I want to talk to you today about the mind of Christ, the mind of Christ. And so we've been in a series, of course I haven't preached for a month here, but our theme of our series lately has been the equipping season coming from Ephesians chapter 4 verses 11 through 13 that say this, it says, and he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edification or edifying of the body of Christ, until we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect man or a perfect woman, that word means mature, so that God's gift of the five-fold ministry gifts to the church were for the purpose of equipping the church to do the work of the ministry and for the edification or building up of the church. So any ministry that does not equip and build up, you really have to call into question what the purpose of it is. And he says that these gifts that Jesus gave to his church, the body, were to remain until we all come to the unity of the faith until we all believe the same, until we're all in unison on the way we believe and until we're all in unison of our understanding of the knowledge of Jesus Christ.
And so since we're not there yet, and I don't know anybody that's there yet, this is an ongoing ministry that Jesus has provided to equip the church to do what he's called us to do. And it says until we all become a perfect or a mature man to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. And so what we've been looking at is this thing called the fullness of Christ and that the measure of maturity, the measure of growth in a believer is not, you're not measuring it against where you were yesterday, although that's a measurement. You're not measuring it against your friend or your acquaintance or the pastor or the worship leader or anything, any other leader.
Your measurement of maturity in your growth in your life is measured against the stature of Christ. The Christ himself is the measuring stick that we grade herself on. And so that's the standard. And so as we look through the fullness of Christ, I've touched on three things so far, I've started with the nature of Christ, number one, which was his love.
And then we talked about the gospel of Christ, which is his grace. Let me flip ahead to the next slide there. There we go. And then we went to the word of Christ, the last time I preached, which was we talked about his will or his intention.
And then today we're going to talk about the mind of Christ or his wisdom. And then hopefully next week, should the Lord direct us that way, we'll talk about the works of Christ, which are his power. And if you remember the reason we started with love is because apart from love, you can have the miraculous in your life, you can have the prophetic in your life, you can be very generous, you can have all the faith in the world, but apart from love, it's nothing. You know, Paul says this, he says that, he says, if I speak with tongues of men and angels, but I don't have love, I'm nothing more than a clanging gong or a symbol, that I can be eloquent, I can be a great orator, I can have the greatest be the best speech giver in the world.
And so I'm not as the motivation, I'm just like a gong. And he said, you could have the gift of prophecy so that you understand all mysteries and have all revelation, or that you have all faith so that you can move mountains, but if you don't have love, you're nothing. And he said, I could give my body, give all my money to the poor, give my body to be burned, even in the place of martyrdom, but have not loved, it profits me nothing. And so that love is the foundation of every one of these aspects of the fullness of Christ that we're going to talk about, because any of them, by themselves, apart from love, become really pointless.
And so today as we look at the mind of Christ, how many were here last week? And didn't Seth do a phenomenal job last week? Yeah. I was on the airplane when Seth preached and supposed to have internet, but of course I didn't.
You can't always control that, but I got to watch in the next morning when I got to my layover before we took off the fly. And I got to lift weights and listen to Seth, it was a great welcome back. But I just loved how he had the chairs. And I told him he did just a phenomenal job because I didn't physically watch the video, but I listened to the audio.
And so if you can paint a picture of what you're describing without somebody seeing it visually, that's a great job. And what Seth said, I could see it happening in my mind as he's saying it. And if I remember right, there was, I guess, Ray and Evie and Amy and Paul, I believe, were up here, right? And then he's talking about having this reserved seat that we're seated with Christ in heavenly places.
And this reserved seat is here for you. And that when we sit in the seat that was reserved for us, it gives us a completely different perspective on things, right? I even love how you said it. And if you look out and you see seats that are empty, those seats are reserved for somebody that's not here yet, and we have work to do.
And so what I want to talk to you about today, that the mind of Christ being released through the wisdom of God is this, because it says in Philippians, it says, let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God. So here's Jesus. He's at the right hand of the Father, right? He has been with the Father for all of eternity.
And he was in the form of God, he was God, becoming God was not something for him that he had to grasp at. He didn't have to go do anything because he was God. It says, who being in the form of God thought it not robbery, Philippians chapter 2 verse 5, and following, it says, who being in the form of God thought it not robbery be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation. That means that he realized from his position that he needed to set aside his God-like divinity, not that he didn't become God or didn't stay God, but he restricted himself.
It said, he became, he said, he became of no reputation. And that he took upon him the form of a servant, and that he was made in the likeness of us. And that said that he, in being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. So that even from his position here, it moved him to come down here.
And see, that's what wisdom does. That's what wisdom does because wisdom is different than knowledge. Wisdom is different than understanding. Knowledge is the accumulation of information.
You can have a lot of book smarts, you can gather information, you can have knowledge. But that doesn't mean you know what it says. You can memorize a verse out of the Bible and have no idea what it means. Understanding is a little bit different.
Understanding is being able to comprehend the information that you've accumulated. So you can grab onto a verse, and now as you begin to meditate in it, it begins to make sense to you. But wisdom is a little different because wisdom is the proper application of the knowledge and understanding that you have. And wisdom actually puts into action the thing that you understand and know.
So that the wisdom of God is not just something that we have access to in order to get smarter. It's not like we're getting God's brain and you're going to be able to do quantum physics. Now you may be able to, but the purpose of the mind of Christ is one, it's that we have this perception like Seth was talking about that we perceive from an eternal realm. We take an eternal perspective on life.
But number two, it's that understanding that we have access into unlimited resources that transcend physical realities. So that no matter what you're dealing with on earth, that you can tap into an access, unlimited resources in Christ that actually are greater than or they transcend anything that you might be going through here. But then finally, tapping into the mind of Christ is not just the eternal perspective. It's not just the access to the unlimited resource of the way God thinks and understands and all that, but it's actually the release of the wisdom of God into another wise hopeless situation.
That I can see something that somebody's going through or that I'm going through and I can tap into the resources of God and release either through word or action something that will bring hope to another wise hopeless situation. The wisdom of God. That's why Solomon, if we think about Solomon up until Jesus, oh my goodness, hold on, this is really weird, I'm sorry. Oh.
That is so weird. That came off my clip in the back here. That's a little bigger than a rock in your shoe. I'm like, what in the world?
So Solomon, other than up until Jesus, the wisest man, he says, he says, get wisdom. That wisdom is the principle thing. He tells us in the book of Proverbs, get understanding, get knowledge, all those things, but wisdom is the principle thing. And we have access to the wisdom of God through this thing called the mind of Christ.
And so right when I got to church, I told Seth, I said, I need to preach this message backwards. I felt like God wanted me to reverse the order of it. So I'm going to start in the middle and I'm going to start with what I was going to end with and then I'll finish with what I was going to start with. So hopefully it will all make sense and we'll trust God to put the pieces together.
So the mind of Christ comes from 1 Corinthians 2, which will be our text. We're going to look at a good bit of scripture today because it all is applicable to this one thing. So in totality, we're going to look at 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verses 6 through verse 16. And then we're also going to look at the next chapter, chapter 3 of the first four verses.
But it says this, who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him? There's Paul quoting from the book of Isaiah when he says that. He says, God bless you. He says, we have the mind of Christ.
We have the mind of Christ. Say that. I have the mind of Christ. So there's an aspect to the you as an individual believer where you have the mind of Christ.
But there's also a collective aspect that we collectively have the mind of Christ together because I think that as we talk about wisdom, and one thing that goes with wisdom is always revelation that God gives revelation to certain mysteries to certain people and he doesn't necessarily give all revelation to all people. And so that collectively we're able to exhibit the mind of Christ. It says that we have the mind of Christ. So think about that.
Think about having access to the mind of God where there's no limitations, where there's no, you know, I think mental blocks. You know, a lot of times in life we deal with mental blocks and you're going to see, we read the scripture, you're going to see in the Christian life, there are quote unquote, mental blocks that keep you from accessing the mind of Christ. A mental block is a psychological barrier that inhibits you from thinking correctly, deciding, be able to make a decision and then following it up with an action. It's actually a block that's, it's so blocked to your thought process that I can't think, decide or even act.
And so I got to ask this is if Paul says we have the mind of Christ, why do we have a bunch of stupid Christians? Why do we have a lot of Christians that have never tapped into the wisdom of God? Why do we have Christians that live a life that looks more like the world and that of Christ? There's got to be a reason.
The word mind means this, it's new in the Greek. It means the faculties of perceiving and understanding those of feeling judging determining. It's the intellectual faculty understanding capacity for spiritual truth, perceiving divine things. I like this part.
The power of considering this is one see and judging soberly, calmly and impartially. Like it's the ability to assess a situation and make a decision without having a natural bias one way or the other. See what happens as we live lives, we develop natural biases. But the mind of Christ allows us to assess something without being inhibited by a natural bias of any sort and being able to make an impartial decision, an unbiased and balanced decision.
And to do it calmly, a particular mode of thinking, judging, eye, thoughts, feelings, purposes and desires. So that's what we're going for today. We're going for the fullness of Christ in this aspect, the mind of Christ. So we're going to start at the end of this passage and start with 1 Corinthians 1, 2 verses 12, read through 16.
Let me just get my Bible to be easier than flipping around. 1 Corinthians 2, let me ask you guys a question. If we got rid of the PowerPoint, how many people would have their Bible? Okay, fair number.
I feel like I'm inhibited by the PowerPoint now after not having one for all last week. But all right, it says this in verse 12. It says, we have received not the spirit of the world but the spirit who is from God that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. We have received in the Greek that's written in the tense, that's actually a statement of fact.
It's not like it's a fact that means that something has occurred or it will occur. Like if you've accepted Jesus, you have received his spirit. That's a fact. But listen to the next thing, it says, we have received not the spirit of the world but the spirit who is from God that we might know.
That's in the subjunctive mood, which means this. It's the mood of possibility and potential. It means that there is a chance that something may occur or may not occur. Just because you have the spirit of God in you is not a guarantee that you're going to tap into the mind of Christ.
The potential is there. The ability is there. God's willingness is there because he gave you his spirit. But the fact of whether it happens or not is going to be dependent on you.
You have his spirit, but the ability, whether it's going to happen or not, that we may know, that we might know the things that are freely given to us by God. These things we speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual words or spiritual people. You can translate that either way. Now here's where I want to draw attention here because Paul's going to list three different types of people.
He's going to list three different types of people. And it's important to know the three people that he lists because depending on which category you fall in is going to determine whether or not you have the ability and the propensity to access the mind of Christ. So let me give him to you up front. He talks first about the natural man.
We have the natural man. The second one he's going to mention is the spiritual man. And the third one that he mentions over in chapter three, which is why we need to tie it together, is the carnal man. The natural man, the spiritual man, and the carnal man.
Now what we're going to find out is we read this, both the spiritual man and the carnal man are Christians. They're in Christ. They're believers. But there's a difference.
He says this. He says, now the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. Neither can he know them because they're spiritually discerned. The natural man is talking about a man or a woman who has never encountered Christ, a person who has never been born again, a person who is unregenerate, so that when Jesus, remember when he met Nicodemus and he said to Nicodemus, he says that unless you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God.
And Nicodemus says, well, how can a man, once he is old, enter second time into his mother's womb and be born again? And Jesus says, unless you were born of the water and of the Spirit, you cannot enter the kingdom of God. For that which is born of flesh is flesh and that which is born of spirit is spirit. So apart from being born again, you have no capacity within yourself at all to receive things from God because those things are delivered to you by God's Spirit.
And unless you're saved, you do not have the Spirit of God in you. And he says that the natural man not only doesn't receive these things, but he doesn't comprehend these things. Like they don't make sense to him. We did an outreach last week.
I can't remember how many things of food we gave out. But in talking to one of the people, one of the things I heard him say was he said, I don't understand why you do what you do. Now this person was not saved yet, but he didn't have the capacity within himself to understand the reason behind why we do what we do. See, he might see the things.
See the natural man could be this. You might be very intelligent. You might be a teacher. You might be a doctor.
You might be an attorney. You might be the biggest philanthropist in the world. You might be a very good person. You might be a nurse or you might take care of people.
But apart from having a born again experience, no matter how intelligent you are. No matter how caring you are. No matter how compassionate you are. No matter how educated you are.
No matter how far you've gone in the business world without the spirit of God in you, you cannot discern or understand things from God. It's impossible. As a matter of fact, they sound like foolishness. And so number one is the natural man.
And that might be somebody here today. If you've never had an encounter with Jesus Christ where you've made him Lord of your life, you're that person. You're the natural man. You don't have the capacity within you.
One of the things I want to say this, he says, but he who is spiritual, judges or discerns all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one or discerned by no one, for who has known the mind of the Lord that we may instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ. And then chapter three verse one says this. He says, I brethren could not speak to you as spiritual. Uh oh.
So Paul's talking to the Corinthian church and he says, okay, you're not natural. You're saved. You have the spirit of God in you. But I can't talk to you as spiritual people.
He says, I can't speak to you as spiritual people, but as to carnal, as babes in Christ. So how do we know these people are believers? Because they are in Christ. See if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation.
Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new and all things are of God. So that if you're in Christ, you're saved. So these people that Paul's talking to, he says, hey, I want to impart wisdom to you, but I can't because you're still a baby Christian.
And when I talked to you last time, you were a baby Christian and now I'm talking to you again. And you're still a baby Christian. He said, I fed you with milk and not with solid food. And then you were not able to digest it or bear it.
And even now you're still not able. So that's a sad state. That's a sad state. If you have a baby and right when you have a baby, what do you feed a baby?
Milk. But if that baby becomes an adolescent and they're still drinking from a bottle and then they become a young adult and they're still drinking from a bottle and then they're, they get married and they get a wife, but they're still going back to their mother and drinking from a bottle. Right? It might be somebody you like that still today, but they have had time to mature.
They've had time to develop, but for some reason they haven't. He says, I fed you with milk until now you were not able to receive and even now you're unable. For you are still carnal. Now carnal just means this, fleshly.
It means pertaining to the flesh. It means seeing things that the flesh is a greater reality than what pertains to you in the spirit realm. That you relate more to the natural, to the fleshly realm than the spiritual. See, you got to be careful when you read about the flesh in the Bible because the flesh really can mean three things.
Let me just divert you for a minute because when you talk about the flesh sometimes people get, so the flesh sometimes when Paul writes, the flesh can refer to your old sin nature. The old you that you were born with that you received because you inherited it from Adam. Right? That can be your old sin nature.
He said, Jesus, the old nature dies and you get a new nature. Jesus died, Romans 6, 11 says that Jesus died once to sin. And he says, reckon yourself likewise dead to sin. And so the same way Jesus died once to sin, how many times do we die to sin?
One time. And so you get a new nature in you. But then the flesh can also be this. The flesh can just mean that the stuff on the outside of your bones.
But then the other thing the flesh can mean, it can mean the residual effects of the old man that used to be in you that's no longer in you. That he had some leftovers that were left here. That the way we think and the way we act were polluted because this part of you is new, but this part of you is getting renewed. See it says, that's why Paul says in Romans 8, he says, to be carnally minded is death.
To be spiritually minded is life and peace. And so what happens is if you're a Christian who is a carnal Christian, you actually can live a life that looks a lot like an unsaved person. Because you carry the title of a Christian, but you don't exhibit the behavior to back up the title that you carry. Like you're like, I'm a Christian.
Oh yeah, I never would have known it by the way you live. Because you're carnally minded. And when you're carnally minded and it says that to be carnally minded is death, it doesn't mean that you're going to hell. It just means that when you're carnally minded, that as a believer, you're experiencing the effects of death in your life.
You're giving the enemy an in-road to steal, kill, and destroy and take from you what God actually wants to put into you and has given you through Jesus. And he said that some of you are still carnal. He said for where there is envy and strife and divisions. Remember I said collectively, ideally God's intention is collectively we demonstrate the mind of Christ.
But if I am, and this envy means actually a contentious jealousy. Like if I'm contending for what you have, I'm never going to be able to receive and release what God wants me to have. Because I'm more worried about you. See, it's not a competition.
We're not competing with one another. We're working as the body that has many parts that some parts are for more honor, some for less honor. But that we're all one and that we need each other. It says where there's envy, where there's strife.
That means arguing. That means contention. I mean, all you need to do is go open up your Facebook feed and you'll find Christians arguing over doctrine. I'm all about doctrine.
Like I love doctrine. But how the enemy gets us sidetracked from the mission to argue doctrine with other believers to keep us from releasing the wisdom of God that we should be releasing into the world. He said there's envy, strife, divisions. He says are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?
See unsafe people can act that way. What sets us apart? The unsafe people can envy. Unsafe people can argue and quarrel.
Unsafe people can be divisive and have disunity. See, we'll never collectively reflect the mind of Christ if we separate. And he goes on to even make a further point. And I won't be labored, but he says in verse four he says when one says I'm of Paul and another says I'm of Apollos, are you not carnal?
Well I'm a Pauline Christian. I follow the teachings of Paul. I'm an Apollonian Christian. I follow Apollos.
Of course he was a Greek god. We don't do that today, right? I'm a reformed Christian. I'm an evangelical Christian.
I'm a liberal Christian. I'm a conservative Christian. I'm a black Christian. I'm a white Christian.
I'm a Baptist Christian. I'm a Catholic Christian. Anytime you put an adjective in front of Christian, you've just diminished the name of Christ. See, we want to attach adjectives onto our identity.
When shouldn't just being a Christian, shouldn't that say it all? I mean, we get so worked up about identifying what type of Christian we are, we just watered down the message. And when we put the adjective in front of our identity, by putting the adjective first, we naturally create division within the body. Because all of a sudden whatever adjective I attach to my identity won't mind the right one.
Well if I'm a Pauline Christian, obviously you're thinking wrong. And so I've come to a place in my Christian walk where even if I don't initially agree with somebody, I have to honor the fact that God is in them. I have to honor the fact that God's still working through them. And it just might be that God may be have given them a piece of revelation and wisdom that I didn't give to me.
Imagine that. And then I need that person. But to the degree that I live in envy, strife, contention, division, attaching adjectives to who I am, I'll never release the fullness of the wisdom of God into a situation or a life that probably needs to see him. And so it comes time for us to lay that stuff down.
It's time for us to quit living at a lower level and start living from the perspective that Pastor Seth was talking about last week. See, when you live down there, you get caught up in all that stuff. But when you start from there, now I can come down in humility and start applying the wisdom that I received from there. So you have the spiritual man.
See, the spiritual man is a little different. And I don't know that anybody ever gets to a place where you can say that you've attained all spirituality. I think it's an ongoing thing. But let me just give you a couple of things.
I think our key to being a spiritual man or woman, because so first and foremost, you need to be saved. Like a carnal Christian is saved. You need to have the Holy Spirit. When you accept Jesus, the Holy Spirit comes to live in you.
So you need to be indwelled by the Holy Spirit. You need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. You need to receive the baptism that Jesus gives that releases power into your life to be a witness, to unlock the gifts of the Holy Spirit in your life. You need to have an understanding of who you are in Christ.
You need to have a realization of who I am in Christ and who Christ is in me. You need to be submitted to the Word of God to the place where there's ongoing transformation taking place in your life. See, a lot of people like, well, they love the encounter with the Holy Spirit, but they don't want to take part in the transformation. Like I'm all about the encounter, but there's a transformation that takes place, that takes place by getting in God's Word, renewing your mind, not being transformed to this world, or not being conformed to this world, but being transformed.
That beholding, that in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, that getting in His presence, getting in His Word, that we're being transformed from one level of glory to another, even by the Spirit of the Lord, that He's doing an ongoing work in my life. Like I'm not there yet, but I'm allowing Him to transform and change me. And I think another key aspect of being spiritual is this, is that you're submitted as an act of your will to the leadership of the Holy Spirit in your life. See, I can tell you examples of so many people that have gotten saved, have had radical encounters with the Holy Spirit, but on a day-to-day basis, do not submit to His leadership in their life.
See, there's a difference. You can have a one-day encounter, but submission of your will and allowing Him to lead you and guide you and walk it out in obedience is an ongoing thing. See, the reason I want to say this is it's an act of your will is because just like when you accept Jesus, He doesn't force you to do it, He will honor your choice. He doesn't force you to get saved.
He doesn't force you to follow Him and allow Him to lead you either. See, if you ever talk to somebody that says, well, the Holy Spirit forced me to do it, I got a question at it because that's not His nature. See, if the Holy Spirit ever forces you to do it, that's oppression and not obedience. And what God desires is willing obedience.
That I made a conscious decision to lay down my rights and submit to what He wants me to do. So you remember I said that you died to sin once, or you died to flesh daily. And the way you died to flesh is actually through the submission of the Holy Spirit. It's a lot of people like, I got to die to flesh.
I got to die to flesh. I got to die to flesh every day. Well, it's not that hard. Walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the desires of flesh.
So it's not to focus on dying to the flesh. The focus is on submitting to the Holy Spirit. And as you submit to the Holy Spirit, daily, hourly, minute by minute, those things just naturally, supernaturally, fall off. And it's much easier than we make it out to be.
So let's wrap up here. I want to give you a couple things about the wisdom of God. So let's just finish this up and go back to verse 6. Let me give them to you quick because we don't have a lot of time.
I don't want to keep you here all day. Write these down. Wisdom of God. Number one, it is otherworldly.
The wisdom of God is otherworldly. The wisdom of God is hidden for us. The wisdom of God is predestined for us. And the wisdom of God is revealed to us by His Spirit.
It's otherworldly. The wisdom of God is otherworldly. The wisdom of God is hidden for us. The wisdom of God is predestined or ordained for us.
And the wisdom of God is revealed to us by the Spirit. All right, let's go through these real quick. All right, so verse 6 says this. So notice how Paul starts out.
However, we speak the wisdom of God among those who are baby Christians. Look up there. What's it say? Even when he starts this out, does not release wisdom to immature Christians because they're not ready to receive it.
And that's what he's addressing in chapter 3. He says, we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew, for had they known they would have not crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, I has not seen nor ear heard nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love him. But He has revealed them to us through His Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things.
Yes, the deep things of God, for what man knows the things of a man except the Spirit of the man which is in him. Even so, no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. All right, number one. Next slide.
The wisdom of God is otherworldly, which means it's not of this age. Like if I want to get wisdom from this world, I can get it, right? It's not hard to get. There's no lack of Dr.
Phil's in the world. They will give you all kinds of insight and they'll give you all kinds of opinions. But the wisdom that God releases is otherworldly. It's not of this age, which means it's not of this world.
It comes from another realm. Like if I'm going to receive something from God, it's not coming from here, right? What did Jesus say to the disciples? He says, you are in the world, but you are not of the world.
So if I'm not of this world, why would I want to receive wisdom that came from this world? Like if I'm not of this world, I want wisdom that's not of this world because that's where I'm at. See, he says that we speak wisdom to the mature, but not wisdom of this age. It doesn't come from here, nor does it come from the rulers of this age.
That word ruler means this. It means anybody because of either nobility by birth or by wisdom or natural intelligence or by power or authority has influence. What do we call those people today on social media? Influencers.
I found out yesterday the most influential person in the world is a Portuguese soccer player. As the most social media followers in the world, hundreds of millions. Why? See, there's no lack of influencers in this world, but there's only one influencer that matters.
So you can seek wisdom anywhere, but that's not the wisdom Paul's talking about. He said, we're not giving you wisdom from this world. I'm not giving you wisdom that comes from the influencers of this world, no matter how intelligent, no matter how honored, no matter how revered they might be, but I'm giving you wisdom that's otherworldly. I'm going to release something into you that actually is going to last because it's the wisdom that comes from this world is coming to nothing.
It might be good today. It might make sense today, but it doesn't stand the test of time. See, God's wisdom was wisdom in eternity past. God's wisdom will still be wisdom in eternity future.
See, it doesn't, that's, I mean, he didn't call himself the author and the finisher of our faith for another reason. It's because he's the first in the last. He's at the beginning and the end and his wisdom then and his wisdom now and later will still stand the test of time. James says this in James chapter three, he says, the wisdom that descends, the wisdom, speaking of earthly wisdom does not come from above, but it's earthly.
There's that word natural, same as the natural man. And it's also, look at this demonic. See, if you tap into the wisdom that comes from this realm, you have given the enemy access to direct your life. If I tap into anything other than the wisdom of God that comes from another realm, then I tapped into the demonic.
You know, I'm against all those things. You're like, oh, we'll get the Ouija boards and, and, you know, you got all those things, tarot cards, like they're obvious, right? Those are obvious. But when you tap into natural, earthly wisdom, it's the same thing.
It's demonic in nature. It says where, but hey, look, same things Paul talked about where there is jealousy, selfishness, where is disorder in every evil practice. The wisdom that comes from another world, it's first pure. It means it's motives are right.
It means I'm motivated by love and not by trying to, to use my wisdom to take advantage of the situation. It's pure. It brings peace. It's gentle.
It's accommodating. Full of mercy. There's good fruit. Like if you look at the fruit of wisdom, it's good fruit.
It's lasting fruit. It's impartial. Remember I talked about being able to look into a situation not being biased based on the way that you were raised, not being biased based on the place that you live or came from, but you can release wisdom that's impartial. It transcends natural wisdom and it's not hypocritical.
That's God's wisdom. Many believers today, I believe, don't exhibit the mind of Christ because they settled for the wisdom that now is instead of the wisdom that came from the age beyond. Like they're tapped into today's age. They're tapped into today, the wisdom of today instead of the wisdom that came from beyond.
And above. God's wisdom. Number two is this. The wisdom of God is hidden for us, not from us.
We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom. See when God hides something, he hides it not so we can't get it. He hides it for us. He hides it to protect it.
It says that the rulers of this world knew that they'd en crucifying Jesus, they would have slipped around and float. They never would have done it. But God kept that mystery hidden until the right time. And that it says in Proverbs 25, it says it is the glory of God to conceal the matter, but it's the glory of kings to search it out.
See you are royalty. And it's a dimension of the glory of God to hide something. But it's a dimension of the glory he gave you to search it out, to investigate. God, I know there's an answer here.
God, I know that you, this didn't take you by surprise. I know that you have an answer for the situation that I'm in. And I'm going to spend time in your word. I'm going to spend time in prayer until you give me the answer I'm looking for.
It says in Jeremiah 33, it says, call unto me and I will show you great and mighty things that you know not. See the word great actually means they're incomprehensible. That God has things for you that are so big, they're beyond your mind. They're beyond your ability to even think about it.
They're incomprehensible. He says, call unto me, I'll show you great and mighty. The word mighty doesn't mean strong. It actually means fenced in and inaccessible.
That he will show you incomprehensible things that are actually inaccessible. But all you have to do is ask. Because see what he did, he put a fence around them to protect them from the enemy. Because as soon as the enemy understands God's plan, then he can step in and try to mess with your life.
But God protects them from him until the right and appropriate time. And you can say, God, I need an answer. I know that in eternity past, you fenced in the answer. You kept it protected.
And now I'm asking you to reveal it to me. They're big. See, he doesn't hide it to keep it from you. He hides it for you.
And sometimes he hides it to keep it from you. Just until the right time. Because sometimes if you found out prematurely how big God's thoughts are for you, you might run away. Like I can tell you if ten years ago, if God told me ten years ago, then I'd be standing here today, I wouldn't be here today.
Because I'd have been like, I'm out of here. So sometimes he's protecting you from you. Because if you knew what he had for you too early, you'd mess it up. So he protects it.
He fortifies it. He keeps it in eternity, actually hidden in himself. It says the wisdom of God number three was predestined. Which means in eternity past, billions of years ago, God had a destiny for you.
And His destiny included you being able to release the mind of Christ, not for His glory, but for our glory. See, you're like, well, I'm not going to steal God's glory. You can't steal His glory because He gave it to you. Like if you give me something, she gave me this book.
You gave me the book, right? Okay, it's my book. She gave me the book. You steal the book?
No, because she gave it to me. Jesus said this, He says to the Father, the glory that you've given me, I have given them. Paul says the mystery that was hidden for all the ages, but is now revealed to all the saints is Christ in you the hope of glory. That God actually shares His glory with you because when you reflect Him, it brings glory to us, which in turn what?
Gives glory to Him. See, He predestined it. He set this thing in motion billions of years ago and then protected it for the right time. Look at Ephesians chapter 3, I'm going really fast.
It says, and to make see what is the fellowship of the mystery, that means that we all participate in this mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God. Think about that. God sets His mystery up and He hides it in Him. Now, who's going to be able to access that?
Only the ones in Him or His Spirit and then His Spirit takes it from Him and gives it to you, but the enemy can't get to it because it's in God. It says, hidden in God who created all things through Jesus to the intent now that the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in heavenly places according to the eternal purpose. So this is God's intent. This is God's eternal purpose that the church would actually display His wisdom to the principalities and powers that He's already defeated.
It's like Jesus, it says, when He defeated the enemy, He made a public spectacle of Him, which in the time it means He'd drug Him through the streets naked and showed Him off. But we get to rub His nose in it. It says that the church could display the manifold wisdom to the principalities and powers. We get to flex at the devil.
We get to rub His nose in it. Like you're defeated. Jesus defeated you. You were defeated at the cross 2000 years ago.
Now let me show you what this wisdom looks like. Let me bring up your past. See He has a past He can never escape. Your past is gone.
You get to keep reminding Him and reminding Him and reminding Him that He's defeated. But you don't do it if you don't display the manifold wisdom of God. And the last one is this, the wisdom of God is revealed to us by His Spirit. God has revealed them to us by His Spirit.
So here's all these things that for billions of years God has intended for you. Major things. Your destiny in life. Your destiny to access His mind, His way of thinking, His wisdom, His insights into every situation in life God has the answer.
And He's protected it. But the only person that knows the things of God is the Spirit of God. Just like it said, nobody knows the things of man except the Spirit of man in him. Nobody knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.
And the Spirit of God says searches all things. Like there's nothing that the Spirit of God can't find. He searches all things, yes, the deep things of God so that we may know the things freely given to us by God. So all the things that God has for you, you don't have to earn a single one of them.
You just have to get rid of the fleshly mindset. You've got to get rid of the envy, the strife, the condention, the division and start living as a spiritual man or woman and dwelled by the Holy Spirit, filled with the Holy Spirit, submitted to the transforming power of the Word of God in your life, submitted willingly to the leadership of the Holy Spirit in your life. And then asked the Holy Spirit, what is the answer for my problem? What is the answer for this situation?
And then Jesus says this, He says the Spirit will take from what is mine and declare it to you. And as all things the Father has are mine, the Holy Spirit will take from what is mine and He'll speak it to you. But you apart from a relationship with God have no access to that. Like there's no access.
A natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God because they are spiritually discerned and they're actually foolishness. If you're here today and you don't have a relationship with God, you have no access to any of this. But you can change that. If you're here today and you've accepted Jesus, but you're living carnally.
You're living substandard. You're living focused on the natural realm and not anchored in the realm of the Spirit. Then you have a mental block. You have an impediment that the things that God has for you are here and you're here in Him.
But there's something because you're paying more attention here than here that the Spirit of God is not able to reveal to you and you're not able to display to the world the things that God has for them. She wisdom is tangible. The wisest man in the Old Testament, Solomon. When the Queen of Sheba came halfway around the world or ever far she came, she came to hear the wisdom.
We think of wisdom. What do we think of? Words. She came to hear the wisdom of Solomon.
When she got there, she saw things. She saw the way his table was set. She saw the way his attendants dressed professionally. She saw the way that they served.
She saw how ornate the palace was. She saw how Solomon ascended and descended the stairway to the temple. She said, everything I ever heard about your wisdom, the half of it was not told to me. But now I see it.
Now I see it. And there's not breath left in me. Like when you actually put the wisdom of God on display, it's discernible even by unsaved people. That they can see something different.
There's like they know something. They demonstrate something. The way they carry themselves. The way they go about their life.
The way they drive to work. The way they shop at the market. The way they keep their lawn. The way that they raise their kids.
Their life demonstrates or should demonstrate the mind of Christ. But you can't tap into that apart from the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit, it's not possible. And with the Holy Spirit, you need to live submitted to him.
And then it's limitless. It's unlimited. Unlimited resources. Unlimited answers that transcend any physical reality you'd ever experience.
Let's pray.