Uncovering the Unimaginable
I Corinthians, Chapter 2
Paul quotes Isaiah 64:4 in 1 Corinthians 2:9 (NCV) "But as it is written in the Scriptures: ’No one has ever seen this, and no one has ever heard about it. No one has ever imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.’” God reveals through Jesus the wisdom of the ages – and it is good news for us.
The pattern we’ll follow in our Study of 1 Corinthians
Look Back
Quick Scan
Drill Down
Take it Home
Look Back
Chapter 1: The Radiant King – The Power of the Cross
Quick Scan: 1 Corinthians 2 (NIV)
The Message of Christ’s Death
2 Dear brothers and sisters, when I came to you, I did not come preaching God’s secret with fancy words or a show of human wisdom. 2 I decided that while I was with you I would forget about everything except Jesus Christ and his death on the cross. 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 (NCV)
There was a decided problem between some in the Corinthian Church and Paul. It had to do with spiritual pride and reliance on personal wisdom. Paul is making his point very clear. It’s not about us – it is about Jesus and the cross. That was the emphasis of chapter 1 and it continues into chapter 2.
God’s Wisdom
6 However, I speak a wisdom to those who are mature. But this wisdom is not from this world or from the rulers of this world, who are losing their power. 7 I speak God’s secret wisdom, which he has kept hidden. Before the world began, God planned this wisdom for our glory.
1 Corinthians 2:6-8 (NCV)
Paul wants to have us understand the real wisdom of the spiritually mature. It is not of this world and it has been secret – in times past – now revealed through Jesus
Uncovering the Unimaginable
9 But as it is written in the Scriptures: “No one has ever seen this, and no one has ever heard about it. No one has ever imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.” Isaiah 64:4
1 Corinthians 2:9 (NCV)
This wisdom is beyond human comprehension and imagination. It is like trying to explain the color blue or red to a man blind from birth. Without a frame of reference or way of understanding it cannot be even imagined.
So how shall those who are spiritually blind be able to see what God has revealed? It will happen only through and with God’s help!
Listen to the 12th & 13th verses of 1 Corinthians 2.
The Spirit of God’s Work in us
12 Now we did not receive the spirit of the world, but we received the Spirit that is from God so that we can know all that God has given us. 13 And we speak about these things, not with words taught us by human wisdom but with words taught us by the Spirit. And so we explain spiritual truths to spiritual people.
1 Corinthians 2:12-13 (NCV)
It takes a spiritual connection with God to understand spiritual things. If you want to understand color you had better have the eyes to see it. And then if you want to appreciate art you really need someone to open your eyes.
How? Let’s drill down into the text and see what Paul says about becoming a real mature spiritually wise man or woman of God.
Drill Down: How is the wisdom of God uncovered?
9 But as it is written in the Scriptures: “No one has ever seen this, and no one has ever heard about it. No one has ever imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.” (Isaiah 64:4)
1 Corinthians 2:9 (NCV)
How is the wisdom of God uncovered?
It is not uncovered with the eyes
No one has ever seen
It is not uncovered with the ears
No one has ever heard
It is not uncovered with the mind
No one has ever imagined
Have you seen the billboards up around town about God. Actually they are up all over the country. One said; “Why don’t you ever call?...........God” The other one I really liked; it said; “Don’t make me come down there...God” Unfortunately, many, many people have no relationship with God beyond these billboards. When they hurt and hunger for something deeper – a connection – with the spiritual side of life all they have is a billboard.
Spiritual things are not revealed in the physical realm of what you see, hear, or even what you think about. The Philosophies of man is not enough to reach out and try to touch God. It takes God reaching out and touching us – spiritually. Let’s read the next few verses to see How God connects with us through his spirit.
Uncovered through an intimate relationship with God’s Spirit
Spirit to spirit; Soul to soul
10 But God has shown us these things through the Spirit. The Spirit searches out all things, even the deep secrets of God.
11 Who knows the thoughts that another person has? Only a person’s spirit that lives within him knows his thoughts. It is the same with God. No one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
1 Corinthians 2:10-11
Deep secrets of God
Hidden mysteries and deep things
There is a deep hunger for internal knowledge and understanding
My wife and I have been married for some years now and we have begun to have some of the same thoughts at the same times. It’s getting kinda weird. We have lived together long enough – this summer will be 32 years… that when we see the same things, hear the same stuff that we think the same things. Our spirits have begun to meld into one. Now it’s not done. The process of marriage and “two becoming one” is not instantaneous… We have a long ways to go but this experience is the illustration that God gave us to understand the relationship that he wants to have with us.
Spirit to spirit and Soul to soul.
God’s thoughts and our thoughts becoming one. Some people might think that this would be boring. It’s kind of a monochromatic, one color world of beige and taupe. I mean God is loving and good and kind – and that isn’t very exciting.
You have it all wrong. When you begin to think like God thinks and his Spirit is mingled with your spirit – this is when the world comes to life. Our God is a god of incredible diversity and differences. He invented color! God invented music! God invented art! God painted the oceans blue and made the mountains rise up from the earth to the sky.
But it is not just the good emotions and appreciation of life that we share. We share his anger and frustration just as Jesus did when he turned the money tables over in the temple. We share his pain when his children reject him just as Jesus wept over the city of people who would not receive him.
This does not come by way of human wisdom and reasoning. God shows us. Look at verse 12
Uncovered through the teaching of God’s Spirit
12 Now we did not receive the spirit of the world, but we received the Spirit that is from God so that we can know all that God has given us.
13 And we speak about these things, not with words taught us by human wisdom but with words taught us by the Spirit. And so we explain spiritual truths to spiritual people.
1 Corinthians 2:12-13
Jeremiah
Listen to the words of God as received by the prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah 14; “Then the LORD said to me, ‘The prophets are prophesying lies in my name.
I have not sent them or appointed them or spoken to them. They are prophesying to you false visions, divinations, idolatries and the delusions of their own minds. Therefore, this is what the LORD says about these prophets who are prophesying in my name: I did not send them.’”
There seems to be a lot of confusion these days about what God tells us to do.
For instance, let me give you some examples of things that God did not tell people to do: God did not tell David Caresh to deceive and organize a group of believers, barricade themselves in an armed compound, have sex with most of the women and even some of the children, and claim to be Christ. God did not tell an un-named television evangelist that he had to raise a million dollars from the believing public within a certain time period or else the Lord was going to take his life.
God does not tell us parents to withhold treatment from our dying children when they could easily be saved by a simple medical procedure.
Our Father in heaven doesn’t tell us to do any of these things.....yet people are doing even stranger things than these every day under the impression that what they are doing is God ordained.
For instance, did you know that the Ku Klux Klan has very close religious connections and convictions? In effect, they claim that the prejudice that they harbor and represent, the hate crimes against blacks, Jews and homosexuals are all, in a sense, carried out “for the glory of God.”
And believe you me, that countless individuals are being led astray by such people as these who claim to have received some sort of commission and authority from God and may even really believe it themselves. Are we talking only about religious fanatics and mentally disturbed people? I wish. Because you see, if it were only those types of people, they wouldn’t be able to deceive so many so easily.
If you make a movie and are a good actor or actress you become a sound bite on the next late night show sharing about God and life and it’s meaning. Pretty silly actually!
Look at the next few verses.
Uncovered through the maturing of Our Spirit
14 A person who does not have the Spirit does not accept the truths that come from the Spirit of God. That person thinks they are foolish and cannot understand them, because they can only be judged to be true by the Spirit.
15 The spiritual person is able to judge all things, but no one can judge him. The Scripture says: 16 “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Who has been able to teach him?” (Isaiah 40:13) But we have the mind of Christ.
To think as God thinks about life takes a special gift.
Let’s sum it up…
The Work of the Spirit of God in us
1) For two spirits to become as one
Marriage is the illustration and gift until it is complete in heaven
Through direct testimony – His spirit to our spirit
You have to hang with God! Prayer and meditation is not an option – it is a necessity. This is why we have been given the gift of “worship”. It is not that God needs us to praise him. It is that God wants our spirits to connect and be together. Worship is really just “hanging” with God. He’s pretty cool actually.
2) For God’s Spirit to teach us God’s ways
Jesus life is our example and a gift to guide us to an abundant life
Through direct teaching – divine revelation
2 Peter 1:20-21 (NCV)
20 Most of all, you must understand this: No prophecy in the Scriptures ever comes from the prophet’s own interpretation. 21 No prophecy ever came from what a person wanted to say, but people led by the Holy Spirit spoke words from God.
You have to get into the word of God.
3) For Our Spirit to be whole and complete in everyway
The church is God’s gift to fill our need for community and fellowship in the Family of God
Through the guidance of Godly Men and Women who go on before
All three will be in agreement! If they are not in agreement then something is wrong somewhere because God’s wisdom is not a spirit of deception or discord. It is a wisdom of harmony and light. Radiant light that reveals his will for your life.
Please understand that you must test the spirit
Test the Spirit
All will testify to Jesus as the Christ the son of the Living God
2 This is how you can know God’s Spirit: Every spirit who confesses that Jesus Christ came to earth as a human is from God. 3 And every spirit who refuses to say this about Jesus is not from God. It is the spirit of the enemy of Christ, which you have heard is coming, and now he is already in the world.
1 John 4:2-3 (NCV)
Jesus is the only begotten (mono – genes) one of a kind son of God. There is none like him and he is the test of God’s spirit.
Jesus is God in flesh. God incarnate. This is the test of God’s spirit. Any other testimony is false. I want to be kind but I must be clear. Jesus is the test.
Take it Home:
First: Listen to God’s heart beat
Critical issue here is time
Sunday worship
Personal worship
Second: Study his word and meditate on it
Take notes on 1 Corinthians
Go home and read it again. Get more than one version and compare and study. You won’t get it all but you will gain much and then you will begin to be able to apply it to your life in very real ways.
Third: Watch the examples of Godly men and women
There are Godly men and women among you. They are not perfect. They are God’s – wholly and completely. Imitate them as they follow Jesus. It is so important who you hang around with.
The Lost Watch
In conclusion; I want to tell you a true story that happened a long time ago. Way back when we didn’t have refrigerators to keep our food cool. In those days people had to put all their perishable food in what was called an icebox. Well, problem is, that the ice for the iceboxes had to be cut out of the frozen lakes in the winter and somehow kept frozen through the summer months so that it could be delivered to people’s houses. This ice, that was about two feet thick, was cut into big blocks and stored in icehouses.
These storage houses had very thick walls for insulation and the ice blocks would be stacked in there and covered with sawdust to keep them from melting too quickly.
Well one day, a worker in one of these icehouses lost a very special watch. This watch was special to him because it was given to him by his father who had died some years earlier. His dad worked many a long hard hour to purchase this watch for his son. When he gave it to him, he told him that whenever he heard it ticking to remember how much he loved him. So he was very upset at himself for losing this watch and he and all the other workers searched long and hard for this precious timepiece---but with no luck. Finally, because of all the sawdust, they realized that it would be almost impossible to find, so they gave it up for lost. But near the end of the day a small boy that had heard of what had happened came up and asked if he could help in the search. The men told him that they had been looking for hours but it was no use. Undaunted, the boy walked by the men into the icehouse and closed the big thick door behind him. Five minutes later, the door opened again and out walked the boy with the watch in his hand!
The men were delighted and amazed, and when the boy gave the watch back to it’s relieved owner, the man asked the boy how in the world did he find it so fast. The boy smiled and said; “I just went in there by myself, closed the door, laid on the floor and got very still..........and then I listened real hard.”
Friends, God speaks to us in many ways. As both Moses and Elijah found out; the Lord isn’t in the earthquake, the strong wind or the fire.. Rather He is in the “gentle breeze” and He speaks to us with a still small voice that we need to really listen for in order to hear. As someone who has heard that “voice” and felt His presence, I urge you to listen with all your heart because what He has to tell you is literally priceless. May God bless you as you listen for those “wonderful words of Life.”
