The Only Reason You Believe

0:04Well, last Sunday the Cowboys got their loss out of the way early, and, uh, just so happens when the Cowboys lose, then I just, I don't like to watch other teams win. So it kind of ruins football for me. So today the Cowboys don't play until the night game, so I get to watch football and kind of enjoy it until they lose tonight.

0:24Um, life of a Cowboys fan, right? But, uh, last Sunday, because I wasn't watching football, I, I wanted to watch something. And, uh, and so I found tractor pulling. Yeah. Yeah.

0:35They televise that. Uh, apparently CBS has CBS Sports Network. It's like ESPN Ocho, but for CBS. So I, I stumbled upon this and this is what pastors do after they preach. They just need to, to disengage.

0:47And so I'm watching these guys pull these tractors and I'm going, I, Who? This had to start in Texas. Like, there's no way that some, some good old boys weren't sitting out on the back 40 going, bet you I can tow my tractor further than you can tow your tractor. Oh, it's on. Let's do this.

1:04Anyways, at some point they started interviewing one of the guys that I guess won. I have no idea, but he was there. And maybe this was the LeBron of tractor towing. I don't know. But he starts talking to the reporter and I know he's speaking English, but I have no clue what he's saying.

1:21He's using words that I know have something to do with vehicles, but I have no idea what he's saying. He's putting them together in a way that I didn't know if he was having a seizure, but the reporter kept the interview going, so I assumed that he was okay. And the reporter was nodding along like she totally understood what this guy was saying. It was words that I could comprehend that they were English words, but I had no clue what any of it meant. See, there was a barrier to my understanding.

1:52When it comes to the gospel, what seems so clear to you as a Christian can be equally unclear to the world in which we live. What you understand so plainly and what you think is so simple and what you consider to be such good news, when you try to open up and share that with somebody who is not a follower of Christ, the way that they hear that, the way that they understand that, they're not going to understand it the same way that you do. It's not going to be as clear to them. So the question I want to ask you this morning is, why do you think that is?

2:31Why do you think that you understand the gospel to be what it is, to be the good news that it is, when somebody else looks at the gospel and says, that's lunacy? That's crazy. That doesn't make any sense.

2:45What's the difference? Is the difference your upbringing? I mean, we could argue that, I suppose. You could argue, well, you know, we were there last night at the Harvest Fair and there was this tent and there was a bunch of Muslims there and they were brought up in Muslim homes and so they are Muslim people.

3:05Okay, but then you look at Christianity and there are plenty of Christians who were not brought up in Christian homes. There are plenty of Christians that came out of dark places, that came out of homes that were hostile to the gospel and hostile to Christianity. So that doesn't explain it. Okay, well, what about maybe it's— is it an intellectual difference? Is it that our intellect is greater?

3:26And I would just very quickly and humbly say no. There are brilliant atheists out there that can run circles around me on things. It has nothing to do with intellect. It can't be that either. Okay, well, is it that I'm more maybe spiritually inclined than another person?

3:45No, I don't think we can say that either because you look at some of the New Age spiritual nonsense that's out there and they would say that they are very spiritually inclined and yet they would look at the gospel and say it doesn't make any sense. So what's the difference? Well, Paul has an answer for us. And Paul's answer is that it's none of that. Paul's answer is that the main difference is, the reason why you believe when others don't, is that God has given you the Holy Spirit and he makes all the difference.

4:12That's it; that's what it boils down to. The reason why it makes sense to you but not to the unbeliever, it doesn't have to do with your upbringing, it doesn't have to do with your intellect, it doesn't have to do with whether or not you're a spiritually inclined person. It has to do with whether or not you have the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit is what makes all the difference. The reason why you understand when others don't is that God has given you what they need. And so as we get into this text this morning, I just want to encourage you to be thankful that you have the Spirit, but also to think about the fact that this should cause us to be urgent in sharing the gospel and praying that God will give more and more people the Spirit so that they can come to understand what you and I see as the good news of salvation in Christ.

4:57If you're not already there, turn your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 2 beginning in verse 14. 1 Corinthians 2:14-16, we're going to finish up chapter 2 together today. Paul writes this, he says, the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he's not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?

5:24But we have the mind of Christ. Verse 14, Paul opens up by referencing the natural person, the natural person. In the Greek, so there's 2 words for soul in the Greek. There's the word psuché, which is the word that shows up here, psuché. It can mean life.

5:42And so the soulish person here is what Paul is referring to. That's what's we interpret or translate as the natural person. The soulish person, the person that has the life that everyone has, the soul that is common to all people, that person, as contrast to the spiritual person, which is another word for spirit, pneuma in the Greek, okay, the one that has the soul but not the spirit necessarily, the natural person, does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he's not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. So Paul last week talked about the spiritual person— 2 weeks ago, I guess it was— when he said that, that we interpret spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. And the definition of what makes a person spiritual is to possess the Spirit, is to have the Holy Spirit.

6:37And so if you have the Holy Spirit, you're able to understand these spiritual things that Paul and the other apostles were teaching. But now we contrast that with this new category of the natural person, the soulish person, the person that doesn't have the Spirit, but is indeed a soul. That person, Paul says, can't comprehend the things of the Spirit of God. And so a person in their natural state, in other words, what Paul is saying, can't comprehend what you and I see as evident or see more plainly, more clearly. So for that person, the good news of the gospel is not received the same way that you receive the good news of the gospel.

7:14For that person, the unbeliever that is, they don't look at the Word of God the same way that you look at the Word of God.

7:22It's important that we get that. It's important that we understand that if we're going to be effective as evangelists in a lost and dying world. Point number 1 this morning is this: don't expect the world to love the Bible. It's kind of how I boiled down to what Paul's saying here. The natural person doesn't understand the things of the Spirit.

7:39The things of the Spirit are the things that we've been talking about. In context in 1 Corinthians, it's the wisdom of God. It's the foolishness of Christ crucified. It's the things that— it's the wisdom that he imparts to the mature, like we talked about 2 weeks ago. It's the things of the gospel and also just Christianity in general.

7:56He's saying the world is not going to be able to comprehend those things or understand them. And so I put it this way: don't expect the world to love the Bible. And you might be thinking to yourself initially, well, thanks, Pastor Obvious. Well, yeah, of course, we get that. And I think that's fair but while we may understand that conceptually, I think functionally we sometimes forget it.

8:20And that shows up in how we respond when we encounter the darkness in the world. Things like this; I didn't have to look far this week but It seems like the world is darkening at a pretty fast rate these days. We've talked as pastors, is that because it's actually getting worse and worse or is it because we've got 24/7 news sites and social media and it's just more readily available to us to be able to see real time how dark the world is? Who knows? But the world is dark.

8:47I came across an article in The Atlantic this week called A Winning Formula. The byline said, Dr. Angel Foster is remaking the abortion access landscape one pill at a time.

8:59Okay, so there you have an article that's put forward as something that's positive because this woman, Dr. Angela Foster, is enabling women to murder their unborn children by taking a pill. They're making it easier to kill and extinguish the life that God has created, and the world says this is a good thing.

9:17Or maybe something a little bit more esoteric if you prefer that. This was a headline that said, do human beings have souls?

9:25And the byline here said, well, the philosopher Shelly Kagan has gained millions of fans online while arguing that we can embrace physicalism. Okay, so that is that there is no immaterial part of the body. It's just flesh and bones and all the stuff that makes up the insides. We can embrace physicalism without giving up meaning, morality, or human exceptionalism. So notice that now there's a whole movement from the world that says we don't need your God.

9:50We don't need to think about the immaterial or the spiritual realities because we can just embrace physicalism and still have morality and still have purpose in life and still have human exceptionalism, that we're better than the animal kingdom is. At least that's what they want to argue. So you see, we live in a world that doesn't look at the Bible and says, yeah, this makes sense. God is a God of creation. God is a God of power.

10:17God's word is true. Rather, it looks for ways to reject the word at every turn.

10:27If you spent any time this week on social media or news sites, I'm sure you encountered plenty of examples of abject wickedness and evil in this world. And it probably resulted in a bit of a visceral reaction in your heart. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. To be indignant in the face of sin is a good thing so long as we remember that our battle is not against flesh and blood, But it's against the spiritual forces that are at work in this present darkness. And so we can't allow the world's evil to cause us to hate the world.

10:56But as we sing in the song, we need to rage against the captor, but love the captive soul.

11:03And that's what I'm wanting us to see in this first point, that we can't expect the world to love the Bible, and that should inform the way that we pursue the world.

11:12Paul goes on to say that the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are Folly to him.

11:21It's the natural person, the person without the Spirit can't understand these things. Paul says it this way in Romans 8:7, I read it during our scripture reading this morning, the mind that's set on the flesh is hostile to God. Okay? Notice, the mind that's set on the flesh is hostile to God. There is no neutral with God.

11:39Nobody is just okay with God. Despite what the Doobie Brothers said about Jesus back in the day. Jesus is not just all right with anybody. You are either all in with Christ or you're against him. And so those that have set the mind on the flesh to be hostile to God, it says, does not submit to God's law.

11:59Indeed, it cannot. And it's not that the unbeliever can't intellectually comprehend the truths of scripture. There can be intellectual agreement, intellectual assent with the content of the Bible, but that doesn't yield submission. Submission only comes through the Spirit's work in our lives. Submission in faith only comes through the Spirit working on the life of the unbeliever to give them the ability to believe and to see and to trust.

12:33There's a lot of different ways this shows up, this rejection. I've mentioned those articles. Let's build on one of those articles for just a second. Let's just think about the sanctification sanctity of human life. Let's talk about that for just a moment here.

12:43See, you and I understand because we have what's known as a biblical worldview. So a worldview is like these glasses right here. A worldview is the lens through which you interpret reality. That's what a worldview is. And so as Christians, when you get saved, the worldview that you don are, or is, a biblical worldview.

13:02You put on the lenses of viewing reality and interpreting it through Scripture. So when it comes to the sanctity of human life, we believe, according to Psalm 139, that God is the author of life. Psalm 139 tells us that he is knitting us together in our mother's womb. Psalm 139 goes on to say that he has established our days. He knows every one of them before even one of them comes to pass.

13:26And so as Christians, we see that, we understand that, that's part of our biblical worldview. But the world looks at that in the Bible, and because the world doesn't love the Bible, the world says, That's nonsense. And so, for example, in the case of abortion, the world is going to argue, how can you tell a woman what she can do or can't do with her body? Because why? Because the world is going to try to dehumanize the baby, the life that is inside that womb.

13:53The world is going to say the mother's rights are above that clump of cells' rights; the fetus. They don't even want to say the word baby.

14:06The world is going to say, why would you want a baby that nobody wants to be born? The world is going to say, why would you want a baby that's got a physical abnormality to be brought to full term and born? As Christians, we would say, because it's not our right to terminate that life. God is creating that child. That child is created in the image of God and because of that, has inherent value.

14:29And no one, no one, mother or father or doctor or anyone else, has the right to extinguish that life. That is nothing but flat-out murder.

14:38But the world doesn't operate through the same understanding of life because they don't embrace the Scriptures. What seems plain to us is not to them. And it's not just the beginning of life, right? Now it's come to the end of life too, hasn't it? Psalm 139 tells us that every one of our days were written down before even one of them came to pass.

14:59That tells me that the one who decides when I'm done here on earth isn't me, it's God.

15:07Well, now we've decided that we're going to create this thing called medical assistance in dying, MAID. And the world looks at that and says, this is a good thing. The world looks at that and says, it allows a person to go out on their own terms in a dignified way. Rather than suffering longer than they need to.

15:28The world looks at that and says, you know what, it removes the burden of care from the loved ones and from the state.

15:36The world looks at it and says, it's just a beautiful end of consciousness where somebody passes peacefully from this world into the unknown.

15:46We look at that and say, no, that's self-murder.

15:50You don't have the right to decide when your life is over. You're not God.

15:57And again, what seems so plain to us, the world looks at and says, you guys are crazy. You're the crazy ones.

16:05And without a biblical worldview, you can listen to their arguments and begin to think to yourself, actually, their arguments might make a little bit of sense. But as soon as we put our biblical worldview back on and we understand, wait a minute, God is God and we're not, and he gets to write the rules, that's where things begin to change for us. Let's talk about human sexuality for a minute. Again, as Christians, we have our biblical worldview. We say, well, we understand reality, we interpret reality through the lenses which God has given us, which is his word.

16:41And God has defined, and God has declared what human sexuality should look like, and what it is, and what it's not. God said, in the image of God, we're going to create male and female. Male and female, he created them. In his image, he created them. And guess what, y'all?

16:57God doesn't make mistakes. There's never been a baby, or a child, or a human being born in the wrong body. That is an insidious lie, and any Christian that embraces it is pointing the finger at God and saying, God, you screwed up.

17:12God doesn't make mistakes.

17:16Nobody can look at God and say, God, I was assigned the wrong gender at birth.

17:212 genders, 2 sexes. He created them male and female, period, end of story. And then God designed marriage to be what? Between what? Between a man and a woman.

17:31Not between 2 men. Not between 2 women. Not between 3 men and 1 woman. Not between 3 women and 1 man. One man and one woman, period, end of story.

17:44And we as Christians embrace that. Why? Because we have the biblical worldview. And why do we understand things that way? Why do we have a biblical worldview?

17:53To go back to our opening here, because we have the Spirit and we're able to understand these things. Paul's whole argument right here is when you look at a world that rejects all of this, the reason at heart why they reject it is not because of upbringing, intellect, or spirituality, but because of the fact that they don't possess the Spirit to be able to understand the Scripture as the authoritative Word of God the way that you and I may.

18:16And that's the problem. And so here's what I want us to do, y'all. I want us to understand that because Paul goes on to say he's not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. Again, can't— they, they can't understand them the way that we do. And so what does that tell us?

18:29That tells me 2 things. That I think we need to keep in mind as we make our way around this lost world and interact with lost people. Number 1, y'all, we got to keep the main thing the main thing. We got to keep the focus on winning people to Christ, not just winning arguments. Thanksgiving's right around the corner, and it's an election year too.

18:51So I assume if your family's anything like my extended family, you might spend time around people that maybe don't agree with you on some things.

19:00And when somebody begins to break the rule, we don't talk religion or politics at the Thanksgiving dinner table, or Dallas Cowboys football, what happens? There's a blowup. There's a blowup. And you end up in a fight. And you're arguing your side and they're arguing their side.

19:19I just want to ask you the question, as passionate as you are to win them over to your political position, are you equally or more passionate to win them to Christ? That's what matters, right? Or let's take your atheistic neighbor. You've had conversations with him, you've gone back and forth on age of the earth with him, you've been trying to win him over, you've sent him the YouTube videos, you've invited him to the Institute of Creation Research Museum, you've done all these things, and he's still just as firmly entrenched in his atheism. Let me ask you a question.

19:52Are you as passionate or more passionate about winning him to Christ as you are to winning him to a young earth creationist position? Because winning him to Christ is what matters. I'm not saying apologetics is not important and can't help. I'm not making that argument at all. But I am saying this, if you win your family member over to your political position but not to Christ, they're just going to hell voting with you.

20:19If you win your family member over to young earth creationism but not to Christ, then they have a different view of creation than the world does, but they're still going to hell.

20:29The goal is to win them to Christ. And we have to remember this, right? That our battle is not against flesh and blood, but it's against the rulers and the authorities and the cosmic powers of this present darkness and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. And so we need to keep the main thing the main thing. We need to pursue the lost with the gospel.

20:49We need to not look at this and be like, don't expect the world to love the Bible. Okay, well, good luck world, see you later. We're going to hang out in our holy huddles, in our Christian cliques, in our sanctified sects, and best of luck. No, we got to see this and be like, what, what, what can I do about that, Lord?

21:07I can't make anyone love the Bible, but I can preach the gospel. And the Spirit can do the work, or I can sit on my hands and be like, oh man, isn't it so sad the way that the world is just so dark and they don't love Jesus?

21:25Man, we gotta preach the gospel. That's the first thing this reminds me. Second thing is this, your greatest weapon in this pursuit is prayer. That's it. Your greatest weapon in this pursuit of the lost is prayer.

21:39Because if you can't make them love Jesus, if you can't make them love the Bible, and only God can, then you best be going to God. Every Christian in this room should be praying weekly for unbelievers, daily for unbelievers in your life. Every Christian in this room should be bringing the names of people before the throne of God and saying, God, save this person. Open their eyes. Give me the open door.

22:01Help me to love them with the love of Christ. And lead them to you. It's every Christian's responsibility in here. And I think with prayer, it's one of those things that we're like, okay, sure, right. I'm supposed to pray for the, for the lost.

22:20I, we undervalue prayer. We so undervalue prayer. All right, Torrey, I've shared this quote before with you, and if I have, I'm not sorry, 'cause it's good enough to share again. From his book, The Power of Prayer, he says this, prayer is the key that unlocks the storehouses of God's infinite grace and power. All that God is, all that God has, are at the disposal of prayer, but we must use the key.

22:49Prayer can do anything God can do, and as God can do anything, prayer is omnipotent. I don't think that's too strong.

22:59Prayer can do anything God can do. And as God can do anything, prayer is omnipotent. And so no matter how stubborn the unbeliever might be, prayer is able to overcome. Listen, I want to talk to you this morning. If you're in the room here and you would say, I'm, I'm one of those unbelievers that you're talking about, Pastor, great.

23:20I want you to know that we are praying hard that God will overcome your obstacles to faith because we love you.

23:30And you might be sitting there this morning thinking that we're a bunch of idiots. Fair. Put me at the top of the list. Maybe I'm already there. I'll take the lead seat on that.

23:43That's fair. We get that. We understand that, but we're going to pray that God changes your heart. And God changed your mind. And I'm just warning you that our God is able to do whatever God wants to do.

23:55Our God's stronger than you are. Whatever objection you have to the gospel this morning, our God is able to overcome that.

24:06He's undefeated.

24:09So, even after a loved one may have told you to stop sharing the gospel, Even after somebody has told you, I'm done, or a coworker moves away, I want to encourage you this morning that prayer is still the most powerful weapon that you have in seeing that person go from a state of not loving the Bible to coming to understand it and loving not just the Bible, but more importantly, the God of the Bible.

24:33Paul continues his argument though here in 1 Corinthians 2:15. He says, the spiritual person judges all things but is himself to be judged by no one. The spiritual person, so now he's shifting back. He was on the natural person and now he wants to come back to the spiritual person. This is the person that possesses the Spirit of God.

24:51This is the other word in Greek for spirit, pneuma. And so that person, he says, is the person that judges all things but is himself to be judged by no one. And so now we're returning back and saying, okay, this person is in Christ, does have the Spirit, But the question that I believe that Paul is implying here and that I want us to answer this morning is, what are you doing with it? What are you doing? What good is you having the Spirit if we're not actually employing the Spirit?

25:20Second point this morning is this: don't miss out on unexplored riches. Don't miss out on unexplored riches.

25:29As we turn and we focus on the believer, the person that has the Spirit, I want you to think about what you're doing with the Spirit. And really, it boils down to this phrase, the spiritual person judges all things. What does that mean? Other translations, the CSB, Christian Standard Bible, the spiritual person can evaluate everything. The NET Bible, the one who is spiritual discerns all things.

25:52The Legacy Standard Bible, the one who is spiritual examines all things.

25:58The NIV, the person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things. So, This word judges can have a multitude of meanings. So what did Paul mean by it? Well, let's start with what he didn't mean. Okay?

26:08He's been arguing in 1 Corinthians in the context against spiritual elitism, hasn't he? You remember when he addressed, hey, you say you're of Apollos and you're of Paul and you're of Cephas. And what did Paul say? What are you doing? Stop it.

26:22In other words, this isn't about gathering around your favorite guy and bowing up like you've got inside information that somebody else doesn't have. This isn't about you having access to a super wisdom that other people don't have. We're not about the eloquence. We're not about building ourselves up. We're about the plain and simple message of Christ crucified.

26:42And so Paul's been arguing against spiritual elitism and spiritual factionalism. So he's not saying in this verse that the spiritual person judges all things, meaning that there's some level of spirituality that we can get to that allows us to sit over other Christians or unbelievers. And pass judgment on everybody about things that we understand and they don't. Because that would fly in the face of the context that he's been talking about. Rather, I think there's something else at work here, and there's a similar word, there's a wordplay that's there in the Greek that we lose in our English translation here.

27:12Because that word judges is actually there in verse 14. If you back up, it says this, he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned, That word discerned is the same word that's translated judges here in verse 15. And I think that's what Paul had in mind. In other words, what Paul meant when he said the spiritual person judges all things is that the Christian, the person that has the Spirit, right? Because that's what makes a person spiritual, is to possess the Spirit of God.

27:43And so the Christian is able to discern all things. Now, All things meaning what? All things as in the whole reality of the world, that the Christian is able to understand and discern everything?

28:00No. I told you, I don't understand tractor pulling. Spirit's not going to help me understand tractor pulling. But what Paul has in mind is all things as they pertain to God and his wisdom. That we can apply ourselves to the scriptures.

28:14That we can study the Word of God, that we can try to discern the truths from the Scriptures, and because we have the Spirit, the Christian is able to, as opposed to the natural person who is unable to understand them, the Christian is able to understand or comprehend or discern the things that he reads or she reads in the Word of God, in the Bible. And so Paul is encouraging the believer to go to the Word of God and to employ the Word of God in their lives and allow the Spirit to take the word of God and, and help us live in this life. Peter writes this in 2 Peter 1:19 of the word of God. He says, we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. In other words, Peter's saying the word of God has a job for your life, and that job is to help you walk in the light of God's revealed wisdom.

29:10Well, how am I going to be able to do that if the Spirit's not going to help me discern what that looks like and what that means? And so God's word has a purpose in our lives and he's given us the Spirit to be able to put that purpose to work. Or perhaps more clearly, 2 Timothy 3:16-17. Here Paul writes this, all Scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching and reproof and correction and training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete and equipped for every good work. Okay, if the word of God is going to be able to do those things in our life, to teach us, to reprove us, to correct us, and to train us in righteousness so that we may be complete and equipped, we must be able to discern what the word of God has to say to us about certain things.

29:55And Paul's saying, Christian, you can, because God has given you the Spirit. The spiritual person discerns all things. That's why this point here, back in, in our, our point is don't miss out on these unexplored riches. God's given you everything that you need to be able to understand everything that you need to be able to press in and go deeper. Do you remember growing up wanting to figure out how to do something and just desperately wanting to get it figured out?

30:22And then you finally were able to figure out, and then you, you just couldn't stop doing it. 'Cause you're like, this is so great, I can do this now. In my house, for my kids, that's, unfortunately, that's whistling. Yeah. Not like a song, just whistling.

30:38And so it's like, I wanna figure out, I wanna know how to whistle. And so they're trying it and it's cute initially until they get it. And then you're like, can you whistle outside? Can you whistle in your room upstairs? Yeah, for me, it was riding a bike.

30:55It took me longer than it should take a person to learn how to ride a bike to learn how to ride a bike. I'll just put it that way. I won't give you an age, but it was longer than it should have taken. And what got me there, I wanted to ride the bike, but I wasn't sure because I didn't know how good it was. And just conceptually, I was like, yeah, the bike's out there, but I didn't want to fall off and get all banged up and everything.

31:14So I just didn't because I was stubborn. Until finally I was over at my cousin's house. And they all took off on their bikes. I was like, well, that's not fun. And I had a bike that was there and it was my cousin's pink girl bike and it was the only one left.

31:31I was like, all right, well, I guess let's do this thing. So I picked up her bike and, and off I went and it was awesome. Not the bike, but it was awesome to be able to ride a bike. I was like, this is so good. What have I been missing out on?

31:44I should have been riding my bike this whole time. And eventually I got a, like a boy's bike. And it was back in the day growing up when you could still, like my best friends, we would get on the bike and we would ride down to Blockbuster. And then we'd go to Tom Thumb and we'd get a video game and a movie and some snacks from Tom Thumb and ride home. It was the best.

32:04And I fell off plenty of times. I got a scar on my elbow where I fell off my bike and ran into a brick wall. And still it was great to ride a bike. It was awesome. I was like, oh man, this is what I've been missing.

32:14And it just made me want to do it more and more and more and more and more and more. That's the mentality I want you to bring to studying the Bible. I want you to experience when you go to the word of God and you study a passage and you begin to dive in deeper to the word of God and read more of it, and all of a sudden you realize that God is teaching you and God is reproving you and God is correcting you and God is training you in righteousness and you are becoming more and more equipped for every good work. And all of a sudden you're like, this is so good. Why have I not been doing more of this in my life?

32:44And I think that's what Paul's saying here in this verse, that there are unexplored riches, untapped treasures in the word of God. And Paul's saying, hey Christian, you've been given the Spirit, get after it, get in there. And so I just want to encourage you this week to start doing that. And maybe for some of you, you come to church on Sunday and that's the only time the Bible's really open in your life all week long. So maybe for you, that's this week.

33:07Hey, open the Bible each day. Just read something. Just start somewhere. Read a paragraph, read a chapter. Just get into the Word every day and ask God, teach me, Lord.

33:22Use your Spirit to help me understand these things.

33:26Maybe for others, that might look like picking up a devotional commentary on a book of the Bible. And pairing that and saying, I'm going to read this book and dive in deeper this book and read this devotional commentary over there as well. Maybe some of y'all are like, man, I want to get— I want to know, I want to get technical with stuff. You're going to get a more robust commentary, something from like the Baker Exegetical Commentary series, or the New International Commentary on the New Testament, or something like that. You're going to try to dive deeper in with more of the technical stuff because you just want to, get in even deeper to the word of God.

34:02For others of you, maybe that looks like picking up a systematic theology. Saying, I want to learn more about the characteristics of God and who he is. What does it mean that he is all-powerful? What does it mean that he knows all things? How do I understand him as the creator of all things?

34:16You're going to pick up a systematic theology, something by like Wayne Grudem or John MacArthur has a good systematic theology out there as well. Something like that that you could grab and just say, let's get deeper. Maybe for somebody else out there that's saying, I'm going to sign up for a class at Compass Bible Institute. And you can sign up for those online and you want to take a class in Hebrew or Greek or systematic theology or an OT survey, New Testament survey class, and you want to go deeper, even maybe an academic level. Great.

34:45Depth is going to look different for every person in this room. Just like I talked about 2 weeks ago, spiritual maturity is going to look different for every single person in this room. The point I want to make is this: we're all in the lake. We're just swimming at different depths of the lake. So maybe wade a little bit deeper wherever you are in the lake this week.

35:05Maybe wade a little bit deeper. Press in. Realize how good it is to be taught these things. There's somebody in our church who has a really, really, really fast car. It's a Corvette.

35:17Maybe I already put him on blast just by saying that. And it goes really fast, although I wouldn't know, 'cause I haven't gotten to ride in it yet.

35:27But I have heard it turn on, and just listening to the engine fire up, I'm like, oh man, that thing's powerful. And he likes to take it to the track, and he drives it really fast on the track, so he can go faster than he's allowed to go on regular roads, and it's okay, 'cause it's allowed. I want you to think about this. Imagine somebody were to give you a car like that. And to pay for access to a track for, for your lifetime so that you can take that car to the track and you can drive it as fast as you wanna drive it.

35:53And then imagine in about 5 years they come in and stop by with you and they're, they're saying, hey, how are you liking your car? Oh man, it's so good. It's so great. The cup holders inside, fantastic. Best cup holders I've ever had.

36:05The seats, super comfortable. And that noise the engine makes when it turns on, amazing. Yeah, but how about the speed? How fast have you gotten it to go? Well, I've taken it to the track.

36:18And?

36:21Yeah, like 40. Sorry, what? 40? 40 miles per hour? That's how fast— that's all you've done with this car?

36:30That's it?

36:33Don't you realize what you have? Don't you realize how fast this thing can go? And if you're on a track, it's legal. You're supposed to go that fast there. Y'all, some of us are driving our faith 40 miles an hour.

36:50And I fear that we're gonna get to heaven and stand before Jesus. He's gonna be like, 40 miles an hour? I gave you the Spirit.

37:01There's no, there's no reason regulators, there's no inhibitors. Dive in, get deeper, go faster. That's the point I'm trying to make here, y'all. God's given us his Spirit so that we can discern all things. He does say here, this verse says, but is himself judged by no one.

37:22This is a personal note, I believe, to the Corinthians, because remember, the Corinthians were so caught up in what the world thought about them. Does the world think that we're wise enough? Does the world think that our guys are eloquent enough? Does the world think that our message can hold weight with Plato and Socrates and all them? And so Paul's here going, hey, don't lose sleep over those things.

37:41The world doesn't hold clout over the message that we are proclaiming, which is the gospel. But Christian, get after it. Open it up. Go faster. Get deeper.

37:52Finally, verse 16, for who has understood the mind of Christ so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. Who's understood the mind of the Lord? This is a quote from Isaiah chapter 40. Isaiah chapter 40, verse 13.

38:05It's a quote from the Septuagint, which is the Greek version of the Old Testament. And so Paul quotes this, and in the Greek version of the Old Testament, Isaiah 40:13 says, who has known the mind of the Lord and who has become his counselor? Who will advise him? And so in context, in Isaiah 40, if you've read Isaiah 40, which we just read recently in our Daily Bible Reading, God is flexing in Isaiah 40. He's saying, hey, remember who I am.

38:29Who are you going to compare me to? I sit above the earth, the circle of the earth. The inhabitants, they're like grasshoppers. The nations are like a drop in a bucket. God's saying, who are you going to compare me to?

38:43And he's saying this as a way to comfort his people, to remind them that he is going to redeem them, that he is going to make them rise up on wings like eagles, like he talks about at the end of Isaiah chapter 40 there. That God is going to save his people and ultimately deliver his people. And Isaiah is left to say, who can understand these things? This is too wonderful for me to try to wrap my mind around. And so Paul picks that up and brings that now over to what he's been talking about with the wisdom of God here.

39:09And he says, who can understand these things? Who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? And the answer implied there is what? No one. So then what's our hope?

39:20What he says next. But we have the mind of Christ. Left to ourselves, can anyone, can anyone instruct the Lord? Can anyone understand the mind of the Lord? No.

39:33But with the mind of Christ, we can have an understanding of the gospel and of the wisdom of God as he's revealed it to us.

39:45What a humbling and amazing thought that is. And it should encourage us this morning and it should also cause us this morning to ponder, okay, if that's true, then that leaves me with nothing to boast in except for him. Third point this morning is this: don't boast in what you did not earn. Don't boast in what you did not earn.

40:06If you've got the Holy Spirit, see, one of the other temptations for Christians when a Christian is trying to share the gospel or talk with maybe somebody who's not a believer, one of the temptations besides an indignation that can wrongly be attributed to the person, because remember, our battle is not against flesh and blood but against the spiritual forces that are at work. So that's temptation number one that we have to battle is we've got to rage against the captor but love the captive's soul. The second temptation we have to avoid is a sense of arrogance or superiority. And that's what this is meant to rob us of here.

40:42It's like the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, if you guys remember that. Jesus told the parable that a Pharisee and a tax collector went up to the temple to pray. And it says this, that the Pharisee standing by himself prayed thus, God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. See, this is the spirit of pride that can creep into our lives as Christians if we're not careful. You can look at the world, you can look at the lost in the world, and you can think to yourself, rather than, Lord, save them, you can think, Lord, I'm glad I'm not them.

41:25Like when we were at the Prosper Harvest Fair yesterday.

41:30And I was so proud of our church because there were lost people right there. The Muslims were right across the way and they were trying to tell people about Islam and how Islam's the answer. And we had multiple people, 4 or 5 people at least, not just talk to them out in the open, but went right up to their booth and stood there with them and went after the gospel with them. One of our guys was there for probably 45 minutes or an hour and I was just thinking, yes! And it was so good because what I saw is a love for the lost that was there in the lives of our people.

42:03They didn't go over there to say, hey, you're, you're wrong and we're right. And so get outta here. We don't want you here.

42:13They went there and they said, hey, we believe that what you believe is wrong, but we want you to know what's true. We love you and we want you to understand the gospel.

42:27And multiple people went to them throughout the night to talk to them and to share the gospel with them.

42:33Y'all, that needs to be our mentality because we need to have this mentality, this awareness that it's not that we're better. Again, it's not our intellect, it's not our upbringing, it's not that we're more spiritual people that is the reason why we understand. We only understand what they don't understand because God has given us his Spirit. So where's our boast but in Jesus?

42:57When we see people that are lost and we're tempted towards a thought of something like, God, I thank you that I'm not like them, we need to remember a phrase that you've probably heard in the church before, and it's this simple little phrase: but for the grace of God. Go I.

43:19This is attributed to John Bradford in the 16th century. He was a Protestant reformer. He watched a group of prisoners being marched and paraded before the public eye to their execution. They had done whatever they had done. They had committed their crimes.

43:34They were worthy of death. They had been sentenced to die and they were being paraded before the public eye. And what would happen then is the public would mock and scorn and throw things and and heap condemnation on these prisoners and shame them more as they're being led to their death. John Bradford was overheard saying, but for the grace of God go I. Christian, that's us when it comes to our understanding of the Word of God and our understanding of the gospel. It's not because we have an inside track but because we have the mind of Christ.

44:04And why do we have the mind of Christ? Because God has enabled us to have it. God has given us the mind of Christ. Christ. God has given us his Spirit to be able to understand those things.

44:14I want to talk about receiving the Spirit for a second because that may seem a little fuzzy.

44:21What does it look like to receive the Spirit? How do I know if I've received the Spirit? A couple things. Number one, the Bible tells us every Christian has the Spirit. There's no such thing as a Christian without the Spirit of God.

44:32Romans 8:9 makes this abundantly clear. I read it during our scripture reading but let me read it for you again. It says this, you, however, are not in the flesh But in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you, and now this is the part to tune in on, anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. Okay, let me say that again. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

44:56So if you've ever heard someone say, well, to have the Holy Spirit, you have to have a second blessing, or to possess the Spirit, you have to have somebody lay hands on you and transfer the Spirit to you, that is not in keeping with what we see there in Romans 8:9. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. In other words, anyone without the Spirit is not a Christian. So, if you're wondering, how do I know if I have the Spirit? And you're here as a Christian, you have the Spirit if you are in Christ.

45:26The second thing that tells us is this, that the Spirit takes up residence in you at the moment of conversion. Again, it's not a second blessing. You don't need the pastor to lay hands on you. You don't need to speak in tongues to evidence the fact that you have the Spirit. Those are things that have been added to the Word of God that aren't there.

45:41And so if you are in Christ, you have the Spirit, and the Spirit has taken up residence within you. Okay? And so if you've been wondering, well, is this some mystical experience that I should have had that maybe I haven't had yet, and that's why I'm not growing as much in my faith, I just want to assure you that there is no mystical experience that you're missing out on. If you have repented and believed in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, the Spirit has done that work in your life and has now taken up residence in you. In your life and you now, you have everything that you need to be able to grow in your knowledge and understanding of the word.

46:20And if that's true, again, where's our boast? It's not there.

46:29We can't bow up as though somehow we have something that somebody else doesn't, and that's why we're in the position that we're in.

46:38It's not your upbringing. It's not your intellect. It's not that you are a more spiritual person. It's that God in his grace gave you a spirit to understand. So here's what I want to suggest to you.

46:50Hopefully what that will do in your heart is to stir in your life an affection for the lost that's going to drive you to them, not from them.

47:01That's going to cause you to want to go to them with the gospel, not away from them. Like we talked about last week, that you would go out and compel them to come in. Those that are at the highways and the hedges, compel them to come in.

47:19Again, so proud of our church and seeing not just at the tent where the Muslims were, but with everybody yesterday. Just out there sharing the gospel. Y'all, we need to be doing more of that. That's what Outreach Week is going to be all about. That's what our lives need to be about too.

47:38Yeah, you get it, you see it, you understand it. But again, the only reason that you understand it and they don't is because God has given you his Spirit and that makes all the difference.

47:49So what should that do? Well, that should make you say, man, I want other people to have that too.

47:54And you can't create that, you can't force that, but you can go out with a message that God uses to open blind eyes and to save people so that they can come to understand things the way that you understand them.

48:09Pray with me. God, thanks for your word and thanks for the work that you have done in our lives through the Spirit.

48:18Lord, there are so many gifts and blessings that we can recount in our lives and things that you've done for us. And so we can forget or overlook how good it is that you've given us just the ability to understand the scriptural truths that we read in the Bible each and every week. God, I pray that this week we would depend a little bit more on the Spirit perhaps than we did last week, that you would show us more of your truth in your word than you have before, that you would take us deeper, that you would stir our hunger for more and more of it. That we would dive into those unexplored riches while at the same time, Lord, staying humble and looking for every opportunity we can to reach a lost world that doesn't love the Bible, that doesn't love the God of the Bible, and to call them to faith, to call them to repentance. And God, I pray that you would do the work that they so desperately need done in their life, that you would give them the spirit to understand, to see, to believe, to respond, and to become part of your kingdom family.

49:13Lord, thanks that we have the privilege and the opportunity to keep doing that so far. We don't know if we'll have tomorrow, but we have today. And so make us faithful, I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.