God’s Spirit Reveals God’s Truth

Transcript

GR 1302
09-18-05
God's Spirit Reveals God's Truth
1 Corinthians 2:10-16
Gil Rugh


The Apostle Paul wrote, “we beg you in Christ's stead, be reconciled to God, who made Him who knew no sin become sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). We're going to talk about God's provision of salvation for us and His remarkable plan that enables us as sinful human beings to enter into the wonders of His salvation.  We're back into our study of 1 Corinthians, and we're in 1 Corinthians 2.  There is nothing more important in life than that a person should come to know the salvation that God has provided.  Where will you spend eternity?  In heaven or in hell?  If you were to die today, where would you go?  No more important decision faces us than that.

There is a huge chasm between God's wisdom on this and man's wisdom.  God's wisdom centers in the death of His Christ on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins.  The wages of sin is death, but Jesus Christ stepped from glory and went to the cross so that He might bear our sins in His body on that cross, so that we through faith in Him might die to sin and live to righteousness.  That's God's plan.  Man cannot comprehend it, cannot accept it, refuses to believe it.  The world views that message as foolishness.  This is what Paul has been talking about in the opening part of this letter to the Corinthians.  In chapter 1 verse 18 he wrote, “for the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.”  It makes no sense, such an idea is stupid, it's not worthy of our consideration, it's not worthy of our attention.  I'm offended that you would even make such a suggestion.  But Paul made clear, his whole ministry focused on the preaching of the cross of Jesus Christ and calling men and women to believe in Him.

In verse 17 of chapter 1 Paul wrote, “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech.”  Just the simple, pure Gospel, the message of the death of Christ.  In verse 23 of chapter 1, “but we preach Christ crucified.”  Paul was aware, this was not acceptable to the Jews, it was not acceptable to the non-Jews, “but we preach Christ crucified.”  In chapter 2 verse 1, “I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God.  For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.”  He did not just talk about Jesus Christ, he talked about the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, which pays in full the penalty for our sin.  That's what his life was about, so he could write later to the Corinthians and say, we have made Jesus Christ known in every place, because every place we go we talk about the cross of Christ and God's plan of salvation.  In verses 6-9 Paul elaborates on the conflict between the thinking of man and the plan of God.  Man has his own wisdom, God has His wisdom.  But man's wisdom cannot bring salvation, God's wisdom does bring salvation.

The problem is people don't recognize God's wisdom. Verse 8, this is the wisdom which none of this age has understood.  “...if they had understood it, they wouldn't have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor. 2:8). This is not a wisdom that you can find out by human means.  That's the point of verse 9, “eye has not seen, ear has not heard, neither have entered into the heart of a man.” These aren't things you can find out by looking at things, reading things, seeing things.  You don't know this by what you're taught, you don't come to this knowledge by the reasoning of your mind, what has entered into the heart of a man, his own thinking.  By none of these means can man, on his own efforts, come to know about God.  God has revealed the message of salvation, that message concerns the death of His Son.  Now we have a problem.  God's wisdom has been revealed, Jesus Christ has come to earth, and God has explained to us His plan of salvation.  We are sinners, condemned to an eternal hell for our sin.  Jesus Christ, God's Son, went to the cross, died in our place to pay the penalty for our sin.  Now God says if we will turn from our sin and place our faith in His Son and in His Son alone, He will forgive us for our sins and cause us to become His children.  That's the revelation God has made thus far in our consideration of 1 Corinthians.

There is a problem. It doesn't work, it can't work, as we will see, because the very ones that need to be saved think that message is foolishness.  Remember that word foolishness, we get the word moron from it, or moronic.  It makes no sense, lacks intelligence, it's dumb as the world looks at it.  So what Paul is going to explain is how that chasm between the revelation of God's plan and purpose in redemption, the provision of His Son to die on the cross, and unsaved human beings doomed to an eternal hell, how you bridge that chasm to bring the work of the cross to an unregenerate person.  There is nothing more important.  The Apostle Paul is going to write a rather long letter, the first letter to the Corinthians, some 16 chapters.  The bulk of the first two chapters is taken up explaining the difference between the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God to this church of believers.  Because you know what?  All the rest of the problems in this letter can be routed back into confusion over the very area that Paul is talking about—our salvation and the work of God's revelation in bringing the Gospel and providing His Spirit.

So verse 10 begins, “For to us God revealed them through the Spirit.”  The things that you cannot learn with human wisdom through the eyes or the ears or the use of the greatest intellectual powers, God has revealed them through the Spirit.  How else would you know that the Son of God left the throne of glory and came to earth, because the human race was totally corrupted by its sin and the holiness of God required the payment of sin, death, which would include eternity in the fires of hell?  So His Son came and died on a Roman cross and in so dying made provision for God to forgive those who would come to believe in Him.  There is no way that man can come up with such a plan.  Man not only does not come up with such a plan, man refuses to accept such a plan.  But God has revealed them through the Spirit.  The “them” that's inserted here refers to all that God has prepared for those who love Him, His work of salvation.  That was a matter of revelation.  Now we have two aspects of God's revelation here.  God has revealed the Gospel, the death of Christ on the cross to pay the penalty for sin, the resurrection as the sealing of that finished work.  But that alone will not save a person.  You understand, if that's all we had, every single person would go to hell.  You need the next step that makes the first part of revelation effective, and that is the work of the Holy Spirit.
“For to us God revealed [this truth of God's plan of redemption] through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God” (1 Cor. 2:10).  Here you have the all-knowing Spirit of God who knows all about God, for He is God.  He searches the depths of God, and in the context here, we're talking about the details of God's plan of redemption.  Foreordained before the foundation of the world.  The Spirit is intimately aware of that and knows it.  And he's going to draw a comparison here, an analogy, to enable us to understand this.

Verse 11, “for who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him?  Even so, the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God.”  No one knows what is going on in your mind, in your inner being but you.  I mean I'm standing up here talking to you and most of you, except those who are asleep, are looking at me.  But some of you who are looking at me have other things on your mind.  The person sitting next to you doesn't know that you are gone, in another world, because they can't read your mind.  Even in the most intimate of relationships, husbands and wives who have lived together for many years, sometimes will say, I know what you're thinking.  And we do get to know one another pretty well, but there are other times we have to ask, what are you thinking, what's wrong?  Because we don't know what's going on in them.  We see certain symptoms, but we don't know.  How often have you been talking to someone and they're talking to you, and they think you're just so interested in their conversation, and your mind is way off somewhere.  And they say, Don't you think so?  Well, I guess.  I haven't any idea what they said, I was thinking about something totally different.  They don't know that that's the point.  It's so obvious, we all know it.  No one knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of a man which is in him, his inner spirit, his inner being.  And we alone know ourselves.

“Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2:11).  There is a point of comparison here, and you don't want to go beyond that point of comparison.  The point of comparison is what the spirit of a man knows, a human being, he knows what's going on in the mind of that man, and the Spirit of God.  He knows what's going on in the mind of God.  Now you can't begin to develop out of this some kind of doctrine of the Holy Spirit as though the Holy Spirit dwells within God the Father like our spirit dwells within us, because the point is just a comparison.  In fact in verse 11 it refers to the spirit of man which is in him, and no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.  He doesn't go on to develop it as though the Spirit of God dwells in God the same way He dwells in us.  But the point is the Spirit of God knows the mind of God like our spirit knows our thoughts.

Another emphasis given that no one outside of God is able to know God, and know what is in the mind of God.  Now we have people, and this is what happens with worldly wisdom, who want to devise their religion and create their own god so they begin to tell us what God is like and what God is not like.  But in reality we have no idea.  I sometimes watch other preachers, and preachers who do not believe the Bible and salvation in Christ.  They'll stand up and talk and tell their people about God and I think, he has no idea what he's talking about.  Why do they stand for this?  Anybody else could get up and give their thoughts on it, because no one is able to know the mind of God, except God.  At least among human beings we can take a guess at what's going on in someone else's mind.  We are totally different beings than God, so we have no way of knowing, unless God makes it known.  But who can make the mind of God known, but God?  And that's the role of the Spirit of God who is also Himself God.  Isaiah 55:8-9, “for My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, declares the Lord.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”  The point being, you as man cannot enter into My mind.

All right, verse 12, “now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God.”  Believers have received the Spirit of God.  Paul presupposes their understanding of this truth.  He evidently had explained it to them when he was present with them during his extensive stay in Corinth, because he refers to it a number of times as things they ought to know and ought to be living in light of.  The Spirit of God indwells every believer.  Turn over in chapter 3 verse 16, “do you not know that you are a temple of God” and that the Holy Spirit, “the Spirit of God, dwells in you,” in the church there at Corinth.  In chapter 6 verse 19, “do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God.”  Look over in chapter 12 verse 13, “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.”  All believers have partaken of the same Holy Spirit who has now come into their lives.  Paul refers to this fact, even though he doesn't develop the doctrine of the indwelling Spirit, per se, in chapter 2.  He refers to it as something that would be common knowledge among them as believers.  In fact in the second letter to the Corinthians in chapter 13 verse 5, he'll tell them to examine themselves “to see if you are in the faith.”  Because if the Spirit of Christ doesn't dwell in you, you don't belong to Him.  So every believer has the Spirit.

So back in chapter 2 verse 12, when he says, “now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God.” We have the one now who brings to us the mind of God.  We haven't received the spirit of the world, so our thinking is not like the world, our thinking now is conformed to the mind of God because we know what is in the mind of God.  We have received the Spirit, not of the world, but the Spirit who is from God.  Note the reason, “so that we may know the things freely given to us by God.” This is crucial.  What happens?  The death of Christ is a historical fact, and there are TV programs on it.  The truth of it is laid out in the Bible, that revelation is given.  But to that point unbelieving man does not bridge the chasm between his lost condition and the provision of Christ as the one who paid the penalty for sin.  The only bridge between fallen man and the truth of the Gospel is the Holy Spirit, who is the one who reveals that revelation to the heart.  So while there is revelation given, the Gospel is a revelation of God's plan of redemption. That revelation is never understood and believed by fallen man apart from the work of the Holy Spirit who opens the blinded eyes to see and believe the truth of the Gospel.  Then at that time it personally becomes part of that individual's life.

“So that we might know the things freely given to us by God” (1 Cor. 2:12).  That word translated, freely given, the Greek word for grace is charis.  This word is charisma.  It's just a variation of the Greek word for grace.  The things graciously given to us, freely given, given us by God's grace.  What are the things freely given to us by God?  Well, it's the work of God's salvation, the things “that God has prepared for those who love Him,” at the end of verse 9, “the depths of God” in verse 10, regarding His purposes and plans in redemption.  How do we come to know that?  Well that's a work of the Holy Spirit, who not only has unfolded the truth of the Gospel in its facts, but now has brought that truth to those who saw it as foolishness, who wanted nothing to do with it, who found that message offensive, who thought in their own self-righteous pride they were good enough.  But then the Holy Spirit took that truth of the cross and that message and drove it home to their hearts, and they saw that they were indeed sinners, condemned and deservedly so, saw the wretched hopelessness of their condition, and turned and cast themselves on the mercy of God, believing the Christ had died for them.  What happened?  The Spirit of God did a marvelous work in carrying the truth of the Gospel to the heart and mind of that individual.

This is absolutely essential.  If we don't have this settled and clear in our mind, we will begin to drift all over, and soon we will have abandoned our theology.  You understand that the Gospel cannot be effective apart from the ministry of the Holy Spirit.  This explains why you may present the Gospel clearly and boldly and passionately to someone, and they walk away.  They may be hostile, they may be indifferent. You go away and say, what could I have done?  I was so convincing.  Apart from the work of the Spirit, that fallen, sinful human being will have nothing to do with God.  You cannot argue him into faith, you cannot reason him into faith, you cannot love him into faith.  That doesn't mean we are not to love the unbeliever, does not mean we are not to demonstrate the character of Christ.  But the fact is, none of these will save a person.  Some of you have unbelieving family members and you have modeled godliness before them and you have demonstrated the character of Christ and you have shared with them the truth of the Gospel.  There could be no closed human bonds and relationships, and yet they are lost.  They haven't believed.  I say this because sometimes we think, well to be effective, we first have to make people our friends.  And then if we develop a relationship with them and they become our friends, perhaps we feed them and clothe them, then they will be more receptive to the Gospel.  You know what that is?  That is a denial of the depravity of man.

The biblical doctrine is that because of our sin, we are totally corrupted and so totally opposed to God in our sin that we will have nothing to do with Him.  And you cannot improve the unbeliever.  I'm not saying the Lord in His ministry does not use a variety of things.  He uses the testimony of a believing wife living before an unbelieving husband.  He uses her life to convict him and bring him to salvation in 1 Peter 3:1.  But you understand, it is only the ministry of the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit may use our friendship with an unbeliever to give us the opportunity to demonstrate the character of Christ and present the Gospel to them, but you understand it is the ministry of the Holy Spirit in taking the Gospel that saves that person.  And without that, nothing happens.

I was reading an article, and there was an article in the paper a week ago that covered the same thing.  When churches moved away from confronting people about the Gospel, we think that we have to build relationships and then we can share the Gospel, we have to earn the right, we sometimes say, to share the Gospel.  You know most of the evangelism done in the New Testament is what we would call cold turkey evangelism.  Just go and confront the person with the Gospel, go and talk to strangers and people who didn't know you, and tell them the Gospel.  I'm not saying that's the only way.  You have family members you have relationships with.  That's fine.  You have neighbors you see regularly.  That's fine.  But you understand, God's plan is they hear the Gospel, the Spirit takes the Gospel and drives it home to the heart.  You don't soften up unregenerate people.  That's a denial of the total depravity of man.  As soon as we slide into this, we develop the plan of helping God out.  The world is opposed to the Gospel, they consider it foolishness.  We can't save people that won't listen to us.  It's hard to get a good hearing when people think you're a stupid fool.  So we develop ways that we think will make the unbeliever more receptive, which means what?  He's not so depraved.  It's not the Holy Spirit using the Gospel, it's these other things that get him ready and then we hit him with the Gospel.  And pretty soon these things have been elevated.

In our last study we talked about the church and social programs, and I read you some quotes of people who have moved from thinking it's only the Gospel that is used of the Spirit, to it's the Gospel and social programs on an equal level that must be used.  And these aren't people far out, these are people within the evangelical world.  How does that begin?  By suddenly thinking that we can do something to a depraved, fallen sinful human being that will make the Gospel more palatable and more acceptable to him.  And the point here is, only the Spirit of God can open blinded eyes.  That's how we know the things freely given to us of God.

Verse 13, these “things we also speak.”  Which things?  The things freely given to us of God.  Verse 2, “I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” God's plan of redemption, the work of the cross is what Paul is talking about here.  These are the things we speak, not in words taught by human wisdom.  This reiterates what Paul has been belaboring.  Chapter 1 verse 17, “Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech”, not in wisdom of words.  Why would you even try to do that?  Because the preaching of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.  So I think if I can make it more palatable and create the kind of environment the unbeliever will like to be in, then I will have created an opportunity.  You have to get the Gospel to the unbeliever, but you understand, these other things don't change his depraved nature.  He still is a fallen, depraved being as opposed to God as he ever was.  And if it weren't for the intervention of the Holy Spirit, none of us would ever be saved.

“Which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit” (1 Cor. 2:13).  So we take the truth the Spirit has revealed and now we teach it as the Spirit has given it, the words of the Spirit.  We have to be very careful that we don't delude ourselves.  We are great at talking generally about God.  We say, I had a chance to talk to someone.  What did you talk about?  Well I told them that God was important in our life and how important it is that they recognize God.  And I talked about Jesus and what an example He is for us and how it has made our family different because we know Jesus.  What about the cross?  What about the cross?  When my Dad was living he'd listen to radio preachers and he would say to me as we would go out to lunch, he'd say, can you be saved without hearing about the blood of Christ and the work of the cross?  He'd say, I listened to a preacher yesterday on the radio, his whole message he talked about things, but he never mentioned the cross or the blood.  That's what we call decisionalism, where we call people to make a decision for Christ but we never did explain to them the cross.  What was their decision about?  I'd like to add Jesus to my list of friends.  I mean, what was the decision if they didn't hear the message of the cross, they didn't hear Christ died to pay the penalty for their sin.  What decision did you make?  I mean this is not just another name to your list of close friends.  We're talking about a Savior who had to take your place to pay the penalty for your sins.

“Combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words” (1 Cor. 2:13); basically what we're saying here is you take the truth that the Spirit has given and you communicate it now as the Spirit has intended.  And the Spirit will take that.  But we have a problem—the natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God.  They are foolishness to him, he cannot understand them, they are spiritually appraised.  I want you to mark two things—”does not accept,” “cannot understand;” does not accept, cannot understand; does not accept, cannot understand.  He will not and he cannot.  Some people say, which is it—he will not or he cannot?  Both.  That's what God says.  A natural man, phusikos.  We bring it over in English and talk about soul.  It's in words like psychology or psychic, having to do with the soul and the inner being of a person.  Here we're talking about, and the translation I'm using has the natural man.  This is man as he is apart from the ministry of the Spirit of God, the human man.  Man is man, all he is, is man, but not what the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The natural man, the man apart from the work of the Spirit of God.  Does not accept the things of the Spirit of God.  That's it. There is a personal responsibility and accountability here.  He does not accept it, he will not receive them.  That's it.  Why?  They are foolishness to him.  Why would he believe this?  It is foolish.  We say, if I explain it more clearly and if I provide the evidence and then it will be clear to him.  He won't do it, they are foolishness to him, you can't change his view.  That's how he sees it.  He does not accept the things of the Spirit of God and he cannot understand them.  This is intensely important, you ought to see here.  He will not and he cannot.  He is personally accountable and in his fallen state as a depraved being. He cannot understand it, because they are spiritually appraised, examined, discerned.  It takes the work of the Spirit to enable you to examine and evaluate and understand them.  These are things understood only through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

So you see the revelation of God's work on the cross in and of itself would not save a person, because in our sin we view it as foolishness.  And in our fallen state we have no ability to understand it.  It takes the Spirit of God to open the blinded eyes and enable one to see.

You know our whole doctrine of man and salvation is at stake here.  It is true we have to bring the Gospel to men, women and young people, but you understand, that is what we have to do.  That is what is effective for salvation.  We think, yes, I can just go down and walk the streets of Lincoln and walk up to a person on a corner and engage them in conversation and share the Gospel with them and they could be saved right there, they don't know me from Adam.  Well, what saves a person?  Friendship?  I'm not saying God doesn't use friendship in part of His plan and other things, but you understand what the basic issue is here.  Don't get confused.  The Gospel used by the Spirit brings about salvation.  Some of you have had the experience. You've shared the Gospel with someone you met at work and you didn't even hardly know them, and they got saved.  And you've lived with an unsaved family member for many years and pleaded with them to believe in Christ and prayed with them.  And they're still as far away as ever.  Some of these things go beyond understanding.  There are some of these things we need to understand as much as we can, and the fact is man is hopelessly lost and God's only plan is that they hear the Gospel and the Spirit uses the Gospel to turn them to Christ.  So I share the Gospel with someone and I'm discouraged, they didn't believe.  And I say, what did I do wrong, maybe if I had done this, maybe if I had done that.  And they said, I don't believe that God created the world in six days and I don't believe God created it anyway, so ..........  And you're flustered.  But you can say, that doesn't matter right now, you know what really matters is where you're going to spend eternity.  I'm not going to try to convince them of the scientific evidence. Because what?  They're depraved. It's only by faith we understand the worlds were made by God out of nothing, Hebrews 11 says.  So don't get me off the track. I don’t want to hear about Christ.  I don't believe Genesis, I don't believe Revelation, all that hokey-pokey.  Let me ask you, where are you going to spend eternity?  No matter what you believe and don't believe, there is one fact that is settled by Almighty God.  You are a sinner, and the penalty for your sin is death, and that will include eternity in hell, and Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay the penalty for your sin.  And your only hope for salvation is that you turn from your sin and believe in Him.  Why would you reject such love?

Well what about Genesis 1?  No, what about your relationship to the only Savior?  Well what about the book of Revelation and all that hokey stuff?  No, what about where you will spend eternity?  I'm not saying these other things don't have a place, but they can't come into line.  We think, oh, I have to win them, if I just were a little more intellectual, if I just were able to reason and you know they bring up things I'm not prepared for.  What could they bring up you're not prepared for?  Think about it.  They're sinners, they're going to hell.  Jesus Christ is the Savior who died on the cross and He's the only way to heaven.  Now what can they bring up you don't know about as God's child?  Anything else they bring up, I don't want to talk about, because it's irrelevant.  I don't want them to get confused.  You know we go to the doctor and say, I think I have skin cancer, or he looks at me and says, I think you have skin cancer.  I say, this fingernail bothers me a little bit here, let's talk about my fingernail.  But if I have cancer, let's talk about the cancer.  I hope he knows more about the body than I, otherwise I'd want to change doctors.  We go to talk to people about their souls and their eternal destiny, and we're hoping they bring something up.  You understand, they don't have a clue on what's going on, they know nothing of the wisdom of God.  We're saying, Lord, open a door, and we get back home and say, well, I didn't have any opportunity, they didn't say anything.  What did you expect the dummy to say?  He didn't know anything.  Just stand there looking eye-to-eye with a person on their way to an eternal hell, and you know the cure.  We don't say, well, I guess there was no opportunity.  Well, he was there on his way to hell; you were there with the cure.  What more opportunity do we need?
          
We need to have our theology correct.  This is the foundation for the rest of what's going to go on in the church. And if our theology is not correct and the doctrine of man's sinfulness and the necessity of the ministry of the Holy Spirit, everything else is going to pieces, and the drift will only get farther and farther away from the truth.  And we'll think we're helping God out by doing good things and developing plans that we think will soften the depraved heart of man and make him like us.  And therefore, he'll want to be saved.  It is the matter of the Gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit.

The unregenerate man will not receive these things and cannot understand them, but he who is spiritual, verse 15, “appraises all things”, discerns all things, examines all things.  In other words, the unsaved person knows nothing about the work of God in salvation, with true understanding.  So he's in the dark, but the one who is spiritual, the one who has the Spirit understands all things.  I mean we know things about the natural world, some of you have gone to grade school or high school or college and learned things about the world—business, medicine, whatever.  And you also know about spiritual things, you also know about the wonder of God's plan of salvation.  You can examine the unbeliever and you know his condition, as we've been talking about.  You know he's a sinner, you know he's on his way to hell, you know the only hope of salvation is through faith in Christ.  Yet, he looks at you and he can't understand you.  He himself is appraised by no one.  That doesn't mean we're above being examined. It means the unbeliever is not able to understand us, not able to examine us and to reason through, now I know what he is all about.  It still makes no sense.

You know what happened when the Apostle Paul got done preaching the Gospel to Festus?  The Apostle Paul.  Festus said, Paul, you've gone crazy, you're mad, you're insane.  I mean, he couldn't understand Paul, makes no sense.  Humanly speaking, looks like Paul is a well educated man, but you're nuts. You've gone over the edge, Paul.  You're crazy.  He couldn't understand it.  The unregenerate man is not able to examine and have insight into the believer and the work of salvation God has done in him.

“For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him?” (1 Corinthians 2:16)  Paul supports this from Isaiah 40:13. “Who has known the mind of the Lord that he will instruct Him?”  You understand, now we belong to God. It's His work through His Spirit that has been done in our life.  That is the mind of God in His purposes and plans in salvation through the death of His Son that has been brought to us to bring about our salvation.  Well the unregenerate mind cannot understand the plan of God in salvation, so they cannot understand that plan as it is worked out in us.  And none of us could have understood it, either, apart from the enlightening ministry of the Holy Spirit.

But now we have the mind of Christ.  Another way of saying, we have received the Holy Spirit. So we know what is in the mind of Christ, in the mind of God the Father.  We understand salvation, His plan has been revealed.  But even that revelation in the Gospel remains dark until the Holy Spirit comes and brings light to the heart and mind of those that He is going to save.  You say, well, then I just go out and indifferently present the Gospel, they're either saved or not.  You know Paul was as passionate about it, that it would all depend on him.  I quoted you earlier, we beg you in Christ's stead, be reconciled to God.  Paul says earlier in 1 Corinthians 2:3, “I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.”  Paul poured his life into this, his passion was that people would hear and believe in Christ.  But he also understood at the same time, only the Spirit of God can make this effective in a life.  That's why he never took it personally, the rejection.  He never said, I'm going to give up, all I do is cause trouble everywhere I go.  And I'm only making things more difficult.  I go into a city, a town, and things are quiet, what do I do?  In no time at all there is a riot going on.  The few who believe get persecuted and I go to jail or get beat.  I'm just not effective.  Paul saw it as in God's hands, but he was passionate about getting it out.  He'll later tell the Corinthians, we had the treasure of the Gospel in these earthen vessels, these physical bodies, so that all the glory can go to God.  Think about it, you go out here, walk someplace in this city today and you have the message that can bring eternal life to a person who apart from that message will spend all eternity in hell.

Why wouldn't I tell them?  I just don't know that I'd be good at it.  You don't know the Gospel?  Yes, but telling people.  You can't tell the people that they're sinners and they're on their way to hell and that Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay the penalty for sin and they must repent of their sin and believe in Him to be saved?  I can do that, but it won't work.  Maybe we take it on ourselves to think it's our doing that makes it work.  Only the Holy Spirit can make it work.  But I will be accountable for my responsibility in sharing the Gospel.

The first convert that is recorded on the continent of Europe occurred at the city of Philippi, and it was a woman named Lydia.  And that was one of those called conversions, confrontational conversions.  Paul had never met Lydia before, didn't know Lydia, established no friendship, relationship over time with Lydia.  He went out where Lydia and some other women were and he presented the Gospel.  You know what happened?  Listen to Acts 16:14, “and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul.”  Says it all, doesn't it.  Well, there was something about Paul that attracted him, or Paul helped her do the wash, or he helped this, or he helped load the wagon, or he just was so convincing in his arguments.  He presented Jesus Christ and Him crucified, the Lord opened her heart.  All I can do is say, Lord, help me to be clear as I can with the Gospel.  Lord, give me a boldness beyond my own fear with your truth.  And Lord, by your grace may your Spirit open hearts.  What do I pray when I preach?  Lord, open the hearts of people to the truth.  Lord, if your Spirit doesn't do a work in the heart, these will just be empty words that accomplish nothing.  But your Spirit can make them alive, can bring men, women and young people to salvation.  When all is said and done, my responsibility is what?  Present the message so that the Spirit of God can do what only He does, so that the work of God in salvation is accomplished.

Where are you?  I come to this church all the time.  Well, I've heard you preach so many messages I could preach them myself.  Well, all that may be true.  The issue is, has the Spirit of God every opened your blinded eyes so that you saw as never before your sinful condition, that you are lost and that there is only one Savior, Jesus Christ.  And He died on the cross as your substitute to pay your penalty and you turn from your sin and place your faith in Him.  That's the only salvation.  How do I know?  Well, cast yourself on the mercy of God.  If you believe that Jesus Christ died for you, the wretched sinner that you are, that will be an act of God's Spirit working graciously in your life to bring salvation.

Let's pray together.  Thank You, Lord, for the power of the Gospel to bring salvation, because at any time that the Gospel is presented in any place to any person, Your Spirit is at work.  Lord, we realize sometimes we are giving off the savor of Christ and that savor is a savor of death to death.  And sometimes that is given off as a savor of life to life.  We are in awe of the awesome responsibility entrusted to us, but our sufficiency is found in Your Son, Jesus Christ, and His finished work on the cross and the work of Your Spirit in grace to bring His work of grace to bear on a sinful heart, so that the salvation of Your grace can be accomplished.  We praise You in Christ's name, amen.