6.3.43 9.19.2021 Wrong Mindset Corinthians 2.1-16

Start

Entice:

"What'cha think."

How many times have you asked someone that question. At times it is just an icebreaker. At other times it is a real search for knowledge. Still other times it is a plea for understanding. I ask it. I'm sure you do too. Sometimes it is the right question. At other times it is precisely the wrong question.

Engage:

"What does God think?"

As Christians one of our primary tasks is to align our minds with Gods. Do you think about this world and your faith the way God

does? Are you investing in learning the Mind of Christ? When you need wisdom do you seek the sages of this age or the Master of all ages?

Expand: That is the issue before us this morning. Having the wrong mindset should be the easiest of errors to avoid. Sadly, it is not. We have the Scriptures. We have the example of Christ. We have the power of the Cross. We have the indwelling Spirit. We have the revealed plan of God, our Gospel. Yet we often look for

other sources of wisdom, information, power, and perspective.

Excite: The unity that Paul speaks of again and again in this Epistle is often undermined by how we think, what we think about, and the source of the information filling our minds. If we want to do God's work we must think like the God who has called. us.

Explore:

As responsible believers we should think as God thinks: we should share His mindset.

Explain: Paul asserts that this requires us to differentiate between how the unredeemed and the redeemed think. Paul affirms that

1 There is no Substitute for God's Power.

1 Corinthians 2:1–5 ESV

And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

1.1 Jesus Christ Crucified.

1.2 Spiritual Speech.

1.3 Foundation for faith.

Next Paul affirms that

2 There is no Substitute for God's Spirit

1 Corinthians 2:6–13 ESV

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.

2.1 God's Spirit discloses God's mystery.

2.2 God's Spirit is disguised from this world.

2.3 God's Spirit defines spiritual truth.

Finally Paul affirms that

3 There is no Substitute for God's Perspective.

1 Corinthians 2:14–16 ESV

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.

3.1 Direction.

3.2 Discernment.

3.3 Discretion.

Shut Down:

God's power in Christ. God's Spirit in us. God's people in the world. God has revealed to us and in us His plan to save His fallen creation. If we are to fulfill our mission we must be unified in that mindset which He revealed.

We must see the wisdom, knowledge, information, data of this age for what it is. At its best it is a groping for God that falls short. At its worst it is a grasping for the authority which belongs only to Him. The cross of Christ is transformative. When we are changed that changes our approach to the world.

The fallen world can be frustrating, but it is not the enemy. It can be disheartening, but it is not our true adversary. It can be antagonizing, but our job is not to "fight back" but to proclaim the saving Gospel.

It begins by affirming what God has done and is doin in us and the presence of His Spirit with in us. Since we have the Mind of Christ let us pursue the mission of Christ.