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[0:00] Good evening.

[0:27] Good evening.

[0:57] Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. I will be their God and they will be my people.

[1:09] No longer will they teach their neighbor or say to one another, know the Lord, because they will all know me from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord.

[1:21] That's the wonderful promise of the new covenant. That's the promise that Christ came to fulfill, that we should know God personally, individually in our lives. That's the gospel, the great news of our Lord Jesus Christ, that God can be known by us and we can know him in a wonderful way.

[1:41] And our first hymn reminds us of that gospel, the work of the gospel that our Lord Jesus came to accomplish, 150 in our hymn books. Great is the gospel of our glorious God.

[1:53] So let's stand and sing together as we come to worship our Saviour and our King. Great is the gospel of our glorious God.

[2:20] And I may call him high And I may sing with those who dwell upon Adoring, praising Jesus, King of God Because of that wonderful good news That wonderful gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ

[3:20] We have come to know God And come to enter into this wonderful relationship with him And so let us come to him in prayer Let's ask his help and blessing upon our time this evening Everything about you, O Lord, our God, is great Everything about you, O Lord, is beyond our expressing in words Because you are beyond all the superlatives All the wonderful, the amazing, the marvelous All those words that we could put together All of them, from every language on earth Could not describe you Could not even describe a thousandth of your greatness A millionth of your wonder and beauty and majesty For you are supremely great And O Lord, we thank you that therefore Everything about you is great And everything you do is great And so we've been singing of the gospel The good news of our Lord Jesus Christ It's the gospel of God The good news of God And it's great It's great news

[4:21] Because, O Lord, it's news that God Who made us God who provides for us God who holds the universe together Just by his word This God loves us Cares about us Is interested in us Though it but in many ways Just one amongst seven billion people on the planet And though this planet is just a speck of dust Floating in a massive universe How marvelous, O Lord, that is That you care for each and every individual here Upon this earth And you care for us And we may not feel very important And we may not feel very special And we may not even at times feel loved But we thank you that the evidence Is overwhelming that you love us Not only because of that life you've given us And sustain and provide But especially the evidence of your love Seen in the person of Jesus Christ, your son Thank you that this is love Not that we loved God But that he loved us And sent his son To be a propitiation An atoning sacrifice for our sins

[5:23] Oh, Lord, we thank you That this evening as we gather We only need to look again With faith upon the cross And see that our sins were taken there And see that, O Lord That was part of your great plan and purpose To rescue us from our sin To rescue us from the hell that we deserve To bring us into the liberty and the freedom To be called children of God And Lord, surely all doubts and fears All anxieties would go For surely, Lord, if you loved us to such an extent Then you could never stop loving us And if you did such a thing for us Which was so costly to yourself Then, as Paul argues You'll not withhold any good thing from us Lord, but you'll give us every good thing Everything that we need Everything which is for our blessing Even those trials Even those struggles Even those times where we go through Testing of our faith Lord, these are part of your good gifts to us And your purpose in refining us

[6:24] And strengthening us To trust you more And lean on you more And find you even more faithful We thank you, O Lord, that you've given us Not only the promises Of your love in Christ We thank you for the promises of your word Which teach us of the things of Christ Which tell us of the wonder Of all that you have done for us And have promised for us We ask again that this evening As we gather around your word As we gather to hear you speak to us We ask that you'd give us ears to hear We ask that, Lord, you'd give us hearts To receive your word And, Lord, that you'd give us lives to respond And faith to respond To your word with obedience And trust With thanksgiving And, yes, with love itself Lord, our great desire is Just as you've loved us We long to love you more And for that love to overflow to others too We pray, O Lord, our God That in this time together We may meet with you And you meet with us That you might teach us yourself The things of your wonderful love

[7:26] And that you would equip us And strengthen us For all that you have in store for us In the coming days So we ask these things As we bring it to you Our praise and thanks In the name of Jesus Amen And again, a warm welcome to all of you I'm just looking for Richard To bring some notices He's still downstairs Welcoming people, I think That's okay So We're going to Well, can you turn please To 1 Corinthians And chapter 2 1 Corinthians chapter 2 We've got the New Church Fibles That's on page 1145 1145 Paul has been talking about Wisdom And he says this In the previous chapter It is because of him As Jesus

[8:27] That you are in Christ Jesus Who has become for us Wisdom from God And then we begin chapter 2 Where he says this So it was with me Brothers and sisters When I came to you I did not come with eloquence Or human wisdom As I proclaim to you The testimony about God For I resolved to know nothing While I was with you Except Jesus Christ And him crucified I came to you in weakness And with great fear And trembling My message and my preaching Were not with wise and persuasive words But with a demonstration Of the Spirit's power So that your faith Might not rest on human wisdom But on God's power We do, however, speak a message Of wisdom among the mature

[9:28] But not the wisdom of this age Or of the rulers of this age Who are coming to nothing No We declare God's wisdom A mystery that has been hidden And that God Destined for our glory Before time began None of the rulers of this age Understood it For if they had They would not have crucified The Lord of glory However, as it is written What no eye has seen What no ear has heard What no human mind has conceived The things God has prepared For those who love him These are the things God has revealed to us By his Spirit The Spirit searches all things Even the deep things of God For who knows a person's thoughts Except their own spirit within them In the same way

[10:28] No one knows the thoughts of God Except the Spirit of God 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 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 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 The person with the Spirit Makes judgments about things But such a person is not subject To merely human judgments

[11:28] For who has known the mind of the Lord So that's the midst of him But we have the mind of Christ Please do be seated If you have a Bible I hope you do have one to hand Turn back to that reading That Graham brought us In 1 Corinthians please 1 Corinthians And chapter 2 We've only had two sermons In Corinthians so far Which have covered chapter 1 Introduction Looking at those verses Up to verse 9 Where Paul was encouraging And reminding the believers Of all that they have in Christ And all that God has done for them And then he begins to tackle The real problems In the church at Corinth Of which there are very many The problem of division Where men were being exalted And lifted high And all sorts of foolish things Were being said

[12:28] Which he deals with In the remainder of chapter 1 Or at least begins to deal with In the remainder of chapter 1 Showing really that All our salvation is of God And that he is the one Who in Christ Has given us everything As Graham helpfully pointed out At the close of chapter 1 It's because of him Verse 30 You are in Christ Jesus Who has become for us Wisdom from God Our righteousness Holiness and redemption And so he's carrying on That argument in one sense As we go into chapter 2 Now I don't know if you're Much of a crime writer Reader If you enjoy crime If you enjoy things like Sherlock Holmes And Poirot And other things like that Not just books TV Because each one of them Had their own special techniques One of the things that set apart These great detectives These great solvers of crime Is their ability to Deal with certain situations

[13:29] Sherlock Holmes If you read any of his books He had his elementary deductions He worked out Looking at the evidence And saw things That nobody else saw If you're a Hercule Poirot fan Then you'll know about His little grey selves Which had to work To solve the problem And if you're A fan of Morse Perhaps as he was Then he had that Intuitive logic Where every day He would go through His crossword in the times Wouldn't he To see how fast He could do it They all had this Capacity To solve mysteries They had this Great intellect In one sense But even if They had been at work Together And even if They had put together All their Understanding And intellect And brain power And all the Breast brains As it were Of history There is one mystery That they would never Have been able To solve It's the mystery To which Paul Alludes and speaks About here In 1 Corinthians Chapter 2

[14:29] Verse 7 He says here We declare God's wisdom A mystery That has been Hidden A mystery That has been Hidden It's a mystery He says That all the Rulers and Wise men And people of His day Were unable To understand For he says this We declare God's wisdom A mystery That has been Hidden And that God Destined for our Glory before Time began None of the Rulers of this Age Understood it None of the Wise men None of the Great thinkers Of this age Understood it It's a mystery That only God Knew about We're told there Hidden And that God Destined Something that Was his secret Known to him From before the World was made That's made clear Here as well From before Time began Yet a mystery That he has Chosen to make Known to a Vast number Of people Verse 10 These are the Things God Has revealed Once hidden

[15:30] Once a mystery Once beyond The grasp of Human intellect And understanding Now it's Something which Has been made Known The whole of Humanity is Divided between Those who know And those who Know not Throughout history Throughout time And even in Our own Day and age It was this Mystery That Paul Went to Corinth First of all To teach And to Divulge Verse 1 Of chapter 2 When I came To you I proclaim To you The testimony About God Is what he Calls it It's the same Thing This mystery It was a Mystery Which was so Amazing That it Made him Weak And fearful He even Speaks there Of trembling When he came To declare it To them So amazing So vast So awesome Is this mystery That his knees Knocked together Paul this Great intellect Of his day And age What is the mystery He's talking about What possibly

[16:31] Could it be That is so Baffling So secret That he has to Speak of it In this way Well it's simply Put up In what he Declares to us There in verse 2 Of chapter 2 For I resolve To know nothing While I was with you Except Jesus Christ And him crucified That's the mystery That's the testimony Of God It's the gospel Of our Lord Jesus Christ Which he refers Back to again Early in chapter 1 And verse 23 We preach Christ Crucified That's the whole Message of the gospel The good news Of Jesus Christ The Christian message Of salvation That has been preached Far and wide For the last 2,000 years Since Paul's day Well you might be Sitting there And thinking Well that's not Much of a mystery Virtually everybody Knows about Jesus Christ And him Crucified But the trouble Is that They don't know About Jesus Christ And him

[17:31] Crucified That's the whole Point that Paul Is making Here People have Always failed To understand The gospel Of the Lord Jesus None of the rulers Of the age Understood it He says That's the big Problem As he said Very earlier In chapter 1 The wisest men The wisest women The wisdom Of human thinking Has constantly Misunderstood God's truth He says this Verse 20 Of chapter 1 Where is the Wise person Where is the Teacher of the Law Where is the Philosopher Of this age Has not God Made foolish The wisdom Of the world And he goes On later on Earlier on Rather in Verse 18 For the message Of the cross Is foolishness The majority Of people In our day And age And the majority Of people Throughout history Whether they've Been scientists Religious scholars The ordinary The ordinary people In the street They've all Concluded ultimately That the message Of Jesus Christ And him crucified

[18:32] Is either a myth A fairy tale A bit of old Wives gossip Or something only For children And old women And a few Halfwits to believe In fact that's What Paul says Later on Doesn't he In verse 14 Of chapter 2 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 That's why This building And other buildings Like ours Around the country Are not crammed To the doors With people Bursting to get in To know And to trust And to follow Christ Because they dismiss Christ crucified As something which May have happened Many thousands Of years ago But really has No relevance Importance Therefore they do not Understand This mystery But there's a question As well Why don't they Understand this mystery Why is it that They don't grasp Or comprehend This wisdom Of God After all It's God's wisdom It's not just like

[19:33] Trying to understand And read through A book like A short history Of time Have you ever read That one by Hawkins I got about Half way through And that was it I was away Not with the fairies But I was just Away from it I couldn't Get the rest of it It's not a hard Difficult thing To grasp This is God's wisdom So why is it That people Don't understand it What is it That they need Do they need Greater education Do they need Greater intellects Do they need More More More information On the internet What do people need To understand This message What do they need To understand This message Particularly because This message Is something which If we receive it And believe it And accept it Has an amazing effect Of power In our lives And blessing Look at what Paul says there In 1 Corinthians 1 18 Message of the cross Is foolishness To those who are Perishing But to those Who are being saved It's the power

[20:33] Of God It's nothing It's not insignificant This mystery Is it It's not like Solving how to do A Rubik's cube It's not something Which is trivial This is vitally Important It's the power Of God Revealed And unleashed To our salvation So what is it That they needed Let's remind ourselves Just as I've already Said before That Paul is writing To a very mixed up Church in Corinth They've got all sorts Of strange ideas They're split With all sorts of Possible teachings Some are good Some are bad Some are indifferent And he's been Addressing this problem This problem Which we read about there In verse 12 Of chapter 1 What I mean is this One of you says I follow Paul Another I follow Apollos Another follows Cephas Still another I follow Christ They've been exalting Certain men And certain teachings They've been saying This is the real wisdom Of God And you get it from Paul No no This is the real wisdom Of God

[21:33] And you get it From Peter No this is the real Wisdom of God And you get it They've been looking At men and teachers And humans To get their wisdom To find the truth And they've been Exalting them And with razor sharpness Paul has cut All of their arguments To shreds And shown them As we saw A fortnight ago That all their boasting In human ability All their boasting In human achievements Or intellect Or upbringing Some of you Were not noble And so on The things That the world Puts store by The things That the world Says Ah well Of course That's They've got The understanding They've got The intelligence To understand That they've got The upbringing Or whatever it may be He says all of those things To put your trust In any of those things Is absolutely foolish Because as I've shown you Our salvation Is all of Christ It's not of anything That people have contributed You're not a Christian Because Just because you were Brought up in a Christian home A wonderful blessing That is You're not a Christian Because you were born In England You're not a Christian Because you happen To go to the right school

[22:34] Not a Christian Because you've got The intellect To understand it Not a Christian Because you were Born in the west No All of these things Did not contribute To your salvation It was of Christ And of God alone And therefore Stop arguing And looking And taking pride In men's teaching Men's wisdom Men's understanding No he says There at the end Of chapter 1 Let him who boasts Boast in the Lord Our only boast Dear friends Is that the Lord Jesus Christ Has saved us And so he continues This theme Of not putting Our confidence In human wisdom Not putting our confidence In human resources Rather placing Our faith In God alone And so what does he do He goes back to The time when he first Came and preached them Probably 15 Maybe 20 years earlier Perhaps a little less Acts chapter 18 Tells you about What happened When he went there And preached the gospel On that first occasion He reminds them

[23:35] And as he preached The gospel to them As he preached This mystery Of Christ crucified As he calls it here In chapter 2 The testimony of God He himself had no confidence In his own abilities To present the gospel In a way that they Could understand Notice verse 3 I came to you If weakness Great fear And trembling My message Was not with wise And persuasive words In fact he goes Says earlier on In verse 1 I did not come with eloquence Or human wisdom Paul was a great intellect Of his day He was a man Who learned We know At the feet of Gamaliel Gamaliel The rabbi He was a man Who understood things In a wonderful way And spoke in a wonderful way But he knew That none of those things Were enough To save these people Or to give them That understanding To grasp the mystery He put no faith In himself And yet in spite Of having no faith In himself In spite of coming With his knees knocking And fear and trembling And his words

[24:35] Coming out all wrong At least he felt that way God did something wonderful Didn't he You can find it later on In Acts chapter 18 In verse 8 We're told this After the first time That Paul preached The mystery of God Crispus The synagogue ruler And his entire household Believed in the Lord And many of the Corinthians Who heard him Believed And were baptised Wonderful Again the question is Well how did that happen How did these people Believe the gospel How did they come to faith In this mystery How did their eyes Get open to see What it was that Paul Was trying to get across them Well he tells us Doesn't he He tells us that It was not human wisdom Eloquence Power Rather he says Verse 4 With a demonstration Of the Spirit's power With a demonstration Of the Spirit's power What's he talking about Well you can read The account in Acts chapter 18

[25:35] There's no mention Of supernatural healings There's no mention Of people being delivered From demons There's no speaking In tongues Or foreign languages So those things Aren't the demonstration Of the Holy Spirit What is the demonstration Of the Holy Spirit Is this They believed The message Their hearts Were changed They trusted In the God As Paul says Just a little later on Something that could not Be understood With human eyes Verse 9 Or heard by human ears Or conceived With human minds That they took hold of That they believed That they understood That was revealed to them What was it That changed them What was this demonstration Of the Spirit's power Well it's exactly What happens Elsewhere When Paul preached The Gospel He writes to the Thessalonians

[26:36] In his first letter He says to them That he knows That they belong to God How does he know Our Gospel came to you Not simply with words But also with power With the Holy Spirit And deep conviction The missing ingredient What took them From being know-nots To knows Was this Verse 10 These are the things God has revealed to us By his Spirit The Holy Spirit Was the essential ingredient The Holy Spirit Was the one Who took the very words Of Paul As he preached the gospel With his knees knocking And his teeth chattering With fear and trembling And he took those words Imperfect though they were And he made them real And living To the very hearts And minds Of those who were listening And suddenly Amazingly Miraculously Wonderfully Bing I understand Christ crucified For me The same was

[27:37] With Paul himself He knew that himself He was saved Not because of What somebody had done He was saved Not because of Something that he had learned From the feet of the rabbi But it had been again The Spirit of God Who had revealed it to him That God's great wisdom Was revealed in the fact That he sent His Son Into the world To suffer and to die For sinners In their place He understood these things Because the Lord Made them known to us These are the things God has revealed To us So why is that the case Why has God chosen To work in this way Why is it that people Cannot become Christians Cannot understand the mystery Of the gospel Of Christ crucified Apart from the Holy Spirit Why is it that we can't Work it out By being By Reading lots Or being a philosopher

[28:38] Or studying theology Or something else With human understanding Why can't we grasp These things Why does God Have to work in this way That's what Paul Goes on to explain It must be the work Of the Holy Spirit It must be him Because he explains In the second part Of verse 10 The Spirit searches All things Even the deep things Of God Here's the reasons He gives Why it must be God The Holy Spirit Who opens eyes Ears and understanding For men and women To trust in Christ First of all Only God The Holy Spirit Knows God's thoughts Only God The Holy Spirit Knows God's thoughts Verses 10 and 11 For who knows A person's thoughts Except their own Spirit within them In other words Just as we can never tell What another person Is thinking We may think We know what they're thinking But we don't Just as we can't tell What's going on Internally in a person's mind

[29:39] Or in a person's heart Just by what we look On their face Or by the way They appear So how on earth Can we be expected To understand God Only God can know What's in his heart Only God can know What he's thinking It's such a foolishness For us to think If I can't understand A person I can understand God It's arrogance Isn't it Because God Is so much Different to us We may have a chance We may be possibly Right In being able to Understand what Another person is thinking As they go through An experience Because we may have Been through that Experience ourselves Or because they're Human like we are We can imagine How we might respond To it But God is not Human like we are He's not a man Like us He's totally different So the way that God Views a situation The way that God Thinks about things And his thoughts Are totally and utterly Different to us We haven't got a hope Of being able to Grasp what is in his heart That's why when we read

[30:40] In the scriptures Elsewhere Isaiah 55 God is speaking to Isaiah And through Isaiah To the people He says to them For my thoughts Are not your thoughts Neither are your ways My ways Declared the Lord In fact he goes on to say My ways are much higher And my thoughts Are much higher Than yours So it's only reasonable If anybody wants To know God's heart If anybody wants To know what God Is thinking What his thoughts Are and his purposes Are It can only be When God reveals Them to us Only when God Tells us about them Just as with somebody Else We might say to them What are you thinking What are you going through What are you feeling If they don't want To tell us We don't know God is willing To tell us He wants us to know And he does that By the work Of his Holy Spirit Jesus of course Spoke about this Work of the Holy Spirit This revelation Of the Holy Spirit In a different way When he's speaking To Nicodemus On that evening In John chapter 3

[31:40] We're told this On two occasions Jesus speaks about The experience Of the Holy Spirit As being born again Chapter 3 of John Verse 3 Very truly I tell you Says Jesus No one can see The kingdom of God In other words Can grasp Or glimpse The things of God The things concerning God's kingdom And who he is And his salvation Unless they are Born again And later on He says to Nicodemus So it is with everyone Born of the Spirit So the first argument That Paul brings Is this We can't understand God's mystery Unless God reveals it to us Because it's his It's in his heart Only the Spirit Only his own spirit Only his own heart Only his own mind Can reveal it to us Second argument He brings Is why God works In this way Is because The world's wisdom Cannot comprehend Something it knows Nothing about I'll try and use An illustration That I picked up To help with this The world's wisdom In the world's wisdom

[32:40] We cannot understand Or comprehend Something we know Nothing about When early missionaries Went to the Pacific Islands They were very keen To translate the scripture Into the language Of the people Naturally As they still do today But when they came to Verses like Isaiah Chapter 1 Verse 18 Which reads in the English Though your sins Are red as scarlet They shall be as white as snow They hit a very big problem You may have already Foreseen what it might be People had never seen snow They had no idea What snow was It never It never Consted their mind It was not in their experience Or their remit To understand So the translators Had to look around For something Which was really Really white That they could use To bring a translation In the end They came up with What they thought Was the best Though your sins Are red as scarlet They shall be as white As coconuts So what was the problem The people Had no concept Of snow Therefore it was no good

[33:41] Saying to them Your sins Were you white as snow Because It doesn't understand Comprehend It doesn't compute And so it is With us and God If God teaches us The things Which are spiritual How on earth Can we understand them When we are Physical people We live in a physical world A material world So God alone Is able to Teach us And to speak to us About the things Of which we know Nothing about That's why when you Speak to people Who are not Christians And talk about Heaven And talk about Spiritual things And Christ crucified And sin It's over the head Isn't it They just can't Compute They can't understand Because they are Only concerned about The here The now The touch The feel The see The taste And so on Only the Holy Spirit Understands The spiritual things So only the Holy Spirit Can reveal to us And tell us About the spiritual things That's why we need them That's why otherwise When God When we hear about The things of God

[34:41] The things of the Spirit They are foolishness to us Remember what he wrote here In verse 14 Chapter 2 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 So again It is only the Spirit of God So when you speak to somebody About Christ Don't be too discouraged There we are When you try to explain to them As carefully as you can They'll put literature in their hands Which explains as carefully as we can The things of God Unless God the Spirit Opens their eyes And their ears And their hearts Then everything that they read Or hear It just is over their heads But Says Paul When we have the Holy Spirit There's a big change Isn't there Verse 15 The person who has the Holy Spirit Is able to make Judgments About the things of God So a person without the Holy Spirit They hear

[35:42] Something about God They make a judgment It's foolish I don't need to listen to it The person who has the Holy Spirit He hears something about God Is able to judge that Because the Holy Spirit within them Works in such a way As to say That rings true That is correct Or otherwise as well In other parts of Scripture We read about the importance Of testing things Because people unfortunately As you know Say all sorts of claims about God All sorts of claims about Jesus Christ But the Holy Spirit within us Is there one Who helps us to discern Whether that is Right From God Or in fact Completely wrong Foolish Or even worse Someone with the Holy Spirit May pass judgments On all things Verse 15 But says Paul Such a person Is not subject To merely human judgments In other words People may think You're mad Or you're stupid Those things have been said Or both But ultimately In following Christ

[36:42] We're not answerable To what men and women Think about us Without the Holy Spirit We are first of all Answerable to God To what he has revealed to us And to our obedience To his word So amazingly The Christian is someone Who knows something Of Christ's mind That's what he says Who has known The mind of the Lord As so as to instruct him Nobody That's a rhetorical question Nobody known God's mind That they can tell God What he should think And what he should do But he says We have the mind of Christ It doesn't mean We understand everything And know everything But it means That there has been This incredible Transformation Within our lives Of being born again Converted And it touches Every part Of who we are It touches and affects Yes Our faith And our beliefs It touches and affects Our behaviour And our lifestyles But it also affects Our minds And our way of thinking We have a view Of the world And of circumstances

[37:43] Which is very different From how Everybody else views the world I'm sure you've had Something of that Yourself When you're reading A newspaper Or watching a news programme And they're talking About politics Or they're talking About something going on In the world Around about us And they come out With a completely Different viewpoint to you Because you can say To yourself As you look at Yeah but I know That God is on the throne I know that he is in control I know he's working All things for a purpose For good The Christian as well In our own experiences We may go through Tragedy And sorrow And grief And there's a difference In the way that we deal With those things And look at those things Yes we still sorrow And we grieve And we struggle But we don't see them As hopeless And helpless circumstances As those without Christ We are those who know Something of the Mind of Christ And knowing the mind Of Christ guides us In our judgements Our decision making Not as the world Acts But in a very different Way altogether

[38:44] So as we come To a close And why has Paul been saying this Why has Paul Spent this chapter Talking about The necessity Of the Holy Spirit Bringing revelation Why has he been Speaking about At such lengths And explaining And giving reasons Why it must be God's Spirit And not human wisdom Well again Because to show them That their Continual bickering Is far from The actions Of spirit Filled people Bickering Is what the world Does Elevating one person Over another Is how the world Does it People who don't Have the spirit Are like that We see that just In the week With the party Elections Over who should Be the labour Leader We want this person And we want that person They're better than them And all this That's exactly How the world Behaves And Paul says You're supposed to be Spiritual people But in fact You're acting Just like the world And so Just in verse 1 Of chapter 3 Brothers and sisters I could not address you

[39:44] As people who live By the spirit You have the spirit But you're not living By the spirit You're not living With the mind of Christ And putting His way of thinking Into your lives But as people Who are still Worldly Mere infants in Christ You're acting like Ignorant babies You don't expect A young child A baby To know right and wrong You don't expect Them to know How to behave In certain circumstances Of course not Because they're infants He says You are Christians You're people Who have Who've received The spirit of God And you're still Acting in ignorance You're still acting Like everybody else In the world But as God's people Who've known The work of God In our hearts There must be Evidence in our lives That we are Spiritual people That we are living By the spirit That we are applying The mind of Christ To our decisions Our judgments And so on What about you And our dear friends This evening Are you still Ignorant and clueless

[40:45] About the good news Of Jesus Christ Do you still When somebody speaks To you and talks To you about Forgiveness Repentance When somebody Talks to you about The reason why Christ died on the cross To take away your sins Does it seem to you Still to be Foolishness Out of order Unacceptable Let me urge you then To humble yourself Before God To humble yourself Before him And say God I don't know everything You do know everything Open my eyes Open my mind Please give me that Understanding Of what it means To be forgiven Help me to see Jesus crucified For me What about those of us Who have Loved ones Neighbours Friends Family Who are still No-nots Who are still Ignorant Who still count The gospel And Jesus Christ As a fairy tale

[41:47] A myth Unimportant Unessential What can we do There Can we keep on Harassing them Banging them Around the head Well we certainly Need to keep witnessing Sharing the gospel With them Making sure That our lives Are lived In such a way That we are not Contradicting What we're saying Yes of course We aren't perfect None of us But does my life Show that I'm living By the spirit That I'm living As Christ With the mind Of Christ But more than that Of course We can pray for them I want to close With just a Wonderful incident In the life of Elisha Many of you will Know where it is It's in 2 Kings Chapter 6 It's when Elisha The prophet Was surrounded By enemies Who were coming To take him Captive and to Kill him And his servant Was very much Afraid And he said Master what are We going to do That we're surrounded We're lost And Elisha said No don't worry There's more for us Than against us

[42:47] And in 2 Kings Chapter 6 We're told this Elisha prayed Open his eyes Lord That he may see And the Lord Opened the servant's Eyes He looked and saw The hills full of Horses and chariots Of fire All around Elisha That's what we need God to do Don't we That's what we need To keep praying Lord open their eyes Send your spirit Into their hearts Help them Lord to see Just what a wonderful Loving Gracious And merciful God You are Help me as I speak To them About you Lord Jesus Take my trembling And faltering words And make them alive With faith Well let's pray In that way Even as we close now Perhaps let's just Take 2 or 3 minutes In the quietness And let's pray For those Who we are longing To see saved Pray for ourselves That the Lord Would give us Greater understanding But pray for those Who we long To see saved And the Lord Open their eyes too Grace and peace

[43:53]  To you From God our Father And the Lord Jesus Christ Who gave himself For our sins To rescue us From this present Evil age According to the will Of God Of our God And Father To whom be glory Forever and ever Amen Amen Amen Amen Amenệu In Amen Amen