Capability, the First Principle of Discipleship

Text: 1Corinthians 2

Proposition: The capability of every disciple of Christ lies in the wisdom of God to work through them and reveal the power and person of Jesus Christ crucified.

Introduction: It’s been said that Corinth was the most American city in the New Testament--- a resort city, the capital of pleasure in the Roman Empire. The two major forces that were active in Corinth were intellectualism and sensualism. Corinth was also full of the worshippers of Aphrodite and the followers of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Intellectualism and sensuality. It’s to this place that Paul the apostle of Jesus came. As we read of his account of this we begin to see a man awash in a culture thirsting for knowledge yet constantly desiring pleasure. It sounds like Corinth was also a very Canadian city.                                                        

But make no mistake, Paul was also a very educated man, schooled in Judaism as a Pharisee, a Roman citizen by birth and a man very familiar with the teachings of Greek philosophy. For Paul Corinth was a place that tested his capability as a disciple of Christ. So what exactly is capability? Wikipedia defines it as the intersection of capacity and ability. Capacity may refer to your knowledge or preparations or experience. Ability could refer to the truth of who you are, your identity and gifting and calling, especially as a person born again in Christ. Capability, it’s the first principle of discipleship because it shifts our faith to trust in God’s wisdom and not the wisdom you have learned from our culture. So have a look at 1 Corinthians 2 as Paul describes what it was like to experience the intersection of capacity and ability in Christ, in Corinth in 1 Corinthians 2.  

I. Your Capability in Christ Begins With Your Choice to Be In Second Place.

We’ve talked about what it means to act in a counterintuitive way before, like when a golfer keeps their head down in hitting the ball even though everything in their being wants to look up. What Paul did in Corinth was counterintuitive, though he wanted people to receive his words, though he knew things that would impress them and though he had done things that might influence them he makes a conscious choice to set that aside and come second place. He chooses to come in second place to the people there, to serve them but even more he chooses to come in second place to Jesus. In other words he didn’t use excellence of speech, Greek wisdom or even his own incredible testimony of how God first worked in his life to try to attract people to himself. In verse 2 you see the very intentional choice he makes that becomes the key to capability as a disciple of Christ… “For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” That’s counterintuitive, it goes against all pull of what’s going to be successful and even more it goes against the pull in all of us to be liked and accepted.So it requires a very deliberate choice that when it comes to me and Christ, I want to come in second place. When Paul makes that choice it brings the focus in tight on Christ. He wanted them to know Jesus, the deity of Jesus, the humanity of Jesus, the sinless nature of Jesus that qualified Him to be One Who spoke the truth about life and death, the truth about Who God is and what He expects of all His creation. He wants people to know Jesus as the hero of the story in the history of humanity, a hero that is willing to die as a man and lay down His prerogatives as God… for you, for me. Paul wanted them to know Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The cross is a picture of God dying to meet you, just dying to get to know you, dying to see you go free from a prison you barely know exists. Paul’s intent, his deliberate choice, was that people would hear about Jesus and would at the very least hear of His offer of forgiveness of sin because of the instrument of the cross… His death for ours. That was the choice, to take second place to the person and message of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. It is the beginning point to any disciple’s capability… to glorify God…to lead others to Jesus the Christ. Do you understand what I’m saying? If you do then are you ready to make that choice, are willing to come in second place with others, with Jesus, this week?  

II. Your Capability In Christ Is Dependent Upon The Power of God.

Have a look for moment at verses 3-5, “I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling and my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” One reasonable conclusion for being so unsettled is that if I choose not to be in first place but to deliberately seek to have Christ seen as the main subject then I am in unchartered waters every time. When you go where you are not sure of the result there will be a sense of being inadequate to the task. Check out the words Paul used to describe what that felt like, “weakness, fear, much trembling”. Why on earth would anyone deliberately choose to use such a tactic, such a method? I think the answer that he suggests is that the conduit of who you are can only carry one thing at a time, either it’s going to be your wisdom and the power it can generate in terms of persuasiveness or it can carry the wisdom of God and the power it has to soften hearts, opens eyes, win their will and ready them to receive faith from God. Did you see that last part in verse 5, “that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” It’s entirely possible to place our faith in human wisdom, illustration, testimony, apologetic explanations. Does that mean we shouldn’t use such ideas and stories and histories? Not at all, just don’t put your faith in them. Constantly our faith needs to be in the power of God to do what we could never do. The capability of the disciple of Christ not only accepts that fact, it takes refuge in it. You are the scalpel not the surgeon. Let the scalpel be as clean and sharp and ready as possible but let the surgeon do the cutting… through the scars and wounds and infections… Jesus is the healer. Paul says that this power is the effect of God’s wisdom, a mystery in sense, since it was hidden right up to the moment that God chose to reveal it. The Bible is where the revealing of this mystery often happens, the pulling back of the curtain to be able to see the truth of Who God is. It’s being revealed by the Holy Spirit so that the wisdom of God is seen and the power of God is known.                                                                                                                     So what is the power of God like, how do I know it is actually at work in and through me as I seek to be dependent upon His wisdom and power? Paul quotes from a passage in Isaiah to answer this, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” We usually apply this verse to what heaven will be like but the context that Paul uses here is present tense. In other words, when you are willing to choose to trust in Him rather than you, the effect of it is that you see things you have never seen in terms of lives transformed right before your eyes. You hear words that change your life, you see the evidence of hearts changed, you begin to see the things God has prepared for those who love Him. That’s what the power of God looks like.                                                                                                                                  

III. Your Capability In Christ Is Derived From the Things God Has Given. Nobody in this room knows what you are thinking, only you do. In the same way nobody knows the things of God except the Spirit of God and now His Spirit has been freely given to every disciple of Christ that you would know what God has freely given to you. The Holy Spirit searches the very will of God and then speaks to our spirit that we would get things first hand. I like what the NLT says in verse 13, “When we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths.” The Holy Spirit is resident in you. Paul says that the Spirit imparts to you ‘the mind of Christ’. What greater capability can you come into than this. Capability, the intersection of capacity and ability, has its zenith in Christ.