This past Sunday we had the privilege of hearing Danny Quimlat, our church planting resident, continue our sermon series through 1st Corinthians. Danny preached through 2:6-16, and we learned how the Apostle Paul defined wisdom and how we can grow in that wisdom. The Corinthian church was looking to the world for wisdom, which continued to lead to dissension and division in the church, but Paul wanted them to cast their eyes on the cross of Jesus for true wisdom. Paul had previously shown in the first chapter how God’s wisdom was displayed most magnificently through the cross, which propelled his argument that the wisest life one could live is a life lived in light of the finished work of Christ’s cross. The good news about the life of wisdom is that the Holy Spirit is the One who leads us into it by revealing the beauty, wisdom, and necessity of the cross to us; both at salvation and daily.

Danny helped us see how the role of the Spirit points us to the realities of the cross by informing and empowering us to live in a corresponding way. The wisdom of the world is to accrue as much money as possible, so that you can be independent. But the cross of Jesus shows us how Jesus became poor so that we could become rich (2 Cor. 8:9), so now we live lives of sacrificial generosity dependent on the Father. The wisdom of the world teaches us how to get as many people as possible to serve us, but the cross shows us the One who did not come to be served, but to serve and give His life as ransom for many (Matt. 20:28). The wisdom of the world tells us that suffering cannot be good for anything, but the cross shows us how God accomplished the greatest good for us through the death of His Son, Jesus. The only way to grow in wisdom is to allow and ask the Spirit to direct us back to the cross every single day.

If you missed the sermon, “The Wisdom of the Cross”, be sure to listen to it here: http://bit.ly/1xJHlZo