Wisdom From the Spirit
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Paul has been talking about what the gospel is not
It’s not adherence to a particular apostle or evangelist
It’s not words of eloquent wisdom
It is not the big and powerful
It’s not any particular worldview, philosophy, or political ideology
Now we have what the Gospel is.
Meta-point: Division
The World’s Not So Wise
The World’s Not So Wise
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. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
Context: Paul has been calling the gospel “God’s foolishness”
It’s only foolish from man’s perspective
The wisdom in which the Corinthians were trusting was more impressive looking to them
Paul argues that the gospel is indeed wisdom, they just can’t recognize it because they are of the flesh
Nobody can comprehend the gospel without it being revealed by God
Verse 7 | It was hidden
Verse 8 | Nobody understood it, in fact they were hostile to it
Verse 9
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”—
You’re not going to get knowledge of God through any kind of modern spirituality
Vision quest
Meditation and mindfulness
Astrology and the eye of the universe
Psalm 19 - creation says something about the glory of God but he is the only one who reveals his will
The pitfalls of human wisdom
It’s all going to pass away
They’re figuring this out: Blood transfusions and Tim Ferris
They can’t understand it and so are against the wisdom of God
How does dying to self bring life?
How do I find greater joy in service and sacrifice?
So why value the wisdom of the world?
Connect: We need to hear this as the world continues to force their secular beliefs on us
Facebook: This is what a real Christian is - someone who denies that Jesus died for your sins!
Academic world: Your self esteem is more important than God’s holiness - leave behind that redemption language
Every day talk: I just don’t think God would want me to suffer like that at all!
If that’s how we’re thinking than we’re submitting to the rulers of the world and not God and we will perish with it all
So if we can’t find the wisdom of God by our own power we need to learn to recieve it from God.
Wisdom From the Spirit
Wisdom From the Spirit
10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 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. 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.
Who is the ‘we’?
It’s not Paul and the Corinthians
1 Cor 3:1 they are people of the flesh and infants - not the mature
1 Cor 3:9 there is a ‘we’ and a ‘you’
‘We’ is Paul and Apollos, the primary teachers who came and taught the Corinthians
We, here at Old Wire, are not among the apostles
We shouldn’t expect to have the same experiences
We shouldn’t expect to have the same insights
But we are the spiritual people who can discern what Paul is communicating
The only reason we have anything from God is because he gave it to us through the apostles
It was revealed through the Spirit - not discovered or comprehended by deep thinking
Because only the spirit of a person knows that person (I don’t have a clue what people are thinking)
This has been communicated in words by God’s apostles
This passage helps us with two twin problems
We know everything about God!
We know nothing about God!
Only the Spirit knows the deep things of God
God must be telling me XYZ!
I didn’t get into medical school so God must be telling me to be an actor! Or you didn’t study, or maybe others we’re smarter, or maybe a glitch, or maybe the admissions officer had to work through lunch and took it out on you, or maybe, or maybe…
Bread truck with lover’s initials led to another year of being beat by him
Dangerous: The Widening of God’s Mercy
Read Job 38-39. We don’t know anything
But the Spirit fixes that problem
12 | We can understand the thoughts of God
12 | Freely given, he wants us to understand
Illustrate with apophatic theology
“God is so big we could never comprehend him”
Micah6:8 - he has shown us, and best of all through Christ
The ineffable God has been revealed in Christ via the Spirit
Wisdom For You
Wisdom For You
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. 15 The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. 16 “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
We will only ‘get’ the wisdom of God by being spiritual
Paul is not talking in modern categories of being spiritual
Spiritual people are those who belong to the Spirit of God - animated by him
Why the natural/un-spiritual won’t ‘get it’
They think it’s foolish and don’t understand it
They’ll try to tell you it’s foolish (wrong side of history, narrow minded, etc)
They won’t get you - you’re a mystery that can’t be pieced together (1 Peter, Gentiles consider it strange)
And it’s because we have the mind of Christ
Too many of us fall to the pressure of trying to fit in with the world
Progressive Christianity letting the world take the lead
They get tired of being the oddball with the odd beliefs
We throw away the mind of Christ and the Spirit of God for the wisdom that will perish
Application and Conclusion
Application and Conclusion
Here’s your wisdom and the only way you get it
That means unlearning a lot
That means accepting that we don’t know everything
That means accepting the burden of what we do know
