Alright brethren, let's turn
to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Now you know some in the church
at Corinth were exalting certain preachers over other preachers. And they were not doing that
by the wisdom of God. They were doing that because
of their flesh. They were picking out something
positive or something negative about the preacher and they were
exalting one over the other. So writing under the power of
God, Paul writes here and he made it clear throughout that
first chapter that it was on purpose on purpose, that God
chose a foolish means to call His people. The foolishness of
preaching. It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. And He made clear that
on purpose God chose foolish, weak men with infirmities to
preach that gospel. And he made it clear that it
was on purpose that God chose for His preachers not to preach
with excellency of speech, or the excellency of wisdom, or
in the enticing words of man's wisdom, but in simplicity. Preaching
the truth of God, the truth of His Word clearly, distinctly,
so that it could not be misunderstood what they were saying. Let me
show you an example over in Acts chapter 4. Hold your place there
in 1 Corinthians 2. Let's look at Acts 4, just a
minute. Remember this is where Peter had healed the impotent
man and the rulers had brought him, put him in prison and they
all gathered up one day and they asked Peter this question in
verse 7. They said, when they had set these in the midst, they
asked, by what power or by what name have you done this? Then
Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost. This is the only way Peter could
have done this. You know, men will read this
and say, I don't know if I would have had the boldness to stand
there in front of all these powerful men and say what Peter said.
You would if the Holy Ghost did speak in you, and that's the
only way. That's the only way. Look at this. He said, You rulers
of the people and elders of Israel, if we this day be examined of
the good deed done to the impotent man by what means he's made whole,
be it known unto you all and to all the people of Israel that
by the name of Jesus of Nazareth... Now, if Peter had said that,
it would have been true. It would have been true. But
you see, that would not have been offensive to them. Peter spoke because he knew what
it was that they were denying, what it was they were rejecting
about Christ. Now listen to how he answered.
He said, Now this right here, this is not the wisdom of words.
This is speaking clearly. This is speaking so that you
cannot be mistaken on whom you're talking about. Watch what he
said here. He said, Be it known unto you all and to all the people
of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom
ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, Even by Him, to
this man stand here before you whole, this is the stone which
was set at naught of you builders, which is become the head of the
corner." And He don't stop. Neither is there salvation in
any other. For there is none other name
under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Do you see how He didn't use
wisdom of words? He spoke Clearly. They understood
by whose name He did this. Now that's speaking without the
wisdom of words. That's speaking clearly. Clearly. Christ, when He preached the
Gospel, He used illustrations. Very often He used illustrations. We know and He knew that no man
can believe except he be born of the Spirit of God and taught
by Christ Himself. But he made sure just in the
preaching of the Gospel that his disciples understood clearly
what he was saying. And God could speak far above
our heads. But you look in the Scriptures
and there's metaphors and similes and pictures and types and all
these things that God's given us to make the Gospel understandable
for us. just in our limited capacity
to even grasp these great eternal truths of our God. I mean, you
look at the Old Covenant and look at political Israel and
look at their king and look at the tabernacle and the high priest
and the offerings and all that. Every bit of that Old Testament
economy was God painting a picture for us. I think it's so So strange that man, God speaks,
you know, and He says He has hands, and He says that He has
a mouth, and He says that He has eyes and all this, and God's
a spirit. He doesn't have hands and eyes
and mouth, but He speaks like that so we can get an understanding
of God. And some wise men will come along
and he'll say, well, that's a, what do they call it, an anthropomorphism
or whatever it's called. And then it's such a big word
that he has to explain to you what it is. Well, that's God
saying he has hands and he has feet. Well, God did that so that
we could understand him, so that we wouldn't have to listen to
haughty religious folks like you that want to impress us with
your knowledge. Isn't that crazy though that they make this big
$25 word that you have to explain what it means when it's defining
something that God did to make it simple. On purpose God chose that it
would only be God that would reveal the gospel in the heart
of His child. He did that on purpose. He did
that on purpose. His servants We're not to use
harsh words and harsh means and things
like that, like the self-righteous Pharisees to try to force folks
to repent and believe on Christ. We're not to use the enticing,
alluring, that kind of baiting and all that that religion uses
to try to coerce folks into making a profession of faith. We're not to use any of those
things whatsoever. These preachers are not to preach
over men's heads, and they're to preach simple and clearly.
Try to make it clear in everything. The first thing I ask Melinda
after every message, she knows the first question when we get
in the car, was it clear? Was it clear? That's my number
one, was it clear? I know I can't make you hear
it, I know I can't make anybody believe it, but I don't want
you to misunderstand it because I wasn't clear about it. Now,
you know, we don't, and when we preach in this simplicity,
Paul made it clear here too that we're to wait on the Lord to
work repentance and faith in His people. Declare the gospel,
preach the truth, wait on Christ to do it. And it would do no
good for me to preach the Gospel to you and call you up Sunday
afternoon and come over to your house and try to sit there and
browbeat you to believe and understand what I preach. That's not going
to help you. That's not going to make you
believe in the heart. Not at all. Not at all. The reason Moses
is called Meek above all men in the earth. Moses is leading
a million people through the wilderness. And if you read about
those million people he's leading through the wilderness, it wasn't
an easy job. But Moses is called meek because
Moses didn't resort to his own wisdom and his own power to affect
anything in the Lord's people. He told them what the Lord said
and he waited on the Lord to work the work in the hearts of
the people. to work grace in the hearts of
His people and to subdue our enemies. That's what made Moses
meek. Whenever Gorah came and was trying
to cause division, Moses is called meek because you know what Moses
did? He hid his face before the Lord, trusting the Lord. That's
right. So Paul says here, God's preachers
are not wise before men. Our means, preaching itself,
is not wise before men. We don't preach with our wisdom
and with our power. And our message, even that which
is the subject of our preaching, it's not wise before men. Verse
6, now here's our text, 1 Corinthians 2, 6. Howbeit, howbeit, we speak
wisdom. Now, we are not wise. This means is not regarded as
wise. We don't use wisdom of the word,
but we speak wisdom. We are preaching the greatest,
grandest, highest, most profound wisdom there is. Now look at
this. But it's only wisdom among them
that are perfect, mature. That's what the word means. Yet
not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world
that come to nothing. But we speak the wisdom of God
in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before
the world unto our glory, unto our salvation. Verse 8, which
none of the princes of this world knew. And here's how we know
that they didn't know. For had they known, they would
not have crucified the Lord of glory. Now, the simple message
I want you to get tonight is Christ is wisdom to those that
Christ has made wise. Christ is wisdom to those he's
made wise. Now, first of all, the gospel
is only wisdom to those that have been made wise. It's only wisdom to those that
have been made wise. Look at verse 6. Howbeit we speak
wisdom among them that are perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world,
nor the power of this world. It's not of the princes, the
rule of this world. It's not their wisdom or their
power, because that comes to nothing. But now, this word perfect
here, it means them that are come to maturity. It means them
that are come to wisdom. Maturity and wisdom. Now this
is brought about through the preaching of Christ crucified. There's one means God's using. It's the preaching of Christ
crucified. Doesn't that fly in the face of our pride and our
arrogancy? And through the preaching of
Christ crucified, God brings His child to this wisdom. We
don't bring ourselves to it. He's going to use this means,
and we're not even going to be the ones to bring ourselves to
it. And it's through the preaching of Christ crucified that God
brings us to this end. That's what the word means, the
end. Perfect. When you're perfect, you've reached
the end. That's what the word means. And
He brings us to this end. to Christ our wisdom. That's
the end for which the gospel is sent forth to his child, to
bring us to Christ our wisdom. And when you've been given the
knowledge of Christ, and you've been made to grow up into Christ,
and the more you see Christ as your wisdom, Christ as your power,
the less you trust your wisdom in your power. That's just how
it works. The more you grow and are matured
by grace and grown in the knowledge of Christ and His wisdom and
His power, His righteousness, His holiness, the more you cease
looking to your own, to anything about yourself. That's how He
works. It was done by Christ, it was
done through the truth of Christ, and it was done through the preaching
of the Word by a vessel that Christ Himself sent. And when God's made you to behold
this, all of this in Christ, Christ the truth, Christ sending
the truth and Christ making the truth wisdom unto you, that's
when Christ has made wisdom unto you. That's when we'll stop trying
to use other wisdom and other tactics and other means and we'll
just trust Christ. Just Christ. This is His glory. This is His resurrection glory.
Look over at Ephesians 4.11. I want to show you this because
this shows you what that word perfect means. Ephesians 4.11.
It says, He gave, talking about Christ,
He gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists
and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints. To bring them to this end. To
bring them to Christ. To mature them in Christ. To
grow them in Christ. That's what He gave the Gospel
for. For the work of the ministry. For the edifying of the body
of Christ. Christ alone is able to bridle
his body. And I'm talking about his people.
And he does it. He does this for the edifying
of his own body. And he says here, till we all
come. That could be in our text. Till
we come unto this perfection. Till we come in the unity. of the faith and of the knowledge
of the Son of God unto a perfect man, a mature man. Now the baby
in Christ, that's brought to Christ to behold His wisdom,
the same gospel we preach to him, we're going to preach to
the old believer. The more you hear and understand of Christ,
the stronger the meat can become, and the more you rejoice in that
meat. You know, sometimes I'll preach
here, and sometimes the younger believer will say, I don't really
understand that. While the older believer will
be saying, that just blessed my heart to no end. Well, the
younger believer will get it, but Christ will have to teach
them. And the more they behold Christ, the more they'll rest
in Christ and cease trusting His flesh. And, you know, that
old man's going to be there, that old man's going to be what
he is. They're going to be enemies in this land until the day we
depart out of it. But what we're learning is Christ
is the one that must subdue them. Christ is the one that must constrain
us by His grace and His love. That's the wisdom we're learning.
Christ is. Christ is. Look here. Now why
does he do this work? Ephesians 4, look at verse 14. That we henceforth be no more
children. That's the very opposite of this
word perfect. Children. That we be no more
children, but perfect. Not tossed to and fro and carried
about with every wind of doctrine by the slight of men and the
cunning craftiness whereby they lie and wait to deceive, but
speaking the truth in love. That's the only kind of love
there is, speaking the truth in love, preaching this gospel
in love that we might grow up, there we go, grow up into Him
in all things which is the head, even Christ. Now watch this,
and it's from Him. From whom? It's from Christ that
His whole body is fitly joined together and compacted by that
which every joint supplies according to His effectual working in the
measure of every part. He's making increase of the body
unto the edifying of itself in love, in the love of this gospel,
in the love of preaching this truth of the gospel. That's what
He's doing. And when you're brought to Christ,
when you're brought to this end, and you're brought to behold
Christ's true wisdom, that earthen vessel he uses ceases to be the focal point. You know, when a man first gets
up to preach the gospel, and you can't help, it's just fleshly,
you can't help but notice the man, you know. But as he preaches the gospel,
and as he continues, You just lose sight of the man, because
you start hearing Christ, and you start being blessed in your
heart by Christ, and you lose sight of the person, you know.
Somebody was, we were talking the other day about reading your
notes or preaching or whatever, and somebody asked me about a
preach, does he read his notes or he just preach, you know,
and I said, to be honest with you, I'm not real sure. Because
I just don't notice it. You hear the message and you
start to be blessed by the message. And that's so when Christ has
made wisdom under you. Look over Galatians 4. We saw
all these infirmities Paul had last time. And I wanted to show
you this, but I ran out of time. But look here at Galatians 4,
and look at verse 13. Paul had all these different
infirmities of the flesh. Things that, you know, to a natural
man sitting there, he's just going to be distracted by the
preacher. But now watch what happens when God works grace
in the heart. Verse 13. You know how through infirmity
of the flesh I preach the gospel unto you at the first. And my
temptation, which was in my flesh, that which would turn you to
my flesh, you despised not, nor rejected, but received me as
an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus." Now, how did that happen? Christ made himself wisdom to
him as Paul was preaching. And they ceased to even pay attention
to Paul in whatever his infirmities were. They just beheld Christ
and rejoiced in Christ. There's been a few times in my
life, just a few, that I've been really, really thirsty. Really,
really thirsty. Remember one time me and my great-grandfather
walked through the woods all day and we were so thirsty. I
remember the log we sat on, just thirsty. I can tell you to this day how
good that water was, how cold it was and how good it was. And
I can't begin to tell you what the vessel looked like that it
came in. I have no idea what the picture looked like that
it was served to me in or the glass. I don't even know what
it came in. I just can tell, I can remember to this day how
good that water was when I finally got it. You know why? I was thirsty. Paul said, Christ made you thirsty. He made you thirsty. And you
received Me. Bumps and scabs and whatever
else, you just didn't even look at that stuff. Men reveal much about how much or how not at all Christ
has made Himself wisdom unto them through the preaching of
the gospel, but how they regard the preaching of the gospel.
Men reveal much about whether or not they've been taught grace
and Christ has been made their wisdom through this gospel or
not at all. Because, you know, you meet folks
and at first they rejoice in it, sound like they rejoice in
it, you know, but then pretty soon they get real tired of the
preaching of the gospel. They want something else. We
aren't tired of this yet, have we? It just keeps on getting
better and better and better. I don't want to go to some other
means. We don't need something to attract
folks. We got Christ. And you don't
need anything else when you have Him. That's the end. That's the
perfection. That's the whole purpose for
which God ordained this gospel, was to bring His children to
Christ. And when you've got to Christ, you don't want to depart
and go somewhere. You want to camp out at His feet and learn
more of Him. That's what His people want to
do. Now, and He makes you see this is why He uses this means. Remember what we saw? Why? He
makes you see this is why. Look back at 1 Corinthians 1.29. This is why we see His wisdom
in saving this way. So that no flesh should glory
in His presence, But of Him, are you in Christ Jesus, who
of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification
and redemption, that according as it is written, He that glorieth
in Him, glory in the Lord. But now look, notice this, there's
a contrast in this verse. He's saying all that are His,
all that He's chosen, all that He's redeemed, He's going to
bring them to this end. They're going to be brought to
life and faith in Christ to have Christ be made wisdom unto them.
But, He says here, but the wisdom and power of this world, it shall
come to nothing. Look at the contrast, verse 6.
We speak wisdom among them that are perfect. Yet, not the wisdom
of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to naught."
Their wisdom and the princes, their wisdom and their rule will
come to nothing. Their wisdom and their power
will come to nothing. Christ is wisdom and power. to
the believer. And he gives us the fear of the
Lord when he makes you to believe on him so that you don't want
to look to your wisdom and to your strong hand to try to affect
anything. And that's the beginning of wisdom. When Christ is made into your
wisdom, you have to fear the Lord. That's what Paul's trembling
was. He feared the Lord. Now watch this. Job said, Behold,
the fear of the Lord, that's wisdom. And to depart from evil
is understanding. But now, listen to Proverbs 8.13.
It says, The fear of the Lord is to hate evil. What would it be for me to turn
from preaching Christ and me start trying to affect some sort
of obedience in you, start trying to affect some sort of profession
out of you or repentance or faith or try to grow you or anything.
What would that be for me to do that? To turn from Christ
whose wisdom, Christ whose power, to turn from the prince of life
whose wisdom and power to try to affect that in anybody. That
would be pride. Pride and arrogancy. Listen to
this. The fear of the Lord is to hate
evil. Pride. and arrogancy, and the
evil way, and the forward mouth do I hate." That's wisdom speaking
in Proverbs 8, 13. But now listen to this. Wisdom
also says this, counsel is mine. If I'm going to understand the
counsel of God, and that counsel of God is going to be worked
in my heart or your heart, He's going to do it. Counsel is mine,
he said. And listen to this, and sound
wisdom is mine. I am understanding. I have strength. What does that mean? By me, kings
reign, and princes decree justice. By me, princes rule, and nobles,
even all the judges of the earth. So you see, the world might think
their wisdom and their powers better, And that's what it is. That's what a man is doing when
he turns from the gospel, the simplicity of Christ, and tries
to take the offense out of the gospel. That's what it would
have been if Peter would have said, by the name of Jesus I've
done this. It could have been anybody named
Jesus. But he made sure they knew, no, it's the Jesus Christ
of Nazareth whom you crucify, whom the Lord raised. He made
sure they knew who he was talking about. But the man who turns
from that, he's saying, I know a better way. I have more strength
to do something. That's pride and arrogancy and
a forward mouth. It's by him that men have counsel. It's by him that men have sound
wisdom. It's by him that men are made
kings and decree justice and walk in faithfulness. It's by him. It's not by us.
And so then, it's by that same One whose wisdom and power, that
the wisdom and power of this world is going to come to nothing.
He's going to make it come to nothing. Now, I don't know about
you, but that gives me great comfort. To know we have a Gospel
that doesn't change. We have a Lord Jesus Christ whose
Scripture says is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He said,
I'm God, I change not, therefore you sons of Jacob are not concerned.
So when He brings you to see He's the wisdom by which He's
justified His people and made His people righteous, that God
didn't leave it in our hands, that He's the holiness, the sanctification
within the child that gives us life and truth and the way and
light and sanctifies the whole temple that He dwells in, When
it's all of Him, He's not going to allow you to be turned from
His holiness. He's going to turn His child back to Him and make
you be a partaker of His holiness. Because by Christ being formed
in you and by you being made a partaker of the divine nature,
you have escaped the corruptions of this world through lust. He's
delivered you. He's translated you from the
power of Satan and the power of darkness into the kingdom
of His Son. He's brought you into the light
and made you to where you're fit right now to be a partaker
of the inheritance of the saints in light. And when He makes you
to understand this, makes Himself wisdom unto you and power unto
you and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, Don't you just
hate it when you glory in your flesh? I hate it. I hate it. I love for Him to have the glory
and I hate it when I resort to my wisdom. I was thinking on
the way over here about how disjointed and how totally separated the
Pharisees and the scribes were in their religion and in their
everyday life. Think about how they basically,
when they came to the temple, they were religious. And when
they were being seen of men, they were religious. But then
in everything in Providence that was taking place in their life,
they didn't even try to think about, well, is this God working?
or what's God doing here? How do you know that? Because
the things they did to our Savior were the very things they would
go into the temple and claim to be studying claimed to be
reading in the scriptures. All they were doing were memorizing
them to impress men because they didn't know them. You know, you
know things by heart and you recognize things. You know it
when you know it by heart. They didn't know it by heart
because the things that were transpiring in their everyday
lives that they were doing were the very things they had memorized
and they didn't even make the connection. They just didn't
see it. But what I'm trying to... When
Christ is your wisdom, He makes you to cease separating the two. He becomes your wisdom when you're
sitting right here and He's your wisdom when you wake up in the
morning. You wake up in the morning and you're dreading your day
and you're dreading what you've got to do and all these things.
It's so easy to get caught up in that and what we're doing
in that is we're exalting ourself and we're talking about ourself
and we're worried about ourself and what we're going to do for
ourself and how we're going to make it easier on ourself. We
ain't even given a thought to Christ. If you know Him, and
He's your wisdom, and He's your power, and He's your all in salvation,
wake up in the morning thinking about what He's done for you.
Wake up in the morning and think about what He's done from eternity
for you. Wake up in the morning thinking
about the fact that He's made you righteous before the holy
law of God. So that God's law now, He's all
seeing eye, looks you over inside and out before the most perfect,
strict standard of righteousness there ever will be. And says,
I found you all together lovely, all together righteous and holy.
I didn't do that, did you do that? I didn't make myself believe
that. I didn't make that Word effectual
in my heart. I didn't bring myself to rest
entirely in Him. And I didn't work out that righteousness. And I didn't have that perfection
of holiness in my heart. None of that is of me. It's of
Christ, our wisdom. And if that's the case with you,
and that's what He's done for you, you've got a reason to wake
up in the morning thinking, I got it made in the shade. It doesn't
matter what happens today. I am accepted of God. And my Lord's done that for me.
I believe I'm going to get up and when I'm getting dressed
today, I'm going to get dressed like I'm doing it unto the Lord.
When I go out today and I go to catch the bus, I'm going to
go to the bus stop, be standing there, greet that bus driver
like I'm greeting the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. I'm going to
go in there and say hello to my teacher and obey my teacher
and sit and listen to my teacher and pay attention to my teacher
like my wisdom and my righteousness is standing there right in front
of me talking. Why? Maybe he'll make somebody ask
me, what makes you so happy? What makes you so thrilled? Or
do I want to go in and present myself as miserable? So that if they ever hear about
what Christ has done for me, what I claim to believe, they
say, well, you'd think you'd be happy. I want to honor Him because of
what He's done. I want to walk after Him. and I failed, and when I failed,
does it make you His Christ? Is this wisdom to you? Do you
see the wisdom of God doing all this for you in the person of
His Son, revealing this message to you, doing all this work for
you, so that now you understand something of what righteousness
is, not by the letter, but by the person. And you understand
something of what holiness is, not by the letter, but by the
person. And so now you're constrained, not by the letter, by the person.
Do you see the wisdom in this? And I'll tell you this, the more
you've experienced Christ this through the gospel, and the more
you hear the gospel, and the more Christ continues to be more
and more and more to you, and all to you, so that you're brought
more and more to bow at His feet and worship Him and praise Him
and honor Him and glorify Him, the more you'll be content to
trust. He can do that to one of my brothers
or sisters through that Gospel too. It'd be foolish for me to
turn from that means He can do it through that Gospel. He's
done it to me. I've experienced it. I know something about it.
I've experienced it. I know something about it. This
is what most of us are old enough. We've seen so many changes, you
know, like in the generations that we've lived in. And we haven't
lived that long, but we've seen a lot of changes in the generations
we've lived in. I remember one time they came
out, and I remember they said, don't eat eggs. Eggs are bad
for you. Then it wasn't a little while, and they come out, and
they said, oh, we eat eggs. Eggs are good for you. There
for a long time, you know, oh, you need to have milk. Milk is
good. Milk, it does a body good. Now they're saying, don't drink
milk. That's bad for you. Every four years, a politician
comes along and he makes a whole bunch of new promises and he
has some whole new solutions. Why? Four years ago, they didn't
work. They came to nothing. What I'm saying, he says all
man's wisdom and all man's power, it's going to come to nothing.
And the gospel that men call a good news that has to change,
it has to be contemporary to keep people coming and sitting
to hear it and to keep you entertained by it, to make your flesh want
to hear it. Why does it have to keep changing?
Because what they were doing before comes to nothing. Because
it's man's wisdom and it's man's power. I want the gospel that
he says here, he ordained it before the world. And he never
has changed it. He just came and fulfilled it.
And came and revealed it. But he never has changed it.
That's true wisdom. That's true wisdom. That's true
power. There's where we can rest. There's where you can rejoice.
And all the while, getting to Paul's point here, it's not the
vessel, not the vessel, It's the one who's being preached
and the one who's making it effectual and the one whose whole subject
is about His work and what He's done and what He is doing and
what He shall do. It's all about Him. That's the
wisdom. Christ, our wisdom and our power,
so that we rest knowing He's going to do the work through
the Gospel and not take it into our own hands. Not look to our
wisdom and our power. Rest in Him. Trust Him. Amen.