanctified, or made holy, as we wait for Jesus to return. James mentions in chapter 2 of his letter that “the body apart from the spirit is dead.” We can then assume that the opposite is true as well. The spirit apart from the body is dead. Why? It’s because the spirit is the animating breath of God. Without a body to animate, it is without purpose.
Paul will go on in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 to speak of a spiritual body that will replace this physical and corporeal body. That new spiritual body will be a glorified body like the one Jesus had upon His resurrection. It will not be subject to the curse placed upon creation. It will not wear or break down like these frail bodies do.
[PASSAGE SLIDE]
For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him?
Now, we have laid all of this groundwork to properly orient us in the understanding of the human person. The body is the physical vessel. The soul is the essence of the person, the thing that makes the individual unique. And the spirit is the animating breath of God that gives the soul purpose and the body life. It is the spirit of the person that brings the power to breathe and to think.
Each person has an individual spirit, just as God has a spirit. Remember that God has created us in His image, so this should not be surprising to us. Paul seems to have understood this connection of body, soul, and spirit. He says here in verse 11 that the person’s spirit knows their thoughts.
Being that our thoughts are intangible, they can only be understood when we communicate them to another person. As much as my wife would like me to, I cannot read her mind. I cannot fully know what she is thinking or feeling unless she verbalizes it to me. There is a comedian who likens men to golden retrievers, in that husbands mostly want to help their wives, but that we’re not great at picking up on non-verbal cues. Most of you wives know this, and yet you are always holding out hope that we will learn the ability. I hate to break it to you. It’s not going to happen.
(Beat)
Thoughts must be communicated. The human spirit cannot share human thoughts on its own, nor can it search another person’s mind to capture their thoughts. Human telepathy is impossible. There are, however, ways that humans can communicate with spirits in the spiritual realm.
At the risk of taking us down a small rabbit hole, it is important for us to understand how the spiritual realm works. After all, we are already made up of at least 1/3 spirit. I’m going to try and review quickly, but try to keep up with me.
At the beginning of creation, well before God created mankind in His image, He created celestial beings. These celestial beings were made up of both an immaterial body and a spirit. God speaks of this when He addresses Job in chapter 38. He says:
Job 38:4–7 ““Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?”
These celestial sons of God, which we commonly refer to as angels, shouted with joy as God began creating the future home of His human imagers. Just like God gave to humanity, He gave these angels a task to help Him govern creation well. After all, they too had been created in God’s image, as they had been given the ability to reflect Him in their creativity and free will. They each also had a spirit. But being fully immaterial, their place of residence is the spiritual realm that is unseen to the eye of humankind.
But that was not always the case. Prior to the disobedience of man and the fall, God’s human imagers dwelt in Eden, a place where both physical and spiritual beings dwelt together. It was God’s heavenly throne room, a mountain garden full of life, where Adam walked with God and dwelt alongside the spiritual imagers of God. It was one of these spiritual imagers who misused his free will to try and separate the human imagers from God for good.
Jumping forward in the story, Satan and the other disobedient sons of God were cast out of God’s throne room. They were thrown down to physical creation where they dwell unseen by humankind. But, being immaterial, they still try to steer human imagers away from God from the spiritual realm where they live. They do so by influencing the spirits of men. While they cannot enter the minds of men uninvited, they work through intermediaries to trick the unsuspecting human imagers into welcoming them into their lives.
The Bible warns human imagers from engaging in witchcraft and necromancy. Why? Is it because it is a waste of time? No. It’s because it is real. It’s because doing so is dangerous. The spiritual realm is real and there are an abundance of dark powers that want to misdirect humans away from knowing the Most High God. Psychics, witches, and ouija boards are dangerous because they are ways of contacting demonic spirits to acquire forbidden knowledge. And when unsuspecting humans dabble in these things, they are unknowingly welcoming in a harmful spirit.
Our human spirits will communicate and cooperate with evil spirits if we invite them in. Through them, humans may be able to discern things about the spiritual realm that they should not know, but they also may be fed continuous lies by unseen enemies.
If humans want to know the truth about humanity—about the way God designed them to live—, they can’t settle for any spirit that they may encounter. But humans also cannot rely on their own spirit to discern truth. In and of themselves, human spirits have no access to the mind of God. Because of this, unbelievers lack a true understanding of reality—what it is to be truly human. They reject the truth of the cross as foolish because they cannot comprehend it.
So, as hard as we try, whether we meditate 20 hours a day, or take spiritual pilgrimages, or do hallucinogenic drugs to reach the spiritual plane, humans can never reach into the mind of God to know truth. And, even if they wanted to, enemy spirits will never be able to communicate the full truth to us because they do not have access to the mind of God. If we really want to know the meaning of life and what our purpose is, both are bad options. In fact, there is only one Spirit who can help us: the Holy Spirit. If human beings desire to know the truth, they need to get a better spirit.
[POINT 2 SLIDE]
A Better Spirit (vv 11b-13)
It is true that, in the unseen, spirits abound. But only one of those spirits can search and communicate the mind of God. The Almighty Creator God also has a body and a spirit. Let’s continue in our passage from verse 11:
[PASSAGE SLIDE x2]
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 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 truths to those who are spiritual.
Better wisdom is only imparted by a better Spirit. The Holy Spirit has known and seen all things. From the beginning, He was with the Father. In creation, He hovered over the waters and watched as God brought all things into order. It was He, the ruach of God, who began revealing God to men after humankind was exiled from the garden.
We must learn to think well about the Holy Spirit. God the Spirit is not some unseen force that is in all things and through all things. God the Spirit is not a tool to be wielded by both Jedi and Sith, good and evil. The Holy Spirit is God’s personal spirit. He is intimately connected with Father and Son and communicates the things that He knows and sees to the children of God.
Now, that is the sticking point. He only communicates with the loyal sons of God, both angelic and human. Those who have turned away from God in disobedience have no access to His wisdom. And we, particularly as humans, have been eternally separated from God by our sin. We can blame it on Adam and Eve all we want, but it is our own individual sin that keeps us from communing with God’s Holy Spirit.
And yet, God still desires a relationship with us. He has communicated to us in a tangible way through His Spirit by giving us the scriptures. In the Word, the Spirit has spoken through the writing of men, sharing God’s heart and mind. He has revealed to us everything which God wished to communicate. But the natural person, in their sinful state, does not welcome the words of God. They are folly to Him for they portray him as something which he does not wish to be.
But God still desires us to return to Him. So He sends His Spirit to the hearts of His human imagers. There the Holy Spirit beckons the imager to let Him in. You see, God’s grace is such that He will breakdown barriers and move walls to reach us with His call. But for most of us, when we hear the call, we harden our hearts further. We refuse to respond and welcome in this better Spirit.
Why? I guess because we like to think that we have life all figured out. Sometimes we have decided that our own human spirit knows best. And sometimes, we give ourselves over to another spirit. We decide that we can’t do it on our own, so we go searching. Church, if we aren’t there to teach and disciple these human imagers when they go searching, they are likely to find a harmful spirit.
A few years ago, we hired a new outside sales girl in Las Vegas. She had come out to train with me for a day, so I had a captive audience. After finding out about her background and learning about her church hurt as a young woman, I began to spend the day working with the Holy Spirit in speaking to her heart. We had a day of great spiritual conversation. I found out that she had taken off around the world before finding a yogi that introduced her to spiritualism. She now spent her evenings as a yoga instructor teaching all that she had learned.
At the end of the day, when I dropped her off at her hotel, I told her that Yahweh was the Most High God and that He loved her. Now, I want you to pay attention to what she said in response.
I said, “Yahweh is the Most High God and that He loves you.” And she said, “I know, but He doesn’t give me what I want.”
This woman went searching for answers and found a harmful spirit. This false god of hers had tricked her into believing that it cared about her. Church, this is what happens when people go searching and God’s faithful children aren’t ready to speak truth. We often don’t realize it, but every day that we wake up, we are immersed in a spiritual war for the souls of lost men and women.
The Holy Spirit stands and knocks on the hearts of men, but we must continuously speak truth in their ears. Don’t forget what Paul wrote to the church at Rome:
[SCRIPTURE SLIDE x2]
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” (/) But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
It is our job, as the loyal human imagers of God, to preach the gospel. In doing so, we aid the work of the Holy Spirit. He calls these individuals, but Paul says that “faith comes from hearing.”
And so, it is that we finally come to hear the call of the Spirit on our hearts. But we must still respond. We must still welcome the Holy Spirit into our lives. And it is only after we invite Him in that our spirits can begin to cooperate with the Holy Spirit.
[PASSAGE SLIDE]
And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
And it is only when we begin cooperating with the Holy Spirit that we can begin being shaped by the wisdom of God. That is when we begin to understand that the cross isn’t foolishness, but the key to freedom. The freedom to think and feel and love the way that God designed us to live from the beginning of creation. As we continue cooperating with the Spirit, He begins shaping us into the people that we were meant to be. We stop being a shadow of the image of God and begin to start imaging Him well. This is the process that we call sanctification, or being made holy.
As our spirits cooperate with the Holy Spirit, He continues to soften our hearts through both the intake of the Word of God and through the understanding of Godly wisdom. And as our hearts soften, He shapes them to look more like the heart of God. We begin to love in the way that He loves, and desire the things that He desires, and think the way that He thinks.
And when that happens, when we have welcomed His Spirit in and allowed Him to shape us, we begin learning how to discern spiritual truth. You see, we have been fed all sorts of nonsense by the world and our forward-thinking Western society all of our lives. We think that we are intelligent and discerning people. But what we need is a new perspective. What we need is a new way of discerning.
[POINT 3 SLIDE]
A New Discernment (vv 14-16)
Because of our sinfulness and separation from God, we do not know how to rightly interpret and comprehend our reality. The scholar Thomas Schriener says it this way: “human beings lack the innate capacity to appreciate and receive spiritual truths.”
Let me say that again: “human beings lack the innate capacity to appreciate and receive spiritual truths.”
In our natural state, before welcoming and cooperating with the Holy Spirit, not only can we not understand the fullness of spiritual truth—, we can’t understand any of it. Back to Paul, picking up in verse 14:
[PASSAGE SLIDE x2]
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.
Before the Spirit shares God’s wisdom, spiritual truth is folly. So, how is it that some receive the Spirit and some do not? And why is it that people who grow up in church are more likely to become believers?
It is because the regular sin-enslaved human imager needs to constantly be bombarded by two things. First, the Holy Spirit continues to stand and knock, beckoning their heart to open the door and welcome it in. And second, the gospel needs to be proclaimed to them. The more often a person hears the truth of the gospel, the more likely they are to allow their heart to soften and be sensitive to the call of the Spirit.
These lost members of humankind cannot discern things properly because they are relying on the wrong spirit. We, who are spiritually attuned to the Holy Spirit, must help them see the reality of existence from the unseen world.
The world’s judgment of us should not matter to us because, as Paul says, the world can’t judge us. So, who cares what they have to say about us? Who cares what they think? Our only concern should be what our Father says and thinks.
For the lost have a mind of manipulation. The lost have a mind of division. The lost have a mind of selfishness. But we, as the adopted children of God, have the mind of Christ.
[PREVIEW SLIDE]
Application
God desires us to know His wisdom and to mature in it. He wants us to understand why we were created and to step into our calling. He wants us to be conformed to the image of Jesus and to be His holy children. And He accomplishes all of this in us by sending us His Spirit.
Jesus tells His disciples in John 16 that it is better for Him to go away so that He can send the helper. Well, I hope you better understand why that is this morning. Jesus says that it is better that the Holy Spirit dwells within us than it is for Him to walk beside us. Why? Because God doesn’t just want us to look like Him on the outside. He wants us to image Him well from the inside-out.
And He accomplishes that by His Spirit. It is the Spirit that gives us wisdom. It is the Spirit that gives us strength and courage. It is the Spirit that gives us power to overcome temptation and engage in the work of ministry.
Have you welcomed Him in. Is your spirit cooperating with Him? Are you seeking holiness in your life? Do you desire to look and think like Jesus?
Invitation
Or maybe you have sat there with a hard heart and rolled your eyes during the message. Maybe this all sounds like folly to you. If that is you, keep listening. The truth of the gospel will make your heart pound? Why? Is it emotionalism? No. There is no music playing. I am not trying to sway you with some fancy argument. Are you going crazy? No. Maybe you are just finally hearing the Holy Spirit knocking on the door of your heart. Maybe God is softening your heart by the proclamation of the truth.
God loves you so much that He created you for a purpose and was willing to let Jesus pay for your sins so that you might hear and respond to the truth. He designed every part of you and crafted you for His mission. And He wants to share His wisdom with you so that you can live life in its fullness, the way that He designed for you to live.
CLOSE IN PRAYER
CLOSING HYMN
CONGREGATIONAL BLESSING
