1 Cor 2:1-16

God’s Secret Wisdom

1 Corinthians 2:1-16

When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.^c ²For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. ³I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. ⁴My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, ⁵so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.

⁶We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. ⁷No, we speak of God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. ⁸None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. ⁹ However, as it is written:

“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him”—

¹⁰but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. ¹¹For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. ¹²We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. ¹³This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.¹⁴The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. ¹⁵ The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment:

¹⁶“For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?”

But we have the mind of Christ.

Imagine that you are on the search committee to hire a new pastor and you received the following resume. “I have a great deal of preaching experience, but I must admit that no one has ever described my preaching as eloquent. Some have said that my sermons are too hard to understand and that I use too much theological jargon. Others have accused me of having too narrow a focus in my content—that I spend too much time talking about the bloody cross and not enough focus on the needs of the person in the pew. Still others think I am boring and tend to nod off during the sermon. My preaching is not powerful or persuasive and I cannot promise you that your church will grow if you hire me, but if you are willing to consider me, I will do my best to depend on God’s strength.”

What do you think about this resume—would you hire this guy as your pastor? If you reject this man’s resume you have just turned down the apostle Paul as your next pastor.

Why would Paul go out of his way to list his weaknesses? Remember that he had a fractured relationship with many in the church in Corinth. In their enormous pride, many in the church had taken on a new definition of spiritual maturity. They believed that they were wise, sophisticated, eloquent and mature. By comparison they thought Paul lacked power and eloquence in his preaching. When you are accused of something, what is your natural reaction? Usually our most natural reaction is to begin to defend ourselves. We immediately list the top ten reasons why this person is wrong and then we begin to level accusations at our accuser. But Paul didn’t do this. In effect he said, “You’re right—I didn’t come with what you consider to be eloquence or superior wisdom. As a matter of fact, I came to you with much weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words.” Paul did not try to defend himself but he freely admitted the weaknesses in his preaching. But these were not really weaknesses at all. Paul went out of his way to make sure that he was not using his own charisma or emotional persuasion to convince others, rather he came with a “demonstration of the Spirit’s power.” He did not want his own words to be powerful or persuasive, rather he wanted the Holy Spirit to be powerful and persuasive. Why was this so important to Paul? The rest of v. 5 tells us why. “…so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.”

This passage is the perfect combination of sound theology and pastoral care. This is both great teaching and great application. From a theological standpoint, the foundation of their faith was the power of God. It was the power of God alone that defeated sin at the cross. It was the power of God alone that raised Christ from the dead. It was the power of God that converted the lost souls that were members of the Corinthian church. Did you know that if it was not for the Holy Spirit you would have thought the message of the cross was foolishness? Jump ahead to v. 14 where Paul wrote The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. Remember last week when we looked at 1:18—“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing”? Why is the message of the cross received by few but rejected by so many? Paul answered the question in 2:14—The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The cross appears foolish unless you are enlightened by the Holy Spirit. Why did you receive Christ and your neighbor did not? It’s not because you are smarter than your neighbor. It’s not because you are more holy than your neighbor. You received the message of the cross because the Holy Spirit made it plain to you. The Holy Spirit broke through your sin and pride and changed the cross from foolishness to beautiful.

From a theological viewpoint, your faith rests completely on the power of God. But Paul was concerned about more than mere theology. Paul had the heart of a compassionate pastor and he wanted to make sure that their faith firmly rested on the power of God when times were tough. It’s one thing to stand in church and declare that your faith rests on God, but it’s a different matter when you step out into the harsh realities of life and your faith is tested again and again. Will you stand or will you fall? It all depends on whether your faith actually rests on men’s wisdom or on the power of God. If your faith rests on men’s wisdom your faith will eventually weaken and fall away, but if it rests on God’s power, then all of the forces of hell cannot take away your faith.

So how do we know where our faith is resting? Let me talk to the children and teens here this morning. Right now you are under your parent’s authority and to a certain extent, your faith is resting upon the faith of your parents. How do I know this? Let me ask you this—on Sunday morning would you rather stay home and watch a movie or come to church? Would you rather sleep late, play video games, play outside or do any number of things or would you rather get up early and come to church? If your parents always let you make the decision every week, do you think you would always come? I don’t mean to say that this is a bad thing—in fact, it is perfectly normal that you listen to your parents when you don’t want to come to church or do your homework or finish your chores or do anything that you may not want to do. You are under your parent’s authority and guidance right now. They set up rules and regulations for you, and these rules are kind of like walking down a narrow hallway. If you try to turn left you bump into that wall and if you try to turn right you hit that wall.

You may not like this hallway of rules sometimes because you want to explore further, but the hallway is good because your parents want to protect and guide you. But you need to understand that this means that your faith still rests somewhat on your parent’s faith. To some degree you are a Christian because your parent’s are Christians. If you were raised in a Muslim family you would probably be a practicing Muslim. So as a young person your life consists of walking down this hallway of Christianity and protection. But as you grow, this hallway begins to get a bit wider and doorways start to appear. Should I walk through this doorway? When you were younger your parent’s locked that door so you couldn’t go in. A simple example would be crossing the street. Every toddler wants to explore. If given the opportunity, most 2 year olds would walk down the driveway and cross the street so they could explore the other side of the street. But the loving parent locks that door of exploration. The parent of a very young child stays outside with the child so they cannot possibly get into danger by crossing the street. But when the child gets a little older he or she can play outside as long as they absolutely know the rule of no crossing the street.

I can still remember the house I lived in until I was five. We lived on the corner of a slow residential street and my entire world consisted of about one block in two directions. I was allowed to ride my bike down to my friend’s house which was three houses away. But beyond my friend’s house seemed like the edge of the world. If I went down the other street I quickly encountered the forbidden zone of a “real” road where cars went fast. As a four year old my parents gave me the key to that door, but I knew I didn’t dare open the door by venturing out onto that street. But the problem was, like most kids, I wanted to open some of those locked doors. One morning when I was about three, I couldn’t get my mom to get me dressed so I decided I was going to open one of those locked doors. (For younger kids what I mean is that I decided to disobey my parents!) I hopped on my tricycle and started out into the street, but the problem was that I wasn’t wearing any clothes. I can still see the neighbors across the street on their front porch pointing at laughing at me, and I can still see my mom running down the driveway in her nightgown to swoop me back into the house. I shouldn’t have unlocked that door, but unfortunately I was a slow learner. Another time I unlocked a forbidden door and decided to climb up the kitchen cabinets and make my own breakfast consisting of baby aspirin and purple cough syrup. That defiance earned me a trip to the emergency room where the nice nurses made me drink something that made me throw up the rest of the morning. As a child most doors are locked to you, but as you grow your parents give you keys to some of the doors. They give you permission to walk through the door but they remind you to be very careful. The older you get the more choices you are given. That narrow hallway with locked doors gets wider and you are given more and more keys. All the while, your faith is still resting on your parent’s faith. Hopefully you are making good decisions and slowly deciding to follow Christ on your own, but your faith is not entirely your own yet.

The true test begins when you turn somewhere between 12 and 20 years old. Up until then you’re your faith came from your parent’s wisdom, but then you will see if your faith is resting on the power of God. When you start to make your own choices you will find out if you really believe the gospel or not. Do you believe that Christ paid the ultimate price for you on the cross? Is the cross foolishness to you or is it the power of God for your salvation? Is Christ your savior and Lord or was he a passing fad of your childhood—you outgrew your dolls and your Legos and now you have outgrown Jesus as well. Children and teens, this is the road that lies before you—a road of widening choices that will determine the path of your life and the foundation of your faith. No longer can you rest on that decision you made in AWANA. It’s not enough to depend on the prayer you prayed with your mom beside your bed when you were five years old. Even if you are eight or ten years old you can begin to think about whether the faith you have now is resting on men’s wisdom—even if it is your parent’s—or is it resting on the power of God?

This is why Paul intentionally avoided wise and persuasive words and eloquence in his preaching—because he did not want any of his listeners to be manipulated or coerced into their decision. Faith that comes through coercion or manipulation—however subtle— is not faith that will stand the times of testing. Paul wanted conversions that were real and based on the conviction and regeneration of the Holy Spirit. Paul knew that it was possible to have followers that were not true converts. What do you think—do we still have the problem of false converts in our churches today? Why do so many people fall away from the faith? Why do so many kids grow up and “lose their salvation”? This happens so frequently because they may have never had faith in the first place. These people may have had a faith, like we have been talking about, that was based on their parent’s faith. They may have thought that being a Christian was only about an easy ticket to heaven and did not understand that their faith would be tested. They may have been told that Christians are prosperous and healthy and when health and prosperity were lost, their faith went down the drain with them.

It’s not that Paul was against the use of persuasion altogether. In v. 4 he said that his preaching was not done with wise and persuasive words. However, Paul was preaching in the city of Corinth in Acts 18 when it was said of him, “Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.” He wanted to persuade people to follow Christ, but he wanted them to be persuaded by the truth and not by the power of his preaching or personality. If a person has a strong or charismatic personality, they will attract followers. Why do you think there are so many church splits? Anytime you see a church split all you need to do is look for the strong personalities that are leading people astray. Don’t forget that this was the very problem in Corinth! I follow Paul—I follow Apollos—I follow Peter!! Paul knew that his position as a leader and a preacher was a sacred trust and he never wanted people to follow him because he was a great preacher. Paul wanted true converts whose faith rested on the power of God, not on men’s wisdom.

Recently I was reminded of the power of Romans 12:1-2. Let me read it for you because I think the application of this verse can tell you whether your faith is resting on men’s wisdom or on God’s power. Therefore I urge you brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of service. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Living sacrifices lay on the altar…full submission to the will of God.

If your faith is resting on men’s wisdom then you will not get on this altar or else you will not stay on.

If your faith rests on God’s power then you will be strengthened to remain on the altar and be a living sacrifice.

Rich Maurer

August 13, 2006