WWUTT 1463 Review of 1 Corinthians 2 (part 3)

The Spirit of God and the Natural Mind in 1 Corinthians 2

Hey friends, I'm on the road this week, but in keeping with our study through 1 Corinthians, I'll be playing clips from the sermon series that I did through that book, rejoicing in the message of the cross, the power of God for salvation, when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible teaching podcast, that we may be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Tell your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, how is it that you and I can read the Bible and we see in the Bible the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, but somebody else can read the entire Bible and what they come away with is a really boring book with a God that's kind of vindictive, likes to kill people every once in a while, who even put his own son to death.

What's that all about? With apostles that can do miracles and heal people and yet there's people who are sick all over the place, a God who is proclaimed in the Bible as a God of love and yet people are sick and dying everywhere, so what in the world is that God doing?

Why is it that there are people that can come away from this book and have that impression of God and there are others that read this book and see a God of grace and love and mercy? It's because those who see the God of grace and love and mercy have the Spirit of God to understand the things of God.

While the person who sees a God of wrath and who is unjust and who is unloving of people, when that's all they see when they come away from the Bible, it's because they have the mind of the flesh. They're thinking with the natural mind instead of the spiritual mind.

We understand these things because we are able to search the depths of God through the Spirit that lives within us. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. Verse 11, Paul gives us a metaphor.

He gives us an analogy to help us understand this. 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.

So you can do a nice act for somebody and it can seem to that person and anyone else who sees you do this kind act for somebody else to be a completely selfless gesture. Oh, what a kind act that that person did for somebody.

But you know in your mind whether or not you were actually doing that for the benefit of somebody else or whether or not you had something to gain from it. So you know your own thoughts and your own intentions within you.

You know that. So the Spirit of God knows the things, the thoughts, and the intentions of God. And Paul goes on in verse 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.

And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. Now you see Paul bouncing back and forth between two different versions of the word spirit.

You will have spirit with the capital S and you will have spirit with the lowercase s. Where Paul is using spirit with the capital S, that's the Spirit of God. That's the Holy Spirit that we're talking about.

Where Paul will use the lowercase s spirit, we're talking about dwelling on supernatural things that we cannot perceive with our natural senses. Now let me clarify here that when Paul is talking about us being a spiritual people in the Spirit of God, we're talking about true spirituality according to the Spirit of God.

We are not talking about any and all kinds of spirituality. You think about the world's version of spirituality, like tarot cards, fortune telling, my horoscope in the newspaper, or somebody who says, I meditate and do yoga or any of these other things and I feel connected with the universe.

That's a worldly kind of spirituality. That's not the kind of spirituality that we're talking about. Not connection to dead ancestors and seances or any of these other kinds of things. Not that kind of spirituality.

The spirituality we're talking about according to 1 Corinthians 2 is true spirituality. All that other worldly kind of spirituality doesn't even exist. It's fanciful in the thoughts of man, but you can't really talk to dead spirits.

You can't really know your future in the stars. True spirituality is that which comes from the Spirit of God. For those of us who have the Spirit of God living within us, that's what Paul is talking about here.

True spirituality. So not any and all kind of spiritualness in the world. There was a woman that Oprah interviewed on her daytime talk show about three years ago. It was 2013 when this interview took place.

There was a woman that was a special guest on Oprah's talk show, who was a best-selling author, and she was an atheist. She was talking about with Oprah how, I don't need to feel or I don't need to believe in God to feel connected with the universe.

I can be connected to the universe just through these philosophical thoughts or through meditation or just enjoying creation around me and all these other kinds of things. Oprah argued with her and said, see that thing that you're proclaiming is just this connection that you have with nature, that's God.

So you're actually a theist. You actually believe in God even though you don't know that you do or don't want to proclaim that you do. So the spirituality that you have, which you call atheism, is actually a spirituality that is from God.

You just don't recognize it as being God. Now we have people that even profess to be Christians who think this exact same way. Several times I have sat across from a person at lunch or otherwise who I am trying to persuade needs to come back to regular church attendance.

I haven't seen them in church in weeks, but they still proclaim to be a member of First Southern Baptist Church. So I'll take them out to lunch and I'll be talking to them, I haven't seen you in church in a long time, what's going on?

You know, and they'll say, well, you know, Pastor Gabe, I still believe in God. I still believe in Jesus. And I don't want you to think that I'm not going to church because nature is my church. Like when I'm out in the world on a Sunday morning and when I decide that I want to go hunting instead of come to church, the prairie is my church.

I'm out there in my tree stand or I'm out there in the field and I just think, God, thank you for showing all of this to me. And so I appreciate God from everything that I'm in and all that is surrounding me.

So I'm still at church. And I say to them, who is the church? It's the people of God. So nature is not our church. And furthermore, you cannot know God by what you experience around you. You can know of God, but you don't get to know God that way.

The only way you get to know God is through His Word. It's the only way. And Paul says that very thing here. 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.

In other words, the gospel is declared by Christ and His apostles. And we impart this in words. Words. Words. We impart this truth, this knowledge of God in words, not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual, truly spiritual, indwelt with the Holy Spirit of God.

It is only when you have the Spirit of God can you understand the things of God. Verse 14, the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him. We come back again to verse 18, the Word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing.

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. Now let me clarify again, when we say the spiritual person, we're not just talking about a person who thinks of spiritual things like we would perceive spirituality in the world.

Paul at the Areopagus and the Spirituality of the Nations

When we first embarked on a study of 1 Corinthians, we looked at Acts chapter 16 and 17, where the apostle Paul visits Corinth and he visits Athens so we could understand the Greek mindset a little bit better and exactly what Paul knew that he was getting into when he comes to these people and declares the gospel of Jesus Christ.

In Acts chapter 17, it's at the Areopagus where Paul goes up on the hill and they've got all these idols that are raised to these false gods. And Paul is walking among these idols at a place where oration was known to be proclaimed.

All the great speakers and philosophers among the Greeks would come to that place, the Areopagus, and they would speak their philosophical, high-minded thoughts. So the apostle Paul is coming there not to gain any wealth from it, because the philosophers would all do this for money, for monetary gain, but he comes there to preach the gospel so that those who hear it would turn from their sins and be saved.

And so as he's walking among these idols, he looks around and he says, Men of Athens, I perceive by what I see around me that you are very religious. So folks, we can look at the world around us, just in the United States of America, and we can see that we are a very spiritual people.

Now, lately in the news and in surveys and stuff like this, you'll hear about this rising number of those who proclaim themselves to be the nuns. Do you know what I'm talking about when I say that? N-O-N-E-S, not N-U-N-S, okay?

The nuns, N-O-N-E-S. These are people who will, when they are surveyed and they will be asked, What religion do you have? They will say, None. And so there's a rising number of those who proclaim themselves to be the nuns.

Now, among that group is atheists and skeptics, sure. But there's also Christians in that group. And they're probably lesser educated Christians who will think of Christianity as not being a religion, it's a relationship.

Christianity is a religion, by the way, just so we're clear on that. But they will perceive their religion as being a relationship and not a religion, so they will simply proclaim no religious affiliation.

They will say, None. So that nuns group is actually a hodgepodge of different beliefs. It's not simply atheism, agnosticism, or skepticism, or naturalism, Darwinism, any of those other kinds of things.

So you have this growing number of people who are among the nuns, but yet we still have an extremely spiritual culture that we live among. And you can see the spirituality exercise in all different ways, in all different veins of society, avenues, interests, people, groups, so on and so forth.

In fact, since we're in a sports season right now, or we've got some big playoff games coming up today, Green Bay Packers are playing, Kansas City Chiefs are playing tonight. All you have to do is look at sports and you see a people who are obsessed with spiritual things.

Really? In sports? Oh, yeah. I mean, you understand the superstitions and stuff like this that exist in sports, right? Any Chicago Cubs fans in the house? All right. Congratulations on winning the World Series in 2016, overcoming what?

The curse of the goat that was levied against the Chicago Cubs 71 years ago in 1945. And it was because of the curse of the goat that the Cubs were never going to win another pennant or a World Series, presumably.

Then you had in 2003, the Steve Bartman incident. Some of you just must not be as big baseball fans as I am. I'm getting like no chuckles out of that at all. So the Steve Bartman incident in 2003, the Cubs were two outs away from winning their first pennant since 1945.

And Moises Alou was coming down the first baseline to catch a foul ball and a man by the name of Steve Bartman reaches out and interferes with Moises Alou attempting to catch that ball. Now, he wasn't the only one.

There were other guys around Bartman that were going for the ball, but Bartman became the scapegoat. And when the Cubs went on to give up eight runs in that same inning, the crowd started to boo Steve Bartman, throwing beers and trash at him and other things.

Police had to come and get Bartman and escort him out of the stadium. And not only that, but he had to have a police escort around him all the time for years after that incident in fear of people from Chicago were going to try to beat him up.

His name, address, and phone number had even been posted online so that if anybody had any vengeance against Steve Bartman, they knew where to find him and where to take their anger out on him because the Chicago Cubs blew eight runs, not Steve Bartman.

So what ended up happening two months after that incident was there was a man who purchased the ball that Steve Bartman interfered with. And he took it to a Chicago restaurant and he wired it up with pyrotechnics and exploded the ball.

He paid over $113 ,000 for that baseball. His wife was a little upset at him for spending that much money on a baseball. But he set this up at a restaurant. He had people pay an entrance fee to come in and they would watch this baseball be exploded into just this mess of yarn and string all over the container in which it was exploded.

And then the yarn was taken out and it was put in this broth and this broth was cooked with pasta. And then the pasta would be presented to the people there in the restaurant and they would literally eat their bitterness against Steve Bartman and this interference of this baseball that had occurred a few months ago at this NL Pennant game.

Now, there were probably some people in there that were doing it just for fun, just because we're showing our support of the show. Because we're Chicago Cubs fans, we're diehard fans, we're going to partake in this.

Ha ha, it's funny and whatnot and what other. But tell me that there wasn't anyone in that room that didn't truly believe that some curse on the Chicago Cubs would be lifted because that ball was exploded and they ate pasta that was cooked in the strings of that baseball.

Folks, we can walk around the United States of America and we can say, indeed, I see that you are a very spiritual people. And we can proclaim the gospel just like the Apostle Paul did there at the Areopagus.

I proclaim to you that the Spirit of God has been shown to us through the Word of God, the Bible, where we read about the Son of God who came into this world to die on a cross for our sins. God, from His throne in heaven, came down to earth and took on the form of a servant.

He became obedient even unto death, death on a cross, on a thief's cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted Him, bringing Him back to life. We know that through Christ, death has no dominion over us because death has no dominion over Him.

And if we are in Christ Jesus, we have nothing to fear of the grave or the wrath of God or His judgment, for in Christ we are justified and we will live forever. And it is proclaimed in the Word of God that God has made His name higher than that above every other name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue would confess in heaven and on earth and under the earth that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

And when we proclaim that gospel, ladies and gentlemen, there are going to be people in this world who will mock us and will scoff us because we proclaim something so idiotic. What a buffoon you are that you believe in such a thing.

God died on a cross for your sins? What a fool. But there are people who will be convicted by the Spirit of God to believe that message. And we must not hold back. We must not soften it. We must not sugarcoat it for all the gloriousness that is proclaimed in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved, it is the power of God. And weeping and in repentance and understanding the natural mind that they once thought with has now been changed by the Spirit of God, washed with the water through the word, and they no longer think of God with the natural mind, but they think of Him with a spiritual mind, and they see His love and His mercy and grace, and God demonstrating His love for us.

And while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5 .8. So this is the gospel that we must proclaim, for who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct Him, but we have the mind of Christ.

It's in Philippians 2 .5 where the Apostle Paul says, Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. So my friends, my brothers and sisters in Christ, let us no longer be thinking in the ways of this world, but let us think with the mind of God.

Let us no longer try to impart the wisdom of the world to a person thinking that that can save anybody, but it is only by the word of God that we can be saved. I was listening to Martin Lloyd-Jones this morning, and Martin Lloyd-Jones was talking about what repentance means.

It means to think again. It means to think again on the things of God with a new mind that has been transformed in the Spirit, where previously you didn't think much of the things of God. Now with this new mind in repentance, you think less of the things of the world and more of the things of God.

And Martin Lloyd-Jones said that we can proclaim all of the philosophers and all the thoughts that they've ever had about God down through the centuries, but not one of those thoughts has ever saved a single human being.

It is only the thoughts of God and the truth of His word that ever brings anyone from death into His life. And so let us know these words, be devoted to these words, grow in understanding of these words, and proclaim these words that a lost and dying world might turn from their sin and find forgiveness and life in Jesus Christ.

This is When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. There are lots of great Bible teaching programs on the web, and we thank you for selecting ours, but this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family.

Find a good, gospel-teaching, Christ-centered church to worship with this weekend, and join us again tomorrow as we continue our Bible study When We Understand the Text.