Crazy City, Crazy Love - Real Wisdom

Father, we just praise you.

We thank you for being such a great God, for being such a loving Father, adopting us as your very own children.

We praise you and thank you for that.

Holy Spirit, we just thank you for being our teacher and counselor.

And as we talk about wisdom this morning, uh I just ask that you would give us almost a supernatural desire that you'd stir up our hearts to want more of your wisdom, real wisdom, in our lives.

And Jesus, we just praise you.

We thank you for being our Lord and our Savior and our friend.

And it's in your name we pray.

Amen.

So we're looking at a letter that Paul wrote to what was a relatively new church.

It was in the Greek city of Corinth.

We call it 1 Corinthians because it's one of two letters.

Paul actually wrote four letters that are talked about to uh um the folks in Corinth.

Two of them are saved, and so we call those 1st and 2 Corinthians.

And we've talked about Corinth.

There's a pretty unique city.

In some ways, it's a lot like Atlanta because it was destroyed and then rebuilt, and so it was kind of new at the time and it was thriving.

It was one of the largest cities, uh, one of the fastest-growing cities and important cities at the time.

They had a long history of Greek mythology.

They had big, famous temples to Aphrodite and Apollo and Poseidon in Corinth.

And Rome occupied Greece at the time, and Rome were the rulers of the kind of the known world.

But still in Corinth, the largest influence and the largest population and the largest group of people in this church at Corinth were Greek.

But there was also a growing uh Jewish community in Corinth.

A couple years before this, um, the Emperor of Rome had uh forcibly relocated 2,000 families from Rome, Jewish families from Rome to Corinth.

And so there's kind of a budding Jewish um community there.

And so Paul, along with Priscilla, Aquilla, and some others, starts this church as he's uh um taking a trip uh through through that part of the world.

Starts a church, he stays there for about 18 months with them, and then he continues his trip through Greece and and Turkey.

And this this group here is a mix of people, and it's not like they're like, you know, ancient times we we tend to think about when we're reading the Bible.

I mean, these are people just like us, everyday people.

They've got families and they've got jobs and they're concerned about their kids and they're concerned about their futures and finances and all those same things that uh that we um are concerned about.

And it's a mix.

It's a mix of uh many Greek people, some Roman people, and some Jewish people.

So a couple years goes by, and the group has g gone back to some of their uh cultural habits, just the way they thought and and lived as they were growing up.

And the main problem was the Greek and the Roman, and to some degree even the Jewish, particularly with the Pharisees, but but their cultures had an overappreciation for knowledge and wisdom.

They believed that the ultimate for mankind was just increasing our uh our knowledge, our intellect, our wisdom.

And they brought them with this, you know, they brought that with them to church.

And so this group had kind of gotten to be know-it-alls.

You know, and they'd kind of even divided over which ones knew the most about uh different stuff.

They were arguing about different things.

That's why Paul in chapter 8 would say, but while knowledge makes us feel important, it is love that strengthens the church.

Anyone who claims to know all the answers doesn't really know very much.

Okay, so that's just a great reminder for us as believers.

If we ever get to be know-it-alls, where we have the answer for everything, um, we're in trouble.

We're just people.

None of us will ever have all the answers.

You know, we're in process and we're learning and growing together.

It's one of the key themes of this letter.

We saw three Sundays ago that Paul was one of the most highly educated, highly intellectual people around.

He had lived in that world, he had been in that mode, and he could have been a rock star in Corinth.

But he wanted them to know that there's something much greater.

And that something was actually a someone.

It was Jesus.

And we reread what Paul wrote.

He said, But to those called by God to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.

This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God's weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength.

Then Paul goes on to say that the proof of God's wisdom and power is them.

It's how Jesus is changing their lives, just like uh he's changing our lives here, changing us from the inside out.

So three weeks ago we had to stop there, but that's not where Paul wanted to stop.

It's not where he did stop.

He doesn't want to leave them with just the recognition that the world's wisdom is basically uh foolishness.

Um, he wants them to know that there is real wisdom available to them, and it's available to us.

You know, and if we get it and we apply it and we live it, it radically changes our lives.

And so Paul's going to share three things that it takes to have real wisdom, God's wisdom, lasting wisdom.

He starts in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 6.

1 Corinthians 2:6

He says, Yet when I'm among mature believers, I do speak with words of wisdom, but not the kind of wisdom that belongs to this world or to the rulers of this world who are soon forgotten.

Now, this is just a real quick aside, but history proved that Paul was right.

These cultures had converged in Corinth, Roman, Greek, Jewish, they all thought they were so intelligent that they thought they'd reached the pinnacle of wisdom and knowledge.

Paul says they'll soon be forgotten.

Okay, Paul wrote this letter in 54 AD.

Ten years later, in 64 A.D., Rome burns with Nero in charge.

Six years after that, 70 A.D., Jerusalem is completely destroyed.

Less than 200 years after that, Athens, Sparta, and this city, Corinth, are destroyed.

And so now it's 2011.

And what are we doing this morning?

Following Jesus.

See, all their collective wisdom was foolishness compared to the power and the wisdom that is Jesus.

And so he goes on.

No, the wisdom we speak of is the mystery of God, his plan that was previously hidden, even though he made it for our ultimate glory before the world began.

But the rulers of this world have not understood it.

If they had, they would have not crucified our glorious Lord.

That is what the scriptures mean when they say, No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him.

So Paul's talking about heaven.

And here's the first thing if we want true wisdom in our lives, it begins with an eternal perspective.

It's what Susan talked about, the Lord's Supper.

It's funny how just, I mean, we mentioned this quite a bit, but how God puts mornings together.

You know, I mean, she planned the worship weeks ago before I had any idea what we're talking about.

But it fits so together today.

And I'm thankful the Holy Spirit's involved in what we're doing.

But but it's it's what we sang about, you know?

It's that this life is such a small piece of what God is doing.

You know, Steve um Jobs died almost three weeks ago.

And, you know, for many of us it was, I mean, it wasn't unexpected, but it was still shocking and and um and sad.

And I admire a lot about Steve Jobs.

I admired his vision and his creativity and parts of the way that that he approached business, admired his passion and his desire to make a difference with his life.

You know, like um all of us, he had other things in his life that that I didn't admire.

But we can probably agree that that he was one of the smartest, most influential people around in the last 50 years.

His biography comes out tomorrow.

And I read that it talks about how he decided he couldn't believe in Jesus when he was 13 because of the number of children who are hungry in the world.

And honestly, that makes sense.

I mean, it's not a bad perspective if this world is what it's about, and God controls everything in it, then obviously there is something wrong.

Obviously, there is something that's not believable.

It doesn't even take a great intellect like like Steve Jobs to see that this world is broken.

But God actually says the opposite.

He says, in this world everything is not what he wants at all.

The next world will be exactly what God wants for us.

No hunger, no sorrow.

Our bodies will be strong, our relationships will be pure and will be great.

You know, we'll live in love with each other and in the presence of our Father.

It'll be more wonderful than any of us can even even grasp.

It is why Jesus said that if you feed the least of these, you're helping me.

Because he cares about this world, right?

He just knows that it's it's it's broken.

God's never said that the world will be what he wants it to be.

He has said that the more people love like Jesus, the better it will become.

And that's partly our responsibility.

So hopefully Steve got connected with Jesus at the very end of his life.

Um, and I hope you'll know my heart in even talking about this.

I'm definitely not judging him.

That's none of my business.

That's his between him and his relationship with God is between him and God.

And I'm actually grateful for him and uh many of the things that that uh he um he made.

But it's a current example of exactly what Paul is talking about.

Um, that it doesn't matter how brilliant we are to have real wisdom, we have to see this world with an eternal perspective.

Paul's going to finish this letter to Corinth by reinforcing this very thing.

It's in 1 Corinthians 15.

It says, It'll happen in a moment, in the blink of an eye, when the last trumpet is blown.

For when the trumpet sounds, those who have died will be raised to live forever.

And we who are living will also be transformed.

For our dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die.

Our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies.

Then when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this scripture will be fulfilled.

Death is swallowed up in victory.

O death, where is your victory?

O death, where is your sting?

For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power, but thank God, he gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ.

So Paul wants them and us to know that to have real wisdom, God's wisdom, we have to have an eternal perspective.

Paul's about to introduce a second element to real wisdom.

He says, but it was to us that regard, it was to us that God revealed these things by his spirit.

For spirit searches out everything and shows us God's deep secrets.

No one can know a person's thoughts except that person's own spirit.

And no one can know God's thoughts except God's own spirit.

And we have received God's Spirit, not the world's spirit, so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us.

This is the second thing we need to have if we're gonna have real wisdom.

It's God's Holy Spirit in connection with our spirit.

You know, we are all created in the image of God.

You know, we have a spirit inside of us.

And when we put our trust in Jesus, that spirit is saved.

That spirit comes alive, and our spirit connects with God's spirit and starts changing us from the inside out, starts changing the way we see things, starts changing the filters that we view people and things through, how we react to things.

It's what Paul's talking about in Ephesians 3.20 when he says, God can do anything you know, far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams.

He does it not by pushing us around, but by working within us, his spirit deeply and gently within us.

So I mentioned it might have been a month or two ago, that um Jesus is talking about this very same thing to Nicodemus.

And so Nicodemus is asking about how we are born again.

And um Jesus says it's really hard to explain.

And so if it's hard for Jesus to explain, I'm definitely not going to be able to explain it.

But he gives us an example.

Jesus says to Nicodemus, he says it's kind of like the wind.

You can't see the wind, but you can see the results.

You can see the trees bending, you can see the leaves blowing.

He says it's the same way with God's spirit and our spirits combining inside of us.

And that is uh that's so true in our lives.

And we connect with God, and we turn our lives over to Jesus, and our spirit comes alive, and and God's spirit's working inside of us.

And we're just minding our own business, walking along, and somebody says something mean to us, and we think, man, maybe they're just having a bad day.

And like a couple seconds later, it's like, whoa, that's not like me.

Normally that would really tick me off.

You know, or maybe somebody's really angry and we think, man, I'm sorry, that it must be awful to be that stressed all the time.

You know, and a couple seconds later, it's like, whoa, that's not like me.

You know, and what that is, is the leaves.

It's the tree bending.

We can't see God's spirit, but we can see the results inside of us.

It's Him changing us the way we think, Him giving us real wisdom, seeing things the proper way.

Um and what's encouraging about that is this is not something that we make happen.

You know, it's a surrender kind of thing.

Where we surrender to God's spirit.

It's like David when he says, you know, search my heart and show me when I'm not thinking right.

You know, it's the same for us.

Just search as God's spirit, show me, teach me.

And he does.

And then Paul continues.

He says, uh, when we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom.

Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit's words to explain, to explain spiritual truths.

And so this is the third thing it's God's word.

This letter that we're reading is not just Paul, it's the Holy Spirit speaking through Paul to them and to us.

Mike in the freedom group says all the time that Jesus didn't spend three years teaching just to hear himself talk.

You know, it's for us, it's his instruction to help us.

And it's the same's true of the gospel, these letters, the entire Bible, that God's given that to us.

And Paul says that when we have an eternal perspective and the Holy Spirit in us and God's word, we will have a way of thinking.

We will have a wisdom that we can apply to our everyday life.

We can apply it to work, we can apply it to home, we can apply it to school, we can apply it to sports we're participating in, we can apply it to our finances, to every part of our lives.

We will have a wisdom that's beyond ordinary comprehension.

He says, But people who aren't spiritual can't receive these truths from God's Spirit.

It all sounds foolish to them, and they can't understand it.

For only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means.

Those who are spiritual can evaluate all things, but they themselves cannot be evaluated by others.

For who can know the Lord's thoughts?

Who knows enough to teach him?

But we understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ.

This is exciting.

This is really exciting.

This group of people in Corinth are pretty new believers.

And, you know, they're kind of screwed up.

I mean, we'll read more about that as as we go.

But uh man, they think they're way off on how they think about some pretty big things.

They got some pretty big things wrong.

But Paul says to them in verse 12, we have received God's Spirit.

He's not talking about him and Peter and Apollos.

He's talking about we.

We have received God's Spirit.

When they believed in Jesus, they received God's Spirit.

When we believe in Jesus and put our faith in him, we received God's Spirit.

And not only that, Paul says we, again, all of us have the mind of Christ.

We have the mind of Christ.

And were these people in Corinth thinking spiritually all the time?

I mean, obviously not.

Do we?

I obviously don't.

You know, were they thinking like Jesus with the mind of Christ all the time?

No.

Do we?

No.

But Paul is saying to us, forget about all this man's wisdom.

Forget about it.

True wisdom is here if you want it.

You can have it.

You can connect with the Spirit of God.

You can even begin to think like Jesus Himself if you want to.

All of us.

No matter where we're at or how we've messed things up, it is here if we want it.

See, Christianity is not a belief system where we figure out all the rules and agree to all the right things.

It is a relationship with the living God who loves you and wants to change your life.

There is a depth of wisdom that we can apply to every aspect of our lives if we want it.

And it can only come from an eternal perspective with God's own Spirit helping us and his very own word.

It was there for the Corinthians.

If they wanted it, it's here for us.

If we want it, and I want to finish this morning just with a uh quick challenge.

Paul was right, you know, when he said all these so-called wise people will soon be forgotten.

He was right.

Six years later, Rome was gone, ten years later, Jerusalem was gone.

A while after that, even Corinth was gone.

So here's the challenge.

He was right about that.

See if he is right about this.

See if real wisdom will come this way from an eternal perspective with God's Spirit and God's word.

And you will know by next Sunday if you take this challenge.

We've got the eternal perspective part.

So here's the challenge.

Next seven days, if we'll take 30 minutes each day, we'll spend 15 minutes reading God's Word, and 15 minutes asking the Holy Spirit to give us wisdom.

Here's two quick ideas on what to read.

The first would be the book of Proverbs.

It's the most practical book I've ever read.

It is the book of God's wisdom.

It's there for us.

And the cool thing about Proverbs is that it's 31 chapters.

In fact, each chapter might take about 15 minutes, so it's kind of perfect for this.

But it's 31 chapters.

And so each day, you can just turn to whatever the chapter is that coincides with the day, and God's wisdom is right there for us.

We don't have to even think about it.

Today's the 23rd.

Okay, so just in chapter 23, it has instructions about how to behave with powerful people.

It has business wisdom, it has how to think about wealth.

It has parenting wisdom.

It talks about a way to avoid poverty.

All kinds of stuff.

Just in today's chapter, chapter 23.

In my business career, next to praying, reading Proverbs each day was the single most important thing that I ever did.

Because every day there'd be something going on in business.

And it'd be like, oh, that's exactly.

That's it.

That's what I need to do.

And if that doesn't excite you, just pick up Matthew or Mark or John or any of the gospels and read what Jesus said.

You know, it's probably in red letters, and so it'll be it'll be right there.

Bible Gateway is a great website if you'd like to read on your phone or or your computer, but specifically ask God to use what you're reading to give you wisdom.

You know, when I was in my early 30s and I kind of and I got broken and I cried out to God, and I really wanted to know what God was like.

I'd heard so many things about what he was like, and I wanted to know what he's really like.

And so I got a one-year Bible, and every day I said, God, just show me what you're like.

Um and so at the end of the year, I knew so much more.

I knew God so much better.

I knew so much more about him.

Because just like uh Chip talked about last week, you know, he gives us what we specifically ask for.

James, Jesus' brother, says that if you ask for wisdom, God will definitely give it to you.

Now, Jesus, when he talks about uh, you know, he says, uh, we're just regular parents, and if if our kid asks us for bread, we're not gonna give him a rock.

If he asks for fish, we're not gonna give him a snake.

He says, you know, we're just earthly parents.

How much more will our Father give us the Holy Spirit?

Is what he says, if we ask him.

Okay, so we take 15 minutes and we read the word and we ask God to use it to give us wisdom.

Then the next 15 minutes is key because we sit quietly and we ask the Holy Spirit to help.

We need wisdom.

We need insight.

And don't be surprised as your mind wanders, you know, and next thing you know, you're thinking about a project at work.

You know, next thing you know, you're thinking about the kids, next thing you think about an argument with your spouse.

But you know, maybe that's where the Holy Spirit's taking you.

Maybe that's the thing he wants to give you insight and help on.

Thirty minutes a day for the next seven days.

You have God's Spirit.

You have the mind of Christ.

There's a depth of understanding about life and God, and it is there for us to experience if we want it.

So anybody in?

God won't let you down.

I promise, He will not let you down.

All of us will be able to say, next Sunday, we'll all be able to say, you know, God taught me something.

This week God showed me something.

This week he spoke to me about something.

This week he made a difference in my life.

Life with God is an amazing, amazing adventure.

Okay, we're gonna stop there.

If the worship team will come up, we're gonna finish in a minute.

We're gonna sing a song that I just love.

It is uh true and it is uh is so encouraging.

In fact, let's stand and we'll get ready for that.

Man, if you haven't already, please think about putting your trust in Jesus.

I mean, you can trust him.

You can trust him.

He loves you, he's not mad at you, he's not giving up on you.

He wants the best for you.

Life with Jesus is not a drag, it's an exciting adventure with joy and hope.

And it happens kind of like I tried to describe, but couldn't it, you know?

We uh we say, you know, Jesus, I need you.

Jesus, I want to follow you.

Jesus, help me.

You know, and our spirit comes alive, and his spirit connects with our spirit, and then he changes us from the inside out.

It's one prayer you will never ever regret.

Okay, so seven days, 15 minutes of God's word, 15 minutes focused with the Holy Spirit each day.

What Paul shared with the folks in Corinth will change our lives too.

Let's pray.

So, Father, we praise you.

Thank you for being such a great God.

Thank you for caring so much about us.

Thank you for giving us your spirit.

Thank you for giving us your word.

God, please teach us and even just stir us up so we have a hunger, a desire for you, a hunger, desire for your way of thinking, of your real wisdom.

Father, please bless every single person here today.

Please give us what we need from you.

We trust you, we thank you, Jesus.

It's in your great name we pray.

Amen.