God’s Wisdom Revealed by The Spirit
Paul is writing to the Corinthians as a Pastor, to shepherd them & teach them.
He started the letter calling for unity, then gets to source of Christian Unity: The Spirit.
The doctrine of the Holy Spirit is foundational to our Christian lives.
He is the person of the Trinity we actually interact with once we belong to Christ.
The Spirit can and will work in our lives prior to Salvation, but once He indwells us…
It is essential that we understand how the Spirit work with us and in us.
It is essential that we first and foremost understand how & why He comes to indwell.
It is essential that we learn how to yield to and access God’s Spirit in us
All our ‘Spiritual’ problems require ‘Spiritual’ solutions, we need what the Spirit gives!
1ST CORONTHIANS 2
And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
- Paul came to them ‘boasting only in the Lord’ (1 Corinthians 1:31)
- He gave his ‘testimony’ what he had experienced; what he had witnessed
- He didn’t want the waters of his faith or theirs to be muddied; but to be clarified
- Keep the main thing the main thing! Christ Crucified! The Gospel
I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.
- He didn’t come swagger and confidence.
- He didn’t try to win them with theatrics
- He let the message be Christ and he let the Power be Christ’s Spirit
- The last thing he wanted for them was to rely on human wisdom
- Denial of the Spirit is only unforgivable Sin
We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.
- God’s message is eternal wisdom; recognized through Spiritual Maturity
- Please don’t expect it to be appreciated by our world
- The fullness of God’s redemptive plan is a mystery to mankind with God’s Spirit
- God’s completed Revelation = Christ…Surrender to HIM = God’s Spirit in US !
None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”– the things God has prepared for those who love him—these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.
- The power running this world is deceived and does not know the ways of God
- Jn 18 Jesus: Everyone on the side of truth listens to Me. Pilate; What is Truth?
- What the world sees as truth is not truth. What the world sees as wise is not…
- On our own with our ‘Human Capabilities’ we have No Idea! (Isiah 64:4)
- These are things only seen with Spirit-taught understanding
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
- The only way to understand God is through his Spirit (Pre-Salvation Sanctification)
What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.
- It’s when we truly understand what He’s given us that we receive His Spirit
- God’s Spirit speaks a different language, different concepts and economies
The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.
- Our world, human wisdom rejects the message of the Cross
- They have no means by which to understand: no way to decode the message
The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” (Isiah 40:13) But we have the mind of Christ.
- Who is the person with the Spirit?
And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit…(Ephesians 1:13)
- We have access to the mind of God through His Spirit because of Christ
Application Questions:
In what ways has God’s Spirit enabled your faith?
Why does Paul call God’s Wisdom a ‘Mystery’?
What truth in Scripture has God revealed to you by His Spirit?
What practices have helped you develop ‘Spiritual Discernment’?
Why do you have the mind of Christ?