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Monday, July 22, 2019

"Those who Love God" (1 Corinthians 2:6-16)

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            Facebook has been a joy for me the past three weeks because 2 years ago at this time, our family was on our big Sabbatical trip to Russia, Ethiopia, and Egypt.  On the anniversary of Candy and I posting the pictures from that trip, those pictures pop-up.  So, every day, Facebook’s daily memories feature has taken me back to a very happy and meaningful time.  I know not everyone uses Facebook, and what I have to share will probably reinforce your decision to stay off it, but I thank God for the way this technology has been a blessing.  However …
            Another use of Facebook is the comment thread, where arguments rage.  Person 1 posts a meme or a snarky quote.  Or, Person 1 posts an opinion.  Every one of his 400 friends sees his post, including those “friends,” he doesn’t really know.  He met this guy, Person 2, at a convention last year and they discussed business so when Person 2 sent Person 1 a friend request, Person 1 accepted. 
But he doesn’t really know Person 2 and has not seen him since that convention.  Of his 400 Facebook friends, 50 are people he doesn’t really know.  So now, he posts his silly meme that pokes fun at some political figure.  Business convention guy, Person 2, doesn’t like the joke, so, in the comments section he writes a message railing against this anti-American, racist, anti-Christian meme that Person 1 posted for a laugh. 
Person 1 is not online when Person 2 posts his angry comments.  Person 1 has gone to bed.  But, one of his other Facebook “friends,” someone from his high school days, someone he hasn’t seen in 15 years, snipes back. We’ll call this one Person 3.  With vitriol, he snaps back at what Person 2 wrote in the comments section of Person 1’s quote.  Persons 2 and 3 don’t know each other; they’ve never met.  Yet here they are fighting under Person 1’s post which was just meant to be silly. 
In fact before Person 1 gets back to his computer, 5 different people from his friends group – all five completely unknown to each other – have become embroiled in a no-holds-barred Facebook comments section donnybrook.  Under his silly meme, there are 20 comments that include profanity bad enough to make a sailor blush, accusations of treason, and prophecies of the end of days. 
This kind of conflict – I know we don’t use this word in church often, but I’m going to – is stupid.  Massively stupid.  And the even stupider thing is I get sucked into these things.  This is not hypothetical or something I’ve heard about.  I get sucked in even when I have vowed not to.
This week, I saw one of my friend post a meme and I spent about 10 good minutes typing up my fiery response.  Thank you Jesus, I deleted what I wrote without sending it.  Facebook, I have learned things through conversations I’ve had on your platform.  Because you remind me, I remember greats times in my life.  But Facebook, I am not going to allow you to make me develop enemies or lead me into pointless conflicts that accomplish nothing and go nowhere. 
Some of you who know me and know my Facebook activity are looking at me and thinking, “O Rob, you already do that.”  All I can say is I’m not going to … anymore.  At least I’ll try not to.  Non-Facebook users, don’t judget those of us who do use it.  There’s a lot of good to be done in that platform and even if you don’t use that form of social media, there are chances you too have been in disputes that are pointless and avoidable, just not there. The conflicts that develop in Facebook threads are not worth it. Many conflicts in which we find ourselves can minimized or altogether avoided. 
However, in 1 Corinthians 2, Paul, the author of this letter, sets up an “us versus them” conflict that he feels is very important.
Speaking of himself and the Christians with him he writes, “We do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age” (2:6).  On one side, in the conflict Paul identifies, stands the believers, those who, along with Paul, follow, serve, and worship God as God is revealed in Jesus.  Opposed to the Christ-followers are the rulers of this age.  In 1:18, Paul calls them “those who are perishing.”  They are lost, and without Christ, lost to God eternally.  In 1:19 he calls them “the wise,” in 1:20, “the debaters of this age,” and in 1:22-23 he implies that these are Jews and Gentiles who do not believe in Jesus.  Paul believes without Jesus, people are lost.  We can choose to reject God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ, and many do. 
In 1:25, Paul refers to “human wisdom” and “human strength,” which is weaker and less wise than God’s foolishness and weakness.  Paul calls them “rulers of this age” in 2:6 and again in 2:8.  That phrase is key for our understanding because it transports this teaching from Paul’s first century Roman-Corinthian context to our 20th century American context.  We have rulers and trendsetters and influencers in our age who are as enamored with their own smarts, accomplishments, power, wealth, and position as were the rulers of the age in Paul’s day.  Like in Paul’s day, rulers of our age do not humble themselves before God.  They constantly seek glory for themselves.
Yelling with exclamation points, all-caps, and angry emojis on Facebook accomplishes little.  But seeing it and understanding that people are far from God, and often their lust for status is why they are far from God is important.  We don’t want to emulate this worldly pursuit of Earthly glory – the American dream or the good life or whatever you want to call it.  We don’t chase that.  In fact, for Paul, chasing after earthly things is destructive for our faith. 
Chapter 2 verse 7 indicates that “us versus them” mindset Paul has.  While “they” are doomed to perish, he writes in verse 7, “we speak God’s wisdom” and “none of the rulers of this age [understand]) (v.8).  Are Christians smarter than non-Christians?  Not by a long shot.  That we can see God in Jesus does not come about from our supreme intelligence.  In chapter 1 Paul wrote, “Consider your own call, brothers and sisters, not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many of noble birth” (1:26).   So how do we who are in Christ understand who Jesus is and give Him the worship and allegiance he is due?
Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 2:9 that the wisdom of God is prepared “for those who love Him.”  I want the wisdom of God.  How do I get to be counted among “those who love him?”  Is it as simple as saying, I really love God, and meaning it?  Maybe.  But I don’t trust myself.  I know I can love something one minute, and then get caught up in something, like an inane Facebook argument or a minor annoyance or something bigger, and that love I professed for God recedes to the back of my mind.  As I tried to understand 1 Corinthians 2:9 and tried to grasp who it is that loves God and receives this knowledge, I looked to the Gospels.
In Mark 5, Jesus freed a man who was enslaved by 1000 demons.  They drove the man crazy.  When he was freed and made right by Jesus, he began to truly love God.  In Matthew 9, a woman who suffered non-stop bleeding for 12 years, possibly an obstetric fistula, was healed by Jesus.  She was regarded as “unclean;” Jesus called her “daughter” as he healed her.  She understood what it is to love God.  So did the wealthy, despised tax collectors, Levi in Mark 2 and Zacchaeus in Luke 19. Others hated these me.  Jesus welcomed them. 
This sent me on a journey into the gospels.  I went 11 different stories – rich and poor people, healthy and sick, Jewish and Gentile, powerful and peasant, innocent and guilty – all were marginalized by society and loved by Jesus.  Each one was aware of the need to humble himself or herself before God, revealed in Jesus.  When they lowered themselves and saw their own need, they were ready to receive the healing or forgiveness, to hear the call, and respond to God in faith.  These and so many others in the Gospels are those who love God.  I want to be part of that group. 
It is to this group that God has revealed all things through the Spirit.  Paul writes that the Spirit “searches everything, even the depths of God.  … No one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God” (1 Cor 2:10-11).  The Holy Spirit is in all places and possesses all knowledge.  The Holy Spirit sees into the deepest parts of each one of us.  Nothing is hidden from God the Spirit. 
Of course our way of experiencing the world is going to be different than people who have no relationship with Jesus.  Verses 12-13 say “we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God.”  Without the Holy Spirit, we cannot understand God’s wisdom.  Once we have humbled ourselves before God and expressed faith in Christ, we are filled with the Spirit.  Then, we must not go back to seeing and acting in the flesh, from a worldly perspective, as if God had not acted in us. 
This is one more way Paul points out the conflict between Christians and the rulers of the age.  “Those who are unspiritual,” as it is worded in verse 15, “do not receive gifts of God’s Spirit.”  They cannot understand God’s ways and are cut off from God as their gaze is fixed on human ideas of power and wisdom and success.
So, if we want divine perspective, holy joy, and eternal life, we need to be among those who love God in Christ and receive the Holy Spirit.  As we have already said, the first step is to humble ourselves as sinners in need of forgiveness.  Humbled before God, we confess, repent, and receive Jesus.
But then what?  We are among those who are in Christ, the recipients of God’s wisdom through the Holy Spirit.  What about the world around us, the people still stuck in the world, still cut off from God?  Are they lost forever?
Of course not.  Jesus’ death on the cross is effective for the salvation of all sinners.  How do we help unbelievers turn to God?  Hint: we don’t do it through red-faced angry Facebook arguments.  We don’t get there through in-person arguments either.  We follow Jesus and our friends see Him in us.  The Holy Spirit has to reveal their sin to them and need for God.  We stand by as friends, invite them to church, love as Jesus has loved, and help them when they decide to turn to Him. 
God has given us his wisdom through His Spirit not to be hidden away or hoarded, but to be shared.  So that’s what we do.  We follow Jesus, we love our unchurched friends and co-workers and neighbors, and we help them turn from the vapid promises of our present age to eternal life as children of God, a life lived by all who have turned to Jesus.  We start by putting needless conflicts behind us and humbling ourselves before God.
AMEN

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