Grow in the Foolishness of God s Wisdom 1 Cor. 2:1-12 Pastor Dan Matasowsky If I asked you to name someone that you would go to for advice, who would you name. Strange as it might seem, the person I would probably go to at least in religious matters, someone who was a neighboring pastor across the river.. from Cottage Grove. We talked often on the phone. Who would I consider to be a great speaker, the first person who came to my mind was former Lutheran Hour Speaker Dr. Oswald Hoffman. I also thought Billy Graham was an excellent communicator. In this whole area of communication, I remember a debate at a Pastors conference which was a pro and con debate. Dr. Fred Kramer from the Seminary and Dr. Paul Bretcher from Immanuel Lutheran in Valparaiso were the speakers. When Dr. Fred Kramer finished I thought that sounds right too. Then Dr. Paul Bretcher spoke and I found myself saying..hey that sounds right too. Either I didn t understand the issue or both speakers were so gifted that I couldn t decide who won. This is what happens when gifted speakers began to debate an issue. On a more personal note, our son from New York called my wife the other day and told us this story. They have a 4 year old adopted daughter who has been a great grandchild. She surprised her parents who when her little brother dropped his bottle and then proceeded to get a towel and wipe it up, she went over placed her hand on his shoulder and said: Brother you are a big boy the way to did that then turning around she threw her hands in the air and said Thank you Jesus! But now our son told us that the other day he took her to school and after setting her book bag outside the car and then he proceeded to get our younger grandson out and carry him toward the school. Our granddaughter didn t move. He turned around to see her standing by the book bag tapping her foot on the ground.. wondering why Dad didn t carry it into the school for her. He said something to her.. and she carried half way and then set it down and began to tap her foot again. All I could think to say was Hang on.. it s going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Now he called my wife to say.. What s going on with my daughter, that she suddenly acts this way? All of us want people around who can give us advice. And we have a few who we consider to be very good at helping and we turn to them often. The Apostle Paul had a similar problem. Paul began chapter 2 with these words: When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. To understand what Paul is saying we need to look back at a couple previous events. The first is in Acts chapter 17: where Paul is at the Areopagus on Mars Hill in Athens among a group of seasoned orators who were debating about god on a high philosophical and intellectual basis. These people liked to show off how much they knew. Paul got into the 1 P a g e
discussion by talking about a statue which said To Unknown god But in his conversation he really got burned because they had all kinds of arguments with him. But the argument of Paul didn t get very far as they were seasoned orators. It didn t work very well but some believed. Second, In Chapter one of 1 Cor., we find that Paul has heard about the debate among the members of who is the best preacher. They were choosing sides on who they thought was the best preacher. Word reaches Paul through Chloe s Household that the people are SAYING; I follow Apollos, and another says I follow Paul, another says I follow Cephas, still another says I follow Christ. Paul says to the people: Is Christ divided? Were you baptized into the name of Paul? It s all foolishness and for that very reason he says: For I resolved to know nothing while I am with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. So instead of showing off his intellect, he resolved to stick to the facts on to Christ s crucifixion, death and resurrection. Not only did Paul put aside intellectual arguing when sharing the gospel at Corinth, he did something more: He said: I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit s power, so that your faith might not rest on men s wisdom, but on God s power. Paul is saying PREACH CHRIST Have you ever get caught up in intellectual debates about Christianity? I m not saying that debating is bad, or intellect is bad but when the focus of the debate is to show how much you know, instead of how much you can know Christ something is wrong. This is good advice for you and me when groups come to your home to talk about their faith. Don t let your intellect crowd out Jesus. And don t get side-tracked when sharing the gospel with someone. Often those who are a part of a cult will agree with you and then try to pull the argument into some obscure Scriptural reference that they believe supports their cause. Paul comes along and says: we need to center our witness on Jesus Christ his perfect life, death and resurrection. And that s all!!! PAUL IDENTIFES THOSE WHO DON T UNDERSTAND THE WISDOM OF GOD. v. 5 so that your faith might not rest on men s wisdom but on God s power. In verse 6 Paul says: We 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. What is the Wisdom of this Age? This is not a Dale Carnage course on How to win friends and influence people.. ///This is not the ability of a politician to argue and persuade others to believe what you believe. /// It is not the ability to built up so many facts so that you convince them that what you are saying is better then what they believe today. ///It is not to promise them unusual benefits if they will believe the message and that somehow Jesus will make your life a bed of roses in the future. /// None of these will work because they are missing the key ingredient in a saving faith. 2 P a g e
He also says THE RULERS OF THIS AGE, WH0 ARE COMING TO NOTHING Do you believe that the problems we have in the world today will be solved by brilliant people who make all the right decisions so we have a lasting peace in the world. Never, our world is like a big pendulum in that it swings back and forth from a more liberal stance to a more conservative stance.. and somehow we believe this will bring lasting peace to the world. And what do the scriptures say: Matt 24:6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains. All this came as a result of our sinfulness. The Devil, the world, and our own sinfulness causes wars, rumors of wars.. a lack of peace. The devil is intent to tear down any relationship that peace mind have of stability and care for one another. Etc. A little farther on in this chapter Paul sums it all up this way 1 Cor 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. Don t think in your own mind that the wisdom of the people or of the rulers of this world will solve our problems so that we will be able to live at peace with one another forever. It will never happen! Oh there might be a short time of peace but it is only temporary and something else will show its ugly head. Look at what we have gone through. Where do you want to start : Civil War, or World War 1, then World War 11, Then Korea, Lios, Gernada, Iraq, then Afghanistan, then Tunisia, now Egypt, it will go on and on. Why? Because they don t know God and they don t have the Spirit of God within them. Without the Spirit of God they are spiritually lacking what they need to understand the Love that God had for you and me and the concern that you and I as Christians have for one another and this world. But this can also happen in the church. Sometimes we begin to THINK AND ACT like the world in the church. The church is not just another organization. The church is an organism which continues to grow and change. Dr. Dale Meyer, President of Concordia Seminary in St. Louis just wrote an intro to the latest copy of the Concordia Journal in which he talks at length about the changing atmosphere for ministry. Many future churches will be churches without a building who will meet in malls, in other building, will be small in number, might have worker priests Oh there is still a need for large congregations such as Mt. Olive but they too will need to reconsider how ministry is done. It s no longer just business as usual.. It s not a matter of worship style whether traditional or contemporary but what is the intent of the church for the future. Where will there sources of income come from? It may be that churches will have to do ministry in corporation with other organizations, each finding new ways of reaching people with the message of Jesus Christ. Now I know that some don t want to think about change so we can sink our heels in and say this is the only way. Other times we try to get a lot of people on our side so we can make the 3 P a g e
church take the direction that we feel is best for us. But the church belongs to the Lord. We need to continue to pray that God would develop within each of us a mind that is controlled by the Spirit of God. And that decisions we reach are always in agreement of what God has in mind for the future of His Church. How do you go about selecting a pastor to serve this congregation. YOU DO IT IN PRAYER YOU DO IT WITH THE CONGREGATION BEING IN TUNE WITH WHAT GOD HAS IN MIND FOR THE FUTURE.. and you are willing to go with the majority rather then insisting that you know the right direction for the future. GROW IN THE FOOLISHNESS OF GOD S WISDOM Note how Paul says it here. He ends Chapter 1 talking about how it s not through the powerful but through the weak that the gospel came God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise (1 Cor 1:27). He s making the same argument about man s oratorical and intellectual prowess it s not in the strength of the speaker, but in the strength of the message. Paul says he came in weakness and fear when you think about what awaits those that reject the gospel you d tremble too. The key wasn t in Paul s ability to impress but in the Spirit s ability to bring life to the words. He brought a demonstration of the Spirit s power. And they were rejecting it. Remember Romans 1:16? I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. It s true you have to have spent some time in the Lord to really understand and begin to appreciate what He s done. In the beginning, all you need to realize is that you have sinned and the only way out is through Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Then as you begin that relationship you read the Word and learn about why God sent His Son, and the prophecies spoken about Jesus and the deep theological implications behind it all. Paul gets into it in more detail in a moment, but it s another reason not to get caught up in arguments with people over some very small detail. No, we speak of God s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. Some Christians say that there is a secret wisdom of God that only they can understand but that s not what Paul is saying. He sees that some in the church consider themselves to be the real Christians. Others think the whole thing is a set up. Another way of saying it is that it is a wisdom that God has not revealed previously. But that secret is now an open secret. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. You will find if you read on in 1st Corinthians, members of the church were using the Gifts of the Spirit in the wrong way. They argued about who had the ability to speak in other tongues, Give assistance to others and think that if you had these gifts you were a super supportive Christians. 4 P a g e
The Wisdom of God is FOOLISHNESS TO THOSE WHO DON T BELIEVE. You see, the rulers of Paul s age, and even those who lived under the Old Covenant, didn t understand the secret of the gospel that God would send His own Son as a payment and sacrifice for our sins, once for all. They knew a Messiah was coming, and those that clung to that hope are saved but God shouted the secret far and wide when Jesus came on the scene. 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"- And it is that spirit part of us that reaches out to God s Spirit our spirit was born dead separated from God but was made alive by the life given by the Son of God through the Spirit of God. 12 We 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. The world doesn t understand God but that s not the spirit God has given us. Jesus said: (John 16:13) 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. So we need to ask God for His Spirit to give us understanding not from a human point of view, a worldly point of view but from a spiritual point of view. You re not going to grow in Christ by reading 7 Habits of Successful People. You re not going to understand the things of God by applying the wisdom of Buddha. Or Mohammad, or the Jehovah Witnesses. This is an easy thing for us to fall into watch out. Once we have the Spirit of God living and active in us, then we can apply the spiritual truths we have learned in all areas of our lives but until then it just won t make sense. That s why it doesn t work to take the 10 Commandments or the Beatitudes and say I m going to live by these things. Well first of all its impossible apart from the salvation of Jesus but second of all, you just won t understand them until you have God s Spirit to teach the real meaning to you, then give you the power to live it. 16 "For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?" We need to act on this you have the mind of Christ, if you are a Christian. A few years ago there was this fad WWJD What Would Jesus Do. Let s start a new one: WDJD What DID Jesus DO?. If you understand what He has done for you.if you think like Christ you are going to act like Christ. If you know Jesus Christ your going to live in His Power! Learn about His character and values, pray for God to give you insight and then think and live like Him. Conclusion Let s go back to verse 9 and ask: Who do you turn to in helping you to understand yourself in difficulty? "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him" What do you see around you: trouble, trial, sin, drudgery, weakness? What do you hear around you: doubt, despair, blaspheme? What does your mind conceive the future will be like more of the same? I have GREAT good news for you as bad as things seem, as out of control, as hopeless the best thing you can imagine is not anything near as wonderful as God has not only 5 P a g e
imagined, but also created for you. Paul is quick to add what we need is a MATURE WISDOM. Other places in the Scripture he talks about people needing the Milk of the Word and not the meat of the word. But you and I know Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior so we need to grow and appreciate WDJD WHAT DID JESUS DO? And share that with people all around us. Just sharing the good news that Jesus paid the penalty for our rebellion against God is s place to start. Then help people to build that relationship with God so that it carries a power that will lead them to THE WISDOM THAT THE WORLD CONSIDERS FOOLISHNESS.. This is the ability to change a heart by faith. That is the WISDOM OF GOD BUT THE FOOLISHENESS TO THE WORLD. AMEN 6 P a g e