Sermon Tone Analysis

1 Corinthians 2

December 9, 2001

 

Intro: As you consider the Philosophers of today or of the past, you

         can be impressed with the man and awed by the thinker.

A-  It’s usually the man who stands out even above the philosophy.

1-   Apostle, Robert Frost, Bob Dylan (Weather Man).

a-   The problem is that philosophies change and are dependant on, knowledge, society, beliefs.

(Truth?)

-         John Lennon,  All you need is love

·        There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done, nothing you can sing that can’t be sung.

·        He and Yoko stayed in bed for a week for world peace.

+ Did people lay down their arms.

+ Didn’t deal with peoples

   situations.

-         If a tree falls down in the woods does and no one hears it does it make a sound.

·        A good exorcise in thought, BUT WHO CARES.

-         God’s voice is the sound of one hand clapping.

·        Really deep until you realized it is impossible for one hand to clap.

2-   We can build the philosopher up but when he becomes bigger that the philosophy he presents, he is standing on a week foundation.

The messenger in never bigger than the message.

a-   The best thing that can happen to them is death.

-         Elvis, James Dean, Sandy Kofax,

·        The problem with Mohammed Ali is that he is still alive.

b-   This is where Paul has just come from.

Read Acts 17:13-34, 18:1

 

1 Corinthians 2:1, And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God.

A-  What we see here in Paul is that the Christian is not to come, as a philosopher but as a witness.

1 Corinthians 4:9-10,  For I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last, as men condemned to death; for we have been made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men.10

We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ!

We are weak, but you are strong!

You are distinguished, but we are dishonored!

1-   The philosopher displays himself as the center of wisdom.

a-   This could be speculation based on, hearsay, and opinion.

(Court of Law)

2-   The witness tells of what he has seen, heard, experienced.

a-   A witness is only considered with the facts.

 

1 Corinthians 2:2,  For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

-         Do you want to come into this church 3 times a week and hear what I think of my opinion.

·        I don’t

Read 2 Corinthians 4:1-6

l- So Paul has done the education thing (a Pharisee of Pharisee)

A-  That with in itself, will only give him the ability to quote scriptures in hell.

1-   He saw the end result man’s wisdom and it is foolishness.

a-   You will be the most profound person in hell.

Read verses 1-5

A-  (According to V:1) Our ministry is to manifest the truth of God though our lives in a tangible way.

1-   How we deal with situations

a-   The children of the ex-wife of the ex-president of South Africa wrote this to her murderer.

"To the person or persons responsible for her death, we say that vengeance is not ours.

"We pray that at the end of your days, the sting of death, the sin, will be transformed into the victory that only Christ can offer you," they said.

-         What kind of witness would you be.

2-   It involves conduct, speech, and car in the parking lot.

B-  (According to V:2) It’s Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

1-   Because the people need nothing else

a-   What else really matters??

2 Timothy 4:1-3, I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom:2 Preach the word!

Be ready in season and out of season.

Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.3

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers;

2-   How often have you changed.

a-   Your opinion.

b-   Democrat VS Republican

c-   Churches.

Isaiah 40:8,  The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever.”

C-  (According to V:3)  We do these things in the fear of God.

1-   Weakness of Paul speaks of the strength of the message.

2-   Fear and trembling speaks of the responsibility.

James 3:1, My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment.

D-  (And according to V:4-5) Once again anything void of the Spirit is of the flesh.

Read Psalm 2

Charles Spurgeon: The power that is in the Gospel does not lie in the eloquence of the preacher, otherwise men would be the converters of souls.

Nor does it lie in the preacher’s learning, otherwise it would consist in the wisdom of men.

We might preach until our tongues rotted, till we would exhaust our lungs and die, but never a soul would be converted unless the Holy spirit be with the Word of God to give it the power to convert the soul.

 

 

1 Corinthians 2:6,  However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.

A-  Since

1 Corinthians 1:22,  For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom;

B-  To the saved (mature) gentile we preach to wisdom that they desire.

1-   SEE V:2

 

1 Corinthians 2:7,  But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory,

C-  To the Jew the answer to this great mystery

1-   Mystery = “sacred secret,” a truth hidden in past ages but now revealed to the people of God.

a-   See V:2

 

1 Corinthians 2:8,  which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

D-  Paul combines the Jews and the gentiles here.

Acts 4:27-28,  “For truly against Your holy Servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together28 “to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done.

l- Paul then shows us 3 ways in which we can know the wisdom

   of God.

#1- Revelation:

1 Corinthians 2:9-11,  But as it is written:  “Eye 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 God has revealed them to us through His Spirit.

For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.11

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.

A-  The secret of true wisdom has never and will never be found in man but in the Holy Spirit.

Numbers 15:39,  “And you shall have the tassel, that you may look upon it and remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them, and that you may not follow the harlotry to which your own heart and your own eyes are inclined,

1-   The best that man can do, apart form God, is …

Acts 17:27,  “grope”

1 John 2:27,  But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.

a-   The Holy Spirit is how we know the mind of God.

 

#2- We know the wisdom of God by Inspiration