to 3:1-4

Well, today we're down to the last part of chapter 2 and chapter 3. This section I've labeled the three types of men in scripture. And we're going to see that shortly here. But this kind of goes along with the segment that... So actually, we've been looking at maybe not focus totally on this, but this section in starting in chapter one in verse 10 down through into chapter four in verse 21 is a section that I like what Macaulay kind of labeled it.

It's basically there's an issue of unity in the church in Corinth and he kind of addresses various areas that are affected by that unity and how how that unity can be achieved by focusing on first, the person and work of Christ, and second, the true nature of the gospel, that's the Word of the Cross, and thirdly, the membership of the Church, and then the one we're going to finish up today is the nature of true wisdom. What's wisdom? How does man interact with that wisdom? What are the hindrances to wisdom? And then coming up here in the following weeks, we're going to talk about the nature of Christian service.

But all those are kind of in the context of this idea that there was a problem with unity. One was saying, I'm a Paul. The other was saying, I'm a Paulist. There was a problem with unity. So this was Paul's approach, guided by the Holy Spirit, to focus on the areas of our relationship to Christ. So let's just kind of jump into this section on truism. We're going to kind of finish it up today.

Okay, so true wisdom, it's content and source. So the last couple weeks, or actually last week, Randy went over these verses 6 through 13, and you can kind of divide it up into, the first section was, true wisdom is not found in human wisdom. You know, it was hidden to the rulers of this age, it says there, in verses 6-9, it was a mystery, a mystery in scripture, something that has not been revealed in the past but is now revealed. And then we went on, Randy went on, and in verses 10-13 we found that true wisdom only comes from God. God is a source of true wisdom, and actually in addition to that, only a person who is born again can really receive true wisdom.

Other people outside of Jesus Christ cannot understand true wisdom. And so that's kind of his message. And today we're going to see it's going to be broken a little bit farther. We're going to talk about man's response to this wisdom from God. And first of all, we're going to see that the man outside of Jesus Christ, which is going to be called the natural man, he's not able to even understand what is going on, if you will. He can't perceive the truths of God.

And then we're going to see that the man who is spiritual, or the believer in Christ, There are two categories of that believer in Christ, and they depend upon whether he's walking in fellowship with the Lord by faith, or he's not walking in fellowship by faith. And we're going to see that both those are covered. And that's an important area to go over. And we do over a fair amount here, but it's always worth going back and revisiting that and thinking through that again. These verses are going to direct you to that path. Okay, can someone read these verses 2.14 through 3.4? You can do it from your own Bible, or just off the screen, or off your handout.

But the natural man does not perceive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. Nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him?

But we have the mind of Christ. My computer has to go to the next chapter. I understand. All right, I'm here. And I, brethren, do not speak to you as to spiritual people, but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food, for until now you are not able to receive it. And even now you are still not enough, for you are still carnal. For where there are envy and strife and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men? For when one says, I am a Paul, and another, I am a Paulist, are you not still carnal? Great. Thanks, Bob. OK, so I've underlined kind of the areas that talk about different aspects.

The natural man, the man outside of Christ, the spiritual man. It's actually translated just spiritual here, and actually spiritual man is Sorry about the context, but it's the same Greek word. And then men of the flesh, or actually I like the word carnal. The King James has that word, and actually other translations have that as well. The carnal man, the man who is basically in Christ, but not walking with him.

And we're going to learn here that Paul points out kind of two aspects. He points out that this carnal man is not only not walking with Christ, but he's actually immature. He hasn't, for whatever reason, matured in his Christian life. He hasn't gone on beyond what he calls the milk, the basics of the Christian life.

I think that has something that we can learn from as well and try to discern that. Not that we should think, woe is me, I'm a babe, I can't get out of this, I'm stuck here as a babe. No, the Lord wants to teach us and for us to understand the truths of Scripture. But it's good to see that that there are divisions.

Scripture does talk about people that haven't gone on in their Christian lives. And so we can learn from that, rather than maybe beating ourselves on the back and say, well, I'm still a babe. I can't enjoy the best that God has. That's not the point. The point is that, yeah, there are differences in Christians. And the Lord wants to show us that difference.

And then fleshly, that's basically another word for carnal again. It's the same Greek word, but just translated fleshly here. Okay, so we're just going to go through these verses, but first of all, let's just look at these three types of men. The natural man, the psychikos, I think it's in the Greek, is basically the man in Adam. It's talked about the physical, the man, a man born in this world. He's the descendant of Adam. He has Adam's nature. And he's outside of Christ. So Paul's going to talk about that man, and what are the capabilities of that man? What can that man understand?

And we're going to find that man is actually very deficient in understanding God's truths. And you're going to say, well, it doesn't seem fair. But we need to take in the whole counsel of Scripture, and the whole counsel of Scripture is that God is working in men's hearts that they might see Christ. The Holy Spirit's ministry is to convict them of sin and righteousness and judgment. So the ministry of the Holy Spirit is to change that state from the natural man to the spiritual man.

But we're going to learn that the natural man really can't come to God on his own. If there's one message that kind of comes through a lot of this in Corinthians is that you can't find God by your own human efforts. You can't find it. I can't build a tower to God. That was what in Babylon, build a tower to God. I can't, by logic, I'm such a logical person, I can figure out God logically. You have to accept God's methods and His ways. And we find out that that's, the natural man considers that foolishness. We had that earlier along, that's foolishness or moronic. Feeble-mindedness is what the Greeks, that's a feeble-minded person that would believe something like what we believe.

So we're an interesting company. Bob, you have something you want to share? Yeah, Margaret and I last week were with a colleague of mine, good friend, and his wife from work. Jim's a great guy and I love him to death and the worldly ways in which we work, but boy there's not a hint of interest in spiritual things and after the end of the week we just kind of got numb to the fact that we really We're on different planets in terms of our ability to communicate about really important things.

This is a natural man who has no interest in the things of the Lord. And he's actually incapable. And it's only until he interacts with what God has provided that he can move from that state and change that state. doors, but there weren't cracks anywhere.

Yeah, I know and that's discouraging. I think we all see that in people we meet or our relatives or whatever. It's very discouraging to see that the person has no interest and you try to go down that path and you kind of get roadblocked and you stop and you don't want to beat him over the head, but okay, well good.

All right, so the second kind of person is a spiritual man and this is a person who has been enlightened by the Holy Spirit, enjoys the influence of God's grace and the gifts of the Spirit, and that's a believer in Christ who's walking by faith, moment by moment, trusting the Lord.

Now we realize that we always aren't there, and that's hence why the third kind of man, the carnal man, or the man of the flesh, is, and actually I didn't I didn't put down here, maybe the key point is that he's a believer. You know, it says fleshly material consisting of the flesh. And flesh is used in a variety of ways in Scripture. In this context, it's used for the man outside of Christ. With the caveat that we're going to see here in the first... the first verse of chapter 3, if you're in doubt that this carnal man is a believer, he's going to call him a brethren, he's going to call him in Christ.

So with those two caveats, we see that this carnal man he's talking about is a believer. So we're not led to believe this is another definition or another discussion about an unbeliever. This is a believer. And a believer can act, unfortunately, a believer can act just like an unbeliever. And that's probably no great news to us. If we know ourselves, we know that we can go there. but a believer can present a false picture of who he is.

Paul puts it in, the Holy Spirit has it in a certain order, he adds the flesh, I just put in, boom, here are the three kinds of men. Randy? We can say it's black and white, but it's amazing to me how many people literally reject this part from Paul's writing because they have a theological agenda. That third carnal man is the stumbling block, the side of a pyramid for John MacArthur.

Randy, I think it states pretty succinctly here the mind of Christ and the mind of Christ is not that we are ultimately totally fulfilled with his infinite knowledge, it's the fact that we see ourselves in Christ, right? That's a life in its own right. It's hard to put a metric to that though, don't you think? We can't judge one another in terms of where we are at. As you can perceive where somebody might be. There are schools of theology that reject that the carnal man is existent. That's what I'm talking about. John McArthur literally teaches that that person does not exist. What's wonderful is, I think Randy shared with me, once you see that there is a carnal man, You say, wow, Lord, I see where I go sometimes.

And it's actually a relief because I haven't lost my salvation. Some people feel that when they sin, they've lost their salvation. And they go back up to the altar again, so to speak, and they ask for forgiveness again, and they go through the same process.

They're constantly afraid they have lost their salvation in this loop, rather than realizing that what's happened is they're not in fellowship and not walking with the Lord. They're not abiding with Him. They're not trusting Him. They're walking contrary to that.

And so I think that this third description can be wonderfully freeing. I think Randy pointed that out to him. That was his personal experience. So, okay. All right. So let's kind of get into the text here. But the natural man does not accept the things of the spirit of God. So once again, the natural man, this is a person outside of Christ. Every human being is a natural man until he or she trusts Christ and receives the spirit.

Let's look at a couple of verses here that I think are really important. Could someone read Romans chapter 8? And this really kind of gives some good definitions about the natural man or gives a good comparison with what a natural man cannot do. Romans 8 and verse 9.

But ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. If so, be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now, if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. Basically, it says, a person that doesn't have the Spirit of God is not a believer. He says, you're not in the flesh, I'm referring to the old, but in the spirit. If indeed the spirit of God dwells in you, but if any man does not have the spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him. So the spirit of Christ in a believer's life is key. And hence, since this person does not have that, he's not a believer. And then the other two verses, the one in, could someone read James 3, 14, and 15. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant, and so lie against the truth. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is strictly natural demonic.

Right. OK. So it's interesting that word natural is the same word here for the natural man, the psychicos man. So interestingly enough, it places the company that talks about this natural man, he's in the realm of the world, the world system, Satan's system, which is controlled by Satan. So he's earthly, natural, which is psychikos, and demonic. So that person lives in the control of this world system, in the control of Satan, until he believes in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And then Jude just talks about the fact that he uses the idea of worldly-minded or natural-minded, devoid of the spirit, OK, so the verb here. So this natural man, the verb is does not accept Dekomai or Dekomei. He's not able to take in. And actually, the basic word Dekomai is is not the negative.

There's a negative attached to this. So it's not to take in. take to oneself what is presented or brought to him. Literally, not to welcome something or someone, not to take something willingly. So the natural man does not willingly want to accept that. And we see that over and over again in a person outside of Christ. He does not want. I don't want this. Don't tell me about that. I have heard that. I don't want that.

And basically, the direct object is the things of the Spirit of God, and that's pretty encompassing. All that we have in scripture, I've mentioned this maybe multiple times, but I'm always amazed. You go to greeting card stores, or king supers, or whatever, and you'll see the greeting cards, and they'll have Christian greeting cards. I always shy away from those cards because I start looking at those cards and I scratch my head and I say, how in the world does that person take that verse and get... because I believe they don't have Christians helping with those greeting cards.

Because the conclusions they come to from those verses don't make any sense. And so I say, wow, there is a difference between... I can read this verse and this is what I see. Someone else reads this verse and he has this silly explanation or some kind of... He cannot understand the things of the Spirit of God.

That's just the way it is. I think that's the totality. That's a large subset. The things of the Spirit of God are almost our scripture. An unbeliever can understand, yes, Noah, and he can understand, yes, Christ was born, and a lot of things, but he can't connect the dots, so to speak. Okay.

For they are foolishness to him. So, first of all, I can't understand them. And there are two reasons the natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God in this verse. First of all, they're foolishness to him. You know, we saw that. Actually, there's a typo there.

That should be 1 Corinthians 1.18. And let's just turn there for a second.

1 Corinthians 1.18. We covered that earlier.

And 1 Corinthians 1.18 says, For the word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness, but to us who are being saved is the power of God." So the word of the cross, or the message of the cross, or I like to say that's the gospel expanded and explained.

And actually, I'm going to use that verse. I apologize. I'm going to use that verse for the Lord's table today. So you're going to hear more about that again. And you've heard that a couple weeks ago. But I thought it was such a great verse, I thought I'd share that for the Lord's table. So you guys ought to get a double dose of that verse.

Anyway, so there's foolishness too, and that's that word moronic. and feeble-mindedness. So the natural man says, only a feeble-minded person would believe that. And the second one is that he cannot understand them. And Wiestad said he's not able to come to know them. He can't connect the dots. He cannot figure it out.

So that's where the where the natural man is at and then it says then it's going to have the very last part of that verse is it says because They are spiritually appraised so So but a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God for their foolishness to him point one He cannot understand them and it says and the reason that's true is because they're spiritually appraised. So what I the things of the Spirit of God.

So praise this word. I have a long definition. This is from Vine, I believe. I've explained some of the Greek parts. Let's just get down to the bottom line here. The idea is to examine, to scrutinize, to question. It actually has the idea in some context to judge judicially, like in a court. So the natural man can't figure it out. He can't come to a conclusion. He can't go through a thought process.

And actually, this word is used, this anacorino, is used in various places in Scripture. One place is when the Lord Jesus was examined. And let's look at that just briefly before we went to the cross. Luke 23, 14. And could someone read 23, 13, and 14?

And Pilate, when he had called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people, said unto them, You brought this man unto me as one that perverts the people. And behold, I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in this man touching these things wherever he accused them. OK. So here it's translated, in my translation, examined him. So Pilate examined Christ and found no guilt in him.

That's the same idea here, that the things of the Spirit of God are only able to be examined by somebody who has the equipment, so to speak. If someone has the Spirit of God, they can understand the things of Scripture. So, Roger, another neat thing about this verse, I think, is that the three Greek words for no, This is a no-scope. This is an experiential knowledge. It's not a head knowledge. How many people can profess intellectually something about Christ, but yet there's no experience. So in a sense, the natural man can't experience what the believer does.

Right. That's a good point. I had not realized it actually had the three no's in there. I missed that point, but thanks Bob, that's great. That's really good. There's a lot in Scripture that's head knowledge, intellectual knowledge. Exactly. That really fits well with the fact that when we come to faith in Jesus Christ, We go beyond, we read what scripture has to say, and that impacts our very life, and it changes us. We're a new creation in Christ, and we're changed, and so things are different.

So that comes into our experience. We have an experience, if you will. Not that we focus on that experience, but we do have an experience. I don't want to go too far with experiences. Come on, experience is the best. It's all about how you feel. I'm glad you're not teaching today.

Actually, weast runners, because they are investigated in the spiritual realm, so the natural man does not have access to the spiritual realm, so he can't really come to the right conclusion. Okay, so let's move on. So then verse 15, but he who is spiritual, and this is an interesting one, it's going to make some statements about the believer.

At first you might say, wow, this sounds pretty intense. He says, but he who is spiritual, the spiritual man, appraises all things. And basically it's the same word. So this is the description of the spiritual man, pneumatikos. He appraises, we just saw that word appraise. and then all things, the things of the Spirit of God, but the spiritual man tries all things, examines, investigates, inquires, it's basically using that word appraised, examines, investigates, inquires into questions, discerns all things. So Macaulay points out here that that the spiritual man, the ending of the spiritual man talks about the fact that he is characterized, the suffix of that, I-K-O-S, is characterized by the spirit of the Holy Spirit. And that's exactly what scripture tells us, that we have the spirit of God, and that is a characteristic of the spiritual man. Okay.

Yet he is appraised by no man. Okay, yet he himself is appraised by no one. So how do we understand that? And you look at that and you think, wow, that sounds, he's appraised by no man. What does that mean? Okay, so I think we can look at verse 16 to understand that.

First of all, it says, verse 16a says, for who has known the mind of the Lord that he will instruct him? So that, if you went through a logical kind of dissertation, you'd say, If you sum it up, no one can instruct God. That's a premise of 16a. 16b, but we have the mind of Christ. So the minor premise is we have the mind of Christ. So the conclusion of that is no one can instruct us. That's 15b.

So let's talk about this a little bit. So can you think of other verses that talk about, so you might have a couple of questions. First of all, you might say, well, that's a pretty strong statement saying that we have God's mind. And help me, how do you think that, can you think of another verse that talks to that point, that tells us, that cooperates, or is a parallel verse to that, that we have the mind of Christ? And I don't necessarily have to say that we have the mind of Christ.

And I can think of several, but I was hoping that you guys might think of one or offer one. For me to live as Christ? Okay. Christ has to be living our life. Therefore, if he's living our life, then as he's doing that, we're in agreement with his mind. So we agree because we're trusting him by faith. So we can have his mind in that sense. And I was thinking of, you know, there's several, like in John 17, 21, you know, we're in Christ and he's in us, that mutual relationship, I'm in Christ and he's in us. So we have the Lord Jesus in our lives permanently.

And then I was thinking, for me to live as Christ, to die as gain, in Galatians 2.20. So there's multiple approaches to that, that we have God's mind.

So then we come down to the conclusion is where it says, yet he himself is appraised by no one, or you could say he's instructed by no one. So what do you think? So is that to say that, let's see how to say this. How do we connect that up with what we see? So why should we do Bible study? I mean, I shouldn't say that. Why should we corporately gather and have someone like myself, or whoever else, or Vern, or Mike, or Randy, or Bob, talk to us about scripture. How does that fit in the fact that it says no one can instruct us?

How does that fit in there? Well, if Christ is in all of us, then we're being taught, we hope, by Christ and God himself, by revealing, as we can understand it, and everyone is in a different place, who he is, his person. Okay, that's good. That's the responsibility of the Spirit to teach you. Right, I agree, that's good. Your self-effort. Right.

So what I wanted to kind of steer away from is that saying, you know, a person says, well, I can go off on an island, I don't need, you know, no one can instruct me, you know, don't give me your, you know, views on scripture. I know I can look at it and I can understand it.

But scripture tells us very much the opposite. It says, seek the truth of the word, the milk of the word, that we may grow by it. We're to understand, we're to seek, we're to understand what scripture says. And that fits into the fact that Noah's Instructions says that we have We have the Spirit of God, and we have God in our lives, and we're learning as we interact with scripture. It also encourages fellowship with other believers. It does. It absolutely does. Part of the reason for that is that the old men teach the young men, teach the babes. I mean, it's all spelled out for us. Right. Right. Randy? I think it's important to recognize that sanctification is progressive and over time, positionally, it's taken care of.

12 where he actually talks about the mind, do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good, acceptable and perfect. But there's this progressive development as we mature from babes to... Roger, where do we find the mind of Christ? It's scripture, right? I mean, no man can judge us if we're perfectly right on spiritually. That doesn't mean there's a ladder of eliteness. It just means this is the source of the truth. Exactly. And ultimately, the mind of Christ is in here. Exactly. And that's why I wanted to go with this, because you could take that in a very self-serving way and say, well, wait a minute.

I'm a believer and I look at this, and you can't I can't get any input from you. Scripture tells you just the opposite of that. It says I can get input. We are to get input from Scripture. I am to get input from my brothers and sisters in the Lord. I just wanted to try to put that in context there.

Now we're in Chapter 3. He's talked about the natural man and the spiritual man. Now we're going to start into the fact that we have this third category. And I, brethren, could not speak to you as spiritual men. So here's where the case is kind of built, which I think is rather strongly for the fact that this is a believer. So first of all, brethren, adelphos, a brother or near kinsman, and it's plural in this case, and it's apart from gender. It's not gender specific. So Constable says, Paul uses the vocative brother and sister, and the second person plural pronouns in 3.1 and 3.2 indicates that he's addressing the whole church and not just a fraction.

And if you look at, that's back in 1 Corinthians 1.10, if you look back at that verse in 3.10, he talks to, in fact, let's just look at that for a second, 1 Corinthians 1.10, because he's talking to the whole body here, and he continues to talk to the whole body. In 1st Corinthians 1 10 it says now I exhort you brethren By the name our Lord Jesus Christ that you all Agree, and there be no division among you But that you'll be made complete in the same mind and the same in the same judgments So that's where he kind of sets up the whole the whole for this whole section we've been going through. The whole case about being in the same mind, the same focus. So he's talking to the brethren, male and female, and their brothers.

And then he says, I was not able to speak to you as I would to those who are dominated by the Holy Spirit. So that was kind of a good rendering. And then this is the same pneumonic cost that we saw earlier in 215. But, so now he changed, but as to men of flesh, men of flesh, and this is a word that's translated carnal in the King James and interlinear. So he can't speak to them as spiritual men, he has to speak to them as men of the flesh or carnal men. And then he kind of goes on to expand what he's talking about here. And here's where we're going to kind of see the beginning of the idea of that there's immaturity in this body in Corinth.

He's going to compare it to a little child or a babe, and this word for infant, and actually it's a word for without power of speech, which is kind of interesting, and that's true of a small baby at the beginning. Of course, they can cry a lot. I'm not sure whether they, you know, it's not speaking, I guess they can rule that out. They can cry a lot. So it's a little child or a babe.

And Weiss renders this, but as I would to those who are dominated by the evil nature, as I would to those in Christ who are still spiritually immature. That's the whole verse that's translated there. So Paul has two issues he's going to talk about. The first issue, and I actually may have this kind of flipped, the first issue which he's addressing here is their immaturity, their light babes. And then later on he's going to talk about their carnality. Oops, actually I didn't do a good job there.

Okay, so here's kind of my, if you have some additional things you want to add in here, it seems like to me that we're going to see a verse we're going to read here shortly, that milk is the elementary, the basics of the Christian life. It's the elementary principles of our faith. Whereas solid food is a truce that a believer is to grow by, grow in grace and the knowledge of him. That's the truce that we need to grow spiritually. So he says you need to move on from the elementary principles to the to the solid food so that you can grow.

OK, so actually, so basically I had just a different translation for the next phrase for you or not. You're not yet able to receive it or basically assimilate it. And secondly, indeed, you're not even able. You're you are now you're even now. are not yet able.

So it seems like he's talking about two cases here. There's a case in the past, you weren't able to assimilate it. And even now, so you haven't made progression. He's trying to cover both situations. You were at this state in the past, and now up to the present, you haven't even moved on from there. So he's saying you're kind of stuck. You're stuck in this place where you're a babe. You haven't moved on in your Christian life. OK, and this shows up. OK, this is a really good passage here. Could someone read Hebrews chapter 5? And it's going to talk about this similar idea of milk and solid food and maturity. Hebrews chapter 5, 12 through 14.

We're willing for time. You ought to be teachers. You have need that one teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God, and are become such as native milk and not strong meat. For everyone that uses milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But strong meat belongs to them that are of a full age, even those who, by reason of use, have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. OK, thank you. So in verse 12 there, it says, For though at this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles, or the ABCs of the faith. of the oracles of God.

And you have come to need milk and not solid food. So here we see a similar comparison between milk and solid food. For everyone who partakes of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. So the Lord desires that we move on from the fundamentals to the things that we grow by. And that's where you'd have us go. So these believers here in Corinth had not moved on. They were kind of stuck. In the past they were babes and they continue to be babes up into the present here. Roger, question for you.

Being crucified with Christ and buried with him in baptism unto death and risen with him in newness of life, is that milk or meat? I would say that's meat. I would say it's milk. Okay. Because I think once Once you've drunk that, then you can grow in grace. Then you have an understanding of basic principles of what the cross is all about. I don't think coming to a second understanding of the fact that the old man's been crucified is meat. Growing in that truth is meat.

I don't know. I thought about how the line isn't really clearly drawn here in these verses. We have two verses here that kind of talk about but the line isn't clearly drawn about where the milk stops. I don't know. That's why it's a good question. And maybe it's dependent upon the person. I was going to say, maybe it's individual. And it could be individual.

But you would agree there are certain basic understandings you need to have to progress. If you don't see some basic understanding, if you see yourself constantly in need of confessing your sins, if you think that your salvation is not secure, you're in neutral. You're not going to go anywhere. So I think it's somewhat dependent upon the person, but there is some basic things that you can get hung up on that you won't progress.

Well, unless you understand your position versus condition. Because until you see where you are seated, you don't understand. In fact, a lot of these verses don't make any sense to you if you don't understand position and condition. Right. But just what you said, there are a lot of folks out there that don't understand. If you said position, they would kind of look at you like... scratch their head and say, well, what are you talking about? So they wouldn't even go there. Randy?

If I had to articulate this, I think that the way I would say it is that spiritual growth happens when we understand what is true of us in Christ. But the milk is the fact that we're in Christ and the growth happens in all of the consequences. I agree with that. I think that when you're first saved, you're just like, I'm saved, this is the best thing ever. And then the now what part comes in you to start getting busy on janitorial work and sharing the gospel. Those are the important things, right?

Because you can't do anything else in the church. But the Lord grows you in the truth of who you are in Christ. That is the part that the growth comes from the meat of studying the depth of the scripture to suck the marrow out of those 34 things, or the 215 things that are on this list here. But that for me, when I finally heard that spiritual growth happened, when I was understanding the things that were true of me, I stopped being a theology major and I became a Jesus major. That's a good point. That was actually really important because I wanted to know all the things and be a super Bible nerd, but I didn't understand who I was in Christ. Right. That's excellent. Excellent. Okay. All right, good, good points.

You're the elder though, so you can say I'm wrong. Okay, all right, so we're still kind of focused on the milk and solid food here. So he goes on to verse four, you're still fleshly. So now he's going to kind of, he talked about their maturity. Now he's going to kind of shift gears. He said, unfortunately, you're not only immature, but your focus day by day, moment by moment is not right either.

And that's causing problems too, for you're still fleshly, since there's jealousy and strife among you. Are you not fleshly? Are not you walking like mere men? So he says the first issue is you're still fleshly. And the reason he says that is because there's jealousy and strife among you. So with each of these he has like a thing he sees going on in that body of believers. So this is addressing their immaturity.

And then next he says, and are you not fleshly? Are you not walking like me or man? He says, I see you walking like every other person. How is that showing who Christ is if you're acting like everyone else acts? This is addressing the domination of the sin nature or self. Okay, so then the last verse here is the fact that when one says, he kind of goes on, he says, okay, here's another thing that's showing that you're not walking with the Lord because you're all involved with, you're not focused on Christ, you're focused on men.

You're saying, well, I think Paul is the right guy. I think Apollos is the right guy. He says, aren't you acting like me or men? I think this guy is the right guy. I think that guy is the right guy. That's a wrong focus. Our focus is to be on Christ, just like Randy was talking about. When you stop worrying about, well, I read this theology book and therefore I really got the right good stuff here, and you guys read that theology book and you don't know anything. Not that there aren't good books out there. I'm not putting it down. There are some really valuable things out there, but the focus is to be Christ.

And actually I have a, the Amplified has, where one one says I belong to Paul and another I belong to Apollos. Are you not proving yourselves as ordinary unchanged men? So I added in here at the last, I couldn't avoid, I couldn't, this is what, I don't know, people sometimes like these pictures, sometimes don't, and hopefully we'll just go through the verse and see if it's helpful. I know, hopefully it'll be helpful, we'll see here. Okay, so this is basically Christ herself.

So in John 15, four, it says, as a branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, no more can you, bear spiritual fruit, except you abide in me, the spiritual vine." So the question here is one of abiding. Where am I abiding? Am I abiding in myself, or am I abiding in Christ?

So that's kind of the same picture that Paul presents. He says, well, you folks are acting carnally. You're not acting as a believer would act. You're not abiding in Christ. You're abiding in yourself, and it's proved by your actions that I just demonstrated.

So observation one, there are two vines, the vine of the self and the vine of Christ. There are two kinds of fruit are produced, the fruit of self or the fruit of Christ. And this is a picture that if you guys had been around, not all of you were here when Hal taught. This was one of my favorites. I know other people kind of had some issues with it or whatever, but it helped me, it conveyed I think an important point is that we can be, He shows a man with his mentality, his senses, his emotions, his will, and there are desires that come from Christ. If you look in Galatians, the fruit of the Spirit, there are desires that come from both the self, or the fallen nature, and from Christ.

So the question is, where are you abiding? Some people don't like the switched part. But I think if you realize the switch part is no more than operation of faith, that makes it, to me, understandable. If you make it something that I will to do, I think you have a problem. But if it's an operation of faith, and you say, OK, am I walking in my Christian life focused on Christ?

If I'm over there, I can't be focused on self. And that's what the switch does for me. It says, if I'm here focused on Christ, then I don't have to worry about the old man. He's out of the picture. Contrarily, if I'm focused on self, I've shut Christ out of the picture. So that's that little toggle there, back and forth. In that context, where's my switch today?

If you go down that path and you're focused on yourself, your focus is, by faith, abiding in Christ. That's where you should be. Well, it's what Randy said. Do you believe what is true about you? That's your faith. You just take one second to walk through the chart there. You probably can't see it all. One of the key points is, here's a little bubble that says, this is Christ in you. For the believer, this picture describes Christ. Christ has two natures, right? He has Christ's nature and he has the Adamic nature, right? So that's what the Christ part is here and the self part is here. Adam's nature is described in a variety of ways.

The sin nature, the self, the flesh, there's a variety of ways to describe that. But that is the nature which you came with by birth, by your birth in Adam. So you can be, by faith, operating either in your fleshly nature, in your sinful nature, any moment in time, or you can be operating by faith in Christ. And that's what it's, you know, walk in the Spirit, abide in me. There's various words that are used for that. So this picture tries to show that you can be abiding in Christ or in self. And it shows the influences of the world, the flesh, and the devil. That's the adversaries of the Christian. Then it shows the part of you that is the essential you.

And I have the hardest time with that because I have a hard time, you know, that's called the soul. And it's just, you know, I know Mike does a great job with this, but I still struggle with the fact that this part here, but there has to be a part that does, it operates the faith, right? Has to be something inside of you has to exercise faith to come to know the Lord Jesus. You have to exercise that faith to trust him.

So that mentality, the senses, the emotions, and the will. And it shows these desires here. On either side there's desires. And that comes from Galatians. If you look in Galatians there, it talks about the... We have lust. That's another word for desires.

These lusts or desires that are impacting you. So what I was trying to use this picture for is just to point out the fact that you can be, by faith, abiding in the Lord Jesus. and hence you would be called a spiritual man. Or you can be abiding by faith in self and carrying out the desires of the flesh and you can be in factions. You can be, I'm a Paul, I'm a Paulist. So I wanted to kind of get another way to approach that and look at that. That was the intent of this picture. Hopefully it helps in that area.

But I think the resurrected life is one in which you don't question everything you do in terms of where did that come from? I mean, I think the victorious life is one that's by faith in our position now translated into our condition. We don't focus on the condition. We focus on who we are and the nature we're living by faith in. And I totally agree with him on that. What helps me about this picture is it shows that I can be in one of two places. And if it helps with that, then it's achieved its purpose.

And still be a believer. I think that's what so many people think. If I'm doing these things over here, if I'm in the world, the flesh, the devil, something must be wrong. I must not be a believer. Exactly. And that's true. Or I need to go up to the altar again and confess my sins. Now you don't need to do that.

You need to realize where you're at. Tom, you had something you wanted to say? Okay, so we can talk more. I kind of realize when I present this picture it might raise more questions. The idea is to show that you can be in one of two places. Paul is admonishing the believers in Corinth.

Don't you realize what you're doing? You're over there. You're not walking with the Lord. You're believers, but you're not walking with Him. It does do a much better job than the Romp-a-roo-doo-dee-die-grant. Okay, Tom. I'll have to think about that. I'll have to think about that. Okay. I'll wait to talk. Okay, talk. Sing the song, but we won't do it here. Okay. All right, let's close then.

All right, dear Father, we thank you so much, Lord. We thank you for the blessings we have, Lord. We thank you, Lord, that your word is clear about where you want us to be by faith, walking and trusting and abiding with you, Lord. Focus on the Lord Jesus. We thank you that that's your desire and we pray for that to be the case in our lives. In Christ's name, Amen.