1. "There was a time when everyone knew that the earth was flat, when everyone knew that cigarettes are harmless, when everyone knew that women shouldn't vote. Within the lifetime of some in this room, the Nobel Prize in Medicine was given to the inventor of the lobotomy."

2. "It is so ironic that virtually the only reason Herod and Pilate and other first century leaders are known today is because of the Jesus they put to death in order to preserve their greatness."

3. "The spoiled child looks past the beautiful home and loving family in her tantrum that she wants a pony. We look past all that God in his love has prepared for us in our tantrum that we want that job or that spouse or that person's respect or whatever it is that the wisdom of this age has convinced us that we need to be happy."

4. "Unless you know everything, you can't be certain of anything. Unless you know everything, the falsifier of what you think you know might be lurking just around the corner."

5. "Sometimes I think the reason we don't have much heart in our study of Scripture is because we honestly don't feel like we need it. You took a quick glance at the directions to your friend's house because you were pretty sure you knew how to get there. But now it's storming and you're lost and the internet's down and you really wish you had paid closer attention to that map."

6. "Perhaps you've been alarmed because there are things in the Bible that don't make sense to you. Shouldn't you rather be alarmed if everything in the Bible did make sense? Surely the revelation of an incomprehensible God is sometimes going to run roughshod over your human sensibilities."

7. "I picked an argument with the Bible. I lost. It won. I've been blessed."

8. "You can blend in with the crowd or you can follow Jesus. You cannot have both. You must choose."

9. "For the Christian, the cross of Christ is not simply how one was saved; it is now how one lives. Not merely a means to forgiveness but a way of life."

10. "The Corinthians' infighting is like two princesses arguing over pocket change. To which you want to say, what are you doing? You have the whole kingdom."

Observation Questions

1. According to 1 Corinthians 2:6-7, what kind of wisdom does Paul impart, and how does it differ from "a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age"?

2. In verse 8, what does Paul say the rulers of this age failed to understand, and what was the consequence of their lack of understanding?

3. What does verse 9 say about "what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined," and to whom has God prepared these things?

4. According to verses 10-11, who alone comprehends the thoughts of God, and how does Paul use the analogy of a person's own spirit to explain this?

5. In verse 12, what have believers received, and for what purpose does Paul say they received it?

6. How does Paul contrast the "natural person" in verse 14 with the "spiritual person" in verse 15, particularly regarding their ability to accept and evaluate "the things of the Spirit of God"?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why does Paul emphasize that God's wisdom was "decreed before the ages" (verse 7) and that none of the rulers of this age understood it (verse 8)? What does this tell us about the nature and source of true wisdom?

2. What is the significance of Paul's statement in verse 10 that God has "revealed" these things "through the Spirit"? How does this challenge the idea that humans can discover ultimate truth on their own?

3. In verses 12-13, Paul describes how believers receive and communicate God's wisdom. What does this passage teach about how Scripture came to be and how Christians can understand it?

4. Why does Paul say that the things of the Spirit are "folly" to the natural person and that such a person "is not able to understand them" (verse 14)? What barrier exists that prevents understanding?

5. What does it mean that believers "have the mind of Christ" (verse 16), and how does this relate to Paul's earlier point that no one has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?

Application Questions

1. The sermon emphasized that we often look past the riches God has prepared for us in Christ while longing for something else (a job, relationship, or lifestyle). What specific blessing from God are you currently overlooking or taking for granted, and how might you cultivate greater gratitude for it this week?

2. The preacher identified three impulses that undermine Scripture's authority: the atheist impulse (outright denial), the revisionist impulse (editing what it says), and the pragmatist impulse (ignoring it). Which of these three has been the greatest temptation for you recently, and in what specific situation?

3. The sermon urged Christians to "tell of all God's wonderful deeds" to one another and to the next generation. Who is one younger believer or family member with whom you could share a specific story of what God has done in your life, and when will you do so?

4. Paul says the natural person considers God's wisdom to be folly. Is there an area where you have been tempted to soften or hide your Christian convictions because you fear being thought foolish? What would it look like to lay your desire for respectability at the cross this week?

5. The sermon concluded that we should not just know God's wisdom but live it—that the cross is not merely how we were saved but how we now live. What is one specific situation in your daily life (at work, home, or in relationships) where you need to move from merely knowing what Scripture says to actually obeying it?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Isaiah 64:1-9 — This is the passage Paul alludes to in verse 9, expressing Israel's lament that no eye had seen God's glorious salvation while acknowledging their persistent sin.

2. Isaiah 40:12-31 — Paul quotes verse 13 in 1 Corinthians 2:16; this passage celebrates God's incomparable wisdom and power, reinforcing that no human can instruct Him.

3. John 10:1-18 — Jesus teaches that His sheep hear and know His voice, illustrating the self-authenticating nature of God's Word that the sermon emphasized.

4. Romans 8:5-17 — Paul contrasts the mind set on the flesh with the mind set on the Spirit, expanding on the distinction between the natural and spiritual person.

5. Colossians 2:1-10 — Paul describes Christ as the one in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, reinforcing that believers need not seek wisdom elsewhere.

Sermon Main Topics

I. Personal Anecdote: Bad Judgments About Pixar's "Cars" Illustrates Our Need for True Wisdom

II. Don't Dismiss It, Revel in It (1 Corinthians 2:6-10)

III. Don't Try to Discover It, Receive It (1 Corinthians 2:10-13)

IV. Don't Just Know It, Live It (1 Corinthians 2:14-16)

V. Responding to the Privilege of Having God's Wisdom Through Grace

Detailed Sermon Outline

• The atheist impulse: outright denial
• The revisionist impulse: editing what it says
• The pragmatist impulse: ignoring or claiming it doesn't apply

After we finished college, my two roommates went to work for Pixar, the digital animation studio. I lived nearby, and so I would sometimes stop in for lunch to catch up, see what they were working on. One day when I came, Tom had a fish tank at his desk full of fish. He was working that day building seaweed, and if I recall, Dory, the yellow and blue fish in Finding Nemo. Tim also had a fish tank at his desk.

It was empty. He was building the water. And then with great excitement, they told me about their next film. It's going to be about cars, Tom told me. Talking cars, said Tim, with eyes on their windshields and mouths in their bumpers.

It's going to be called Cars.

I was unimpressed. Guys, guys, your films work because they appeal to kids and adults. Talking cars is way too juvenile. This is never going to work. It worked spectacularly.

Not only grossing half a billion dollars at the box office, but by the time Cars 2 came out, which to add insult to injury became one of my son's favorite movies of all time, those characters Tom and Tim have built brought in $10 billion in merchandise sales. I wouldn't be surprised if even now in this very room there is an image or likeness of Lightning McQueen. All that to say, if you're looking for advice about a movie idea you have, don't talk to me. Bad judgments. They are all around us, not just about me and movies, but about much more significant things, about morals, life plans, critical decisions.

As you move through life, How can you be sure that your judgment will be sound? Our world has an answer to that question. It tells us to follow its lead. Float down the lazy river of this world's wisdom, and you'll be okay after all. We can't all be wrong, can we?

Oh, we can. Right? There was a time when everyone knew that the earth was flat, when everyone knew that cigarettes are harmless, when everyone knew that women shouldn't vote, within the lifetime of some in this room, the Nobel Prize in Medicine was given to the inventor of the lobotomy.

How can you be truly wise and not simply drift on the currents of conventional wisdom? Well, for the most important things in life, there is a very nice scientific answer to that question. The Bible, build on the rock of his word, Jesus told us, which is well and good in theory, and yet even earnest followers of Scripture get all kinds of things wrong. We misunderstand it, misapply it, justify all kinds of things in spite of it, and sometimes we just plain ignore it. So how can we make sure that we are living life not rooted in this world's wisdom, but rooted in God's revealed wisdom.

In first century Corinth, the Christian believers had God's wisdom, but they were thinking and acting in worldly ways with division and disunity as a result. You may remember that from our first two sermons in 1 Corinthians early this summer. Paul rebukes them for pursuing worldly wisdom and gives them three examples in chapters 1 and 2 of how the cross to the world is not wisdom but folly. Page 953 of your P.Bibles is where you'll find this. In other words, the world's wisdom is opposed to the wisdom of the cross, Paul says, so don't follow it.

That was our first two sermons. But in this morning's passage, Paul turns from those negative arguments to a positive one. Quite contrary to the so-called wisdom of this world, God's wisdom is truly wise, so don't abandon it? How can you be truly wise? Here in the second chapter of 1 Corinthians, Paul gives us three contrasts that will answer that question and serve as the outline of this sermon.

1 Corinthians 1:6 to the beginning of chapter 10, Don't dismiss it, revel in it. 2 Corinthians 2:10-13, Don't try to discover it, Receive it. And finally, don't just know it, live it. Verses 14 to 16, it being the message Paul's described at the beginning of chapter 2, Jesus Christ and him crucified, which today's passage references as the wisdom of God. Verse 7, or these things, verses 10 and 12, the things of the Spirit of God.

Verse 14, the central message of Christianity, Jesus Christ and him crucified. Don't dismiss it, revel in it. Don't discover it, receive it. Don't just know it, live it. Three crucial concepts if we are to build our lives on God's revealed wisdom rather than the wisdom of the masses.

So let's get into our text and our first point. Don't dismiss it, revel in it. Paul has argued thus far that a religion centered on a crucified Messiah is folly to our world. But that doesn't mean the cross is really folly. Look at 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, 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, what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him. These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit.

Paul's vocabulary here would have resonated with his Corinthian audience. They were fascinated with so-called secret and hidden wisdom. They conceived of themselves as better than other Christians, as mature, as complete, they sought after glory.

So Paul's showing them that they've got all this already. No need to go anywhere else. Phrases like For our glory that include both Paul and his readers make it clear that the mature in verse six is simply a reference to all believers, all who have been made complete by God's Spirit. So the wisdom of the cross, it is wise, though not wise according to the standards of this age or of our power structures. How do we know that the wisdom of this age is wrong?

Two ways, verses six and eight, one that looks backward, the other looks forward, looking back because the height, the apex of such wisdom, was the execution of the Son of God. And looking ahead, because its proponents are doomed to pass away, it is so ironic that virtually the only reason Herod and Pilate and other first century leaders are known today is because of the Jesus they put to death in order to preserve their greatness. And Paul writes this as a truism for all times, not just his own. I wonder how the wisdom of our age will fare in the evaluation of history. Like so many of us, the wisdom of the age is always confident and sometimes right.

It assures us it's got everything figured out. Live and let live, don't judge, you be you, celebrate whatever two consenting adults choose to do, keep your religion private, Or as John Lennon famously wrote, Imagine there's no countries, it isn't hard to do, nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too. Imagine all the people living life in peace, you, who.

Yet our secular creed seems to regularly eat itself, doesn't it? The Me Too movement poked holes in the idea of consent. What is consent in a world controlled by power? The idea of gender fluidity seems to be running aground on the shores of feminism and women's sports. The moral crusaders who fled into the city with every presidential administration espoused their own version of the wisdom of the age, which is always confident and sometimes right.

But the only wisdom that proves durable is the wisdom of God. As Jesus said in Luke 7, wisdom is proved right by her children. Which is what Paul gets so excited about starting there in verse 9. What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him. These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit.

He's alluding to Isaiah 64, which is interesting because Isaiah 64 is a lament, which Alex will be preaching to us this evening. No eye has seen, no ear has heard, Isaiah says, the glories of God's salvation, and yet, God's people will not have it. Isaiah 64:5, In our sins we have been a long time, and shall we be saved? Isaiah says, There is no God like this one. There is no salvation outside of Him, and yet, we have turned the other way.

Enter the cross of Christ. Because in Jesus, God has renovated the hearts of his people. In Jesus, God has taken away their sin so that in Jesus, God's glorious salvation, that no eye has seen, that no ear has heard, that the heart of man cannot even imagine, it has been revealed. Not to the rulers of this age, but to us, to God's people. Verse 10, through the Spirit.

So Paul says, Don't go looking for something better. Don't go looking for a higher life, a more secret wisdom, a hidden path to communion with God. This is it. You have more than you could ever imagine in the simple message of the cross. But, and here's the catch, you won't heed God's wisdom if you don't think much of it.

So don't dismiss his wisdom of the cross. Revel in it. Capitol Hill Baptist Church, revel in the glory, the beauty, the power, the improbability of what God has prepared for those who love him.

And just think of the riches God has prepared for us in the cross.

Forgiveness of everything you have ever done. Freedom from sin. Reconciliation with God forever. Friendship with God forever. Beyond that, adoption by God.

Righteousness. The blessing of a clean conscience. The family of God today in the church. The love of Jesus himself, whose width and breadth and depth we can never fathom. The gift of prayer.

The promise of prayers answered, meaning, purpose, the privilege of being on mission for the King of Kings, the presence of God's Spirit, the power in our lives of God's Spirit. And that's just today, let alone our future, hope for resurrection, hope for glory, for perfection, for life with Jesus forever, for bodies made new, for spirits and perfect communion with their Creator. And that's just as individuals. Let alone a society of peace and power that works in beautiful harmony. Work as it was intended, technology as it was intended in perfect harmony with God, people, and creation.

And what a creation. This world, the whole thing remade, unmarred by sin or by the curse of sin and recreated beauty and splendor. What God has prepared for those who love him and all of that pivoting around the focal point of Jesus Christ and him crucified, the cross. A Messiah who gave himself for us, who gave up the grandeur of heaven for the squalor of flesh, who took on pain and fatigue and loneliness and rejection, who descended even to death, to death on a cross, to purchase for us what God had prepared for us. Could Isaiah ever have imagined all that?

Could anyone ever have imagined all that? Truth is stranger than fiction, is it not? You can't make this stuff up. These things, verse 10, are not mere hopes, not mere figments of our imagination. They are too wonderful for that.

Yet God has revealed these things to us through the Spirit.

So why would you ever put any hope in any wisdom outside of that. The spoiled child looks past the beautiful home and loving family and her tantrum that she wants a pony. We look past all that God in his love has prepared for us and our tantrum that we want that job or that spouse or that person's respect or that person's lifestyle or whatever it is that the wisdom of this age has convinced us that we need to be happy. Is there any crime more grievous than to look past all that God has prepared for those who love Him and dismiss it as insufficient?

So revel in God's wisdom. Revel in God's wisdom, the wisdom of the cross. Part of that is to talk about it. Just consider that refrain that runs through the Psalms, I will tell of all your wonderful deeds, Psalm 91. We will tell the next generation the praises Worthy deeds of the Lord, Psalm 784.

Sing to him, sing, praise to him, tell of all his wonderful acts, 1052. Tell of his works with songs of joy, Psalm 10722. One generation commends your works to another, they tell of your mighty acts, 145, verse 4. Did you hear especially that theme of telling the acts of God to the next generation? If you're a student here, this is a great reason to be in a church of people who are older than you are, who can tell you what God has done.

Families, you have the same opportunity. It can be so easy in our homes for the gospel of Jesus Christ to become nothing more than a forgiveness formula, the thing I need when I've sinned. But do your kids know what these things of verse 10 are for you? Do they know the wonders that God has prepared for those who love him, the wonders that you have tasted of what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined what God has prepared for those who love him. These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit.

So don't dismiss it. Revel in it. But that leads to an important question. How do we know? How do we know these things are true.

That's our second point. Don't try to discover it; receive it. Verse 10, 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 in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

Paul's main point here is to help the Corinthians see that the wisdom of God that he wants them to live by isn't anything they could have come up with on their own. Unlike the wisdom of the world that they seem to have taken in, it needs to be revealed by the Spirit. Like we saw at the beginning of verse 10, so essentially, these verses, Paul is just double clicking on that first half of verse 10, drawing that out more fully. The Spirit of God, end of verse 10, he says, knows God. And then by analogy, verse 11, only you really know yourself in the same way only the Spirit of God really knows God.

And yet, Verse 12, the Spirit in the Christian is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit of God. And through Him, we comprehend the things of God that would otherwise have been incomprehensible. Through the Spirit, we have true knowledge of God. Not exact knowledge of God, because we are finite creatures, but true nonetheless. And as an apostle, Paul communicates that truth.

The we in verse 13 seems to be a shift from an inclusive we to an editorial we that describes how verse 12 happens. The Spirit hasn't revealed knowledge of God to all Christians directly. He's done so through apostles and prophets like Paul, which we have in the Scriptures. Imparting these truths in words not taught by human wisdom, Paul writes, but taught by the Spirit. So, in theological terms, these verses describe inspiration and illumination.

In inspiration, God's Spirit inspires his Word through apostles like Paul, beginning at verse 13. And through illumination, God's Spirit allows the believer to understand that Word, end of verse 13. Both depend on God's Spirit. And taken together they give us verse 12, We understand the things freely given us by God.

So the skeptic might say, How can you ever hope to understand as a finite creature this infinite God of yours? To which we say through inspiration, God's own Spirit has revealed what he is like. The Roman Catholic Church might say, How can you ever hope to understand the revealed Scriptures because you are sinful and finite? To which we say, the Spirit illumines his word, verse 13. And all this is one theologian put it, humans do not find this truth, it finds them.

Because of the Spirit's work then, verse 12, you can understand the things freely given us by God. Very simply, you can understand the Bible. You don't need the magisterium of the church, you don't need a seminary degree, you don't need to be in a church building, you can understand the Bible. That doesn't mean you do it alone. To understand the Bible, like any other work of literature, you have to understand it in its context.

And there are some people who have been looking at it a lot longer than you have. One of the means the Spirit uses to illumine the Scriptures is the Christians around you and the Christians who have gone before you. So don't abuse verse 12 to suggest you can go it alone. But do be encouraged by what verse 12 says, you can understand the Bible.

Beyond that, the role of the Spirit extends to how we know the Bible is true. I wonder how you would say, you know the Bible is true. If you say it's true because it makes sense to you, then your reason Reason is your ultimate authority, not Scripture. In which case, I would simply bump up a level and ask you how you know your reason is reliable. If you say Scripture is true because it fits with what archeology tells us about the ancient world, which is true to a remarkable degree, then archeology is your ultimate authority.

If you say it's true because your parents said so, then they are your ultimate authority. If you say it's true because the church says so, you get the idea. Something is your ultimate authority. And by definition, that authority cannot be established by anything else. It was Aristotle who observed that first principles must be certain in and of themselves.

So part of the Protestant Reformation was understanding that the Bible authenticates itself. As Jesus said in John 10, sheep hear the voice and know the voice of the shepherd. Or the Belgic Confession puts it this way: We receive these books and these only as holy and canonical, not so much because the church receives them and approves them as such, but above all because the Holy Spirit testifies in our hearts that they are from God and also because they prove themselves to be from God. Let's say you walk into a bookstore. I know some of you don't know what that means, but we have some of them on Capitol Hill still.

You can do that. And you go to the classics section. Who decided these books were classics?

In one sense, the bookstore owner who put them in that section, but he or she only did that because these are books that have been generally recognized by general consensus to be classics. There's no academy out there that decides that. No, these books over time have authenticated themselves as classics. No one else can do that for them.

In the same way, it is useful to test the Scriptures against archeological evidence and test for internal consistency and understand the process of how the Scriptures came to be and what churches, what role churches played in that process. But just like the classic section of the bookstore, Scripture's authority is self-authenticating. Self-authenticating. And that pretty much describes how the Bible's authority came to be recognized long before there were any church councils. In fact, during the 300 years or so when we could not have church councils because Christianity was persecuted, Christian churches recognized the authority of the books of the Bible.

There was little to any organization in that process. There couldn't be much organization to that process. Some of those books were admittedly recognized faster than others, but the process by which the Bible came to be understood as the Word of God was was not driven by any kind of centralized authority. It could not be. It authenticated itself.

As Christians in churches working together as they could, filled by the Spirit, largely came to independent conclusions that these books were, in fact, the work of the Spirit. If you're interested in this and you want to read more about the story of how the Bible came to be, I will have three copies with me of this book, Scribes and Scripture, In the back of the main hall after the service, I give you one. If you want the more grad school summary of the same question, I won't give you this one because it has all my notes in it, but I recommend Michael Kruger's Canon Revisited, which answers a more narrow question. He's answering the question, Is Christian belief in the canon of Scripture a belief that is warranted?

I'm interested in this topic because for years this was a great struggle for me.

When I was a student in the years that followed, I studied the Bible, I obeyed the Bible, but I just had this nagging sense I couldn't tell you why, at least not with the confidence I needed. And given how foundational this truth is, I could never just take it on the word of my Christian parents or the church I grew up in that the Bible was the word of God. I didn't have any problems with the Old Testament. That was easier. Jesus came along after the Old Testament was completed and put his seal of authenticity on it, and as the man who both claimed to be the Son of God and predicted he would rise from the dead, and then he did rise from the dead, I could trust whatever he said with absolute confidence.

My problem was the New Testament because it came along after Jesus. Could I trust this disorganized process of Christians and churches gradually coming to consensus that these 27 books are in fact Scripture.

What was key for me was realizing that this process is not what gave the Bible its authority. The Bible always had God's authority. This process was merely Christians enabled by God's Spirit, like Paul describes here in verses 12 and 13, Christians recognizing that authority. It troubled me that the Bible did not derive its authority from outside of itself until I realized that no ultimate authority could ever derive itself from outside itself other Otherwise, it wouldn't be an ultimate authority. First principles must be certain of themselves.

If you're a skeptic, there is so much more I wish I could say to you about this topic than we have time. But I would challenge you to give the Bible its chance to win you over. It claims to be your ultimate authority. If it's right, and millions have bet their lives that it is, but you never take the time to read it with an open mind, you'll never know, will you? And if it is right, ignoring it will be an eternally devastating loss to you.

It may be that you begin your relationship with the Bible by evaluating it. You're the authority, it's the subject, But eventually the tables are going to have to turn so that it becomes the authority and you become the subject because that's what it is. Bottom line then, the wisdom of the cross in verses 6 to 10 is glorious as we've seen, yet we can only know it by God's Spirit. You can never find your way to him by yourself. And if there's one application you take away from this, I hope it's this.

You must trust God's Word more than your own reason. You must trust God's Word more than your own experience. You must trust God's Word more than your own intuitions and feelings. You must trust God's Word more than you trust me. A phrase that's been helpful in this regard for me has been this one: Unless you know everything, you can't be certain of anything.

Unless you know everything, the falsifier of what you think you know might be lurking just around the corner. But of course, none of us know everything, which means that left to ourselves, none of us can be certain of anything unless the one who does know everything has told us what is true. That's why God's revelation is qualitatively different than every other source of knowledge you have, than knowledge you get from experience, from reason, from your feelings, from intuition, from science, from books, from human authority. It is different in kind from everything else you know because It is revealed by God. So as you try to assemble the wisdom you're going to need to move through life, recognize that the most important wisdom that you need is not anything you could ever hope to discover.

It must be received.

But I'll tell you what, we don't live that way, do we? None of us do. All too often we judge God's word based on what makes sense to us. Sometimes that's through what you might call the atheist impulse where we outright deny the authority of Scripture. For example, I can't imagine being happy if I do what the Bible says, so I go the other way, perhaps rationalizing that, of course, God wants me to be happy.

Other times it's a more revisionist impulse where we edit what it says, looking for some wiggle room because the Bible just doesn't seem practical in this regard. In other times, we succumb to the pragmatist impulse where we don't even think about what the Bible says or we convince ourselves it doesn't apply. I think a great lunchtime conversation would be to discuss which of those three has been the greatest temptation for you and when. The atheist impulse, the revisionist impulse, the pragmatist impulse. In all that, we need the words of verse 11 ringing through our ears: no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

You are not the authority. God is. To the many students here, I would want to drive this point home especially to you. In these few years as a student, you are making life-altering decisions. But you're making them without the benefit of wisdom that comes through experience.

So cling to the Scriptures and cling to the Scriptures in the community of a local church. Because, my friends, we all need to be more critical of our own judgments and more reliant on Scriptures. Sometimes I think the reason we don't have much heart in our study of Scripture is because we honestly don't feel like we need it. You took a quick glance at the directions to your friend's house because you were pretty sure you knew how to get there. But now it's storming and you're lost and the internet's down and you really wish that you had paid closer attention to that map.

Trust yourself less. Trust God's word more. As C.S. Lewis wrote, We may be sure that the characteristic blindness of the twentieth century or the twenty-first, the blindness about which posterity will ask, But how could they have thought that? lies where we have never suspected it.

Lewis's solution to the problem is to read old books because old books don't fit with our modern assumptions, to which I would add, what about the greatest of the old books?

Perhaps you've been alarmed because there are things in the Bible that don't make sense to you.

Shouldn't you rather be alarmed if everything in the Bible did make sense? Surely the revolution, the revelation of an incomprehensible God, to paraphrase verse 13, is sometimes going to run roughshod over your human sensibilities. I'm not advocating irrationalism when it comes to Scripture. The more you study the Bible, the more you will see how it fits together amazingly well, and that is a critical tool for understanding it well. But the germ of many a heresy has been to smooth out what the Bible leaves rough, to harmonize contradictions, contradictions in the Bible simply jut out.

I'll give you an example from my own life. As Joan and I were getting ready to be married, I discovered how uncomfortable I was with the roles of husband and wife that I saw in Scripture. That as husband, I was given authority to lead, that I was to be head over my family. My hesitation wasn't a healthy hesitation. Of realizing how those roles can be abused, though they certainly can, my hesitation was simply the fact the whole thing felt unfair.

Like it was demeaning to this amazing and intelligent woman I was about to marry. And yet by God's grace, as we studied the Scriptures, we became convinced that this was exactly what they called us to. So this is how we built our marriage. And my goodness, has the Bible's plan worked out better than my own. To the point that if you were to ask me today how I know the Bible is true, not at a cerebral level, but at a gut level, this is one of the things I would point to.

I picked an argument with the Bible. I lost. It won. I've been blessed. What about you?

Are the positions you hold driven by the text? Positions about creation and sexual ethics and gender roles and marriage and government? Are they driven by the text? Or do you bring to the text what you secretly hope it says? Or what the world hopes it might say and naively think that you can objectively listen to the text despite those biases?

Beyond that, are your instincts driven by the text? What you do when you're angry or afraid or embarrassed, are those things driven by the text or moments of crisis do you revert to the wisdom of the age?

As John Stott said, if we come to the Scripture with our minds made up, expecting to hear from it only an echo of our own thoughts and never the thunderclap of God's, then indeed he will not speak to us, and we shall only be confirmed in our own prejudices. We must allow the Word of God to confront us, to disturb our security, to undermine our complacency, and to overthrow our patterns of thought and behavior.

Be it your positions or your instincts, you must cling for dear life to what the Scripture says. Trust God's Word more than you trust yourself. Is there a better point you could take away from the sermon?

God's Word more than you trust yourself.

And yet, we can understand the things freely given us by God, verse 12, and still ignore them. Which brings us to our third point: Don't just know it, live it. Verse 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. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. For who has understood the mind of the Lord as to instruct him?

But we have the mind of Christ.

So far in a passage, Paul has been talking about Christians, the mature, verse 6, those who are spiritual, verse 13. Now he introduces a new category, someone who does not have God's Spirit, someone who is not a Christian, the natural person. And just as the same sunlight melts wax but hardens clay, the things of the Spirit of God are received differently by these two types of people. This distinction between the natural person of verse 14 and the spiritual person of verse 15 is important because the Corinthians have been judging some in the church to be better than others. But Paul's saying the only distinction that really matters is the distinction of whether someone is a Christian or not.

There should be no elitism within the Christian community. And he's helping the Christians in Corinth understand the privilege they have is those who do have God's Spirit in them, those who, unlike the natural person, can accept the Spirit of God. And as we'll see in chapter 3, the whole point of that is that they should do it, obey it. Let's start with that natural person of verse 14. Paul's not denying such a person's cognitive grasp of God's revealed word, but he's saying that such a person will not accept it because the Scriptures are folly to him, which means there's a degree to which he doesn't understand it.

Because fundamentally, one cannot understand the Scriptures unless Christ is one's Lord. The Bible's prohibition against homosexuality will not make sense in today's culture if you are still the arbiter of moral values in your life. The Bible's demand to forgive will not make sense if you only ever do what you believe to be in your best interest.

Verse 14 is one reason why we should be wary of a desire for respectable faith.

I certainly struggle with that desire, but I'm fine with my non-Christian friends and neighbors disagreeing with my faith, but not in a way that would lead them to despise me. But what does this verse say about how someone will look at my faith if they do not have God's Spirit? They will call it, what does it say? Folly. For many, that's a bitter pill to swallow.

It's a necessary pill to swallow. We must lay our desire for respectability at the cross of Christ. He was despised and rejected by men, Isaiah 53. Why not us? You can blend in with the crowd or you can follow Jesus.

You cannot have both.

You must choose. But that's for Christians. What if you are the natural person Paul is writing about here? The Bible does seem like folly because you don't have God's Spirit. I don't know what aspect of the Bible feels like folly to you.

Maybe it's the Bible's morals, maybe the Bible's miracles, There might be a part of you that actually honestly wants in on Christianity and maybe this verse is finally explaining your problem.

If this verse describes you, I hope that it settles on you the gravity of your present situation. You cannot understand the things of God, let alone live according to them. It's like you're in one of those escape rooms, a really, really hard one, and you cannot figure your way out. Way out and suddenly someone drops an instruction manual down on you that explains the way out but it's written in a language you don't understand.

The good news, my friend, is that these categories need not stay fixed. You can have God's Spirit.

You do so by coming to him in contrition, confessing the spiritual bankruptcy of your present life, that by yourself you are spiritually dead, that you deserve God's wrath against against you because of your sin. And you come to him in faith. Maybe not a strong faith yet. Jesus said that's okay. Faith just like a mustard seed, he says, is enough.

But faith that receives Jesus' forgiveness that he purchased at the cross. Faith that does believe that he is alive today because he rose from the grave. And faith that receives him as your Lord, that you will follow him and not yourself. That's what it means to become a Christian. That's how you can become spiritually alive.

If the gospel looks like folly to you, don't demand a different gospel. Ask for a different heart. Which brings us to that spiritual person in verse 15. What does it mean that he judges all things and is to be judged by no one? I think it's helpful to see that the same word translated judged at least in our pew Bibles in verse 15, is translated discerned in verse 14.

The concept here is one of evaluation. A person who has God's Spirit can evaluate non-spiritual things and spiritual things, thus all things in verse 15. But a person who does not have the Spirit can't do that. They're like a two-dimensional person trying to assess a three-dimensional world.

Thus, the spiritual person is to be judged by no one. Not that Christians are above critique, but Paul will explain more of that in chapter 4. It's been said that the profane person cannot understand holiness, but the holy person can well understand the depths of evil. Same idea here. And what's the basis for this claim in verse 15?

It's the observation of verse 16.

No one has known the mind of the Lord, quote in Isaiah 40, repeating what Paul said back in verse 11, and yet for those who have the Spirit, Paul says, we have the mind of Christ. What does that mean? I think a good summary is it means that for those who have the Spirit, we can see things as Christ does. We understand the wisdom of the cross that he's been talking about all through this passage. Now, Paul states all this positively, but it is in fact a rebuke to the Corinthians because we saw back in chapter one, and we'll see again more fully in chapter four, that though they do have the Spirit, though they are qualified to make spiritual evaluations, they have been judging one another in an unspiritual, worldly way.

So by stating things positively, Paul is gently chiding them here, which will amp up in the next chapter. You have the mind of Christ, so act like it. What do we take away from this? Very simply, don't just know God's wisdom, obey it, live it. Like them, we also have the mind of Christ.

We also understand the wisdom of the cross, the glory of humility, that to be first one must be servant of all, that suffering comes first and then glory. You see, for the Christian, the cross of Christ is not simply how one was saved; it is now how one lives. Not merely a means to forgiveness but a way of life. So Paul's imperative for us, as well as for them, is to live out the wisdom of the cross.

Like the Corinthians, we too must understand our privilege in being able to understand all this. Unlike the natural person, we can accept the things of the Spirit of God. We are not subject to judgment, but by God alone. Though no one has understood the mind of the Lord, we do have the mind of Christ, verse 16. So don't squander that privilege.

The Corinthians infighting is like two princesses arguing over pocket change. To which you want to say, what are you doing? You have the whole kingdom.

So with us. And how have all the riches of this passage come to us? Because of our virtue, our intellect, our performance, our connections? No. No, because of grace.

Because of grace. We understand the things of God only because of the grace of God. In fact, that word translated freely given in verse 12 comes from the word translated grace. We have the wisdom of God only because of the grace of God. We see the cross for what it is, not folly but his triumph, only because of the grace of God.

Who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? Verse 16, no one, truly no one, and yet by grace through the Spirit We do have the mind of Christ. We can begin to think and act like him.

Oh my friends, I hope you spend the rest of the day today marinating in the privilege that you have as a Christian that we read in this passage. Privilege that has come to you because of grace. You do not deserve to know about God. Let alone to know God. You do not deserve to understand the glory of what he has done, let alone for that to have been done for you.

Yet by grace, look at the riches that he has given you in Christ. What a privilege. What a privilege. So how do we respond to the privilege that we read of in this passage? Don't dismiss it, revel in it.

Don't seek to discover it, much less improve upon it, receive it in all its glory just as it is. And having received such wisdom from God, don't just know it, live it, and live it more with every passing day. In the scriptures, we have the wisdom of Almighty God.

May it dominate our lives. Let's pray.

O Father in heaven, we confess with wonder that these things in this passage are ours as those who have found new life in Christ. We pray that you would open our eyes, that these riches you've given to us would feel fresh and amazing, that we would not be those who look at all you have done and then go looking for something else. Father, we pray that we would love your word, that we would treasure your word, that we would do your word. And we pray this in Jesus' name, amen.