1 Corinthians 2 (Part 2)

We're in 1 Corinthians, so I'd like to have you open your Bible to that book. We covered the first 5 verses of the chapter last week. We saw how Paul told the Corinthians that when he came to them, he determined to know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. You'll remember that it means that he stuck, he stayed on message, the message of the cross the whole time that he was there. We also looked last week at the reasons that he gave for doing that. We're going to pick it up in verse 6. We're going to read through the end of the chapter so follow along as I read. It says, “Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. 7 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”— 10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11 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. 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. 13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. 14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. 16 “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.” (ESV) Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, open our hearts. Speak to us, Lord. Illuminate us. Fill us with understanding, wisdom, insight. We ask that You would guide us and direct us. Teach us today, and we ask it in Jesus precious name, amen. What is this passage all about? Well, Paul's been talking about two kinds of wisdom, and there is the wisdom that comes from man that is predicated upon man's intellect, upon his experience, and then there's wisdom that comes from God. It is heavenly, it is spiritual in nature, and it sounds like utter ridiculous foolishness to people of the world. They hear the wisdom of God, and they just throw up their hands and say, you people are out of your minds. Now, because you'll remember that the topic of wisdom or the search for wisdom was really big in Corinth because they were very close in proximity to Athens. And that whole Grecian idea of being into what is wise and deep and stuff was just really a cultural draw for those people, and they began to incorporate those things into their Christian walk. And Paul had to write them, and he had to remind them and say, when I came to you, I didn't come trying to impress you with worldly wisdom or sounding all impressive with powerful words and so forth. I came to you, and I just talked about the message of the cross while I was there. I stuck to that. But now Paul wants to go on and say that we don't stop with the message of the cross. He says, we do impart a word of wisdom to those who are mature. That's what he says in verse 6. Look with me again there in verse 6. He says, “yet among the mature we do” have a word of wisdom. We do have a word that goes deeper, although “it's not the wisdom of this age, or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away.” There are deeper truths, but he says in verse 7, it is “a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. (And) 8 None of the rulers of this age understood (this) it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” That's one proof that the leaders of the world, or at least the ones in that particular part of the world at that time, did not have the wisdom of God. If they did, they would never have crucified the One from whom that wisdom comes. And you know what? That's still a proof text today that people don't have the wisdom of God because they reject the Messiah. They reject the Christ. If people are rejecting Christ, it means they're thinking with the wisdom of this world. If they embrace Jesus Christ, it means that they are opening their hearts to the wisdom of God and so forth. We'll talk more about that here, but here's the question. So how do you obtain wisdom from God, how do you get it? Well, it might not surprise you to learn that it is the exact opposite of the way you gain wisdom in this world, because remember it's just, it doesn't operate like the wisdom of this world, and so getting it, doesn’t apply either. How do you gain wisdom in this world? You study hard, you analyze. We have a huge respect today for scientific analysis, and the knowledge that comes from that, and the wisdom that we gain from analyzing and looking at things and investigating. We're very investigative today and we believe that that is a great source of wisdom, and so some people would assume, well, that's probably how you gain the wisdom of God too. You’ve got to, you’ve got to really get into it, and study it and, and yeah, apply yourself sort of a thing. I'm going to investigate to find out the wisdom of God. That's not how you get the wisdom of God. It doesn't have anything to do with it. Let's look at what Paul says about how God imparts His wisdom. Look at verse 9. “But as it is written, what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, in fact, what the heart of man hasn't even imagined to be true, as far as it relates to the things that God has prepared for those who love Him.” Look at verse 10, These things God has revealed to us through learning. Not what it says. These things God has revealed through study and hard work. No, that's not what it says, is it? It says, “These things God has revealed to us through the (His) Spirit.” What is the point that Paul is making here? He's saying, I don't care how smart you are. I don't care how much investigative prowess you have as it relates to really trying to dig in and figure out what's going on. You will not learn anything about the wisdom of God apart from God revealing it to you. We have this, we see these cartoons from time to time, somebody crawling on their hands and feet up to the top of a mountain and finding this sage sitting up there probably in the lotus position, and the person walks up to this whatever person and says, what is the meaning of life? And there's this, there's the effort. Man thinks of that as, there's effort to find out about these sorts of things and, but it's not about effort in the kingdom of God. You know why? Because effort has to do with man's ability. It has to do with the things that we put our pride in. My degrees. I have a PhD. I mean, I don't, but if somebody were to say something like that. I have, 5 earned degrees, and I've been going to school for a long time, and I've learned a lot of important things in my life. Well, that's man's wisdom. That's how man gains wisdom and that's how man preens his feathers related to his wisdom. I have this I've learned this; I know this sort of a thing. But God's wisdom is given by His Spirit. It is imparted through the Holy Spirit and Paul, says, what no eye has seen. You can look all you want and you're not going to find God. He says what no, what does he say? What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard. You can listen all you want with these ears, and you will not hear God. And he says you can imagine with your mind that it isn't going to do any good because no mind has even begun to imagine the things that God has prepared for those whom He loves and so forth, and these are the things God has imparted to us, or revealed to us by His Spirit, or through his Holy Spirit. Okay? So now we know how it comes, it's beyond man's investigative grasp, and what that does people is it takes us out of the realm of what you and I can be prideful about, and we begin to see who God reveals himself to. God has revealed it to us by His Spirit. So, who does that wisdom from God come to? Well, obviously, if it's not coming through human effort, it's not necessarily going to come to those who, by their human effort, have obtained all this learning and insight and stuff like that. So, who does God impart those things to? Well, to the simple, essentially, and we're not saying here that in order to be a Christian, you've got to, number one, you got to be dumb. I mean, it like, helps. No, we're saying it helps to not trust in your intellect because it's not going to come to you through human intellect. It's not going to come to you through the normal sources. It's going to come to those who trust the Lord and who received from Him, through His Spirit, what He wants to say. Do you guys remember when the disciples, not long after Jesus was raised from the dead, the disciples went, were going to the temple one day, and there was this man that was begging, he was blind, he was crippled, I think that's what it was. Acts, chapter 4. There was something he needed. He needed help. Anyway, do you guys remember what happened? They heal this guy. He gets hauled in before the Sanhedrin. You remember? Do you guys remember what the Sanhedrin said or thought about these guys? Let me put it on the screen for you. So, you can see it here from Acts chapter 4, Acts 4:13 (ESV) Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus. Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were (look) uneducated, common men, (it says) they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus. Isn't that interesting? Why were they astonished? Because these guys were fishermen. I don't, it probably doesn't surprise you to learn that being a fisherman doesn't necessarily require a degree in higher learning. No offense to the fishermen here in the audience, but you know that already. You didn't have to go to college and get a degree to bait a hook or throw a net. And they knew that in that culture too, and they knew these guys were fishermen, and yet they were speaking in such a way that impressed and in fact astonished these leaders. Do you remember when Stephen was speaking, debating with the Jews? Got him into some pretty serious trouble. But it's later on in the Book of Acts. Can we go to that one? Acts chapter 6, Acts 6:9-10 (ESV) Then some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called), and of the Cyrenians, and of the Alexandrians, and of those from Cilicia and Asia, rose up and disputed with Stephen. But they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking.” Then some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called), (And these are Jews who would have come from other areas to worship in Jerusalem) and of the Cyrenians, and of the Alexandrians, and of those from Cilicia and Asia, (it says that they) rose up and (they began to) dispute (or debate) with Stephen. (look at this last line though, this is incredible) But they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking. Okay? They couldn't possibly withstand the wisdom from God that Stephen gave them through the Spirit because they were thinking humanly on a human level, and Stephen was speaking on a spiritual level, and they couldn't get it and they couldn't dispute with him about those things. And then in the last part, you’ll notice that when we, in verse 10 here, in our text, you'll notice I didn't read the very last sentence of verse 10, and this is very important. Paul explains why the Holy Spirit is a source of such powerful wisdom. He says, “For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.” We're talking about the Holy Spirit who searches, Paul says, everything, including the very mind of God Almighty, the Creator God who knows everything. His heart and mind are searched by the Holy Spirit, and The Holy Spirit is now in you and in me, who have come to know Christ as our Savior. Now to understand this, Paul even goes on here in verse 11 to use an example, and he uses us as an example, he says, “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 (His Spirit, or) the Spirit of God” He begins by asking this question, who knows a man's thoughts or what's really, truly perking inside of him, except his spirit. Now, some of you hear that and you go. Really? My spirit? Wait a minute. You're saying nobody knows me like my spirit. I have a spirit. This is an area that is completely ignored by, well, no that's wrong, not completely, largely ignored by Christians today, and that is how we've been created by God. Let me, let me put something up on the screen here for you. This is Adam. I'm calling him Adam because the word Adam, the name Adam means man.

This is man. Now, you know that God's Being is essentially triune. He is a triune being. I'm talking about God now. We're talking Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, right? 3 persons. He is a triune Being. What's interesting is that you were created in the image of God, and you're not technically triune, but you are threefold in a very similar way that God has these 3 aspects to His being. You have 3 aspects to your being as well. And first of all, you have the physical aspect, that part which is essentially your body, the part that you see in the mirror. And this is the part of you that you spend the most money on, the most time with and take care of the most. And it's the part that's constantly trying to get your attention. It's the part we measure on the bathroom scale. It's the part that, when it feels bad, we go to the doctor and we want it to make it feel better because we don't like this part feeling bad. It's the physical body. You are a physical being, and you obviously know that. Now there's another aspect to your being. Who you are, how you've been made by God, and the second part of course, is the soul, which makes up your intellect and your emotions.

And this is the part of you that thinks and expresses or emotes and responds to the issues of life. Now, I'll just be honest with you. This is where we stop for the most part. This is where the majority of Christians stop thinking about themselves, and you know why? It's because where the, it's where the majority of the world stops thinking about themselves. If my body is in pain, I go to the doctor, I get something to take care of it. If my heart, my mind, my emotions are stressed, I may go to a counselor. I may go to go to another type of doctor, get some counsel in some cases, even get some medication because there is an emotional something going on within me and these are the things that we treat. These are the things that we look at when somebody has a problem. We say well, maybe it's physical, are you eating good? Are you getting enough sleep? We talk about the physical aspects of just being healthy, and on and on and on, and then we talk a lot about our soul. How are you feeling? Do you feel okay? We're very in touch with how we feel, by the way, both physically and emotionally. Very in touch. We know exactly how we feel at all times. And if we, and we don't, and we like being happy and we don't like being sad, and when we're sad, we want something to make us happy again. So, this is just so much of who we are and what we think of ourselves. But there's another aspect to your being that is no less integral, no less important than the physical and the soul aspect of your life, and that of course is the spirit.

And again, this is something we rarely think about, we rarely nurture, we rarely talk about. I mean, when's the last time somebody came up to you and said, how's your spirit doing? We talk a lot about, oh, I’ve got a headache and I'm tired, and this and that. Oh, really? How are you feeling? When we say that, we want to know physically how you're feeling and if somebody has had an emotional traumatic situation, we'll go to them and just say, are you doing okay? And what we're talking about is their emotional stability. But when do you say to somebody, how's your spirit doing? We wouldn't even know how to answer it. Well, I think it's doing okay. I have one of those, right? Listen, your spirit is the source of life. The very source of life. When the spirit is taken out of a man, he's dead. There's no life left. When the spirit enters someone, a Spirit given by God, he is enlivened. He is made alive. Let me show you an interesting passage. It's from the book of Genesis, chapter 2. This is creation. Genesis 2:7 (ESV) “…then the Lord God formed the man of the dust from the ground. He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” “…then the Lord God formed the man of the dust from the ground. (Look what he did) He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” What's interesting about this verse is that in both Hebrew, which is what the Old Testament was written in, and Greek, which is what the New Testament was written in, that word for breath, the exact same word for spirit, the same word.

You could accurately translate this verse and he breathed into his nostrils, the spirit of life. When the spirit comes into a man, he is now alive. He is a living creature. When God removes the spirit from a man, you can put him on all kinds of breathing apparatus and stuff like that, and you can keep the lungs filling with air, you can keep the heart artificially pumping for a while, but you turn off that machine and there's nothing there. It's gone because the spirit has gone. The spirit has departed. Right. The spirit is the source of life. Guys, the source of life! Did you hear me? And we hardly even talk about it. We hardly even mention it. We don't ever ask anybody. How's your spirit doing? You know, and, and, and, and Paul says it is absolutely critical. Now, we already, so I showed you this passage about how when, when the spirit, when God first breathed the spirit into a man, he became a living creature. But you know that in order to go to heaven, you can't just be born, you have to be born again, right? It's really cool how God did it. And it's given to us in the book of John, where it says, John 20:22 (ESV) And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” And when he had said this, (this is Jesus they're talking about) he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Now this is when a person is born again. You're born once, you're made a living creature, when the spirit enters into the body, and you, that again is the source of life, but you must be born again. How does that happen? When the Holy Spirit comes in to you and gives you a rebirth right? Wouldn't it have been cool to be one of those early disciples? By the way, this took place on the very evening of Jesus’ resurrection. Wouldn't it have been cool for Jesus to go around the room with these guys who are just pretty much freaked out of their mind that they're even seeing this guy standing in front of them, but He walks around to them and He goes, it says, “He breathed on them.” Can you imagine Jesus walking up to you and going, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” and then over to Matthew, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” The picture here is undeniable. God wants you to know and understand that God breathed into man and made him a living being once. We saw it in Genesis chapter 2. God breathed into man a second time through the Holy Spirit, and he became born again and he became eternally alive. It's a beautiful picture. He breathed into him and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Now, here's the really cool thing about this, and this is where we're going to really make our point, okay? Stay with me. When God breathes on you, when you come to Christ and you accept Him as your Savior, you receive the Holy Spirit. I have received the Holy Spirit. He lives within me. What is my relationship now to the Holy Spirit? What is your relationship to the Holy Spirit? Have you ever thought about that? Does He just hang out in there and what's actually going on? Well, Paul actually explains the relationship later on in this very letter. So let me show you from 1 Corinthians chapter 6. This is skipping ahead. Paul writes, that, 1 Corinthians 6:17 (ESV) …he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. …he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him (in spirit). That is incredible. One spirit with God. This is the relationship now. You are part spirit being right, because your body soul and spirit, but now you've come to Christ. He has given you his Holy Spirit to live inside of you, so, what now happens? Your spirit, your human spirit merges joins with God's Holy Spirit and Paul says here in 1 Corinthians 6 that he who has joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with Him. That is amazing, you guys! Do you understand this spiritual aspect of our lives, which takes so little of our time and energy and thought, is really the most critical part of our makeup. It's the most critical part of our being as Christians because the implications and the dynamics are so far reaching. God has not joined with my body. God has not joined with my soul. He can affect those things. He has joined with my spirit and yours. We are spiritually connected to Him, and that is such an important thing to remember as believers. The point of all this is that you have a spirit, given by God, and as Paul was using this example earlier, he said, no one knows a man like his spirit within him, just as no one knows the heart of God except His Spirit. And now guess what? Those, those two dynamics, your spirit and His Spirit have come together. They have joined and they are one. Wow! We could talk about this for a long time, I mean, the implications of this, but it makes the most amazing connection. Read with me now, keeping on in verse 12 in your Bible.

Paul says this, verse 12, “Now, we have not received the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God. (and notice why, first of all) that we might understand the things freely given us by God.” Should I read that again? Why have we received this? This is one aspect of why the Spirit has been given to you and I “that we might understand,” “that we might understand.” Listen, it is only through the Spirit that you and I can have understanding. There's no pride here. You're not smart enough to figure out God. It only comes through the work of the Spirit, whereby He imparts understanding about spiritual things. That's His job. To communicate to us, to talk to us about what has been freely given us from God and so forth, and it's what we call illumination. It's the illuminating work of the Spirit. Sue and I talk regularly about the most enjoyable part of teaching God’s Word. You know what it is? It's watching the light come on in people's hearts. There's nothing better in teaching the Scriptures than seeing somebody either come to the Lord and really get it for the first time or begin to really get serious about their walk with the Lord in such a way, that suddenly they're now open to the Spirit of God in ways that they never were before. And this dynamic power and work of the Spirit takes hold of them in such a way you can see it in their eyes, you can see it in their countenance. They're just like, whoa, this is incredible, and they want to talk about it and they come up after the study. They're going, pastor Paul I’ve got to show you whatever else something else. God showed me here over in this, but the Lord just spoke to me here and I never knew this stuff and, suddenly the Word of God comes alive and they are just so tanked, so excited, and you know what? Nothing beats that. The illuminating work of the Holy Spirit. Now, I want you to look very closely at what Paul is saying in these last 4 verses of the chapter because these are critical as well. He begins here in verse 13 and says, “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 Paul, stop there for a minute. Paul talks about people, those who are spiritual. Guys don't think of the worldly definition of those who are spiritual. It's not, see the world uses that term too. They'll say, well, he's really a spiritual person. That has nothing to do with what God's definition of spiritual means.

When the Bible talks about you being spiritual, it just simply means you have the Spirit of God in you. That's all, okay? It means the ability to understand the things of the Spirit is now resident within you. You are now a spiritual person. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're connecting on all levels, but the potential is there, okay? You are now a spiritual person because God has made you a spiritual person. All right? Now let's contrast that. Look at verse 14. “The natural person does not accept the things of the spirit of God. (Why?) They’re foolishness, they’re folly to him. (And look what Paul goes on to say) He is not able to understand them because they are Spiritually discerned.” This is the opposite of the spiritual person. We call this the natural person, so, I got to thinking about that. I thought, what does natural mean? I looked up natural in my Greek lexicon. I was interested to find it means, of the soul. You remember what the soul is? It's the intellect and the emotions. The natural person who thinks with whatever gray matter is between their ears, and they process with their emotions, they do not function in the life of the Spirit or in any spiritual capacity because they haven't been made alive. They haven't received the Spirit of God; therefore, they are a natural person, right? They're literally every decision is made in life, intellectually and emotionally, right? They don't pray about things; they don't have a spiritual connection to God. So, what have they got? Well, they’ve got what's left. They've got the other aspects of their being. So, what are they supposed to do? They're just going to go with what they have. Here's what's so sad. So many Christians follow that same path and that same pattern of making decisions and walking out their lives. They are directed in a very soulish way, but they are not consulting the Spirit. They're not being led by the Spirit of God. They're being led by the soul, emotions, and intellect guide them as Christians. We know what a person in the world sounds like who is governed by their soul. They'll even say things. I bet someone has said to you at one point, hey, I don't believe in anything that won't appeal to my senses. I have to be able to touch it. I have to be able to smell it, taste it, hear it, see it. If I can't lay hold of it in that capacity, I don't believe in it. I refuse to believe in it. Well, that's simply the statement of the natural man. He must have a natural indication of whether something is real. He will always reject a supernatural explanation for reality because he can't touch it, smell it, taste it, you name it. You see what I'm saying? He's governed by his natural senses everything is what I can see with these eyes here with these ears, touch with these hands experience that's real. That is reality, and so they completely ignore the life of the Spirit because it's nonsense. They just go, that's nonsense. That's spiritual mumbo jumbo. That’s stupid. Well, now here we are Christians. We've been born again through the Spirit; we've received the Spirit of God. Our spirit has now been rejuvenated, regenerated, activated. It's alive. It is connected to God one with Him in the Spirit, and what do we do? We largely ignore it, too. We do just like our unbelieving neighbors. We still go on and make decisions based completely and predicated upon intellect and emotion That's, and then we wonder why it's not working out for us very well. It really is an amazing sort of a thing. And by the way, that's why we're told to be careful not to throw your pearls before swine. I know that sounds like an offensive statement. Jesus is the one who made it. He said, be careful, and what he means by that is you wouldn't ever take a string of pearls and give it to a pig would you? Why? Well, they, they can't appreciate it. Pearls are beautiful. You guys know where pearls come from. The time and effort it takes to generate that beautiful rock, but you give it to a pig and they're just going to trample it underfoot because they can't appreciate it. They are literally lacking the faculties to appreciate the beauty of a pearl. Please understand Christians, unbelievers are lacking the spiritual faculties to understand the things of the Spirit. It's foolishness, it's ridiculous, it's stupid, it sounds like, it sounds like you're just babbling, okay? It's one of the reasons why I just cringe when I see people on TV or the radio or something like that, Christians talking about the deeper aspects of what it means to follow Christ to an unbelieving audience. All they’re ever going to get is scorn for that. That's all they're ever going to get by the world because they can't get it. Paul says here that they are unable to understand because those things are spiritually discerned. Okay. Now, some of you might be thinking, well, pastor Paul, are you saying we shouldn't share the Gospel with people? I mean, isn't that a spiritual reality? No, we share the Gospel, but even then, we have to couch things in worldly things for people to understand. When I'm talking to people about the Gospel and I'm talking about how Jesus stood in for their sin, how He became their substitute before the judge, sometimes I have to use worldly examples. I'll say, okay, imagine that you went before a judge in a court of law and you were guilty of a crime, and you knew you were guilty, and the judge knew you were guilty and all of the evidence piled up against you said you were guilty. And imagine now the judge acquitted you of that crime and instead sent somebody else to go serve your sentence. Well, that, see, see what I'm doing? I'm putting it in very worldly. But they can get that. They can and they can go, wow, that's what God did for me. Yeah, he sent His Son to die on the cross, to literally receive the punishment of your sins. And they can go, Whoa! And then they open their heart to that. They, they might, hopefully they pray the sinner's prayer. The Spirit comes within, and now, all bets are off. They can, they can go for the gold, right? I mean, the sky’s the limit because now, the Spirit lives within them. So, I want you to notice here that Paul ends in verse 15 by saying, “the spiritual person judges, all things.” Now, the word, judges has a connotation in our culture today that's quite negative. The word literally means discerns. And what it's saying here is that the spiritual man or the man with the Spirit is able to discern all things. Why? Because the Spirit of God in him enables him to understand things that are beyond his human intellect or beyond his emotional grasp or anything else. They are spiritually discerned, so he can discern all things. There's no limit to what he can discern now through the Spirit. But he goes on to say in verse 15, “but the spiritual person is himself to be judged or discerned by no one,” and all that means is, the unbelieving man or the man without the Spirit cannot judge the man with the Spirit because he doesn't possess the ability to know whether it's true or not because he has not the Spirit. It doesn't mean that he won't be judged. You and I get judged all the time for what we believe and what we say as Christians. People judge us, but they don't have the ability to judge us or to discern what's really going on because they don't have the Spirit. Okay? That's all Paul is saying there. Now, before we close here this morning, there's a question that I want to anticipate that might be going through a few of your minds, because Paul talks here about the natural man, and he talks about the spiritual man, and when Paul does it, he makes it very clear, with a line of distinction, that the natural man is the man who is not saved and the spiritual man is the man who is saved. He's received the Spirit of God, he's a spiritual man. The natural man has not yet received the Spirit of God, through faith in Christ, and therefore he is an unsaved person. Now, here's the question that I am anticipating, perhaps that some of you might be asking. Is it possible to be saved and still be governed or directed by your body, your flesh, or by your soul, meaning your mind and your emotions? Is it possible to be a born again Christian and still motivated and moved by something other than the Spirit? Well, obviously it is. Yes, indeed, it is. In this very letter. In fact, in the next chapter, we're going to get into this next week. So, this is a little quick preview. I'll just put it on the screen here for you. Look what Paul says to the Corinthians. He says, 1 Corinthians 3:3 (ESV) …for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? …for you are still of the flesh. For while there is (these things among you) jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?” You see, Paul is talking to Christians. These people in Corinth, they're believers. They love Jesus. They've accepted what He did for them on the cross. They are born again. But guess what? They are still of the flesh. They are operating out of the flesh. They are motivated chiefly by the flesh, and we have names for those things, by the way. Let me, let me very quickly, put Adam back up on the screen here and we're going to look at the different things that can obviously motivate or drive a born-again Christian. Now, we're going to assume now that Adam has come to Christ, all right? He recognized his sin. He came to Jesus and said, He is the one who died for me on the cross. I accept what He did. He's embraced that he's received the Spirit of God. He is now a born-again Christian, but that doesn't necessarily mean he is motivated by the Spirit. Personally, he could be a carnal Christian.

That's what we call people who are largely moved by the lusts of the flesh. In other words, they are directed by their fleshly lusts. That's the way they lived before they got saved, and they haven't changed the way they live yet, and so, that's why we refer to them as carnal Christians. Literally bodily functions, sex, enjoyment, thrills, you name it, anything that appeals to the flesh still largely motivates this individual because they are still enveloped by their carnality. They still look to that, as the means by which they live. Okay. So here you have a spiritual being who is completely ignoring the spiritual reality of who they are and they're living by their, really their animal instincts, okay? Next, you have the soulish Christian who is driven chiefly by their emotions and their human intellect. Frankly, this probably defines a larger number of people within the body of Christ. We make a huge amount of decisions based on how we feel about things. We're very governed, in fact, by how we feel. We want to be happy. We want to feel good. We want things to make us feel good, in fact, have you ever heard somebody talking after they go to church?

They, and we're talking about Christians here now, and they go to church and maybe it's been a while since they've been to church and they leave church and they say, well, I'm really glad I went because I feel a lot better. That is a soulish Christian. They are governed by how they feel. They might go to a church, but never go back again because they didn't feel like people treated them very nice, or they didn't feel very welcomed when they came to church. It's all about how they feel. When they come to church it's all about the temperature, it's all about how the music makes me feel, it's all about whether I felt good when I got done listening, or whether I felt bad, and if I feel good, I might come back. But if I feel bad, I'm probably not going to come back. I'm going to go find someplace that makes me feel good. That is somebody who's governed by their emotions, governed by their intellect. They think things through, they analyze it in a very worldly sort of fashion, and they make their decisions accordingly. Again, they're a born-again Christian who is ignoring that aspect of what it means to be a spiritual individual and to be connected with God's Spirit. Obviously, another huge part of being a soulish Christian is being governed by fear. I've been pastoring now for a long time, and I have come to learn that fear is the prominent means of our lives, and whether we're aware of it or not, fear governs our lives more than anything else, including God. Including God. We will base decisions on fear before we base it on anything else. And if you, if you think about your life and you think about what drives you to make decisions, you will find that that is true. That's a soulish Christian. I can imagine that the apostle Paul, when he thought about the missionary journeys that God was sending him on, it certainly didn't appeal very much to his physical reality. Paul was often sick and weak and struggled physically, and if he wasn't struggling with some kind of physical infirmities, people were beating him, throwing rocks at him, whipping him and scourging him. He literally floated in the sea for hours and hours on end. He was bit by a venomous snake. Listen, if you're going to base your missionary thing on just fleshly considerations, I'm going home, right? How about the emotional or fear related aspect or intellect? First of all, intellectually, it doesn't make sense, but the rest of it is like, Paul told about. He says, we are dogged by fears. He says, I’m constantly anxious for you people. I'm anxious for the church. I feel this constant anxiety for these people for whom I've shared Christ and I want to see them, grow up in their faith, but they struggle. The very letter he's writing here to the Corinthians, he's bummed about these people. Listen, if it’s an emotional consideration, I've got better things to do and so do you let's go find some place where we're going to be happy and comfortable. Paul didn't do his work, didn't serve the Lord out of physical, emotional, or intellectual considerations. It was this last aspect of what it meant for him to be a spiritual Christian, meaning he wanted to be led by the Holy Spirit, keeping in mind always the Word of God, and that's what you and I need to be working toward. Listen, being a spiritual Christian doesn't mean that we are constantly led by the Holy Spirit, and we never ever default back to emotional considerations, or even fleshly ones for that matter. It just means that we're learning to put the spirit first, because that's the part that's connected to God. It's not your body. It's not your emotions. In fact, what does the Bible say about your emotions? Does it say that they're trustworthy? My Bible says the heart is deceitful. You know what that means? It's a liar. It's an untrustworthy friend, and yet we make decisions based on the heart. I just don't feel good about this situation, or I feel really good about this situation. How do you know that's God? It has nothing to do with God. Those are your feelings. That comes from your deceitful heart. Have you ever had someone in your life who lied to you? Have you ever had someone in your life who was like, they lied all the time? You kind of learn after a while to take what they say with this like lump of salt not a grain, a lump because you've realized over a period of time, they're just not trustworthy. Christians, do you believe what the Bible says when it says your heart is not trustworthy? Do you believe it? Then why do you keep listening to it?

I don't feel, I don't think, I, this is, we're just so governed by the natural person that we are, and we ignore so much that spiritual reality of God in you, Christ in you, living in you, joined with you, one with you in spirit. You remember how Jesus, when he was writing, dictating to John those letters to the churches in Asia in the Book of Revelation, he'd get to the end of those books and he'd say, to him who has ears to hear, let him hear. Now, here's the thing. As a Christian, you have ears to hear. You've been given ears to hear. The problem is, they're just really out of practice. We've just stopped listening, you know? We're too busy listening to what's coming in through here, and looking at what's coming in through here, and we have ceased, or never begun to listen with the ears of the Spirit and look with the eyes of the Spirit and to discern with the heart of the Spirit. But it has to begin by discounting that part of us which is the natural man and that's hard. Well, I've spent all my life listening to my heart. I spent all my life analyzing what I can see with my eyes and hear with my ears, and looking at it and saying, this is good, this is bad, I make a judgment about everything. And now suddenly as a believer, I have to throw all that out the window and say, you know what God, that's not from you, and I have to start listening to Your voice, and I’ve got to start learning to get quiet. Being still and knowing that He is God. We don't know how to do that anymore. You think it's going to be easy to start listening to the Spirit? No, it'll be hard. It'll be very, very hard. And you know what it's going to take? It's going to take getting quiet. And it's going to take immersing yourself with the Word of God, because that is His Word of Truth, and praying, Lord, just bathe my heart in this Word, to the point where I begin to tune my spiritual ears to Your voice. I need to tune my eyes to the frequency where you're showing things. I need to turn, tune my spiritual heart to discern what You're saying to me, but that's going to be hard and Lord, I'm going to need your help. You've given me these spiritual things to be able to connect with you, but they're just completely out of use. It's like a limb, an arm or a leg that we've just never used. The muscles have atrophied. We’ve got to get in. We’ve got to work it out. We’ve got to figure out what's my next step. God, show me, teach me how to listen. Teach me to listen. Teach me to see you beyond what these things can see. I want to see you. I want to see the life of the Spirit. I want to hear the life of the Spirit, the voice of the Spirit of God. I want to discern what is true. I want to go beyond the physical and the emotional and the intellectual. And I want to know the living God. Isn't that a desire of your heart? Does that resonate with your heart to just go beyond the physical, go beyond the emotional and, and, and really tune in to the life of the Spirit? I hope it is.