Our Father, we recognize that you are the great I am, and it is to you that we offer our praises this day. In Jesus' name, amen. And be seated. And I'll ask you this morning to open your Bibles to 1 Corinthians. Open to 1 Corinthians chapter 2 this morning. and we'll learn a bit about godly wisdom this morning. And for our text, I think I will read the whole chapter and give us a really firm context about the subject the Apostle Paul is dealing with here to the churches. And so Paul writes these words. And I, brethren, when I came to you, I did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God, for I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, in much trembling, and my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature yet, not the wisdom of this age nor the rulers of this age which 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 not 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, yea, 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 spiritual things with spiritual. 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 spiritual 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. Oh, Father, in Jesus' name, let us treasure the teaching of this your holy word. We pray in his name. Amen. And so he talks about wisdom, and I think we all know by this time there are distinctives about wisdom. There is certainly a common wisdom, if you will, that men have. There is a common light that all men have. We know that from chapter one of the Gospel of John, that he gave light, a certain amount of spiritual understanding to every man coming into the world, not saving understanding. For that, we need to go to God. The book of James, as we look into on Thursday evenings in this period that we're in, says, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God. Wisdom is a gift of God, and he gives it liberally and without reproach for the asking, so long as we ask in faith with no doubting, he says. And so there is a process to gaining the wisdom of God and increasing in that wisdom. But the very first thing I'd like to clarify as we go into this passage so that we don't look at it in an imbalanced way, is that this passage in no way diminishes the wisdom of man. Man has great wisdom. I would go so far as to say man has great glory, and that sometimes is the reason we mistake the glory of man for the glory of God. So man has great wisdom and the passage in no way diminishes that fact, but rather what does the passage do? It defines the limitations of human wisdom. To define is to acknowledge limits to a thing. Friends, human wisdom is good and I hope you have some. It's also a gift from God to manage and participate in and order human society. Man's wisdom is good for certain things. Yet if it's truly wisdom, it should acknowledge its own obvious limits. But it can't, because human wisdom can't look beyond itself to divine wisdom. That perspective has to come from a divine source, and there is only one. So wisdom is a gift of God that helps man order his society. We've seen that in pagan societies. The ancient Rome was a great and orderly society who knew nothing of our God. So man's wisdom is good for certain things, yet if it is truly wisdom, it should acknowledge its own limitations. Of the apostle Paul and his meaning in this passage, Calvin comments, He writes, lest he should appear to despise wisdom. You see, Paul is not saying human wisdom is of no benefit to us. And so Calvin warns us, he hems us in with this balance, lest the apostle should appear to despise wisdom as unlearned and ignorant men contemn. They contemn learning with a sort of barbarian ferocity. I've seen that. I've seen Christians say too much learning is not a good thing. Remember, Paul the Apostle was accused of that by Agrippa. He said, your much learning has driven you mad. I've had that said to me many times. They contemn learning with a sort of barbarian ferocity. That's a totally Calvinistic statement. And then he adds, that he is not devoid of that wisdom which was worthy of the name, but was esteemed by such, esteemed as such by none but competent judges. Indeed, friends, there is a place for cooperation between human wisdom and divine wisdom in our Christian lives. And the Bible gives numerous examples of this synergy. And I'll give you one or two. I think perhaps the greatest example of the cooperation between divine judgment and human judgment comes from the book of Exodus, and you may remember this. And it always surprised me that Moses, who was called of God, had this great task of judging God's people. If you remember, when they came across the Red Sea, there was something like a million of them. And we know that that may have been just the count of the men, not including the women and the children, and maybe some strangers who were among them. but a great multitude of people, and it was Moses' job to govern them, or as they said in that time, to judge them. And then he goes to his Midianite father-in-law, Jethro, and Jethro tells him how to go about this task. And so he takes advice from his father-in-law regarding this overwhelming task of standing as judge over such a numerous people. And so Jethro, himself called the priest of Midian, recognized the great works of the God of Moses and the great place that Moses held in the sight of God as a prophet and judge over Israel. Yet in his human wisdom, he figured out a path forward for his son-in-law, and it was really very pragmatic. You'll find human wisdom is very pragmatic. It's not deep. It's not deeply spiritual. It's sort of, let's just get things done. And people can figure out how to do that. We see it all the time. But this is what Jethro told Moses. He said, listen now to my voice. I will give you counsel and God will be with you. Stand before God for the people so that you may bring the difficulties to God. And you shall teach them the statutes and the laws and show them the way in which they must walk and the work they must do." So he tells Moses, you're primarily the teacher of this great multitude of people. And then he says, moreover, you shall select from the people able men such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness, and place such over them to be rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens." And so here's Jethro who came up with the appellate court system. He says, and let them judge the people at all times. then it will be that every great matter they shall bring to you, but every small matter they themselves shall judge." It's a sort of division of labor, isn't it? It's a delegation of responsibility, and it makes perfect sense. so it will be easier for you, for they will bear the burden with you. If you do this thing, and God so commands you, then you will be able to endure, and all this people will also go to their place in peace." And it worked. Human wisdom can bring order. It cannot, however, bring enlightenment upon divine realities. It can arrive at certain virtues, but not ultimate virtues. It can bring up the question of absolutes and eternal realities, but if it is truly wisdom, it should honestly report its own inadequacies to make conclusions regarding divine realities. Even pagan wisdom can recognize its own limitations, and an honest assessment of its limitations is itself owed to wisdom. A great man Confucius, not a Christian, right, a Buddhist teacher, he said, to know that you know what you know, and that you don't know what you don't know, that is true wisdom. They like to speak in those cultures in conundrums, but of course, so does Jesus. Right? But that's a really knowledgeable and humble view of wisdom. Admit that you don't know everything. So human wisdom, friends, it's not inauthentic, but it's just incomplete. Human wisdom can inspire good works, but it cannot recognize ultimate good works. It can even lead us to see the human goodness of Christ. You hear that all the time from unbelievers. They're willing to accept that Jesus existed, that he was a great teacher, a great ethicist. No one reads the Sermon on the Mount and walks away and says, boy, was that a dumb teaching. Everybody recognizes the sublime virtues of Christ's teaching, so human wisdom can arrive at that. Not everyone on the Mount that day got saved from listening to Jesus. It can cause us to conclude that he indeed lived. That's human wisdom, right? Men agree. Secular historians agree that Jesus lived. that he was a good and wise man. It can even lead us to the foot of the cross and cause us to bemoan the circumstances leading to the execution of this good man. But it cannot bring us any further. And therein lies the problem for man. It cannot bring us any further. So man's wisdom, friends, cannot explain the cross. It cannot comprehend the fact that Jesus set his face to Jerusalem for the sole purpose of enduring that cross. So there are some areas of life where human wisdom will not cooperate so well with divine wisdom, and may in fact come in direct conflict with it. Friends, if you chose Christianity for its practical applications, Well, first of all, you may have chosen for the wrong reasons, but you may find that the blending of wisdom in that way may not profit you. It's amazing to me how many people today who call themselves Christians, and I include Catholics and theological liberals and nominal and occasional churchgoers in this category, who speak of themselves as confident of their acceptable goodness in the sight of God. Their human practical wisdom tells them they're good people. And they not only believe it, they rely on it for salvation. They will argue with you about it. And they will argue with you that your gospel which they see as excusing sin, is not a good and practical approach to God at all. Our gospel, friends, is for acknowledged sinners, not for acknowledged righteous people. Right? And so human wisdom tends to lead people to see themselves in a way that God does not see us. They see themselves as having acceptable goodness in the sight of God, and their expectation is that they will get good treatment in the afterlife. I'm seeing a lot of theology talked about in the news media today. Is anyone hearing this kind of thing? And it comes from people who say they're Christians who talk about their good works, getting themselves to heaven, and how other people's works are evil and they are therefore condemned. And I'm thinking, where is the Christian voice on your news team to tell you that you've got it all wrong? Friends, this is human wisdom, and that's what's the most recognizable part of human wisdom, is that we can't approach God knowledgeably, knowing what he thinks of us. We just assume we are the darlings of the universe, and God must take us just as we are. Friends, if humanity of itself could have conceived a plan to recommend itself before God, Jesus Christ would not have had to die on the cross. Human wisdom sees the relative goodness of human beings. And our omnipotent God sees only the perfect goodness of his son. And only faith in the power and wisdom of God can reveal to man this distinction. Hence, Paul's passage to the Church of Corinth. When people find out in the course of conversation that I'm a minister, it's very likely that they will express approval of that vocation. It's sort of a superstitious unwillingness to say, well, that's a terrible thing. But no one has ever said that to me. They express approval of my vocation when also in the course of conversation, I'll inquire as to their religious affiliation. I'll get things like, I get amazing things. People say things like, My brother's uncle is a minister. Or my neighbor's doctor's patient's uncle is a minister. And they say things like this. They're trying to connect themselves with me in some way. It's obviously an uncomfortable conversation for some. So they'll say things like, a common response I got from one woman one time is, I don't go to church much, but I think I'm a good person. I suppose that means, therefore, I don't need to go. And there's a nod there to God's existence, even of his omnipotence, and that he's a judge of right and wrong and good and evil. Yet we suppose our standard for pleasing him is somehow identical with his standard. And that's just an assumption of human wisdom. And I think human wisdom always comes to that conclusion wrongly. That our standard of righteousness is the same as God's, and I'm a good person, and God should think so also. So I'm not in danger. I don't need a sermon from you. I'll go about my way, and I'm at peace with God. And I've heard that many times in my evangelism. Friends, human wisdom recognizes good people and bad people. And I think to some extent, rightly so. I think our court system is well-conceived, and I think they litigate these things very well. But God's standard is different than that. God looks on the earth and sees bad people and Jesus Christ. And it takes an act of faith to see this clearly, doesn't it? And that faith itself is a gift of God to those whom he chooses to give it. Pastor Ken had said of old to me, he said, if you ask me if good people go to heaven, I'll tell you yes. But then I'll have to say the problem is in the sight of God, there are no good people. So it's amazing to me that this type of radical reliance upon our own good nature to commend ourselves to God has hardly ever been challenged in them by their brethren in their respective religious traditions. A professional associate of mine said to me the other day of her adult children, I told them, pick a religion and take your kids there, she said. Pick a religion. It's like pick a card, any card. Pick a religion and take your kids there. I don't care which one you pick, but pick one and get some religion into those kids. As though all religion is created equal. You know, there's a human wisdom in that. People recognize that the world religions are there to teach some sort of ethical path toward your neighbors. And then they suggest a moral path in the sight of God. So there's kind of a practical conclusion there that it should not surprise us. But what she meant, so what she meant was not so horrible a thing on the practical level as it is on the theological level. So it's still a recognized fact in our society, even with so many theological, moral, and even criminal excesses in the churches today, that religious institutions are still perceived as the conduits of good morals and teachers of sound virtues. That's why she just says, get some religion into those kids. But this is the type of thing that this verse is speaking to. This is a woman who considers herself morally conservative, who believes in monogamy and chastity. However, her rationale for such beliefs are not devotional or religious, they are practical and expedient. Like the purveyors of, and you don't hear much about this anymore, remember safe sex during the AIDS epidemic that started, I believe back in the eighties, they talked about safe sex. Don't stop having it. It's not a sin. You enjoy yourselves, you know, go about it, but just take these precautions and you'll be okay to see that's human wisdom. It's all about practicality, isn't it? But what's, but before God, there is one form of safe, safe sex. And that is intimacy between a man and his wife. All other forms are sinful and deadly. So her pragmatism, though she cannot see it, is where her faith truly lies. Her faith is in self-reliance. She's placed her faith on the wisdom of men, herself in particular, and she has no acquaintance with the power of God. As Paul wrote to Timothy, she has a form of godliness but denies its power. Though human wisdom can honor God practically, friends, it is incapable of honoring Him devotionally or crediting Him with authority to recognize obedience to Him. The man of God whose faith is in the power of God obeys God not because it's just a good idea, friends, but because it's God's idea. And that fact has been made known to him by the Spirit of God. That's how we know this. Human wisdom is verifiably accurate only by experience. Divine wisdom is verifiably accurate by divine authority. It's a kind of because I said so kind of wisdom. And this is the question of authority that remains the stumbling block for every unregenerate person who comes in contact with it. We recoil at the idea that You have something innately that I don't have. That you have an approach to God that my tradition can't lead me to. There's something of arrogance in that that other humans see. Hence the crucifixion of Christ. Calvin again writes this, let it then be known by us that it's the property of faith to rest upon God alone without depending on men. For it requires to have so much certainty to go upon that it will not fail. Even when assailed by all the machinations of hell, but will perseveringly endure and sustain every assault, this cannot be accomplished unless we are fully persuaded that God has spoken to us and that what we have believed is no mere contrivance of men. This is why people, even in our day, even people I've seen interviewed lately from Nigeria who are Christians who are being persecuted. Friends, it would be so easy for them to just deny their faith. But there is something of godly wisdom in them that won't let them do it. They would rather face the persecution, they would rather pay even with their own lives, than give up their eternal life. And so human wisdom will always see divine wisdom as just another opinion. It may hold such an opinion in high esteem, but it will only be an opinion. It may be an opinion that certain people choose to hold as their own opinion, but appropriating God's view on certain matters, though our own speculation is not faith, and it brings us no closer to God. In other words, if now and then we accept that, yeah, you know, the Bible is right about a few things. Forgiveness is good for the soul, for instance. I mean, any psychologist with a patient on the couch could say that and still not appeal to God. He just recognizes in his own wisdom that God may have stumbled upon something useful for man. And that's basically how human wisdom operates. I've always taught on the great gulf of difference between being intellectually convinced of gospel truths and being spiritually converted by means of the gospel. There's a big difference. If you're merely convinced of the preeminence of Christ through an argument, you're likely to someday be argued out of that position. Friends, we're not here because we've heard a good argument. the faith, the Christian faith, because somebody gave us a better argument than someone outside of the faith. We're here because we're regenerated inwardly and spiritually. If we're only regenerated by argument, friends, our method of evangelism is sort of arguing people into the faith. But as we know, they may or may not really be convicted in the faith. They may be argued out of it with the next temptation in their lives. And we see that so often. If you've been inwardly changed by God and indwelled by his spirit, though you may be in the throes of occasional doubt about certain things, no argument of human design can reverse your transformation. In other words, if God has saved you, Jesus said, no one will snatch you out of my hand because no one is able to snatch you out of my father's hand. So Paul speaks at the outset of this chapter of not coming to the saints with eloquence of speech. It's not about big words and knowledge and convincing people that you have a better way. I see so many false gospels out there today. So many false gospels. People say things like, there's one nationally known preacher, I won't use any names today, who just wrote a book on heaven. And you write a book on heaven, you tell how great heaven is, and people should want to go to heaven, and so he's presenting that it's by Jesus Christ that you can go there, but friends, the Christian isn't going to heaven because he thinks it's a nice place, better than the alternative. That, I mean, that's not the gospel, is it? I've seen people say things like, are you having a hard time in your marriage? Or are your children rebelling? Or are you in despair? Then choose Christ. You know, all of those things can be solved by the omnipotence of God through His mercy, but that's still not the gospel. The gospel is you see yourself as undeserving before God, and you fall on your knees and plead with the only Savior in the universe for your salvation, for your forgiveness. That's the gospel. And then all these things will be added unto you, as Jesus said. I think it was G.K. Chesterton who said, a half-truth is a full lie. And we ought to remember that. Because falsehoods come to us in sheep's clothing, let's say. All right, so I've always thought that there's a great divide between those who are convinced of the faith and those who are converted into it. And Paul speaks of not coming to them with eloquence of speech to declare the testimony of God. He said that his speech, that is his message, was not conceived merely with persuasive words of human wisdom. In other words, I didn't come solely to convert you. I came with the power of God to convert you. He said, rather, he comes in demonstration of the Spirit of God and by the power of God. So the verse is often an argument for the continuation of miracles in the life of the church. It's rather speaking not of sign miracles, but of the miracle of the power of the gospel to bring men to their knees. You come to God not because you want a better deal than you have right now. You come to God for the love of Jesus Christ and a recognition that He's the Son of God. And other wise men are mere imposters. I saw one sign on a church marquee, you know, that's one of my hobbies. I go around and I read church marquees. And it said recently, a church right near here, so I will not name it, but it said, is your life a mess? Choose the Messiah. And I thought, you know, that's catchy. It's also very tacky. But friends, it doesn't come close to what the gospel is. The gospel isn't because your life's a mess. You know, the gospel is because you're ruined in trespasses and sin. You, he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sin. We don't receive our faith in Christ. Our faith in Christ, rather, is not in the fact that he can deliver us from our problem. It's the fact that he can raise us from the dead, and we deserve to be dead. So I have to allow Calvin one more time to say that which I can find no way to improve upon. And so the theologian writes, if the apostle's preaching has rested exclusively on the power of eloquence, in other words, his argument, It might have been overthrown by superior eloquence, a better argument, and that's always been my statement to you. And besides, he writes, no one would pronounce that to be solid truth which rests upon mere eloquence of speech. It may indeed be helped by it, but it ought not to rest upon it." In other words, flowery preaching may be good and it may be correct, but it isn't the flowering part that gets you saved. It's the truth part. So we can readily see that human wisdom is a great problem today, even in the churches. It was apparently a problem in the early church as well. Hence the warning and the instruction to beware of the alluring nature of human wisdom as a guide to eternal issues. We hear it all the time. I hear things by Christians all the time, very often at funerals, where people talk about, oh, so-and-so's looking down upon us. I heard someone say the other day that someone of great stature, and you may have heard this, is up in heaven strategizing new ways to do this or that, and I'm thinking, No one's strategizing in heaven. You know, we speak of heaven, the classics, the classic theologians of Christianity speak of heaven as the church triumphant. Friends, they're done. They're in the presence of Christ. They don't care what we're doing down here anymore. There's sort of a romantic view of it. We get to heaven, we get to sit in the balcony, I heard one preacher say, and look down and watch the show. And it's very entertaining to watch these foolish, you know, unsaved people struggle their way through life. If we could only yell down to them, like, you know, If you remember the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, he said, you know, send my servant back to warn my brothers. And he said, no, they have to come. They have to hear Moses and the prophets like everyone else. No one's coming back. And so we can readily see that human wisdom is a great problem today, even in the churches. It was a problem then, it's a problem now. Human wisdom almost always degrades into mere pragmatic expedience and practical improvements. and the areas where it has infiltrated good church policy become obvious. The strength of our ministries is almost always measured by men in numerical strength and always measured by God in our doctrinal strength. And Christ said as much to one of the churches in the book of Revelation. to Pergamos, he said, I know your works and where you dwell, where Satan's throne is, and you hold fast to my name and did not deny my faith. So far, so good, right? And then he said what you don't want to hear Christ say, but I have a few things against you. You know, I almost wouldn't mind if it was one thing, but when Christ says I have a few things against you, That would put me on alert. Because you have there those who hold what? The doctrine of Balaam. Now if you don't know what that is, you're gonna have to go look it up in the book of Numbers. I think it's chapters 22 through 24. It's a long section. The doctrine of Balaam, he said, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit sexual immorality. So they're doing all these things. They think they're righteous and they do some righteous things, But then they do some abominable things mixed in and hope the Lord doesn't take notice. And he says, thus you also have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans. The Lord is concerned about doctrine. What is doctrine? The conclusions we come to about truth. Doctrine is teaching. It's truth. The Christian faith would wither away if there weren't some protectors of the sound doctrines we believe in. Our cardinal doctrine, the deity of Christ, that Jesus Christ is God, a second one is like it. Justification by faith. We come to God by faith, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but by his mercy he saved us, Paul wrote to Titus. Though some of the works of Pergamos could be commended, they were warned against being deceived into seeing human wisdom and teaching as acceptable wisdom within the church. I say we're seeing that throughout the churches today. Christ is clear in expressing his hatred of false doctrine, which is nothing more than his hatred of falsehood, of lies. We don't know how many converts attended services at Pergamos. or Ephesus, or Rome, or Corinth, or Philippi for that matter, what we do know is in what areas of life and worship they could be commended to God. Because in these six cases, among these churches of Asia, in the book of Revelation, he told us what things he commended and what things he did not. Human wisdom sees organizational unity between members as an ultimate good. God sees single-mindedness and doctrinal truth, even at the expense of unity, as an ultimate good. Unity in a local body is a great good. Truth, however, remains the ultimate good. There was numerical strength and great unity in human wisdom at the Tower of Babel, you may recall. They had great unity. It did not commend them to God, did it? There was numerical weakness and unity on the Ark. Now at Babel, you had the whole world come out and not be commended by God, in fact, be in some sense condemned and eventually truly condemned. And on the Ark you had eight people who had reasonable agreement together. And so there was numerical weakness and unity on the Ark. Numerical weakness and unity in the truth on the Ark. So the Ark had truth and Babel had unity. And which one do you suppose God commended? Human wisdom tends to drag our faith downward toward human centeredness. We evaluate sermons based on entertainment value rather than theological correctness. Human wisdom gives lip service to real spiritual gifts and tends to use the pulpit slash stage as the launching pad to boost the personal significance of every wannabe rock star, comedian, most motivational speaker, and grace addict. Do you know what a grace addict is? That's my word. A grace addict is my word for those poor souls who derive their personal significance not from their public display of talents, but for their public confession of chronic sins and personal unworthiness. We were talking about just the other day, some of us were talking about this, these celebrities who come to the Lord a week, a month, a few months later, are teaching on a great stage about the things of God, things they really have no understanding of yet. But because of their name in the secular world, they are given a place to do this. Testimonials, in other words, friends, are overrated, especially where truth is concerned. Verse 12 says, now we've 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. So we have the spirit of God that we might know things. We have the Spirit of God that we might know things that we couldn't know without the Spirit of God. What things are those? Well, they're divine things. They're eternal things. It's been noted, even approved by liberal thinkers and professed evangelicals alike, that certainty is arrogance and uncertainty is humility. Friends, I plead for certainty every time I preach the gospel. For the Christian, however, certainty can be the proof of a robust faith in Christ. The liberalism that infiltrated the modern rendering of Christ's gospel is more concerned with what it calls faith than with what it calls knowledge. Knowledge is seen as a thing that somehow detracts from genuine faith. Faith is seen as meek and knowledge is seen as arrogant and proud and confident and intolerant. I've heard people say things like, I don't need any more knowledge. I have faith in Christ. I'm saved and that's all I need to know. But why did he leave us here? We must recognize that it's not our faith that saves us, friends. Technically, it's not our faith that saves us. It's the object of our faith that saves us. Jesus Christ saves us. Faith is the instrument he uses to do that. Our faith is in him, in his gift to us. And by his spirit, we're blessed with revelational knowledge concerning him. that we can confidently rest upon. The more knowledge we possess concerning the object of our faith, the greater our faith becomes. Our confidence grows because of our greater knowledge in him. Confidence in revealed truth bequeaths a divine certainty that is often confused by the worldly wise as arrogance. We're so certain that we're saved. We're so certain that Christ has saved us and the gospel is his instrument. And we say there are no other paths to God, but Christ is the way and the truth in the life. Our certainty is seen as arrogance when really it's humility because we're bowing down to divine truths. For what is humility before God than to take him plainly at his word? Was it an arrogant assertion by John to say, these things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God. So we've received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, that we might know some things that have been freely given to us by God. And so John says again, whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Who is he who overcomes the world, John writes? He who believes that Jesus is the son of God. Not arrogance, friends. Perfect humility. And we may take confidence in it, because it's also perfect truth. The greatness of his grace is not only that he reveals himself to us, but he assures us that our faith in him will take us all the way to glory. The spirit of the world is a speculative wisdom. It's a best guess, friends. The wisdom that is from God is taught by God the Holy Spirit to those of like precious faith with him, Peter said. It's a glorious reality. It's a free gift. And it's the same yesterday, today, and forever. Amen. Our Father, bless this. the proclamation and reception of your holy word. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.