Speaker 1: 0:00

Our scripture reading today is 1 Corinthians, chapter 2, the whole chapter, verses 1 through 16, beginning in verse 1, the Word of God reads this way 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. 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, 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 not in words, taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. 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. This is God's word. Thanks be to God and you may be seated, and may God bless this reading and preaching of his word.

Speaker 1: 2:23

When Julie and I were first married, we lived in urban Dayton, ohio, not quite downtown but outside of downtown. It was not exactly the safest neighborhood that we lived in. There was crime, but it wasn't, at least to me, not really the scary kind, it was a familiar kind. It was more the Appalachian, hillbilly kind of crime. And I'll give you an example One night a pizza delivery was made in our neighborhood, which was like a dead-end street, and the driver was robbed at knife point from the guy that had ordered the pizza and the driver was robbed at knife point from the guy that had ordered the pizza. The assailant ran, but the police responded quickly and in my memory it was a helicopter that arrived, but Julie was correcting me that it was just police flashlights. But let's say it was a helicopter. But what I do remember is that the guy was found on a rooftop, just like a shed rooftop, right behind our house, just adjacent to our property. And so our evening entertainment that night for Julie and I was watching this man scramble around on a roof lit up by a police spotlight, surrounded by officers just waiting for him to come down so that they could take him to his new home in jail, and that is.

Speaker 1: 3:52

I share that story because that is what a spotlight is designed to do it's designed to reveal what's hidden or to draw our attention to something that we're supposed to see, that otherwise we might not see. It centers our attention on something. If you're at a concert or a play, as you know, the auditorium goes dark and then the spotlight shines not in your eyes but on the stage, and it's not designed to draw attention to itself, but it's designed to center our attention on what matters most and what we're supposed to be looking at. We're continuing in our series in 1 Corinthians that we're calling Bless this Mess and today's passage focuses as you hopefully can tell as we read through it focuses on the person and work of the Holy Spirit. The Corinthians were confused about what it meant to be spiritual people, what it meant to be spiritually mature, what that looked like, how that functioned and how to know where the Spirit was at work and who it was who was full of the Holy Spirit. They were very confused about that and Paul begins. He's going to come back to that many times throughout the letter, but he begins here and what he shows us is that the work of the Spirit is like a spotlight, that where he is at work he's not drawing attention to himself. Where the Spirit is at work, there's actually not a huge emphasis on the Holy Spirit, but where the Spirit is at work he centers our attention on the work of the Son. He draws our attention to the work of Jesus Christ. We know the Spirit is at work wherever the Son is the center of attention. When the Son is the center of attention in a church community, or in our own lives, or in a household or in a community group, wherever the Son is the center of attention, surely the Holy Spirit is at work. And in this passage Paul teaches us three things about the power of the Holy Spirit in that work when the power is, what the power does, and then what the power looks like. Where the power is what the power does and what the power looks like. So where the power of the Holy Spirit is. Point one the power of the Holy Spirit is found in the preaching of the gospel. The power of the Holy Spirit is found in the preaching of the gospel.

Speaker 1: 6:33

If you look at this passage, we see Paul's goal in Corinth was very simple. As he explains this to them, he did not want to come there and captivate the Corinthians by anything about him, or his personality or his pedigree, or his gifts, or even his apostolic authority. He didn't want them to be captivated by him, but by the message of Jesus Christ. Look at verses 1 and 2. Paul talks about his speech. He says when I came to you, brothers, remember, I 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. In other words, paul knew a lot of things.

Speaker 1: 7:21

He was a very smart, educated, intelligent man, but he made it his goal that he was not going to try to impress his audience with all that he knew or with how good of a speaker he was, that he speaks good like me, or eloquent rhetoric, even though he was highly educated and had this world-class resume. He made a conscious decision that he was going to preach in a way that was simple and focused and all about the person and work of Jesus Christ. And why was that his goal? It was. It's because, as we see here, he did not want. He would have considered it to be a travesty or a failure if this happened. He didn't want people walking away thinking, wow, that Paul, what a powerful personality, what a funny guy, what an engaging speaker that Paul. I cannot wait to get Paul back to speak at our church. Rather, he wanted them walking away saying, wow, isn't Jesus amazing? And just to forget all about Paul. Wow, isn't Jesus amazing. That was his goal. That was his speech.

Speaker 1: 8:30

Look at also his presence at verse 3. He says I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. He didn't try to win them with his charisma or charm or humor. He did not come with gravitas or with the authority of an apostle, even though he had that authority, but with trembling, not with confidence in himself, but dependence on God. And again he didn't want to get in the way of where the power really is. The power is not really in his persuasive speech, it's not really in his charismatic personality. So where is the power? Look at verses four and five.

Speaker 1: 9:09

He says my speech and my message were not implausible 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. Paul's hope was not in his own ability to move people. He knew he could probably do that. You know, there is great power in a powerful personality or in a charismatic figure, but it's not the kind of power that Paul's interested in. It's not the real, life-changing, eternal power. His hope was not in that, but it was in a demonstration of the Spirit's power. And what does he mean by that when I used to read this as a younger man, I thought what that was talking about was signs and wonders, that Paul would preach his message about Jesus and then he would heal someone. He would say see you see the power. It's proof that the gospel is true. But I don't think that's what Paul is talking about. He's not talking about signs or wonders, and we know that because the whole passage is about the power of the Spirit to open our eyes to the truth of the gospel. And, furthermore, if you go back and read Acts 18, which is the story of the Corinthian church and Paul planting that church, there is no mention of miraculous signs. It's not that they weren't there, they could have been, but that's just. There's no mention of them. There is, however, this Paul preached the word and people believed. The power that Paul is talking about is the Spirit's quiet, invisible and unstoppable work of drawing people to Jesus Christ. Paul preached and the Spirit opened hearts and people believed. So Paul's confidence was not in himself, but in the Spirit working and moving through the message of the cross.

Speaker 1: 11:04

One of the first people I ever mentored or discipled was a young man a high school kid at the time, named Chris. I was a college student, I was a volunteer young life leader, and Chris was a graduating senior who had just become he had just become a baby Christian. He'd come to faith in Christ. So I had a few months with him before he left for college and I didn't quite know what to do. But what we did was we met together weekly just to establish him in his new faith before he would go off to college. And here's what we did. We used an old school tool that someone had handed me called the Navigator's Topical Memory System. Has anybody ever heard of that? Again, if you're my age, maybe you've heard of it, but it's very simple. It's 60 hand-picked Bible verses. They're short and you're supposed to memorize them. You're supposed to memorize two a week, and that's what we would do. We would commit them to memory and then we would meet and talk about them just two verses a week. Again, incredibly simple. Anybody could do it, nothing fancy.

Speaker 1: 12:13

As we did that, I watched his life change over the summer, and mine changed too. I mean in profound and deep ways repentance and new understanding of God, and joy and peace. And what I want you to see is this is that, in that it really had very little to do with me. It had nothing to do with my personality, it had nothing to do with my preaching ability. No special training, no flashy method. It was just Scripture focused on the gospel, the gospel as it is communicated through scripture, and then the Holy Spirit doing what he does. The Holy Spirit working to teach and to take, you know, as Jesus says, to take those seeds that we plant in the ground, and then we go to sleep and they come up all on their own and we don't know how, but it's the work of the Spirit come up all on their own and we don't know how, but it's the work of the Spirit.

Speaker 1: 13:07

And the more I continue in ministry in all my years of ministry, the more I realize. I don't think I've ever seen anything more effective or more powerful than simply going back to the gospel again and again as it is given to us in the words of Scripture, whether that's with a friend or with a neighbor, or with someone in the church, or with a child, with a son or a daughter. When we do that, we are tapping in to the most effective, powerful means that the Spirit uses to do His work. It's like we're sitting on the ocean in our sailboat and when we continue to go back to God's word, we're just raising the sails and we're waiting for the wind of the spirit to push us into new places. So, just to make an application here for all of us remember where the power is. Where is the power? Remember where it is.

Speaker 1: 13:58

Do you want more of the Holy Spirit in your life? In other words, do you want to grow in love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and self-control and gentleness and all of these things? Do you want to break destructive habits? Do you want to see God working through your life and impacting others, and impacting your children and your spouse and your neighbors? Do you want more of that power? Then go back to Jesus Christ and him crucified, as that is communicated to us in the Bible. Read the Bible with your kids.

Speaker 1: 14:34

If you're wondering how to make an impact on the people around you your co-workers and neighbors, there's a book that we give out called Living Proof, and I think we have a few copies on the shelf and it's a great book. But it's all about what's so good about it is. It's all about how to get people to read the Bible with you, how just to sit down with you and just read through the gospel of John and just to let the Bible do the work that it does Memorize it, meditate on it, pray through it. That is where the power of the Spirit is. But that raises the next question. So if that's where the power is, what does the power of the Spirit do? Point two the most profound work of the Holy Spirit is to convince us that the gospel is true. The most profound work of the Holy Spirit is to convince our hearts and minds that the gospel is true.

Speaker 1: 15:28

Look at verse seven. Paul says we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God which God decreed before the ages for our glory. Now what's Paul talking about when he talks about the secret and hidden wisdom that they impart? The secret and hidden wisdom of God is the same thing that Paul has been talking about in the message of Jesus Christ and him crucified. From before the ages, god had a plan to send his son to save sinners and that was hidden and secret for ages, before Jesus came. And then he came and made it clear to us and revealed it to us. That is the secret and hidden wisdom of God. Now look at verses 10 through 11. He says 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. So what Paul is saying here is that the reason that the Corinthians believed he preached, some rejected, others believed the reason that they believed is not because they were smarter or more virtuous or more spiritual or more curious or more open or in any way better than those who rejected it. They believed because the Holy Spirit revealed it to them. The Holy Spirit came to them and opened something up in their mind and heart and made himself known to them. You cannot understand the mind and the heart of God and the plans of God unless God himself makes it known to you, unless God himself opens his heart to you. And to explain that, let me just offer an illustration. And to explain that, let me just offer an illustration.

Speaker 1: 17:16

Robert Jordan was a fantasy author who wrote a massive and beloved series called the Wheel of Time. I never read the Wheel of Time. It was so big. I used to joke with my wife and call it the Waste of Time series. It's really not. Everyone loves it, everyone loves it, but it spans 14 books.

Speaker 1: 17:39

But before he could write the final book, he was diagnosed with a fatal blood disease and he knew that he would not live to finish his life's work. He really had about one book remaining, but he was not going to live to be able to finish it, to be able to write it. So what did he do? He spent the last months of his life dictating hundreds of thousands of words of notes and schemes and plans and plot lines to his wife and editor, and in that he revealed his plans. He revealed how the book was going to end, he revealed where the story was going to resolve and what was going to happen with all of the characters and the plot lines, and he entrusted those notes to his wife and editor. It was a revelation of his mind, of his plans, the plans of Robert Jordan, and she later chose another guy named Brandon Sanderson, who's another celebrated fantasy author and a fan of the series, to complete the story. Sanderson completed it in two books, but he did not have to guess the ending. He didn't try to write what he thought would be good. He didn't just fill in the blanks based on the story so far and where he thought it might be going. He was able to finish the series because the author himself revealed all that was in his mind. He revealed all of his plans and made it known to him so that he could communicate it.

Speaker 1: 19:09

And in the same way, we do not have to guess the mind of God, nor could we guess the mind of God. We don't arrive at a knowledge of the gospel and a knowledge of God by deduction or intuition. We could not figure it out based on anything in the story so far, as Paul says here. As he quotes the Old Testament, paul says that the gospel is beyond what anyone has ever heard or seen or what the heart of man could ever imagine. Even the faithful Israelites, who had all of the Old Testament up till the time of Jesus, couldn't have figured it out. They didn't figure it out, otherwise they wouldn't have crucified the Lord of glory. We only understand it because the Holy Spirit personally reveals it to us. The Spirit takes what is hidden in God's heart and makes it known to ours.

Speaker 1: 20:04

Now look at verses 12 through 13. It says 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. So what does the Holy Spirit do? What is some of his most important work? He convinces us that the gospel is true. The most profound work of the Holy Spirit is not dramatic signs, it's not even spiritual gifts which the Holy Spirit gives, it's not a sort of vague or nebulous emotional experience that he brings us into, but what he does most powerfully is the quiet, persistent work of persuading our hearts that the gospel is true. In other words, the Holy Spirit takes the truths of the gospel and makes them real to us. Makes them real to us so that we truly sense, so that we walk around truly believing and sensing that all of our sins are forgiven, that Jesus is alive and that he's interceding for us, that all things really do work for the good of those who love him, that we have eternal life, even though our bodies are breaking down. We have eternal life. The Holy Spirit convinces us of that, that we are beloved sons and daughters of God. To be full of the Spirit is to be increasingly convinced, deep in our inner being, that the gospel really is true. That's what it means to be full of the Spirit.

Speaker 1: 21:43

So just to make an application here, remember that the fruit of the Spirit comes from the root of the Spirit. Just to try to make that a little memorable for you, the greatest evidence of a spirit-filled life from the outside, looking in, would be the fruit of the spirit, which we'll talk about here in a moment. But people who are spirit-filled above all are loving and joyful and peaceful, patient, kind, good, self-controlled, etc. All of those things, and from these things come all obedience to God's law. That's where that comes from. But all of that grows from a personal assurance that the gospel really is true. That's where patience comes from, that's where joy comes from. When we go back and look in our hearts and minds and we really sense, oh, the gospel really is true. So I can be patient in this moment. Or I'm joyful. I walk around with joy and with a lightness of heart because I know that my sins are forgiven and the gospel is true. That's the root of all of the fruit of the Spirit.

Speaker 1: 22:51

So if you find yourself in moments of life or moments this next week, if you find yourself unfruitful, if you find yourself impatient, self-focused, agitated, anxious, overcome by addiction, lacking in self-control or angry and bitter, all of these things that are unfruitful, that are the works of the flesh. It is because something has gone wrong at the root. It's because, though you might know the gospel, though you might even believe the gospel and be able to talk about it, it's just not very real to you in that moment, it's not very tangible and present. Or it's just that other things seem more real. Your problems seem more real to you than the truths of the gospel. Other people's problems and the ways that they step on your toes seem more real to you, or the anxieties of life and the need to make ends meet, or whatever it is that we're anxious about. That's what seems more real. What we need is the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts in a fresh way, so that the truths of the gospel become what is most real, most real to us and to our senses. It's more real than whatever momentary problems we're facing. But what does that then look like? What are the results of that? And this is point three, what the power looks like?

Speaker 1: 24:19

Conviction of gospel truth produces the fruit of the Spirit, and Paul doesn't talk about all the fruit of the Spirit here, but he does give us two things that are core to the fruit of the Spirit. He talks about the natural person and the spiritual person. Look at verses 14 through 16. He says the natural person does not accept the things of the spirit of god for their folly to him and he's 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. So Paul talks about the natural person and the spiritual person. For Paul, the natural person simply means who we are without the help of the Holy Spirit. The natural person is who we are without the help of the Holy Spirit. Without the help of the Holy Spirit we will never accept the truths of the gospel. In our sermon last week we talked about how the gospel does not make sense to the natural mind, how it is offensive to the natural mind because it contradicts the things that we naturally value prestige and power and self-sufficiency and wisdom. So Paul says here that without the Holy Spirit we're unable to understand it, we're unable to accept it. The spiritual person, on the other hand, is one who, by the help of the Holy Spirit, is beginning to understand and beginning to believe the gospel.

Speaker 1: 25:50

And I want to look at what Paul says happens to the spiritual person. He says two things. He says the spiritual person judges all things. That's number one. And then number two the spiritual person cannot be judged by anyone. So the spiritual person judges all things and cannot be judged by anyone. And what does he mean by that? Judge all things? The spiritual person judges all things does not mean that the Holy Spirit leads us to be arrogant or judgmental toward others, that we walk in a room and we just begin to point fingers and start to judge everybody. What he's talking about is that the Holy Spirit enables us to be discerning, enables us to distinguish and to discern and to see things clearly. And here's another way to put that the more the gospel becomes real to us because that's what the Spirit does the more the gospel becomes real to us, the more everything else in life falls into proper perspective, the more we are able to judge and discern everything else, because the most important things have become real to us.

Speaker 1: 26:55

Just to give a little illustration when our oldest son, henry, was about 10 years old. He was sitting at the kitchen table one morning and he was looking at the clock on the stove, which was not very far away, and he was squinting and he said what time is it? And my wife realized for the first time in 10 years that he could not see the clock. So remember, our kids are homeschooled so they're not looking at a chalkboard all day from a distance, so everything that they're looking at is right in front of their face. She realized that he couldn't see and that maybe we should get his eyes checked. So we went and got his eyes checked and we learned, sure enough, at 10 years old, that his natural vision was incredibly poor and that he needed glasses. And the first time that he put on a pair of glasses he was blown away. And in his own words he says I never realized how bad my vision was until I put glasses on and I assumed that everybody saw this way. I assumed that this was just what vision was. And then I put glasses on and I could see for the first time. Henry's glasses help put everything else into focus and into proper perspective and they bring a clarity of perspective so that he can finally see the world rightly.

Speaker 1: 28:13

And that's what Paul means when he says the spiritual person judges all things. That when the gospel is real to you, when you're believing it and you're living in it and understand it, everything else in life becomes more clear. Everything else falls into perspective. The problems that you thought were so big might suddenly become small. The things that made you so anxious before might lose their power to unnerve you. The sins of others that used to bother you so much might bother you a little bit less and you might become more merciful. And your own sins that you used to not even notice might suddenly become more bothersome to you in a good way. That would lead you to repentance. Everything else in life becomes more clear.

Speaker 1: 29:01

But Paul says one more thing not just that they judge all things, but no one can judge them In verse 15, it says but is himself to be judged by no one. Paul does not mean here that the spiritual person is beyond all criticism or judgment. I can't stand before you and say I have the Holy Spirit, so you can't criticize me at all. I'm beyond all judgment. As if they could never be lovingly challenged or corrected. What he means when he says this is that the criticism of others, and especially the criticism of the world, is never the most important thing. We are to be judged by no one. The more the gospel becomes real to us, the more we can handle being criticized, the more that we can handle being misunderstood or treated unfairly or accused even rightly accused the more that we can handle being called out of things we've done wrong. We can handle that. Why? Being called out of things we've done wrong, we can handle that. Why? Because in the gospel, god's judgment about us is more real and more valid than what anyone else could say or think.

Speaker 1: 30:05

We recently worked on a deck project and because of a mistake that I made on that project, we had to change the size of the footers, which is the concrete foundation. We had to make them smaller than what the architect drew. So I called the architect and asked if we could do that and if he would sign off on it. And he did. But I was still nervous, because I always love to find something to be nervous about. I was nervous that because we shrunk them, that something was going to fail or sink, that they'd be too small. So I asked ChatGPT and I looked at articles online and I found all kinds of reasons to be anxious, and I read what other people thought about it on Reddit and everything, and I had my own anxious thoughts plaguing me and I could find a lot of other people's opinions. But at the end of the day, only one thing matters. Only one thing matters Did the architect sign off on it? At the end of the day, that's all that matters, no one else's opinion, not my own anxiety. And yes, he did.

Speaker 1: 31:03

According to the gospel. Similarly, we have been baptized into the name of Jesus Christ and the Lord. Jesus Christ has placed his name upon sinful people like you and me, and he has taken full ownership and full responsibility of our lives and he has signed off on us saying this person belongs to me. I'm going to suffer and pay for their sins. I'm going to give them my righteousness. This person belongs to me, his name is upon us.

Speaker 1: 31:36

So what does the power of the Holy Spirit look like? We could describe it in terms of the fruit of the Spirit, but we could also describe it like Paul does here that the person who's full of the Holy Spirit becomes a person who has perspective on life, who judges and discerns all things, and a person who cannot be destroyed by criticism, because they already have the Father's approval. They already have the Son's name signed over their life. Where the Spirit is at work, the Son becomes the center of attention. The power of the Spirit is found in the preaching of the Son. The power of the Spirit convinces us that the gospel is true and that we belong to the Son. And the power of the Spirit gives us a profound gospel freedom.

Speaker 1: 32:22

Jesus went to the cross to pour out his Spirit unto death on a cross, so that we could be filled with his life-giving Spirit and understand the things freely given us by God and live in all of the freedom that he has for us.

Speaker 1: 32:38

To that end, let us pray Our Father.

Speaker 1: 32:45

We thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit. We thank you for the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit seals what the Son came to accomplish, that Jesus died for our sins, but the Holy Spirit applies that. The Son came to accomplish that Jesus died for our sins, but the Holy Spirit applies that to our hearts and minds and enables us to understand that work and to live in that work so that we might more and more come to resemble our Savior. And we pray God that even now, today, as we worship, that you would be doing that work, that you would be refreshing us with your Holy Spirit and filling us with your Holy Spirit, strengthening us by your Holy Spirit and convincing us that the gospel really is true. We really are sons and daughters of the living God. Our sins have been forgiven. We do have eternal life. Make that more real to us than anything that we have to go out and face this week in this changing, ever-changing world. We ask all of that in the name of Jesus, amen.