Set Apart But Never Alone

Man has always had a thirst for knowledge. For centuries man has searched for wisdom as we have strived to increase our knowledge. In Athens, hundreds of years ago, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle spent their time discussing the latest and greatest ideas. Then the Roman Empire gifted the city of Athens with the Hadrian's library, one of the greatest collections of human knowledge in existence at that time.

All of this gathering of knowledge seemed to ultimately be trying to understand the “good life.” Yes, they pursued the virtues of wisdom, but none of the searches were rooted in the wisdom of God. So, the Apostle Paul enters the scene and exposes this deficiency during his visit to Athens and to other Grecian cities during his missionary journeys.

Today, we are no different. People desperately search for advice about how to live, how to make life better, how to achieve the “good life.” As Christians, we understand more fully that it is the Holy Spirit that helps us live in ways that please God. And in the process, we find that living for God is the good life. Let's talk about that this morning. Prayer

I think the mid-20th to the 21st century has been the most remarkable time in history. During this period of time, man has produced an exponential explosion of knowledge. You may have heard the term recently artificial intelligence or AI. Concerns are growing and some are beginning to feel threatened by artificial intelligence. Automation of jobs, the spread of fake news and a dangerous arms race of AI-powered weaponry have been mentioned as some of the biggest dangers posed by artificial intelligence.

But even though the technological advances may be smart and provide an unlimited library of worldly wisdom, none of it can bring lasting fulfillment or meet our deepest needs. Even the brilliant minds that imagine and create all this wealth of knowledge and access to it and then gift it all to the world, even they suffer the same personal and moral deficiencies as the average person. Let's see how the Apostle Paul addressed this issue.

1 Corinthians 2:6-9 – “We do, however, speak a wisdom among the mature, but not a wisdom of this age, or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 On the contrary, we speak God’s hidden wisdom in a mystery, a wisdom God predestined before the ages for our glory.

*******8 None of the rulers of this age knew this wisdom, because if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But as it is written, What no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no human heart has conceived—God has prepared these things for those who love him.”

Verse 9 has always been a verse of anticipation for me. No matter how beautifully we try to describe heaven, we can't even imagine what the Lord has in store for us.

Even though we live in a world that appears more advanced than the first century, the issues raised by Paul are about the same. The hopelessness of it all, even as we are bombarded with knowledge and worldly wisdom that was unimaginable only decades ago, even so all this worldly knowledge has produced a lot of emotional pain and personal meaninglessness.

Frankly, I'm not sure how we as kids in the 1960s ever survived. It's hard to believe some of the things that were normal in the 1960s for us kids. Things that we wouldn't even dream of doing today because of all this new knowledge we have gained. As a kid, we could ride in the front or back seat of the car because most cars didn't even have seat belts. You remember sleeping in the back window of the car on trips? Cigarette commercials where smoking was encouraged and made you tough. Baby cribs that were painted with lead-based paint. Trampolines without nets. I don't think “childproofing” was even a word back then. Most kids had their own BB guns. We played with lawn darts. We rode bikes without wearing a helmet. We walked to and from school alone. We went to our friends’ house's unescorted. Kids chewed sugary bubble gum, ate sugar-filled cereal, and would hang out at the candy stores. Do you remember hitchhikers? We played outside unsupervised all day and we didn't even know what sunscreen was. Our signal to come home was when the street lights came on at night. We drank from a garden hose and played in the water running along the streets after a heavy rain. If we got cut or scratched, mercurochrome, or as we called it monkey blood, would cure it all.

Looking back now we see that we have gained an immense amount of knowledge that prohibits most of what we endured as kids. But in contrast to all of this accumulated knowledge, Christians have access to the fountain of wisdom, the Holy Spirit. He teaches us through our inner being by shining a Divine spotlight on the word of God and illuminating its truth for us. Divine knowledge is far more than just the facts, more than just trivia, and more than technical knowledge that is found on the internet.