SERIES: “OVERCOMING OBSTACLES THAT OBSTRUCT OBEDIENCE”
TEXT: 1 CORINTHIANS 2:1-16
TITLE: “NOT MAN BUT GOD”
INTRODUCTION: A. Several years back, Paul Harvey told about Duane Cowgill, a barber in Marshall,
Michigan. Duane had an overabundance of produce from his garden one year. He
gave away as much as possible to friends, neighbors, and family but the produce was
coming faster than he could eat it or get rid of it. He couldn’t figure out what to do
with it all.
Finally, he came up with a solution. He piled a small mountain of leftover produce
on the bench that sat on the sidewalk out in front of his barbershop with a sign that
read: “Free – Help Yourself.” By the end of the day, all of the produce was gone.
The only thing was Duane forgot to remove the sign from the bench. When he
arrived at work the next morning, the bench was gone.
1. Sometimes we put too much stock in our own solutions to problems
2. We usually find out that we lack the wisdom, the strength or the force of will to
adequately solve the problem
B. Why do we insist on working out, thinking out, or determining out a way for
ourselves?
1. Prov. 14:12 – “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to
death.”
2. A young couple with a two-year-old child went to visit some wealthy relatives.
While the adults talked, the two-year-old got board and wandered away. The
adults heard the child yelling and discovered him in the room across the hall with
his hand stuck in a very expensive vase.
The adults worked feverishly to get the young child’s hand out of the vase.
They tried to twist and turn it. They tried pouring oil around the little boy’s hand
and the rim. Nothing they tried worked.
The man of the house said, “Obviously, we’ll have to break the vase. I’ll be
right back.” He left the room and came back with a hammer.
Very carefully, he broke the vase and the child was free. They all knew then
why the boy’s hand was stuck in the vase. He had reached in to grab a penny that
was in the bottom of the vase and in his childish ignorance, refused to let go.
3. Prov. 3:5-6 – “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own
understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths
straight.”
4. Let’s hear what the apostle Paul says about trusting in our own efforts
I. NOT BY HUMAN STRENGTH BUT BY GOD’S POWER
--1 Cor. 2:1-5 – “When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I
proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except
Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My
message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the
Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.”
A. Human strength
1. Have you ever seen TV show World’s Strongest Man?
--As impressive as those feats of strength are, they’re nothing compared to God
2. Our brains can devise machines that can apply thousand of times more strength to a project than we
could ever hope to do on our own
--Think about a simple machine like a lever – our bodies can’t stand the stress that simple machine
can handle
B. God’s power
1. Ps. 62:11 – “…you O, God are strong.”
2. He has power over the natural elements
a. Calmed storms
b. Walked on water
c. Turned water into wine
d. Separated the sea for the Israelites to escape from Egypt
e. Stopped the sun in its orbit
C. Paul’s comments
1. I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling
2. Id didn’t rely on my own strength but on the demonstration of God’s power
D. Why our efforts fail
--We need to stop depending on ourselves and depend on the One who can overcome all things!
1. Mt. 19:26 – When the disciples asked Jesus about something they thought was impossible, Jesus said,
“With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
2. Eph. 3:20 – says that God is “able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to
his power that is at work within us.”
II. NOT BY HUMAN REASON BUT BY GOD’S WISDOM
--1 Cor. 2:6-8 – “We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of
this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we speak of God’s secret wisdom, a
wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers
of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”
A. How many times have you heard these gems of human reasoning:
1. “That’s not smoke, it’s steam.”
2. “We should have enough gas to get us where we’re going.”
3. “It’s supposed to make that much noise.”
4. “The boss won’t mind.”
5. “I don’t need to unplug it. It’ll only take a moment to fix.”
B. Consider these quotes as reflective of human reasoning:
1. “Everything that can be invented has been invented.”
--Charles H. Duell, commissioner, US Patent Office, 1899.
2. “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
--Thomas Watson, Chairman of the Board, IBM, 1943
3. “This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of
communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.”
--Western Union internal memo, 1876
4. “The wireless music box has no imaginable value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in
particular?”
--financial advisors to David Sarnoff in response to his urgings to invest in radio in the 1920’s
5. “Who wants to hear actors talk?”
--H.M. Warner, Warner Bros. Studio, 1927
6. “Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.”
--Irving Fletcher, Professor of Economics at Yale Univ., 1929
C. What the Bible says about human reasoning:
1. Rom. 1:22-23- “Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the
immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.”
2. James 3:15 – “Such ‘wisdom’ does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the
devil.”
D. What the Bible says about God’s wisdom
1. In Daniel 2, Nebuchadnezzar has a troubling dream
--None of his advisors could interpret it
a. King ordered that all of his “wise-me” be put to death
--Daniel wanted to know why?
b. When told about the problem Daniel said that God knew the answer.
--Before appearing before the king on this matter listen to Daniel’s prayer after God revealed the
answer to the dream. Dan. 2:20b-23 – “Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom
and power are his. He changes times and seasons; he sets up kings and deposes them. He gives
wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. He reveals deep and hidden things;
he knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with him. I thank and praise you, O God of my
fathers: You have given me wisdom and power, you have made known to me what we asked of
you, you have made known to us the dream of the king.”
2. Rom. 11:33 – “Oh the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!”
3. 1 Cor. 1
a. v. 20 – “Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has
not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?”
b. v. 25 – “For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is
stronger than man’s strength.”
c. v. 27 – “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak
things of the world to shame the strong.”
III. NOT BY HUMAN WILL BUT BY GOD’S SPIRIT
--vss. 9-16 – “However, as it is written: ‘No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him’ — but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a
man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the
Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may
understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human
wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without
the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him,
and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes
judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment: ‘For who has known the
mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ.”
A. Paul compares trust in the physical life with trust in the spiritual life
1. Says that we haven’t received the spirit of the world but the Spirit of God
2. The Spirit of God is:
a. The Spirit of holiness
b. Guidance
c. Peace
d. Teacher
e. Intercessor
f. Provides for us the “mind of Christ”
g. We cannot understand the things of God without the aid of His Spirit
B. Personal testimony
--the help of a training partner
CONCLUSION: A. The Bible tells us that we can’t trust in our own effort
--the only way to receive the help of the Spirit of God is to come into with the Son of
God
B. We can’t earn our salvation nor can we work out our own solutions
--We can only trust in what God does for us
1. Eph. 2:8-9 – “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from
yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”
2. 1 Cor. 1:30-31 – “It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for
us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore,
as it is written: ‘Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.’”
3. Timothy Smith: “One of the truths of the Bible given over and over again is you can
never be good enough on your own to earn heaven. Because once you sin one time,
you can’t brag to a perfect God how good you are.”
“I mean, you don’t impress the engineers of Boeing with the airplane that you made
from paper. You don’t brag about how far you can drive a golf ball in the presence of
Tiger Woods. You don’t look Michael Jordan in the eye after shooting a jump shot and
say, ‘I got game.’ And you certainly can’t boast about your goodness in the presence
of a perfect, holy God.”
4. But thank God, He provided the way through His Son, Jesus the Christ.
