Delivering the Practical Package a Few Days Late
March 8, 2009
As our family ate lunch on Sunday afternoon, it dawned on me that I had promised to “get practical” at the end of the sermon and, in all my enthusiasm, failed to deliver the goods. I asked Rachael and she graciously confirmed this, so I thought I would use the space here to work out the practical implications of Paul’s timeline of “this age” and discussion of the Spirit’s ministry of helping us “understand the things freely given us by God” (1 Corinthians 2:12).
Paul actually does all the work for us in verse 13 when he says, “And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.” This is really a applicational rehash of verses 6-7, where he stated that the wisdom he imparts is “not a wisdom of this age” but “a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory.” Verse 13 simply includes the essential ingredient of the Spirit who is the one that reveals such glory to believers.
This might not seem practical yet, so let’s push a little on what verse 13 might mean for our ministry of the gospel. Perhaps I could summarize what I see implied with this phrase: humble expectancy trumps high elocution. When it comes to imparting the knowledge of Christ crucified as God’s eternal plan to redeem sinful humans and grant them eternal spiritual wealth, it simply does not matter how eloquent one is. What matters is the work of the Spirit to reveal the message to those who hear.
Humble expectancy creates at least two responses to the way we speak gospel to brothers and sisters in Christ (this is the way Paul applies it in 2:6-16). The “humble” piece comes from knowing that, no matter how eloquent one is, no amount of rhetorical flourish can convince someone of the truth of the gospel; only the Spirit can. Certainly we ought to articulate our words rather than mumble them, use accessible language rather than Christianese, and speak with pleading fervor rather than indifference. But these factors in and of themselves will not bring encouragement, conviction, or any other result. We speak as well as possible in the humble reliance on the Spirit to communicate Christ’s gospel.
The flip side of this-the expectancy piece-is that none of us have an excuse not to speak gospel into one another’s lives. The beauty of God’s pattern of using weak vessels to communicate eternal truth is that our fumbling, inadequate, nervous words about Christ crucified can be as powerful as the most polished preacher’s for building one another up in the faith. We are all gospel ministers to one another because the Spirit is the ultimate teacher.
While Paul applies these dynamics of humble expectancy to speaking gospel “among the mature” (2:6), they doubtless apply to sharing this good news with non-believers as well. Paul’s example in this letter implies that the more saturated we are personally with the gospel and all the glorious wealth it purchased for us-most notably eternal communion with God!-the more we will have Christ on our lips to share with believers and non-believers alike. As we do this, may we exercise a humble expectancy toward the Spirit to communicate clearly what God has freely given us in the crucifixion of his Son.
Seeking to be humbly expectant with you,
Pastor Chris