The Spirit of God makes us wise in what God has freely given us through Christ crucified!

Stacking blocks can go one of two ways. Stacking blocks when we are young, immature and unwise is haphazard, chaotic and prone to toppling over. Stacking blocks when we are older, mature and wise is planned, systematic and stable. As we grow up, we grow wise in the ways of stacking blocks so they will not topple over but remain standing.

Wisdom helps us beyond stacking blocks. With wisdom you can build a solid block tower, but you can also counsel someone through a major life event like death or divorce, and you can properly manage your time, money and relationships. We recognize the value of wisdom because it is the ability to apply knowledge with a positive outcome and make good judgments. Since wisdom has such a high value, many throughout history have eagerly pursued it, and perhaps the most well-known are the Greeks. The names Socrates, Plato and Aristotle come to mind as the great Greek philosophers of the past. Often, they are thought of as wise even if most do not know what they taught. Yet, for all their wisdom, Paul directed the Christians in the Greek city of Corinth away from wisdom taught by men to the wisdom of God.

The wisdom Paul spoke of was not earthly. Earthly wisdom comes from our own experience or from listening to those who came before us. Paul spoke of something else. Paul was not a philosopher presenting a new way of thinking or claiming to have reached a higher level of enlightenment. Rather, he spoke of God’s wisdom in our New Testament reading from 1 Corinthians 2:

6 We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.

The wisdom of God is a wisdom we cannot discover, calculate or achieve in the greatest think tank or deepest meditation. In fact, when the wisdom of God appeared, Paul shared the negative result of the greatest minds of his time both secular and spiritual working together against it:

8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”—the things God has prepared for those who love him—10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.

Paul referenced the foolish decision to crucify Jesus as aligning with human wisdom. This foolish human wisdom was described in Paul’s reference to Isaiah 64, which prophesied the foolishness of humanity as spiritually blind, deaf and ignorant to what God has prepared for us through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Human wisdom that rejects Jesus comes naturally to all of us. The wisdom of this world, of this age and of man is in all of us, and we are all corrupt by the same sinful nature. So, we listen to the world for wisdom, which is like talking to ourselves in the mirror. When we go to someone who is just like us who is equally sinful, does not know the future, has limited experiences, has not seen heaven, will die, etc. it is foolish. Listening to humanity is called Humanism in philosophy, and treats humans as the source for wisdom, making man god and man the way, the truth and the life. Humanism trusts man to answer our most difficult questions and serve as the guide for daily life. Embracing this kind of wisdom leads to false living, false hope, false judgments, death and hell. Without God, we are living in the wisdom of the world making us foolish, fading our faith and fanning into flame a future in hell.

In place of the wisdom of the world, the Spirit of God makes us wise. As Paul continued in 1 Corinthians 2, he reveals the connection the Spirit of God establishes in us:

10 … The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

With the Spirit of God, we know the thoughts of God. Of the many thoughts of God, Paul then reveals the most cherished:

12 What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.

Through the Spirit of God, we understand what God has freely given us, which the free gift himself tells us in our Gospel reading from John 6:

38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.

Jesus was led by the Spirit of God, not by worldly wisdom, so he did his Father’s will. The Father’s will is that we will not be lost but raised to eternal life in heaven. The wisdom we received from God rests on this truth shared with us by Jesus in John 6:

44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me.

Jesus assures us that God has drawn us to himself by giving us the gift of faith and filling us with the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. Jesus quoted from Isaiah 54, assuring us that we have been taught by God through Jesus. And in Jesus we have life through his sacrifice on the cross as Jesus said in John 6:

51 “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

The free gift of God is Jesus who was crucified to save us from our sins. The Spirit of God makes us wise to believe this and look forward to eternal life in heaven.

The Bible is our connection to the wisdom of the Spirit of God. Paul directs Christians of all time to Scripture as the inspired unchanging Word of God as we read in 1 Corinthians 2,

13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.

It is by the Word of God that we measure all our own thoughts, words and actions. We also use the Bible to filter and understand what we see, hear and feel is going on around us. The wisdom of the Spirit gives all Christians the ability to discern as we read:

14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. 15 The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, 16 for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

The Holy Spirit has equipped you with the mind of Christ. In this way, you are able to make judgments that align with God’s will.

The wisdom to make Christlike judgments is a growing process. The Holy Spirit works through God’s Word to grow our wisdom. So, show up for Bible study on Sunday, bring your kids or a friend, come to Bible on Tap, join us for Wednesday Bible study and allow your spouse to go to Men’s or Women’s Bible study. The Spirit of God teaches us that at the first sign of our plans to study the Bible, the devil springs into action. We can think of it like the devil calling two of his most trusted demons to simultaneously turn the keys and launch his evil nukes into our heart and mind unleashing a flood of the spirit of the world. So, when the time comes for us to gather for Bible study and build one another up in the wisdom of the Spirit, we have a list of things that are more important, more critical, more necessary, more fulfilling, more relaxing, etc. Our Old Testament reading from Proverbs 9, provides us with the weapon to disarm the devil and worldly wisdom:

1 Wisdom has built her house; she has set up its seven pillars… 3 She has sent out her servants, and she calls from the highest point of the city, 4 “Let all who are simple come to my house!” To those who have no sense she says, … 6 Leave your simple ways and you will live; walk in the way of insight.”

Our simple minds prioritize many things above God, but the Spirit of God says, “No” to all of that. Passages from Scripture like this one from Proverbs 9, fills us with the wisdom to say, “I will make time for Bible study so that I can lead my house as a godly man.” Or “I will take care of everything else so that my wife can go to Women’s Bible study.” Or “I will take the opportunity to serve in Kingdom Kids so that someone else can go to adult Bible study.” These thoughts, words and actions are examples of what it looks like to have the mind of Christ.

The way you stack building blocks determines whether they will remain standing or topple over. If we only have the spirit of this world, then sin, death and the devil will topple us. With the Spirit of God, we stand firm in Christ crucified who lived, died and rose to save us from our sins, death and hell. The Spirit of God makes us wise against the simple, sinful ways of the world. Today we are gathered around the Word of God, each day we live different than the worldly and some day we will be in heaven because the Spirit of God makes us wise in what God has freely given us through Christ crucified. Amen.