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Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you for your blessings and your goodness. And father, we praise you today, for you are a great God. Father, we just rejoice in your works and what you do. I want to give you honor and glory. I pray as we meet together tonight, that our hearts will be on you and that your spirit will be working in us. To your glory. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
So tonight's songs, at least the first two, were chosen in part to celebrate how great God has been in that tragedy that took place here in Beaver, Utah, last week with that boy drowning and then his miraculous recovery. So just an update in our announcements on where that boy is. That boy is awake, something that the doctors that would not happen and prompted the family to make a decision to remove life support. Then the boy woke up. Right now the doctors say his quality of life, life, we will be low.
But we've seen God already take this kid from totally dead and not breathing, no heart to just brain dead to now fully awake. So we're going to have faith and praise God for even more miracles that he can do, and he's showing himself to do miracles. So I just want you all to know where that family is right now, and we will keep praying for them. A few other last moment announcements before we jump into the word. Next week.
On Friday there will be no Bible study in Cedar, and Sunday morning there will be no Bible study here at my house. I will be in Alabama. So just, I'll try and make sure to remind everybody Wednesday again, but those cancellations will happen. We will still have Sunday evening service next week. I'll be ready to broadcast that.
So we will still have that. We're just canceling the in person services Friday and Sunday. Okay. With that said, I think that's every announcement we need to make. Let's jump back into where we left off.
We're in the book of first Corinthians and we are moving through both epistles to the church in Corinth. And last week, just a reminder of what we had looked at.
We started in chapter one and we had Paul greet the church. He gave thanksgiving. That's in our outline here that we can toss up on the screen.
There we go. So we have the greeting and thanksgiving. That was chapter one, verses one through nine. Church gave thanks to God for the church in Corinth. And this was an important thing because it tells us that even as we have issues in our churches and whatnot, we can still be thankful to God for the work that he is doing.
We also looked at for the remainder of last week, we picked up there in verse ten, we looked at some disunity in the church. Remember, we had some people follow Peter, some people followed Paul, some people followed that guy, and Paul urged everybody to have units within the body. We also spent that time talking about the wisdom of the cross. Remember that? Paul stressed, he really pushed home last week and he's going to continue this week.
He stressed that God does not use the wisdom of man, but he uses his own wisdom. So we're going to continue that. This theme of the wisdom of the cross and man's fallacy, man's shortcomings and wisdom, that's going to continue through chapter four. Then we'll pick up issues of impurity in chapter five, Gospel freedom in love in chapter eight, community worship in chapter eleven, resurrection issues in chapter 15, and finally conclude in chapter 16. So that's going to bring us right up to where we are today.
We're going to pick up today. We're in that second theme, wisdom of the cross today. And I want to start by reading verses one through five. It says, when I came to you, brothers and sisters, announcing the mystery of God to you, I did not come with brilliance of speech or wisdom. I decided to note nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
I came to you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the spirit's power, so that your faith might not be based on human wisdom, but on God's power.
So when I came to you, he's referring to when he physically visited the church in Corinth, he announced the mystery of God. This is a curious phrase right here, the mystery of God. What does that mean? So the mystery of God has meant many things, but in particular, especially in the way Paul uses it here, the mystery of God is that wisdom of the cross. The mystery of God is that Jesus came and took on the appearance of man to live among us, that he died upon the cross for the remission of sins and rose again to secure that victory.
That is the mystery of God. And that is a mystery right there. Why would a God do that? Why would God. There's only one God.
Why would God do that? That's not anything anyone had expected, right? It's a mystery. And if we read the Old Testament, we expect to see that. We see all the way, beginning in Genesis three, Genesis five.
We see it with, with Abraham, we see it with Isaac and Jacob, we see it in Exodus. We see all the way through the Old Testament prophecies and images of, of Christ dying upon the cross for us. And yet that knowledge was concealed for all that time, despite it being plainly written there, everybody had missed it. Now, for as much as we like to give, as much as we like to give them trouble and pick on them for missing it, let's be honest with ourselves. We live on this side of the events happening and living over here on this side instead of on that side, we had the luxury of looking back now that we know what happened and seeing all that imagery play out, we have that luxury.
Hindsight's 2020. So this is the mystery of God. Now, something to know about the mystery of God real quick, because this isn't the only mystery of God. There's a lot of mysteries of goddess. For example, what does heaven hold for us?
That's a mystery of God. Some of it's been revealed, but not a lot of it has. So. But the mystery of God or the wisdom of God is not something that we can find.
You cannot find it. You cannot happen upon it. It cannot come from scientific research. The mystery of God has to come to us. In other words, God has to bring it to us.
So he says that when he came with this mystery, he did not come with brilliance of speech or wisdom. Now, the reason he stating this is, remember in last week, in fact, let's look at this. Let's look at verses five and six from last week. In chapter one, Paul writes to them. I'm just scrolling back in my Bible.
Sorry, give me a second. He says that you were enriched in Christ in every way. In this way, the testimony of Christ about. The testimony about Christ was confirmed among you. So we see that they were enriched in every way.
But specifically, it says, and I somehow skipped the line, so you are enriched in Christ and everywhere in all speech and knowledge.
And in this way, the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you. And I apologize. It didn't get pulled up on the screen. But what does this say? Paul was, he was thanking God for them and thanking God that he gave them wisdom and speech.
However, if you recall, they took this wisdom and speech and they began to develop doctrines that were intended to persuade men to appeal to men. Right? They came up with these ideas and ways of preaching to lure people in rather than to preach what happened. And Paul, he, he touches based on that. Look at verse 17, chapter one, verse 17.
Christ says this. He says, for Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ will not be emptied of its effect.
So Paul touched base on that and let them know we don't preach with eloquent wisdom. When we preach with eloquent wisdom, when we begin to formulate words and carefully crafted speeches to lure people in, we sacrifice the cross of Christ, and we begin adding in things that just appeal to people. And that's how we end up with various false doctrines as well. When we begin to want to appeal to people, I want more people here. I want to fill these seats.
I want to grow so big, we need more buildings. We begin to sacrifice the message of Christ, and we begin to fill our messages with eloquent wisdom. Right. We begin to fill it with promises and practices that appeal to me. Paul is telling us to avoid that.
Let's jump back to where we are here. So he says, I did not come with brilliance of speech or wisdom. He says, I decided to know nothing among you except Christ and him crucified. Paul says, when I came, I didn't talk about doctrines of baptism, doctrines of. Of.
How do I put this? He did not come with various doctrines of different things, doctrines of angels and demons, doctrines of giants, doctrines of baptism, doctrines of work. He came with the doctrine of Christ and Christ crucified. He chose to know or preach no other thing than Christ and Christ crucified.
And this is, he's going to tell us later in verse six that he does have a more mature wisdom. He speaks. So that's not to say that we don't get deeper into doctrine. That's not to say that we don't talk about baptism and repentance and angels and demons and heaven and hell and all these other things. But we don't do it to appeal.
We give deeper doctrine to more mature christians, and we give Christ crucified to less mature christians or non Christians. What we want people who are not saved or who are very immature, we want them to know the most important thing, and that is that Christ died for them and that they are saved through receiving Jesus Christ. So he says, rather, I came to you in weakness. Now, I don't believe that Paul means he physically was weak when he showed up. He's not saying, yeah, I had finished my third boat wreck, spent my time in prison, and then got bit by snakes and drugged myself here and was famished when I arrived.
But rather he came in a demeanor of weakness. He did not show up big and macho and strong and portray himself that way, but he showed up and portrayed himself in a very humble manner. Remember that God said last week when we read this, he says that God has chosen to use what is weak in the world to shame the strong. Right? So Paul says, I came weak.
He says, I came in fear and trembling again. Not to mean that he came fearful of the corinthians and he was trembling at what they might do, but he is talking about his posture, his demeanor, the way he presented himself to them. He never presented himself in a way to appeal to men. Paul was not concerned with appealing to men. He was concerned with appealing God, what God thought and the message of God.
And so he says, my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom. He was not there to persuade anyone, but with a demonstration of the spirit's power. When someone comes in the spirit of God and preaches, isn't there usually power in that? I'm going to tell you from my own experience, just being behind the pulpit and preaching to people, more often than not, the messages where I finish and I, and I'm like, wow, that was a stupid message. Are the messages that people tell me are the best.
Don't ask me why, but the ones where I feel the least prepared or I feel for some reason was lacking. I don't feel like my presentation was the best. Are the ones where people come to me and they say, pastor, that was just what I needed today. But God doesn't work through persuasive words and wisdom. I don't have to come up with fancy doctrines and fancy ways of teaching for God to work because he works in our lack of wisdom.
He works in our lack of ability to speak, to formulate these very persuasive things. If you look through the Bible, every person who God used seemed to have issues. Every person, most notably Moses. If you look at Moses, when God called Moses to be a prophet, what did Moses say? He says, I don't have flattering speech.
You can't use me.
If you look through history, the people that God used were the people who seemed foolish in the eyes of the world. And he says that God does this so that our faith might not be based on human wisdom, but on the power of God. And this is important, this is necessary. If it was human wisdom that found out God, and human wisdom that formulated the plan, and human wisdom that brought to us salvation, our faith would not be based in God at all. A great example.
This young boy that we were talking about. There is no medical reason this kid is alive today.
There's no medical explanation for it. He was dead, totally and completely dead and revived. But then they told them he was brain dead and would likely never recover. And he is awake. There was no medical intervention, no brilliant doctor behind the recovery, no.
No explainable mechanism by which this young boy woke up. But it is the wisdom of God and the power of God that woke this boy up. So our faith is based in God and his power and what he can do, but not in any way in human wisdom. Let's read verses six through nine. He says, we do, however, speak a wisdom among the mature, but not a wisdom of this age, or of the rulers of this age who are coming to nothing.
On the contrary, we speak God's hidden wisdom in a mystery, a wisdom God predestined before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age knew this wisdom, because if they had known it, they would have not crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, what no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no human heart has conceived, God has prepared these things for those who love him.
So we do. He says, we do speak a wisdom among the maturity, but not a wisdom of this age. We need to recognize that Paul does not reject all wisdom. Paul doesn't say that all wisdom is bad. If it sounds wise, avoid it.
But he says, we reject the wisdom of this age. There's a difference.
I think Paul was fortunate to live when he. If he lived today. I don't know what Paul, if he would know how to contain himself.
The wisdom of that age saw a plurality of God's and saw that sexual sin was a thing to behold and saw that power money and greed were things to seek after the wisdom of today's age. Not only does most of that, the wisdom of today's age denies goddess. The wisdom of this age says that we are but accidents, right? A big bang out of nothing formed the universe, and somehow disorder came into order. Right?
We know that's impossible. The laws of thermodynamics teaches us that everything moves from order to disorder, not the other way around. But the wisdom of the sage, right? Says somehow nothing exploded into everything. Disorder became order, and that a whole bunch of dirt that collided into itself became life.
What type of wisdom is that? Right. The wisdom of this age says you can be born a male, but if you feel like you're a female, well, then you must be a female. That's the wisdom of this age.
The wisdom of the age that we live in. Look, what the Bible says, it says is the wisdom of those who are coming to nothing. That is what will happen to the wise of the world. They are coming to nothing. Great.
Very highly esteemed physicist Stephen Hawkings.
He a brilliant mind.
What is he today?
He's nothing, and he will be nothing. He died rejecting the idea of God. He died telling mankind that God is a myth. For as wise, as smart as he was, I will never claim to be as smart as that man. That man had made great, great discoveries and took us leaps and bounds in our understanding of physics, and yet he came to nothing.
Another great, very, very famous man, Albert Einstein.
What's really sad about Albert Einstein is he acknowledged that the likelihood of a God was high. He acknowledged it, and in the same sentence, told his audience that he will have to resort to just understanding, that he will perish along with his sins of the age. While he recognized that the likelihood of a God was high, he could not bring himself to believe in such a God.
He was a brilliant mind. Because of Albert Einstein, we have gps. We have cell phones. We can fly and navigate. Our satellites are able to work.
All these things that we take for granted are a result of Albert Einstein, and he came to nothing.
Instead, he says, we speak God's hidden wisdom in a mystery. God's wisdom, it's concealed. It's concealed so that it seems foolish to the world. For example, the preaching of the cross. The idea of the cross is a foolish idea to mankind, to the world.
But to God, the cross was a very wise decision. And so God's hidden wisdom is a mystery. It's concealed. And he says that none of the rulers of this age knew this wisdom, because if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord. Think about that.
If they knew the wisdom of God, they would have known that Jesus was the Messiah, but they would have known that. They would have known that he was God in the flesh, that he was the lord of Lord and king of kings. And if they had known properly who he was, do you think they would have crucified him?
I don't think so. I think anyone who truly, truly understood in that moment who Jesus was never would have dared to put a nail on him.
But his wisdom was hidden. It was a mystery. It was concealed. Let's look real quick. You know, he talks about this a little more.
Colossians, Colossians 20, Colossians one, I believe, because I just realized I wrote down Colossians and then 25 29, but not a chapter. So hopefully it's in there. So 25 29, let's bring that up for everyone to see.
It says, I have become its servant, the gospel servant, Christ's servant, according to God's commission that was given to me for you to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations, but now revealed to a saint. God wanted to make known among the Gentiles the glorious wealth of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. So the mystery he identifies, it is Christ in you. That's the mystery. We proclaim him, mourning and teaching everyone with all wisdom so that we may present everyone mature in Christ.
I labor for this striving with his strength that works powerfully in me. So Paul identifies in Colossians one, the mystery of God is Christ in us, right? And he's in us because he died for us and he rose again.
Let's also look at proverbs 910. So if the wisdom of the world is folly, is foolish, and the wisdom of God is concealed for only those who love him, how do we get wisdom? Look at proverbs 910 with me it says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. So if you want true wisdom, true knowledge, if you want to not be like the foolish who will be coming to nothing, but you want true and powerful wisdom. It begins with the fear of the Lord.
Right? There is no wisdom absent of God and no knowledge without him. It begins with their fear of him. Let's finish this chapter real quick. With verses ten through 16.
It says that now God has revealed these things to us by the spirit. Since the spirit searches everything, even the depths of God, for who knows a person's thoughts except his spirit? Within him. In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the spirit of God. Now we have not received the spirit of the world, but the spirit who comes from God, so that we may understand what has been freely given to us by God.
We also speak these things not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the spirit, explaining spiritual things to spiritual people. But the person without the spirit does not receive what comes from gods spirit because it is foolishness to him. He is not able to understand it since it's evaluated spiritually. The spiritual person, however, can evaluate everything, yet he himself cannot be evaluated by anyone. For who has known the Lord's mind that he may instruct him.
But we have the mind of Christ.
Paul is a wordy goddess, always has been. He likes to even hit. He's simple, very simple, but very wordy. So to add more words to a wordy guy, what does this mean?
He's really breaking down why it's foolishness to the world, wisdom to us. The only way to he says this, who knows a person's thought except for his own spirit within him? Right? I know what goes on in my mind when I'm sitting there and thinking. No one can sit there and gaze into my eyes and know what my thoughts are, but I can because my spirit is within me and so I know what I am thinking.
So how do we know this wisdom of God? Right. Well, the last verse tells us how. It says, who can know the Lord's mind that he may instruct him? And then it says, we have the mind of Christ.
The reason that we can understand spiritual concepts is because Christ lives within us. The Holy Spirit of God indwells us the moment that we are saved. And because he lives within us, we not only have our spirit inside of us, but we have God's spirit inside of us. And therefore we can understand the mind of God. So it says that, that the world cannot understand the wisdom of God because to them it is foolishness.
They can't understand the way that God operates or why he operates that way. And I will not claim that we can fully comprehend that. I can't.
But God's able to teach us. God's able to tell us that it's right. He's able to show us that it's right, and he has right. But it says a person without God's spirit does not receive what comes from God's spirit because it's foolishness. But we can, it says we can evaluate everything.
So this is cool. The ability to evaluate everything we can tell if something is from God or not from goddess. We can tell if something will glorify God or not glorify God. We can tell just by evaluating it, because we a, we have the word of God. So anything that I see or hear or listen to or watch, I can compare against the word of God.
But I have the spirit of God which is able to stir up inside of me to know, hey, this is not right. Or this is not glorifying to God. Or yes, this is from God.
Look at proverbs three five. As we look at wisdom, as we look at what it really means to be wise, we're told in proverbs 35, it says, trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not rely on your own understanding. If we are to receive the wisdom of God, we have to trust in him fully trust in him and not rely on our understanding. Let me tell you what our understanding is going to say. If I want to preach a resurrected Christ to you, what will your understanding say?
Has any human dead for three days ever raised from the grave?
Not that I've ever seen. My own understanding will say, well, that is foolishness. I see dead people on a regular basis, with only the exception of this young boy. None of them have ever returned. And even this young boy did not, was not dead for days.
I've never seen anyone dig themselves up out of a grave. So my mind is going to say, well, that's foolishness. That is what human understanding will do. Human understanding seeks to explain things on a human level. Right now I want to explain that God who never had a beginning, well, can human understanding reason with that?
Right? If I come and I say to an atheist, well, God created everything. Nine out of ten times an atheist will say back to me, well, then who created God?
Right? Who created God? And you have to say, no one. And they say, but that's foolishness. Everyone has a beginning.
And if you work backwards with that thought, okay, well, if we had someone who created our God, that must be a bigger God. But if he was created, then a bigger, bigger God created the bigger God. And if he was created a bigger, bigger, bigger God created the bigger, bigger God. Who created the bigger God? Who created God?
Right? And no matter how you look at it, eventually you just have to settle on the fact that there is a biggest God who is not created, or the Bible removes all that and just starts with God, but our minds can't comprehend it because in our minds, everything has a beginning. I was born. I had a beginning. I was born on a Tuesday, 28 years ago, 28 and a half years ago ago, I had a definite beginning where I entered the world.
We have endings, right? We're born and we die. The day begins and the day ends. Even the earth had a beginning. The earth was not always here.
So we live in a world where we have beginnings, we have endings. Things come into being and go out of being. And now, with that framework, try to comprehend a God who has no beginning and has no ending. There was never a time where he was not. He always was.
And there will never be a time where he will not be, because he always will be. And we cannot comprehend that, try as you may, it'll drive you crazy trying to figure it out. We can't comprehend it. So the wisdom of humanity is foolish because it can't fully comprehend the things of God. So the start of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.
And then in proverbs three five, to not lean on our own understanding. Our understanding of the way this world works is from within this world. It's like being in the forest and trying to understand everything about the forest from being right in the middle and never leaving it. You can't. And God exists outside of creation, outside of that forest.
God understands it from above it.
Trust in the Lord. Right. We trust in him because he knows everything and don't rely on our own understanding. When our understanding contradicts God's understanding, we choose to stand upon his word and trust in that. Look at me with John 842 47.
This here says that those who have the spirit of God can understand the spiritual things, but those who do nothing cannot. Jesus says the same thing here. So Paul was right in one corinthians. But look what Jesus himself says. Jesus said to them, if God were your father, you would love me because I came from God and I am here.
For I didn't come on my own, but he sent me. Why don't you understand what I say? Because you cannot listen to my word. You are of your father the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him when he tells a lie.
He speaks from his own nature because he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe in me. Who among you can convict me of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don't you believe me? The one who is from God listens to God's words.
This is why you don't listen, because you are not from God. So this doctrine here that only those with the spirit of God can understand God, this is not unique to Paul. Paul is not the only one who taught this, but Christ himself taught it as well. And we're going to skip real quick. We're just about done.
We're going to skip all the way to the end of chapter three. Three. We're still going to do chapter three next week. But most of chapter three does not talk about wisdom except for the end. So I want to look at the end and what it says.
It says that 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 for the wisdom of this world's foolishness with goddesse, since it is written, he catches the wise and their craftiness. And again, the Lord knows that the reasonings are the wise are futile. So let no one boast in human leaders, for everything is yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world, or life or death, or things present or things to come. Everything is yours and you belong to Christ and Christ belongs to goddesse.
I think that's a great way to wrap up Paul's discussion on wisdom. If anyone among us thinks he is wise in this age, wise with human wisdom, let him become a fool. Hold on to that thought because we are going to come right back to it. I want to summarize how the christian revelation, what we are even talking about is God's revelation. The revelation of God cannot possibly be the invention of man.
Can't we just, we don't invent a God who comes, creates earth, creates us, comes down, lives and dies among us, is crucified for us to replace our death, and rises again the third day, especially to have it survive all the way through now. So it cannot be the invention of man. It is a revelation from God. It says that God has revealed it to us in verse ten. God only can reveal the mysteries of a suffering son, and this is the glory of the gospel message.
And it is true, right? It is true. It happened. Jesus rose again for a justification, right? He died for our sins, rose again for a justification.
He is coming again. It is a revelation of his abounding grace to sinful men in his power to save the very uttermost right, the very most depraved that come to him. This revelation is made known because God revealed it to us by his spirit. Also in verse ten, it comes from God and it comes to the believing heart by the spirit of God. The Holy Spirit is the minister of all the things of Christ.
He's the spirit of truth. Truth. He will teach all things of the will of the Father. And here's how these things should be preached. They should be preached without enticing words of man's wisdom, but in the demonstration of the spirit and power, and it should be preached with simplicity.
Here is how we should respond. Paul says, I was determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And we should be determined to know no other thing than Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ crucified.
As we come to an end tonight, it says, if anyone among us thinks he is wise, let him become a fool. And I want to extend that invitation right there. If anyone here within the realm of my voice tonight thinks that you are wise in the sage, I ask of you to become a fool with us, walk in the foolishness of this world and believe in Christ.
It's not a myth. It's not a legend. It's not made up or fairy tale, but it's real. It happened. He died for you.
It's not just blind faith, but it can be reasoned out. It can be logical. And we've talked about that before. And if you've never heard me talk about it, then I would love to show you. But become a fool, it says, so that you can become wise, leave behind everything you think you know, and allow God to show you what really is.
I have a saying. I love it. People hear me say all the time, the facts are not the truth. Let God show you the truth. And it begins with admitting that we're sinners.
We can't save ourselves with believing that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, that he lived and died on this earth for our sins and rose again and confessing him as your lord and savior. And if you're willing to do that, if you're willing to believe that and trust in him, you can receive not just the gift of eternal life, but the ability to understand the wisdom or begin to understand the wisdom of God. If you're ready to do that, as we go to our closing prayer here, I'll give you a chance to verbalize that to God and to ask him into your heart. Immediately following the closing prayer, we'll partake of the Lord's communion. So I ask anyone who wants to partake of that to stick around and join.
We will not be doing the Lord's supper next week, just so everyone knows. So I invite you to stick around and participate in that. And I'll see the rest of you Wednesday evening at 630. Let's pray. Father, I admit that I am a sinner, and I know that I cannot save myself.
I know that my ways are wrong and that your ways are right. Father, I believe that Jesus Christ is the creator goddess who stepped into earth and lived and died for me. And I believe that he rose again that third day, giving us victory over death. And I confess you, Lord Jesus, as my God, as my savior, and will follow you all the days of my life. Father, I pray as we, as we depart that you will help us, Lord, to lean on you, to trust in the you and to not rely on our understanding, Father, in anything that our understanding contradicts your ways.
Help us to lean into you, that we will not be led astray and that you will be glorified. And we thank you for this. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.