July 24, 2005
Morning Service
Text: 1 Corinthians 2:6-16
Subject: Part 5 in the Perseverance Series
Title: What the World Doesn’t Know
We continue today with part 5 of the Perseverance Series. So far we have covered joy, trust and the preaching of the word. Today I want to share with you about how the church perseveres through its particular world-view.
There are two ways of looking at the world and the events that occur in it. First is the view that the world would have us believe. They view the world from the perspective of what seems right to them. 1) Mankind was not created but evolved over a period of billions of years. 2) There is no God, and if there is, He is not concerned with what happens in the world today. 3) If there is a God, and He is really a loving God, then all honest and sincere attempts to reach heaven will be honored. In other words, all roads lead to heaven. That is the secular world-view.
Now there is a different word-view that looks at things from the perspective given in God’s Holy Word. This is the world-view of the true church. 1) We believe that all things were created by God. 2) He not only created but also remains intimately involved with the day-to-day events in the lives of all people. 3) There is only one way to heaven and that is through His Son Jesus Christ.
The world hates that name. Maybe you have noticed that it is common practice for even the most liberal politicians or celebrities to mention God i.e. After the World Trade Center attacks, God bless America became a battle cry. But don’t you dare mention the name of Jesus Christ or else you become labeled a narrow-minded bigot.
We came from a church that taught us that we could never be assured of our eternal destiny until we stood before God and gave account for our lives. Thank God we found out the truth before it was too late.
I want to share with you today the differences the bible gives between the world and church and by doing so show you how the church shall persevere.
I. THE WORLD IS LIMITED IN ITS VISION. (6-9) In writing to the church in Corinth Paul indicates that there is a certain type of wisdom that he is imparting to the church. “We speak wisdom among those who are mature…” Verse 7, we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery…” He calls it “hidden wisdom”. It is so difficult for those who are not Christians to understand what we believe to be true. The world just cannot see and understand what the bible says about the most important subject you will ever hear – eternal life. It doesn’t make sense to them because Paul says it is “not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age who are coming to nothing.” The wisdom of this age would say at the end of your life God places all your good actions on one side of the scale and all your bad on the other and then weighs them. If your good outweighs your bad, you win – you get heaven. Who is Paul speaking of when he talks about the rulers of this age? Since the things he is writing about here concern spiritual matters, he must be speaking of those spiritual entities who have gained control over towns and cities and provinces and countries and those humans that they have influenced by their lies. Verse 8, “which none of the rulers of this age knew, for if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory…” Why couldn’t the world see what they were doing when they crucified Christ? Why can’t people see the truth of the gospel message? 2 Corinthians 4:3, “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing verse 4 whose minds the god of this age has blinded…” That is why Paul prayed for the Church in Ephesus the way he did, “that the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling…” Why is the world limited in their vision? Because satan has blinded them. Their understanding is veiled. Verse 9 quotes the prophet Isaiah, “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.” Not we get down to the crux of the matter. The world cannot see because they are anti-God. Now wait a minute. I’m not against God. I know he exists. I try to do the right things. I try to live by the golden rule. How can you say I hate God? Because loving Him involves being in an intimate personal relationship with Him. And that can’t happen unless the veil is lifted.
II. THE WORLD IS LIMITED IN ITS REVELATION (10-12) verse 10, “but God has revealed them to us through His Spirit…” The word translated “revealed” literally means to have the cover taken off. Who is that done for? For the church! How is it done? Through the work of the Holy Spirit! Jesus spoke often of the Holy Spirit and His ministry on earth. 1) He will abide with believers forever. 2) He is the Spirit of truth 3) the world cannot receive Him because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. 4) He teaches 5) He convicts the world of sin and 6) He glorifies Christ. I can’t tell you how may times scholarly people have set out to prove that the Bible is a fake and that Christianity has no validity. One of those people is Josh McDowell, who, as a sophomore in college set out to write a paper that would do just that. You see, with limited revelation one cannot truly see the truth contained in the scriptures. But even one who had an anti-God bias found a strange consistency throughout the whole bible and the more he read and studied the more truth he came to see till at last what started out to be a proof on the falsity of the Scriptures turned out to be the very thing that drew a young man to a relationship with Christ and changed his life for eternity. Once he accepted the gospel message his spiritual eyes were opened and he has become one of the foremost Christian apologists with books like, More Than a Carpenter and Evidence That Demands a Verdict. Verse 11, “No one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God” verse 12 “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.” Look at how Chuck Swindoll describes the “spirit of the world.”
The world system is committed to at least four major objectives, which I can summarize in four words: fortune, fame, power, pleasure. First and foremost: Fortune, money. The world system is driven by money; it feeds on materialism. Second: Fame. That is another word for popularity. Fame is the longing to be known, to be somebody in someone else’s eyes. Third: Power. This is having influence, maintaining control over individuals or groups or companies or whatever. It is the desire to manipulate and maneuver others to do something for one’s own benefit. Fourth: Pleasure. At its basic level, pleasure has to do with fulfilling one’s sensual desires. It’s the same mindset that’s behind the slogan: "If it feels good, do it." Charles Swindoll, Living Above the Level of Mediocrity, p.219. Those are the things that the spirit of the world reveals to you. That’s satan. He’ll tell you all those things are more desirable than an eternal relationship with Jesus Christ. Live for today for tomorrow you die. But the Spirit of God says “I will show you the wonderful things that God has in store for you in this life and the next.”
III. THE WORLD IS LIMITED IN ITS UNDERSTANDING (13-16) I read a letter to the editor in the Hannibal Post last year in which an obviously intelligent gentleman completely picked apart the Christian faith verse by verse in order to refute what a Christian pastor had written the previous week. I said he was an intelligent man. He undoubtedly knew scripture verses. He used them as an effective argument for his purpose. Unfortunately he used them totally out of the context in which they were written. But he thought he had a good argument. Verses 13 and 14, “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.” One of satan’s biggest tricks is using scripture out of context or partial scripture. He tried that with Jesus in the 40 days of fasting in the desert. It wasn’t valid then and it isn’t valid now. Verse 16 sums it all up for the church, “But we have the mind of Christ.”
It is very difficult for the world to accept the Christian gospel message. Many think that there is too much to lose if the get “religion”. Good news. God doesn’t want you to have “religion”. He wants you to have a relationship with Him and that can only come through Jesus Christ. As you look around you, watch the news, read the newspapers, it becomes evident that the world, even though it thinks it has all the answers, is growing more vile by the minute. But the true church remains faithful to all things that are holy and pure. We are able to persevere through all things because we have the vision of God, the revelation of God and the understanding of God.
But the world continues to struggle. What is it that they need? What is it that can open their spiritual eyes?
Understanding the true gospel.
1. Heaven is a free gift. It isn’t earned or deserved.
2. Man is a sinner and cannot save himself. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. God’s requirement for heaven is perfection.
3. God loves you and doesn’t want to punish you for sin but because He is also just and you are not perfect He must be true to His nature and punish you. (It seems like there is a conflict in God’s nature).
4. God solved that in the person of Jesus Christ. He was the perfect sacrifice that took away all the sin of the world. His death on a cross finished the work of salvation that God had designed from the creation of all things. Salvation is a gift.
5. You receive the gift that Jesus offers by faith.
Those are the five steps to perseverance. Once you take the step of faith your spiritual eyes are opened. You begin to see things with God’s eyes. You become alive in your spirit that was once dead to God. And you become a great threat to satan, the god of this world.
Don’t you think it’s about time?
