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How you grew up, you were even in settings where if you ask questions that seem to be in your mind struggles with faith and reason, uh, you were almost shunned. You're almost like kicked to the curb. Like, don't ask those kind of kind of questions. You're attacking faith. You just believe it. But I would say to us that when we come to church and when we come to gatherings like this or when we are engaging with other believers, that we don't check our brains at the door, right? That we do have reason, but we also understand that there are many, many questions that we cannot answer in our intellect. That we have limitations. Now, why am I saying that? Because, again, every one of us in this room at some point will put our faith in some belief system. We will come to a place where we will have some belief system that helps us understand the world in which we live, and we will put our faith in that. We will put our hope in that. And my hope as a pastor and as a Christian, as a child of God, is that we would all come to see that God's way and God's plan and God's purpose and God's truth, which is taught in God's word, would be the operating system. It would be the belief system that we would come to. That's what I would hope. And I don't think you just come from just sit blindly saying, I believe it. God's word says it, I believe it, that settles it. I think that that's a great phrase, but the problem is that there are challenges when you look at the world around us, like evil and suffering. Like I sat this week at a coffee shop with a man who's uh basically struggling with agnosticism. He believes there's something, but he doesn't know exactly what's true and what's not true. Well, what what do you do with, in his mind, uh science and how it may contradict the Bible? What do you do with difficulties and suffering if God's good, if he's loving and he's gracious? Those are hard questions, aren't they? And we need to wrestle with them. But at some level, we're going to put our hope and our trust in wisdom. Wisdom in this understanding of how life is, it works, and we're going to put our hope in somebody's wisdom. Maybe our own. Maybe somebody we've taught that just sounds really good. It just makes a lot of sense. My hope in my life is that I would increasingly put my trust in this wisdom, in God's wisdom. A wisdom that's outside of me, a wisdom that's transcendent, as it says about itself. And we're going to talk about that this morning. If you have a Bible, I want to encourage you to open it up to 1 Corinthians chapter 2. Okay? We're working our way through 1 Corinthians, and as we work our way through 1 Corinthians, um, we're going to confront some passages of scripture that will challenge us, that will push us, that will call us to grow, that will call us to ask questions, and will cause us to use our brains, but ultimately to also call us to submit to God, to surrender to God and to his desire and his design. That is an invitation, it's not a command. That is an opportunity, it's not an edict. If you know what I'm saying? Because God is not a God who says, do this or else, but he is a God who says, you have an invitation, you have an opportunity, and one day he will come and say, This is, which side are you on? And so this morning, as we read from 1 Corinthians chapter 2, let me just quickly give us an overview of the text to where we're headed. We're going to break it into three parts, okay? Uh the first part, uh, we're going to read a section of the text and talk about Paul, the apostle Paul, who wrote the letter of Corinthians, 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians, to the people at Corinth. He wrote this letter with the intent of instructing them on how to grow up, how to mature, how to develop as a church as a church. And so the first section of it, uh, we're going to talk about his approach when he came to them. How did he come to them? And why did he come that particular way? The second thing we're going to look at is in this second section is who can receive God's wisdom? Who can receive this instruction, this wisdom on how life works, the worldview in which we should see the world in the lens in the lens through which we should see it? And then thirdly, we're going to talk about how do we actually receive God's wisdom. So, what if we if we know that there's wisdom God has, how do we receive it? How do we live in God's wisdom? How do we actually apply it and experience in our daily lives? And then just as a bonus, some of you may be sitting here already saying, Well, why do I even care? Why should I even want to know God's wisdom? And so we're going to address that on the back end. But let's start in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 1. And I encourage you guys to read along with me in your copy of the text. There's actually some Bibles under the seats if you would like one. Also, the words are on the screen above me. Here's what it says. When I came to you, brothers, announcing the testimony of God to you, I did not come with brilliance of speech or wisdom, for I didn't think it was a good idea to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I came to you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a powerful demonstration by the Spirit, so that your faith might not be based on men's wisdom, but on God's power. So the first thing that we want to look at is what is Paul's approach when he goes to Corinth? What is his approach to helping them understand who God is, what God has done for them, and ultimately the gospel. And notice that Paul, when he got there, he shows up with some a little bit of baggage, you might say. He had experienced some really difficult times. He had been through being persecuted, he had been stoned, he had been rejected by many people, he'd been kicked out, left for dead outside of the city. So Paul had already experienced some hardships. And when he says he came with a humility, a fear, a trembling, a weakness, he wasn't just saying like symbolically he was in that position, or even spiritually he was in that position. He was saying like physically he was literally in a position where he knew that these people could reject him, they could hurt him. And they had before. People had done that before because when he preached the message of the cross and of Christ, uh they rejected that message. They thought, uh, we're not going to follow you, Paul. In fact, what you're teaching is heretical. It's it's uh it's against God's intent and God's plan. And so they they tried to hurt him, they tried to stop him from preaching and teaching, which is not uncommon in that day for the other apostles. Uh, they all experienced hardship in different ways, ultimately, each one of them giving up their very life and becoming a martyr for the sake of sharing the gospel message. But we notice that Paul, his approach was really this: to keep the focus on Jesus. Paul's approach was to keep the focus on Jesus Christ. These first five verses really should be the mantra of every preacher, of every teacher in the church of Jesus Christ. Because if we are teaching stuff, we're teaching material each week on Sundays or in our daily lives that is causing people to put more trust in themselves than Jesus, then we are teaching false gospels. Are you hearing me? If you listen to good teachers, and by the way, I encourage you to find some good teachers out there. There's some teachers you'll really connect with because uh the way God's made us, we have different personalities, we have different styles, we have different people we like to listen to, people who communicate in a way that just really speaks to us. That's great. And I encourage you to do that. There's lots of talented folks who can communicate way better than I can or ever will. But the truth is, is always make sure that it points you to the person and work of Jesus. Okay? With me? Because if it doesn't point you to the person and work of Jesus, then the question is, well, what is it pointing you to? To yourself. Or maybe to them. Or maybe to some religious system, going back to this issue of where do you get your wisdom, that's not going to lead you to life, but actually gonna destroy your life and take your life from you. Because there's only one who gives life. His name's Jesus. Okay? And so in the scripture we find Paul did not want to keep people from seeing Jesus clearly. Uh to say differently what I said a while ago. He wanted to avoid distracting people from Jesus. He wanted to avoid getting them off in the weeds. I mean, he was in a context much like Austin today, where there was a lot of intellectuals, there was a lot of people philosophying about life, and they were telling all these things about how they understood the world and how it was, uh how it was again not only formed and created, but what was the purpose, what was the meaning. And so Paul was in the midst of an intellectual crowd of people. And he could have gotten lost in all the arguments and the debates. He could have gotten lost in all that information and never gotten to the person and work of Jesus. But Paul says, no, I came with fear and I trembling, but what? I focused on the message of Jesus. In fact, he says this in verse 4 my speech and my proclamation were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a powerful demonstration by the Spirit, so that your faith may not be based on God's wisdom, or man's wisdom, but on God's power. He didn't want them to be focused on man's wisdom, but on God's power, and that's the why. Why is this Paul's approach? Because Paul knows that God's power, not man's wisdom, creates and sustains saving faith. That God's power, not man's wisdom, is what creates and sustains saving faith. Now, let me take this a little bit further. It is very possible to know a lot of information about God and not be spiritually mature. Are you with me? Let me take that another step. It is possible to know a lot of things about God and not to be a child of God, to not be a Christian. I had the privilege of getting some training, some formal training in seminary and Bible college, and I enjoyed that. And there's still a lot of training tools and resources out there. There are people in the world who could tell you what this Bible means better than I do as far as the original context and culture. They could quote it in its original language, Greek and Hebrew. And guess what? In spite of that, they don't know God. In fact, I saw some of this firsthand where I saw people who knew a lot about this Bible and did not have a personal relationship with God. I heard it said this week, you can talk about theology for 40 years of your life and yet not know the resurrected Jesus. Because information and intelligence is not how you come into the kingdom of God. That's not how you're saved. And we're going to talk more about that in just a minute. But know this if you feel like you're an intellectual lightweight, if you feel like, you know, I'm smart, but I'm not like that smart. If you feel like I know some of the Bible, but I don't really know that much. And I know I talk to a lot of men and they feel really uncomfortable in church because they're like, we don't know the Bible, we don't know that stuff, so we just feel like we're awkward. It's just kind of weird for us to be in a small group and people asking questions and we just don't know what to say. And so we'd rather just avoid those settings because it's kind of embarrassing. It kind of feels awkward. Listen, it's okay if you don't know everything. We're all in a journey. None of us know everything. We're all in process. I've been studying the Bible, and here's what I've found. The more I study the Word of God, the less I really know about God. The less I really see that I'm like, wow, he is so much bigger than what I thought. He is so much greater than what I thought. You so see, because the study of the scripture, the study of God's word, the study of our faith should actually produce a humility and a worship and awe because God is so much bigger than we thought he was. He doesn't fit in these nice, neat little theological boxes that we try to put him in. God is awesome, he is holy, he is powerful. So Paul's approach was that he said, I don't want people to be hung up on men's wisdom. I already talked about this a couple weeks ago, that the people in Corinth were dividing up into different groups. They were like, I'm Team Paul, I'm Team Apollos, right? I'm Team Peter. And then there were the superficial, self-righteous, I'm Team Jesus. But that just meant that they were just saying, we're just gonna play the trump card. But here's the truth we all are in process, we're all works in progress, we're all learning, we're all growing, and Paul is saying, don't rest on a man because men will fail you. If you put your hope in a person, they're gonna fail you. Put your hope in Jesus who will never fail you. Put your trust in Jesus who will not let you down, who will not leave you or forsake you. So, uh C. H. Spurgeon once said this. He said that when people preach, that when they preach the Word of God, they should explain what's in the text, that we should help people understand the culture, the context, and the ideas of the text. We should do that. And he said, then you should make a straight line for the cross. And here's the truth this morning is that if preaching doesn't call us to Jesus and the cross, we haven't preached. We've taught some lesson. We may have given you some pop psychology, maybe even some help, some practical helps and tips, some tips and tricks to better your marriage, to better your family, to better your life. But guess what? When we preach, we call ourselves to the person and work of Jesus to say, Jesus, we need you. That's what we need. And so in my life, that's what I need day in and day out. We will never become the people God's called us to be apart from God. We'll never experience all that God has apart from Him and His work in our life. I think many people would prefer that church was an environment sometimes where you just showed up and you got some more how-toos, and then you walked out the door and you just tried harder. But if you're really honest with yourself, it doesn't work. Because we fail. Because we are incapable in and of ourselves to do it. So are we calling people to God? Are we calling people to Jesus? Are we calling people to themselves to try harder, to be more religious? We need Jesus. The second section of text I want us to read is verse six. There's so much more in that text, I can't even get to all of it this morning. Verse six says this. However, we do 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 of God predestined before the ages of for our glory. None of the rulers of this age knew this wisdom, for if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, what eye did not see, an ear did not hear, and what never entered the human mind, God prepared this for those who love him. So the second question I want to address this morning is this question of who can receive God's wisdom? Who can actually know God's wisdom? Who can actually understand God's wisdom? Well, Paul gives us several things here that help, but I want to start by saying I can tell you who can't receive God's wisdom. The people who can't receive God's wisdom are the people who are prideful, the people who are arrogant. You see, uh Paul mentions twice two different verses, verse 6 and then verse 8. He talks about the rulers of this age. The people who are coming in and they are setting up shop with this idea of they want power and they want prestige. And I hope you know this, but the goal of a preacher and a teacher should never be to have a following. Right? The goal of a teacher and a preacher is not, again, to point people to themselves and say, hey, I've got a big church, I've got a big ministry, hey everybody, look at me. And by the way, this is a very weird part of preaching and teaching because I'm standing up here on a platform under some lights this morning. It's like it feels like that's kind of almost like a paradox, this weird part of what we do. And yet, I want you to understand what our goal is, is to put Jesus in the spotlight. Right? And to put him into the spotlight. And these guys were coming in, and the Corinthians were buying in and they were thinking, like, power and prestige is what it's about. It's about power, it's about prestige, it's about being having a great reputation, about being glorified among men, being seen in a particular light among men. And Paul says, no. In fact, he says that the rulers of this age, because that's their approach, they can't receive God's wisdom. In fact, they didn't receive God's wisdom. That's why they killed Jesus. Are you following that line? I mean, he says that because they were so arrogant, they were so prideful, they thought they had it figured out, they had it going on, they didn't need Jesus. So, what's the answer to who can receive God's wisdom? Anyone who would receive it. That sounds like a cop-out answer, doesn't it? I mean, seriously, it's so simple. But it's true. Anyone who would receive God's wisdom can receive God's wisdom. What does James say? This is Jesus' half-brother, he was a preacher in Jerusalem. He says it this way if any of you lacks wisdom, what? Let him ask God. What about in another part of that same book where he's writing to his people in Jerusalem? He says, God resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. The question is, are we willing to receive God's wisdom? Or would we rather just say, God, I got this. I don't really, I don't really need your wisdom on my marriage. I don't really need your wisdom on life. I I got this. Now, I can take a few things from your scripture. I mean, I kind of like this part over here about you love me, but this part over here about I'm supposed to like serve other people and forgive other people, even if they haven't forgiven me, or even if they're doing something wrong, like, I don't think I like that part. So we're gonna like go through the Bible and pick and choose, right? So we're not walking in God's wisdom because we want it to make sense to us. And I'm just gonna go ahead and tell you now that if you open the Bible and you read it from cover to cover, you're gonna find there's a lot of things that won't make sense to you and will disagree with your worldview. In fact, if you don't open the Bible and find things that disagree with your worldview, you're not reading it right. People have used this Bible to do many things evil in the world. They have used and abused people with God's word. But God, because he is God and we are not, and his ways, as Isaiah 55, 8 and 9 says, are higher than our ways, and his thoughts are higher than our thoughts. He does things differently than we do, he operates differently than we do. Now, hopefully, over the course of our life, increasingly it does make sense. Increasingly, we do see good in the scripture. We do understand and we begin to agree with it more and more because God is at work in our hearts. But for many of us in this room, we go to the Bible and we just pick and choose. That's why a lot of verses are used out of context, like verse 9, for example. Verse 9 is a verse that's been on many people's walls. Maybe they crocheted it and or cross-stitched it in their home. I don't know. You know, people memorize this verse and they they talk about it being about heaven. It's from Isaiah, two different sections, 52 and 64 in Isaiah. And he says, No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind can perceive the things that God has prepared for those who love him. And what Paul is saying as he writes that is, listen, he's saying that there was this wisdom that God put into place, he put into motion, this gospel, this redemptive story, that Jesus Christ would come as a human being, and he would live a sinless life, and he would die a horrific death on the cross, and that that would be salvation. That Jesus would come out of that grave, which totally blows our minds, and he would be resurrected, and that one day he will return. That's the wisdom of God. So, that being said, if we want to receive God's wisdom, we have to come to God and say, God, how can we come under your leadership and your instruction? How do we become a person who is humble enough to receive it? Um I want to read the next section just for the sake of time as we move forward this morning, but um just know that many people say that Christianity is this super exclusive, um, you know, it's like this special club that only the elite can get into. Do you know that consistently throughout scripture it says anyone, everyone, all, uses this language that's including anybody who would actually humble themselves and receive the grace and the goodness of God. It is exclusive in the sense that Jesus Christ is alone the way, the truth, and the life. And no one comes to the Father except through him, John 14, 6. But it's inclusive because it gives every single person on this planet an opportunity to come and to receive the gift of salvation. And so we thank God for that this morning. We praise God for that this morning, that we've been included if we are a child of God. Now, um, third section of the text. Follow with me. We're going to start in verse 10. This is really fun. Now God has revealed these things to us by the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of a man that is in him? In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the spirit of God. Now, before we move on, I just want to say real quickly. Paul's giving an illustration. Like, who really knows what's going on below the surface in your life? Who really knows what you're thinking? No matter what's going on on the outside, no matter what your behavior says, no matter what seems to be the deal, who really knows what's going on inside of here and inside of here? Only your spirit, right? And so Paul's saying only you on the inside of you knows what's really going on. You can portray a picture on the outside. I mean, in church is one of those places sometimes where we have these great facades and we try to act like we have it all together, but we're like inside, you know, we're we're screaming, we're crying, we're hurting, we're we're we're dealing with a lot of issues. But we can put on a facade, but our spirit knows what's really going on, what's really happening in our minds and our hearts as we think and process. And he says, just like that's the case for a human being, who knows the mind of God? The spirit of God. The spirit of God knows the mind and the thoughts of Of God, which then means, how can we receive God's wisdom? Well, let's keep going. He's already said it in verse 10, and he's going to continue the same line of thought. Now we have not received the spirit of the world, but the spirit who comes from God. So lowercase spirit of the world and uppercase spirit who comes from God. That is the Holy Spirit, right? Comes from God. So that we may understand what has been freely given to us by God. I love that. That God freely gives instruction. He freely gives wisdom. He didn't say, you can pay a new price tag for that, right? It's freely given to us, the person and work of Jesus. More can be said there, but I'm going to move on. He says, 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. Now catch this verse. We're going to come back to it in a minute, but I want you to hear it. But the unbeliever does not welcome what comes from God's Spirit because it's foolishness to him. He is not able to understand it since it is 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. And we, again, is the believers, those who have put their trust in Christ. So how do we actually receive God's wisdom? How do we do it? Well, some of you guys may think of God's wisdom like a puzzle. How many of you guys have ever done a Rubik's Cube? My son got a Rubik's Cube for Christmas, and uh, and so my wife's gonna hand it to me because I forgot to bring it up here. Besides, if I said it here, the whole time you'd be guys will be sitting there thinking, what's what's up with the Rubik's Cube? Now, anybody like these things? I hate these things. These show me how dumb I am, okay? And I have tried and tried and tried. I've watched the YouTube video and I still can't do it, okay? And I like Rubik's cubes are just maddening to me. And I can sit and I can try and try to figure this thing out, okay? And thankfully I didn't have to figure this out to get into the kingdom of God because I would be lost forever. Alright? But here's the thing: some people look at God's will and they think of it like a Rubik's cube. Like that it's this puzzle that we've got to figure out and we've got to manipulate and we've got to work through and we've got to demonic. They think about God's will and is God's wisdom as the needle in the haystack kind of thing. And yes, Paul did use the words in these previous verses. He says that God's wisdom is a mystery and that it was hidden. But I want you to understand something. God is not trying to hide it to keep it away from those who would receive it. He actually, again, would say, if you want God's wisdom, and there's a big question mark there, by the way. If you want God's wisdom, if you desire God's wisdom, if you come with an open heart, if you come with an open mind, and you say, God, I need you, guess what? He will meet you in that desire. Well, then the question then becomes, well, how do we get there? Well, God reveals his wisdom through his spirit. Did you read verse 10? God has revealed these things to us by the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. Now, I grew up in a Baptist church environment, and for the most part, we functioned as Byterians. Now, some of you probably don't even know what I mean by that by that. The God is Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. We talked a lot about God the Father. We talked a lot about Jesus, and the Holy Spirit was like, well, if we get to him, we'll figure that out later. Okay? He's kind of a mystery, kind of weird. I don't know what to do with him. And so we didn't talk a lot about the Holy Spirit. But here's the truth: we have to have the Holy Spirit to understand God and to understand his wisdom. John 16, Jesus says to his disciples, he says something really powerful. It's on the screen above me here. He says that when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak whatever he hears. He will also declare to you what is to come. Jesus was saying, when I leave, the Holy Spirit's going to come and he's going to lead you into all truth. He's going to guide you into all truth. So if we neglect the Holy Spirit, we will never be wise. We cannot be wise spiritually and neglect the Holy Spirit. It's impossible. Because we learn how to be like Christ and to be in Christ by the power of the work and the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit does a couple of things that are really significant. They're really important. But I want you to understand that have anybody, has anybody in this room ever heard a sunset? How about this? Has anybody in this room, right, ever seen a symphony? You can see it. Can you appreciate it fully without hearing it? You've seen it, right? Well, the point is this. God has given us senses to experience Him and to experience life. But in the same way, if we want to know God, God has given us His Holy Spirit to actually understand Him. Does that make sense? So it'd be great to sit down over a steak and to just eat it with my nose, right? Just smell it in. Now, I like smell and it's part of tasting. But the truth of the matter is, is when I put it into my mouth, I have this sense called taste that enables me to actually experience the beauty and the wonder of that piece of meat. Because I love meat. I just have to sneak that in every now and then, right? Now, the point is, God's given us his Holy Spirit to understand who he is and what he has done, and to be able to get to grab a hold. The Holy Spirit does two things. These are not words that you will find in Scripture, but they are, at least not in the way that I'm going to talk about them. You will find an idea, and they are very embedded in the text. The two things that the Holy Spirit does that are very strong in terms of God's Word. First, God's Holy Spirit inspired the writing of the text. God's Holy Spirit inspired the word. The roughly 40 authors who wrote this text, 66 books, God's Holy Spirit inspired them. It doesn't mean he dictated everything to them. We get different genres in scripture, we get different flavors and styles and different perspectives. But he did inspire them. In fact, 2 Timothy 3.16 says it this way: The Scripture, all scripture, not just some of it, all of it, is God breathed. It's a word that Paul made up there. He actually just makes this word up in order to explain what the Holy Spirit does in helping people understand that the text is inspired by God. That God inspired. In 1 Peter, same thing. Peter writes that the prophets, they didn't just come up with this stuff on their own. They were inspired by the Holy Spirit. That's why, if you read from the beginning of the Bible to the end of the Bible, it's cohesive. That it's one consistent thread of redemption in God's work and his restoration of all mankind. Reconciliation of us from when we were broken back to made new. So that being said, if we are going to understand the scripture that was inspired by the Holy Spirit, we're going to have to lean on the Holy Spirit. Right? Which, because not only does the Holy Spirit inspire, he also illuminates. He illuminates our heart. He helps us actually understand what the Scripture says. And we see that in verse 10 because he says, Now God has revealed these things to us by the Spirit. So when you read your Bible, if you're saying, hey, I really struggle to understand the Bible, my question to you is, are you asking God to help you understand it? Or are you just going and reading it with hopes that you can somehow figure it out in your mind? Does that make sense? You with me? When we go, some of you guys notice that in our worship guide, each week we put a reading plan. We put some scriptures there, we encourage you to read them. We want you to see those texts, and we want you to, we hope that you open your Bible, not just on Sundays, but throughout the week, and you let God speak to you. Because God wants to speak to you every day. But when you go, one of the first things that you need to do, and one of the first things I need to do is say, God, would you speak to me? Would you help me understand what I'm about to read? And you know what's so cool? Is that God, in his grace and his mercy, he meets us in that and he teaches us and he shows us things. I've read this Bible through a number of times. And it's so awesome how God will show me new things when I come to it by his spirit. He will show me new things in it. And I'm understanding different things. This morning, as I preach the word, many of you in this room, you will hear God's word in a way that particularly applies to you. I may not even be saying something that God's speaking to you this morning through his word. That's pretty awesome. Why? Because God's Spirit is working among us and he teaches us what we need to hear. He helps us understand what we need to understand. That's the way his Holy Spirit works. It's not, it's a Rubik's Cube. It's tapping into the Holy Spirit and letting the Holy Spirit lead us, which is really done mostly in prayer, through praying and seeking God in prayer. Being aware that when we came to faith in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit came in and set up residence in our hearts. And now we have access to the Holy Spirit, to his understanding, to his power, to the ability to really discern what's wisdom and what's not. So, maybe at this point, you're thinking to yourself, well, I really don't believe in this stuff, and the Bible really doesn't make sense. Well, let me just say what Paul says to you, okay? You're right. It doesn't make sense. If you're not a believer in Christ, when you read the Bible, there's a lot of it that makes zero sense. Because, what he says in verse 14, the unbeliever does not welcome what comes from God's Spirit because it's foolishness to him. He is not able to understand it since it is evaluated spiritually. Not to be real technical and all that, but Paul here is contrasting two different men, suchikas and pneumakos. This man that's spiritual and this man that is based, the word suki is where we get the word psyche, and it's this intellectual. It's this idea that we have this intellectual way of thinking about life and this spiritual way of thinking about life. Why is he doing that? Because he's saying the person who is in the natural intellectual way will not get to faith, not to saving faith. You can't get there. If that's where you remain. You need God's spirit to supernaturally save you. This helps me a lot when I'm sitting across the table and having coffee with people in Austin, Texas, and they say things like, How can you possibly believe that stuff? Don't you know it's a myth? And I totally understand. I don't have to sit there and argue through it and say, uh, you know, don't you get it? Don't you just see? Have faith. Because unless the Spirit of God opens the heart of a person, they're not going to receive. They're not. So that means I need to be praying more than I'm talking. I need to be praying more than I'm arguing. I need to be asking God's Holy Spirit to do more work than I'm sitting there trying to make a case and prop Jesus up. He doesn't need me to prop him up. His Holy Spirit will do that. His Holy Spirit will do the work of saving people. My job is to be faithful, to love people, to serve people, to show them the good news before I share the good news. To show them what it looks like to truly believe this gospel. I want to close out with this. Some of you guys are asking the question, well, why should I even care about God's wisdom? I think it's been implied throughout this message because God's wisdom really is the gospel, the good news about Jesus Christ. It is the message of the cross. It is the message of how people can be saved and made right before a holy God. And I hope you know this, but going to church is not what saves people. Being a good dad, being a good husband, reading your Bible, praying, giving to the poor, that's not what saves people. I know a lot of people who would love that to be the answer because that's almost easier. Just check the box. Okay, I read my Bible, I prayed, I, you know, was kind, I didn't flip that person off in traffic. Um, I'm a good Christian. Some of you did that this week. I'm just saying. I'm just being real. Listen. So we kind of have these little check the box. And that's not what it's about. It's not checking the box. It is about putting our trust and our hope in the person of Jesus. Why should we desire God's wisdom? Because it's the power of God into salvation for all who believe. Romans 1 says it this way. Paul, same writer, in the book of Romans, for I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is God's power for salvation to everyone. See that inclusive language again? Not just a few. Everyone, anybody who wants to can believe. First the Jew and also to the Greek. For in it, God's righteousness is revealed from faith to faith. Just as it is written, the righteous will live by faith. Let me, in closing, just take Paul's approach here. We put a verse on the screen that I'm guessing all of you have heard at some point in your life. The verse John 3.16. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. You heard that verse before? We've heard it so much it becomes cliche. This is the wisdom of God. Let me break this down for you. For God so loved. Well, first off, you might even have to stop at the word God, that God actually does exist. That God actually is real, that he is at work, that there is supernatural. But God loved. I mean, if I saw people like me treating God, treating, you know, treating him like the way that we, I would just say, forget you. Because many times in our lives we rebel, we reject God. I mean, think about it. Think about how often God has given us instructions and we've just totally ignored it. I wouldn't love them, I'd leave them. But God, in his mercy and his wisdom, he says, I'm going to keep pursuing you because I love you. I'm going to keep giving you an opportunity to know me, to follow me, to trust me, to experience the life that you were intended to live, to experience the grace that I have for you. So for God so loved, he loved the world. He loved the world. I mean, again, the ugliness, the good, the bad, all the things in the world he loved. That he, not the wisdom of the world, by the way, the people of the world. Want to make sure you're clear on that. God doesn't love the wisdom of the world. He's opposed to it, very much so. He loved the world so that what did he do? He gave. Instead of leaving and saying, forget you, human race, he says, I love you enough to pursue you, and I'm going to give my own son to die on the cross for you. That is silliness. You know why people look at you and they say, That's the dumbest story I've ever heard? Because without the Spirit of God, that is the dumbest story I've ever heard. Like, why would God give his life for me? That doesn't mean anything. Not only that, why did he have to give his life for me? Because I am a sinner and I needed a saving. I needed Jesus to rescue me. I needed him to help me because I could never be good enough on my own. So he gave his one and only Son. That whoever believes in him, what's the key to salvation? Faith in Jesus, right? Putting our trust and our hope in Jesus so that we should not perish but have eternal life. Again, there's so much wisdom in this that the world rejects. But this is the power of God into salvation for all who believe. That's what the scripture would say to us this morning. So, a couple things. First off, some of you need to believe for the first time. Some of you actually need to believe on Jesus that this is true, and you need to put your trust in Jesus this morning. I don't want to obscure that. I don't want to try to distract you from that reality. Maybe this morning the Spirit of God is saying, for the first time, it's making sense that you can't work your way to God. You can't get there by your own effort, that you need Jesus Christ. If that's where you are this morning, I would ask you to receive the gift of salvation, to put your trust in Jesus Christ for your saving. But secondly, some of you in this room are believers like me. I know where I'm going to spend eternity. I believe and I have confidence that Jesus Christ died for my sin. He rose again. I'm going to spend eternity with him when he comes back to give me. I believe that this morning by faith. I don't deserve it, but I believe it. And here's what I know: that many times in my life there are things that I don't believe from God's word and I don't apply. In fact, one of my favorite leaders in the church and modern leader today that is doing a great job, he says that all of us are unbelievers. That all of us function in unbelief every day. Because we don't actually believe John 3.16 is applicable to every area of our life. So we say, God, I'll follow you for this, but I'm going to do my own thing over here. God, I'll follow you for my salvation, but my finances, my marriage, my parenting, my work, all that stuff's my stuff. So we're professing faith in Jesus, but functionally we're atheists. Like we function in atheism in our daily lives because we don't truly believe. What do we do with that this morning? Well, my hope is that as believers, we hit our knees and we say, God help me. And we gain wisdom from Him and we actually ask Him to, by His Spirit's power, help us to believe the truth about what really matters. Because the Word of God says that everything in this life is passing away. Everything is passing away. Except for what? His word and his people. That's what really matters. God's wisdom. God's wisdom that we can have life through this Jewish carpenter who happened to be God coming in the form of a man, being born to a virgin among the poor, who lives a sinless, perfect life, who picks 12 dudes to be his disciples who are the least likely kind of guys. They were rough fishermen who like to get in fights, tax collectors who were traitors to their people. He trains them for three years, and then he goes to a cross, a horrific cross, and dies a death. That's foolishness to the world, but to us it's life. That Jesus Christ died for our sin, and that's enough. I don't have to add to it, and I can't take from it. That's life. Let's pray. God, thank you so much again for your faithfulness. Thank you for your truth. Thank you for your grace. Thank you for your mercy. And God, I pray that there be people in this room this morning that would receive the gift of salvation, that by your Spirit, that they would put their hope and their faith and trust in you. That as the words of Paul, that we wouldn't rest our hope in man's wisdom but in your power. Because our wisdom will always lead us to boast in ourselves. It'll always lead us to pride. It'll always lead us to more of us, which really ultimately leads us to destruction, pain, hardship, death. What we need is you, Jesus. That's what we need. We need you to rescue us. We need you to help us be pure people. We need you to help us, God, to be faithful people. We need you to help us be people of truth. And no matter what the world says to us, no matter what the system of the world, the culture of the world, whatever you want to say that, that we're very much a part of, that no matter what we hear, that we would always seek your wisdom through your spirit to do what you've asked us to do, to follow you, to obey you, to trust you more deeply. Thank you, Jesus.