Wisdom from the Spirit
09/13/09
1 Corinthians 2
Pastor Greg Smith
It is always a miracle when someone comes to genuine faith. Verses 9-10 say this in a beautiful way.
9 However, as it is written:
“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived—
these things God has prepared for those who love him”—
10 for God has revealed them to us by his Spirit.
The miracle is that people see the love of God in the brutal story of Jesus’ death.
1 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. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
Paul's message was Jesus crucified. Yet it's not obvious that Jesus' brutal death is an expression of God's amazing grace and love. It certainly isn’t elegant and persuasive wisdom. Faith is a miracle of the Holy Spirit.
I was reminded of the story of one the characters in Mark’s gospel. Turn in your Bibles to Mark.
Mark’s gospel has a title: it’s the first line.
1:1 The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
This is a story that shows that Jesus unlike anyone else. He is God’s representative and even more: he is God’s unique Son.
In the gospel itself, God declares that Jesus is his Son twice. First, at his baptism.
1:11 And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
And then a unique experience on a mountain top with just a few of the disciples called the Transfiguration.
9:7 Then a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!”
The only others that know Jesus is God’s Son are the demons.
3:11 Whenever the evil spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.”
It is not until the climax of Mark’s story that any human declares what Mark set out to show all along: the centurion in Mark 15.
38 The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. 39 And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”
It is very surprising that a centurion would understand at all.
1. A centurion was a Roman army officer.
— Power meant strength over adversaries.
— Suffering was what the strong inflicted on the weak. Just like today, suffering was a way to control, humiliate and overwhelm.
2. Jesus was humiliated. He was made fun of and mocked in the centurion’s presence and by the soldiers under his command.
15:16 The soldiers led Jesus away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium) and called together the whole company of soldiers. 17 They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him. 18 And they began to call out to him, “Hail, king of the Jews!” 19 Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him. 20 And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.
Jesus seemed utterly powerless and it was rubbed like salt into his wounds.
25 It was nine in the morning when they crucified him. 26 The written notice of the charge against him read: THE KING OF THE JEWS. 27 [28] They crucified two rebels with him, one on his right and one on his left. 29 Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, 30 come down from the cross and save yourself!”
Mark 15:31 In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! 32 Let this Messiah, this king of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.” Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him.
3. There seemed to be no power here that would impress a Roman commander.
Jesus died abandoned by his friends. Even God seemed to abandon him. The centurion heard Jesus’ loud cry,
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
But even then, the centurion believed.
39 And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”
It’s no accident that the centurion’s declaration of faith comes directly after verse 38:
37 With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.
38 The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. 39 And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”
What did this army officer believe?
1. He believed that a greater power was present here than Roman power.
I doubt that the centurion could understand it but we know that God is powerful enough to absorb the toxin of human sin that jeered at and killed Jesus and turn it into salvation for all that trust the crucified Son of God.
2. He believed that suffering does not mean God’s rejection.
It can mean the prelude to something much greater. That’s why Christians are not always called to escape suffering if they are able.
3. The centurion believed that in this world things are not as they seem.
“Where God’s absence was most loudly expressed, God’s presence was most powerfully revealed.”
God’s love and power can win over even those that we might never dream would respond— like a centurion. Enemies are never to be written off as out of God’s reach.
The story of Jesus crucified is God's way of saving the world. And it is applied to one heart after another by the Holy Spirit.
How did the Corinthians, and all Christians for that matter, come to understand the cross as God’s deepest expression of wisdom and love, something that seems foolish to the non-believer?
7 But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
9 But, as it is written,
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—
10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
11 For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God.
12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God.
It is by God’s Spirit that we understand that Jesus crucified on the cross is God’s greatest gift of love.
If we want to be an effective church, we can’t do without the Holy Spirit. And we can’t do without the message of the cross.
Look at the example of Paul.
1 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. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.
Paul depended on the Holy Spirit to convert others to Christ so that their “faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.”
He says the same in verse 13.
13 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.
If another is to understand it is because they are “spiritual”— that is, enabled to understand by the Holy Spirit. And what will they understand? The message of the cross of Christ.
The key is the cross.
1. We have a cross-formed message.
1 Cor. 1:18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
2. We have a cross-formed people.
1 Cor. 1:26 Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.
The community of the weak and lowly that are lifted up and empowered, those for whom Christ has become "wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption."
3. We need to be cross-formed messengers.
1 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. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.
What does a "cross-formed messenger" look like? Not an incompetent, frightened, ignoramus, as Paul's words could be taken at first reading. It means the messenger is congruous with the message.
First, it means having the mind of Christ as Paul defines it in Philippians 2.
3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had:
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a human being,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
2. It means transparency and the vulnerability that goes with it.
The advice of someone I looked up to at seminary: "Don't be a holy man." No problem! Of course, what he meant was don't put on airs, don't let your professionalism get in the way of letting people see the real you. Don't let a facade get in the way of seeing your true humanity. Jesus was never more human than on the cross. Paul was never more human than when he came to the Corinthians "in weakness and in fear and in much trembling." People don't long for a slick church, but a genuine church filled with real people.
3. It means reliance on the power of God.
It means seeking a divine-human encounter where you will fade in importance.
4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.
Pastor Greg Smith
It is always a miracle when someone comes to genuine faith. Verses 9-10 say this in a beautiful way.
9 However, as it is written:
“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived—
these things God has prepared for those who love him”—
10 for God has revealed them to us by his Spirit.
The miracle is that people see the love of God in the brutal story of Jesus’ death.
1 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. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
Paul's message was Jesus crucified. Yet it's not obvious that Jesus' brutal death is an expression of God's amazing grace and love. It certainly isn’t elegant and persuasive wisdom. Faith is a miracle of the Holy Spirit.
I was reminded of the story of one the characters in Mark’s gospel. Turn in your Bibles to Mark.
Mark’s gospel has a title: it’s the first line.
1:1 The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
This is a story that shows that Jesus unlike anyone else. He is God’s representative and even more: he is God’s unique Son.
In the gospel itself, God declares that Jesus is his Son twice. First, at his baptism.
1:11 And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
And then a unique experience on a mountain top with just a few of the disciples called the Transfiguration.
9:7 Then a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!”
The only others that know Jesus is God’s Son are the demons.
3:11 Whenever the evil spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.”
It is not until the climax of Mark’s story that any human declares what Mark set out to show all along: the centurion in Mark 15.
38 The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. 39 And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”
It is very surprising that a centurion would understand at all.
1. A centurion was a Roman army officer.
— Power meant strength over adversaries.
— Suffering was what the strong inflicted on the weak. Just like today, suffering was a way to control, humiliate and overwhelm.
2. Jesus was humiliated. He was made fun of and mocked in the centurion’s presence and by the soldiers under his command.
15:16 The soldiers led Jesus away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium) and called together the whole company of soldiers. 17 They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him. 18 And they began to call out to him, “Hail, king of the Jews!” 19 Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him. 20 And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.
Jesus seemed utterly powerless and it was rubbed like salt into his wounds.
25 It was nine in the morning when they crucified him. 26 The written notice of the charge against him read: THE KING OF THE JEWS. 27 [28] They crucified two rebels with him, one on his right and one on his left. 29 Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, 30 come down from the cross and save yourself!”
Mark 15:31 In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! 32 Let this Messiah, this king of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.” Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him.
3. There seemed to be no power here that would impress a Roman commander.
Jesus died abandoned by his friends. Even God seemed to abandon him. The centurion heard Jesus’ loud cry,
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
But even then, the centurion believed.
39 And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”
It’s no accident that the centurion’s declaration of faith comes directly after verse 38:
37 With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.
38 The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. 39 And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”
What did this army officer believe?
1. He believed that a greater power was present here than Roman power.
I doubt that the centurion could understand it but we know that God is powerful enough to absorb the toxin of human sin that jeered at and killed Jesus and turn it into salvation for all that trust the crucified Son of God.
2. He believed that suffering does not mean God’s rejection.
It can mean the prelude to something much greater. That’s why Christians are not always called to escape suffering if they are able.
3. The centurion believed that in this world things are not as they seem.
“Where God’s absence was most loudly expressed, God’s presence was most powerfully revealed.”
God’s love and power can win over even those that we might never dream would respond— like a centurion. Enemies are never to be written off as out of God’s reach.
The story of Jesus crucified is God's way of saving the world. And it is applied to one heart after another by the Holy Spirit.
How did the Corinthians, and all Christians for that matter, come to understand the cross as God’s deepest expression of wisdom and love, something that seems foolish to the non-believer?
7 But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
9 But, as it is written,
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—
10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
11 For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God.
12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God.
It is by God’s Spirit that we understand that Jesus crucified on the cross is God’s greatest gift of love.
If we want to be an effective church, we can’t do without the Holy Spirit. And we can’t do without the message of the cross.
Look at the example of Paul.
1 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. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.
Paul depended on the Holy Spirit to convert others to Christ so that their “faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.”
He says the same in verse 13.
13 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.
If another is to understand it is because they are “spiritual”— that is, enabled to understand by the Holy Spirit. And what will they understand? The message of the cross of Christ.
The key is the cross.
1. We have a cross-formed message.
1 Cor. 1:18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
2. We have a cross-formed people.
1 Cor. 1:26 Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.
The community of the weak and lowly that are lifted up and empowered, those for whom Christ has become "wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption."
3. We need to be cross-formed messengers.
1 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. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.
What does a "cross-formed messenger" look like? Not an incompetent, frightened, ignoramus, as Paul's words could be taken at first reading. It means the messenger is congruous with the message.
First, it means having the mind of Christ as Paul defines it in Philippians 2.
3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had:
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a human being,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
2. It means transparency and the vulnerability that goes with it.
The advice of someone I looked up to at seminary: "Don't be a holy man." No problem! Of course, what he meant was don't put on airs, don't let your professionalism get in the way of letting people see the real you. Don't let a facade get in the way of seeing your true humanity. Jesus was never more human than on the cross. Paul was never more human than when he came to the Corinthians "in weakness and in fear and in much trembling." People don't long for a slick church, but a genuine church filled with real people.
3. It means reliance on the power of God.
It means seeking a divine-human encounter where you will fade in importance.
4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.