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All believers will stand before the judgment seat of Christ. We will not stand there to be judged of our sins because Christ has paid the penalty for our sins and once we are saved, we are always saved! However, we have been asked by Jesus to continue to live His life and preach His gospel in the world. Our motivations, our work, and our submission to the Holy Spirit are all spoken of like we are fashioning a holy building. At the end, He will try our works in His fire. What will the Master see we have done with our time on earth?
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Outline
A. Theme of Hope and Anticipation B. Understanding God's Wisdom (1 Corinthians 2) C. The Mystery of Salvation and the Indwelling Spirit D. Heavenly Anticipation and Perseverance E. Spiritual Senses Over Physical Senses F. The Importance of Loving God G. Tangible Blessings for Those Who Love God H. Living with Spiritual Anticipation I. The Role of the Holy Spirit ​Transcription 1 Corinthians 2. You know, we always talk about the hope that a believer has. And part of that hope is anticipating what brings about that hope, to look forward to it. We'll use Will here for an example. I hope he doesn't mind. He's hoped that he'd get a house. Now he's got one. Now he's anticipating what it's gonna be like to live there, and so we look forward to this. And as we look at this Scripture, we find out in verse nine that God has prepared for us things for those that love him. And we should be in anticipation of what God has for us, not just heaven, but here on earth too. So hope's a wonderful thing, And he's made preparations for select group of people, and we'll get to that in a moment. So are you anticipating what the Lord has for you? We should wake up every morning wondering, what does the Lord have for me today? Instead of waking up and going, "Oh, man. I gotta go to doctor again, or I gotta go to work, or I gotta do this, or I gotta do that." No. Anticipate, look forward to what God is going to do and how he's gonna work in each of those situations because that will make our life so much better. In verse six and seven, the scripture says: 1 Cor 2:6 Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought: 7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: First of all, in verse 6 when it says we speak wisdom among them that are perfect, that means not perfect as having no faults. Although, if you've had your sins forgiven, your spirit has no faults. 1 John tells us that once you've been born again, once your spirit is renewed, it cannot sin. So your spirit is sinless and will remain that way. The flesh, on the other hand, we got problems with that sometimes. But if we let the Spirit work with our spirit, we can slowly get over those. But we can be perfect. It also means mature, spiritually mature, where you really do wake up every morning thinking, what does God have for me today? How is God gonna use me? Or sometimes we even have to work on that anticipation we have with going to heaven. When you wake up in the morning and, for some older people (I'm just getting this way really bad), you wake up, every joint creaks. You know? You sound like the cereal, snap, crackle, and pop. But on the other hand, we can anticipate, how's God going to use me today? And when thing get really bad when you just say, "Well, one day, I won't wake up with snap, crack, and pop. I'll wake up standing in the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ." And that keeps us going. Why? Because our sins have been forgiven. Spiritually speaking, we're perfect. But he also wants us to be perfect as being mature, to learn more and more about the Lord, to follow in his path more and more every day. He tells us that this knowledge, though, has been, v. 7, a mystery that God came in the flesh and then died for our sins. That God has allowed his Spirit to dwell within us. Now in the Old Testament, if you read it, it will talk a lot about the Spirit coming upon somebody. But it also talks about if they do some wrong things, the Spirit leaves them. Saul, the first king of Israel, was that way. The Spirit was on him till he sinned against God, decided to take the priests' job away from him. What happened? God took his Spirit away, and then he felt terrible. But in the New Testament, the mystery is when you get saved, born again, trust the Lord as your Savior, the Spirit doesn't come upon you. The Spirit dwells within you and never leaves no matter how bad you are. That's why sometimes we grieve the Spirit or quench the Spirit, but he's always there. Literally, you have God dwelling within you now. That should give us some hope, some anticipation of knowing that God will watch over us. But it's been hidden in a mystery, it's been ordained since the world began. Can you imagine that? Since God created the world, he had a plan for his creation to be with him for eternity. And then Satan messed it up by tempting Eve. Then Adam bought into the lie, and sin's been in the world ever since. But God's plan has always been that his creation, mankind, should be with him in eternity in literally a Garden of Eden experience. You know, Adam and Eve, in the beginning, they walked and talked with God. Sin entered in, and there was a separation between mankind and God. But when we trust Jesus and that Spirit comes to dwell within us, now we can walk and talk with God again. That's why it tells us, "Don't be drunk with wine, which is excess, but be" what? "Filled with the Spirit." That doesn't mean you have to keep asking the Spirit come in you. That means let the spirit control you. It's been a mystery all through the ages, but God revealed it to us in the church age. Wow. We can anticipate great things knowing God dwells within us. So we also have realized in verse 9 that this anticipation is not based on our human senses. Notice: 1 Cor 2:9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. Over the ages, people have tried to see God. And in order to make that sight even more, they build images of their gods so they can look at this image and go, I see my god. But that's not God. God even specifically told the the Jews, do not build any images of me. Why? Because God is a Spirit and he must be worshiped in spirit and in truth. No images at all, but some had done that. Ear has not heard. People tried to listen to people that would convince them that they're worshiping the true god and have been driven in a wrong way. It tells us that we can hear, but we have to have a spiritual hearing. We can see, we have to have a spiritual sight. Even in Revelation, the seven churches, for each of them, after he talked about what they did wrong, what they did right, for the first letters, it's sometimes at the beginning, some at the end. But he always says basically the same thing. "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches." That tells us that we can have hearing, but it must be spiritual hearing. Not just human hearing, spiritual hearing. We also can't rely on our hearts. When it says here, neither have entered into the heart of man. In other words, what people have tried to gain with knowledge and with experiences to try to get closer to God, the old thing, just let your heart guide you. That's good worldly philosophy, but what's the Scripture say? Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?10 I the LORD search the heart ... We can't follow our heart based on worldly wisdom. We have to follow our heart when it's been spiritually renewed and Spirit filled. Proverbs 28:26. Listen to this. Prov 28:26 He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool: but whoso walketh wisely, he shall be delivered. So you can't just say, well, I'm gonna follow my heart. No. You have to follow God because your heart is desperately wicked. Follow your heart means you're a fool. Anybody in here wanna be a fool? Nah, I didn't think so. We can't rely on the physical, but we can rejoice that since God is a Spirit, we can truly know God. We can know his plan. We can know his guidance. We can know God. So who's this anticipation? It was revealed to certain people. Notice. God had prepared for them who? "That love him". You know, Jesus, when he was on earth, they asked him what's the greatest commandment. Matthew 22:37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. Mark adds, "and with all thy strength". (Mark 12:30) Loving God. Now there's a lot of people that say they love God, but they don't know him as Savior. So this has to mean more than just caring for God. A lot of people do that. I believe what it means is trusting God with all that you are. All you married folks, you know what I mean. Your husband, your wife, they'll say, "This is what I wanna do" and you're kinda doubtful that it's gonna work. But then they say, "If you love me, just trust me." And that's what God's saying. "If you love me, just trust me." Really it's backwards. "Since you've trusted me, then love me." The first church in the seven churches, what was their sin? They left their first love. They stopped remembering all that God had done for them. So God wants us to realize how important it is to love him, and that's why Jesus, what did he say was his commandment to his new followers? Love one another. Why? Because when we love one another, that shows our love for God. Do you love one another? If you love God, you should. That doesn't mean love their sin. That doesn't mean love their bad behavior sometimes. That just means love them as a person. God loved the world. And what did he do because he loved the world? He was willing to let his Son die for it. And I know there's a lot of people that, "Yeah. As a Christian, I gotta love them, but I don't like what they're doing." But on the other hand, if they came to me with a need and I could supply that need, I would help anyway I could. That's love. And so when you love God, he says, I prepared some things for you, but you gotta love God. I looked up that word just those that love God. There are several verses that start to give us some of the "things". That's why it says here, you know, the "things" God has prepared. Little side note I had a college professor who used to say never use the word things in a message. Do you have the same one? And so people would always come up with Bible verses that had the word things in it. We're a cantankerous group. But some of the things that God loves us. Think, for example, Romans 8:28. Romans 8:28, And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. When you look out at the world, you look out at America, you just wanna shake your head and go, "Lord. What is wrong with this?" But if you love God, you have to realize all things are gonna work together for good. It tells us. All things work together for good to them that love him, to them who are the called according to his purpose. The called are the believers. You're called for a purpose, but when you love him, you realize all things are gonna work together for good. We don't know what it is all the time. But we know God's prepared you so that you understand no matter what happens in your life, you can just say, "Lord, I'm anticipating something great to come out of this. I don't know what is happening, but I'm looking forward to seeing what you have to work out in my life or show me all things work together for good to them that love God." Do you love God enough to realize that, to understand that, to believe that - that things are going to work out? But when we start worrying about them, contemplate on them, sometimes we miss the good that's working out. Just love God. In James 1:12: 12 Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. What are some of the things that God's prepared for us? A crown of life. And that crown comes with some temptations. Overcome them through the power of God. You endure temptation or, really, trials. You go through different things in your life. When, I joined the navy, the guy talked me into going to nuclear power program. That was just so he could get me enlisted for six years instead of four. I got sent to nuclear power school. Now nuclear power school can best be described this way. When Hyman Rickover, the father of nuclear navy, wanted to develop a program, he asked a bunch of college professors, "This is what I want them to learn. How long will it take?" All of them agreed, the college professors, it'd take two years. Rickover said that's too long. I want the same knowledge, I want you to figure out a way to teach the same knowledge in six months. So when I got to Nuke PowerSchool, I was overwhelmed. But one of the things that kept me going was this: there have been people dumber than me going through this program and passed, and if they can do it, I can do it. And that's what we have to understand. When we look at things going on in life and we endure trials, we can say there have been people weaker than me that made it through these. There have been people with more problems than I have made it through these. I'm just gonna love God and realize he's gonna take me through these trials. I'm gonna learn a lesson. I'm gonna get a crown of life. Why? Because I love him, and he's promised it to me. You can make it through anything when you make it with God. You can go any path God leads you on as long as you don't walk away from God until you're on the same path. You can endure any trial, any temptation, because God is with you. And then we got heaven. In James 2:5. James 2:5 Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him? You love God? You've trusted God? You're heir to a kingdom of God. That ought ought to keep you keep you going straight. You know, there's a lot of people that live their life waiting for some relative to die because they know they're gonna get some riches. Well, believer - live your life knowing that the riches God has planned for you, what he has prepared for you, is much greater than anything the world can offer. He has promised for those that love him to be heirs of the kingdom of God, to be part of the kingdom of God, to be in heaven. And, literally, if you studied Revelation, we're not gonna live in heaven forever. Where we are gonna live is a new Jerusalem on the new earth forever with Jesus at the center. Heaven's just a starting point, but you gotta love God. You gotta trust him. And those that have loved him, God's prepared something for you. God's prepared a way to get through trials and promised you the crown of life. God has prepared a way for you to understand all things work together for good. God's prepared a way for you to be heirs of the kingdom of God, to walk with all of these saints we read about in the Bible. Do you ever think about that? When you get to heaven, if you could talk to one or two Bible characters, who'd you talk to? I'm not talking ... Jesus is is a given. But who else you wanna talk? You wanna talk to Moses? Paul? Noah? Noah, how'd you get all them animals on the boat? You know? How'd you take care of them for all of that time? Boy, talk about cleaning up after them? Joseph, what made you trust God so much even when you were in prison? That's a whole lot of people. But you'll be there long enough you can talk to all of them. Every single one. Why? Because for those that love God, God has promised it. And that's why we can anticipate no matter what happens in our life, God has promised us for those that love him, promised us that things will be working out for good, promised us that we'll make it through trials, promised us that we'll be heirs of the kingdom of God. But how do we get through today? Because we let the Spirit. How do we know about all these things? Verse 10 (1 Cor 2:10). God hath revealed them to us by his Spirit. Once again, that Spirit that dwells within you. The Spirit. You say, well, how does the Spirit ... First off, the Spirit can reveal him to you just through prayer. How often do you pray to God for guidance? For direction, for comfort, for peace, for joy, for whatever? Sometimes, have you ever felt like you wanna pray about something, but you just can't put it into words. That's where the Spirit comes in handy. Hope I'm not being blasphemous by saying come in handy. This is where the Spirit can work in your life. Romans 8:26-27. Romans 8:26 Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. 27 And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. So when you are walking with the Spirit and you start to pray, even when you're stumbling over your words, the Spirit knows what your heart is because he dwells within you. The Spirit can take your message to God. The Spirit gets the message from God and delivers it to you, to calm you, to let you feel his joy, to let you feel his peace. Pray, and the Spirit will help you to understand. Understand what? Understand what's going on around you. Sometimes we put too much concern in what's going on around us because we got heaven to look forward to. But we know what we should be doing by the word of God, and the Spirit will help us to understand His word. Isn't it great the way that works out? John 16:13. Here's what Jesus said. John 16:13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. It's the Spirit of truth. And what is truth? Jesus said "Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth." (John 17:17) So when you let the Spirit, which God's given you as a believer, work through you as you're reading his word and as you're praying, all these things that God has prepared for you will slowly come to light, and then you can be anticipating. "Lord, what kind of good are you gonna work in my life today? I can't wait to see how you're gonna work. Lord, I can't wait to put on that crown of life. Gotta go through today, though, so that's a little bit of hope, knowing it's coming. Lord, what do you got to show me in your word?" So if the truth is in the Word, let me ask you. How often should you be reading his Word? I guess that depends on how much truth you want to help you through the day. You say, well, I haven't read the Bible very much. Well, there's different methods people use. Some people say to get started, read Proverbs. Most months have thirty or thirty one days. There's thirty one books in Proverbs. So every day you read a proverb, you know, today's what, the fourth. So today you read Proverbs 4. Let's say you get lazy and skip a couple of days and suddenly it's Wednesday, which is the 7th. So you go, okay. I'll just read Proverbs 7 today. Some people say read the book of John, which is a good book about God, Christ. But as I've said before, that can be a little deep for some people, so read 1 John. 1 John's the Reader's Digest version of John, and you'll learn so much about God. But the thing is, start reading and ask the Spirit as you're reading. "Help me to understand." Just like the Spirit can interpret your prayers, the Spirit can interpret the word of God for you. And then you will learn to love him more and more. You will learn to, want to anticipate all that God has prepared for you and make every day so much better because we'll be looking up instead of looking around. We're gonna do the Lord's supper in just a few minutes. But before we do this, let's finish this message. So first of all, are you a believer? Have you trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior? If you have, your sins are forgiven. If you have, God has prepared some things for you, just for you. I said before, they're prepared for those that meet the qualifications. What are the qualifications? You're born again, and you must try to show your love for God by trusting him. And if you do, are you living a life of anticipation? Instead of worrying about your problems or worrying about what you have to do or worrying about this or being concerned about that, instead - have a little anticipation of, "Okay, God. I can't wait to see how you're gonna work in this one." And at the end, you'll be praising him. Why do I say praising? Finish up. 1 Cor 2:7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory ... Well, that word glory means 'worship' or 'praise'. God has prepared all of these things so that we can worship and praise him. Let's bow our heads. First of all, we need to thank God for our salvation. Jesus Christ did a lot so that we could have forgiveness of sins. And because we have forgiveness of sins, he now tells us that we just need to continue to trust him, to love him, and to look for the things that he's prepared to us, the Holy Spirit will show them us .. show them to us, each and every one. It takes us making the decision to let God work in our life. Let's pray. Heavenly Father. Lord, we thank you for your your Word. We thank you, Lord, that you teach us that even though many of these things were mysteries to those who came before us, before Christ, now Lord they've been revealed. Now Lord we know what's been prepared for us to those that love him. We know Lord that you, when we love you, everything will work together for good. When we love you, we'll have a crown of life even though we may be tried. When we love you, we can look forward to the joys of heaven. We know, Lord, that we can make it through today, though, with guidance from your Spirit to show us the truth, to show us the way. Help us, Lord, to rely on your Spirit for all things. Help us, Lord, to be in anticipation of all that you have for us and all that you wanna do in our lives. We thank you, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen. |
