We'll continue to do as we turn in His Word to 1 Corinthians. We are in the second chapter of 1 Corinthians. And we'll begin our reading in v. 6 and read all the way through the chapter, v. 16. 1 Corinthians chapter 2, again, beginning our reading in verse 6 and reading through the end of the chapter. People of God, this is the word of the living God, so give heed and hear the word of the Lord. However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age who are coming to pass. are coming to nothing but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory which none of the rulers of this age knew For had they known, they would have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love him. But God has revealed them to us through his spirit. For the spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so, no one knows the things 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 know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing matters of the Spirit with the people of the Spirit. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is of the Spirit judges all things, Yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of the Lord is forever. Well, once again, as we come to this section of 1 Corinthians, it's good to be reminded of where we have been and what we have seen Paul do thus far. Reminded once again about the fact that the Corinthian believers are using worldly conceptions of wisdom and of power in order to claim superiority over one another. In particular, spiritual superiority. We have to keep in mind that's what they're claiming here. That they are saying, essentially, that I am more spiritual than you. I am better than you because of who I know and who I identify myself with. I'm more spiritual than you are because I am of Paul or I am of Peter or Apollos. And also, as we'll find as we work our way through the rest of the book as well, because of what I possess. I'm more spiritual than you are because of the wealth that I possess, or even because of the spiritual gifts that I possess. And so the Corinthian believers are viewing their community, not principally through the perspective, the lens of the cross of Jesus Christ, its weakness and its foolishness, but through the lens of human wisdom, human conceptions of power. And Paul has clearly established the futility of the world's wisdom and the superiority of God's wisdom and power in the cross. We saw that last week. God is known in the cross. Not by worldly conceptions of power and wisdom and the Corinthian believers status in the covenant community and before God himself comes from the cross. And now, as we come to this section, as he continues his argument and continues to expose the problem with the thinking of the Corinthian believers, he's going to declare to them what true wisdom and true spirituality are, what it means to be spiritual. True wisdom is found in the cross and is obtained not by human wisdom or discovery, but only by the revealing and transforming power of the Spirit. True spirituality is to be of the Spirit, to have the Spirit of God. The Corinthian believers need to reconsider and reshape their thinking in accordance with what true wisdom, what God's wisdom, and real spirituality are. We learn the lesson that they are to learn is that spiritual wisdom and spirituality itself come through the Spirit of God alone. And we'll learn that lesson on these two lines. First, we'll look to Paul as he tells us what true wisdom is. And secondly, we'll talk about spiritual wisdom, true wisdom and spiritual wisdom. In verse six, we read there, however, we speak wisdom among those who are mature. It's important to note what Paul is doing there, or what he has just done is through the cross and in the cross exposed and put to shame the world's wisdom, right? Nevertheless, there is still wisdom to be had. He's not saying there's no such thing as wisdom and that we should frown upon wisdom, but rather there is a wisdom to be had the world's conception of what wisdom is and what wisdom accomplishes of what power lies in is a false conception and is no wisdom at all and is exposed as such in the cross of Christ but there is a true wisdom to be had there is God's wisdom And this wisdom is spoken to those who are mature. Now it's important for us to do something here. And that is avoid the mistake of understanding Paul as doing what the Corinthian believers have been doing. What have they been doing? They have been stratifying themselves and evaluating who is more spiritual, who is wiser, who is better, right? And thus creating sort of a at least two-tiered Christianity. The spiritual halves and the spiritual have nots, and we'll see the way that that plays out through the course of the book itself. That's not what Paul is doing here. He's not creating a two-tiered Christianity of the mature versus the immature, of the spiritual versus the unspiritual. That's not exactly what he's trying to do here. Rather, as we'll see as we walk through this section, to be mature in the way that Paul speaks of here, is to be one to whom the wisdom of God has been revealed. And so he says, however, we speak God's wisdom among those to whom that wisdom has been revealed. The question then is what is God's wisdom? What has been revealed to those to whom it has been revealed? And thus, for the next few verses, Paul sort of pulls apart what this true wisdom is and what it is not in order to correct the perspective of believers who are considering themselves as the spiritual haves and have nots. He says in verse 6, however, we speak wisdom among those who are mature yet not the wisdom of this age. The way for us to understand that, since we don't really use the term age much anymore, is to think in terms of this present world system. Right? That's what he's talking about. The present world system in which we live. The fallen world system in which we live. Yes, God's redemptive purposes have begun, yet nonetheless, this is still a fallen world in which his people are. And thus it is filled with fallen wisdom, fallen conception of power, and ruled by those, in a manner of speaking, by those fallen conceptions of wisdom and power. And so he is saying we don't speak the wisdom of this present system and of this present system's rulers, power brokers, as it were. Rather, he's already done what he's done in the verses that have just come before that, right? And that is that the wisdom and power of the world have been exposed. They have been shamed that they've been brought to nothing. They're in the process of being destroyed, of being demolished. They're doomed, basically, is what Paul says. And God's wisdom is not that futile wisdom, no matter what the world system may think, and no matter what the powerful people in that system may think and try to do through their own wisdom. rather in verse 7 but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory so rather than the wisdom of that system of the world system that they find themselves in Paul is speaking to them of God's wisdom which has existed before the ages even began Before the foundation of the world it is an eternal wisdom that cannot be that cannot be stuck inside of a system There's something that Paul is doing here and that in the ancient world New things are not good things New systems of wisdom are not the best you want something that is rooted and grounded in something ancient in something old there's an argument from antiquity sort of thing going on there and so when paul talks about the fact that that this wisdom comes from before the when the world began he's saying that it is far superior to any system of wisdom that men can contrive on their own i speak and ancient wisdom god's wisdom yet it is a wisdom that is a mystery what he means by mystery is the fact that It is something that has not yet been understood, that has not been yet revealed, something that has not been made known, but in the cross is made known. God's eternal purpose from before the foundation of the world, though hidden through the ages up until this moment as he drives human history to the foot of the cross itself. In the cross, God's mysterious wisdom is revealed and made known. His eternal plan, his eternal purpose, there in Christ crucified. There's a hidden wisdom, he says. Something that has not been revealed. Not been made known. And something that cannot be made known unless the Spirit of God Himself makes it known. But there's something else interesting that he says here that we would be loathe to overlook. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory." In other words, Paul is not particularly concerned with tearing down the wisdom of the world for tearing down the wisdom of the world's sake as much as he is concerned with getting these Corinthian believers To see the impact and the import and their participation in God's hidden wisdom now revealed in Jesus Christ. What it actually means to believe in Christ and to see his wisdom and power in the cross of Christ itself. In particular, for our glory. In other words, that we might participate in the glory of God Himself as objects of His love and recipients of His grace and His mercy. That those who are in Christ, that those who have believed, God's wisdom and salvation in the cross of Christ instead of knowing destruction and shame Will know glory and life The gospel revealed to God's people for for their goal for their good But this glory The glory of this wisdom, which we really need to understand in the cross of Christ, is the revelation of God himself. We talked about that last week. We need to keep that in mind. The wisdom of God is the revelation of God himself, who he is in his nature, his character through his mighty act in the redemption and salvation that he has wrought there upon the cross. wisdom which is mysterious and hidden ordained by God before the ages for the good and glory of his people is something that the rulers of this age didn't know and couldn't know and if they had known they would have not crucified the Lord of glory is what Paul says in verse 8 and what's he saying there he's saying that if They had known that in the cross of Christ, God would bring to nothing the wisdom of the world and expose the folly of seeking to know him through human conceptions of power and pursuits of wisdom. If they had known that in the cross, in the weakness and foolishness of the cross, God would bring to nothing and destroy the world system, then they would never have crucified the Lord of Glory. It doesn't mean that that means they would have believed. Rather, it means they wouldn't have willingly participated in their own destruction. But because that was hidden to them, because they could not see it, because they could not understand it, because the cross was weakness and foolishness, they put the Lord of glory to death. They crucified Him because they did not understand God's power and wisdom in the cross. which none of the rulers of this age knew. For had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." But at this particular point in time, we've said a lot about God's wisdom without saying a lot about God's wisdom, haven't we? We've used the word a lot. But what does that mean is the question. We do know it means that this is God Himself. It's the revelation of who he is, that the folly and weakness of human wisdom is its inability, even though it thinks it can, to know God through human investigation on our own, to determine who God is for ourselves by our own wisdom, and to have power and to know power through our own devices. God's wisdom is the way in which he makes himself known. And we finally, in verse 9, begin to have a deeper fleshing out and understanding of what this wisdom is and means. Verse 8, which none of the rulers of this age knew, for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, I has not seen nor ear heard nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love him." In other words, God's wisdom, as he's speaking about here, is the knowledge of all of the things that God has prepared for those who love him. Things which no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and hasn't even entered into the heart of man." You need to see what he's saying there. That for all of human searching, through human means of wisdom, they could not even comprehend the vastness, the unimaginable greatness of what God has in store for those who love Him, for those who believe in Him, in His Son revealed. Things so wonderful and immense that they are beyond comparison and imagination and certainly beyond the reach of merely human wisdom and discovery. So that God's wisdom is revealed to those who love him and contains everything that he has planned for them in his salvation. not the least of which being relationship with God himself, making him known to them as their father. and all of the promises encapsulated in that gospel. Isaiah chapter 65, which we just read this morning, and all that is at the end of that chapter, ending with that idea that they shall no longer hurt and destroy in My holy mountain. All of these things God has prepared for those who love Him. And no human wisdom can ever even fathom the glory and the wonder that lies in store for those who know God through his wisdom in the cross. This is what true wisdom is. But this true wisdom is spiritual wisdom. And we need to make a clarification here. You may have noticed me doing it as I read the text this morning. That is, what do we mean by the word spiritual? Basically, what we mean by the word spiritual here in Paul's context is the Spirit's wisdom. Spiritual wisdom is the Spirit's wisdom. Most of the time when we use the word spiritual, what do we mean by that? Well, we mean mature, as we've seen there in verse chapter 6, don't we? We mean those who are the better Christians, those who are the more godly Christians, those who have it more put together than the rest, right? That higher tier, the upper echelon of Christianity, the godly ones that we all look up to. That's what we mean by spiritual, but that's not what Paul means. spiritual Paul means by spiritual the Spirit of God so that spiritual wisdom true wisdom is the Spirit's wisdom and revealed by the Spirit Wisdom of God, namely the things that he has prepared for those who love him, is revealed and made known by the Spirit of God. Because they can only be made known by the Spirit of God. In verse 10, but God has revealed them to us. What has He revealed to us through His Spirit? These wonderful things that God has prepared for those who love Him. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. The Spirit searches all things. The deep things of God, that is the depths of who God is, the fullness of his being. The spirit knows God inside and out would be a way to understand that. That the spirit of God, because it is the spirit of God, knows who God is, knows his nature, his character, his plans, his purpose, all of these good things that he is going to give and is giving and has given to his people. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in them? Who knows you better than you know yourself? Right? Of course, being humans, we don't really know ourselves all that well, but you know yourself better than other people know you. Right? just in that way, so also who knows God better than God himself? Who understands God better than God himself? Who knows God's purposes more than God himself? who knows the things that are prepared for those who love him more than God himself. And so now we begin to understand why it is that these things can only be understood, they're only revealed, they're only knowable if God gives his spirit to reveal them and to make them known. And now we have received verse 12. Not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God. What makes the difference in this world, saints? What is it to be spiritual versus unspiritual? Paul makes that clear here in verse 12. That is, to not have the spirit of the world in self-reliance and self-dependence, in our own ability to understand who God is and to know what His plan and purpose is, and to order our lives according to what He has determined is for our good or is for our evil, To know all of that through our own strength and our natural ability is to be unspiritual. It's to have the spirit of the world system. But to be spiritual is to have the Spirit of God. To have the Spirit of God as the one who grants to us wisdom, an understanding of who God is, an understanding of His purpose, a knowledge of what He has planned for us for our good. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God. Why? That we might know the things that have been freely given to us or graciously given to us by God. God gives us his spirit. in order that we might know and comprehend and understand what He has given to us in the cross of Christ. He hasn't left us to just blindly fumble about in the world trying somehow to know God, trying somehow to figure out what the whole point and purpose of the cross is and all of this stuff is. He's given His Spirit in order that we might know. And that's a powerful word in the context of Paul's argument thus far. Because his whole point is that the world can't know God. It cannot understand who God is. It cannot find God. in its own strength and through its own systems. It's been doing that ever since Adam and Eve took the first bite of the forbidden fruit. And it cannot know God. Because with the taint of sin upon our understanding, God is never who we expect or want Him to be because He's not us. And so God gives His Spirit to remove least enough of the cloud to see Him for who He is in the cross of Christ. To see His love there. To see His grace and His mercy. To see His faithfulness. To see His goodness. To see that He desires our well-being. and that He has freely given us everything that we need in order to fulfill the purpose that He has for us to reach the destination, which is eternity in its presence with Him, enjoying the fullness of communion with Him, and the glory of a world that is no longer clouded and stained with our sinfulness and the sinfulness of others. God reveals himself through his spirit. And so Paul says in verse 13 these things. We also speak what things the things that God has prepared for your good. Something you need to understand. Saints. It says not in word which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches. Comparing things of the spirit or matters of the spirit, or rather, I should say evaluating things or matters of the spirit to a spirit filled people. is really the essence of what's being said here. Do you understand, saint, that the joy of the life of faith is your knowing more and more of God's goodness? And that God has given His Spirit to you in order that you might begin to see His goodness, His nature, and His character as you walk through life? So Paul says that That the things that he speaks, the things that he's telling them in this letter, that he will continue to tell them all letter long, that these things, he's not speaking to them in the hollow futility of the world system of wisdom. But rather he's speaking what the Spirit himself has taught him. in order that they might understand these good things, these things of God, to give spiritual discernment and understanding to spirit-filled people, so that we will have the ability no longer to be slaves to our own wisdom, but rather to have the Spirit of God to give us wisdom to know these good things. that God has prepared for us in the each and every day, but also on into glory. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, nor can he know them because they are discerned by the Spirit. By people who have the Spirit, The natural man there isn't necessarily talking about fleshly, sinful man, as though oftentimes it is, but he means man in himself. the natural man, the man who doesn't have the Spirit of God and has only his own human wisdom to determine what the good things of God are, who God himself even is, to have relationship with this God, to have any understanding of the purpose of life itself and why God has created and what he has in store for those who love him, that man in his natural state can never understand or know these things because he doesn't have God's Spirit. And they are spiritually discerned, discerned by the Spirit of God. But he who is of the Spirit judges all things. What does that mean? Right? It means we have the ability to evaluate and to examine what things are of God and what are not. What things are God's good for us and what things are not. in particularly through the cross of Jesus Christ. It's to take God revealed in the cross and to apply it to all of life. And the Spirit gives us that ability, that wisdom, that knowledge. It's not our own wisdom. It's not our own knowledge that enables us to walk through life, to see the good things of God and to see Him in them. God grants us His Spirit in order that we might judge rightly what is good, what is godly, what is from God, what is of God. That He Himself is rightly judged by no one. What does that mean? It means that the man of God or the woman of God, the one who has the Spirit of God, is able to make judgments about what is of God and for our good. but is not subject to the judgments of a fallen world system concerning his own wisdom, concerning her own wisdom and his own value or her own value. In other words, for the world to look at the Christian and to say, you are foolish, you are filled with folly, you are weak, you are unwise, doesn't matter at all. Because that's not the rubric by which God judges, and it's not to be the rubric by which we as Christians judge. The cross is. So Christians have the ability to judge rightly because the Spirit of God grants that ability. while at the same time not being subject in any meaningful degree to wrong judgments of the things of God from a fallen world system. For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ." What is Paul trying to accomplish and what is he saying here? He's saying, stop judging by worldly standards and start judging by godly standards. Stop judging according to the world's wisdom and start judging according to the Spirit's wisdom. You have been given the Spirit. You have been given everything that you need in order to make the right judgments. What are you doing? Here you are. You're saying that I am of Peter and I am of Paul and I am of Apollos. And you're using the world's wisdom to judge one another about who is spiritual and who is not. Stop doing that, you'll say in just the next few verses of chapter 3. But rather, evaluate rightly according to the wisdom and knowledge that the Spirit of God gives. The way in which God reveals himself to be. Judge by my standards. I've given you my spirit. You are spiritual people. Stop acting like the world. Stop being divided like the world divides itself. Rather, see each and every one of your fellow believers in that Corinthian church as who you all are. A spiritual people. People of the Spirit. People who have been given the Spirit. And thus, having been given the Spirit. have the ability to begin to view life through God's wisdom, God's determination of what is good, to see God's glory in your redemption, and to be united around that wisdom. The text also says to those here who have yet to put your faith in Christ, You've heard the Gospel proclaimed to you many times now. And this text says, stop trying to figure it out on your own. You can't do it. Just believe. Just have that little mustard seed of faith. And trust what God has said to you in His Son. What He has revealed about Himself in the cross of Christ. that this is a God who loves, a God of grace, a God of mercy, a God who is not wanting that you should be there detached from Him and separated from Him, walking around in darkness, trying to figure out the meaning of life and the purpose of it, trying to find some sort of relationship with Him, trying to find some sort of eternal value or any value at all, all on your own, but says to you, put down your sword and take my hand and know my goodness. See my son, see what I've done. If you don't believe that I'm good, while you were yet sinners, my son died for you. If you don't believe that I am a God of love, my son died in order that you might see and know my love. If you don't believe that I have every good thing planned for my people and have given them and will continue to give them every good thing, see the good that I have given them in my son. Now is the day of salvation. Now is the day to stop trying to figure it out in your own wisdom and just take God at his word. and find that He is everything He says He is as revealed in the cross itself. In all the weakness and foolishness of the world, the power and wisdom of God revealed. God Himself demonstrated and shown. For the life of faith, this has something to say about our gospel proclamation, saints. Notice, Paul emphasizes the glory of God's people, the wonder of the things that he has prepared for them, that he wants them to know and tells them they have the ability to know all of the things that God has freely given to them in his son, in the cross, in the crucified Lord of glory. Why doesn't our gospel look more like that, saints? to where we say to a fallen world, come know my good God. Come know my loving God. Come know my merciful God. Come know my God who gave His Son for me in order that I might have God Himself and everything that comes with it. Why doesn't our Gospel look like that? Nearly as often as it should. call people to be reconciled to God and to know him as we know him. It has something to say to our own lives of faith as well. First Saints, we are all spiritual. There is no two-tiered Christianity. If God has revealed his wisdom by his Spirit to you in order that you might put your faith in his crucified and risen Son, our King, the Lord of glory, if you have the Spirit of God, you are spiritual. And the time has come for believers to stop bifurcating themselves along man-made lines. As I look out across all of you sitting here, not a one of you is less spiritual than I am just because I stand behind a pulpit. But you are a brother. You are a sister who has the Spirit of God the same as I do. And that is a wonderful thing. You can know God. You can know who he is. You can know the good things he has planned. You can see his goodness in life itself through his word in the worship and fellowship of his people. You can know everything that I can know because you have the same spirit. Because you are people of the spirit. Accordingly, with vaccines, Stop judging each other. There is not a person sitting here who has not at one time or is not currently judging and evaluating how spiritual your brothers and sisters are and doing so by worldly standards. The measure of the spirituality of a believer is nothing more and nothing less than whether or not the Spirit of God resides within them. Those of you who have been blessed materially are not more spiritual than those who have not. It is not some demonstration that God loves you more than He loves your brothers and sisters who have less, but rather that He has given you in order that you might judge rightly in order to use what He has given you for His glory and the good of those around you. Those of you who have intellectual achievements and have read many books It's not an indication that you are of the upper echelon of Christianity and that you're better than those around you. And that those who haven't read as much as you have or know as much as you know aren't as Christian as you are. It's for those of you who have even come to realizations throughout the course of your Christian life and God hits you in the face with His goodness as you understand some truth or some promise that just because God gives you that wisdom, understanding of His truth and of His promise doesn't mean that somehow you're more than, better than anything or anyone in the church. There is one rubric that we judge by. And that is the Spirit of God residing in each and every one of us. Stop judging each other. And start seeing each other with true spiritual wisdom. God-given wisdom. That you are brothers and that you are sisters of one Spirit-filled body who have been given the grace to know God and all of the things that He freely gives us. And finally this morning, let's begin walking according to the Spirit. God's wisdom does not end at the cross. And what I mean by that, God's wisdom doesn't end with the idea of, well I believe, now I'm restored to right relationship, I don't have to think about anything anymore. God's wisdom of the cross has implications for the way that we live. That's what the rest of the epistle is going to be about. All of the ways in which the world's wisdom characterizes this church, as opposed to God's wisdom, and correcting that so that they might live out the reality of what God has accomplished in the cross through Spirit-given wisdom. So let us begin as one body united by the same spirit to begin to live that life of the Spirit together that we might all know the good things of God. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, thank you for your Spirit. Not a one of us here was not at some point in time a natural man or woman Unable to understand your power and wisdom in your goodness and glory Both in the world in which you have created but in your nature and your character and your person as well even when you have given your son a even as your purpose came to plan and to pass as he was crucified on the cross, yet we did not understand it and we could not understand it. But you gave us your spirit of wisdom that we might see your goodness and your love and your mercy, your faithfulness, your justice revealed in the cross of Jesus Christ and believe in it and trust that you are that God. and worthy of our love and trust. If you had not given us your spirit, yet still would we be blind. Beyond that, we ask that you would continue through that same spirit to open our eyes to all of the good things that are wrapped up in knowing you in the cross. and giving us more of your wisdom to judge rightly, to evaluate rightly which things placed before us in this life are for our good. And let us judge one another rightly. Let us see each other as people of the Spirit, joined together in the cross of Christ. to pursue together the purpose of the cross, the growing experience of what it means to be redeemed by the wisdom of God, to know a life of real goodness and grace and joy and peace. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.