Live the Difference
GET SMART
I Corinthians 2:6-16
We are continuing on our theme: Live the Difference. We will find in I Corinthians 2:6-16 three reasons why we, as Christians, think differently.
There are people that don’t get it when it comes to the good news that we find in Scripture? They just don’t understand it. And it makes us ask this question…
Why is it that some understand the good news readily, while others put it off or scoff at it? There are many that scoff at the Christian faith. In fact, it was Sigmund Freud that suggested that religion was for the weak and stupid; that religion was a crutch for people.
Then there are others that think that the Christian faith is fine, but it is not important to them. And others believe that they are just not good enough to be a Christian.
So why don’t some people get it?
I believe that the answer is found in a theme that we have alluded to during the past three weeks of our study of Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth. The answer is found in the death of Jesus the Messiah.
To help us look at I Corinthians 2:6-16 let’s start with a scripture from Philippians 2:5 which says, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”
In that context it is telling us to be humble, to consider the needs of others above ourselves, because that is exactly what Jesus did.
Philippians 2:8 says, “He humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross.”
He did that for us because we needed it. Jesus willingly gave up what rightfully belonged to Him! I don’t know about you, but I’ve got enough sin myself without taking on someone else’s sins!
But even though Jesus never sinned, He was willing to take our sins upon Himself and pay the penalty of the second death for us!
That is good news. That is the Gospel. But many people hear that, and they stumble over it and consider it foolishness, missing the wisdom of God. That's why the apostle Paul thought it was important to be sure to proclaim the message, “Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”
The apostle Paul, after stating that his preaching was not with “persuasive words of human wisdom,” follows that here in I Corinthians 2.
Indeed, God had a plan, a wonderful plan, that people often don't understand. Even though it’s seen as foolish by some, in reality, it is a demonstration of God's great wisdom.
In the Levitical Law of the Old Testament, the Lord was very clear about the different types and reasons for animal sacrifices. There were burnt offerings, meal offerings, peace offerings, sin offerings, and trespass offerings. When Jesus Christ offered Himself as our offering on the Cross at Calvary, He fulfilled all of the righteous requirements of the Law on our behalf.
So, there is no longer a need for animal sacrifices. Jesus covered our sins, made peace between God and us, and paid for all our trespasses. This is how we become “Holy, acceptable” to the Lord.
The secret wisdom, this mystery, is that God would send His own Son, Jesus, as the Messiah and that Jesus would bring salvation through His death on the cross. He was our sacrifice for our sins.
Because of the foreknowledge of God, He knew of the evil activities of Satan and his kind and put a plan in place to defeat them.
Christ’s death is an indictment of our hopeless and sinful condition. It reveals our utter insufficiency to help ourselves. But this indictment is fully contrary to the wisdom of the world, which is wholly devoted to achieving and maintaining its own self-sufficiency.
Paul writes to the Corinthians because of their lack of understanding and their lack of application of this truth. When Paul writes, he is saying that…
The Corinthians needed to get smart and live differently.
They were no longer acting as if they understood the good news. Whether they realized it or not, they were now acting more like those that had dismissed the good news as opposed to those that had received it.
They were not living differently than the world and as a result there was a lot of arguing going on.
There was a real lack of unity in this church. It didn’t help that some felt that they had arrived spiritually. This spiritual arrogance was harming the church. You see if we are to live differently, then our thought processes must also change.
Many of the Corinthians had fallen into this spiritual arrogance by pursuing human wisdom. They were fascinated by the Greek philosophies and were integrating them into their thinking.
But when they did, it had the wrong result. They were acting just like those without the Lord in their lives.
And the net result was ironic. For though they are spiritual, they acted unspiritual. While they were pursuing knowledge and wisdom, in the process, they were missing the very wisdom of God.
As believers in the Lord Jesus… WE THINK DIFFERENTLY (OR AT LEAST, WE ARE SUPPOSED TO…).
So, the question we want to ask again, why do Christians think differently?
The first reason we think differently is we are ADVANCING Let’s read this again, verse [6] 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. [7] But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, 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.
Notice here that we are regarded as the “mature.”
If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus, you are considered mature. You are advancing spiritually.
This is not about being religious, because acting religious does not get you anywhere. You are considered mature because you have the ability to understand the truth about yourself, the world and faith.
This is why Paul says that God imparts wisdom to the Corinthians. They are supposed to understand it and apply it. The same goes for us.
Certainly, the Corinthians viewed themselves as mature, yet they were not living maturely. Instead, it seems as if they are still in the grip of the world’s values.
What is interesting is that the influence of Greek philosophy made them think that they were growing superior, even superior over other Christians.
They believed that they were in the process of unlocking spiritual mysteries that were only for the mature, like them. They believed they had a superior understanding that others were not able to decipher.
The Corinthians were acting as if they had unlocked the secret code. But this was a misunderstanding of the secret and hidden wisdom of God. God holds back His wisdom from natural man, but there is a mystery He has revealed to us.
The mystery was not some inaccessible teaching that only the spiritually superior people can get to.
It was not something that was only spoken in secret. The mystery had been formerly hidden by God, but it was now revealed in history.
And it was revealed so it would be understood.
The mystery is that God’s wisdom is salvation through a crucified Messiah. The secret wisdom is that God would send His own son, Jesus, as the Messiah, and then Jesus would bring salvation through His death on a cross.
And here is the ultimate irony, if the Jewish leaders and Roman soldiers had understood who Jesus was, they never would have crucified Him. Yet, by killing Him, they carried out God’s plan.
You see, it is God’s wonderful plan that all who will put their trust in Jesus Christ, He will bring to an eternal home in heaven. Yet, people don’t seem to care.
Nevertheless, before the ages, God planned these wondrous events for the benefit of those who would respond positively to His invitation. It is for our glory.
And what is being worked out in the present, what we are dealing with now, is for our good and is advancing our faith and ultimately brings us to an eternity with God.
But this was not understood. In their ignorance, the leaders of the day executed Jesus. He didn’t look all that glorious to them, but in the eyes of the Father, He was the Lord of Glory.
This is what the Corinthians needed to get right (as we noted last week). We never move past or beyond the cross. There is nothing more essential to understanding the mysteries of God than the cross.
Which brings to… The second reason we think differently is we are APPREHENDING (9-13).
[9] But, as it is written, "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, 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 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. [12] 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. [13] And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
That which is natural, our eyes, our ears, and our hearts – in and of themselves – are unable to know or comprehend the extent of what God has prepared for us. We are ignorant of the scope of salvation and its blessings.
But let’s celebrate that… We are the beneficiaries of God’s love. We are in the process of apprehending, of learning, the power of His love for us.
And because the Spirit of God searches the deep things of God, we are in the infant stages of realizing the magnitude of this love relationship.
We are the recipients of the Spirit of God. We do not come to God on our own. In fact, it is impossible for us to experience salvation apart from His Spirit. We need God to come to us by His Spirit.
At the end of the school year, a Spanish teacher asked her first-year students to write what they liked and disliked about the class. This would help her do a better job the next year.
One student wrote: "The reason I liked Spanish was that I learned a new language. The reason I didn’t like Spanish was that I didn’t understand it."
It is the Spirit that enables us to understand. He helps us understand the enormity of the gospel. He helps us understand the Word of God. He helps us understand how God has graced us. He opens our eyes so that we might appreciate His love for us.
So we are taught spiritual truth. We have a truth Teacher who resides in us. He helps us to understand the things of God. He opens our hearts to receive the things we need to know through all the ways God provides His revelation.
The Spirit interprets spiritual things to the spiritual. As a result, that which had no meaning to us before we were a Christian, now is full of increasing meaning. The Word of God comes alive to us, because the Spirit of God applies it to our hearts.
Coming to the third reason we think differently is we are ASCERTAINING (14-16).
[14] 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. [15] The spiritual person judges all things but is himself to be judged by no one. [16] "For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.
These last few verses are written to abolish any last sanctuary of independence. They show us that we are to never go it alone.
First let us note that because we now have the Spirit, we have insight on our past. We now understand where we have come from. Before we were found in Christ, we lived an ordinary, unredeemed existence that we inherited from the Fall. We did not accept the truths about Jesus.
They appeared to be foolish.
It seemed to us that Christianity was twisted and distorted. But we thought this way because we were unable to understand. We were in bondage. Our pride blinded us to the truth.
But when we received Christ, the Holy Spirit enabled us to understand spiritual truth. He made it possible for us to ascertain the truth.
We now possess clear appreciation of God’s work in the world and us. We become discerning about what God has accomplished in our past. We become discerning about what God is doing in our present, especially so, when we are obedient to His will.
We become discerning in our understanding of Scripture, especially when we are diligent in its study. We become discerning on how to live the difference that God makes in our lives, because we
have the mind of Christ.
Because the Spirit brings Christ’s thoughts to us as believers by living in us, we know that now is the time to live holy lives.
We know, the profane person cannot understand holiness, but the Christian should well understand the depths of evil. It is because our proud rebellion has been changed into willing submission.
I like how William Barclay describes the difference of the natural and spiritual man… “The natural man lives as if there was nothing beyond the physical life and there were no needs other than material needs. Such a person thinks that nothing is more important than satisfaction of self.
One who ranks the amassing of material things as the supreme end of life cannot understand generosity and one who has never thought beyond this world cannot understand the things of God.”
Don’t miss this crucial point…We think differently because of Christ crucified. Because Jesus died, we belong to a different world order and a different age.
We are not to behave as we once did. We are not to think as we once thought.
In every way, we must discontinue thinking like this world and instead think eternally.
When we do, it leads to a deeper understanding of God’s profound mystery – of redemption through a crucified Christ – foolishness to the Greeks, a stumbling block to the Jews – but to those of us who are being saved, it is the power of God.
You see…We think differently because the Holy Spirit has applied the truth about Jesus to our lives.
As Christians, we have been given life by the Spirit.
He now dwells in us. And as He lives in us, He changes our perspective, giving us understanding of God’s purposes and plans. He shows us that the cross is not foolishness, but rather the most magnificent wisdom one could ever imagine.
You may be tempted to think today, “I am so glad that we are not like those Corinthians. We have come so far compared to them.” But let me remind you…Consider all the translations we have available… Consider all the study helps that we can get our hands on…Consider all the massive commentaries that are at our disposal…Yet, we are increasingly a Biblically illiterate society, even in the church, because we do not live the truth as we ought.
So even now, we need to think differently…each one of us. We need to let the Spirit apply the truth about Jesus to our lives. And I think the key in this application is something we call the fruit of the Spirit.
You see; the wisdom of God is not observed by intelligence, education, or experience when it comes to the Spirit. When the Spirit is in us, we bear fruit. We demonstrate love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
When we see those in action, we know the Spirit has applied the truth about Jesus in our lives.
The crucial truth we are not to forget is the crucified Christ.
It is through Him that we are saved.
It is by Him that we have been redeemed.
And this has come from the profound depths of God’s own wisdom, His Spirit, given to those that love Him, has searched out and revealed to us.
So if there is going to be any boasting around here, it is going to be in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Think differently…because that which is considered foolishness is really the wisdom of God…it is the crucified Christ…our Savior, our Defender, and our Friend.
Think differently…because the Spirit has come to dwell in us to give us the mind of Christ; and because this is so, let us live differently…proving His residence among us by demonstrating love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
In Jesus’ precious Name, Amen.