Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction: Although the comparisons will be made for many years into the future, Ice Storm 1994 still seemed to be a greater event than the recent ice storm we had this past year.

I know the data states that more people lost power this year than in 1994, but 94’s storm seemed more chaotic on this city.

I lived in the country back then so we went almost two weeks without power.

But one particular memory that I always return back to is working at Kroger during the aftermath.

You can imagine trying to keep a grocery story open during an ice storm was madness.

They had cold food crammed into freezers and fridges running on generators.

Because keeping the food cold was the greater priority, customers had to navigate the store with flashlights.

My job at that time was to go around and help customers see with a store issued flashlight.

It was pure madness trying to shop in the dark.

Of course the evil of this world took full advantage of the disaster outside and they used the natural disaster to steal for themselves.

I remember one day, in the pitch black, that we suspected a certain woman of stealing.

We followed her and watched as she made her way around the store without using a flashlight.

The darkness was her cover.

Finally, casting light on her in the meat department, we exposed her shoving chunks of meat into her pants and shirt.

Once the light exposed her criminal activity, she took off running, meat and all until she was apprehended by some agile Kroger employees.

This story reminds me of the way in which the Holy Spirit inspired the authors of God word to draw attention to the aspect of the light of the God’s word and the darkness of sin.

Solomon writes

Colossians 1:13 (ESV)

13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son,

These verses along with countless more relate the idea that a relationship with God is represented by the light and darkness is the state of sin in which we all live and dwell outside of a relationship with God.

We can say that Paul’s message thus far to the Corinthian church has been a stark contrast of the relationship with God.

The contrast is that we are rather fools with the world or we are wise in Christ.

There is no middle ground in these ideas.

Today, Paul uses a similar contrast of the contrasting realities of a person’s relationship with God.

There exists in the world a contrast of those who have received the message of Christ that has been delivered to them or they have rejected it.

Outside of children yet to understand the gospel concepts and unreached peoples who have yet to hear of Christ, we can say that in the percentage of the global community of people who have heard of Jesus, there are clearly recipients and rejectors of Christ.

Paul then makes it clear that those recipients of Christ have received the light of the truth of God’s word while those reject Christ are still living in darkness.

Paul will begin the path of making that illustration of light and darkness by referring to the hidden mystery of the gospel message in comparison to that which has been revealed to those who love Christ.

In other words, if you are in the light, it is because God has revealed his truth to you and you believed.

If you are reject Christ, the truth of God is still a mystery hidden from your eyes.

Paul’s focus of this passage is to help us see how and why a believer in Jesus Christ has received the gospel message by God’s Spirit so that we clearly see and understand the wisdom given to us!

1. Spiritual Realities about God’s Wisdom (vs.

6-10)

A. Reception of God’s Wisdom

Mature Recipients

Paul begins by carrying over from his defense of his preaching to state that his preaching is imparting wisdom to the mature.

What does he mean by mature?

Is he referring to those mature in the church and if so, is he making classifications of maturity among believers?

Paul’s use of “mature” is a shot at the Corinthian elites would have used that term mature to label themselves.

They considered themselves mature because of the wisdom that they possessed.

But this maturity was self appointed because their wisdom was man made and therefore they didnt receive it from a higher authority.

Calling themselves mature based on their own human wisdom is like giving yourself a promotion at work that hasn't been approved by any higher authority over you.

Its simply madness.

Paul’s redefines the term to state that the mature are given wisdom from God and they receive it.

He qualifies the wisdom as distinct from the wisdom of this age or the wisdom that belongs to its rulers.

Therefore as a believer in Jesus who is called mature, we should not consider ourselves better than anyone else.

Instead, we are humbled that somehow in God’s great love and grace, he allowed us to have the light instead of living in the darkness of human sin.

Being mature in God’s wisdom is a gift that he imparts alone to His elect when he saves us.

A Mystery Revealed

Paul calls this wisdom from God a mystery and a secret because it baffles the minds of the lost.

As we have considered Paul’s argument, the good news of Jesus Christ is a bizarre message to the lost.

They cannot see its value nor are they drawn to it.

They cannot appreciate the thread of redemption that is woven throughout the entire story of Genesis to Revelation.

They cannot see Jesus promised in Gen 3:15 when God curses Adam and Eve for their sin.

They cannot see Noah, Abraham, Moses, David as shadows of the true Messiah, Jesus Christ who has come to this earth.

They cannot see the promises of salvation to God’s chosen people as a reoccurring promise of the Scriptures.

They cannot see the Promised Land is a more than just a geographical plot for a certain nationality, it is a eternal home for all who believe.

Instead they see a divided and disjointed collection of fables and letters that have no unity in themselves.

These in darkness look for holes in the story of the Bible, being critical of its historicity and its REVELATION of God himself.

One of the most vocal critics in the last 50 years is Richard Dawkins, celebrity atheists who stated in his book God Delusion,

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal bully.”

Therefore the invaluable price of forgiveness, grace, and a relationship with our Creator through the Lord Jesus is a puzzle that unbelievers will not solve.

But thanks be to God that you and I can see and understand God as more than Mr. Dawkins.

God has so allowed us to comprehend and understand the revelation of God’s grace that we might see God as good, just, kind, and gracious in every way.

Paul’s main point in this section of verses is that our capacity to understand the gospel is given to us by God’s Spirit.

He reveals to us what was hidden.

He exposes to us what was once secret.

The power we have to understand comes from the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity.

He gives us our understanding.

Predestined

God predestined or decreed before the ages began that Jesus, the Son of God, second person of the Trinity, would come to earth, put on human flesh, live a perfect life, teach and display the love and truth of God to the world, he would give his life as a ransom for sin by dying a humiliating death and rising victoriously from the grave.

This was the plan of God to bring glory to his name and there is message of God’s wisdom was predestined.

Not only is the plan of redemption through Jesus a work of God’s sovereign faithfulness, but your reception of his great work is an act of his predetermined grace as well.

Eph 1:3-5

For our Glory (Romans 9:23)

Paul also states that this wisdom is for “our glory” and here he is contrasting the glory of the intellects of Corinth, these elites who considered themselves wise and full of glory to the actual glory of God that he reflects on those who worship him.

In the end, when Jesus returns, the glory of those on the earth will fade and the glory of the Son will shine brightly as Jesus is worshipped and Hs people are saved from the wrath of God.

You and I are mature in God’s eyes when we hear and see God’s wisdom and we receive it.

Our maturity is nothing to boast about when we consider the remaining point that Paul will make - our reception of God’s wisdom is wholly a result of the gift of God’s spirit that allows us the receptive capabilities.

As Paul stated in 1 Cor.

1:29

B. Rejection of God’s wisdom

Rulers of this age (doomed to pass away)

Secondly, he contrasts the mature or those who receive the wisdom of God with those who reject it.

He describes the wisdom as not coming from the “rulers of this age.”

He describes those rulers in verse 8 as those who “crucified the Lord of glory” and therefore these men, these leaders represent a people throughout history who reject Jesus Christ and the salvation that he provides.

He tells us that these rulers are ignorant of the truths of God’s wisdom, that they were unable to see and understand the message of Christ and they are compared to those who receive the message of the gospel.

Their action in crucifying Jesus were fruit of their rejection of him and his claims to be the Messiah.

The irony as Gordon Fee points out is,

“the very ones who were trying to do away with Jesus by crucifying him were in fact carrying out God’s prior will.”

(Fee, 1 Cor, pg 106).

Notice with me that the apostle Peter tells the Jews at Pentecost,

While each individual Jews wasn't guilty of hammering the nails into the wrists of Jesus, and pressing the crown of thorns on his head, their is an individual responsibility that each person has of rejecting Jesus as their Lord.

We all might not crucify Jesus, but he strive to dethrone him in our sin.

This is the weight of sin that we bear and this idea of sin is represented in the “rulers of the age.”

Did not understand this

Paul is not stating the obvious in v 8.

He is going deeper than observation.

He is relaying the reality of the inability to understand because God had not allowed them to remain in their ignorance of sin and allowed them to wallow in their rejection of him.

He makes his point from a quotation of the OT.

The reason for that rejection and the introduction to the explanation in the following verses, Paul loosely quotes Isaiah 64:4

Isaiah writes from the perspective of a people who are humbled by the God of creation who has revealed himself to them and how he stands incomparable to the false gods of this world.